Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)(48)

“When I was seventeen I got shipped off to Minnesota to a place called North House for troubled kids—the house-parents, Cade and Debra, and the other kids there saved me from a serious path of self-destruction and helped me to forgive myself—but I still just didn’t care. In fact, I never cared much about living life again until I met you.”

Fuck. I can’t even look at her at this point. I can’t believe I went through it all—I just let everything spill. Not only does she know how I feel—about important things like life, death and her—she’s going to start psychoanalyzing me with her know-it-all textbook bullshit. And she’s going to want to talk! We do not have time for that! For all three of us to walk away even minimally unscathed, I have a lot of f*cking work to do.

I maneuver away from Farrington without even glancing at her expression and sit at the table, powering up the laptop.

I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have exposed myself that way—especially to Farrington, who’s already so goddamn vulnerable. I have to keep this professional.

From now on, business only.

Then if we survive . . .

I can’t even go there.

Son of a bitch.

I yank up my phone, about to call Briggs—we need to be accessing search engines and every database we’ve got ASAP. And I have a hunch that just may get her through this.

Her hand lilts onto my shoulder. “Thank you, Ryder.”

I can’t help but go still. That’s all she says before she walks away from me and goes into the bathroom. A moment later I hear the tub water running.

I lean forward over the laptop. “Miguel, you’re going to wish you never f*cked with her.”



Rachel





He sits in the other room, face forward towards the computer, and all I can do right now is escape into this teeny bathroom and steady my breathing and try to rein in my heart, which is galloping out of control.

I get it now. I get it all.

When hot tears rise between my lashes, I’m not surprised.

I can see the sweet young boy, the turbulent and damaged teenager, all rolled up into this incredible, powerful protector of a man.

I know I’m unequivocally in love with him. And that I want to go out there and show him how much. I want to hold him in my arms until all of the fury and pain and fear he keeps hidden and caged inside of him condenses, becomes vapor and is diffused into the immensity of the atmosphere.

He doesn’t want anyone to see the pain he bears, the weight on his shoulders. He stands so tall and tough so as not to allow anything in this world to take the pain away—it’s how he survives—with it—with them, all of his dead.

He’s become comfortable with the shrapnel buried in the depths of his soul—removing the shards will be agonizing.

Ryder would hate for me to be thinking this way. He doesn’t want me to see anything besides what he wants projected to the world—that he is unbreakable and fearless.

I listen to him talking with his partner Briggs, his voice rising in frustration as he pushes the pieces of what he has left to work with to get us all out of this alive.

Stepping into the streams of pulsating hot water that pump hypnotically through the showerhead, I tilt my head back, stretch my neck and allow the water to rush like fingertips over my scalp. It tickles down my back and dampens my thighs.

I want him.

I want every part of him—the boy, the man, the love, the pain. I want the bravery and the power.

I need his steel to my silk, his power to my weakness.

I hunger and ache.

As I wash and these thoughts are crowding out every last bit of doubt or restraint that I may have possessed, I realize I must be more like a demon to him than a woman. I’m taking him to a new level of hell—another tier to compound his pain and rise up in the center of his internal inferno. Another person that has touched his life, no matter how briefly, and will soon be transformed into one of his ghosts.

Another haunting ghost of someone he couldn’t save.

I wonder if I’ve become important enough to deserve a tribute in ink somewhere on his body.

I’m torn between the selfish nature of the thought and the wishful plea—the hope that someone else will carry me in their soul and not let go once I’m gone.

Isn’t that the sum of all human desire—to be remembered, immortal, unforgotten?

But it’s more than that—my mom and sister will keep me in their hearts. It’s him. It’s Ryder who I want to remember me. If I could be kept in his soul and immortalized in his heart, it would feel like a piece of me was still living. Like a part of me survived.

Because his love would make it that way.

I rinse and shut off the water. I dry my body then squeeze the hotel lotion into my hand and smooth the cold cream over my hot skin. It smells good.

It’s fitting that I prepare myself—like a funeral rite.

After I run the comb through my wet tangles, I do something extreme and bold. I step out of the bathroom and into the hotel room completely naked.

Each breath labors through my chest—I’m so scared, so f*cking scared.

“Ryder.” My voice is barely audible.

He doesn’t turn, and I steel myself to be braver. “Ryder.”

He turns—beautiful and brilliant. “Farrington.” My name is but a breath on his lips. His eyes widen, and even with all my degrees and knowledge of the human mind, I can’t read what’s behind them.