by Jo Raven
Belatedly it occurs to me that Raine might not even be in, and the thought of pushing the key into his mailbox slot, without ever seeing him, all but kills me. It has to be close to midnight by now, but he may be out, with friends, with his brother, having drinks and playing pool.
By the time I reach the entrance of his building, I’ve convinced myself he won’t be in, and the weight on my chest is fucking crushing me.
Still, I try. The light over the entrance doesn’t work, and I’m not even sure I pressed the button for the right apartment, but nobody answers anyway.
Disappointed, I search for the slots of the mailboxes, cursing in the dark, when a male voice, slightly distorted with static, says from behind me, “Yeah? Who is this?”
My heart pounding out of my chest, I turn back to the intercom. “Raine?”
A pause, then, “Jason? Is that you?”
He doesn’t sound angry. More shocked than anything.
Then again, it is the middle of the night, and the intercom is distorting his voice. Also, I’ve never been the one to seek him out until now.
I brace a hand against the wall and suck in a deep breath. Even hearing him is doing weird things to my mind. It’s like honey dripping into my veins, making me happy, making my mouth smile.
I can do this. No going back now. “Can I come up?”
He says nothing, and I hold my breath. The realization he may not want me here hits me out of the blue, and it’s all I can do not to gasp out loud.
But the door clicks open. I stare at it for a long moment.
It may not be the warmest welcome, but I guess it’s answer enough, and at any rate, it’s more than I deserve.
The door is open when I step out of the elevator, and there he is, an elbow propped on the doorframe, framed in golden light.
My steps falter. From his tousled dark hair to his gilded, bulging biceps and low-slung sweats, he’s a total sex god. My mouth honest-to-god waters at the sight.
He’s like a drug. The most potent drug in my life.
“I, uh.” Words. I can word. “Hey.”
He dips his head in greeting, his face in shadow, so I can’t tell if he’s scowling or smiling at me.
My palms are sweaty. Is it too warm in here? Why does he have to be so damn sexy?
“Sorry if I woke you up.” I wait a beat, but again he says nothing. Okay then. I step closer, pull the key from my pocket, hold it out for him. It’s so shiny on my dirty, scratched palm, and I’m suddenly all too aware of my stench of puke and sweat. “I came to give this back. Thanks, you know… for everything.” I nod to myself. “I mean it. I—”
“I had a nightmare.” His raspy voice startles me, and I clench my fingers around the key as I glance up at him.
“What?”
“I dreamed of blood and death, and it haunts me.” He stops, starts again, his eyes flicking to me and then to the darkness behind me. “I’ve had it regularly, almost every night, ever since my best friend Livvy died, many years ago. It was my fault. A car accident, and I was driving. It’s the anniversary of her death this week.”
Fuck. “I’m sorry, I’m—”
“I see her dying right beside me, again and again, but…” His voice breaks, and his face crumbles. “But lately, I dream it’s you.”
Oh God. I’m right in front of him in two steps, the key clattering to the floor, and I take his face in my hands. “Raine…”
He puts a hand over mine. His eyes are red, his skin clammy and cold under my palms. “Listen to me. Please. You need to get off the streets. Something’s going down and you need to be as far away from Simon Gomez as possible.”
He’s making no sense. I shake my head. “Don’t ask me that. Don’t get involved. I told you not to get involved in my shit.”
He swallows hard, pulls back. “I forced myself to stay away from you, but it’s killing me. It’s fucking killing me, and I don’t know what the hell you want from me. If you don’t want me to care… if you’re only here to leave this key and go, then go.”
Dammit. I should do as he says. Leave the key and go. This was the plan all along. I’d almost convinced myself of it.
But I can’t. I’m falling apart. I drag him into my arms, and he trembles against me.
“Call me Jase,” I whisper, and I don’t even know why, only that it’s important for some fucked up reason. Nobody else calls me that.
Only Raine.
We’re the same height, so his chin lands on my shoulder, and mine on his. We fit so perfectly together.
Our bodies only, I remind myself. And our nightmares. It means nothing.
But then he murmurs, “Jase,” just a breath, and I grip him more tightly, arms wrapped around his strong body, unable to let go. His back muscles shift under my hands, his strength when he hugs me back grounding me.
It’s as if my pieces are coming back together, parts of me that were missing this past week falling back into place. It feels so good, so fucking right.
Reluctantly I draw back, releasing him. “I’m fine,” I reassure him.
He gives a jerky nod, rubs a hand over his bare chest, over the inked lines of text there, and… is that a scar?
Fuck. No idea why that draws me back closer. It’s as if that one scar on his perfect body echoes all the many scars on mine.
“How did you get this?” I gently shift his hand away and trace the raised scar, perfectly hidden under the ink surrounding the line of text tattooed into his skin. As he turns toward the light slanting out from the apartment door, I make out a few words.
Livvy.
Never.
Forgive.
“The accident,” he says, his voice raw. “I got this scratch. She died. My fault.”
Jesus fuck. He’s shaking, and I doubt it’s the cold. He’s not looking at me, not asking, but I can’t walk away, not now.
Not like this.
I glance at the key, gleaming on the floor a few feet away, then into his haunted eyes, and I remember all the times he brought me in from the cold, fed me and held me and made me feel human, right when I’d thought the last sliver of my soul had fallen away.
Besides, he was afraid for me. Had nightmares about failing me. He told me about his scar, and suddenly all my scars ache, on my body and in my mind.
Bending down, I pick up the key, curl my fingers around it, feel it dig into my palm. “Can I stay with you tonight? It’s cold outside.” I swallow hard, turning to face him. “It’s snowing.”
He blinks, his long lashes wet. “Yeah… Yeah, shit, come on in.”
That’s how I enter his home, his world once more, and it’s as if I belong here, with him, in his apartment, in his arms.
This can’t end well.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Raine
I can’t believe he’s here.
Mingling with afterimages from the nightmare, merging with the incomprehensible shifts in reality and time, I find his tall form in the middle of my living room after I’ve closed and locked my door.
Seeing him in front of me after that dream, alive and well, is a fucking miracle, and I have to stop myself from grabbing him in my arms once more, to make sure he’s really okay.
I rub at my burning eyes. “Shower’s all yours, if you wanna use it. I’ll get you a towel and sheets for the sofa.” I start toward the bedroom to get everything. “I’m glad you decided to stay, with the weather turning to snow.”
Could be why I had the nightmare. I’d seen the warning for snow, and I’d been worried about him, but he hadn’t been at his usual spot when I passed by earlier.
Yeah, I broke my rule and went to check. So sue me. I just couldn’t take it. I have the nightmare almost every night these days. It sucks.
“I’m not staying because of the snow.” Jason strips his sodden jacket, throws it to the corner of the room and comes to put his hands on my shoulders. His dark gaze searches mine. “Okay?”
I shake my head, not even sure I heard him right. “Wha
t?”
“I said I’m not staying because of the goddamn snow.” His hands slide up to the back of my neck, warm and rough. “I’m here because of you.”
My heart thumps hard inside my chest. I swallow hard. “Who are you and what have you done with Jason Vega?”
He laughs then, softly, and it’s the best fucking sound ever. I yank him closer until our breaths mingle, and I kiss him, pouring everything I feel into that kiss—my fear, my worry, my need for him.
He tastes of dark whiskey and snow—but warm, his mouth is so warm, fucking hot, his tongue pushing into my mouth, short-circuiting my brain.
This time he’s the one who shoves me back against the wall, slams my shoulders into the plaster. He pushes a muscular thigh between my legs and swallows my grunt at the sudden pressure on my dick, his hands mapping my arms before returning to tangle in my hair. Angling my head to deepen the kiss.
Oh fuck. Tongue, teeth, lips, his hands on me, and everything’s turning into sensation. Fire sparks down my back, down between my legs to my dick. My breath comes out in a groan when he rips his mouth away to suck on the juncture of my neck and shoulder, panting.
“Jase…” I need him, now.
He bites down, teeth sinking into my flesh, and my whole body jerks, my dick iron hard and aching from the pressure. I won’t last long, not when he’s attacking me like he’s hungry for me. Frantic.
Faintly I think that maybe it has to do with the nightmare, this reversal of our roles. Normally I’m the one asking to touch him, wanting it, hell, paying for it, and I guess I was never sure he was into it.
Into me.
He lifts his head only to crush his mouth to mine again, brutal, and it’s heady, realizing he wants me just as much as I want him, and that he’s strong, tall like me. Resilient. Able to inflict damage. All the previous times he was too banged up and exhausted for me to test his strength.
Not that he’s free of bruises today. I saw the dark ghosts of violence on his face when he appeared on my doorstep earlier, but he’s moving confidently if urgently, molding his long body against mine, pushing me into the wall. I’m humping his leg, and I’m past caring. I can’t fucking believe this is happening, and I don’t want it to stop.
Wrapping my arms around him, I drag him closer, snag my fingers into the hem of his tank top and attempt to haul it off him without breaking the kiss. But tonight’s magic can only stretch that far, and he draws back, huffing a laugh, lifting his arms so that I can undress him.
I feel drunk as I whip the tank top off him and start working on his pants, undoing the button and reaching for the zipper. He grabs me by the waist and walks me backward toward the sofa. I lose my grip on his pants, and grab at his arms not to fall.
He pushes me down on the sofa and lowers himself over me. He’s hard, his hard-on pressing into mine, and I arch up, gasping. When I manage to focus on his face, I find his dark eyes wide, his mouth slack.
“Hey.” I curl a hand behind his head and pull him down to me. “Okay?”
With his dark hair ruffled into random spikes, unfocused eyes and chafed lips, he’s a fucking picture—from a goddamn wet dream. “Yeah. It—” He shifts against me, and gasps. “Shit, it feels good.”
That’s when it strikes me that this isn’t par for the course for him, that he normally doesn’t get hard, doesn’t get any pleasure.
I swear this is about to change. I’m gonna make sure he comes so hard he won’t be able to walk straight for days.
Taking advantage of his shocked state, I get back to working on his zipper. This time I manage to tug it down and pull at his pants. He lifts up to let me finish undressing him, the shock giving way to something softer, hotter, in his gaze—and then he curses and gets off me to remove his boots.
A smile tugs on my lips. My chest fills to bursting at this more vulnerable, human side of him. A fierce protectiveness washes through me.
He’s mine, and I’ll take care of him, no matter the cost. That nightmare… it will never come to pass.
When he turns back to me, I tackle him, pulling him underneath me. I press him down into the cushions, and he flails, landing a painful knee into my ribs. I’ll live. What concerns me more is the wild blankness in his eyes.
I frown as I wrestle him back down. “Shh. It’s just me. Jase, it’s just me.”
Slowly, his panic recedes, his limbs stilling. When I bend over him, his body relaxes into the sofa cushions. “Raine.”
That choked whisper caressing my name. Trusting. Relieved.
Fury shakes me, and a cold wash of shame. I scared him. He thought I was gonna hurt him. Christ, I swear I’ll erase whoever and whatever put that fear into him.
Careful, making a mental note not to surprise him like that again, I stroke his bruised jaw, his cheekbone, his mouth. A stuttered inhale, a soft exhale, and I rub my thumb over the softness of his lips.
“No pain,” I promise him. “You run this show.”
He watches me, so still he might as well be a statue, his cheeks coloring. He gives a tiny nod, and when he says nothing, I kiss his mouth.
Just like that, at his taste, the feel of his hands sliding up my arms, my anger evaporates and desire slams back into me, taking my fucking breath away. He pulls me down, and our dicks slide together, hard and slick. I rock my hips, rubbing us together, moaning my pleasure.
Oh yeah.
“Condom,” he whispers, his eyes heavy-lidded. “In the back pocket of my pants.”
I don’t wanna lift off him, don’t wanna move, period, but I reach down to the floor and manage to snag his pants. I stick my hand into every pocket I encounter, blindly, until I find the crinkly foil.
Lifting it, I tear it open with my teeth, focusing as best I can so I won’t destroy the condom, a feat with my dick pressed against Jason’s and my whole body tensing and ready to go.
Shit, I need to buy condoms. A whole box of them. Maybe they sell them in bulk.
“Fuck me,” Jason says, and his voice is raw, unsteady. “Need you to fuck me, Raine.”
I try to gauge his expression, but the emotions flashing through his eyes keep changing. Need, fear, determination, arousal, uncertainty.
But also that fucking trust.
Nodding, I sit back to put on the condom, and when he reaches for it, I shake my head. This isn’t his job, dammit.
I settle back down between his legs. Propping an elbow by his head, I lean over him. “You ready for me?” I ask, softly. “Or shall I go find lube?”
He shakes his head. “I’m ready. Do it.”
Fuck, the image of him lubing himself up every morning has my mouth going dry. There’s an image I could jerk off to every night.
“Jase.” His eyes have gone a bit wide and unfocused again, and I don’t like it. “You with me?”
“Yeah.” He frowns. He’s not that hard anymore where I feel him pressed to me. “Yeah, I am.”
“We don’t have to do this. Fuck, if you don’t want—”
“Shh.” My hair’s stuck to my forehead, getting into my eyes. Jason brushes the clingy strands off. “You talk too much.”
It startles a bark of laughter out of me. “You’re confusing me with someone else.”
“I could never confuse you with anyone.” He swallows, then says, “Make me.”
“What are you talking about?”
He looks straight into my eyes when he says it. His are dead serious. “Make me come.”
Chapter Thirty
Jason
You know when you think you’ve got it all under control and you waltz into a place, all cocky and shit?
Well, that was me walking into Raine’s apartment tonight. I thought I knew what I was doing. This was supposed to be about him, dammit. I wanted to comfort him, make him talk about the nightmare, and then crash on his couch for the night.
But when he closed the door and turned to face me in the light, looking so sad and so damn hot, I was a goner. I had to kiss him, touch him.
&
nbsp; And that was only the beginning. Over the course of the next five—or ten?—minutes, I lost track of what I came here for, found myself from top to bottom and begging for release. Begging him to make me, rip the pleasure out of me. Force it out of me. Like in my dreams.
Not sure there’s any other way.
He’s staring at me like I punched him right in the chest, and he can’t draw air. Before he can backpedal and refuse, I grab him and bring him down for a savage kiss. I bite on his lips and suck on his tongue until he’s groaning and rocking against me. I’m distracting him, but I’m the one distracted. My dick is waking up again, rubbing against his latex-covered hard-on, and it’s like an image from my dreams.
Yeah, I’m gone again, lost in the pleasure of his body on mine, his mouth, his hands… Fuck, his hands. He toys with my nipple piercing, then trails his hand lower. He grips my cock, tugs on the silver bar there, and I bite back a cry.
“Okay,” he says as he grabs my right leg. He lifts it over his hip, then grips his dick and pushes into me. “Okay, Jase.” I don’t even remember what question he’s answering, until he clarifies, punctuated with a hard shove inside me. “I’ll make you.”
Oh shit, this feels… My back bows as he pushes deeper. He lifts my leg higher, around his waist, and I lift the other one, too, locking my feet behind his back.