Chapter 18 Willow #2
I blink, taken aback by the question. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. These guys are all super close. They’re brothers, and they apparently do everything as a team, so of course Malice would’ve told him about what happened with my mom.
“No, she hasn’t. I haven’t talked to her since then,” I tell him. “But my money hasn’t been touched again.” I swallow, picking at a hole in the Formica table top. “It’s not the first time she’s stolen from me, although this was the biggest sum, I guess. It was hard growing up with her.”
“Yeah? How so?”
Ransom is watching me, his arms folded on the table in front of him. That same light of curiosity I thought I saw in his eyes the day he came to visit me on campus is back, but burning brighter now.
I think about the strange men who came to our house at random hours of the day and night, about the looks some of them gave me, and the ones who asked my mom if I was available for a little fun too…
and about the man who decided not to ask her at all.
But I don’t want to get into any of that with Ransom, so I don’t mention it.
“I missed a lot of school when I was younger,” I say instead.
“Because Mom needed help paying the bills. So I’d get a job and work, but then she’d spend the money on stupid things.
Stuff she didn’t even need. Drugs or booze or clothes to make herself feel better.
So then we’d still be behind on the bills.
When I turned eighteen and moved out, I told myself that I wouldn’t have to deal with her anymore, but… ”
I sigh, shaking my head.
“But what?” Ransom prompts, leaning forward a little more.
“I don’t know. Part of me feels like I owe her a lot.
She adopted me when I was a little kid, barely two years old, and that’s something not a lot of people would have done.
I’ve always felt like I owe her because of that, but I know she uses that against me sometimes.
It’s just another thing for her to manipulate me with.
” I stop picking at the table, tracing a swirl on the pocked surface with my finger instead. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
Ransom makes a quiet noise in the back of his throat.
“I know what it’s like to have a shitty parent,” he says.
“Our mom was a fucking saint, but our dad? He was a complete piece of shit. He—” He breaks off, huffing a breath through his nose.
“Let’s just say I know what it’s like to have someone who should be on your side treat you like shit and manipulate you. ”
I stare at him from across the table, surprised he told me any of that. It reminds me a little of what Malice said to me in the car that day we went to my mom’s house. About how love can be weaponized against you.
I’m starting to get a clearer picture of these men, a better understanding of where they came from, and I’m surprised that I feel myself actually relating to them and understanding them.
The waitress comes back and drops off our food, and we both take a few bites of our burgers, sitting in a surprisingly comfortable silence for a moment before I set down my food and murmur, “That man you killed that night… he really killed your mom?”
I glance up in time to see something pass through Ransom’s eyes, a flash of pain seems to darken the bright blue-green of his irises. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and he nods.
“Yeah. He did.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Thanks.” He blows out a breath, puffing out his cheeks a little. “I’m sorry you had to see what we did to him, but he fucking deserved it. And if that’s the kind of clientele that brothel served, I’m not sorry it burned to the ground either. Had you worked there long?”
A flush creeps up my cheeks. “No. It… it was my first time. Not just my first time getting paid, but my first time ever. Or it would’ve been if you all hadn’t come in and…”
Ransom’s face darkens, his brows pulling together. “Well then, I’m even more glad we killed that son of a bitch. Your first time shouldn’t be with a man like that.”
My heart lurches. There was something almost… protective about the way he said those words, like he really means them. I’m not sure what to say in response, or even how to feel about the protective note in his voice, so I don’t say anything, and silence falls for a moment as we continue to eat.
Maybe Ransom can sense that the conversation has gotten too heavy for me, or maybe he wants to change the subject for himself, but when he speaks again, his tone is lighter, a grin tugging at his full lips.
“So, how did you like your first motorcycle ride?”
I smile, relieved by the change of topic. “I liked it. More than I thought I would.”
He chuckles, the sound deep and warm. “You’ve got a wild side, I see.”
I snort softly. “I don’t know about that. It was the first time I’ve ever done anything like that before.”
“Me, I’m an adrenaline junkie,” he admits. “I love going fast and riding the edge. There are some mountains north of here that have these crazy narrow roads, and you can go a hundred miles an hour easy.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
He grins wider, biting into a fry. “And fun as hell. Those are the rides that get your heart racing. But then you have the longer, smoother ones that are just you and a stretch of flat road, and that has its own kind of thrill.”
We spend the rest of the meal talking easily, and when we finally finish eating, Ransom pays the check. Then we head outside and climb back on his bike so he can take me home.
This time, it’s a little less terrifying than it was before.
A few minutes later, we roar up to my building, and when he cuts the engine, we both get off the bike. A look falls over Ransom’s face as we stand on the sidewalk under a streetlamp, and he takes a step closer to me.
“Hey, I gotta ask… what happened with you and Mal and Vic before I came back tonight?”
Oh my god.
This has been such a long night that it’s hard to believe how much has happened in the space of several hours.
It feels like days ago that I was in the library finishing up my paper, and the parts of the evening where I was chased down the street, saw Malice fucking a woman, and then ate a late night burger with Ransom all seem like they exist in completely separate dimensions, as if they couldn’t possibly have all happened to the same person.
“Nothing,” I whisper, shrugging evasively. “I walked in and saw Malice with a woman, and then Victor came up behind me.”
Even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I know they’re not exactly true. It wasn’t nothing.
I clear my throat, my body seeming to flush all over at the memory of Victor speaking low in my ear. I’ll never forget the way he sounded, analyzing and describing the physiological response I was having to the sight of Malice brutally fucking that woman in the living room.
Ransom studies me for a moment in the flickering light of the streetlamp, like he’s trying to gauge how close to the truth my answer was. Then he nods, taking a step closer to me as he reaches up to brush his fingertips over my cheek.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Because I have to admit, when I came home and saw you standing there between the two of them, I was jealous as hell.”
He drops his head toward mine as he finishes speaking, and my pulse skyrockets. “What are you doing?” I whisper breathlessly.
His blue-green eyes bounce between mine as he captures my chin between his thumb and fingers.
“I’ve been staring at your lips all night. I have to know if they taste as sweet as they look.”
When he leans down and kisses me, I almost stop breathing. His mouth is hot on mine, and when he flicks his tongue against my lips, I can feel warm metal from a piercing I didn’t realize he had until now.
An exhale shudders out of me, and I tilt my head up a little, kissing him back.
It’s slow at first, almost exploratory, but then it starts to deepen.
His pierced tongue slides against mine as his hands fall to my waist, and he uses the light grip to tug me a little closer to him, making me hyper aware of every single place our bodies are touching.
It feels like there’s a fire burning between the two of us, and every stroke of our tongues fans the flame. It doesn’t make any logical sense, but I can’t fight it.
All I can do is take little snatches of air in the moments when our lips part, every cell in my body focused on the way his mouth feels against mine.
It’s like I’m on fire and melting at the same time, and when a little moan spills out of my lips, I can’t even feel embarrassed about it.
My head is spinning, and I feel like I’m floating, like I might drift away if he wasn’t holding me down.
I lose track of where we are for a bit, and it’s not until I feel Ransom’s hand slipping under my shirt that my brain kicks in again.
The light brush of his fingertips against my stomach snaps me out of the daze I was in immediately, and I pull away, not wanting him to touch my scars and be grossed out.
I never let anyone touch them—not that anyone has ever really wanted to.
Part of me is braced for him to get angry that I pushed him away, but he just grins at me and tugs on a lock of my hair, wrapping it lightly around his fingers. Heat still burns in his eyes, and the metal of his eyebrow ring glints in the low light from the streetlamps outside my building.
“I knew you had a wild side,” he murmurs. “I like it. Have a good night, angel. Get some rest.”
He gets back on his motorcycle but doesn’t leave, watching as I make my way toward my building on unsteady legs.
It’s only once I’m inside, the door closing behind me, that I hear the roar of his bike as he pulls away.