Chapter 28
Trinity
For the next few hours, I keep my eyes shut and pretend to sleep. Last night, though incredible, left me exposed in ways I never anticipated. I’ve struggled to speak with Brody all damn day.
As night falls, I realize I can study his profile without fear of being caught. I drink him in, wondering what else there is to Brody Gallagher.
What don’t I know?
My analysis took a couple days, but I’ve finally concluded that he’s actually a decent man when he’s not all full of bravado and mafia machismo.
But is he decent enough? Can I trust him with my secret?
I wish I knew for sure.
Lightning dances across the sky, radiating cracks across the black dome. A peal of thunder follows. I jump in my seat, releasing an unintentional yelp.
Brody’s hand flies over reflexively, as if to shelter me from a flying bullet while blinding rain falls from the sky, pattering the minivan with a pounding rhythm.
I sit up on my elbows. “That came out of nowhere.”
“No kidding.” Brody nods as rain waterfalls across the windshield. “The sun’s been beating on us all day.”
The wipers swish so quickly, I think they might fly off any second.
We can’t keep driving in this. “Uh, Brody…”
He clicks on his hazards and presses the brake. “I’m going to pull over as soon as I can.” He steers us off onto an access road, driving far enough into the desert that no one will see the van in the downpour.
After he cuts the engine and the lights, we both listen to the rain drum on the roof. Without the wipers on, blue and black watercolor-like streaks paint the night sky through the windshield.
I chew on my bottom lip. This is…awkward. “How’s your thigh?”
He shifts, sighing. “It’s okay, but I need to stretch out.”
A job. Something to do. Excellent. “I’ll put the seats down.” I crawl into the back of the van, lowering the second and third rows of seating. I even find an old camping blanket in the cargo hold behind the third row and spread it out over the empty space.
“Not the Plaza, but it’ll be good enough, I think.”
Brody struggles a little to climb over the bucket seats, but he manages to crawl to the makeshift mattress.
I ball up one of the extra shirts from his bag. “Here. An emergency pillow.”
“Thanks.” He lies on his back, stretching his left leg out with a soft grunt, and folds his hands over his chest.
I settle down beside him.
We’re quiet, but thanks to the constant thrum of the rain, the air feels less awkward than earlier.
Once a few minutes of peaceful silence slip by, I point to the van’s ceiling. “Look. The Big Dipper.”
Brody’s deep, hearty laugh pools low in my belly and stays there. “What the hell are you talking about? Did you steal a stash of the good stuff from the hospital?”
I can’t stop the smile on my face. “I’ve just got a big imagination. You know me.”
A pause. “I’m not so sure I do.”
I guess that’s fair.
The space grows quiet again, leaving room for the thunder and lightning show to take center stage. After another round of their antics, with our arms grazing each other and our eyes safely and firmly planted on the ceiling of the stolen minivan, the urge to spill everything weighs on my tongue.
Maybe it’s the storm, or maybe it’s the thread from last night connecting my soul to his. Whatever the reason, when I open my mouth, my confession tumbles out.
“In seventh grade, I was walking home from school with my best friend, Angelica. A van pulled up in front of us, and the two men who jumped out…they snatched her. Middle of the afternoon. They tossed her into the back of their vehicle and took off. Then they killed her.”
The tension raises the hair on my arms, tingling across my skin like an electric eel.
Brody shifts in the shadows beside me, his arm pressing into mine. “Holy hell, Trinity.”
“Ange had red curls too.” I tug on a wave, pulling the strands taut before I let go. “Her hair was darker than mine, but close enough. Similar eye color too. We used to pretend we were sisters.”
“They meant to take you,” Brody growls.
I nod and trust that he can sense the gesture in his periphery, despite the darkness blanketing us. “Yes.”
“Compiling a list of your family’s dirty deeds was the starting point to finding who took your friend.”
His quick understanding releases years of pain and guilt from my chest.
“The police came up empty, and it felt like my family moved on so quickly. I, however, couldn’t let it go. I thought maybe if I tracked everything down, connected all the dots, that would lead me to Ange’s killers.” My chest starts to ache. “But I haven’t found anything yet.”
“I’m guessing everything you did find only circled back to your family. Or mine.”
I swallow the thick lump in my throat. “That hard drive is essentially a Jenga tower. Tug on any one of the pieces in there the wrong way, and you could collapse the whole organization.”
Brody angles his head toward me. “It wasn’t your fault. What happened to Angelica. It wasn’t your fault.”
His conviction carves the breath straight from my lungs.
I’ve always known, logically, that I couldn’t have prevented Angelica’s kidnapping or death. That I was just a kid.
No one’s ever said so or reassured me as much, though. No one’s ever thought to let me off the hook for what happened to my best friend.
No one except for Brody, immediately after hearing the story.
I’m not sure why or how, but this man who I’ve known for such a short period of time reached into my psyche, grabbed onto the knife buried in my chest for a decade, and ripped the blade out like it was only a splinter.
A wound remains, but without the scrape of the knife forcing it to bleed, maybe I can stop hurting so much.
I press a little more clay to my Brody sculpture and try my best not to start sobbing.
He props himself up on his right arm to face me. “You want to know what a fucked-up family is?”
Since I might shatter into a million pieces and disappear into the sky if I speak, I roll onto my side to meet his dark eyes and nod.
“I’ve spent my life trying to earn the approval of a man who’ll never give it.
I have files, too, in my mind. Hundreds of clips of my life.
” He laughs again, not the open, real laugh from a few minutes ago, but a darker one, tinged with pain.
“Every time, no matter what, I’m all but jumping up and down in front of Declan, begging for acknowledgment. ”
Life’s not a fairy tale. We’re both damaged goods.
I know that, and so does he.
He rests his head on the inside of his arm. “Analyze that.”
His breath heats my cheek, and the smallest of smiles lifts my lips. “It’s normal to want a parent’s approval, even if you never expect to get it.” I shift the tiniest bit closer. “It’s normal to want other things too.”
What am I doing? I’m not sure, but I think the storm’s rousing my bravery.
The rain pelts the car with angry fists, and the thunder rumbles along, struggling to outmatch it. Mother Nature’s just piling on the tension until the air in the van all but crackles.
Brody rests his hand on my shoulder, and I quiver from his caress.
He strokes my arm, and blood races through my veins, heating my skin. My heart pounds so loudly, I can barely hear the rain.
He inches closer, brushing his lips over mine. Maybe the storm makes him brave too. “I’m sorry that happened to your friend.” He wraps his arms around me and draws me into his chest. “And to you.”
A shudder racks my body. He’s the first person to acknowledge my pain since shortly after Angelica died. Somehow, this man I barely know, whose father hates my entire family, who abducted me and threatened me and manhandled me…sees me.
I blink away the hot tears blurring my vision. “Thank you.” I breathe the words into his chest, then press my cheek against his shoulder.
In the thunderstorm’s chill, he’s so incredibly warm.
Stuck in the middle of nowhere, in the desert and on the run from Russian mercenaries…I’ve never felt safer.
He swipes at a tear with his thumb and kisses me again while cupping my cheek. The kiss deepens as I inch closer and press my body flush to his.
I trail my hand down his sculpted arm to his waist to tug at the hem of his shirt. He pulls it over his head and tosses it to the side, allowing me to stroke his bare chest. I trace a line around his little bandages and butterfly stitches before examining his scars.
He doesn’t flinch while I investigate the map of his past, engraved deeper than tattoos on his skin.
When I glance at his face, which is barely visible in the shadows of the night, his eyes are riveted on me. His heavy gaze blasts heat rushing through every limb, infusing me with sudden urgency.
I fumble with his pants as he unfastens the fly of my jeans. With a little cursing on his part, I help remove his boxers and shed my own underwear. Then I shrug out of my t-shirt and lie back on the blanket, both of us newly naked.
Brody traces a path up and down my side, from my rib cage to just above my knee while I continue exploring his chest. Every second we’ve spent together has served as practice for this moment.
I know that now.
His touch roams past my waist to my breasts. When his thumb brushes my nipples, I inhale sharply. He leans in and kisses the valley between them.
“I want you, Brody.” I exhale a shaky breath. “Inside me.”
He quivers. “I want you, too, Trinity. I…fuck.” He stops talking to tease my nipples.
He licks a circle around one and then sucks on the hardened point, drawing breathless little gasps from my lips.
Pulling away, he blows warm air on the tip before shifting his attention to the other one.
I thread my hands through his hair as need swells in my core.
Fists of thunder beat on the sky. Lightning spotlights his body in all its scarred-up glory. Along with his cock, thick and hard and ready for me.
I’m more than ready too. My body aches for his stiff length.
Kissing my shoulders, he rolls on the condom he found in the glove box and settles between my legs. I’m so wet, he slides right in. As he fills me up, the pressure intense and so damn good, I realize this has been my deepest desire since he first pointed his gun at me.
My kidnapper, protector, and savior.
So wrong, but I’ve never felt more right.
My decision to return after escaping shifted our dynamic, creating a balance in the cosmos that wasn’t there before.
I wrap my legs around him and hook my feet behind his back, urging him farther inside me.
“You feel incredible.” He plunges into me with steady strokes, burrowing his cock deeper than I ever thought possible. I moan, the pleasure burning like coal in my belly, warmth spreading with each of his thrusts.
He groans against my neck. “Fuck, Trinity…”
I don’t want to hurt him—he was in the hospital just yesterday—so I try to follow his pace as I rotate my hips up to meet his. Still, I can’t stop myself from gripping his taut ass, squeezing, and encouraging him to pick up the pace.
I’ve spent my whole life being careful, analytical, and logical. The time I’ve spent with Brody has taught me that the world is chaos sprinkled with moments of calm, not the other way around.
I need more of this. More of him.
“Brody, Brody, shit…” I cling to him, my nipples scraping against his chest and sending little sparks of euphoria straight down to my pussy.
“You’re fucking perfect, Trinity.” He kisses my jaw and neck before dragging his tongue over my skin.
I rake my nails up his back, pulling him closer, pushing harder. I gasp for breath, my mind hazy.
I realize now that Brody getting rushed into that ER on a stretcher…right past the very spot where I stood…was fate.
An abstract, philosophical concept that I’ve never taken seriously.
But I can’t deny the truth.
We were fated to meet, though I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that…
Regardless, I want to keep this feeling for the rest of my life.
This warm, molten, passionate heat that boils between us, burning me alive.
Brody’s brought out a part of me I never knew existed, and there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. I’m awash with this new sense of self.
He’s broken my barriers, both body and soul, and then reconstructed them around the crash site.
I can’t ever go back to the way I was before.
Nor do I ever want to let him go.
He moans, quickening his thrusts. “It’s like you…were built for me.”
“I know.” I breathe my agreement into his ear. Then lose all capability for words entirely when his fingers find my clit and pinch.
His mouth swallows my cries as an orgasm more intense than the pouring rain and more deafening than the thunder washes over me.
His cock pulses inside me as he comes while groaning against my mouth. I cling to him, trembling, shuddering, breaking.
The only two people in the world.
As my body continues to shiver—long after Brody’s pulled out and is lying beside me again—fear creeps in.
I’m terrified that, when all’s said and done, I’m going to lose this.
Lose him.