Playing with Fire

by Lexi Ryan

  Twenty-Two

  Nix

  “I keep thinking about those twinges of worry that all the girls in the movies get before they get married,” Lizzy says. “Cold feet or horror that they’ll never know another man’s sweet lovin’—something.”

  “Yeah?” Maggie asks. “And what’s the verdict? You feeling that?”

  “Not even a twinge,” Lizzy says.

  I smile. “That’s because he’s the one, Liz. You found your match.”

  “She might not be the only one,” Hanna singsongs at me, and my cheeks blaze.

  “Look at us,” Liz says, raising her martini glass. “Keeping you out when you have Max to go home to.”

  Hanna giggles. “Lizzy, you don’t have to look so damn proud of yourself.”

  “I am proud,” she says. She points to me. “Proud of this girl for finally letting nature take its course.”

  I roll my eyes. “You make our relationship sound like a bowel movement.”

  Krystal snorts. “Doctors are so gross. You need to tell us about Max’s mad skills so you can convince yourself it’s real.”

  She’s not wrong. Though I haven’t given details—they wish—I may have mentioned how pleasantly exhausted I am. It’s been four days since Cade told me Patrick was in the hospital. I’ve been staying at Max’s house and sleeping in Max’s bed and generally falling harder and faster than I’ve ever fallen in my life.

  And it’s okay to fall because I know Max won’t hurt me.

  Even as I’m enjoying our time together, I know things are about to change. This weekend is bound to fly by with Lizzy’s wedding, and then Meredith and Claire are scheduled to fly home on Monday. Once Claire’s home, I need to sleep at my own house. Putting myself in Claire’s life before I know what’s going to become of Max and me isn’t fair to her. Which means I have four more nights.

  “I do think I’ll get going.” I stand and look around the bar, scanning the crowd for potential dates for Krystal.

  “Don’t bother,” she says, reading my mind. “There’s nobody.”

  Sighing, I shrug. “Can’t hurt to keep our eyes open.”

  After saying my goodbyes, I go out to my car, and find Amy sitting in the passenger seat, toying with my radio. I don’t bother wondering how she got inside a locked vehicle, though I do wish she’d use those skills for good instead of evil.

  I slide into my seat and start the car before I speak. “You could have come inside to get me.”

  Her eyes go big. “In a bar? Phoenix . . .” She shakes her head and drops her gaze back to the radio, pushing buttons even though the car’s off and it doesn’t do any good. “I wish you could see what your life has become.”

  I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. “I don’t want to have this conversation again.” Crap. But I don’t want to alienate her either. “How are you? Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

  “I do.” She bites her lip and her eyes water. “I need my sister. I’m scared.”

  My blood chills. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

  “I’m afraid that I’m going to live my eternal life without my sister.”

  For fuck’s sake. “Seriously?”

  She folds her arms and scrunches her mouth into a sullen pout. “You might not care about your soul, but I do. God will reward you if you do what’s right.”

  “I’m not interested in any rewards that come from living under Vicar Jeremiah.”

  She shakes her head. “Haven’t you suffered enough punishment for your sins?”

  “What punishment?”

  “If you hadn’t left, God wouldn’t have taken your baby from you.”

  The words are a heavy fist to my gut. “Amy . . .”

  “Please move back to Camelot. We need you. Things are . . . tense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are a few elders who think . . .” She looks out her window and worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “They think Vicar Jeremiah should step down. Give his position to someone else. You saved us the night you left. Your return would be good for morale.”

  “I did what anyone would do, but I’m not going back, Amy. Never.”

  She reaches across the console and squeezes my arm. “But you don’t have to worry about Patrick anymore. Come home.” My key halfway to the ignition, I freeze. She obviously mistakes this for consideration, because she adds, “If you come now, you could be all settled by your birthday.”

  I didn’t tell her about Patrick, so why does she know? “Why do you say I don’t have to worry about Patrick anymore?”

  “We took care of him,” she says. She cocks her head. “Don’t you remember telling me that you thought he was after you? He set that fire in your yard, Phoenix. He’s not a good man.”

  My heart slams painfully against my ribcage. “What do you mean you took care of him?”

  “I know you and Mom have your issues, but the rest of us just want what’s best for you. If you come home, we can protect you all the time. God is good.”

  Putting my hands over my mouth, I draw in a ragged breath. The girl who just told me she was too holy to set foot in a bar is admitting to playing a part in nearly beating a man to death.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she says. She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. “I couldn’t let him hurt you again.”

  I ignore that explanation. I did want to be protected from Patrick, but not like that. “You shouldn’t have hurt him.”

  “I have nightmares about that night,” she says, “about him trying to finish what he started when he set that fire.”

  I swallow hard. “So do I.” Nightmares of the fire climbing the walls of the chapel, the way it hissed and snapped in every direction, the smoke filling my lungs.

  “He can’t hurt you now,” Amy says softly.

  I shake my head. I don’t want her trying to comfort me. “Are you headed back?”

  Amy shakes her head. “No, I’m meeting some other girls in Avon. We need to do a supply run tonight.”

  Supply run, a.k.a. breaking and entering.

  “What do you need? I’ll give you money.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Stop judging, Nix.”

  * * *

  Thirteen years ago . . .

  I’m crying. I can’t stop crying.

  The elders have decided that they believe my virgin pregnancy story, and I’m to marry Vicar Jeremiah on my seventeenth birthday.

  And I can’t stop crying because I know what I need to do. I have to run away. I have to leave my sister and my mom behind in this place and escape Camelot once and for all. I have to leave Patrick behind. And I will or I’ll die trying.

  But I’m afraid that “die trying” isn’t just an expression. I could have escaped easily before, but since they found out about my pregnancy, they’ve had me guarded by an elder at all times.

  “Phoenix.”

  I look up to see Patrick coming into my cabin. Grief etches his beautiful features, and when he squats beside me, my hands lift to try to smooth it away.

  “I heard,” he says. “What are we going to do?”

  “What kind of sick man wants to marry his son’s girlfriend?”

  Something flashes in his eyes and he shakes it away. “You’ve always been special to him.”

  I don’t ask why. I don’t care. “I won’t marry him. I have to run away, Patrick.”

  “It’s not that easy. He’s already decided you’re his. The elders have decided.”

  “You want me to marry your father? Have him touch me like you do?”

  “No.” His eyes blaze with torment. “But you need to know what you’re up against. You can leave Camelot, but as long as it stands, you can’t escape it.”

  “What’s the difference? I don’t understand.”

  He opens my hand and places a rune into my palm. Thurisaz, the rune of protection. He folds my fingers over it. “Do you know this one?”

  I nod. “Protection. Fertility.”

 
; He draws in a long, ragged breath. “Yes, but it’s more. It’s also about having wisdom in combat.”

  “I’m not fighting anyone.”

  “If you plan to escape, you’ve already begun. It’s best not to start a battle, my Phoenix, but if you do, you’d better finish it.”

  Twenty-Three

  Max

  Nix is spooked. I don’t know why or about what, but as she changes into a sleep shirt, worry creases her delicate features.

  She sits on the edge of my bed, and I close my book and put it to the side before pulling her into my arms. She comes easily, resting her head against my chest as if this is exactly where she wants to be.

  Four more nights.

  I’m a man divided. Half of me is wishing the days away as I wait for Claire’s return. The other wants time to stand still. Nix has made it clear that our sleepovers end when my daughter returns, but I can’t get a read on what that means for our relationship outside of our sleeping arrangements. Not that I’ve asked. She has enough on her mind without me piling on my insecurities, and I promised we’d do this at her pace.

  She closes her eyes and sighs.

  “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” I ask, brushing the hair out of her face.

  “I’m that easy to read, huh?”

  “Only sometimes.”

  “I saw my sister Amy tonight. She was waiting in my car when I left the girls at the bar.”

  I stiffen. I can’t help it. Even with the little I know about her old life, I don’t like the idea of anyone from the commune contacting her. “What did she want?”

  “She wants me to come back to Camelot. She’s visited several times in the last few weeks, and she’s been pushing for me to return, but tonight was the first time she admitted that things aren’t going well there.”

  “Did she explain why?”

  She shakes her head. “Not really. I guess there are some rumbles about a change in leadership, or maybe Camelot disbanding altogether. It’s her home, and that scares her.”

  I stroke her hair and try to wrap my mind around what she must be feeling, but the truth is I have no context for what Nix is going through. I can’t imagine having someone I love living in a cult I despise. “Maybe it will fall apart and you’ll get your sister back.”

  She swallows hard. “She’s not as sweet and innocent as she looks.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I remind her. “I haven’t met her.”

  “Patrick is dying and it’s her fault.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “She first came around a couple days after the fire,” she says. “I told her about it and that I thought Patrick might be after me, and she ‘took care of it.’ Those were her words to me tonight. She said she took care of him like he was a bag of dirty trash she took to the curb. She had him nearly killed.”

  My body chills, and for a moment I want to push Nix away and climb out of bed. She’s warned me before that her connections make her dangerous, that I should think of Claire. This is the first time it’s really sunk in. Patrick isn’t the only threat out there.

  But any instinct to pull away leaves me in a flash, and I hold her tighter. Claire is in Paris. She’s safe. And I’ll find a way to make sure she’s just as safe when she comes home.

  “She wanted to protect me,” Nix whispers. “She sent men in to hurt him and believes with every fiber of her being that she did the right thing.” She nuzzles her face against my chest and wraps her arms around me.

  “Do you believe Patrick would hurt you, Nix?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your sister believes that too?” I ask, and she nods against my chest. “Your sister’s not the only one who’d be willing to go to extreme lengths to protect you. You asked me if I thought you could do a terrible thing and still be a good person, and I do. Your sister did a terrible thing, but that doesn’t make her a terrible person.”

  She draws back and meets my gaze. I don’t understand the series of emotions flicking across her features, but I can see that whatever she’s feeling right now is laced with the kind of torment that eats at your soul. I would do anything to free her from that.

  “Please don’t tell Cade what I just told you. If the police went poking around Camelot for information about Patrick’s assault, Amy would never trust me again, and if I’m ever going to get her out of there, I need her trust.”

  My chest aches for her—she’s horrified and appalled by her sister’s actions in one breath and planning to save her in the next. “I can keep your secrets.” I bring her hand to my lips and press a kiss to the middle of her open palm. “As many of them as you need me to.”

  When I release her hand, she kisses me, softly, slowly, nipping at my lips before pulling away. “I’m going to miss this after Claire gets home,” she whispers.

  The ache in my chest spreads, fanning into my gut and making it clench painfully. I can’t handle the idea of losing this woman, and I yet I know better than to believe she’s given herself to me. She’s the one holding back and I’m the fool rushing in.

  I ignore the siren in my brain warning me that I’ve been here before and been burned. Fuck caution. Love isn’t love if it isn’t worth facing the fire.

  “Even if you aren’t sleeping here when she gets home,” I say, telling myself that my caution is for her, not me, “nothing else between us needs to change.”

  Her hands slip from my neck and down to my chest, where her fingers map every ridge of every muscle. “Can we leave tomorrow’s problems for tomorrow?” Sliding down the bed, she dips her head and skims her lips across my abdomen. “Tonight, I just want to focus on you and me in this bed together.”

  She presses her hot open mouth against the sensitive skin beneath my navel. I roll to my back and she strips my shorts off my hips. She straddles me, a knee on either side of my waist.

  I press a hand against each of her bare thighs. “Beautiful,” I murmur, sliding my hands up and under her T-shirt and around to her ass. I groan. “It seems you’re nude under this shirt.”

  Her lips quirk into a grin. “Am I?” She rolls her hips, pressing her hot sex against my aching cock. “How convenient.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. She feels good. “Christ.” Too good. “Do you want me to put on a condom?”

  Her grin falls away and her hips stop their torturous teasing. “I’m on the pill,” she says, “and I have a clean bill of health.”

  Oh hell do I want this. “Me too.” I shake my head. “Not the pill, but the clean part.” She rocks against me so the tip of my cock presses against her opening. “Fuck, Nix. I want you. I want to feel you.”

  She shifts her hips and slides down my cock, taking me deep. “I want you too.”

  God this feels good. She’s so fucking wet and tight, and watching her like this is amazing, but I want a view of her naked body as she rides me. “Take off your shirt.”

  She stills and shakes her head. “My scars. You don’t need to look at those while we—”

  “You’re beautiful, Phoenix.” I take her shirt, lift it over her head, and throw it to the floor. My hands on her torso, my gaze locked on hers, I move slowly underneath her, and she joins me, instinctively meeting each thrust. “And when I say I want you, I mean all of you.” I graze my thumb over the symbol branded onto her stomach. “That includes your scars.”

  * * *

  Nix

  “Cade is here,” Max says from the other side of the bathroom door. “We’ll be in the living room when you’re done with your shower.”

  “Okay,” I call over the spray. “Give me a couple minutes.”

  He probably has new information on Patrick. My fears seem kind of silly now. I mean, all it really amounted to was a couple of creepy phone calls and that fire in my yard. If he’d really wanted to hurt me, he could have. But still, I want all the information I can get. I wonder if his condition has changed. I wonder if he knows my sister played a role in nearly killing him.

  I turn o
ff the shower and finger-comb my hair, telling myself to stop thinking about it. It’s Lizzy and Sam’s wedding day, and I intend to put all this mess behind me for the night. I’m going to put on a pretty dress that shows off my legs, watch my friend get married, drink a little too much, and dance with my boyfriend.

  I grab my towel and step out of the shower, and a scream lodges in my throat. Not twenty minutes ago Max had me under him in bed and every inch of me was warm and tingly. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for all that heat to dissipate so quickly, but when I see the bathroom mirror, my whole body goes cold.

  There in the steam is Patrick’s rune for me. Thurisaz. Here inside Max’s house.

  I shake as I force myself to pull on shorts and a T-shirt. When I go into the living room, the men are staring at each other, their faces grim.

  “Patrick’s out, isn’t he?”

  Cade sighs. “Patrick left the hospital AMA last night.”

  “AMA?” Max asks.

  “Against medical advice,” Cade explains. “Or in this case, against all common sense. The nurses checked on him around ten, and when they were back forty-five minutes later, he was gone.”

  I shift my gaze to Max, who’s glaring holes into the coffee table. “He was here.” I point toward the bedroom and my hand shakes. “That rune showed in the steam on Max’s mirror. Patrick was here.” I lift my hand to my mouth, then Max is there, wrapping me in his arms, murmuring in my ear while Cade is rushing to the bathroom. “What does he want from me? I just don’t understand.”

  “If he was here, he’s gone,” Cade says when he returns. Max releases me and Cade levels me with his gaze. “Tell me why he would come after you when he’s knocking on death’s door. Tell me something I can use to get eyes on this guy. If you feel like you’re in danger, I want to pick him up as soon as we can, but right now I don’t have enough to get any manpower on this.”

  “Why now?” I whisper. “My birthday? I’ve had so many birthdays since I left. I don’t know. After all this time.” I realize I’m rambling and incoherent, and press my lips together.