He wasn’t alone.
Maddox’s big, hot hand caressed the back of his neck. “She’s okay, Riley. She did a very stupid thing, coming outside in the middle of the night, when we know there are people looking for her. But she’s here, and she’s safe. And she’s going to promise never to do anything so stupid, ever again.”
“I promise,” Amber said in a tiny voice. Her small hands joined Maddox’s, both of them petting him while he continued to shake. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Riley. I didn’t think about the danger. I just wanted to be with you. I should have let you come get me, rather than coming over by myself. I’m sorry I scared you. I promise, I won’t do it again.”
Riley nodded, but couldn’t make himself let go. Maddox knelt on the floor beside him, bringing all that delicious male heat right up against Riley’s side. He wrapped an arm across Riley’s shoulders, making him lean into Maddox’s hot chest as he wrapped his other arm around Amber. Riley let out a shuddering sigh as some of the cold fear bled out of him, chased away by their combined heat surrounding him. After a time, he managed to suck in a complete breath.
“Maddox?”
“Right here, Riley.”
Riley shuddered. “Go close all the blinds,” he said roughly. “And make sure all the doors are locked. Please.”
Maddox squeezed his shoulder, bent and placed a kiss at the nape of his neck. He must have kissed Amber, too, because she shivered in Riley’s arms. Then he stood, and his heat went away, leaving Riley holding Amber in his lap, alone in the foyer.
“I’m really, really sorry,” Amber said contritely.
Riley swallowed, finally managing to loosen his hold so he wasn’t in danger of smothering her to death. He pulled back enough to cup her cheek, press his forehead against hers. “You have to be more careful,” he said in a broken whisper. “You have to take care of yourself. There are too many things that can happen to you when you’re alone in the dark. Okay? Promise me you won’t go out alone again. Promise me.”
She wrapped her small fingers around his hand, pulled his palm far enough away so she could press a kiss against it. “I promise. I won’t do it again. I’m sorry I scared you.”
He nodded.
“All set,” Maddox said quietly. “Door and windows all locked, blinds down. We’re secure, Riley. She’s safe with us.”
Riley shivered, pushing his fingers through Amber’s silky tresses as he continued holding her. Maddox walked up beside them, put a hand on Riley’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Come on, let’s go up to bed,” Maddox murmured. “I think it’s been an emotional day for all of us. Let’s go get some sleep.”
Amber tensed in his arms, making Riley pull back with a frown. “Don’t you want to come upstairs with us, pixie? Isn’t that why you came over?”
She fidgeted, and if his cock wasn’t already spent, he’d have gotten hard again, just from the feel of her sweet little ass twitching in his lap. “I…I thought I could…maybe sleep on the couch…”
“No,” Maddox said adamantly. Riley and Amber both looked up to find him regarding both of them with steely gray eyes. “You started this, Amber, when you came over here alone. You owe Riley for scaring him like that. So, to make it up to him, you’re going to come upstairs, get ready for bed, and let him hold you all night long, so he knows you’re safe. Understand?”
The pixie bit her lower lip as she looked at Riley questioningly. He didn’t bother hiding his grin. “Sounds perfect to me.”
She rolled her eyes, her cute button nose wrinkling. “Fine, fine. Let me up, so you can get up.”
Riley snorted. “Seriously?” At her confused look, he snorted again, braced an arm underneath her knees, and stood straight up, lifting her easily. God damn, she weighed next to nothing. They needed to feed her up, get some more meat on those bones. As she was right now, Riley could breathe on her wrong, and she’d blow away.
Amber made a surprised, “Eeep!” and tightened her arms around his neck. “Riley!” she scolded, holding on tight. He chuckled, bouncing her in his arms as he made for the stairs. “Wait, both of you. I didn’t bring any of my stuff…”
Riley paused, looking over his shoulder at Maddox. The taller man nodded, reached past Riley’s elbow and smoothed a big hand down the pixie’s back. “I have a key to your place. I’ll get your stuff. You need to stay here, with Riley, so he can take care of you. I’ll be right back.” And before either of them could blink, he was out the door, wearing nothing but a pair of dark gray boxer-briefs.
Guess it’s a good thing there aren’t any close neighbors. And if there are people watching for Amber, they’ll be getting a show tonight.
Shaking his head, Riley carried the pixie up the stairs, heading for Maddox’s master bathroom. Once there, he turned her in his arms, gently settled her on the counter with him between her splayed thighs. Letting out a shuddering sigh, he buried his face in her hair once more, wrapping his arms around her back as he held her, trying to convince himself she was still safe. She let him, her tiny hands smoothing up and down his back gently, soothingly, for a long time.
“Riley?” she whispered after a while. “I really am sorry I scared you. But will you tell me why you were so afraid? I just came from next door. I wasn’t alone for very long.”
A shudder rippled down his back, hearing those words. “Doesn’t matter,” he whispered, pulling back so he could look into her eyes. “Any amount of time alone, in the dark, is too long.”
“Why?”
Riley closed his eyes, trying to push back the memories that wanted to overwhelm him. He swallowed the shards of glass in his throat, feeling them puncture and tear the whole way down. Finally, when it seemed as if she would wait for his answer all night long, Riley sighed.
“My sister,” he said in a rough, gravelly whisper. “She was in college, at UT Austin. I was eighteen, about to head for training camp. She invited me up for a weekend, as a farewell, since I wouldn’t be seeing her again for a couple of years. Took me to a couple of bars, got me drinks.”
He paused, flashed a small grin. “She was twenty-one, and hot, so the bartenders gave us drinks even though I was underage.”
Amber smiled, caressed his cheek. “Doubtless you took advantage.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. We were out late. Really late. After last call. She was staying off-campus, in a small house with three other girls—only two bedrooms, so they’d turned the living and dining rooms into bedrooms, so they would all have private space. Wasn’t enough room for me to stay with them—no couch—so I had a motel room down the road. When we got tired, I drove her home, left her on her front stoop.” He swallowed, hard, eyes closing as his last sight of his sister flashed before his mind’s eye.
“I heard my phone go off a couple minutes later,” he whispered. “Didn’t think anything about it. Just figured it was her texting me good night. I stopped for gas, got a cup of coffee. Pulled into the motel and cut the engine. Reached for the phone, to say goodnight back. That’s when I realized…”
He trailed off, gasping as the pain, the terror, hit him all over again. Amber squeezed his shoulders, murmured encouragement. Riley swallowed back bile, tried to make his voice work again.
“She wasn’t texting me good night,” he grated brokenly. “Her keys fell out of her purse in my rental car. I should have made sure she got inside before I left, but she insisted I needed to go. Because I had to get on a plane early the next morning. So I left her there, in the dark, a step away from safety. When she realized she didn’t have her key, she texted me to come back. But I didn’t see it in time.”
He shuddered, licked dry lips. “I raced back. When I got there, she wasn’t on the stoop. I figured she got her roommate to let her in. Called her anyway, just to make sure. The phone kept ringing. And I realized I could hear it ringing out loud, not just through the receiver. I followed the sound.”
Riley choked back a sob. “She’d decided to wait in the back yard. Went around the sid
e of the house, through the gate. And that’s where they were w–waiting for her.”
He stopped, pain closing his throat. Amber wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her forehead to his. With her holding him, he could keep going.
“None of her roommates were home that night. When they saw she was alone, they attacked. There were three of them. They beat her. Raped her. Tore her up. Thirty minutes. She was only alone for thirty minutes before I found her. And in that time, they’d nearly ripped her to pieces.”
“Oh, Riley,” Amber breathed.
Riley swallowed. “I rushed her to the hospital. She was there for two months. They punctured a lung, broke most of her ribs. Broke her arm and all her fingers. Fucked her up so bad the doctors said she would never have kids.”
He cleared his throat. “They caught the bastards, fortunately. They hadn’t had time to clean up before I showed up. Said they’d been watching the place for months. My sister and her roommates had a habit of leaving the blinds open, all the lights on. They watched those girls for months, waiting for a chance to get one of them alone. Stacy just happened to be the lucky one.”
“Don’t say that,” Amber said, tears in her voice. “Don’t ever say that.”
Riley shuddered again. “Yeah, well. Anyway, all three of them went to prison. But Stacy…Stacy never recovered. A couple years afterward, when I was overseas, I got a letter from my mom.”
He paused, spoke through broken glass. “Stacy hanged herself,” he whispered. “Left a note saying she didn’t want to live in a world where it wasn’t safe to be alone in your own backyard. She’d rather be in Heaven than endure another day in this Hell we call earth.”
“Oh, Riley,” Amber sobbed, throwing her arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry I brought those memories back for you. I’m so sorry I put you through that. So sorry.”
He held onto her, comforting her now as her tears soaked his shoulder. Her hair smelled like lavender, her skin like some homey spice, vanilla or gingerbread. He palmed her head, loving how soft and silky her blonde hair was against his skin, hating the weakness in him that had made him break down in the first place. Amber wasn’t his sister—certainly his feelings toward her were anything but brotherly. She wasn’t his, didn’t belong to him. He had no right to demand things from her, even if it was his responsibility to keep her safe. If it wasn’t for his weakness, his inability to look past those bad memories, she wouldn’t be crying in his arms right now. So he held her, murmuring softly, nonsense comfort sounds meant to soothe her.
He was still holding her when Maddox came into the room, setting a small bag on the counter beside them. He ran a big palm down Riley’s back, setting his fingertips at the base of Riley’s spine. He looked up, met the other man’s gaze in the mirror over Amber’s head. Clearly, he’d heard most of Riley’s story, because there was sorrow and deep empathy in those beautiful eyes. He brought his heat right up to Riley’s back, wrapped his arms around him and the woman in front of him, caging him between them. Riley shuddered, feeling…safe. Protected.
Loved.
Swallowing hard, he squeezed Amber’s waist, drew back and cupped her cheek, wiping a tear away with his thumb. “Hey, now. None of that. You’re safe. That’s what counts. And me and Maddox will do everything in our power to keep you that way, okay?”
She nodded, those big, blue eyes tear-bright, and sniffled quietly. Her eyes were red and puffy, her skin deathly pale. And to him, right now, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Trembling inside, he passed a thumb over her bottom lip, the same way Maddox liked to do to him.
“Can I kiss you?” he begged in a breathless whisper. “Please?”
Amber froze for the barest moment, her eyes flicking over Riley’s shoulder as she sought out Maddox. The fact that she wanted the other man’s permission should have bothered him. Instead, he found his heart swelling, overflowing with the knowledge that she cared enough about both of them to make sure they were both okay with this. Riley didn’t see it, but he knew the other man must have agreed, because Amber’s blue eyes fastened on his again. She licked her lips—and nodded.
Carefully, gently, holding her as if she might shatter any moment, he lowered his head and brought their lips together. He kept it slow, just a gentle rub, an affirmation that she was alive and here for him to kiss in the first place. She opened for him, and he took his time tasting her tongue, her mouth. She was so sweet. So incredibly sweet. Combined with the dark, heady flavor of Maddox still on his tongue, a combination he knew he could become addicted to, her kiss quickly set his head spinning. When he finally pulled back, they were both breathing hard, trembling together.
Maddox cleared his throat, obviously just as affected as they were. “Come on, Riley. Let Amber get ready. She needs a few minutes, okay?”
He nodded, pressed a gentle kiss to those sweet lips one last time, and lowered her to the floor. She squeezed his shoulders, looking up at him with those big blue eyes.
“I won’t be long,” she promised him, a tiny smile on her face. “Promise I’ll be right there.”
He nodded again, let Maddox lead him out the door. The taller man reached by him, pulled the door closed. Then he turned Riley, wrapped his arms around his waist, and kissed his temple. Riley threw his arms around Maddox’s shoulders, hanging on while he shook.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Maddox whispered. Riley could hear the words more as a vibration from the other man’s chest, rather than sound in his ears. “Why didn’t you tell me you were afraid?”
He shuddered, burying his face in Maddox’s throat. “Not exactly guy-like, is it?” he said with a strained chuckle. “Dudes are supposed to jump at the chance to keep chicks safe. Go all He-Man and protect them from the bad guys in the dark. I didn’t want you to think I was being a coward.”
Maddox tightened his hold, pulling him deeper into that impossibly drugging heat. “Of course I wouldn’t think that. How could I? God, Riley. I had no idea you’d been through something so horrible. I’m so sorry, baby. So sorry.”
Riley shrugged, sneaking a last, tight hug before backing up and wiping the leftover moisture from his face. He gave Maddox a wobbly smile and indicated the bed. “So, who gets to sleep in the middle?”
“You, of course.” When Riley frowned, Maddox gave him a dark chuckle. “Dude, be realistic. Amber is tiny. If she slept between the two of us, we’d wake up with an Amber pancake.”
A snort of laughter escaped. Riley grinned. “True. Okay, fine. But if ya’ll hog the blankets…”
Maddox flashed his teeth. “I’ll kick both of you out before I let you steal my blanket, mister. Guarantee it.”
Shaking his head, still smiling, Riley ran both hands through his hair and turned toward the bathroom door as it opened. Amber stood there, looking too fucking cute in a tiny pair of women’s boxer shorts, pink with black kittens on them, and a tiny pink cami with lace at the top. Seeing all that exposed, mouth-watering tanned skin made him hungry again, but he shoved it down deep. From the way Maddox was acting, Amber was still afraid of him. Of both of them, when it came to playing in bed. He would take his cues from the older man, let him lead where Amber was concerned.
It was the only way to make sure Riley didn’t fuck this whole thing up.
Swallowing hard, he held out a hand, going weak in the knees when she reached for him immediately. Maddox ran gentle fingers along her jaw-line, tipped her chin up for a light kiss as he passed by her, disappearing into the bathroom. Riley drew her into his arms, rested his chin on top of her head with a contented sigh.
“Okay?” she asked him, her voice muffled against his chest.
“Best ever,” he assured her quietly. “You?”
“Better now,” she murmured with a little sigh.
He smiled, content to hold her for a moment. When Maddox came out of the bathroom, he passed Amber to the taller man, watching the way she hesitated just the slightest bit before allowing herself to be gather
ed in his arms. Hiding a frown, he popped into the room, brushed his teeth with a travel toothbrush he found in the cabinet, and splashed his face. When he returned, they were standing the same way he left them, Maddox with his hands lightly wrapped around her tiny waist, Amber with both hands bunched against his chest, looking up at him. Something must have passed between them, because she seemed slightly more relaxed, if not completely comfortable. Wondering what the hell was going on between them, Riley indicated the bed with his chin, raising an eyebrow at Maddox.
“I need to turn on the downstairs alarms,” Maddox said quietly. He ran his thumb along Amber’s lower lip—damn, it was hot when he did that—shot Riley a telling look, and disappeared down the hallway. Riley went to the huge bed, pulled down the comforter, and crawled toward the very middle. When he settled against the pillows, he patted the bed on his left, opposite from where he knew Maddox slept.
“In you go, pixie,” he said, smiling softly. “I promise we don’t snore.”
That startled a laugh out of her. She smiled, eyes sparkling, as she finally approached and crawled up beside him. Seeing her bare knees slide across the silky sheets, the way those tiny shorts and that even tinier camisole bared her flat midriff, Riley had to fight a sudden hard-on. God damn, he’d been hornier in the last twenty-four hours than he’d ever been in his life. If he did manage to get it up again tonight, it would be a fucking record.
Perhaps even literally.
“What are you grinning about?” Amber said as she settled on the edge of the bed.
He waggled his eyebrows, making her giggle. Then Riley scowled, looking pointedly at the three feet of empty space between them.
Amber huffed, scooting an inch closer.
He growled.
She rolled her eyes, moved another half an inch.
With a mock-snarl, Riley pounced, earning a shriek of laughter as he dragged her over and finally settled her right against his side.
“There,” he said, copying her tone from earlier, when she’d manhandled him onto her barstool. “That’s better.”
Angel Without Page 17
