“Trouble? What trouble?”
He rubbed his face with a grimace of discomfort. “You've seen how I am. You saw it tonight I open my mouth, and things just come out. And I ruin everything. Every time.”
“Oh, Seth,” she whispered.
“I'm so flicking scared of wrecking this.” His voice came out rough and raw. It embarrassed him. He covered his face with his hand.
Raine cuddled closer. “I'm not afraid of the truth,” she soothed, stroking his hair. “And even if I get mad at you, it's not the end of the world, I've gotten mad at you lots of times, remember? And here I am.”
“Right. I have a hit man to thank for that,” he said sourly.
She kissed his nose. “Don't be silly.”
He closed his eyes and cautiously allowed himself to enjoy the little butterfly kisses, her fingers stroking his hair. “Easy to say right now,” he said. “Wait till one of my moods comes over me. Then you'll see.”
“I've already seen you at your worst, Seth Mackey. More than once. And it's true. You can be just awful. Despicable.”
He opened his eyes. She wasn't exactly laughing, but he distrusted that bright sparkle in her eyes. “I don't see what's so goddamn funny” he growled.
She pulled his hand up to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “It's so simple, Seth,” she said “You're being sweet to me, and everything works beautifully. It's easy. Just... keep on being sweet to me.”
He stared down at her pink, amazingly soft lips as they brushed against his big knuckles, covering them with tender little kisses. “I can't always be sweet,” he said starkly.
“Why not?”
He pulled her closer, almost angrily. As if someone were trying to drag her away from him. “Because the world's not like that.”
Her smile was so beautiful it made his chest burn. Her fingers were so cool and soft, stroking his hot cheek. “Then let's change the world,” she whispered.
Breath jerked into his lungs in sobbing heaves. She did not protest when he rolled on top of her, settling his hard weight into the cradle of her hips. Her body softened, clasping him. Accepting him.
Seth was a millimeter away from losing it. The only way to hold his emotions together was to kiss her, with all of himself. All his desperate hunger. Need pounded through his body, but he held it back, trying to express with his kiss everything that was so impossible to say. His anger and grief and confusion, his growing awareness of how important she was to him. How much that awed and terrified him.
If a kiss could communicate that, this kiss would. He would tell her with his lips and his tongue, with every caress, every nuzzle and licking, swirling kiss. He peeled down me thin straps of the nightgown, pulling it down to her waist, and lost himself in the magic landscape of her body, all the secret hollows and hillocks and hidden places.
Her breath fluttered through her, sweet and light, like the sudden flight of surprised birds. He caressed and suckled her until she was just the way he wanted her, flushed and dazed and desperate. He would learn any language she wanted, if she would only give him time, but for now, this was the only language he had. He would be as eloquent in it as he knew how to be.
He touched her between her legs, a love poem of circles and spirals, until she opened up and pressed herself against him in mute pleading, and he slid down beneath her thighs to continue the love poem with his mouth. Her sweet taste was ecstasy, the baby-smooth skin of her thighs clenched and trembling against his face, the folds of her sex drenched and pulsing, crying out in the throes of climax.
She reached down and pulled until he slid back up on top of her. “This is the way I always want you to be before we make love,” he told her, grabbing a condom. “Wide open from coming like crazy. Both sets of lips pink and soft from being licked and kissed.”
Raine clutched his shoulders and pushed her hips against him eagerly as he entered her. She rested her chin against his shoulder, and he felt the exact moment when something deep inside her body and heart and mind let go, giving herself up to him. He followed her, diving into a new world, a shining place beyond all words. They melted, fused. Her pleasure and his were one single rocking, sighing blur of light and heat.
This time, he wasn't alarmed at all when she melted into tears. He finally felt the lightness of it. Like soft rain in the springtime, rustling on the leaves. A fragrant, healing balm. He vibrated with her, cradling her head against his chest and making sure her precious sore nose was turned to the side.
He stroked her hair and the words just rolled out of him. Halting, and breathless, but he didn't choke on them at all. “I love you, Raine.”
She was so startled she stopped crying. When she breathed again, she shuddered and hitched. “I knew that,” she whispered. “But I didn't know that you knew it. And I certainly didn't expect...”
“Expect what?”
“For you to be the first one of us to say it,” she said bashfully.
He waited, squeezing her tightly against him. He could feel the hot wet tears against his chest. She sniffled, her breath hitching. “So?” he said expectantly.
She sniffed, more aggressively. “Hmm?”
“You got something to say to me?” he prompted.
She shoved him over onto his back and rolled on top of him, wiping her face and laughing through her tears. “You want a formal declaration? I love you, Seth Mackey,” she announced. “I always have. From the very start.”
He tightened his arms around her waist, afraid of the hugeness of the joy rushing through him. “Really?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Oh, God, yes.”
He wound himself around her and stared at her, amazed and humbled. Words had deserted him again, but he didn't care. He didn't need them anymore. It was enough for him, just to touch her hair, feel her body fitting against his, to stare into her eyes. Two halves of a perfect whole. The wonder of it made him tremble.
He slid into sleep with the thought that he would do anything to protect this. Anything.
Seth was fast asleep, but Raine was still flying. She was so high, she was terrified to look down now and see how far there was to fall.
Her mind raced. So much information to process. Was it possible that Victor had sent someone to hurt her? It didn't make sense, didn't fit her perceptions and memories of him. Could he have been so affronted by her reproof that he was punishing her? She was sure he hadn't seen her plant the transmitter. She would have felt the change in his energy.
Maybe she just didn't want to believe that her own father—how odd it was to think of Victor that way—could order someone to hurt her. What a sentimental idiot she was. He had ordered someone to murder his own brother, after all. And she felt hurt, of all things. She really was a Lazar, as crazy as they come. Someone sends a hit man after her, and her reaction was hurt feelings.
Seth murmured in his sleep and snuggled closer to her. She nudged his muscular chest until his long, curling black eyelashes fluttered up. She poked again, pitiless. Sleep could come later, after he had fulfilled his promise. “Talk,” she said succinctly.
He groaned and stretched. “What do you want to know?”
Raine sat up cross-legged, and pulled one of the wool blankets up over her shoulders. “Begin at the beginning. And don't make me pry it out of you, please.”
He picked at the satin blanket trimming, staring up at the ceiling. “I had a brother,” he said finally. His voice was hard and flat.
She nodded. “Yes?”
“A half-brother, actually. I pretty much raised him. He was six years younger than me. His name was Jesse.”
She patted his chest and waited for him to go on.
He stared up at the ceiling, shaking his head. “So Jesse grows up to become a cop, see. Big joke for both of us, considering our upbringing, but Jesse was a romantic. He wanted to save the world. Rescue kittens stuck in trees, babies from burning buildings, that kind of thing. I personally think he watched too much cop TV”
She could already feel what was coming. She braced herself for it. “What happened to Jesse, Seth?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. “He was undercover, investigating your uncle.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
“Oh, yeah. Victor got bored with being fabulously successful in the legitimate business world. In the past few years, he's started dabbling in the dangerous stuff again. Mostly stolen weapons and antiquities, I think. But what got Jesse and his partner all excited was one of Victor's clients, Kurt Novak. Another collector of stolen goodies. Novak is a serious bad-ass. Makes Victor look like a pussy cat. More money than God, no conscience whatsoever. His daddy is a big man in the Eastern European mafia. Novak was the real prize they were after. They almost nailed him, but somebody tipped Lazar off. I don't know who... yet. And Jesse was out on the limb when it got sawed off. Novak killed him. Slowly.”
“Oh, Seth,” she whispered. She laid her hand on his chest, but he was too far away to feel her.
“I should have been there to help him,” he said. “I might have been able to change things. But I was too late.”
She wanted to soothe and comfort, but she knew that words would be useless and empty. She pressed her lips together and waited.
Minutes passed. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
“So that’s the story. I've spent months watching Victor. Waiting for him to make contact with Novak. And when he does, I'm bringing those guys down. Lazar, Novak and the traitor. I've been living for that. Just that. I sure as hell didn't plan on... something like you happening to me.”
She settled against his chest, letting her hair drape over him. “So you and I have more in common than I thought.”
He played with a lock of her hair. “I guess so,” he said doubtfully.
She stretched out next to him and propped herself on her elbow. “Tell me about Jesse “ she asked gently.
He looked startled. “Like what?”
“What was he like?”
He looked clouded for a minute, and then he gave a hard little shrug. “He was nuts,” he muttered. “A clown. Incredibly smart. He had these weird green eyes that were kind of too big. Huge feet. Mad scientist hair. When he was too busy to cut it, it just knotted into dreads. And he was a tender-hearted sap. Always in love, always giving away the shirt on his back. He never learned. Never.”
She smiled at the image he was creating. “Go on.”
His eyes grew distant, and he fell silent. She was about to ask what was wrong when he started up again, in a halting voice. “One time, it was Halloween. He was about eight, I think. Mitch, my stepdad, had locked me in the closet for some reason—”
She stiffened. “Oh, God.”
“Oh, it was no big deal, I probably deserved it,” he said, his expression faraway. “Anyway, Mitch got blind drunk and forgot about me for about twelve hours. Jesse couldn't find the key, so he got his blanket and pillow and curled up on the other side of the door. He didn't want me to be all alone in the dark. He passed me all of his Halloween candy that would fit under the door. All the flat stuff. Mini Hersheys, mini Nestles Crunch, all of it. He even squashed his peanut butter cups. I tried to make him go to bed, but he just had to keep me company.” Raine's throat tightened. “Oh, Seth.”
He smiled at the memory. “I think I was off chocolate for years after that. But if you're sitting in the dark on top of a pile of stinking gym shoes, and somebody gives you chocolate, you eat it.”
He paused. His fleeting smile faded, replaced by bleakness. His eyes flicked up to hers. “So there you go. That was Jesse for you. Satisfied?”
Raine pressed her cheek against his chest to hide her tears. “Oh, Seth. I think I would have loved your brother.”
“Yeah, well... I sure did.” His face contracted. He jerked away from her, rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow.
Raine draped herself over his broad back and absorbed the racking tremors into herself. Covering and protecting him. She had no idea how long they stayed like that. They slipped loose of linear time. She would have stayed years if it could have healed him. Centuries.
He finally stirred, and she lifted herself up. “Seth—”
“No more stories about Jesse. He's dead now. Let him stay dead.”
She did not flinch away when he grabbed her and rolled on top of her. “Gently,” she said, cupping his face. I don't want you lost in some tornado in your mind a million miles away. Come back to me.”
His body was rigid, his eyes so lost and dark with pain that her throat burned for him. 'Think island sunset,” she urged, covering his face with soft kisses. “Think garlands of tropical flowers.”
He rolled over and pulled her on top of him, gripping her hips painfully hard. “You run it,” he said roughly. “I can't control anything. I don't know how to give you what you want”
She kissed away the tears that had trickled out of the corners of his eyes, rubbing her wet cheek against his hot, scratchy one. “Sure you do,” she told him. “You always have, from the beginning. You're brilliant at it. You're inspired.”
She smoothed the condom over him with a slow, lingering caress, and guided him into herself, sinking down over him, enveloping his burning heat with a sobbing sigh of pleasure. He grasped her waist with a groan as she rose up onto her knees and sank down again, taking more of him. Deeper, bolder. Soothing him with her silken softness.
Raine pried his hands away from her waist and held them out, spreading them wide. She swayed over him in a divine dance of love and acceptance, rejoicing that he finally trusted her enough to be vulnerable; to ask, with arms and mind and heart wide open, for her love and healing. And she could not help but give him what he needed. It would have destroyed her to withhold it.
She wanted to heal all his wounds, fulfill all his dreams.
She wanted to love him forever.