Chapter 6 Jesse
JESSE
I fell into the arms of the man I’d both wished dead and jacked off to more times than I could count.
Rafferty.
Thank God.
I’d nurtured hatred and sexual tension like a pair of burning coals in my chest this last year, but fear—of hypothermia, of being found—had pushed me through the slush and ice.
I hadn’t even been sure he’d be here. Barely able to stand, I despised the relief that filled my chest at his warm presence.
“Hey, I’ve got you,” he said, breathing heavily and smelling of vodka. “Someone coming after you right now?”
I shook my head. “Everyone’s dead. Rangers. My uncle.” I sucked in the heated air, grateful. “But my dad. My dad’ll come looking for me once they don’t find a body.”
“Hold up,” he said as he supported my weight and walked us through a small living area. “Your uncle went after you?”
“Ye—”
I went in and out of it for a second, and when I was able to focus, I was sitting on a toilet with the lid down. Rafferty was tugging off the sopping wet shirt spackled to my body.
The shirt had been white, but not anymore.
I touched my neck and cursed. When had I lost my chain?
My concentration was still spotty, but I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever felt safer. Like nothing bad could happen to me in Rafferty’s arms.
It was fucking with the version of Rafferty I hated—the cold bastard from that day in court—but clicked with the fantasy of him when I took myself in hand.
Couldn’t tell what was making my head spin more: the concern in the depths of his big gray-green eyes or the gentle way he warmed my hands in his.
I rocked back, dizzy. The room wasn’t spinning, necessarily, but I could definitely feel the rotation of the earth.
“We’ve gotta get these pants off you,” he said, like something out of an erotic dream. “You look like you’ve been half-drowned and beat to hell, and you said something about your dad looking for your body. What the fuck happened to you?”
Warm me up, detective.
“Highway 29. Buchanan,” I slurred, struggling to answer his question as I rocked forward, taking in the tiny bathroom. Old-school wood paneling, an unadorned large window, brass fixtures. Shallow porcelain tub surrounded by subway tiles. “The dam.”
“You went into the water?” he asked in a hushed voice.
I nodded shakily. “Uh. Both cars. Hiked. Mostly stayed off the road.” I shut one eye, hardly able to concentrate with the heat he was putting off.
“Was your uncle’s car the second car?”
“Yes.”
“And you walked here? In this weather?” He cursed under his breath. “That dam is almost three miles away.”
“Rangers… Their families.”
“We’ll call it in. I just need to get these clothes off you. Now.”
Yes, sir.
He ditched his bloodied overshirt and pushed back his sleeves before dragging me up from the toilet, hooking a strong arm around my waist. I was standing by only the loosest definition of the word.
Again, the smell of alcohol filled my nostrils as he reached past the shower curtain and turned on the tap.
“Vodka,” I said, resting my forehead on his shoulder as he began to aggressively rub the skin on my torso and back. “You don’t look drunk. Are you drunk?”
“Yep.”
He didn’t bother to explain, so I kept leaning against him, trying to remember how to breathe.
“You were slurring and fading in and out for a minute there,” he said, peering into my eyes. “How’s your vision? Does your head hurt? Are you seeing double?”
Swear to fucking Christ, his voice was like warm butter.
“Face hurts,” I said, touching my eyebrow. Fuck. “Vision’s good. Slurring ’cause I’m so f-fucking cold.”
“Anything broken?”
His hands drifted carefully over my ribs as if looking for something he could fix. Make better.
I shook my head, then looked down at the new bruises blooming through my tattoos like some fucked-up briar of wild roses. “Nope. I j-just feel like one of those Dam-Dammit Dolls.”
“I bet.” He chuckled as his hands moved up and down my arms, my neck. “Nice to hear you say a full sentence.” Finally noticing my feet, he asked, “Where the fuck are your shoes?”
“Bottom of the lake,” I said as I bent down to take off my socks.
Oof. Mistake. I was so dizzy I might just fly off the planet at this point. I stumbled forward, and he caught me.
“I’ve got you,” he said, holding me with one arm while using his free hand to help me remove the wet socks.
I leaned into him and let the swirling in my head pass. My hands were still cold and the skin on my feet was raw from walking on the wet knit, but I’d been lucky. They’d mostly protected my feet when it counted.
The state of my extremities had distracted me from the head wound, which started to throb as my body slowly heated. I glanced in the mirror. My eyes were unnaturally bright against the mask of blood on my face and numb realization replaced the dizziness.
“That’s ho-horrifying,” I said on a shiver.
“It’s just a bad gash on your eyebrow,” he assured me in that melted honey voice. “I’ll get to it, but we need to get your temperature back up first.”
“Okay,” I said as he knelt, loosening the button on my jeans. “I can’t… I can’t believe I didn’t die.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said, his voice low as he concentrated on lowering my zipper.
God, his sincerity was fucking me up, big time, and the way he fought against the soaked material made me want to run my fingers through his thick, unruly hair.
Frustrated with the lack of progress, he grabbed my waistband with both hands and yanked hard. That got both my jeans and my underwear to mid-thigh, nearly pulling me on top of him.
My cold, shriveled nuts brushed his cheek, and I bit back a moan. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything, just kept tugging until he got everything down to my ankles. I grabbed his broad shoulders as he finally worked the stubborn material free.
When I’d imagined him ripping my clothes off, I was always warm enough to have an erection. I couldn’t decide if I was grateful for the shrinkage or if I wanted to explain that I was more of a grower than a show-er.
I could just imagine Ursula from The Little Mermaid whispering in my ear: pathetic.
I decided silence was the better option and stood there, naked and shivering so hard it felt like my teeth were going to rattle out of my head. He repeated the same sort of aggressive rubbing up and down my legs, breathing so hard I could feel his hot breath on my chilled bits.
What are your thoughts on cock warming, Detective Rafferty?
The image of him taking my soft cock into his mouth set me spinning again.
I could picture it perfectly. He’d let it warm up, slowly, with the gentlest suckling until it grew against his tongue.
Revived, he’d feast on me, sucking, fingering, driving me out of my mind until I was a boneless, spent mess.
Going without sex for a year has clearly fucked with my priorities.
Not the first time you’ve imagined Rafferty on his knees though.
The shower started to billow steam behind us, and he gently helped me into the shallow tub, leaving the curtain half-open. I cursed as my frozen toes hit the gathering water.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured as he adjusted the temperature and positioned the sprayer over me. “This is probably gonna sting like a sonofabitch.”
No shit.
Gasping, I choked on my own spit as the hot water rained down on me like a million tiny needles. I swayed, then grabbed his arm to steady myself, cursing through the painful thaw as he continued to aggressively rub the goddamn skin off my very bones.
Within minutes, I began to pink up, and just as quickly, the water went from torture to fucking paradise. Christ, the relief was damn near orgasmic. I moaned under the perfect water pressure, and Rafferty stepped back, his shirt half-soaked.
“Better?”
“Fuck yeah.”
He grinned for just the briefest moment before getting serious again. “Probably gonna have some bruises from your seat belt,” he said, assessing me. “But you may just be the luckiest guy I know.”
“Oh, I feel lucky,” I snarked.
He was right though. The bone-jarring cold had been the source of most of my pain, and aside from the gash on my head and a few raw spots on my feet, I was…actually kind of okay. The real luck was that his cabin hadn’t been farther from the accident. I wasn’t sure I’d have made it much longer.
Rafferty reached in and carefully wiped the blood from my face and neck. “Bleeding’s mostly stopped,” he said, examining the cut.
“Thank fuck.”
He cupped my face. “When did you last eat?”
“We had lunch in Junction, I think.”
“Gimme a sec.”
He stepped out of the room and came back in seconds later with a handful of Hershey Kisses. “They’re a little old,” he said, peeling off the foil on one, then another, “but they’ll help until we can get some real food into you.”
With the hot shower pounding on my neck and shoulders, I opened my mouth, and he placed the first one on my tongue with a smirk.
He knew what I was doing.
I chewed it a little, then opened my mouth for the other. Rolling his eyes, he obliged, pushing it between my lips, his fingers an all-too-brief but welcome invasion. I closed my mouth and let the chocolate melt on my tongue as I mushed it against the roof of my mouth.
I had always been a little picky about sweets, but flirtations aside, these stale Hershey Kisses were a magic elixir. The best thing I’d ever tasted in my life. I felt steady on my feet for the first time since the SUV went into the water.
I swallowed the melty chocolate, then moaned into a smile as he unpeeled another.
He held it up, and I leaned in, taking it from his waiting fingers with my teeth.
He shook his head as I grabbed the last two from his hand, unwrapping them. I gave him the foil and popped the kisses into my mouth, vulgar as I chewed, enjoyed, and swallowed.