Zero Hour

by Megan Erickson

  Erick seemed a little amused. “What did you do?”

  “Uh, I might have told her about all the times I interfered electronically in her life.”

  Erick blinked at him, heaved a sigh, and set his mug on the counter. He rubbed his forehead. “For fuck’s sake, Roarke, I told you to stay out of her life.”

  Roarke felt officially cowed. “I know, but I couldn’t stop.”

  Erick didn’t look convinced by that explanation. “You couldn’t stop.”

  “No. Once I started, it was like an addiction to keep track of her, to help her—”

  “By pressing buttons on her life.”

  Roarke snapped his jaw shut. “You make it sound like I’m a creeper.”

  “No, I don’t. If that’s what you think I’m saying, that’s on you. This is her life, Roarke. You can’t just press buttons and change things. You don’t know the reasons behind her decisions.” Erick shook his head. “This is where you and I always see our job differently. You think everything can be controlled with a key stroke. It can’t. It’s not human.

  “I know Wren’s had a crush on you since we were teenagers. You think love is protecting her from beyond a keyboard. Meanwhile, all she ever wanted was a scrap of your attention. A tiny bit of emotion. She wanted words out of your mouth, not a change in her coding.”

  Roarke’s mind replayed Wren splayed on his table, her warm lips on his, her nails on his back. Then her harsh words when she found out all the shit he’d done behind her back. His stomach roiled again, and this time he couldn’t stop his body’s revolt. He stood up and tripped his way to his sink, where he vomited up all the orange juice and whatever else was leftover in his stomach.

  Erick took a step away but watched him while casually sipping his coffee. When Roarke was done upchucking, he rinsed his mouth out and wiped his face with a towel. “I hate throwing up. I, uh, drank a lot last night.”

  “No kidding,” Erick deadpanned. He finished his coffee and placed the cup on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “My words hit home?”

  “Well, yeah. You didn’t mince words, asshole.”

  “She’s my sister, of course I don’t.”

  Roarke sat back down on his chair. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t say sorry to me. Here’s the thing—I always thought you two would make a great couple. A little volatile, but it’d keep life interesting. So say sorry to her. You have my blessing, even though you didn’t ask for it. Worst friend ever.” He winked.

  “Pretty sure she’d go postal if I tried to get your permission to date her,” Roarke said with a smile.

  “Damn straight. Now sober up and go apologize.”

  Roarke groaned. “I need a shower.”

  “You do smell.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Erick grinned and surprised Roarke by wrapping his arms around him from behind and squeezing. Lips brushed Roarke’s temple. “I’m going to leave then. Love ya, man.”

  Roarke watched Erick walk to the front door, that ache in his chest blooming again. “Hey, Erick.”

  His friend turned around with his hand on the doorknob. “Yeah?”

  “Is it…is it hard? To see me? Because of Flynn.” They’d always been told they looked alike.

  Erick’s smiled faded, and his face softened. “Sure, sometimes. And sometimes it’s like…having a little bit of him still around.” He grinned again, but it was tinged with sadness. “So don’t die on me, okay?”

  Roarke saluted him, even as his stomach lurched. “I’ll do my best to keep my heart beating.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The ceiling fan rattled. Well, it would start silent, and, after about five rotations, it would rattle before falling silent again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Wren wondered how secure it was, because she wasn’t all about a rotating ceiling fan crashing down on her in the middle of the night.

  She was now an expert on her ceiling fan because she’d been staring at it for about eight hours—give or take—while her mind spun like an overheated laptop. Sleep had been elusive last night, all because she’d been unable to shut off her mind. She’d considered taking something to help her sleep but didn’t like the idea of being incapacitated in case of an emergency. Like her ceiling fan crashing down on her.

  Last night, she’d followed Erick out of HQ, where she’d tried to console him. Although she knew her brother wasn’t straight—he’d confided in her years ago—she hadn’t known about Flynn. Erick had kept all his happiness inside when Flynn was alive, and now all of his grief after Flynn’s death.

  That flayed her. Ate her up inside. They’d hugged, and he’d trembled in her arms. Then he told her he needed to be alone. She understood and watched him leave with a heavy heart.

  With everything that had happened with Roarke, she was burned out. She’d always loved how deeply she felt things, how she never let a computer screen and lines of code make her forget there were real people being affected by her key strokes. But right now, she wanted to cauterize every emotion until she was numb. That desire scared her. What was this mission doing to her? To the people she loved?

  She rolled onto her side and blinked blearily at the clock: 9:00 a.m. She needed to get out of bed and get shit done. Check in on Erick. Make sure Marisol knew everything was okay.

  Roarke though? She wasn’t sure what the hell to do about him. After slipping out from under the thumb of her controlling parents, she’d loved being on her own, making her own decisions. Everything she’d earned had been hers, or so she thought. So finding out that Roarke had a hand in her life, had pulled strings…it didn’t make her feel loved. It made her feel manipulated.

  She couldn’t listen to his intentions now. While mostly good, his actions still hurt her. Yet, he was Roarke. A man she’d known almost all her life. A man who looked at her like he wanted to give her the world.

  And the way he touched her…She squirmed, remembering his lips on hers, the feel of his hair along her palms, the way his tattooed fingers gripped her naked thighs.

  Her stomach warmed, and she moaned into her pillow. She wouldn’t touch herself thinking about him. No. He was a jerk. But a jerk who could make her body sing.

  She glanced at her phone. Darren had texted her earlier to apologize for “drinking too much” and had asked to see her again. She wondered if Franklin had told Darren about their run-in, but she suspected the man’s ego was bruised, so he’d kept her rejection to himself.

  She hadn’t texted Darren back yet, thinking that Lacy would be appropriately furious and would give Darren the cold shoulder. Wren could worry about replying to Darren later. She had his cell phone files, and he didn’t blame her for his brief slumber, or so he said. She didn’t have to leave town—or Roarke—yet.

  A pounding echoed from the door of her apartment. She lifted her head off her pillow, frowning. Glancing at her phone, she saw no messages. Erick probably would have texted if it was him. She slipped out of bed, careful not to make a sound. She threw a robe on over her tank and underwear and opened the drawer of her nightstand to take out her Sig Sauer P220. A gun she’d only ever had to use at the firing range. She flipped the safety notch and made her way out of her bedroom and down the hallway, walking silently on the balls of her bare feet. The pounding started again. If someone wanted to break in, they’d just break in, right? Her mind went right to Darren. Despite his text this morning, she couldn’t be sure she’d gotten away scot-free. But he didn’t have this address; he only had Lacy’s.

  Her heart pounded as she drew closer, her gaze zeroed in on the doorknob, waiting to hear the scrape of a lock clicking.

  Then a deep voice came from the other side. “Wren, it’s me, Roarke.” A deep sigh followed. “Put down the gun, little bird.”

  Relief swept over her, annoyance on its heels. She placed her gun on the table near the door. After a quick peek in the peephole to confirm it was Roarke, she unlocked the door and swung it open.

  He stood with a forearm braced on th
e frame beside his head, looking fucking amazing for 9:00 a.m. He was wearing jeans, hung low on his hips, unlaced motorcycle boots, and a tight black T-shirt beneath his ever-present leather jacket.

  For a second, she considered slamming the door in his face, but then she looked closer, spotting the dark circles under his eyes and the pale color of his skin. His lips were raw and bitten. Seemed like he’d had a night even shittier than hers.

  So she swallowed her protests and stepped aside in silent acceptance of his entrance. He brushed by her, and she closed and locked the door behind him. Then she leaned against it. He took two steps into her apartment before he turned around to face her, running a hand through his hair to sweep it off his face.

  She wished her body didn’t respond to him, that her heart didn’t skip a beat, like it had when she was a teenager and every time since whenever he said her name. There was a magnetism to Roarke that made her believe that she could make him happy and that he would love her unconditionally. That he’d cherish her. She’d never felt cherished, not until she stepped back into Roarke’s life weeks ago.

  His eyes dipped briefly to scan her body. Oh yeah, she wasn’t wearing much. In fact, she hadn’t bothered to tie her robe. She wore no bra beneath the light blue tank top that was a little sheer, and her matching underwear was bikini-cut.

  His gaze heated, and even though her blood pumped hot, she snapped her robe closed.

  He flushed and dropped his eyes to the floor. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Sorry for what?” she asked.

  He lifted his head. “Uh, hold on, let me start over. I have a thing planned.”

  “A thing?”

  “Yeah, a thing…” He blew out a breath. “First, thanks for letting me in and not slamming the door in my face. I know you wanted to.”

  “I didn’t…” Her voice trailed off as he raised his eyebrows. “Okay, I did for, like, two seconds.”

  He smiled a little and licked his lips, his tongue rasping over the frayed edges. “I went home last night and got drunk. Then passed out. Because I didn’t want to think about Erick, or my brother. Or you. This is…” He swallowed, his throat clicking, like words were failing him. “Shit, why is talking so fucking hard?” His voice cracked on his last word, and Wren’s annoyance began to fade. Why couldn’t he be a bad person? Why couldn’t she hate him?

  She stepped forward, grabbing his hand and pulling him down her hallway.

  “Wren?” he queried.

  “I have an idea.” She marched into her bedroom, Roarke in tow, and stepped into her walk-in closet. It wasn’t huge, but there was enough room for two bodies to fit between the racks of clothes lining the walls.

  She shut the door, plunging them into darkness. Their hands were still entwined, and the only sounds were Roarke’s harsh breaths. She squeezed his fingers, and he squeezed back.

  “Okay,” she said quietly, breaking the silence. “Now talk.”

  “Uh…”

  “It’s easier in the dark,” she said quietly. She’d learned this from Fiona, who’d been able to talk about what happened to her only in the dark. They’d do it often, huddle in their closet, before Fiona dropped out, and spill everything they couldn’t in the light.

  Roarke shifted his weight, rattling some hangers. For a while, he didn’t speak, and she wondered if this had been a stupid idea. It always helped her, to talk her real feelings into darkness. She was about to call it all off and open the door when he said hoarsely, “I never felt like he paid for what he did.”

  The words froze her breath in her lungs. “Who?” she whispered.

  “It wasn’t enough.” Roarke spoke above her, his breath tickling the loose hair around her forehead that had escaped her ponytail. “He took my parents, he took Flynn’s parents. Left my baby brother an orphan. And he went to jail but it still wasn’t enough.” He swallowed, the sound of his throat working loud in the confined space. “I used to lay awake at night thinking of things I could do to him. To make him pay for what he did.”

  Wren had never heard this ache in Roarke’s voice. It chilled her to the bone and cracked her heart open. Had he ever shared this pain with anyone?

  “I took computer courses and taught myself how to program, then hack, because as soon as my skills were good enough, I was going to break in to the prison system. Fuck up his medications. Anything to make him suffer.”

  Her stomach bottomed out. He’d been only a teenager then. “You didn’t…”

  “I did, but it didn’t matter because he’d died years before that. Aneurism. Passed out peacefully in his sleep, unlike my parents. Unlike my dad, who was stuck in a car with my mom’s dead body while he bled out.”

  She hadn’t known those details about the drunk driver who killed his parents. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, stepping closer to him.

  His hand tightened on hers, his other one pressing against her lower back. She leaned into him, not sure if he wanted the physical contact but not knowing what else she could offer. His body was trembling slightly, and when she splayed a hand on his chest, he shuddered.

  “I see now that what I did to you was wrong, and I’m sorry for it,” Roark said. “I justified it in my mind by telling myself that I was finally protecting someone I cared about, that I had the upper hand, that no one could hurt you if I was looking out for you.” His voice shook now, and he fisted her shirt at her back. Everything in his body was tight, like a coiled spring, and she wasn’t sure what was going to happen in this enclosed space once that coil snapped. “I’ve always been in over my head with you, and I still am. I lost my parents, and I lost Flynn, and every time one of them died I felt like I lost a piece of myself. I lost what makes me human.” He buried his face in her neck, his breath hot on her skin, and he clutched her like she was sand slipping through his fingers. “I’m terrified there’ll be nothing left of me if I lose you, too.”

  “Roarke.” She spoke into his hair as his body shook in her arms, and she clung tighter. She didn’t want to say anything to spook him, but her heart was breaking at his pain. He’d always been cool and aloof, unbothered, uncaring. To know he’d been harboring these feelings made her want to sob and rage at the same time. “I’m not going anywhere. And don’t ever give anyone the power to take away who you are. No one.” She was glad she couldn’t see him and that he couldn’t see her, because silent tears were slipping down her cheeks. Her robe felt damp on her shoulder where Roarke rested his head. “Just hold me. Remember this moment, because it’s real and human. No computers or wires or code. Just me and you.”

  He clung harder, and she felt his arousal brush along her lower stomach. Her head was spinning, the darkness making it harder for her to know what was up and down, right and left. All she knew was that Roarke’s lips were moving against her neck, sucking on her skin as his tongue did delicious things. She moaned, and Roarke surged forward, sending her into hangers of flannel shirts until her back hit a wall. With a grip on the back of her thighs, he hoisted her up so that she clung to his shoulders as his lips smashed into hers. He groaned, his hips grinding between her thighs, and Wren was lost.

  The heat of Roarke’s body was spreading through hers as his hands squeezed her thighs with his fingertips close to the edge of her underwear. She’d asked him to fuck her last night so she would forget about what had happened to her, and now she was returning the favor so he’d remember who he was. Her entire being focused on him, on getting her hands on as much of his skin as she could, to show him that she was real, this was real. She wouldn’t let him lose himself—over her fucking dead body.

  His hips pressed into hers. God, she ached, she ached so much. Last night hadn’t nearly been enough. She’d never get enough of this man, especially now that he’d let himself be vulnerable. He’d let her feel him.

  She fumbled to the side, reaching for the door. “Out,” she muttered against his lips.

  He froze and pulled back slightly. “Out?”

  “Out of the closet,” she sai
d. “There’s a bed, like, five feet away!”

  He snorted against her cheek as he turned them around, her legs still wrapped around his hips. He found the doorknob and swung it open. She blinked at the sudden light, her eyes watering. Roarke strode to the bed and dropped her onto it with a bounce. She lifted herself onto her elbows as she watched him shed his jacket and shirt. She wasn’t going to let him out of her sight, not when everything felt so precarious, not when he’d shown how much he needed her.

  Stripped down to his jeans, he crawled over her, eyes latched onto hers. His boots thunked to the floor as he toed them off on his way up to her.

  She gripped his face, his scruff rubbing her palms as he kissed her, tongue sweeping inside in a possessive claiming that lit up her blood like fireworks. She arched against him, and the rough denim of his jeans chafed the insides of her legs. This was frantic, and after last night she wanted something slow, something less desperate…

  Roarke abruptly pulled back and dropped his forehead to her chest, his back heaving as he sought to catch his breath. She laid a tentative hand on the back of his neck, the pads of her fingers resting on his inked flower. Maybe he was having second thoughts, maybe that confession had not been an indication he wanted to be with her…

  “Give me a minute,” he said, his voice pained.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, then shook his head and nodded again.

  She had to laugh. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He collapsed between her legs but kept most of his weight to her side. He laid his cheek on her chest, pillowed by a breast, and lifted his eyes to look at her. Her tank top had ridden up, and his hand was hot where it lay on the bare skin of her stomach.

  “You know I used to stay over at your house when I was a kid, and I couldn’t sleep knowing you were nearby.” This Roarke who confided in her, who told her childhood stories, this was the Roarke who made her heart soar, the Roarke she always knew was in there.

  She ran her hands through his hair as he kept talking. “Sure, I beat off as a horny fifteen-year-old, like, a million times thinking about you, but I also just wanted to hold you.” He scooted up so he was lying beside her, their heads even. His fingers began to swirl over her skin, making her breath catch. “I wanted to touch you, watch the goose bumps rise on your skin, hear that little hitch in your breath. I wanted to hold your hand and run my fingers through your hair. And I wanted you to just fucking smile at me. So I’m telling myself to take that time now. Not rush it.”