Dangerous (Wicked Hearts Book 2)

by Sara Cate

  The car vibrates violently when it hits the guard rail, but it doesn’t stop us. Sparks fly outside my window just before he knocks my foot away and veers the car back to the lane. The jerking motion allows me to move away and out of his grasp.

  I suck in air so quickly it makes me want to throw up. Tears stream down my face as I feel my cheeks pulse with the returning oxygen. But it isn’t long before he’s reaching for me again. I’m able to evade him, kicking without abandon, and I land a couple good hits to his face. Blood drips from his nose, and for a moment he stops trying to hit me.

  The reprieve gives me a second to breathe—until I realize he’s pulling his phone out.

  He’s calling for backup. He’ll order his guys to gun down my boys with little more than a text. My body is too exhausted to move, and my brain is still pounding.

  I pray Murph is carrying something to protect himself. I pray they all are.

  Hugo is never not carrying. I can remember so many times he would reach for hidden guns I never knew were there. The terror I felt every time he pulled one out never went away. Whether they be on his body or in his—

  I snap up just as he looks to be typing something out, watching the road carefully through quick glances up and down.

  I move without hesitation, and I thank god that he had the stupidity to trust me (and teach me how to shoot) as I flip open the glove box and find his .45 sitting in its usual spot.

  Hugo drops the phone before mid-text and reaches for me, but I’m quicker than he is.

  And I don’t hesitate as I flash the barrel toward him and pull the trigger.

  That goddamn car can barely stay on the road. It’s been swerving from one guard rail to the other, across two lanes and nearly into the marshes. I keep looking at Ryder, hoping he’ll give me some fucking wisdom here on what we’re supposed to do now.

  Savannah has every intention of putting that car in the water again, and we’re still a good eight miles away. I can’t let her get that far.

  There’s the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. The car makes a hard right, and I watch in horror as it hits the guard rail, the embankment, and begins toppling before it finally comes to a stop two-hundred feet away from the road in a dry field.

  Something snaps in my chest. Savannah is in that car, being whipped around, crashing in nothing but glass and metal. My Savannah is in there. Our bikes come to a halt on the shoulder, and I can tell that every guy around me is as horrified as I am. My mouth hangs open, and my body takes over for my brain, which seems to have stopped working completely.

  I scream her name, my voice coming out harsh and pained as if I’m the one in the now-crushed car. I don’t register getting off my bike. Did I put down the kickstand? Is it still running? It could have ended up in the ditch for all I know as I take off toward the car.

  The embankment is bigger than I expect, and it takes energy to climb through the wet grass. Thankfully, the adrenaline has kicked in. Running toward the wreckage, I feel the guys behind me, Rafe at my right side, pistol in his extended arm, just in case. If that mother fucker in the car is still alive, I hope I get to watch Rafe put a bullet between his eyes.

  Ryder is on the other side, reaching out to grab my shoulder, cautioning me to watch for flames. But I don’t give a fuck about flames. If that car explodes, with her inside, I’m going with it.

  The black sedan, with those goddamn black as night windows is laying upside down. There’s an opening, a place where the bulletproof glass has shattered enough for me to see in, and I drop to my stomach. As I move, I’m terrified of what I will find. The thought of Savannah’s mangled body makes me want to vomit.

  I hear her before I see her. It’s a whimper, a sort of gurgling cry.

  “Savannah,” I call as I try to maneuver my upper body into the car. She’s hanging, still buckled in, her hair cascading to the dented roof of the car like a bloody waterfall.

  I take a quick assessment of her condition. She’s bleeding, somewhere on her head. She’s awake. That has to be a good sign.

  When she hears my voice, she sobs. Then, she sees my face.

  “Murph,” she stutters, reaching for me, her face contorted in desperation.

  “I got you, baby.” In order to reach for her seatbelt, I have to crawl into the car, and reach past her. The glass from the window cuts into my skin, but I’m too distracted to feel the pain. I’m more worried about the blood from her head dripping onto my face.

  Just when I find the button to push, I’m distracted for a moment by her nearness. It steals the breath from my chest as I soak in her scent. My words echo in my ear. I got you, baby. And it occurs to me that nothing will stop me from getting her safely out of this car. Nothing.

  Movement near my hand startles me just before I feel a tight grasp on my wrist. That stupid mother fucker, who wasn’t smart enough to keep his fucking seat belt on, is folded in a painful looking heap on the roof of the car, his body pinned between the seat at the mangled roof.

  Savannah screams and claws at him, trying to get him off of me. The terror in her face fuels my anger and I throw a punch at his already bloody face. It doesn’t knock him out, but it dazes him enough that I can release her seatbelt and pull her into my arms.

  As I crawl out, I feel the guys around me, helping to hold the glass back, their hands gently guiding Savannah out so she doesn’t get hurt any worse than she already is. When I slide out, it’s Rafe who holds her safely away from the car. He passes her to me, his eyes on my face. She curls into my arms, clutching at my neck in a way that makes me fucking hate myself.

  Rafe’s voice is behind me as I carry Savannah as far from the wreck as possible.

  “Single vehicle crash on westbound 87. One survivor. In need of immediate medical assistance.”

  It takes me a moment before I realize he’s on his phone. As we reach the shoulder where the bikes are parked, I settle down in the grass with Savannah in my arms. When I take a look at her face, the panic resettles itself in my gut. There’s blood dripping from her hairline, and the pupils of her eyes are too dilated. Her nearly gray complexion has me praying—fucking praying. That ambulance better hurry.

  “I’m sorry,” she croaks, staring up at my face.

  “Don’t you ever fucking apologize to me.” It’s too harsh, but right now everything about me feels too harsh.

  “I wanted to stay,” she whispers. Her eyes on my face lose focus.

  “You are staying, understand. You’re staying for-fucking-ever.”

  She smiles just before her eyes close and her body slumps against my chest. Behind me, a loud explosion makes the guys jump, but I don’t even move.

  When I peel my eyes open, it’s him I notice first. He fills the room, and not just because it’s a tiny hospital room and he dwarfs that little chair he’s in. His presence fills every inch. His anxiety. His grief. His attention...on me.

  There’s an intense pounding behind my eyes, but then I feel the hazy cloud keeping the hurt covered, just not completely. They must be pumping something strong into me. I try to remember how I got here. The last thing was firing the pistol, watching the blood hit the window through the sleeve of Hugo’s jacket. Then, the car swerved. But that’s it.

  There’s a cast on my left arm, something around my right leg and a thick bandage around my head. When I try to sit up, he’s there. His eyes are serious and trained on me as he steps forward to push the bed’s lift button, bringing me to a sitting position.

  He smells like leather and smoke, which is the only familiar thing about him. It’s Murph but not my Murph. Something is different in the intensity.

  “How do you feel?” he asks. There’s a desperate edge to his voice. He’s worried, terrified even. But that’s not what’s different.

  “Okay,” I answer. “What happened?”

  “Your car flipped.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “We pulled you out.”

  My chest tightens as I ready myself for the next q
uestion, or rather the answer to the next question. “Where is he?”

  “He didn’t get out. Before it exploded.” He’s careful with his words, as if I might have an emotional reaction to this news, but I can’t help the small laugh that escapes my lips. Maybe it’s the drugs, but I have to lean my head back and let this new reality sink in.

  I’m free. He’s gone, and the only reason I’m still alive is because someone cared enough about me to reach into that car and pull me out.

  “Oh my god,” I rasp as the realization hits. “Your shop. Murph...I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about my shop.” The cold bite in his voice shakes the worry out of me.

  I look at him, my eyes wet and my cheeks flushed. He’s holding something back. I can see it in the way he’s grasping his hands together over his knees. Leaning forward like he wants to touch me, but hasn’t yet.

  “I was so worried about you. When I saw that car flip, and I thought you—” He’s getting worked up, so he leans back and rubs his hand over his beard. He’s calculating his next words before he leans forward and takes my hand.

  Then, I figure it out, what’s different about him. It’s fear. It’s the fear he’s showing. I was so convinced that he wasn’t afraid of anything, that nothing could bring him to his knees, that every arrow that flew toward him only broke on the surface, but this Murph has terror in his eyes. It’s hard to see, but I love it.

  Looking down at our fingers entwined, he speaks, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ve made a lot of bad choices in my life, Savannah. Usually, I think that if I’m not hurting anyone else, then it doesn’t matter. Then, you came along, and I didn’t want to care about you, and I sure as hell didn’t want you caring about me.”

  His beautiful green eyes lift, and I shutter in the intensity of his stare. Then his next words break the glass box around my heart into a million pieces, shards of discarded pain slicing apart everything I’ve built up between us.

  “Savannah, you own my fucking soul.”

  My next breath is a gasp, tear-soaked, rattled. He seems almost bitter about it, and it’s clear, more than ever, that Ian Murphy never really wanted to fall in love.

  Well, neither did I. But here we are.

  I can’t speak as he continues. “There was no stopping my feelings for you, no matter how hard I tried or how much of a dickhead I was. I actually thought I could walk away from us and forget that it all happened, but it tore me to shreds. Watching that car flip...I wished I was in it, Savannah. With you.”

  “Please come here,” I whisper when I feel his hands shake. He’s actually nervous that I won’t feel the same, that I’ll reject him. I couldn’t reject him if I tried.

  In a beat, he’s leaning over me, his lips on mine. I don’t even care how I look or smell. His arms wrap around my body and nearly pull me off the bed, and the course texture to his kiss feels like home. I just hope this isn’t some fucked up drug-induced fever dream.

  When he pulls away, his hands won’t leave my body, and I can’t stop looking at him. This new Murph, the layers between us shredded. I didn’t just crack open a glimpse of the light for myself, I shattered it.

  He sits on my bed as the nurse comes in. She has to clear her throat to interrupt our kissing, and she gives a little laugh as she checks my vitals.

  “I’ll send the doctor in, but with any luck, you should be ready to go home in the morning.”

  “Home,” I echo, looking back at Murph.

  Who knows where or what that is, but with the way he’s holding me, I know I won’t go alone. The rest doesn’t matter.

  Under the harsh lights of this hospital room, there is no more hiding. We can’t push it away anymore. Savannah came crashing into my life, and I covered up all of those growing feelings with sex. When my heart wanted to let its guard down around her, I simply pulled off her clothes, burying myself in her body as if it was her soul.

  She was a habit to get out of my system.

  But as soon as she pulled me close, kissed me like it wasn’t for sex, my chest felt ten tons lighter.

  When they released her from the hospital that night, I carried her out instead of letting them put her in a wheelchair. She laughed at me as I put her in the car, careful to buckle her up without hitting her bad arm. I started to worry that being back in the car would resurface bad memories, but she only smiled at me as I crawled into the driver's seat.

  The drive back to Hazel’s is quiet. I’ll take her back to my house eventually, but for now, I only want her to focus on healing, not whether or not it’s weird to be in my home.

  We didn’t talk much after the nurse walked in with the good news that she could go home. Since then, it was all about final checkups, medications, pharmacies, insurance, bullshit. I was desperate to clear away the distractions and clearly process everything back where we were comfortable.

  I don’t bring up the shop again. I wasn’t lying. I couldn’t care less about it. If it’s gone, it’s gone. I’ll start again. Maybe try something new. Maybe try somewhere new.

  No one is up when we get home. I kept Ruby and Ryder in the loop on her progress, so they know she’s coming back today. It’s still early though, the clock on the wall is just about to chime at 7:00am.

  “Don’t you want to rest?” I ask her as I take her to my room. I didn’t sleep much at the hospital last night. It seemed like there was a nurse coming in every fifteen minutes to change a bandage or take her vitals, but I fought most of them off so they would let her sleep. Still I expect her to be exhausted. Instead, she hops down from my arms.

  “I can walk, Murph,” she says with a short laugh. “And I don’t want to rest.”

  A heavy breath comes out of my mouth as I watch her walk toward the bathroom.

  “I think I need help in the shower though.”

  I busy myself with getting her a towel, some clean clothes—mine because hers went up with the car, and bring them to her. Just as I open the bathroom door, she’s standing by the open shower, not an inch of clothing on her body, and I freeze as I watch her unravel her hair from the elastic band.

  She catches me watching and sends me a soft look, and I’m afraid for a moment she might crumble. Like everything is about to come crashing down. Her fingers move up to her scalp where they had to shave a section to stitch up the gash.

  “I can’t look in the mirror.” Her voice shakes, and I’m stepping toward her, kissing the side of her forehead.

  I feel like I should say something, but what? I could tell her she’s never looked more beautiful because now when I look at her, I see her as mine. She’s not a glimpse on my timeline. She’s the beginning of it.

  But words don’t come because old habits die hard. Instead, I pull her toward me, twisting her so that her back is pressed against my chest. Then, I move her toward the large mirror so she can stare at her reflection in my arms. It’s like we’re back in the tattoo shop again on the day I put that ink in her skin. I can look at our reflection now. It doesn’t scare me anymore.

  Her arms tighten around mine as she leans back to my hold. My lips are on her head again, and I hope she sees what my words couldn’t say. She closes her eyes as her lips find mine.

  Turning back toward me, she pulls my jacket off and touches my shoulders, sliding her hands down my arms. My shirt comes off next so that her bare chest touches mine, and I kiss the side of her head, inhaling her scent: shampoo, sweat, blood, all of it.

  “I need a shower,” she whispers as her fingers fumble with my belt buckle. My pants come off, and she doesn’t even blush when she sees just how hard I am for. Instead, she presses a kiss on my chest, her hands rubbing around to my back. Then, I hear a gasp as she spins me around.

  “Murph, you’re bleeding!”

  I nearly forgot about the gashes from the glass on the ground at the wreck. I spin around to see the dried blood along my back. It’s not as bad as Savannah’s thinking, but she pulls me toward the water like I’m the one who needs the
tenderness.

  We’re careful with the wrap on her wrist and the butterfly bandage on her head as I lean her head back to lather up her hair. Washing her feels like a ritual, taking care to be gentle as I rub my soapy hands across every inch of her body. It’s just our naked bodies against each other and the hot water rolling over our skin, washing away the blood. It’s washing away far more than that.

  She looks up at me with such sincerity, her eyes telling me stories they never told me before. On her tiptoes she presses her lips against mine, and I cup her chin to pull her closer. There’s a stinging feeling behind my eyes that takes me by surprise. The last tear I shed was for Theo, and I swore it would be my last.

  Now, Savannah can have them all. When I watched that car roll, I was convinced I would never have this moment. Suddenly, everything that had value before means nothing. My pride. My quiet, solitary life. My business. They burned up in that fire, and I don’t want any of them back.

  “You look me in the eye now,” she says quietly.

  I grit my teeth and pull her closer. Time could never erase the way I treated her before, how I used her, disregarded her feelings, pushed her away, but I can. I can erase every one of those bad memories with good ones.

  There are a million things I want to say, but she quiets them with a burning kiss on my mouth, stroking her tongue against my lips and easing herself inside. I’m open, all hers. When I feel her rub herself against my leg, I wrap my hands under her ass and hold her against the wall as I slip inside.

  Breaking that threshold, bringing our bodies together for the first time since everything changed, makes my legs tremble before I can move again. She grinds against me, holding my stare as she finds her pleasure, and I lose myself when her head falls back letting out a moan. But I hold it together for her, pumping into her as I watch her explode into fragments of pleasure. My hands hold her body tight against mine, and I wince as she digs her fingers into my scalp, gripping my hair to bring us even closer. Her legs clamp themselves around me, her muscles tensing as I come, filling her with everything I have.