Loving me?
“You ever need to talk about it with someone who’s been there,” Ripper says quietly, “you give me a call.” He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a brand new cell phone—same model as my old one. “We keep a bunch of these around as spares. Because what we do? You wouldn’t believe how many phones we drop, step on, or throw.” He almost smiles. “Wren got your info from the carrier, so it should be just like your old one was never destroyed. My number’s in there. Along with everyone else’s. Just look under Family.”
Graham
I trust Ripper with my life. But I have no idea if Q was ready to talk to another person. Not up close, one on one. I didn’t want to leave them alone together, and my momentary pause had Rip arching his brows and staring pointedly towards my bedroom. Though he’s one of the hardest guys to read—harder even than Ryker—the meaning was clear.
Get the fuck out and give us a minute.
So I set Clementine’s bed on the low dresser next to the window, clean out half my top drawer for the clothes we brought from Q’s place, find a spot for the litter box in my bathroom, and then stop short before I reach the hallway.
I want to see his things here all the time. Or see our things together somewhere. Anywhere.
Before I return to the living room, I pull off my boots and tactical vest and shove them into my go bag. Ryker installed an industrial strength washer and dryer at the warehouse, and it’s the only thing that can get the stench of blood, sweat, and gun oil out of fabric.
Ripper sits next to Q with Charlie leaning against both their legs. “I mean it. Any time,” Rip says. “Don’t pretend it didn’t happen. And for fuck’s sake, don’t hide anything from Graham. He got me through the first couple of days, and he understands. Probably a hell of a lot more than you think.”
Q nods, and the tears on his cheeks catch the light.
“Ready to go, Charlie?” Rip asks. As soon as he stands, the dog pops up, tail wagging, and after a beat, takes Ripper’s place on the couch and noses Q’s hand.
For a second, nothing happens until Q, with Clementine perched on his shoulder, wraps his arms around the dog. This is Charlie’s gift. He just knows what people need.
When Q lets go, Charlie licks Clementine’s side gently, and the kitten coos at him and starts purring even louder. I can’t believe they bonded so well in under twenty-four hours.
Then again...Q and I? We shouldn’t be here. At this stage where if he weren’t so confused and exhausted, I’d be confessing my love for him.
So many members of my little family—West, Inara, Ryker, Ripper, Dax, Ford, Trevor, even Austin Pritchard—found their forevers. Some took longer than others. Hell, Ford and Trevor needed decades. But seeing them with their partners? It taught me something. It taught me a lot of things.
Your family? You get to choose them. I found most of mine at Hidden Agenda. But the last piece? The one who makes me feel complete? He’s sitting right in front of me. Found by chance and bravery and pain. And unless he asks me to...I’m never letting him go.
Quinton
Light filters in from a crack in the curtains. I’m not sure what time it is. Only that Graham’s sleeping next to me and we’re safe.
After Ripper and Charlie left, Graham helped me shower. I could barely stand, but smelling Alec’s cologne on me? It was making me sick. Then he tucked me into his bed and offered to sleep on the couch.
I must have managed the “Are you serious?” look well enough, because he only left me long enough to check the locks before climbing in next to me.
I reach for his hand under the sheet, and as soon as we touch, he links our fingers and yawns. “Figured you’d sleep all day,” he says, then turns to me and pushes up on an elbow. “How do you feel?”
“Like I was beaten up, handcuffed to the floor of a crappy van for fifteen hours, drugged, and forced to sign over my entire company.”
Graham’s eyes widen. His hands frame my face, and he touches his forehead to mine. “Q? Ripper and Wren are tech geniuses. Rip knows the ins and outs of every bank in the world, and Wren…you’re going to be shocked as hell when you meet her. She’s this petite little thing with red hair and she never curses. Ever. But she basically lives her entire life on the dark web.”
I’m not sure why he’s telling me all this. Holding a coherent thought for more than a few minutes is still harder than it should be.
“Baby, you didn’t lose anything. Wren intercepted the electronic paperwork and made it disappear. Alec had managed to hack into your bank accounts to empty them, but Ripper got it all back. Plus everything he took from you in Dallas.”
It takes a few minutes for his words to sink in, but when they do, my eyes start to water. “All of it?”
“Yes. Silver Star Technologies is still one hundred percent yours. As is Zen Oasis. And the townhouse. Everything.”
Shifting onto my side, I stifle my groan. Graham carried me out of that basement. Across the yard. On and off the plane. He’s held me every minute he could.
But he hasn’t kissed me once. Not really kissed me. Chaste brushes of his lips to my cheek or forehead. That’s it.
I know why. He doesn’t want to hurt me. But I need this—need him—more than anything.
So I cup the back of his neck, pull him in, and press my lips to his. It’s gentle. Not too deep. A connection. A tether to help us find our way out of this darkness.
We’re both breathing a little harder when we draw back, and Graham’s eyes are full of so much uncertainty, it breaks my heart.
“Darlin’, I can’t go back to that bench. That’s where he found me. He had everything all ready. The van. The drugs. Dennis. It only took two minutes.”
“Fucking hell. I should have been there.” He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry—”
“No, Graham. No.” I reach for him, not certain I can sit up on my own yet. Not without a hell of a lot of pain, but he slides his arm behind my back and arranges the pillows so I have some support.
Staring down at my hands, all I can see are the reddish abrasions from the cuffs. “You can’t protect me every minute. No one can. Just like I can’t make sure you’re safe when you go out on a mission. If you’d been in town? Alec just would have waited until I was alone. Until you went to the store or the coffee shop or to the Unicorn.”
“I know. Rationally, I know that.” He scrubs his hands over his face, four days of stubble rasping along his palms. “All I could think—the whole time—was how you’d just started taking your life back when that asshole stole it again.”
“Tried. He tried to steal it. And you stopped him.” Tangling my legs with his, I fold him into my embrace, realizing I can comfort him for a change. “Darlin’, I haven’t even begun to process what happened. I don’t know how, but I’m damn sure it’s not going to be good when I do.”
Graham tightens his arm around my waist and presses a kiss to my collarbone.
“Right now, it feels like a nightmare. In a few days...it’s going to be a hell of a lot more real. But so is this.” I lean down to brush my lips to his. “Us. Alec took my choices away. He drugged me and tied me up and locked me in a windowless room where I thought I was going to die.” My voice cracks and a bit of the reality seeps through the bubble Graham’s apartment gives us. “But every time I wanted to give up, to stop fighting and let go, I thought about you. And how much I wanted to be with you again. About how much...I love you.”
Graham sits up straighter, and when our gazes collide, we’re both a little teary. “Did you—?”
“I love you. That’s what I wanted to tell you on that bench.”
He surges forward, and this time, the kiss is anything but tame. It’s raw, desperate, full of passion, but also something else. Something deeper and more important than anything else in this world.
“I love you, Q. I was going to tell you when I got back. Because I don’t ever want to leave on a mission again without you knowi
ng I have the best reason in the world to come home.”
We cry a little—or, he cries a little, I sob almost uncontrollably for a good five minutes. And when I finally stop, that kiss...it leads to so much more.
Epilogue
One month later
Graham
“Are you sure about this, baby?”
Q holds my hand, his fingers tight around mine outside Broadcast Coffee. The shop is only two blocks from our condo downtown, and thanks to West and Cam’s housewarming gift of a new espresso machine, we’re now both hopeless coffee nerds.
He presses closer to me. “No. But if I can do this, I can handle dinner tonight.”
The morning rush is over, though there are at least ten people inside at the tables, working or chatting with friends. Q’s terrified of crowds, but after we rescued him from his asshole ex, something changed.
He could barely walk for two days, so we spent most of the time in bed or on the couch watching movies, talking, and playing with Clementine. Once he’d felt steady enough to shuffle slowly with my arm around his waist, he’d asked me to take him outside.
“Are you sure?” I cup his cheek, the bruise under his eye still dark purple in spots, but now tinged with yellow around the edges. “You know I’ll love you no matter what, right?”
Q nods and though his smile feels forced, he straightens his shoulders and covers my hand with his. “I can’t let him steal another day from me, Graham. I’ve missed out on so much. Feeling the sun on my face. Seeing the cherry blossoms. I’ve even missed the rain. Some of this I need to do on my own. You can’t magically heal me. Or take every step with me. But today, I just want to be able to tell you I love you outside. In the sun.”
I hold the door open, and Q takes two steps across the threshold. Today’s a good day—physically—and he didn’t even need his cane.
“You want me to order?” I keep my voice low, letting him take the lead if he wants.
“I can do it. But stay with me?” Reaching for my hand, he links our fingers.
“Always.” I’m so fucking proud of him. Every day, we’ve made it a little further, tried something new. Last week, not long after the sun rose, we ventured out to the grocery store on the corner.
We only bought one thing. A pint of mint chip ice cream. By the time we got home, Q was shaking so badly, he took a Xanax, then spent the next few hours in his massage chair with Clementine. But two days later, we tried again. And that time, it was easier.
I still worry every time I go to Hidden Agenda. But now that we live in the same building as Ripper and Cara—the complex Ry bought when Rip moved to Seattle—at least I know he’s protected. The building is secure as fuck, biometric scanners on every door, and each tenant thoroughly vetted.
Q’s met everyone at Hidden Agenda by now—except Cam and Royce, but they’ve all come to us in twos or threes. Never all at once. Rarely in a space he’s never seen.
Ripper’s helped both of us deal with the aftermath of Q’s kidnapping, and the other night, when Q was working late on the next version of Zen Oasis, Rip invited me over for a beer.
We sat out on his balcony, Charlie between us, and I told him my story. He was quiet for a long time, and then he admitted his own truth.
“Ry and Dax...they don’t know,” he says, his voice nothing but a hoarse whisper. “Cara’s the only one...”
I want to hug him, but physical contact isn’t his style. So I nod, stare out over the city, and assure him this conversation is only for us.
“I worry sometimes,” I say, staring down at the bottle in my hand, “that Q wants more than I can give. And fuck. I was never a bottom, but I used to like it when guys would…play around a little…” I don’t want to get too graphic and trigger him, but I don’t have any gay friends in this town. Not ones I trust like I trust Ripper.
“Have you asked him?” Rip takes a swig of his beer and leans forward to scratch Charlie’s neck.
“No. I let him grab my ass once and it was…nice. But I’m too scared to do more.”
“Why?”
Staring out over the city, I sigh. Puget Sound is dark and quiet, and the buildings are all lit up for the Seahawks game. The sight calms me, and I take another swig of beer. “Because what if I have a panic attack and hurt him?”
Rip flinches. “I hurt Cara once.” The admission costs him. More than I thought he had left to give. “Fought her. All because her hand slipped. Her fingers were too close to…” He shakes his head, and the pain in his eyes...he’s been through so much. Too much. “I left bruises on her arms. Every day for a week I had to look at what I’d done. But she never blamed me. Not once. Q won’t either.”
That night, as I buried myself deep inside Q, I guided his hand to my ass. Told him I trusted him. It wasn’t much, just a touch. His fingers skimming my crack. But it didn’t hurt. Didn’t dredge up any bad memories or make me feel like I was broken.
The pressure of Q’s hand on mine brings me back to the present, and I meet his gaze. Shit. We’re already at the counter.
“‘Morning,” the barista says with a bright smile. “What’ll it be?”
I can feel Q trembling next to me, but when he finds his voice, it’s only slightly strained. “Two sixteen ounce pour-overs, please.”
“For here or to go?”
The man I love doesn’t hesitate to answer. “Here. We’ll drink them here.”
When we find a small table in the corner, somewhere we can watch the door for threats, I lean in and press a soft kiss to his lips. “You amaze me every day, Q.”
He stares out the window, tracking a cloud drifting across the autumn sky. “Manny said something to me not long after you and I met. He was going out of town for a couple of weeks and he left me with an assignment. To go for a walk. He told me therapy could only get me so far. That I needed to remember what it was like to live again.”
For a few long moments, he doesn’t say another word. But after the barista delivers our drinks, he takes a sip and smiles. “I told him I’d try, but deep down, I knew I was lying. Nothing was going to let me live again. I was so wrong.”
“What changed your mind?” I ask.
“You.” His eyes sparkle, but not with tears. No. This is joy. Happiness. Love. “Before, I was so worried if I failed, I’d never have the courage to try again. But you never pressured me. Never asked me for more than I could give. I love you, darlin’.”
When we kiss, it’s like everything else falls away. We’re not two broken people trying to glue ourselves back together. We’re whole. We may be cracked, flawed, damaged in ways that will never fully heal, but so is everyone else in this world.
We fit. And no matter what life throws at us, we’ll face it together.
Q saved me as much as I saved him. He gave me the courage to face my darkness and know I could come out the other side into the light. Our scars don’t define us. Don’t control us. They make us who we are.
Thank you for reading Braving His Past. This book was harder than any I’ve ever written for a couple of very personal reasons, but I’m so happy you could meet Q and get to know Graham as well as I do.
If you’re a series fan, then you probably understand just how big of a surprise it was to hear about the big news for Ry and Wren in this book.
I would like you ask you for a favor. Please, do not mention this surprise in any of your reviews. Spoilers in reviews can ruin the entire book for other readers, and this is one heck of a spoiler. I hope you’ll review, of course, but please think of your fellow readers and keep that bit of information a secret.
Next up in the Gone Rogue series, you’ll meet Griff in Rogue Officer. And the Away From Keyboard series will continue soon with Ronan’s story, Protecting His Target. Both of those books are available for preorder NOW!
I’d like to thank several folks in my reader group, Patricia’s Unstoppable Forces, for their help with aspects of this book. Jenn D. Young named Quinton’s cat, Clementine.
Mandy J
ones and Sue Voris came up with the name for Quinton’s app, Zen Oasis. Trust me when I say this: I am terrible at naming things. TERRIBLE. They saved the day.
I’d also like to add a very personal note.
On March 30, 2021, my husband and I had to say goodbye to our beloved Binky. He was so much more than just a cat. Binky was a big, beautiful, loving, amazing, sensitive soul in a cat’s body.
We adopted him when he was six, and he lived to be eighteen. Those twelve years brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined, and his death leaves me with a hole in my heart I will never be able to fill.
To some people, pets are just that. Pets. And that’s okay. But to me? To my husband? They’re our family. They’re our children in every way that counts. We started a website for Binky (and for our other cats and any future pets we bring into our lives). If you’d like to know Binky (and Wingnut and Abbie) better, you can. He’ll forever be honored at https://ForBin.ky.
Every book I’ve ever written has been with Binky at my side. He was my constant writing companion, and even when he tried to step on the keyboard and add his own spin to sentences, I loved him.
Finishing this book without him? It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done besides letting him go.
So, Binky Buddy? Wherever you are right now? You were the bestest buddy ever. Still are. You made our lives better in every way. I love you. I miss you. And I will never forget you.
About the Author
I’ve always made up stories. Sometimes I even acted them out. I probably shouldn’t admit that my childhood best friend and I used to run around the backyard pretending to fly in our Invisible Jet and rescue Steve Trevor. Oops.
Braving His Past: An Away From Keyboard Romantic Suspense Standalone Page 22