by Shayla Black
She hadn’t said a word or made a sound, either. And combined with the chaos roaring through Ike’s body, her silence was driving him stark-raving mad.
Man-up, Ike. You created this problem. Fucking fix it.
He walked to the bottom of the steps. “Jess?” No answer. “Jess, I’m coming up.” Nothing. He frowned, but then he was in motion, his boots thudding against the treads as he made his way to the loft.
The sight that greeted him sucker-punched him right in the heart.
Jess was curled into a little ball on her side, her hands tucked under her face. She’d folded the blanket over her, but it had slid down, leaving her shoulder and breasts exposed.
God, she was fucking beautiful.
Maybe it made him a pervert, but Ike was drawn to the bed. He crouched down beside it, his gaze drinking Jess in. Her skin was a work of art. Her right arm had a swirling watercolor rainbow and waterfall running the whole length of it, flowers and fish woven in. Her shoulder and biceps had an ornate Mexican calavera skull, the detail done in reds and golds and dark blues. Ike remembered every one of the after-hours sessions they’d spent together doing these pieces, Jess telling him one colorful story after another. The time with her had made it simultaneously easier and harder to go home to his empty apartment—easier because her liveliness and passion filled up some of the dark, lonely places inside him; harder because he never felt more empty and alone in his apartment than after spending a night with Jess talking his ear off. Smiling at him. Teasing him. Making him want.
On her other arm, Ike could just make out the black and dark-green leaves surrounding the wide-open faces of a half-dozen bright-pink roses. She’d already had part of that sleeve done when Ike first met her, but he’d expanded it for her over the years.
His gaze skimmed over her chest, where a constellation of different sized dark-blue and black nautical stars spilled over her right collarbone, down her chest, between the curves of her breasts, to finally end in a sweeping flourish on the right side of her ribs. She was fascinating and alluring to look at, and that was saying absolutely nothing about the little silver hoops piercing through her nipples. Jesus.
Ike reached across Jess and pulled up the blanket, covering her.
What was even more fascinating, though, was her face. Usually so animated, colorful, and just fucking alive with emotion, she looked peaceful and oddly young sleeping, her face bare of makeup. And it made him feel even more protective of her.
With gentle fingers, he pushed a wave of black and red hair off her face—and was surprised to feel how warm her cheek felt. He pressed his fingers to her forehead and found her warm there, too. Someday he’d get around to installing air conditioning in this old place, but he spent so much more of his time in Baltimore that he hadn’t made it a priority.
Sighing, Ike made his way back downstairs. At least she hadn’t come back down because she was avoiding him. And now that he thought about it, he was fucking tired, too. Jess had called him around four in the morning and he’d made it to her apartment on the second floor of an old row house within twenty minutes. After he’d gotten her out of that little shit hole of a crawl space and held her in his arms to prove to himself he hadn’t lost her, they’d packed a bag, gone back to his apartment so he could pack and grab some extra firepower, and made their way to the remaining part of the Hard Ink building in time for the team’s morning brief about their investigation.
He kicked off his boots and stretched out on the couch, intent on catching a little shut-eye himself. Except the minute his eyes closed, a movie started playing on the back of his lids. The terrified and embarrassed look on Jess’s face during that morning brief when she saw the projected image of a tattoo worn by one of their enemies—and she realized she’d slept with someone wearing a tat just like that a few days before.
His eyes blinked open again and his gaze settled on the ceiling’s exposed wooden beams.
Given the way Ike had always felt about Jess, he didn’t love hearing about her sexual exploits—which were many and often colorful. Not because he disapproved, but because he wished he could be the one making her come, making her shake, making her scream his name. Otherwise, he didn’t get a fucking say in who Jess gave her love or her body to, and he knew it.
But Ike did get to be pissed that someone had apparently picked her up for the express purpose of using her for information about Nick and Jeremy, and then came back days later, after attacking and destroying part of Hard Ink, to tie up loose ends. As if Jess was just so much disposable trash.
Ike’s hands fisted.
The only thing he hated about protecting Jess right now was that it kept him from being a part of the fight back in Baltimore…where Ike might get the hands-on opportunity to find the man who had done these things to Jess and teach him some manners—or put him in the grave. Ike didn’t really care which.
Ike wasn’t aware of finally drifting off to sleep. All he knew was that he opened his eyes to total darkness. He flew into a sitting position. Momentarily forgetting where he was, he reached for the lamp on the nightstand that wasn’t there. Because he wasn’t in his apartment back home, he was at the cabin. With Jess.
How the hell long had he been asleep?
He reached for the lamp on the console table behind him and flicked it on.
Across the room, the kitchen clock hanging on the wall said it was almost nine thirty. Jesus, he’d slept all day.
On a big yawn, Ike rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, and then he heaved himself off the couch. His eyes went immediately to the loft, which was as quiet and still as it’d been earlier in the day.
“Jess?” he called. Nothing. And then…was that a small moan? He crossed to the steps. “Jessica, you up?”
“Ike,” she said in a croaking voice.
Ike took the steps two at a time and found Jess lying on her back. In the dim light cast by the lamp downstairs, he could see that she’d pushed the covers down below her belly button. As he closed the distance between them, she pulled a pillow over her breasts, and the movement looked like it took an inordinate amount of effort.
Ike frowned and sat on the edge of the bed. Before he even touched her, he could feel the heat radiating off of her. And it had nothing to do with the lack of air conditioning in the cabin because the night air had cooled the place down by a lot. “Hey. You okay?”
She shook her head. “Feel bad.”
He put his hand on her forehead. Her skin was on fire. “Jesus, you’re burning up.”
Jess grasped his hand in both of hers and pressed it more firmly to her forehead, then her cheek, then her neck. “Hand is cold. Feels so good.”
“Besides the fever, what else feels bad?” he asked.
“Just hurt everywhere,” she said, looking up at him. The pain on her face and in her eyes slayed him.
“We need to break this fever. I’ll be back.”
She clung harder to his hand. “Don’t leave.”
He kissed her forehead. “I’m not. Just getting something to make you feel better.”
“’kay,” she whispered. As he rose, she turned onto her side, balling herself around the pillow. Drawing her knees up pulled them out from under the covers, exposing the big, intricate dream catcher that started on her hip and ran beaded feathers down the outside of her thigh.
Ike had done that piece, too.
God, it was like he could measure his life these past few years in the moments he spent putting ink on her body.
Downstairs, Ike made quick work of gathering some Ibuprofen, a glass of water, and a wet washcloth. When he returned, Jess was in the same position as when he’d left, her heavy eyelids making it clear she’d nearly fallen back to sleep.
He needed to get drugs in her first. “Hey, Jess. Can you wake up? I have some medicine for you.”
She pushed herself onto an elbow and downed the pills and some water. “Thanks.” When she settled down again, he placed the cold washcloth against her forehe
ad. She moaned and covered it with her hand. “That feels good.”
Ike nodded and cleared his throat. “You know, uh, you never got dressed before you fell asleep earlier. Want me to grab you a T-shirt? Or something?”
“Too hot,” she whispered. “Is it bothering you?”
Given the amount of ink he’d put on her body, he’d seen a lot of her up close and personal—he’d done the stars running around her right breast, after all. And he knew how much it pleased her that he appreciated what he saw, too. So, under other circumstances, he might’ve suspected her of being coy, but there wasn’t an ounce of mischief in her right now. “No. Just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Never could,” she said, eyes drifting shut. “You’re a good man, Ike Young. The best.”
As much as he couldn’t agree with the sentiment, he also couldn’t deny liking hearing it. From her.
He grasped the washcloth to turn it over, only to feel it soaked through with the heat of her fever. This time when he left, she didn’t notice. He cooled it down in the bathroom sink, then returned to her bedside and laid it against her forehead and the side of her face.
In her sleep, the corner of her mouth curved up.
Ike sat on the edge of the bed for a long while, and then he moved to the old brown armchair that sat in the corner by the window and pulled out his phone.
What’s the word there? He shot off the text to Dare.
Dare’s response popped up a minute later. We set up some snipers’ roosts to get better eyes on the area. Holed up in one for the night. Got the guys organized into watch units. Otherwise things are quiet. Dare was a good choice for lookout—he was one of the best shots Ike knew.
Sorry I’m not there, Ike replied.
Do the job you need to do, Dare said. Of all people, Ike knew Dare wouldn’t question his need to protect Jess. No one knew the full extent of the shit that had rained down on Dare as a kid, but the man seemed to have devoted his life to making up for it by taking care of as many people as he could. Hell, Dare had put it right there in the Ravens’ motto: “Ride. Fight. Defend.”
Another message from Dare: Jeremy accepted responsibility for Harvey and Creed’s deaths today.
What the fuck? Why would Jeremy think he was responsible for the Ravens’ deaths? He wasn’t the one who’d shot a missile at the Hard Ink building in a predawn attack—that was all on the mercenaries masquerading as legitimate defense contractors that the team had identified at the morning’s brief. Former military guys who worked for Seneka Worldwide Security, Nick’s teammate had said when he’d showed the image of the tattoo that had set Jess and him off on their flight out of the city.
And on top of it all, Jeremy had nearly been killed when part of the warehouse’s roof collapsed. Responsible for Harvey and Creed dying? Hardly.
OK, I’ll take care of it, Ike responded. He knew the hell that guilt for someone else’s death caused. He’d dealt with it for years. Only, for Ike, it was deserved. No way was he letting Jeremy, his best friend outside the Ravens, think any of that burden lay at his feet.
On a sigh, Ike dropped his head against the back of the chair. Fuck, he was tired. And not just because of the disrupted sleep and the crisis he’d helped manage back at Hard Ink the past few weeks. Ike was tired of the weight of the guilt he bore. He was tired of living half a life. He was tired of being alone—and knowing he didn’t deserve more.
His gaze drifted over to Jessica, still balled in the center of the bed.
She definitely deserved more than he was or he could give. Which, in a twisted way, probably meant it was a good thing she’d gotten sick. Ike wouldn’t be tempted to jump her the way he had this afternoon when she’d come out of the bathroom, skin still warm and damp and pink from the shower. And if he kept his hands off, he wouldn’t give her the mistaken impression that they could be anything more than they were.
Just friends.
Chapter 6
A long, low moan had Ike’s eyes snapping open. He wasn’t the slightest bit disoriented this time. Instead, his gaze cut immediately to Jess, who was moving restlessly on the bed, though she still seemed to be asleep.
Ike woke up his phone to see that it was nearly three in the morning.
Another moan, so high-pitched and needful it was almost a whimper.
He crossed to the bed and pressed his hand to Jess’s forehead. If he’d thought she felt hot earlier, it was nothing compared to now. Jesus, she was uncomfortable to touch.
“Jess, wake up. Time for more medicine,” he said.
Bleary, unfocused eyes struggled to look up at him, and then fell closed again.
“Jess.” He shook her gently by the shoulders, but all that got him was another agonized groan. “Fuck,” he bit out. He had to get this fever down. He rarely got sick, so he didn’t have a thermometer there to see just how high her temperature was. And, damn it all to hell, the situation they were in would make taking her to a clinic or emergency room risky anyway. A few weeks before, someone had nearly abducted Nick’s girlfriend from an ER in Baltimore, and the Hard Ink team had been avoiding them ever since. Granted, he and Jess were outside the city now, but hospital admissions created digital records and paper trails that those with the right capabilities—and questionable ethics—could follow if they were motivated enough. And these mercenary sonsabitches clearly were just that.
Which meant Ike needed another plan.
In a flash, he ran downstairs to the bathroom. He ripped the shower curtain open and knocked Jess’s clothes out of the way, and then he turned on the cold water. Christ, given how hot her skin had felt, he worried the water might be too cold, so he made it just shy of lukewarm and hoped that would do the job.
Back upstairs, he pulled back the covers and scooped Jess off the bed. She moaned and turned into him, her face burrowing against his chest. “I’m gonna take care of you,” he said. Though the sheer heat soaking into him everywhere they touched was picking at those never-healed places inside him from the last time he’d made a similar promise to a woman he cared about—and failed.
The tub was about halfway filled when he got back downstairs. Gently, he lowered Jess into the water.
Her whole body seized on contact. Groggy eyes flew open and her hands flailed and splashed water over both of them. Formless words spilled out of her.
“Hey, it’s okay. We gotta get this fever down. I know it’s cold but it won’t be long,” he said, his hand stroking cool water over her forehead.
“Ike,” she whimpered, a tear spilling from the corner of her eye. “Wha’s hap’ning?”
“Sshh, don’t you worry. We’re gonna get you feeling better. Okay?” God, he hoped this worked.
“So cold,” she said, her teeth chattering. Goosebumps broke out across her flushed skin.
“I know,” he said, reaching behind him for the towel she’d used earlier. He submerged it into the water and then covered her with it, both to bring the coolness up onto the parts of her skin not yet under water and to give her a little privacy. He scooped handfuls of water onto her shoulders, her throat, her face. He wet her hair. He rubbed her arms when she shuddered so hard he worried she’d hurt herself.
Shit. If this didn’t work, he wasn’t going to have a choice about getting help. But he couldn’t let himself go there yet. He’d cross that bridge if and when he had to.
After about fifteen minutes, Jess was shivering nonstop, but her eyes looked at him with more clarity and awareness. “I’m really cold, Ike,” she said. “I think it worked.”
He pressed his hand to her forehead. Better, but still warmer than normal. “Can you stand it a few more minutes?”
Her shoulders sagged. “Okay.”
“That’s my girl,” he said, his brain not well filtering the words coming out of his mouth. Obviously.
But then Jess smiled at him. Just a little bit. And the fact that he could do something to make her feel even the smallest amount of happiness or pleasure in the midst of
her illness chased away whatever regret he might’ve felt.
Jesus, he could be a sap. He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Let’s get some more Ibuprofen in you and then I’ll get you back to bed.”
She nodded.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said with a wink.
She smirked and rolled her eyes.
There was his girl, sass still alive and well. Thank God.
He returned quickly with the meds and she downed them with a whole lot of water. He let her nurse as much of it as she wanted. Last thing she needed was to get dehydrated on top of the fever, which seemed like a real possibility given how bad it was.
“Ready?” Ike asked, hitting the lever to drain the tub.
“Yes, please,” she said, her voice weak.
Ike tossed his damp T-shirt onto the bathroom counter and pulled a few towels from the cabinet under the sink.
When he turned back around, Jess blatantly stared at his chest and waggled her eyebrows. It made him chuckle. Even sick, she was still flirting and busting his balls.
He held up a dry towel longways, blocking his view of her. “All right. Kick off the wet towel and I’ll cover you with the dry one.”
Jess chuffed out a small laugh. “You carried me down here, right?”
“Uh huh,” he said, already knowing where she was going with the question.
“So, you’ve already ogled all the goods.”
He’d tried not to, he really had. Besides, for once, sex had been the last thing on his mind when he’d felt how much her fever had spiked. “I kept the ogling to a bare minimum. I promise. Now would you let me switch out the damn towels already?”
She pulled the cloth out of his hands and covered herself, the wet towel balled between her feet in the now-empty tub. “All the naughty bits are covered. Better?”
Ike gave her a droll stare, but he couldn’t deny feeling some major relief that the cool soak had brought back the old Jess. He handed her another towel. “For your hair.”
She squeezed it out as best she could. “I’m so tired,” she said.
