Raid

by Kristen Ashley

  He walked us to the bed, turned his back to it and we went down, me on top.

  After we bounced, I lifted up to forearms light in his chest and he announced, “We’ll shower, go to Rachelle’s, get breakfast and coffee.”

  “Affirmative,” I agreed and his lips curled up then I declared. “I get battle pay for doing it, but I’m taking an afternoon this week in this crazy den of yours to sort it out so it’s livable. By that I mean you can make a pot of coffee and close your drawers since the rest is beyond my capabilities, unless you rent me a sandblaster and give me a credit card at Sears.”

  His body was lightly shaking under mine when he asked, “What does battle pay consist of?”

  “I’ll decide later.”

  “Babe, you make this place livable, whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”

  I grinned at him.

  He was already smiling and he kept doing it.

  It hit me suddenly that in all the time I spent waiting for him, watching for him at Rachelle’s, when I saw him he would grin at his sister, and maybe if he was in a good mood he would smile, but other than that never did he walk in or move through smiling.

  And I’d never heard or seen him laughing.

  But he used to do it all the time before he left. I’d watched avidly in the corridors and cafeteria at the high school when he did it. Even if things at home were tight and he lived with the knowledge that his Dad was a massive dick, he had a good life back then and he demonstrated that frequently.

  And now, again, he did both a lot with me.

  “I like to see you smile,” I told him softly, sliding one hand up his chest, his neck, fingers in his lush hair but I moved my thumb out to stroke his jaw.

  “I know, honey, since you find ways to make me do it and you find them often.”

  I was thrilled he noticed.

  So thrilled, I swept my thumb down his jaw then bent to touch my lips there.

  When I lifted up again, his arms wrapped tighter around me and he asked, “Plans for the day?”

  “Shipments piling up. I have to spend the day in town sorting that out and hauling them to the Post Office. This doesn’t make me happy because I like making afghans, not packing and shipping them, but life happens, you deal. You?”

  “Meet in Denver,” he answered.

  I pressed my lips together, his eyes dropped to my mouth and one of his hands slid up and into my hair.

  “Hanna—” he started, but I interrupted him.

  “I didn’t get a chance to ask. Did everything go okay while you were away? I mean, an indication of the success of your endeavors is that you returned unscathed but did you, uh… get your man or whatever?”

  His eyes were warm and amused at my question, but they grew serious which made me mentally brace.

  “Business went good,” he answered. “And it sucks we’re on this topic, but the time was gonna come and this is that time, so you gotta know, with my business, I’m gonna be away like that a lot.”

  I had a feeling. My guess was that fugitives did not hang around Willow (or I hoped not) just so he would be able to be home for dinner every night.

  Although I had that feeling, I didn’t like that feeling. I also didn’t explore it and was not going to ask about it.

  Now I had it confirmed.

  Unfortunately.

  “Right,” I mumbled.

  “The look on your face states plain you like that about as much as me, babe, but that’s the way it is and I hate to pile shit on top of shit for you, but it’s rare I can take care of business in a couple of days. It usually takes longer and sometimes it takes weeks.”

  Fabulous, I thought.

  I said nothing.

  He rolled me to my back, got up on a forearm in the mattress but bent close to me.

  “Hanna, my crew, I send them on assignments and I take a cut. It’s a low percentage that covers admin only. They do the work, they get the fee. That’s not gonna change. I don’t live good off their backs and I’m never gonna do that. That means to work toward my retirement plan I gotta take jobs.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, but did it unhappily.

  Seeing as Raiden didn’t miss much, he didn’t miss this.

  Therefore his eyes got soft and he threw me a bone. “While I’m gone, I’ll touch base frequently.”

  That mollified me, but only slightly.

  “Okay,” I repeated.

  He dipped closer and informed me, “My retirement plan is a good one, baby. Done at forty.”

  That was better, but it was also eight years away.

  Eight years of criminal activity.

  Clearly, my face said what I was thinking because Raiden kept talking.

  “Hanna, stop listening to me and start hearing me. I’m tellin’ you, my retirement plan means I’m done at forty.”

  “I heard you.”

  “Okay, now think about why I’d be tellin’ you that.”

  My brows went up and I guessed, “It’s an interesting tidbit to share?”

  “No, it’s because I expect you to be in my bed when I’m forty.”

  I blinked as my heart swelled so big, it was a wonder I didn’t start choking.

  Therefore my voice was wheezy when I forced out, “We’ve been seeing each other just over a week.”

  “You crawled across a floor just because you thought it would get me off. I’m pointing that out, not because watchin’ you do that was so hot it made me so fuckin’ hard I thought I’d come before you got halfway across the room, which, incidentally, is true, but because that’s just one indication of the immensity of what you give me. And you drop to your hands and knees to give it to me, trustin’ me with that when we’ve been together just over a week. You think I’m a man who’s got a thing that good, he’ll let it go?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “That would be fuck no,” he corrected.

  Holy Moses.

  “Raiden—”

  “Touchin’ base frequently, takin’ jobs that’ll get me where I wanna be, comin’ home and lookin’ forward to it for the first time in years, to an actual home, and it’s a home I look forward to getting back to because my woman is there. I know it’s gonna suck, and it will for years, but that’s what I gotta give. Will that work for you?”

  A home I look forward to getting back to because my woman is there.

  Totally. That would totally work for me.

  I left out the “totally” as well as all the rest and just breathed, “Yes.”

  I watched his eyes flash then heat.

  “Fuck me, I knew it would,” he growled before he repeated, “Fuck me.”

  We were there. We were new but we were what we were and we both understood it, new or not.

  So it was time for more than just this. I knew it by just how much all that meant to him and that he would let that show. Therefore, I pushed up and in and managed to roll him with me on top.

  Then I straddled him, planted my hands in his chest and leaned toward him.

  “I’m not going to ask if I can tell you something, but I am going to tell you that I have something to tell you,” I announced.

  Raiden stared at me a second before the intensity left his eyes. His mouth twitched, his hands came to my hips, dipped down under his shirt that I was still wearing, then back up, spanning them, skin against skin.

  “Have at it, honey,” he invited.

  “I’ve seen the picture,” I shared and his head tilted slightly against the mattress.

  “Come again?”

  “Of you and your buddies in desert fatigues.”

  Just as I suspected, the pads of his fingers dug in. His lips stopped twitching, his face went blank and his lips started to say, “Han—”

  I pressed lightly into his chest and got closer. “You talk straight, I’m going to try that and hope it works, but if it doesn’t, we’ll go back and try something different. But, Raiden, it isn’t unusual when soldiers see stuff, do stuff and come home feeling disenfranchised and
–”

  I said no more because I was flying through the air.

  I landed on the bed near the edge, and by the time I pulled myself up Raiden was yanking on a pair of cargo pants.

  Okay, that did not go well.

  “Raid—”

  “Goin’, you be gone when I get back.”

  My breath froze in my throat.

  I swallowed to clear it, got up to my knees and sallied forth a lot more cautiously. “Okay, that didn’t work, honey. Maybe—”

  He viciously yanked a tee down his chest then bent toward me so fast, he was a blur.

  Hand in the mattress, other hand pointing an inch from my face, he growled, “Do not think you know shit. You do not know shit.”

  Motionless with fear, I forced my lips around the word, “Raiden—”

  “I’m goin’ and you be gone when I get back.”

  It took a lot but I lifted my hand, curled it around his wrist and started, “Sweet—”

  Savagely, he yanked his wrist free and I went flying into both hands catching myself on the bed. I pushed myself up just in time to see him, boots in one hand, stalking to the door.

  I started to scramble off the bed, calling. “Raiden! Please. I screwed up, honey. Please, let’s talk.”

  Before I got to the door, he’d slammed it behind him.

  Which meant before I could get it open, he was already yanking open the door of his Jeep.

  And this meant, before I got to the bottom of the stairs, he was reversing then he was gone.

  * * * * *

  Four hours later…

  I did not go into town to sort my shipments.

  No. I’d walked too close to the fire and got singed by the flames. I needed to do what I could to try to bank that fire and retreat.

  So I stayed at Raiden’s house. I cleaned his coffeepot. I did his dishes. With what I had to work with, I made minimal sense of the mess on his kitchen-ish countertop. I folded the clothes in his dresser so the drawers shut. I found a scary-looking but functional washer and dryer in a small room in the back corner of the bottom level and did three loads of laundry, including his sheets, which meant I cleared most of the floor, hung his clothes and made his bed.

  Once I’d cleaned the coffeepot (my first priority), I’d made coffee.

  I’d also opened the fridge. The wave of scent that assailed me was so strong I was certain my hair wafted back with it and the visions that assaulted my eyes didn’t bear thinking about, so I erased my memory of them and shut the door as fast as I could.

  Therefore, I’d eaten nothing.

  I wasn’t hungry, but I figured I needed to keep my strength up for the battle that lay ahead.

  But after what I encountered in the fridge, caffeine was just going to have to do.

  When I heard the Jeep return, my nerves, already frayed, unraveled completely. I was so rattled it was a wonder I wasn’t a trembling mess, incapable of movement.

  But this was important.

  People were counting on me, and two of those people included Raiden and me.

  So I held the good times close, like Raiden Miller telling me he was going to retire at forty and he expected me to be around when that happened, pulled myself together and faced the door, not having any idea that I was about to get scorched.

  The door opened and a lick of white-hot flame surged through instantly when Raiden’s eyes fell on me.

  “I told you to be gone,” he growled.

  I beat back the blisters and told him, “We need to talk.”

  “You need to be gone,” he returned.

  “I need to apologize. That was—”

  He leaned toward me.

  “Bitch, get the fuck outta my sight!” he roared and all my skin boiled away.

  I braced against the pain. “Raiden, please—”

  “Hanna, trust me, you stand there two more seconds, I’ll make you gone, and babe, you do not want me to do that.”

  He’d do that. He would. He’d been physical with me before when he had a point to make. And his face told me he was not making threats.

  Thus I didn’t wait two seconds.

  Not even one.

  I ran to the door, even though he was still in it, and my heart splintered when he got right out of my way.

  He didn’t call after me. He didn’t even come out to the landing at the top of the stairs. I knew because, stupidly, when I was in my Z, I looked up.

  The door was closed.

  I hit the button. My baby purred, I reversed and tested her speed and maneuverability on the way home.

  She did not fail me.

  I did this crying.

  Because a Boudreaux didn’t cry unless she was in a place she could do it.

  And my baby was that place for me.

  * * * * *

  Eleven fifteen that night…

  I was driving home from my warehouse in town. The afternoon slid by without me able to take my mind off Raiden, so I piled my SUV with finished afghans and went into town, thinking that work would keep my thoughts occupied, so I’d done it for hours.

  This, incidentally, was an unsuccessful endeavor, but at least all my shipments were ready for the post.

  I cleared the woods around my house and my heart started thumping when my headlights fell on Raiden’s Jeep parked in front of it.

  As I drove down the side drive, I saw him illuminated by the porch light, standing on the porch, leaning against the post he’d leaned against when, just days before, he said beautiful things to me.

  I looked away, rounded the house and hit the garage door opener.

  I parked my SUV next to my Z and shut down the ignition. I hurried out, hit the garage door button and hustled out the side door of the garage and across the yard toward the house.

  I saw Raiden’s shadowed frame rounding the house.

  I stopped myself from running, but hurried up the back steps, keys in hand. I now had two locks on the backdoor (there were two on the front door too; Raiden put them in as he said he would on the day he said he would) and I had the key ready that luckily unlocked all of the new locks on my house, so no fiddling with switching keys.

  Just unlock and in, and maybe, if I was lucky, I’d get in and keep him out.

  The outside light lighting my way, I yanked open the screen door and got both locks unlocked, but not before I heard Raiden’s boots on the steps behind me.

  I didn’t look back. I pushed in and let the screen door fall behind me.

  Except it didn’t shut for two beats.

  He was in.

  Since any further efforts to keep him out would be futile, I left the interior door where it was, tossed the keys on my kitchen table and moved through the kitchen like he wasn’t there.

  I didn’t make it even halfway.

  Two arms closed around me from behind and my back slammed into Raiden’s front.

  My body went stiff.

  I felt his face in my neck.

  “I’m a dick,” he whispered into my skin.

  Men thought they could get away with a lot if they admitted that.

  Sometimes it worked.

  Sometimes, like this time, it didn’t.

  “You need to leave,” I stated.

  His face came out of my neck, but his lips went to my ear, “Hanna—”

  “You need to leave,” I repeated firmly.

  “Baby—”

  “I crawled across a floor for you and I said one thing out of kindness and concern and you walked out on me, came back, called me a bitch and kicked me out.”

  “Honey—”

  “No one calls me a bitch, Raiden.”

  “Give me one second—”

  “No one makes me crawl across a floor.”

  His arms got tight and his voice went low. “You dropped to your hands and knees yourself, honey.”

  “Because I trusted you then. I don’t trust you now.”

  One of his arms shifted up, his hand curling around the side of neck and he whispered, his
voice thick, “Listen to me.”

  With a mighty heave, I tore from his arms. I whirled, lifted a hand and shoved him in the chest, all the while shouting, “You need to go!”

  His hand caught my raised one and held it firm.

  “Baby, listen to me.”

  I ripped my hand from his and took two quick steps back.

  “No. I was wrong. I thought I could withstand the heat, but I can’t. I wanted to go slow. You pushed us to go fast and I didn’t have enough good times stored up. Your smiles, your laughter, there wasn’t enough to take the heat. You’re a criminal, Raid, and I accepted that. This, I can’t accept. I don’t know what hideous thing happened to you over there except I know it was hideous. But there weren’t enough good times when you were the Raiden I know you are to beat back the Raiden that fucked up shit that happened to you forces you to be that gives me the times I need to endure the inferno within. You lose control of that and I’m close, it doesn’t just consume you. It consumes me.”

  “I don’t want you to know what happened in that hellhole, Hanna,” he returned.

  “You think that hasn’t escaped me?” I shot back. “The subject barely comes up before you shut it down, but Raid, if you think I don’t feel the squeeze of the elephant always in the room, you clearly think I’m a bigger idiot than I actually am.”

  “You feel that squeeze, babe, and you can still breathe. If you actually knew, you wouldn’t be able to live with that shit. You wouldn’t be able to sleep. Your mind would go over it and over it, and since you weren’t there, you’d make shit up that would torture you, but I promise you, none of it would be as bad as it actually was.”

  “I believe you,” I retorted. “What you don’t understand since you won’t let me talk about it is that I’d rather live with that torture, the pain of which I would eventually be able to control, than let you hold onto that pain without even a little release so you can learn to live with it.”

  He went silent but the air in the room got heavy.

  I ignored that and declared, “You need to leave.”

  “Hanna—”

  “Leave!” I shrieked, losing it, hands straight down at my sides in fists.

  Then I was going backwards, tripping over my feet, and I would have gone down if Raiden’s arm wasn’t around my waist.