His head jerked down, his gaze meeting mine, his eyes wide and unfocused. Oh, shit. I’d seen the tension in his body when we’d been in the staircase, experienced the demons he lived with on a daily basis. I’d done a little research on PTSD since he’d returned and knew that certain events could trigger a reaction. I figured the stress of the past few weeks qualified, and the explosion definitely hadn’t helped.
“Can you let me up?” I asked, trying to keep my voice soft while simultaneously wondering if he could hear me, or if like me, his hearing had been affected by the blast.
For a minute I didn’t think my words had registered, and then he pushed off of me, holding a shaky hand out and pulling me up off of the ground, his body tense. A crowd began to gather around us, residents spilling out of the building, people on the street rushing over. The shouts and questions still seemed so far away.
I looked up at the glass windows of my apartment building, doing a mental count of how far up the explosion had been, my gaze drifting over until it reached the window that had been my bedroom. My stomach clenched, my mouth went dry. It looked like the blast had taken out my place and the apartment next to mine—which thankfully, had been vacant since the last tenant was evicted. This had been no accident, and if Matt hadn’t stopped us, we would be dead.
“Are you okay?” he asked, wrapping his arms around me, burrowing me into his body.
I nodded, not quite trusting my voice, tremors shooting through me as the full impact of what had just happened hit me like a ton of bricks. Someone had tried to blow me up. My father had tried to blow me up. The lump in my throat became a boulder.
Sirens sounded in the background, the noise growing louder, more people spilling out onto the sidewalk outside my building. I felt like an immovable object, unable to pick my feet up, panic and fear planting me to the asphalt as surely as though I’d sprouted roots.
“We need to get out of here.” Matt’s gaze swept over the crowd. “We don’t know when they set up the bomb, if they’re still here. And I really don’t want the police getting involved. There are too many questions I’m not ready to answer, the likelihood that someone on your father’s payroll could get involved, too high.”
My breath hitched, feeling inescapably like a caged animal. I’d been full of bravado before, but now, a few steps separating me from life and death, I realized how stupid I’d been, how arrogant my lack of fear was. I’d underestimated my opponent, and that had been an almost deadly mistake.
My father tried to have me killed.
“Kate.” Matt tugged on my hand. “We have to go. Now.”
He propelled me forward and I followed, grateful for his strength. I ducked my head, following his lead as we blended into the crowd, heading toward my car. The farther we walked, the more I thought about the things I’d lost, my apartment that, while kind of crappy, had been my home, one I’d been proud of, one I’d built through my own hard work. I still remembered the day I’d rented it—the moment when I’d decided I could no longer be a part of my parents’ lives anymore. I’d been absolutely terrified and completely free at the same time. It had been the first time I’d really been on my own—independent of Blair playing big sister, Matt looking out for me, or the weight of the Reynolds name mucking everything up. I’d just been a college student there, living on ramen when the occasion called for it, mourning the loss of the boy I’d loved, plodding through my life, day after day.
I fingered the gold necklace around my neck, my thumb rubbing over the “K” etched there, grateful that it had been safe, at least. Grateful that we were safe.
I told myself that it was just stuff, that if we were going to run, I would have left a lot if it anyway, but it wasn’t as much about the stuff as it was the violation of it all. Someone had broken into my home again. Gone through my stuff. Tried to kill me. Tried to kill us.
My heart pounded, my breath hitching, the urge to cry bubbling over. My steps slowed, my knees buckling, legs trembling, the air whooshing through my lungs. Matt’s hold on me tightened, jerking my hand and pulling me along, his strides lengthening, each one full of purpose as he put more distance between us and my apartment building.
When we finally reached the car, my heart slowed a bit, those four doors feeling a lot like safety.
My fingers shook as I buckled my seat belt, my mind racing. When my father had basically told me to watch my back, I’d sort of assumed that I had a few days or something, not exactly, “Watch your back, I’m going to have you killed right fucking now.” Apparently, I was an idiot and needed to lower my expectations when it came to people’s humanity.
I doubled over at the waist, putting my head between my legs, breathing in and out, struggling to steady myself. I felt Matt’s hands stroking my back, tracing the length of my spine, threading through my hair, each touch a soothing caress. I allowed myself to relax into him for a moment, trying to expel the pressure and panic building inside of me. With each brush of his fingers, the fear inside of me ebbed. A minute passed and then I sat up, feeling like I’d regained a little bit of my sanity.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Matt pulled away from me, turning the key in the ignition. The car roared to life, but he just sat there, wrapping his fingers around the steering wheel, his body tense.
“Stay alive.”
“That’s looking more difficult with each moment that passes.”
“Yeah, it is.”
He put the car in drive, maneuvering onto the D.C. street with ease. I heard more sirens in the distance, watched as a fire truck drove by us. Matt pulled over to let it pass, and then we were driving through the intersection, heading away from my apartment.
“Where are you going?”
I was glad he was driving; I was way too shaken up, my mind further along in the process of what had happened than my body. Whatever had plagued Matt back in the stairwell and later on when we were outside on the sidewalk seemed to have been replaced by a steely resolve.
He changed lanes with ease, winding his way through the evening traffic.
“The hotel I checked into when I first came back to the city,” he answered. “It’s a shit hole, but I checked in with a false ID, so I don’t have any reason to believe it’ll be compromised.”
“Then what?”
He turned down a side street, crossing the boundary between my neighborhood, which just barely straddled the line on sketchy, and into trouble.
“I don’t know. I need to come up with a plan. Need to see if my father’s employee can help us at all.” His gaze shifted to me, his voice softening. “I’m sorry about your apartment. Sorry you lost everything. We’ll get you some clothes and stuff.”
I hadn’t even thought about the fact that everything I owned now consisted of this stupid blue and white dress and matching heels.
“I didn’t lose everything,” I replied. “Trust me, I thought I’d lost everything before. This is just stuff. It could have been so much worse.” I reached across the armrest between us, grabbing Matt’s hand and holding on tight. “Thank you for saving my life.”
He nodded, squeezing my fingers, something about the sight of our linked hands making me feel as though everything was all right in my world, even as the walls crumbled down around us.
He hadn’t been kidding about the hotel.
It was rough, in a part of D.C. I’d certainly never been to, and if I hadn’t had big, strong, beard-sporting, six-two, Army badass Matt with me, I probably would have been just as scared over my chances of getting randomly knifed as I was about the odds that whoever had blown up my apartment was still out there trying to kill us.
I followed Matt into the cramped room, a strange odor in the air that I didn’t even want to name, feeling like my life had taken a surreal turn somewhere along the way.
“Is your back okay?” Matt asked. “You hit the concrete pretty hard. I tried to protect your head, but you probably have some scrapes.”
My back, like the rest of
my body, felt completely numb. I didn’t know if it was shock or what, but it was as if I was floating through this evening, as though everything had happened to someone else. Just a few hours earlier, I’d been at work writing a report on Syrian intelligence, preparing for dinner with my parents, and now I was here, in hiding, trying to keep from being killed. It was times like these when I wished my skills had been in covert affairs and not analysis. My job training would have served me well.
I sat on the edge of the bed while Matt grabbed the first-aid kit, his movements confident and clearly rote. How many times had he patched himself up? How many nights did he spend in places like this, hiding and fearing for his life?
The mattress sunk down as Matt joined me on the bed, his big body behind me, his presence reassuring. His hands came up to my nape, dragging the zipper down my dress, his knuckles brushing against my bare skin just above my bra strap. I shivered beneath his touch, his lips following his fingers to press soft kisses along my skin in a line down my spine.
“You have a few scrapes, but it isn’t terrible,” he murmured. “I’m going to put some peroxide on them to clean them out and then I’ll use an antibiotic cream.”
“Thanks.”
“Does it hurt?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure I feel much of anything right now.”
“Your body is probably in shock. It happens. It’ll wear off eventually.”
It felt like I’d been in shock since he came back from the dead; this was starting to feel normal. Everything else felt like the anomaly.
I heard Matt opening the kit, rifling around for what he needed.
“This’ll probably sting a bit.”
His fingers grazed my skin again, his touch gentle.
“How did you know? Back in my apartment, how did you know that we shouldn’t go up there? Does that happen to you a lot?”
He didn’t answer me for a moment as he dabbed at my back.
“Sometimes. Sometimes I sense danger and it’s nothing at all.”
I could hear the frustration in his voice, could feel the tension vibrating from him now. Part of me wanted to back down, knew this was a can of worms that probably shouldn’t be opened with everything else we faced, but we’d always been able to talk about everything. Our relationship had been built on our friendship, so nothing had ever been off-limits or too difficult to share. He needed to talk to someone, and as far as I knew, I was the person he was closest to. I hadn’t lived through the things he had, and I didn’t know what it was like to watch your friends die before you, but I knew him, and I couldn’t sit by while this ate at him, not when I thought that I could help. He needed someone to listen to him, someone to take some of the burden off of his shoulders and give him somewhere to lean.
“You had a moment back there, didn’t you?” I asked, not sure how else to describe it.
He swallowed, his hand on my back still. “Yeah.”
I paused, waiting to see if he’d share more, wondering if he was ready to let me in.
“I can’t control it. Don’t know when it’s going to come on. Usually stress is a trigger. Sometimes everything will be calm and then something will happen, something that reminds me of what it was like in Afghanistan, and I’m back again. It can be as simple as opening a door with bells on it, and instead of walking into a coffee shop, I feel like I’m in a market somewhere, the people pushing into me, unable to see where the attack is coming from.
“I can be having a perfectly normal day, and then I’ll hear a car backfire or kids setting off firecrackers, and suddenly I’m right back there, my friends being shot around me, bullets tearing through my flesh.”
I held my breath, tears welling up in my eyes as he described the fear he lived with, the uncertainty of it all. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him to carry that around with him. I’d always looked up to him; with the age difference between us he’d always been a heroic figure in my life, someone I viewed as capable of anything. But now? His strength astounded me. Not because he seemed capable of anything, but because he’d survived everything. He’d lived through a hell that was unimaginable, sacrificed his life for his country, and still he fought with honor and dignity. He was a hero whether he recognized it or not.
Matt’s fingers swept across my skin again, the medicinal smell of the antibiotic cream filling my nostrils.
“Don’t feel sorry for me.” He said the words like a warning.
“I don’t,” I sort-of lied, not exactly sure how to describe the feelings inside of me. I didn’t feel sorry for him exactly, just an ache in my breast that seemed tied to the hurt inside him. I wanted to treat his wounds as he did mine, knowing his were the kind that couldn’t be eased with a simple balm.
“You know you can talk to me,” I added. “Always. I wish you had more of a support network, wish you could reach out to guys who’d been through some of the things you have. I’m sorry that was taken from you, sorry everything is so fucked up. I know I’m not ideal, but I do want you to know that I’m here for you. Anything you need. Always.”
He stroked my back above the scrapes he’d treated, his voice raw. “I know.”
I shifted on the bed so we stared at each other, my dress gaping open in the back. I lifted both of my hands to his face, cupping his cheeks, the scratchy hair on his face now familiar. My thumbs darted out and traced his cheekbones, running over the lines that had popped up on his skin in the years apart, the ridges that spoke to the life he’d lived in my absence. He closed his eyes, his dark lashes fanning down as I stroked his face, my thumb sweeping over his full lips.
“I love you,” I whispered. “I never stopped loving you. I will always love you.”
Matt shuddered in my embrace, and then his eyes fluttered open and the look there knocked me back.
He’d always had the most expressive eyes and I’d always been able to look at him and know what he was thinking, what he wanted, how he felt. Since he’d come back into my life, his gaze had changed; it was more guarded now, those dark depths filled with secrets that at times felt like he shut me out.
Not anymore.
All of the love I had once seen in his eyes reflected back at me like a mirror into my own soul.
“I love you, too,” he groaned. His hands threaded through my hair, holding me in place. “Always.” His mouth came down on mine, his lips devouring me, his tongue sliding inside.
We moved together, a crazy tangle of limbs, until Matt was on his back on the bed and I straddled him. His teeth nipped at my bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth, laving the bite with his tongue. My nipples pebbled, a pulse starting between my legs—a low, throbbing beat that demanded to be filled.
Matt reached for the shoulder of my dress, the unzipped back causing it to slip down my arm, then he slid the other side off my skin, a trail of goose bumps rising in his wake.
I curled into his touch, wanting his hands and mouth on me, needing to let go for a moment.
His eyes darkened as his gaze locked on my lacy bra, his hands coming behind me to unhook the clasp, and then he dragged the lace from my body until I rode him, my breasts bare, my dress bunched around my hips. There was something about the contrast of it that spiked my arousal—the dress I’d worn to try to be the proper girl I’d never been, and the fact that I was naked, my clit aching with need as I rubbed myself over his denim-clad cock, the hard ridge there doing so many things for the wet heat pooling between my legs.
“You look like a good girl gone bad,” he whispered, his voice husky, his big hands cupping my breasts, his thumbs tweaking my nipples, his mouth nipping at the curve between my neck and shoulder.
I bit back a moan.
“My dirty fucking girl.”
Yes.
I arched forward, pressing my breasts into his hands, wanting it rougher, harder, wanting to indulge the explosion building inside of me.
His mouth came down on my nipple, sucking hard, the scrape of his teeth sending another wave of de
sire through me.
“More,” I demanded.
“More what?” he asked, goading me on, an edge to his voice as he pushed me harder.
I threw my head back, rubbing myself over him, enjoying the hell out of the ride. “Everything. I just want to forget everything. Just for a little bit.”
His hand fisted in my hair, pulling my head back, offering my body up, and then his hand slid down, cupping my ass, pulling me closer to him, his hips rocking forward. He squeezed my hipbone, his fingers digging into my ass, a shiver sliding down my spine.
So good.
I reached between us, fumbling for the button of his jeans, dragging the zipper down. I stroked him through his boxers, freeing his cock through the slit in the fabric, pumping up and down while he jerked in my hand.
“Take off your thong.”
God. I loved when he got all growly like this, loved when he took control. I wasn’t exactly the kind of girl who let him get the upper hand very often, but considering how amazing Matt was in bed, in this instance I was happy to oblige.
I released him, the lace sliding down my hips until I was naked and exposed. I kicked my thong off and positioned my body over his again, biting down on my lip as my clit rubbed against his rock-hard cock. A tremor slid down my spine, my nipples tightening at the friction between my legs, a spark igniting inside me.
His fingers found me, stroking me, siding through all of my wetness until he’d slipped inside me, his fingers filling me, pumping in and out, dragging against my inner walls, each touch sending another shudder through my body, his thumb on my clit as I rode his hand.
My eyes slammed closed, my head falling back as I gave myself over completely to the pleasure, as he pulled my orgasm out of me, thread by thread, until I was wholly unraveled.
He groaned. “You look so hot like that. So fucking hot.”
I rubbed myself over him, again and again, the friction electric, and then I couldn’t take it anymore, the need to come overpowering all else. I gripped the base of his cock, settling myself over him, sliding down, the tip of him teasing my slit. I sank down, the movement slow, little by little, teasing him until he growled in frustration and his big hands settled on either side of my hips and yanked me down, filling me completely, stretching my body to accommodate his.
Falling For Danger Page 18
