“Johnny?” she called, turning in a slow circle.
A low scuffle drew her attention to the corner behind the boiler. She followed it, her heart a wild drum in her chest.
“Hello?”
Still no response. She crept closer, turning a small corner and coming to a halt.
Five boys stood huddled in a small alcove. Three stood a bit further back from the two who seemed to be having an argument. It was Johnny and some other boy Ana didn’t recognize. Johnny looked furious, but determined. The boy just looked angry and drunk.
“I told you to leave,” Johnny said.
“And I told you to stay away from my girl!” the boy retorted.
“Kristen isn’t your girl,” Johnny countered, his balling at his sides. “You’re just too stupid to get it through your fat skull.”
Normally, Ana would have cheered him on for sticking up for himself, but he was out numbered, five to one, and he was the smallest of the group. Even if he got into a fight with the boy he was squaring off with, he’d lose.
Ana squeezed her way through the crowd to stand at Johnny’s side. “Hey, back off!” she told the other boy.
No one paid her any attention.
“What did you say to me?” the boy said to Johnny. “I think someone needs to teach you some respect.”
Johnny snorted. “Is that why you tricked me into coming down here? So you can teach me respect?”
The boy smirked, cold and heartless. “I knew you’d come running like a little bitch if you thought Kristen sent you that note, asking you to meet her in the basement. Did you honestly think someone like her would want a piece of shit like you?” He gave Johnny’s chest a hard shove, sending the smaller kid stumbling.
“Hey!” Ana bolted forward, putting herself between the two with her arms out stretched. She made to shove the boy back, but her hands went through the center of his chest as though he were made of vapors. “Leave him alone!” she said instead, tripping back a step.
No one was listening to her. No one even knew she was there as they all moved in like vultures to a kill, surrounding Johnny.
“No!” Ana’s shouts fell on deaf ears as they attacked, a wild pack of dogs on a wounded kitten. They knocked him to the ground with their fists, punching and kicking him until all he could do was curl into a tiny ball.
“Stop it!” She cried, hot tears spilling down her face. “Stop! Let him go! Get away from him!”
The room spun, smearing colors and demonic faces all warped in their twisted pleasure. Something silver slashed through the dark. She could only clutch at her own tear-stained face and weep as it sunk into Johnny and blood splashed across the cold concrete. Johnny was no longer moving. She was sure he wasn’t even breathing.
“No!” she sobbed.
“Ana.”
She whipped around and screamed at the deformed face staring back at her with milky dead eyes and decaying flesh.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rafe
“Ana!” Rafe untangled himself from the blankets and had her in his arms in seconds. His hand cupped the back of her skull and pressed her face into his shoulder as she cried out in between sobs. It was more to muffle the sounds than comfort.
Her tiny body shuddered and trembled against his. Her small hands grappled for him, clutching at his arms, his shoulders and finally locking around his ribs to fist at his back.
“Shhh. I’ve got you. You’re safe,” he whispered into the top of her head. “I’m right here, baby. I’ve got you.”
“They killed him,” she croaked into the hollow of his throat. Her tears spilled down his chest, burning like battery acid everywhere they landed. “Oh God, Rafe, they killed him.”
“Shhh,” he whispered again. “Who killed who?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know who they were, but there were four of them and they…” She broke off on a sob, rocking her head against his shoulder. “He didn’t stand a chance.”
“Okay.” He stroked her hair the way he would Gabby when she’d had one of her nightmares. “It was just a bad dream. You’re safe now.”
But rather than crawl into his lap and sit there until she passed out again, Ana raised her head. Her wet eyes met his in the semi darkness. “I don’t think it was a dream, Rafe. I think it really happened. I think someone killed him.”
He smoothed away strands of hair off her damp cheeks. “Who?”
“Johnny Baits.” She moistened her lips. “I don’t think he ran away. Someone hurt him and hid his body somewhere in my house.”
He truthfully had no idea what to say to that. It was insane, but then so was what he’d seen the night before. That hadn’t been his imagination. It had been real and the reason Ana was now huddled on his bed, drenched in sweat and shivering. But he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He didn’t know how to protect her from something that was already dead.
“Rafe?”
He let his focus slip back to her. “I’m here.”
She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “Stay with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Ana.”
Sniffling, she shifted aside, making room on the bed. Rafe stiffened. He hadn’t realized what she’d meant. But get into bed with her?
“Baby…”
“Please? I need you. I’m so scared.”
He would have amputated his own arm to never hear her say those three words again.
He abandoned his makeshift bed on the floor and slipped under the blankets with her. She was still sniffling, but her tremors had lessened. They lay on their sides, their faces inches apart. He didn’t touch her, too afraid of hurting her to even breathe properly. Her warm breath tickled his lips and chin, sending rivulets of fire skating along his skin and he wondered if she knew just what she did to him. God he wanted to touch her though, wanted to slide his fingers through her hair to the back of her skull where he would draw her into him, curving her body to fit his as he scattered kisses along the line of her neck.
“Rafe?”
Swallowing with great difficulty, Rafe forced himself to speak without letting his voice crack like some hormonal boy. “Yeah?”
Maybe it was because he’d been expecting some type of verbal response, but he jumped a little when her fingers lightly brushed his abdomen. The slender digits crept across the short divide separating them and glided up to his side until she touched his arm. Rafe held his breath, waiting for her lead. Goose bumps puckered along his flesh as she followed the length of his arm to his wrist and down to his hand. Without a word, she drew him to her, resting his palm against the curve of her waist. She wiggled her body closer and his hand dropped to her back where it lay curled in a fist.
“Is this okay?”
He wanted to laugh. There was nothing, yet everything, okay with that moment. It served him right to find the one girl who made him almost embarrass himself just from holding her too close.
“Yeah,” he forced out.
She shifted again, drawing closer still and he wondered how much more he could stand before the problem in his boxers became noticeable. She was already close enough that her scent was a seeping drug being dragged into his system with every inhale. Then she was close enough for her chest to push against his, making it painfully obvious that the only thing separating him from her flesh was a single flimsy t-shirt.
He cursed inwardly. He rolled his eyes heavenward and began counting backwards from ten. But no amount of counting could save him from her hips. He knew the second she felt him against her thigh. Her breath caught audibly and her entire body both stiffened and trembled against his. Then she did something that made fireworks explode inside his brain.
She got closer, closing every decent amount of space between them until there was no mistaking his desire for her.
“Ana…” He clamped down hard on her hip, stopping her, and holding her in place, using her as pressure to subdue the ache.
“I’m sorry.” But she wasn’t moving away. S
he was so close he could feel the flutter of her lips against his skin. He could feel her heart cracking against his and the unsteady tremor in her breathing.
His fingers tightened, fisting in the fabric of her pajama bottoms.
“What do you want, Ana?”
For a long moment, she didn’t speak. He didn’t think she would. He was so certain she would turn over and pretend none of it happened.
“I want to forget,” she whispered at last. “I want to feel normal. I want to feel like other girls when they’re in bed with the guy they like.”
Rafe wasn’t good at very much. Most people would even say he wasn’t good at anything at all. But he knew he was good at one thing — making a girl forget why they should say no. Except, the only problem he had was that Ana wasn’t other girls. She wasn’t the kind who didn’t care that he wouldn’t call them in the morning, the kind who came to him with a pack of foil wrapped condoms already in their bags because they only wanted one thing. Ana was different and he wanted her to know it.
He kissed her with a tenderness that surprised even him. His hand worked to the hem of her top, twisting the material around his fingers and dragging it upward. She didn’t resist when he liberated her of the thing, tossing it somewhere at the foot of the bed.
Rafe waited, giving her a full heartbeat to come to her senses. When she continued to meet his mouth, returning his kisses with eager ones of her own, he let himself enjoy the silky glide of her bare spine with his fingers. He thrived on her breathy little murmurs and the litter of goose flesh rising on her skin.
Careful not to scare her, he let his fingers trace the curves of her ribs, moving inward to the front of her body. He paused at the underside of her breast, giving her the chance to get comfortable with him being there before taking one step further and taking her in his hand.
She gasped against his mouth. Her back arched, pushing her into his palm.
“Like that?”
She nodded, her breathing echoed loudly around them.
Rafe relinquished her lips to start a journey down her neck to replace his hand. The soft mewling sound she made hit him square in the gut, making him grit his teeth and will himself the strength not to humiliate himself. Her fingers locked in his hair, fisting and keeping him to her. He had no problem with that. She tasted like peaches. He couldn’t get enough.
“Do you trust me, baby?” His hand went to the drawstring of her bottoms.
“Holy shit!” She sounded dazed and breathless and hot! “Um…” She swallowed hard. “Yes … yes!”
He chuckled, letting his lips slide down the length of her belly. “Are you sure? You don’t sound very sure.” He slipped his tongue in a circle around her navel, carving an R just above the small indent. “I could stop.”
“No! I mean, yes, I’m sure. Please, don’t stop! Please, I…”
He tugged on the knot, releasing her pants. “Mm, I think I like the way you beg.” He slid her pants down her legs, delighted and turned on when her knees parted without a word from him. He reached for the inside elastic of her panties and pushed aside the fabric, revealing her to him. “You do it so beautifully. I wonder how else I can make you beg for me.”
And beg she did. She came apart for him, came alive. She burned like an unstoppable forest fire across his sheets. The burn of her singed his skin, but he was addicted. No matter how beautiful the pain, he wanted more of it. He wanted to consume her with a hunger that scared the hell out of him. He’d felt lust before. He’d felt desire. But he had never felt as though he was lost until the moment she was in his arms, her limbs tangled around him. He had never felt so crazed with need until she whispered into his ear. He had never once told a girl he loved her. But he’d told Ana. It had been in Spanish and she’d been too lost in her own pleasure to hear him, but he had pressed the words over her heart as she’d whimpered his name.
But with dawn came a new frightening realization, one that had him tucking her sleeping figure almost protectively into the curve of his. What if she woke up and realized what a mistake she’d made? He didn’t think he could stand it, which was surreal for him. Usually he couldn’t wait to be rid of his bedmate. Granted he’d never spent the night with them, never brought them home to his bed and most certainly never held them. Ana made him want her to stay where she was, wrapped in a sated cocoon of afterglow and his scent. He wanted her to stay. The thought of her turning away from him had his stomach coiling around a chunk of icy dread.
He didn’t sleep that night, his mind warring too loudly against his heart. One urged him to let her go before he hurt her the way he hurt his mom. The other begged him to keep her, to let her warmth fill all the holes left behind by cruel words and disgusted stares. He knew she would. She would give herself to him fully. All of her. She would willingly step into his dark world. God he was selfish enough to let her do it. He was so tired of being alone.
He stayed awake, watching Ana as she slept curled into his chest. Her slow, even breaths fanned across his skin and he felt it through every inch of his body like a caress. Her skin was warm beneath the light glide of his fingertips down the length of her spine. He couldn’t seem to stop. The rhythmic strokes felt soothing, which made no sense to him.
When the sun rose through the window over the bed, it spread gold fingers across her, highlighting the chocolate strands of her hair and the rosy tinge in her skin. Rafe couldn’t help feeling a prickle of smug satisfaction in knowing he was the cause of the flush.
“Ana?” He smoothed a patch of hair by her temple. He let his fingers follow the strands to the end before they returned to her face, stroking her cheek and the line of her jaw. “It’s morning.”
Ana stirred. She started to raise her head, but stopped with a groan and dropped it back down, mashing her face into his shoulder. “Too tired.”
Despite the tightening in his chest, Rafe chuckled. He twisted onto his side, arms still fastened around her and pressed his lips to her temple. “How much sleep do you think you’ll get staying where you are?”
She was quiet for a moment, and just when he started to think she’d gone back to sleep, her shoulders began shaking. Her muffled giggles made him grin.
“Oh my God.” She pressed a hand over her eyes.
“What?” he asked, laughing.
She shook her head, pushing up right with the sheets pressed to her chest. “I can’t believe … last night…” Pink traveled up her neck, inflaming her cheeks. “I don’t … God, you must think I’m some kind of…” She shook her head harder, burying her face into the sheets.
Biting his lip, Rafe pushed onto his elbow and leaned towards her. He let his lips graze her shoulder blade, then the place between, making his way up to the back of her neck. His fingers hooked her hair, drawing it out of his way as he closed his lips over the spot just below her earlobe.
Ana gasped. “Rafe, no…” Her hand shot up, reaching for him. He caught it quickly and pinned it to the mattress between them as he shifted his weight higher, moving for better access to tease the spot he’d learned pretty quickly that night drove her insane. Her fingers under his curled into the bed. Her body tilted into his, melting into him as he used his free hand to reach for the fabric she used to keep herself from him.
“We need to stop,” she croaked, grabbing at his hand. “My parents will be up soon and I need to get back into the house.”
“I can be very quick,” he promised while scattering kisses down her jaw.
“I need a shower.” He nipped at her protest with a kiss to her lips.
“Shower here.” He slipped his hand free of her and dragged away the sheets. “We could save water and wash each other.”
“Your parents…” She trailed off with a moan as his hands found her.
“Won’t be up for another twenty minutes … twenty minutes we can use to our advantage.”
Ana
Ana was almost positive what they’d done in the shower defeated the purpose of getting cleaned, but damn it h
ad been fun. Every inch of her felt soft and thrummed with a sort of ache that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. She still couldn’t believe she’d let the previous night happen, or that she let it happen again that morning, but she had no regrets. Her experiences may have been limited to what she’d shared with Rafe, but she wasn’t naïve enough to believe it was always like that between a couple. Rafe had been an exception, careful, thorough and loving. For those precious moments, she really felt like she was the only one he wanted. But again, she wasn’t naïve enough to believe it would last. She had fully anticipated his escape the moment he dropped her off at her back porch, so she was surprised when he said, “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
Ana blinked. “You will?”
His gold eyes searched hers. “Unless you don’t want me to?”
She shook her head rapidly. “No, I do. I just didn’t think…” She nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
For a moment, he didn’t move. His gaze seemed to trace her face and she wondered if he was trying to read her confusion. But surely he already knew why. They’d made no promises. She didn’t expect him to still want to stick around. It hurt, but it would only hurt more if she tried to make him stay and was rejected.
“What we did wasn’t a one off for me,” he murmured so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.
“I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t have to.” He slipped his fingers through hers. “We’ll talk, okay? I promise.”
With a final farewell kiss, she turned to the door and disappeared through.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Betraying Innocence Page 23
