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.
Chapter 23
It was torture to disentangle himself from her velvety warmth, but his back was throbbing where he had slammed it into the newel post, and he was just now starting to notice it, in a big way.
Raine murmured a sleepy protest. “What's the matter?”
“Sore back,” he said. “No big deal.”
She ran her hand across his shoulders. “Take a hot shower,” she suggested, stroking his spine. “It might loosen it up.”
He could think of fifty better ways to loosen up, but he didn't want her to think he was a total sex maniac. He reached back with a short wince and massaged it. “Don't tell anybody, but I'm a little old for stunts like the stairs tumble.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six in about two weeks.”
She kissed his shoulder. “I'm only twenty-eight, you cradle robber, you.”
He leered at her. “Want to take a shower with me, little girl?”
She stretched luxuriously under the covers. “I can't face the cold. And I don't think I can move yet. My bones are liquefied.”
“That's not your bones that are liquid, sweetheart.”
The kiss he gave her could easily have segued into something hot and pounding and delicious, but he dragged himself away. They could always have more sex later. Lots of it. For the rest of their lives.
“Would you like me to call out for some food?” she asked.
His stomach rumbled eagerly at the idea. “Go for it.”