I close the space between us and catch his waist. “How could you think I would blame you for that boy’s death, Rick?”
“It hasn’t sunk in yet.”
“Yes. It has. You are scarred with that memory for life.” A realization hits me. “And it all makes so much sense now. My father was still involved, so it was early in your days with Tag.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s why you felt unworthy to come home. Every time you looked in the mirror, you saw that boy. You see that boy. And you see my father. Maybe you see me.” I try to step back. “God, Rick—”
“No,” he says, catching my wrist. “No, baby. That’s a volcanic eruption of wrong—it’s so wrong. But yes. I see that boy. A boy who might have tried to change his country if we’d groomed him, adopted him. Done something other than kill him.”
“How do I know that?”
“You have to trust me. I need you to trust me.”
“You get what you give, Rick Savage. When are you going to trust me? Because you didn’t trust me with this for eight years.”
“I know. Believe me, baby. I know. I trust you. I told you and I really hate telling you that I had a reason other than that trust.”
A sense of foreboding clamps down on my chest. “What does that mean?”
“Wes is here and he was in the house tonight. He jacked off on the bed, which I know because he left a photo of himself doing so, along with a threat.”
I’m back to wanting to throw up. “Because you killed Lily.” And I know the rest of the story without him telling me. “And now he wants to kill me,” I say.
“Tag’s using him as a resource. Wes wants what Tag wants. For me to kill Gabe or he’ll kill you.”
I let out a breath of disbelief. “You mean he’ll kill me no matter what, just after you kill Gabe.”
“I handled it.”
“You killed him?” I ask, and it sickens me how hopeful I sound that a man might lose his life.
“I made sure Tag kills him.”
“And you really think he’ll do that?” I run a hand through my hair. “I feel like I should feel guilty for wanting him dead. I’ve never wanted someone dead. What is happening to me?”
“Me,” he says, his voice etched with shards of glass that seems to cut him with every word, cut him and me, as he adds, “I’m fucking happening to you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Candace
He’s going to leave. The scar on his face, and the pain it represents, drives that point straight to my bleeding heart before it settles into my punished soul. Those words: I’m fucking happening to you. No matter how much I love him, my love will never be enough to overcome the torment inside this man. And yet, I think I’m the only chance he has to survive that torment. He’s going to shred my heart, but I don’t care. I’m going to fight for him. I try to pull back, to put just enough space between us that I can look him in the eyes and claim control over this push and pull between us that is out of control.
Rick isn’t having it. He pulls me back, his big hand framing my waist. “Don’t do this,” he says, clearly reading my move as withdrawal. “I’m begging you.”
“Do what, Rick?” I challenge. “What am I doing? What do you think I’m doing?”
“Walking away. Pulling away from me. That’s you dividing us. Don’t you do what I’ve done so well. Too well.”
“You think that because that’s your reaction. That’s what you did, but I wasn’t walking away. I wasn’t pulling away. I was most likely about to punch some logic into you because nothing else is working. I asked a question, and you turned it into a reason to leave me. I can’t love you this much again and have you leave.”
He catches strands of my hair in his fingers, his free hand pressing to my lower back, molding me close. “Young and fucked in the head did not serve us well, but I love you too damn much to ever leave you again.”
My hand presses to his chest and I can feel his heart thundering, pounding a beat as wild as mine. He’s angry. Or hurt. I don’t know what he is anymore. I’m about to tell him that I don’t believe him, but that’s okay. I’m going to hold onto him so damn tightly that he can’t run, but I never get the chance. I open my mouth but he’s already taking me some place else. “Do you know what I thought before I walked into Tag’s hideout and confronted him?” he asks.
Shock radiates through me. “Oh, God. You walked into Tag’s place and confronted him?”
“Do you know what I thought?” he repeats, his voice all but guttural.
“That I was going to kick your ass when I found out? Stop acting like you’re okay with dying any day now. Because you don’t get to walk away again. You damn sure don’t get to die.”
“I thought,” he continues, “that you might be better off without me, but I’m not better off without you. Every moral line I didn’t cross these eight years was because of you, Candace. Every moment I wasn’t with you, you were with me. I love you. I love you so damn much it hurts to breathe when I’m not with you. I was burning alive without you every fucking day and night.”
My heart swells with the rough, emotion-laden confession and my fingers curl around his shirt. “Then know this, Rick Savage. I’m afraid. I am. That’s real. That’s honest, but I’m also a military brat. I’m my mother’s and father’s daughter. Fear makes me want to fight. For you. I want to fight for you and us. I want to fight every war you face with you. And you are better with me. But I am also so much better with you. Because we’re better together.”
And just that quick, he’s kissing me. He’s kissing me in that way that only Rick Savage kisses me, like he’s burning alive for me. And now I’m burning alive for him. It’s as if a match ignites and explodes between us. We’re all over each other and in a haze of lust and love, of want and need, and somehow, he’s no longer wearing his shirt and neither am I. I’m not wearing anything. I’m on the counter that had been behind me, and now he’s not wearing anything. What he is doing is pressing inside me, thick and hard, and oh so perfect. We’re in a wild frenzy and I’m lost in how delicious his big body is pressed to mine. How intense his handsome face is as he looks at me, as he loses himself in me and us. I’m lost in his hands on my body, his touch as savage as his name—all over me, on my breasts, my nipples. But in our intensity, the rush of our need is fast and hard, over too soon, the trembles and quakes of our bodies explosive and then exhaustive in the most bittersweet of ways.
I collapse into him, a butterfly on the wind, and he’s the wind, no part of me fighting where he carries me or what I feel for this man. No part of me protecting myself from him. Who am I kidding? I have no chance. Why do I want to try? “I wasn’t better without you,” I whisper into his neck, the sharp spice of man and cologne just another part of him that feels a part of me.
He pulls back and looks at me, those blue, blue eyes pouring emotion from his soul right into my soul. “Let’s talk about being better together. Let’s talk about what comes next.” He kisses my nose then, a tender act that defies the harsh reality of the killer he declares himself, before he scoops me up and starts walking. In that moment, he’s my white knight, my hero, the only man I have ever wanted or needed. I cling to him, and it’s then that I realize that I feel no dread about our future. Just as no part of me resists this man, no part of me believes that what comes next is him leaving again. I choose not to believe something that in its very premise alone, will destroy us. I can’t keep living that fear. I can’t let him keep living with that fear, either. I know that now.
Rick sets me down in a bathroom that is remarkably large, with a claw foot tub. He pulls the hotel robe from the hanger at the back of the door and wraps it around me. “If we’re going to talk our way into the future instead of fuck our way into the future, you need clothes. And so do I.” He grabs a towel and wraps it around his waist. “But first, I need to get dressed and go grab our suitcases from the car.”
My brow furrows. “
Suitcases?”
“While I was at the house, I grabbed you some things.”
“Oh,” I say. “Great. Thanks.” He gives me a quick kiss and exits the bathroom.
I frown at the doorway where he’s departed. Why am I bothered by him packing up my things? I walk out into the bedroom and sit down on the plush bed. That’s when I remember the crazy man who jerked off on my bed back at the house. That’s why Rick packing me up bothers me. He’s really worried that this guy is going to come after me, and with good reason. From what he told me, he will. What kind of man jerks off on another man’s bed while someone takes a photo of it?
Rick, now wearing his unzipped jeans, walks back into the bedroom, a suitcase in each hand, and a bag on each shoulder. “Those assholes I work with aren’t always assholes. They left our stuff inside the door.”
“That’s a lot for overnight,” I say, prodding him to come clean with his worries.
He takes the prod. “About that,” he says, unloading the bags just inside the door.
“You don’t want me to go home,” I say. “Ever.” That one word ‘ever’ says it all. Life as I know it will never be the same.
Rick closes the space between us and not even his rippling abdominal muscles and perfect body distract me from the finality of the past. He goes down on one knee in front of me, his big, strong hands settling on my legs, reminding me that our past is never lost. Reminding me that our future is forward. “I want you to make your home with me,” he says, speaking exactly what I need to hear. “Move to New York City with me, baby. We don’t have to live in the place I bought if you don’t like it. We’ll find a new place. We’ll find our place. I want you with me forever. And I have a shit ton of money, baby. You can move your business there. Or hell. We can move anywhere. I’ll work it out with Walker.” He isn’t done there. “I love you. I need you with me.”
Then he’s done, but we aren’t. We are so not done and despite everything wrong in my world right now, he’s right. We’re right. My hands go to his face. “I love you, too. I will go anywhere with you, Rick Savage. I just don’t want to run there. What did Wes do when he found out you killed his wife?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Candace
“You know what happened,” Rick says, catching my hands and settling them back on my knees, his on top of them. “He tried to kill me.”
“And what did you do?”
“I shoved a knife into a major artery.”
“And then you saved him,” I assume, because I know. Because I know this man like I know myself.
“Yes,” he confirms. “And we’ve stayed away from each other since.”
“In other words, he was waiting for the right moment to come for you. And now is that time. Now, he’s coming for you and that means me.”
“And I’m ready for him. I won’t repeat my mistake again.”
“What does that mean?”
“I won’t save him next time. We’re going to start our life together. There’s going to be blood spilled before that happens. There’s no way around that. I need to know that you know that. I need to know that you can live with that.”
“Just find my father, Rick. Once I know he’s safe, I’ll handle everything else just fine.”
“We will,” he promises. “We have a man on the ground close to his territory. We should have news by tomorrow.”
“I can’t leave San Antonio or Gabriel until I know he’s safe.”
“Let’s not go down that rabbit hole of what we can and cannot do tonight or we won’t get any sleep. Let’s sleep now and plan when we’re fresh tomorrow. We have the best part of a week to decide what happens next.” He hands me my phone. “Dickhead texted you goodnight. And he loves you. Do not say that back to him.” He stands up and I catch his hand.
“He’s using me and I’m just trying to keep everyone alive.”
“I know,” he says, his jaw tight, his voice tighter.
“Rick—”
He pulls me to my feet. “I know, baby. That doesn’t make me like it.” He strokes my hair. “I’m fine. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.”
But he’s not fine. “Rick—”
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you.”
“Then text the asshole back that you hate him.”
I laugh. He doesn’t. “I know you’re joking.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He releases me and walks to the bed, pulling back the blanket and then dropping his pants. He’s standing there, tall, broad, tattooed and naked. I’m stupidly standing here, too far away, drooling. “Motivation for that text,” he says. “Do it, and then get your ass over here. Your naked ass.”
I close the space between us and set the phone on the nightstand. “I’ll tell him that I was too sick to respond at two in the morning.” I drop the robe.
His eyes rake over me, burning my skin in that sizzling, make-me-wet kind of way of his before we tumble into the bed. It’s a long time later, when we’ve cooled the burn, that exhaustion takes over. I fall asleep with Rick wrapped around me, holding me oh so tightly. And I fall asleep feeling that with this man holding me, no matter what happens, I’m whole again in a way that I haven’t been in eight long years. I am better with this man in my life and I’m going to make sure that he doesn’t just know this, but that he never forgets.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Candace
I wake to the warmth of Rick’s strong arms around me, the room awash in a morning glow and cold air. My phone is also ringing. I groan and grab it from the nightstand to find Linda’s number on caller ID. The best friend I’ve been ignoring like a very bad friend. I hit decline and guilt shoots me to a sitting position. “That was Linda. I need to call her back.”
Rick pulls me back down to the bed with him. “I’m naked in bed with you, and you with me, one of the only mornings in nearly a decade, and you want to call Linda?”
“Eight years, not a decade. And yes. Aside from her being my best friend and one who helped get us back together—she called me and got me to that bar the day you got into town—what if she goes by the house?”
He curses and releases me. “Call Linda.” I start to turn away and he catches my arm. “But don’t tell her anything.”
“Oh, good grief,” I murmur. “Talk to her, but don’t tell her anything.”
“Your calls are likely monitored by more than us.”
Now I groan. “I need coffee.”
“I’ll order room service.” He grimaces. “Actually, fuck. The Walker team will be here at nine and they promised to buy. What time is it?”
I glance at my phone. “Eight-thirty. We should have set the alarm.”
“You fucked me unconscious, baby. I forgot.”
“You, are very crass.”
“Yeah. What about it?”
I laugh. “Everything about it,” I say, but I’m teasing. I love how he says whatever he thinks. “I need to shower and get dressed before they get here.”
“Call Linda. I’ll unpack and start the shower.” He kisses me and rolls away.
“I’m not showering with you,” I say over my shoulder, but by the time I finish making that statement, he’s on my side of the bed—tall, dark, and lickably naked. “Maybe I can reconsider.”
“If you look at me like that much longer,” he says, his eyes devouring me with a smoldering look that might match the one I’m giving him. Or it’s a close second, “neither of us will be dressed when they get here.” He grabs his pants and pulls them on before tossing me my robe. “Get dressed before I don’t let you.”
My cheeks heat right along with the rest of my body. God, how I missed this man and how he makes me feel. I don’t know how I thought marrying for anything less was acceptable. I cover up and Rick turns away, but not before I spy the quirk of his lips that becomes his smile. I’ve always loved that man’s smile. I really love that I can make him smile. I aspire to make him smile every day for the rest of our lives.
&nb
sp; My phone buzzes with a text and all my warm and fuzzy morning feelings fade into the dark hell of reality. It’s Linda: HELLO?!
I call her. “Hey,” I say.
“What is going on with you?”
“Not feeling well.”
“Ah huh. Still mad is more like it.”
“No, but we can talk about all that stuff later. I’m not mad at you. You should have warned me before you had me come over, but I’m not mad.” I watch as Rick carries one of my bags into the bathroom, his broad shoulders flexing. Even the man’s back is perfect, which motivates my next comment to Linda, who lured me back to his side. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she says. “Which is why I knew you’d want to know about you know who. When can we meet and you explain why you love me because we both know why, but that’s also rather complicated for you?”
“Yes. Which is why we’re hanging up now. Next week.”
“Next week?! I’m going to die by next week.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Fine. Fine. I know when I’m defeated. Next week.”
We disconnect and I wonder who will be alive and who will be dead next week. I wonder if I’ll be alive or dead. It’s a crazy, destructive thought that I shove away, but when the shower comes on, I say screw it. I get up and head to the bathroom, where I join Rick in the hot shower. It takes nothing more than me joining him under the hot water to end up with his mouth on my mouth and me in the corner with him inside me. And I don’t miss the desperation in his touch or his kiss. It’s in the air. It being that foreboding sense of bad we all feel every now and then. Only this isn’t every now and then. This is now and this is us. And we’re in the company, and bad graces, of killers.
***
Thirty minutes later, I’m officially running behind. I’ve managed to dress in black jeans and a pink T-shirt with white Converse on my feet, but my hair is still wet, though I’m attempting to dry it. Hairdryer in hand, I stand next to Rick, who is shaving all but his goatee, and looking good in faded ripped jeans and a plain white T-shirt. A T-shirt that stretches over every perfect inch of him, and gives me teases of the tattoo on his right arm. And while some might think my obsession with his body rather inappropriate considering the danger we’re in, I don’t. While I’m thinking about him, I’m not thinking about Gabriel or murder or strangers jacking off on my bed.
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