“I‐I ... I’ve never seen a man die before. I came really close once, but it wasn’t messy like this. The blood ... there was so much ... you fired and his head just kind of popped.”
“You’re gonna drive yourself mad thinking about it. It’s done, babe. Nothing we can do now, but you should know he was a bad man. He had a message for Prez, and it would’ve been written in your blood. You got me?”
She doesn’t say anything, just nods, but the panic in her eyes tells me she’s not hearing a word.
“I’m gonna take your hand now, okay?” I reach out and pull her to her feet.
She stands on wobbly legs. Her throat bobs as if she’s swallowing. “He would have killed me, wouldn’t he?”
“He would have done a lot worse than kill you, babe. You’d have wished for death long before it came.”
A shudder moves through her, and maybe that was the wrong thing to say, but I don’t have the words to comfort her. There aren’t any. She saw me blow a man’s head off to save her life. Anything I say is a cold comfort right now. I make sure she’s propped up against the wall and I lean around her and turn on the shower. Warm water bursts from the leaky faucet.
“We gotta get you out of your clothes.” My words don’t even register on her face, but I feel the need to reassure her anyway. “I won’t look.”
I reach out and tug the waistband on her jeans, but Raine puts a hand out to stop me.
“I’m not tryin’ to take advantage of the situation, babe. We gotta get these clothes off you. I need to burn them.”
“I don’t ... why would you burn them? It’ll wash right out with a little stain remover.”
“No, Raine. Your clothes and mine will be covered in DNA. We can’t leave anything to link back to you.”
“Okay.”
“Why don’t you hop in the shower. I’ll sort out some dinner for us.”
“No. Don’t leave.” Her nails dig into the scarred flesh of my bicep and I grimace. I don’t want her touching my skin—not there where it’s crude and has been ravaged by fire. Twisted and ugly flesh that sometimes I long to peel free of my body. “Please don’t leave, Grim. Please?”
“Okay.” I nod, because what else can I do? I’ve never said no to Raine, and I don’t plan on doing it anytime soon. “I’ll stay. I’ll be right outside the curtain.”
I park my arse on the toilet seat and stare down at my hands to avoid looking at her. Not that I don’t want to see her naked. Fuck. I jack it every night to this very fantasy—Raine in my shower—but in my fantasies, I’m not fucked up. I don’t have scars I want to slice clean off my body. In my dreams, I’m the kind of man she deserves, but the reality is all wrong. I’m damaged goods, with the face only a mother would love. Or whores—they’ll love you by the hour if you pay them enough.
Raine pulls the curtain closed and I stare at her naked silhouette as the thin fabric sticks to her. She’s fucking perfect. Just like I knew she would be underneath her clothes. I reach out and trace a finger through the air from her hip to her thigh. I’m not even close enough to touch the curtain because she’s off-limits.
I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees. My dick is hurting, but my heart hurts worse. What kind of cruel fucking god would put her in my hands and tell me I’m not allowed to have her?
By the time she shuts the water off, I’m wound so fucking tight I don’t know how I’m not pinging off every surface in the room. I stand and exit the bathroom to grab a towel from the linen closet. It’s a blanket, really, or it may as well be for someone of her small stature.
When I return, I don’t expect Raine to be standing in the middle of the bathmat completely fucking naked, dripping on my tiled floor. My gaze sweeps over her, hungry and desperate to explore every inch, even though I know these fucked up hands will never have the chance. Her breasts are incredible, heavy with upturned rosy nipples. The kind of nipples you want to suck. She’s trimmed, but not shaved completely or waxed. A neat little triangle of blonde hair covers what I’m sure is the fucking hottest pussy I’ll never see.
I roll my gaze up her small curves to her eyes. They’re no longer empty or void of presence—she’s well aware of my stare, and for a minute I feel like an arsehole. But I’m just a man seeing the woman I love standing naked before me. Everything I want is right here for the taking, yet she’s never been farther out of reach.
I hand her the towel, and Raine doesn’t hurry to cover herself. Maybe she knows. Maybe it’s written all over my face, or maybe she just pities me.
She presses the towel to her face and body. I turn away and make to leave the room. “You aren’t going to shower?”
“Nah. I’ll do it after I’ve burned our clothes. I’ll lay some things out on the bed. Put them on and we’ll have some soup. It’s not much, but it gets the job done.”
“Okay. Grim?”
I glance at her face, keeping my eyes trained to hers though they want to roam. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for saving my life.”
I nod and turn away before I can do something we’ll both regret.
RAINE
I’M STILL SHAKING WHEN I throw on Grim’s flannel and button it up. It’s soft and worn, and it smells like laundry detergent and the faint scent of motor oil. It’s comforting.
I saw him kill a man tonight. I shouldn’t be comforted by anything belonging to this man, but I am. Grim is like the older brother I never had, and despite the stoic violence that ended a man’s life without a second thought, he’s a good man. It seems the good men are the ones who suffer the most.
I press my palms into my puffy eyes and exhale a loud, shaky breath as I head out of the bedroom to the kitchen. He’s at the stove, stirring the contents of a pan, and the rich scent of creamy mushroom soup infiltrates my senses. Grim glances at me, the spoon slipping from his hands and landing in the pot as soup splatters his faded jeans and white shirt.
The fireplace crackles and I glance at it. Blue and green flames burst from the hearth as they consume what I assume is our clothing, and when I look back at Grim, his eyes are fixed on my face.
“Sorry about the clothes. I don’t have anything smaller.”
“It’s okay. The shirt’s pretty comfortable. Can I help?”
“Yeah, grab me some bowls from the second cupboard on the left there, will ya?”
I hurry to the other side of the kitchen and pull the bowls from the cabinet, setting them on the counter beside him.
“Thanks.” He ladles the soup into each bowl and takes one—along with the board containing a loaf of crusty bread—and sets them on the scarred, wooden coffee table. I bring the other and sit beside him on a cracked and worn leather couch.
The pup is curled up by the fire, seemingly unfazed by the way it pops and crackles as it consumes our clothes. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”
“Yep.”
“What’s her name?”
“Lolita.” He blows on his soup and swallows a spoonful. “Lola for short.”
“You have a Chihuahua named Lolita?” A nervous laugh bubbles out of my throat.