Raid

Chapter Fourteen Scorched

Sunday evening…

I parked my Z next to Raiden’s Jeep, got out and jogged on my toes to the side steps of his place.

He’d taken off early yesterday morning on unexpected business, which stunk, but he phoned an hour ago saying he’d be home soon and telling me to meet him at his place.

So I’d had my first almost two days without Raiden in a week.

I should have taken this time to phone KC, get her up to speed and load up my resources. More to the point, I should have taken this time to phone my pregnant friend and make sure all was good in her world too. She had a toddler, a husband who worked long hours, a huge house and volunteered at three charities.

Both of us being busy, it wasn’t unusual for days to pass where we didn’t check in, even weeks sometimes. But since she had a lot going on in her life and I did, too, this was not one of those times I should allow things to slide.

I just didn’t do it. I didn’t know why.

Maybe I was holding this time precious.

Maybe I was just an idiot.

I determined I’d call her the next day as I jogged up the steps and stopped outside Raiden’s door.

I knocked, calling, “It’s me!” I turned the knob and stepped in.

Raiden was at the kitchen-ish area wearing cargos, boots and a skintight tee.

My belly fluttered. I smiled and greeted, “Hey,” as I turned and closed the door.

I turned back, saw he’d turned fully toward me and I was about to take a step toward him before he said, “Stop.”

I went still and my head tipped to the side.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Don’t move until I tell you to and then do exactly what I tell you to do.”

Oh my God.

He was in the mood to play.

Instantly, I felt myself get wet between my legs as my heart started hammering and every inch of my skin began to tingle.

He leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms on his chest, his eyes moving over me. I added my nipples getting hard to the rest, marveling at the same time, glorying in the fact I had all that from him with a few words and a look from across a room.

As the seconds slid by, my breath began to get heavy.

Suddenly, he asked, “Trust me?”

“Yes,” I answered immediately.

“Then on all fours, baby, crawl to me and do it slowly.”

Oh God.

I didn’t know if I could do that. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t know if I could do it.

I held his eyes.

“Raiden,” I whispered.

“Do you trust me?” he semi-repeated.

I swallowed before I nodded.

“All fours, Hanna. Slow.”

I closed my eyes telling myself this was Raiden. He wouldn’t humiliate me. He wouldn’t debase me. I could trust that he would lead this to something good.

I opened my eyes again, kept them on him and slowly dropped to my knees. Keeping my head back, I fell forward to my hands.

Then, as he asked, slowly, I crawled toward him.

My stomach lurched when I was almost there and he uncrossed his arms and moved toward the bed. Confused, guessing, uncertain I liked this, the word “solitaire” on the tip of my tongue, I followed him.

He stopped at the foot of the bed.

I stopped two feet away from him, neck arched way back, eyes on his.

“Closer, Hanna, then up on your knees,” he ordered.

Fighting my nerves, I moved closer then got on my knees. I still held his gaze but my face was in line with his groin.

Okay, this could be better.

Maybe.

His hands went to his belt but his gaze stayed locked to mine as he pulled himself free.

“Hands on my hips, give me your mouth, honey,” he demanded.

Okay, this was better.

I did as I was told. I opened my mouth in preparation for taking him, but I didn’t give it to him. He took it, sliding inside.

Yes, this was better. So much so, I moaned against his cock.

“Fuck, my girl likes my cock,” he growled, sliding in and out of my mouth. “Hand in your shorts, Hanna. Touch yourself while you suck me off.”

Okay. Yes. Totally.

This was better.

I left one hand at his hip. The other one I used to open my shorts then I slid my hand inside. The minute my fingers touched the slick skin, I whimpered.

I sucked, I licked, I touched myself, my hips rolling and pressing into my fingers and I moaned against him. It was good, way good, tremendous and I worked him harder, urging him to take my mouth with my hand it his hip.

“Gentle,” Raiden said, his voice hoarse. “I fuck your face, I do it gentle.” My mouth sucking hard, my eyes lifted to his, he groaned, “Fuck,” and started thrusting into my mouth.

Yes.

I was working him. He was taking my mouth. My fingers were moving as desperately as my hips when he pulled out of my mouth and hauled me to my feet.

“Clothes off, now. Everything. Then get ready for me. Hands and knees on the bed.”

Okay. Now this was way better.

Rushing, I carried out his commands.

No sooner was I in place then his cock slammed into me.

My head flew back and I came.

I wasn’t close to finishing when he pulled out, turned and lifted me and impaled me on his cock. Then I was back to the bed, taking him until he thrust to the root, grinding, and he came for me, his face in my neck, his teeth sinking sharp into my skin.

That would leave a mark, but then again Raiden often left a mark.

He liked it and, it must be said, I did too.

Raiden barely finished before he rolled so I was on top, he tucked my face in his neck and his voice was rough when he murmured, “Missed you, honey.”

I loved it that he did.

I closed my eyes and pressed closer.

He was gone only two days, but I missed him, too.

Before I could share this, his arms around me got tight and he went on, “But don’t do that shit again.”

I blinked into his skin.

“Sorry?”

“You didn’t like it.”

I lifted my head and looked down at him. “I didn’t like what?”

“Crawling for me. I know it now, won’t ask you to do it again, but you didn’t like it and you did it. Don’t do that again.”

“But I…” I stopped then started again. “You told me to trust you. I trusted you. And it worked out in the end.”

“Did you like it?” he asked.

“I was… uncertain,” I admitted.

“You’re uncertain, we do something else and talk about it later. After we talk about it, maybe you’ll want to try it, maybe you won’t, but it’s your choice, Hanna. You’re on your hands and knees on the floor. Not me.”

I studied him. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed he was upset.

I had to know so I asked quietly, “Are you angry at me?”

His eyes narrowed and his arms around me tensed. “Fuck no.”

“Then—”

“Babe, you gave that to me, beautiful. But playing is supposed to be fun for both of us. You play like we play, communication is crucial.”

That was great and all, but I was confused. “If you knew I didn’t like it, why did you keep doing it?”

“I’ve done stuff to you; you hesitate but then let go and get off on it. I couldn’t tell until you were closer and I moved. I had more planned, saw you were not with me on that, gave you my cock.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

“So promise me. I know you wanna please me and I like that a lot, honey, but don’t do that shit again.”

I looked into his unusual, amazing green eyes. I felt his hard body under mine, his cock still inside me, his arms tight around me and I knew it wasn’t Raiden who was going fast.

I was picking up speed, doing it as I fell, falling faster and faster.

For him.

Obviously, I didn’t share this.

Instead, I said, “I promise.”

“Good,” he muttered. He lifted up, touched his mouth to mine, fell back and ordered, “Now slide off me, baby. I’ll be back.”

I slid off his cock and rolled off his body. Raiden leaned in to kiss my jaw and his lips trailed down so the tip of his tongue could glide over where I knew his mark would be before he reached out and pulled the afghan over me. Then, naked, he got off the mattress and moved toward the bathroom.

I gathered the afghan close around my body and stared at his pillowcase.

I’d crawled across a room for Raiden Miller.

And it was him, not me, who stopped it because I didn’t like it.

Which made me look back and like it.

Because he just demonstrated (again) he was going to take care of me.

I needed to pull it together and start the process of taking care of him.

I just didn’t know how. What I did know was that what I just did was not the how.

So I had to figure out the how.

The next morning…

The minute the hinges on the door screamed after Raiden went into the bathroom to deal with the used condom, I tossed the covers back, grabbed his tee from the side of the bed and pulled it on as I dashed silently across the room to the picture frame.

I needed to understand.

But I couldn’t ask him.

Not yet.

I had to learn as much as I could without him.

Snatching up the frame, my heart racing, my eyes moved over the faces of the men in the picture.

I couldn’t take them in, not yet.

I was looking for Raiden.

I found him, back row, one in, his arms slung around both men at his sides. The one at the end had a scary-huge gun, butt to his hip, barrel pointed out. Raiden was smiling, white teeth, eyes crinkled, dark wraparound shades pushed back on his head.

Mouthwatering.

Heartbreaking.

I just got the chance, and pulled up enough courage, to take in the faces of the two men on either side of him before I heard the toilet flush.

I put the frame back where it was, raced across the room to the kitchen-ish area, anxiously searched it and found a coffeepot nearly hidden by boxes and dishes. At the bottom was a thick, black crust.

The hinges screamed right before I snatched the handle of the pot and yanked it out making boxes and bowls teeter dangerously. I turned and saw Raiden exit the bathroom buck naked.

I lifted the pot and asked, “Seriously?”

A smile spread across his face as his feet brought him to me. He pulled the pot out of my hand and tossed it on the mess on his counter where it miraculously found purchase between a box of Fruit Loops and a stack of bowls. His hands then went right to my booty, he lifted me up and I wrapped my limbs around him.

He walked us to the bed, turned his back to it and we went down, me on top.

After we bounced, I lifted up to forearms light in his chest and he announced, “We’ll shower, go to Rachelle’s, get breakfast and coffee.”

“Affirmative,” I agreed and his lips curled up then I declared. “I get battle pay for doing it, but I’m taking an afternoon this week in this crazy den of yours to sort it out so it’s livable. By that I mean you can make a pot of coffee and close your drawers since the rest is beyond my capabilities, unless you rent me a sandblaster and give me a credit card at Sears.”

His body was lightly shaking under mine when he asked, “What does battle pay consist of?”

“I’ll decide later.”

“Babe, you make this place livable, whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”

I grinned at him.

He was already smiling and he kept doing it.

It hit me suddenly that in all the time I spent waiting for him, watching for him at Rachelle’s, when I saw him he would grin at his sister, and maybe if he was in a good mood he would smile, but other than that never did he walk in or move through smiling.

And I’d never heard or seen him laughing.

But he used to do it all the time before he left. I’d watched avidly in the corridors and cafeteria at the high school when he did it. Even if things at home were tight and he lived with the knowledge that his Dad was a massive dick, he had a good life back then and he demonstrated that frequently.

And now, again, he did both a lot with me.

“I like to see you smile,” I told him softly, sliding one hand up his chest, his neck, fingers in his lush hair but I moved my thumb out to stroke his jaw.

“I know, honey, since you find ways to make me do it and you find them often.”

I was thrilled he noticed.

So thrilled, I swept my thumb down his jaw then bent to touch my lips there.

When I lifted up again, his arms wrapped tighter around me and he asked, “Plans for the day?”

“Shipments piling up. I have to spend the day in town sorting that out and hauling them to the Post Office. This doesn’t make me happy because I like making afghans, not packing and shipping them, but life happens, you deal. You?”

“Meet in Denver,” he answered.

I pressed my lips together, his eyes dropped to my mouth and one of his hands slid up and into my hair.

“Hanna—” he started, but I interrupted him.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask. Did everything go okay while you were away? I mean, an indication of the success of your endeavors is that you returned unscathed but did you, uh… get your man or whatever?”

His eyes were warm and amused at my question, but they grew serious which made me mentally brace.

“Business went good,” he answered. “And it sucks we’re on this topic, but the time was gonna come and this is that time, so you gotta know, with my business, I’m gonna be away like that a lot.”

I had a feeling. My guess was that fugitives did not hang around Willow (or I hoped not) just so he would be able to be home for dinner every night.

Although I had that feeling, I didn’t like that feeling. I also didn’t explore it and was not going to ask about it.

Now I had it confirmed.

Unfortunately.

“Right,” I mumbled.

“The look on your face states plain you like that about as much as me, babe, but that’s the way it is and I hate to pile shit on top of shit for you, but it’s rare I can take care of business in a couple of days. It usually takes longer and sometimes it takes weeks.”

Fabulous, I thought.

I said nothing.

He rolled me to my back, got up on a forearm in the mattress but bent close to me.

“Hanna, my crew, I send them on assignments and I take a cut. It’s a low percentage that covers admin only. They do the work, they get the fee. That’s not gonna change. I don’t live good off their backs and I’m never gonna do that. That means to work toward my retirement plan I gotta take jobs.”

“Okay,” I agreed, but did it unhappily.

Seeing as Raiden didn’t miss much, he didn’t miss this.

Therefore his eyes got soft and he threw me a bone. “While I’m gone, I’ll touch base frequently.”

That mollified me, but only slightly.

“Okay,” I repeated.

He dipped closer and informed me, “My retirement plan is a good one, baby. Done at forty.”

That was better, but it was also eight years away.

Eight years of criminal activity.

Clearly, my face said what I was thinking because Raiden kept talking.

“Hanna, stop listening to me and start hearing me. I’m tellin’ you, my retirement plan means I’m done at forty.”

“I heard you.”

“Okay, now think about why I’d be tellin’ you that.”

My brows went up and I guessed, “It’s an interesting tidbit to share?”

“No, it’s because I expect you to be in my bed when I’m forty.”

I blinked as my heart swelled so big, it was a wonder I didn’t start choking.

Therefore my voice was wheezy when I forced out, “We’ve been seeing each other just over a week.”

“You crawled across a floor just because you thought it would get me off. I’m pointing that out, not because watchin’ you do that was so hot it made me so fuckin’ hard I thought I’d come before you got halfway across the room, which, incidentally, is true, but because that’s just one indication of the immensity of what you give me. And you drop to your hands and knees to give it to me, trustin’ me with that when we’ve been together just over a week. You think I’m a man who’s got a thing that good, he’ll let it go?”

“No,” I whispered.

“That would be fuck no,” he corrected.

Holy Moses.

“Raiden—”

“Touchin’ base frequently, takin’ jobs that’ll get me where I wanna be, comin’ home and lookin’ forward to it for the first time in years, to an actual home, and it’s a home I look forward to getting back to because my woman is there. I know it’s gonna suck, and it will for years, but that’s what I gotta give. Will that work for you?”

A home I look forward to getting back to because my woman is there.

Totally. That would totally work for me.

I left out the “totally” as well as all the rest and just breathed, “Yes.”

I watched his eyes flash then heat.

“Fuck me, I knew it would,” he growled before he repeated, “Fuck me.”

We were there. We were new but we were what we were and we both understood it, new or not.

So it was time for more than just this. I knew it by just how much all that meant to him and that he would let that show. Therefore, I pushed up and in and managed to roll him with me on top.

Then I straddled him, planted my hands in his chest and leaned toward him.

“I’m not going to ask if I can tell you something, but I am going to tell you that I have something to tell you,” I announced.

Raiden stared at me a second before the intensity left his eyes. His mouth twitched, his hands came to my hips, dipped down under his shirt that I was still wearing, then back up, spanning them, skin against skin.

“Have at it, honey,” he invited.

“I’ve seen the picture,” I shared and his head tilted slightly against the mattress.

“Come again?”

“Of you and your buddies in desert fatigues.”

Just as I suspected, the pads of his fingers dug in. His lips stopped twitching, his face went blank and his lips started to say, “Han—”

I pressed lightly into his chest and got closer. “You talk straight, I’m going to try that and hope it works, but if it doesn’t, we’ll go back and try something different. But, Raiden, it isn’t unusual when soldiers see stuff, do stuff and come home feeling disenfranchised and –”

I said no more because I was flying through the air.

I landed on the bed near the edge, and by the time I pulled myself up Raiden was yanking on a pair of cargo pants.

Okay, that did not go well.

“Raid—”

“Goin’, you be gone when I get back.”

My breath froze in my throat.

I swallowed to clear it, got up to my knees and sallied forth a lot more cautiously. “Okay, that didn’t work, honey. Maybe—”

He viciously yanked a tee down his chest then bent toward me so fast, he was a blur.

Hand in the mattress, other hand pointing an inch from my face, he growled, “Do not think you know shit. You do not know shit.”

Motionless with fear, I forced my lips around the word, “Raiden—”

“I’m goin’ and you be gone when I get back.”

It took a lot but I lifted my hand, curled it around his wrist and started, “Sweet—”

Savagely, he yanked his wrist free and I went flying into both hands catching myself on the bed. I pushed myself up just in time to see him, boots in one hand, stalking to the door.

I started to scramble off the bed, calling. “Raiden! Please. I screwed up, honey. Please, let’s talk.”

Before I got to the door, he’d slammed it behind him.

Which meant before I could get it open, he was already yanking open the door of his Jeep.

And this meant, before I got to the bottom of the stairs, he was reversing then he was gone.

Four hours later…

I did not go into town to sort my shipments.

No. I’d walked too close to the fire and got singed by the flames. I needed to do what I could to try to bank that fire and retreat.

So I stayed at Raiden’s house. I cleaned his coffeepot. I did his dishes. With what I had to work with, I made minimal sense of the mess on his kitchen-ish countertop. I folded the clothes in his dresser so the drawers shut. I found a scary-looking but functional washer and dryer in a small room in the back corner of the bottom level and did three loads of laundry, including his sheets, which meant I cleared most of the floor, hung his clothes and made his bed.

Once I’d cleaned the coffeepot (my first priority), I’d made coffee.

I’d also opened the fridge. The wave of scent that assailed me was so strong I was certain my hair wafted back with it and the visions that assaulted my eyes didn’t bear thinking about, so I erased my memory of them and shut the door as fast as I could.

Therefore, I’d eaten nothing.

I wasn’t hungry, but I figured I needed to keep my strength up for the battle that lay ahead.

But after what I encountered in the fridge, caffeine was just going to have to do.

When I heard the Jeep return, my nerves, already frayed, unraveled completely. I was so rattled it was a wonder I wasn’t a trembling mess, incapable of movement.

But this was important.

People were counting on me, and two of those people included Raiden and me.

So I held the good times close, like Raiden Miller telling me he was going to retire at forty and he expected me to be around when that happened, pulled myself together and faced the door, not having any idea that I was about to get scorched.

The door opened and a lick of white-hot flame surged through instantly when Raiden’s eyes fell on me.

“I told you to be gone,” he growled.

I beat back the blisters and told him, “We need to talk.”

“You need to be gone,” he returned.

“I need to apologize. That was—”

He leaned toward me.

“Bitch, get the fuck outta my sight!” he roared and all my skin boiled away.

I braced against the pain. “Raiden, please—”

“Hanna, trust me, you stand there two more seconds, I’ll make you gone, and babe, you do not want me to do that.”

He’d do that. He would. He’d been physical with me before when he had a point to make. And his face told me he was not making threats.

Thus I didn’t wait two seconds.

Not even one.

I ran to the door, even though he was still in it, and my heart splintered when he got right out of my way.

He didn’t call after me. He didn’t even come out to the landing at the top of the stairs. I knew because, stupidly, when I was in my Z, I looked up.

The door was closed.

I hit the button. My baby purred, I reversed and tested her speed and maneuverability on the way home.

She did not fail me.

I did this crying.

Because a Boudreaux didn’t cry unless she was in a place she could do it.

And my baby was that place for me.

Eleven fifteen that night…

I was driving home from my warehouse in town. The afternoon slid by without me able to take my mind off Raiden, so I piled my SUV with finished afghans and went into town, thinking that work would keep my thoughts occupied, so I’d done it for hours.

This, incidentally, was an unsuccessful endeavor, but at least all my shipments were ready for the post.

I cleared the woods around my house and my heart started thumping when my headlights fell on Raiden’s Jeep parked in front of it.

As I drove down the side drive, I saw him illuminated by the porch light, standing on the porch, leaning against the post he’d leaned against when, just days before, he said beautiful things to me.

I looked away, rounded the house and hit the garage door opener.

I parked my SUV next to my Z and shut down the ignition. I hurried out, hit the garage door button and hustled out the side door of the garage and across the yard toward the house.

I saw Raiden’s shadowed frame rounding the house.

I stopped myself from running, but hurried up the back steps, keys in hand. I now had two locks on the backdoor (there were two on the front door too; Raiden put them in as he said he would on the day he said he would) and I had the key ready that luckily unlocked all of the new locks on my house, so no fiddling with switching keys.

Just unlock and in, and maybe, if I was lucky, I’d get in and keep him out.

The outside light lighting my way, I yanked open the screen door and got both locks unlocked, but not before I heard Raiden’s boots on the steps behind me.

I didn’t look back. I pushed in and let the screen door fall behind me.

Except it didn’t shut for two beats.

He was in.

Since any further efforts to keep him out would be futile, I left the interior door where it was, tossed the keys on my kitchen table and moved through the kitchen like he wasn’t there.

I didn’t make it even halfway.

Two arms closed around me from behind and my back slammed into Raiden’s front.

My body went stiff.

I felt his face in my neck.

“I’m a dick,” he whispered into my skin.

Men thought they could get away with a lot if they admitted that.

Sometimes it worked.

Sometimes, like this time, it didn’t.

“You need to leave,” I stated.

His face came out of my neck, but his lips went to my ear, “Hanna—”

“You need to leave,” I repeated firmly.

“Baby—”

“I crawled across a floor for you and I said one thing out of kindness and concern and you walked out on me, came back, called me a bitch and kicked me out.”

“Honey—”

“No one calls me a bitch, Raiden.”

“Give me one second—”

“No one makes me crawl across a floor.”

His arms got tight and his voice went low. “You dropped to your hands and knees yourself, honey.”

“Because I trusted you then. I don’t trust you now.”

One of his arms shifted up, his hand curling around the side of neck and he whispered, his voice thick, “Listen to me.”

With a mighty heave, I tore from his arms. I whirled, lifted a hand and shoved him in the chest, all the while shouting, “You need to go!”

His hand caught my raised one and held it firm.

“Baby, listen to me.”

I ripped my hand from his and took two quick steps back.

“No. I was wrong. I thought I could withstand the heat, but I can’t. I wanted to go slow. You pushed us to go fast and I didn’t have enough good times stored up. Your smiles, your laughter, there wasn’t enough to take the heat. You’re a criminal, Raid, and I accepted that. This, I can’t accept. I don’t know what hideous thing happened to you over there except I know it was hideous. But there weren’t enough good times when you were the Raiden I know you are to beat back the Raiden that fucked up shit that happened to you forces you to be that gives me the times I need to endure the inferno within. You lose control of that and I’m close, it doesn’t just consume you. It consumes me.”

“I don’t want you to know what happened in that hellhole, Hanna,” he returned.

“You think that hasn’t escaped me?” I shot back. “The subject barely comes up before you shut it down, but Raid, if you think I don’t feel the squeeze of the elephant always in the room, you clearly think I’m a bigger idiot than I actually am.”

“You feel that squeeze, babe, and you can still breathe. If you actually knew, you wouldn’t be able to live with that shit. You wouldn’t be able to sleep. Your mind would go over it and over it, and since you weren’t there, you’d make shit up that would torture you, but I promise you, none of it would be as bad as it actually was.”

“I believe you,” I retorted. “What you don’t understand since you won’t let me talk about it is that I’d rather live with that torture, the pain of which I would eventually be able to control, than let you hold onto that pain without even a little release so you can learn to live with it.”

He went silent but the air in the room got heavy.

I ignored that and declared, “You need to leave.”

“Hanna—”

“Leave!” I shrieked, losing it, hands straight down at my sides in fists.

Then I was going backwards, tripping over my feet, and I would have gone down if Raiden’s arm wasn’t around my waist.

Then I couldn’t go down because my back was flat to the wall and Raiden’s front was pressed to me.

Not this again.

I couldn’t help it. It freaked me out when he did this so I started panting.

“You know why we do that shit?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t even know what shit he was referring to, but that wasn’t the only reason I didn’t answer. I didn’t answer because he was scaring the pants off me.

He didn’t need me to answer.

He kept going.

“It’s not for God, babe. And it’s not for country.”

My chest pressed repeatedly against his with each breath.

Raiden went on.

“It’s for pretty girls with tanned legs that go up to her goddamned throat who ride asinine bikes and who’ll drop to their hands and knees, crawl to you and take your cock, moaning against it, making you so fuckin’ crazy you think your dick’s gonna explode in her mouth.”

Oh God.

“Raid—”

“You might think that’s jacked, but it’s not. It’s the goddamned fuckin’ truth. Whether you got that in your bed before you go or hope to find it when you get back, that’s why you do it. You do it for her. You do it to keep her safe. You planted kids inside her, or you hope to, you do it for them. You get home in one piece, she’s your reward.” His body pressed into mine and his face, partly shadowed, came to within an inch of mine. “You’re my reward, Hanna.”

My reward.

Oh.

My.

God.

Raiden wasn’t done.

“I didn’t know it. When I was over there doin’ what I had to do, I didn’t have any fuckin’ clue. I didn’t know until I saw you laughin’ with Paul Moyer. Jumpin’ up and down with Bodhi, all excited about shiny ribbons on your goddamned bike. So into me you could barely talk when you ran into me. Sittin’ outside on your goddamned fuckin’ porch swing of all fuckin’ things, lookin’ right out of a fuckin’ movie. So cute. Christ, no joke, it hurts even to look at you and believe you’re real. So fuckin’ sweet, I remembered there’s a God and He actually likes me. You go over there, far fuckin’ away, you see shit, you do shit, you get through it knowin’ that’s home. That girl in the porch swing, knittin’ a goddamned afghan and drinkin’ wine, carefree because you sweat and bleed so that’s what she can be.”

Listening to his words, the tears didn’t bite the backs of my eyes.

They spilled over in streams.

“Sweetheart—” I whispered brokenly.

“And you know what gets me?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “What gets me now is the guys who bled out in the sand and they didn’t have that. They died never understanding. They died not gettin’ even a taste of their reward. They thought they were protecting home and country, but they didn’t even know what home was. I feel for the women who lost their men in that sand, Hanna, it guts me. But their men died havin’ that. Knowin’ why they died. Knowin’ exactly what home means and knowin’ it’s worth it. Those guys who didn’t have it, they died without a fuckin’ clue. And every day since I clapped eyes on you, finally understanding, it fuckin’ destroys me.”

His words destroying me, I wrapped my hands around the sides of his neck and held on. “Raid, sweetheart, please—”

He talked right over me.

“So I’m not leavin’, Hanna. I was a dick and I hurt you and I cannot promise it won’t happen again, so I won’t. And you are not wrong. This shit burns in me, what happened, what I saw, what I did. But most of all who I lost. Every one of those guys deserves to have their reward sittin’ in a porch swing or however that shit comes about. When I say those men were good men, there isn’t a word in the fuckin’ dictionary that describes how good those men were. And there are only four of us left who know exactly what that means. They died and I’m here and I found my reward and I’m not letting it go. Because if they were alive and they knew I let something that important slip through my fingers, they’d be pissed at me. And if they can sacrifice everything so you can have your porch swing and I can come home and have everything they lost, you can fuckin’ learn how to take the heat and give it to me.”

“Okay,” I agreed immediately.

I agreed so immediately, Raiden’s, “Come again?” was clipped and short with surprise.

“Okay, honey. I’ll learn how to take the heat.”

The room went completely still. Everything suspended. It felt like time stopped.

Then I gasped as, unexpectedly, I wasn’t against the wall anymore.

Raiden chanting, “Jesus, fuck, Jesus, fuck,” he had an arm around me and I was sailing across the room. I landed on my back on the kitchen table with Raiden bent over me.

His hands started to move on me, his mouth came to my neck and I wrapped him in my arms, turned my head and invited in his ear, “Take what you need.”

At my words, his body stilled. Then abruptly he stood up, taking me with him so I was seated on the edge of the table, Raiden standing between my spread legs. With a hand cupping the back of my head, he pressed my cheek to chest, his other arm around me. His body bowed so it formed a hard, strong shield around me, protecting me from nothing, but, Raiden being Raiden, instinctively still protecting me.

I kept my arms around him, pressed deep and held tight.

“Jesus, fuck,” he murmured.

I was silent.

Raiden fell silent too.

I gave it time.

Raid took it.

Then I asked gently, “You never talked about that with anybody, have you?”

“No.”

He only gave that to me.

I shut my eyes and held on tighter.

I said no more and gave it more time.

Raiden took it.

I opened my eyes and promised him, “Like the rest, that gift is just for me and I’m never going to share it with anybody.”

“Jesus, fuck,” he whispered.

I again went silent, but I held him closer.

It was Raid that broke it this time.

“That ‘okay’ you gave me, does that mean you’re still with me?”

“Yes, honey.”

I heard him draw in a deep breath.

Then he stated, “Right, then I need you to promise me something.”

“Okay,” I replied.

He pulled away, cupped my jaw in both hands and tipped my head back so he could catch my eyes in the dim light.

“I give you shit, you do not eat it. Like today, you give it back to me. We’ll work it out, Hanna, but we’ll do it like we did it tonight. Not you getting where my head is at and bowin’ to that in hopes you takin’ my shit eventually turns something in me. Today, I stepped far over the line and that is not cool. After I calmed my ass down, I spent the last two hours standing on your porch, thinkin’ if I put a little more strength in that throw you wouldn’t have landed on the bed, and the thoughts of what I could have done to you have been brutalizing me. That, babe, I promise I’ll check. The other shit, if it overwhelms me and I try to force it down your throat, you force it right back.”

“Agreed,” I replied.

He dug the pads of his fingers in slightly before they relaxed.

“Okay,” he murmured.

I lifted my hands to wrap them around his wrists and took a deep breath.

Then I cautiously said, “Honey, I hesitate to mention this, but I think today proves you’ve got some issues to work through.”

Both his hands slid back into my hair. He stuffed my face in chest and burst out laughing.

I found this reaction both a relief and a little weird, but even so, as usual I wanted to watch him laugh, but couldn’t because it was dark and my face was smushed to his chest. He didn’t stop laughing before he let me go, but bent at the waist, put a shoulder in my belly and hefted me up.

This action was more than a little weird and a surprise, so much so I straight up girlie shrieked, “Raid!”

He turned and walked out of the kitchen, ordering, “Quiet, babe, I got some issues to work through.”

Oh boy.

I knew what that meant.

“Um… maybe we should find alternate outlets to battle that burn,” I suggested to his back, my hands gripping his tee at his sides.

I became perplexed when he didn’t head up the stairs, but unlocked and opened the front door and strode out to the porch. He turned right as he swung me around. He was still holding me, but we were front to front and I frantically grabbed hold of his shoulders so I wouldn’t go flying when his hands slid down and yanked my knees up at his sides.

Then he sat in the porch swing with me astride him and tipped his head back to look at me.

“Think, my girl fucks me in her porch swing, that’ll beat back the heat.”

“Raid—”

“Or at least that heat. She’ll be building a better kind of fire.”

I needed to get a handle on this situation.

Therefore, I slid my hands up to his neck and dipped my face closer. “Sweetheart, I like this idea but I’m being serious.”

“Baby, bein’ seriously serious, you are the only thing in four years that has come close to getting me to a place where I can even begin to think I might be able to bear those flames.”

Automatically my hands shifted to his face, palms to his cheeks, fingers wrapped around his ears and my forehead dropped to his as my eyes closed.

“I want to be that for you,” I whispered.

I was both alarmed and pleased that each one of those seven words was weighted with precisely just how much I wanted what I said.

“Good, honey, ‘cause you already are.”

Oh God.

I loved that.

I pressed my forehead into his tight before I angled my head and touched my lips to his.

I moved back slightly, opened my eyes and gave in. “All right, then I suppose I’ll fuck you in my porch swing.”

I watched him grin. “My own personal firefighter with pretty blue eyes, fantastic tits and a sweet pussy.”

His words were sweet (well, most of them) and it was good he was breaking the heavy mood, but I still pulled back a bit and slid my hands down to his neck. “Uh… just to say, I’m not comfortable with you always talking about my sweet, uh… you know.”

His brows shot up. “You crawl on the floor for me and you don’t like me talkin’ about your pussy?”

That sounded ridiculous.

“Well—”

“Hanna, I love my sister’s cooking so I’m gonna talk about it. Mostly I talk about that to her so she knows what she does is good and people appreciate it. I love Broncos football, so when they’re playin’, I’m gonna watch it. I’ll probably talk about it, though it’s unlikely I’ll talk about it to you. You’re a girl, so even if you like the Broncs, women can’t talk football. And don’t get uppity, that shit is just plain true. And I love my baby’s pussy, so I’m gonna talk about that too. If you want me to share that with my crew and not you, I’ll fill them in on the goodness I got in my bed, but just sayin’, I’d rather talk about it to you.”

I would rather that too.

“Fair enough,” I conceded.

“Now, are you gonna fuck me or spend the next hour talkin’ to me?” he asked.

“I suppose I’ll fuck you,” I muttered.

His voice held humor when he returned, “Obliged you’d make that sacrifice for me.”

I glanced at the swing then at him. “Uh… how do I fuck you?”

“Babe, you’ve ridden my lap before.”

This was true.

I looked to the porch ceiling at the hooks holding up the swing then down to Raiden. “Do you think the swing can withstand this activity?”

“I don’t know. What I do know is I wanna find out.”

I bit my lip and looked back at the hooks.

I then stopped biting my lip and surveying the hooks because I was up, and then I was up, again being hefted on Raiden’s shoulder.

“Raid!” I shrieked.

“We’ll break the swing in another time, maybe when you’re drunk,” he muttered, walking to the front door.

“I was good,” I told his back. “I was just strategizing.”

“You don’t have to strategize a mattress.”

This was true.

We were inside and he’d started up the steps when I informed him, “You can put me down. I can walk.”

“Waste of time,” he replied. He turned on the landing, kept ascending and asked conversationally, “So, clue me in. When am I Raiden and when am I Raid?”

I held onto his tee and stared at his back a second before I asked, “Sorry?”

We entered my room and he made for the bed. Five strides (I counted) and I was on it and he was on me.

Only then did he explain, “In the beginning all you did was call me Raiden. The first time I seriously tested you and that sweet pussy of yours,” he grinned when I frowned and went on, “you let Raid slip. No one calls me Raiden. Not even my Mom. Now you’re usin’ ‘em both, and I’m tryin’ to sort out where your head is at with which is which.”

I thought about this and then shared, “I’m not certain there’s rhyme or reason to when I use one or the other.”

“Is there rhyme or reason to anything you do?”

For a second I contemplated my eyebrows (which I couldn’t see, but I tried) before I looked back at him. “Not really.”

He’d been smiling when my eyes came back to him, but after I spoke, his smile faded. He cupped the side of my face with his hand, thumb sweeping my cheek then my lips before he said quietly, “My reward.”

I let that slide through me as I turned my face and kissed the palm of his hand.

After I kissed his palm, I said there, “I love it that you think that.”

“Know it,” he corrected and I looked back at him.

“Sorry?”

“Don’t think it, Hanna. Know it.”

That slid through me, too, and I melted (more) underneath him.

“One more thing before we tear each other up,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

Then, even with all that had happened that day, and especially all that had gone on the last twenty minutes, as usual, Raiden Miller still managed to rock my world.

He did this by saying straight out, with feeling, “Thank you, baby, for forgiving me.”

Slowly, I closed my eyes.

I opened them, planted a foot in the bed, rolled him and straddled him, closed them again and kissed him.

Raid kissed me back.