Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
ANDIE
It’s the constant chattering of my teeth that has me slowly coming back from wherever my fractured mind has taken me. No wonder I’m freezing, I think, as ice-cold water pelts me from the showerhead. How long have I been in here? My blue-tipped, pruned fingers and toes indicate that I must have been in here for a while.
You will survive this, little flame.
Will I, though?
My body is suddenly shocked with a scorching heat, the jarring sensation like thousands of sharp needles embedding into my skin. As I blink away the cloudy haze from my vision, bright hazel eyes come into focus.
“Keane?”
“I’ve got you, princess,” he says softly, vigorously rubbing my arms and back with a thick towel, taking great care not to touch any injury or jostle my left hand.
He perches me atop the bathroom vanity counter. I’m shivering like mad as all my senses click back on, one by one. My first thought is that I feel like a human popsicle. My second thought is…
“How did you get in?”
A small smirk appears on his face. “Kicked your door in.”
Typical.
Keane drapes a second towel over my shoulders, then begins rubbing my thighs and legs. Warmth spreads along my extremities as he switches back and forth from thighs to legs to arms to torso.
Once my trembling abates, he steps between my legs, gathers me in his arms, and holds me. It feels so good being in his arms. His lips nuzzle my wet hair, my neck, the sensitive patch of skin behind my ear. Everywhere he touches feels like I’m being electro-shocked back to life.
“I can’t lose you.” His voice cracks slightly, showing me a glimpse into the vulnerable part of him he never allows anyone to see. But I see it because he lets me.
Keane cradles my face, our cheeks brushing in a soft caress, like a kiss. Then our lips meet and linger, barely touching.
“Keane, I?—”
His warm breath fans over my face when he hushes me. “Not yet,” he says, the pads of his fingers beginning to roam, the blunt edges of his nails dragging tenderly down my spine. He splays his large hands across my shoulders and dips his head to lick a trail of open-mouthed kisses along my clavicle and between my breasts. My nipples instantly bead into hard points when he nuzzles each breast, and the valley between my legs slickens with instant arousal.
A moan catches in my throat when he takes a taut bud into his mouth, laving it with soft sucks and pulls with his tongue. He switches to the other breast and gives it the same attention.
Desire replaces the dark misery that had taken up residence inside me.
The next time Keane’s lips reach mine, I open for him, the kiss he gives me, slow and deep and perfect. My uninjured hand grips the nape of his neck, keeping him close.
He pulls back slightly. A long, masculine finger tucks a few loose strands of my wet hair behind my ear, and then Keane pecks the tip of my nose. “Don’t move.”
Bending down, he reaches under the vanity and pulls out a hair dryer, plugging it into a nearby socket. Then, to my utter astonishment, Keane turns it on and begins to dry my hair. I swear, if I hadn’t already acknowledged to myself that I was in love with him, this right here would have tipped the scales. I’m in love with four dangerous, ruthless men. Men who challenge me, but who also show me tenderness and seem to always know how to glue my fragmented pieces back together whenever I break apart.
My lashes flutter close when Keane tilts my head and runs his fingers through the damp mass, lifting it up to dry it better. After several minutes pass, he turns the dryer off and places it on the counter next to me.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
“Anytime.” He holds up a lock of my hair, bunching the ends between his thumb and middle finger. “Your hair is so soft,” he says.
“I thought you said you hated it.” At Kellan’s cabin after they rescued me from the warehouse, Keane had commented that he disliked the new light brown color.
“I’m a lying asshole,” he replies, and a small chuckle escapes me. “You’ll always be beautiful to me, Andie.”
Air rushes out of my lungs, and I drop my forehead to his chest.
Beautiful, even when broken . Isn’t that what Jax said to me?
Keane bundles me in his arms, towels and all, and carries me out of the bathroom and over to the bed.
“Where is everyone?” I ask when he yanks back the goose down comforter and lays me on top of the satiny sheets.
“Waiting for you.” He pauses and fans my hair out on the pillow. “Whenever you’re ready. No rush.”
“Has Pearson or the hospital called?”
He indicates no with the shake of his head.
In the darkened room, I watch as he sheds his clothes, revealing gorgeously inked arms and chest, and solid, muscled legs, until all that remains are a pair of black briefs that outline his thick erection. Keane climbs into the bed behind me, manipulating me like warmed clay until we’re spooned together so tightly, not a millimeter of space remains. His strong arms lock around me, his head finding a home nestled in the crook of my shoulder, our bodies fitting perfectly together. Then we both sigh as the weight of the day begins to ease.
“I always feel safe with you,” I whisper into the silence of the room.
The hard thump of his heartbeat pounds against my back. “I haven’t done a good job of keeping you safe.”
I reach around with my right hand and twine our fingers together. Keane throws a leg over me, anchoring me to him and the bed. Tears that I thought I couldn’t cry anymore, raced down my cheeks. Oh God. I feel like I’m dying.
“Declan… he…”
You will survive this, little flame.
Keane kisses my neck, biting down on it. The brief pain stops me from freefalling back into that dark place of self-loathing and regret.
“Declan will pull through. You hear me?” He pinches my chin and angles my face toward him. “You asked me recently if I was ready to set the world on fire with you.”
I nod.
“Then that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Do you trust me?”
I twist around in his firm embrace. His eyes are like twin green-brown infernos, hotter than the image he just painted with his words. Eyes that hold the truth to his statement, and for the first time since watching Declan being placed in the ambulance, hope surges through me.
“Yes,” I answer because I do trust him. It’s a hard concept for me—to trust anyone—after everything I’ve been through. But Keane has it. They all do. Even Rafe. “But I guess the more important question is: Do you trust me ?”
“A hundred fucking percent,” he replies. “Now, get some sleep. I promise to wake you if word comes in about Declan,” Keane says, reverting back to his bossy ways. He kisses me lightly on the lips.
“Okay.”
He’s right. I’m no good to anyone as exhausted and heartsick as I am now. Declan needs me to be strong, and I need him to live. Everything else will just have to fucking wait in the back of the line.
Just as I settle my head on Keane’s chest and close my eyes, I feel Rafe’s bracelet come undone and fall off my wrist. My injured hand hurts like a son of a bitch in the splint and wrappings Mike put on me.
“What are you doing?”
Keane slides his ring off his middle finger—the silver one with the snake design and small round rubies for eyes.
“Until we get yours back,” he says, slipping the ring onto the bracelet, then reclasping it around my wrist.
I stare at the heavy ring dangling between the bead charms that spell out Rafael + Alexandria .
“I tried to stop him from taking them. I fought with everything I had. But it wasn’t enough.”
Keane kisses the bracelet, then kisses me. “You’re so wrong, princess. You are more than enough. And the rings don’t matter. They’re just pieces of metal and stone.”
“But they were your mother’s.” I cradle his cheek in my hand, my sorrow over not protecting something that was so important to him evident.
He kisses me again. “They don’t matter. You do.”
God, this man.
Snuggling into him, I force my tight muscles to relax.
“I want one,” I tell him, my good hand smoothing over the tattoo on his back of the fire phoenix rising from the pits of hell.
“One what?” he asks when my forefinger traces the letters of the words Rafe designed, even though I can’t see them.
“Your mark. The one you, Jax, and Rafe have,” I reply.
Death is only the beginning.
“My savage little princess,” he says against my hair, and I finally succumb to a restless sleep.