Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(51)
Still completely naked, though that was irrelevant, Rad picked her up and sat down on the side of the bed, cradling her like a child. He held her and let her cry until the tears had run their course.
When she lay quietly in his arms, he asked, “You want to talk about it?”
She shook her head.
“Okay. I’m gonna take these filthy clothes off you and put you in the shower. I’m gonna wash this day off you. Don’t fight me, Willa. Let me take care of you. Can you do that for me?”
It took a long few seconds before she responded, but when she did, she nodded.
oOo
Rad woke in the middle of the night, unsure where he was. Once sleep cleared from his vision and he understood the room’s spectral orange glow for what it was—the motel sign at the road—the rest of time fell back into place.
But the pillow at his side was empty. Lifting onto his elbow, he saw Willa sitting at the end of the bed, shoulders slumped. Her ghost faced him in the mirror, bathed in faded neon light.
He knew what she was doing. “Willa, put it down.”
She didn’t. “He killed babies.”
Word had come during the day that some survivalist piece of shit had been arrested not even two hours after the blast.
Rad sat up. “I know. Baby, put it down. Come back to bed.”
When she didn’t move, he got up, walked to the end of the bed, took the damned little sock out of her hand, and opened a drawer in the dresser. It was empty except for the Gideon Bible. Not sure why, Rad opened the bible and set the little sock on the random page it had fallen to. He closed the book, put it back in its place, and closed the drawer.
“Come back to bed, Willa.” He held out his hand.
She ignored his hand, but she finally stirred, looking up at him. In the odd artifice of the neon light, her eyes seemed too big and too sad. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand how somebody can do something like that. People woke up and had breakfast and got their kids dressed and went to work. They probably listened to the radio. Maybe that little girl was having a bad day. Maybe she was crying and fussy and her mom was irritated. Maybe that was the last thing she thought about her little girl when she dropped her off, that she wished she’d shut up for a minute, and she was glad to be rid of her for the day. People do that. No matter how much you love somebody, sometimes you hate them a little. What if that’s the last thing you feel and you can’t ever take that back?”
Rad crouched before her and covered her hands with his. They were both naked now, but Willa sat there with more than her body exposed. “No good can come from thinkin’ like that. If you love somebody, that’s what they feel. Even if you hate them a little for a minute.”
“There was somebody walking around for days and days, planning all those people’s deaths while they were just having their life, not knowing how close they were to being over. They woke up and didn’t know it was the last time they would. They got their kids dressed in little lacy socks, and—”
“Willa!” Enough of this; Rad needed to get her back on the rails. He shook her hands sharply. “Stop this shit right now. Most people don’t get to know when their time is up, whether they die in their sleep or in a highway wreck or in a blown-up building. Every day could be anybody’s last day. What happened—it’s…I don’t know the right words. Fucked all to shit. But it don’t do any good to think like you are. You just gotta live and not worry about where the road ends.”
He stood and pulled on her hands. “Come to bed with me. We both need rest.”
“I can’t sleep. I see too much.”
“Then lay down with me. At least rest.” He pulled again, and this time, she stood. He led her back to bed and got her settled next to him under the covers, with her head on his chest and his arms around her.
She lay with him quietly, but she didn’t rest. Rad could feel wakefulness throughout her body. He stroked her arm, ran his fingers through her hair, but he couldn’t make her calm.
He’d asked her earlier in the night if she’d wanted to talk, and she’d refused. Now, she’d tried to talk, and he’d shut her down. He wasn’t good at this stuff, and his instincts, which so rarely let him down, were at a loss now.
With Dahlia, everything had been fighting and making up, round and round and round. She’d start something, push his buttons, and he’d get mad and shout, and she’d shout and cry, and they’d go at each other like that until they were f*cking like rabid dogs.
He’d called that passion. It was a sort, he supposed.
But this, Willa’s quiet, her obvious need for comfort and her reluctance to take it, he didn’t know what to do with it.
So he held her and stroked her and let her be.
After a while, she began to stroke him back, her hand moving over his chest in the same pattern and tempo as his hand down her arm. Soft, soft strokes, the velvet of her palm coasting over his chest, moving the hair so lightly, over his belly to the edge of the covers, then back up.
His cock couldn’t help but react to that, but he made himself hold back the groan that filled his throat when he stretched to his full length. There was little light in the room, just the glow of the motel sign filtered through insufficient drapes; he hoped she hadn’t noticed the shift of the covers.
As a stroke went over his belly, her fingers skimmed his side, and she paused there, tracing a fingertip over a scar. “This is a bullet wound,” she said with a voice lower than a whisper.