As if sensing eyes on him, he turned toward the house. I stepped back from the window so he wouldn’t catch me watching him. I wasn’t the same squeamish girl he’d met eight weeks ago. Full of resolve, I ran back upstairs, threw on my dirty clothes and my sneakers and returned to the kitchen.
Ripper turned his head when I opened the door and stepped outside, watching silently when I crossed the yard and stood beside him.
“I want to help,” I said.
Moonlight reflected in his eyes as he considered my offer. “There’s another shovel in the garage.”
Without another word, I fetched the shovel and took position at the opposite side of the hole. Ripper worked with brisk efficiency, me, not so much. Every time I stomped on the blade, the tip turned in the hard ground, scraping up a paltry amount of dirt. I threw out one shovel full of soil to every five Ripper produced, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I stood at his side, doing my best to help out.
When the hole was deep enough, we each grabbed one end of the tarp, slid it over to the pit, and dumped Frank’s body into the grave. I averted my eyes as the corpse tipped into the hole and winced at the squelching sound.
Suck it up.
Covering the body with the soft soil took only a few minutes. Ripper tamped down the earth, then took my hand as we stood over the grave.
“I think they would be glad that we did this for them,” I said.
“Yeah,” Ripper agreed.
He examined me in the dim light, no doubt taking in the smudges on my face and tee where I’d rubbed my dirt-covered hands. Without a word, he grabbed my shoulders and yanked me forward, kissing me with an urgency that made me gasp.
“Whatever happens, whatever comes, we’re sticking together, Mac. You got that?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “We won’t end up like Frank and Evelyn. Odds are, we’re both immune. The flu’s not going to get us. We’ll go to Valhalla, and we’ll figure out what comes next.”
He pressed his forehead against mine, and we held on to each other, no further words necessary. After a few moments I lifted my head and glanced at the grave. “Rest in peace, Frank and Evelyn.”
We carried the shovels back to the garage. The waning moon hadn’t reached its highest point in the night sky when we came indoors, still hours to go before dawn. We went upstairs and took a shower together before returning to bed. Instead of sliding in between crumpled sheets that stank of sex and sweat, we shifted over to a fresh bed in the next room.
I was physically tired, but my brain had trouble letting go of the events of the day. Even while Ripper and I spooned, my restless mind made me twitchy. With a sigh, he rolled me over onto my back.
“Anything I can do to help you sleep?”
“How about you make me forget everything but you.”
“Yeah, I can do that.” His hand slipped under the sleep tee I’d put on after our shower, and his fingers spanned my rib cage. “You’re gonna lie back and let me take care of you.” Hair still damp and tousled from the shower, he had a lazy smile on his lips as he eased his body over mine. He looked perfectly relaxed, perfectly at peace. It was an illusion, of course. If anything happened, within the space of a single heartbeat he’d be on his feet and ready to fight.
Daring greatly, I touched his cheek. “Make love to me, Ripper.”
Make love, an old-fashioned phrase that could simply be a prim way to avoid all the crude euphemisms for sex, but it contained more than a kernel of truth. I wanted Ripper to love me. And I wanted this often savage man—this warrior, Ranger, and Janissary—to know what it was like to be touched with love. Not with anger, or hate, or fear, or simple lust, or any of the countless reasons that led others to lay hands on Ripper. I would touch him with love, let my hands and lips convey the truth that words could not. Not yet, anyway.
He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me, his lips gentle. He’d fucked me with fierce abandon a few hours before. Now, he caressed me with all the tenderness that union had lacked. The moon bathed the room in soft light. My eyes sought his, our connection a gravitational pull. Our gazes locked as our bodies moved together, floating effortlessly, harmoniously, on a sea of pleasure. Orgasm crept up on me as undeniable, as inexorable, as a rising tide, coaxed by the moon to swell and crest. Finally, languid and sated, I curled against his chest and drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, I woke early and crept downstairs to prepare breakfast. I gathered up our dirty laundry and started a load. Kyle and Sahdev had run a load of their own laundry the night before, probably when Ripper and I were occupied in our room. Smiling to myself, I imagined them debating whether or not they should knock on our door and offer to throw our clothes in with theirs. If so, discretion would have won out over practicality, especially if they paused outside of the door to listen for any sounds coming from inside.
I searched the pantry for the makings of a decadent breakfast and was rewarded with a two-pound package of shelf-stable, cooked bacon. It couldn’t compare to freshly cooked bacon, but I’d never met a man who didn’t go weak in the knees at the smell of bacon sizzling in a skillet. A bag of potatoes that hadn’t turned soft or green was tucked into a corner, and I decided to make hash browns. A blueberry muffin mix caught my eye, and I grabbed two bottles of juice, orange and grapefruit. I whooped with joy when I found an unopened bag of my favorite Stumptown coffee beans. Score! No fresh eggs, unfortunately, but with the leftover cherries, still a bountiful breakfast.
The diced potatoes sizzled in an old cast iron skillet, the muffins were baking in the oven, and the coffee brewing when I put the cold bacon in a skillet to crisp. Within minutes, I heard doors open upstairs and heavy footsteps on the stairs, followed by the click of Hector’s nails on the hardwood floor.
“Bacon!” Kyle shouted, pumping a fist into the air. Hector apparently shared Kyle’s enthusiasm. He barked once, then stared at me with big, hopeful eyes.
“She’s not going to fall for it,” Ripper warned Hector, following Kyle and Sahdev into the room. “Too much fat and salt for you.” If a dog could look crestfallen, Hector did.
Ripper wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed his bare chest against my back as he peered into the skillet.
“Hector’s disappointed, but you made me a happy man.” He brushed my hair to one side, exposing the bite mark on my neck, before kissing the spot. “Again.” Spatula in hand, I turned around in his arms and shot him a look of wide-eyed surprise.
“Really?” I mouthed.
No way his comment and behavior would go over Kyle and Sahdev’s heads. From his grin, it was clear that that was exactly what he intended. He squeezed my ass, bringing home that point, before releasing me and pouring himself a cup of coffee.
Staking my claim. Letting the kid know the lay of the land.
That’s what he’d said about similar territory-marking behavior when he first met Kyle. Did he really think that he had to warn Sahdev to keep his hands off? Ripper didn’t have an insecure bone in his body, and I’d made it clear that I chose him, but he’d made it clear that he’d claimed me and told me I was his. Maybe this was part of his mysterious biker culture I’d yet to understand. Maybe he was just goofing around, and I was overthinking it.
Sahdev’s gaze moved back and forth between Ripper and me. I blushed. He was always the perfect gentleman. What must he think of our sexual banter and the huge, freaking bite mark on my neck that Ripper exposed?