by Aly Martinez
Much less that I was at risk of losing her.
Again.
Her motions were frantic as she raced away, but her head didn’t swing from side to side with caution or respect for the oncoming cars. Getting to the other side of that street as quickly as possible was her only concern.
Meanwhile, getting to her was mine.
People were yelling. Horns were blaring. Brakes were squealing.
But her feet kept moving.
Therefore, so did mine.
My mind fought to remain in the present, but the closer I got, I no longer saw a woman in the middle of traffic. I saw a wounded butterfly with flames closing in all around her. Bile rose in my throat as I sucked in a gasp of the cool night air. Only it was smoke that filled my lungs, a searing pain that formed at the back of my neck, and a blast of heat that threatened to take me to the ground.
And then a deep, guttural sound tore through me, shredding me from the inside out as I watched her fall. Again.
“No!” I yelled as she hit the pavement.
Cars locked their brakes up and swerved onto the curb to try to avoid her. In that moment, I longed for the slow motion of when our gazes had met because it was all happening so fast that I could barely keep her in my sights.
I lurched toward her, but I’d never reach her in time. A fact that burned so deeply it felt like my soul had been dipped in acid.
I’d failed her.
Again.
Johnson, however, did not.
With one swoop, he hooked his arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground, her colorful wings dangling at her sides as he held her to his chest, her terrified, blue eyes finding mine over his shoulder. Her shaking hand reached out to me, and her lips moved in the pattern of my name. The idea that she needed me as I stood yards away sliced through me like a rusty blade.
With three long strides, he carried her up onto the sidewalk.
To safety.
It was more than I’d ever been able to do for her.
The all-too-familiar feeling of guilt rolled in my stomach.
Johnson carried her toward the front door of the Guardian Protection building, and that should have been the end of it. It was time for me to go. And not just back to the hotel that had become my makeshift home over the last week. It was time to leave for good.
Maybe go back to LA.
Maybe New York.
Maybe somewhere completely off the grid until I could get my shit together.
Any of those options would have been a good decision.
But none of them would have given me her—even if she wasn’t mine to take. I had no place in her present, despite the burns on the back of my head and my neck that forever made her a part of mine.
But I’d spent four years ignoring the immense need to reach out to her. To check on her. To make sure her breaths had started to come easily and her tears had finally dried.
My mind screamed for me to let her go and spare her the trip down memory lane it appeared she was so desperately trying to avoid. But it seemed my legs didn’t listen to logic any more than my heart, because even as indecision warred inside me, I jogged straight to the doors, my heart slamming against my ribs with every step.
I caught sight of the red tips of her hair as the elevator doors began to close. Ignoring the decent and rational side of my mind, I shoved a hand between the doors and slid my large body inside.
An inexplicable sense of relief washed over me as I took in her uninjured body. It didn’t matter that she was tucked into Johnson’s side or mumbling repeatedly that she wanted to go home.
She was there.
My attention snapped up to Johnson as he tightened his arm around her waist and shifted her closer against his chest. It was a pointed move, one of possession that echoed loud and clear through the elevator. But I wasn’t there to take her from him. I didn’t actually know why I was there at all.
As he held my stare, I prepared for an argument. Though I didn’t know what I could have said. Despite what I told myself, I didn’t know the woman clinging to his chest.
Jesus, what the fuck am I doing?
I opened my mouth, but Johnson shook his head and lifted a finger to his lips. He was pissed—that much was clear. But there was something else showing in his eyes. Compassion? Understanding? Tolerance?
When the elevator came to a stop on the third floor, he guided her off. Confusion crinkled my brow. Guardian was on the fourth floor. However, as soon as her feet made it over the elevator threshold, she took off at a sprint, not slowing as she waved a security card in front of her door and darted through it. When the door slammed behind her, I raked a hand through my hair and turned to see Johnson glowering at me from outside the elevator.
“You need to leave,” he stated matter-of-factly.
I couldn’t say I disagreed with him, but there was still a piece of me that ached to follow her.
“What the hell happened back there?” I asked.
He shoved off the wall and started for the door. “Go home, Levitt.”
I reached forward and caught his arm. “You need to talk to me here. I know her… I mean, I knew her. When I was a cop—”
“I know all about the fire.” He glanced down at my hand on his bicep and yanked it from my grasp. “I also know that she does not need to see you right now.”
I took another step toward him. “Fine. But that doesn’t explain why she bolted out into traffic to get away from me. Is…” I cut my gaze over his shoulder and to her door. “Is she okay?”
He continued to stare at me, giving away nothing in his reaction. In a low rumble, he asked, “She look okay to you?”
She had. She’d looked more than okay. Carefree and radiant, even. But all of that had splintered into a million broken shards when I’d shown up.
I’d done that to her. Not on purpose. I had no idea she’d be in that bar. But, right then, I knew she was on the other side of the door. And, if I went after her the way I longed to, that pain in her eyes would have become mine to own.
I’d done enough to that woman without adding this selfishness to the list.
I rubbed the back of my scarred neck and dropped my eyes to the ground. “Tell her I’m sorry.”
He didn’t reply. Nor did he move as I backed into the elevator. When I started digging through my pockets for my security card, he slid in front of me. Respect blazed in his eyes as he waved his card in front of the sensor and then slapped the button for the garage.
Slowly backing out of the elevator, he said, “She’d say she was sorry, too.”
My chin jerked to the side. He hadn’t said it with malice, but it still wounded me all the same. I didn’t deserve any apologies. Especially not from her.
Johnson held my stare until the door slid shut.
Completely numb, I rode the elevator down to the garage.
I didn’t go back to my hotel room. Or the bar.
I did the one thing I hadn’t done in years.
After picking up a bottle of Jack and committing a minor trespassing offense, I stared up at the stars above the empty lot in Park Hill Estate while trying to figure out where it had all gone wrong.
It didn’t feel like I was moving, but somehow, I knew I was falling. The world became a blur as terror faded into acceptance.
I was going to die.
My only hope was that it wouldn’t take long for that sea of flames to end my twenty-two years of life. Every memory I’d made, every breath I’d taken, every dream I’d had for the future—they would all become nothing more than fuel to feed the dancing, red conflagration. And then, when it was ultimately smothered out, my entire existence would be extinguished right along with it.
In those seconds, as I plummeted toward my death, the fear subsided and I became hyperaware of my surroundings. A cool rush of air licked at my skin despite the unbearable heat roaring up at me. And, as though someone had parted it from above, the cloud of smoke broke apart, revealing a clear night sky. I stared
up at the stars in rapt awe, wondering if this was my father’s way of letting me know he was there with me. He’d been gone for six weeks. Maybe he’d come back for me. With the thought, a calm washed over me.
Nothing felt real anymore.
There were no more screams for help.
No more pleas to God that would go unanswered.
Yet, as every nerve ending in my body exploded in pain, I heard someone yelling. Masculine war cries pierced through me in a way that left me unable to focus on the overwhelming agony flooding my system. Shock did weird things to a person, because I was very aware that I was on fire, but as my lungs burned for a single breath, my heart yearned to soothe the man’s suffering.
And then I died. Or so I assumed as the world around me fell silent and the bright light faded to absolute darkness. It was utterly beautiful in the sense that it was nothing.
No pain.
No fear.
No heartbreak.
The end.
Until his strong hand landed on mine, snatching me back from the grips of death.
“Hang on!” he barked, dragging me clear of the flames.
I struggled through the unbearable pain to find my way back to consciousness, his voice being my only guide.
“Stay with me,” he ordered as I felt my shirt being frantically tugged over my head.
Those three words were all it took for the terror to engulf me again.
Hope was funny like that. Without it, accepting the inevitable was a simple process. But, when presented with even the thinnest threads to hold on to, my body’s fight response kicked in full force.
I gasped as I sat straight up, my hands flying out to the sides as adrenaline flooded my veins. A choked, “Oh God,” tore from my throat as I flailed and did my best to help him get my shirt off. His hands slapped down on my aching flesh, patting out flames before tearing my pants down my legs.
I struggled for a gasp of air, but panic had paralyzed my lungs.
“Shhhh. Calm down. Paramedics are on the way,” he assured me, kneeling beside my head and brushing the hair away from my face. “It’s over.”
But it wasn’t. And, if the excruciating pain devouring my arms and my chest was any indication, it never would be.
I peered up into his dark-green eyes as he raked them down my naked body.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “You’re okay.” The lie showed on his grim face.
It was bad. That much was clear.
But I was alive.
“You…you saved me,” I squeaked, tears pouring from my eyes.
His lips thinned, and he shook his head. “You gotta keep breathing.”
The fire roared behind him, lighting him from the back. He looked like an angel. His face was shadowed, but I would never forget a single curve of it. From the hard angles of his jaw to the delicate dark lashes that surrounded his eyes—I committed them all to memory. He was beautiful, and for the briefest of seconds as he stared down at me, soot streaked across his handsome face, I feared I’d made him up.
When I had been hanging from the window, he’d seemed to appear out of nowhere. What if my panic-stricken mind had somehow conjured him? What if he was nothing more than one last hallucination from my subconscious as I sought any possible way to avoid accepting the inevitable?
“Oh God, are you real?” I cried, my body trembling in fear of the truth.
His forehead crinkled. “I’m real,” he swore before sucking in a shaky breath. “I just don’t know if you are, Butterfly.”
A sob caught in my throat. “Please don’t disappear.”
He blew a ragged breath out. “Same goes for you. You stay with me. And I’ll stay with you.”
The sound of sirens screamed in the distance, but for what felt like a million years, his gaze never left mine.
I cried.
He soothed my soul without actually touching me.
I writhed in agony.
He whispered promises that it was almost over.
I prayed for death.
He refused to let go.
He was the only thing that kept me alive.
And then, seconds later, he was literally the only thing that kept me alive.
The ground rumbled beneath me as a deafening creak came from inside the angry house.
He swung his gaze over his shoulder. “Fuck,” he cursed, his eyes growing wide in horror.
Fear surged through me, momentarily pushing the pain into the background. I didn’t have a chance to see what was happening before he was gathering me in his arms. My stomach lurched and a strangled cry escaped my throat as he jostled me.
I hadn’t made it all the way off the ground before he dropped me back down. Pain exploded within me as the heavy weight of his body landed on top of me.
“Oh God!” I cried out, my vision blurring.
The rumble became louder.
“Brace,” he ordered, palming the back of my head and tucking my face into his neck.
My mind swirled, fading in and out of the welcome darkness. Through the smoke clinging to his skin, I caught a whiff of his cologne, and for reasons I would never understand, it eased the panic brewing within me.
He was real.
He was there.
Saving me.
But, as the house collapsed to the ground, sending a wall of brick falling our way, I feared one of us was going to disappear, and worst of all, I worried it would be him.
“Jude!” I gasped as my eyes popped open. The lights from the busy city below illuminated my otherwise dark bedroom.
I was at home.
Not at the fire.
I shook my head, trying to rattle off the hold my memories had over me.
There was a pair of green eyes I couldn’t shake. They weren’t a memory—at least not an old one.
He’d been there. At the bar. His hair had been longer and his skin now carried a golden tan, but it was still him, just as beautiful and strong as I’d remembered.
But that was exactly the problem. He didn’t belong in that bar.
Jude Levitt was only real in my dreams.
A broken ray of light from the hallway streamed in as the door cracked open.
“Jude?” I called, scrambling off the edge of my bed, hope blossoming within me.
“It’s me, Rhion,” Johnson said gently, his large silhouette filling the opening as he pushed my door wide.
My shoulders sagged in disappointment only to stiffen as the memory hit me.
“Apollo,” I breathed, sinking down to the bed. “He was there too.”
“I know. I saw him.”
Anxiety climbed in my chest. “He…he’s never come that close.”
“And he won’t again,” he stated definitively.
If I knew anything about Aidan Johnson, it was that he’d make sure of that or he’d die trying. We’d grown up together. Well, more accurately, I’d grown up. Johnson had been twenty-five and very much a man when he’d starting working for my father. I’d never forget the day I got my first eyeful of Dad’s new tall, dark, and mysterious bodyguard. For a sixteen-year-old girl, Johnson was what fantasies were made of—and boy, did I dream about him. Actually, my entire softball team and I dreamed about him. Though, as I got older, our relationship evolved into something else. That something being that he was the only man on Earth I trusted completely.
I hung my head and rubbed my temples as the night filtered through my mind. I had thought my heart would explode the moment I’d heard Jude call me Butterfly. Chills had broken out on my skin and a shiver had traveled down my spine.
But it was the icy-blue gaze that matched my own that had sent me running.
Why, of all nights, had my brother chosen that one to make an approach?
The one man I’d been dreaming of had finally shown up and Apollo had ruined it as though he’d known how badly it would hurt me. And let’s be honest. This was Apollo; he might have. Destroying me was his life’s mission.
“He can’t hurt you, R
hion.”
It was something Johnson said a lot. I wore the scars to argue otherwise.
“I don’t want to talk about him.” I never did. I couldn’t forget Apollo, but that didn’t mean he had to be the subject of discussion.
He sighed and walked into the room. The bed dipped as he sat beside me. “I’m not gonna fill your head with bullshit. You definitely could have reacted better tonight. You had four men surrounding you. Apollo could have brought an army and he still wouldn’t have been able to touch you.” He bumped his shoulder with mine. “But we’ll get there.”
I groaned then repeated sarcastically, “Yeah. We’ll get there.”
“We will,” he promised.
I offered him a tight smile then collapsed backwards on the bed. “What was Jude doing there?”
He lowered his bulky body back beside me. “He’s Leo’s new guy.”
My mouth gaped open as I slowly turned my head to face him. “No way.”
He chuckled and folded his arm behind his head. “I was gonna warn you tonight. I’d have told you sooner, but you were locked up tight in your writing cave.”
I rolled to my side and propped myself up on an elbow. “I appreciate you respecting my privacy when I’m working, but you could have interrupted me for that kind of news.”
His lips twitched as he fought a grin back. “Yeah, well. I was hoping he wouldn’t hang around long enough for me to have to tell you.”
I knew that grin all too well.
Cocking an eyebrow, I accused, “What did you do?”
He laughed and sat up. “Let’s just say he won’t be sexually harassing anyone any time soon.”
I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but chances were, with Johnson, I didn’t want to know. And I really shouldn’t have wanted to know when it came to Jude Levitt.
Except I did.
I wanted to know everything about that man. There hadn’t been a day in over four years that I hadn’t thought about him.
It had been the deep timbre of Jude’s voice reminding me that it was almost over that rang in my ears as I’d cried out while the nurses changed my bandages. He might have been the only thing that had gotten me through those first few weeks.
It was the memory of his calming, green eyes I focused on as yet another agonizing skin graft took the slow path to healing. And, with over twenty-seven percent of my body covered in burns, it was safe to say I spent a lot time with Jude’s eyes those first few months.
