Chapter 16 #2
He reached out slowly, giving her time to pull away.
His fingers brushed the torn edge of her sleeve, right where the bruise bloomed darkest on her shoulder.
The contact sent a jolt through him, part relief, part something darker and more possessive that he didn’t have time to name as he slid his hand down her arm and claimed the pistol.
“You did good, kelarris. Now let me take it from here.”
The corridor outside the crew quarters felt suffocatingly narrow. The stadium, the arrests, the broadcast… all of it felt a million miles away now, locked out behind the sealed airlock of the H4-RPY.
She’d taken a battering in that box. Her ribs ached with every breath, her shoulder throbbed where the stadium medics had dressed a deep cut, and her split lip stung every time she even thought about speaking.
Raaze stood by the cargo ramp controls. His jacket was open to the waist, and his undershirt was gone, revealing the dermal tape that criss-crossed his bruised ribs. He looked exhausted, as if he’d been dragged through a hedge backward. An alien hedge with carnivorous plants in it.
She took a step forward, tilting her head to study him. He had a vicious cut along one cheekbone. She winced as she reached for his face, her hand pausing halfway.
“I thought you Lathar had awesome medical technology or something?”
He snorted and tilted his head back, bitter amusement washing across his handsome features. “Yeah, you’d think, wouldn’t you? And the Empire does, but players… unless you’re attached to a team, you can’t afford a healer. The only reason the medics even looked at me was because I’m with you.”
“Huh? That doesn’t make sense. I can’t afford to pay them either, if that’s the case.”
He shook his head, red eyes fixed on her face. “You’re under the protection of the Emperor himself. No medic would dare not treat you. In fact, they’re probably compiling a report to prove that they did right now.”
Okay, he had to have hit his head somewhere because the words coming out of his mouth did not make a lick of sense. “Why would I be under the protection of the Emperor? I’ve never met the guy.”
“All human females are under his protection,” Raaze said, his voice a low rasp.
Silence fell between them. He was close enough to touch if she reached out. His steady gaze on her face said she’d have to be the one to do it.
Say something, she told herself. You came back. You don’t get to be a coward now.
“I owe you an apology,” she said.
His head came up. “You don’t—”
“Shut up. I’m talking.”
His mouth closed, and surprise flickered across his face, followed by the ghost of amusement. Folding his arms across his chest, he waited.
She took a breath. Her ribs ached. Fuck, everything ached, but this ached worse than all the bruises.
“I’m not sorry I left,” she said. “You lied to me. You manipulated me from the first second we met. You picked me because you thought I was weak, and you used that. I had every right to walk away.”
He didn’t argue. His jaw tightened, but he stayed silent.
“What I am sorry for,” she carried on, “is how I left. Yeah, I ran. I took the easy way out instead of standing there and fighting you on it. And all the while I told myself I was protecting myself, but that’s not—” She looked away.
“But that’s not who I am. I don’t quit. I’ve spent my whole life refusing to quit. ”
He stepped closer. The heat radiating off his massive body beat against her skin.
“You had every reason to run.”
Her gaze snapped back to his.
“I had every reason to stay and make you explain yourself.” Her voice cracked. She hated it cracked. “I came back because the plan was mine and I wasn’t letting you take credit for my work. That’s what I told myself on the way. That’s the lie that got me through the first few hours.”
Raaze’s expression shifted. Careful. Waiting. “And the hours after that?”
She held up her hand to shush him. If she didn’t get this out in one go, she never would.
“The truth is I came back because I couldn’t leave you to die.” The words came out raw. “I couldn’t live with that. Even hating you, I couldn’t—”
She stopped. Her throat was too tight to continue.
He grabbed her hand, pressing it to the center of his chest, right over his heart.
“My turn,” he said, his voice a low rasp.
She looked up at him. The bruises on his face were darker now, purple around the edges. The cut below his eye had been sealed with medical adhesive, but it would scar. He looked as if he’d been through a war.
“I picked you on that landing pad because I thought you were weak,” he said.
“Isolated, and you looked like you were struggling. Classic easy mark.” He shrugged.
“And I was an idiot who didn’t know the first thing about human females.
I was wrong about you on every count, from the very first second. ”
“Raaze—”
“I’m not finished.” His voice was rough.
“I’ve been falling for you since before I understood what was happening.
Every time you made me feel something, I shoved it down.
Told myself it was a rookie mistake. Feeling something for the mark…
” He looked away, his laugh a bitter snort.
“That’s how you lose.” He exhaled. “And then you walked away, and I realized it wasn’t a mistake.
You weren’t a mistake. Us… was the only real thing I’d had in my entire life. ”
Her chest hurt. Not the bruises but something deeper, like an ache deep down in her soul.
“I love you,” he murmured. “And I’ll love you until the day I stop drawing breath.”
Her breath caught in her throat. There was no charming smile, just an open and honest expression. Just the words laid out before her like an offering. “I don’t know if that’s enough to fix what I broke. But it’s true.”
She looked at him… really looked. At the scars over his chest that she’d traced with her fingers and the face she’d memorized without meaning to.
At the male who’d lied to her, used her, and then thrown himself into a warball match he couldn’t win even without backup, knowing they could kill him but doing it anyway.
She thought about her family… her father, her brother… About all the people who’d looked at her and seen something small and fragile and easy to dismiss.
Raaze had looked at her and seen that too. At first. But he’d seen her, and he’d changed his mind.
That was more than anyone else had ever done.
“I love you too.” The words felt foreign on her tongue, but real. “You’re stupid, and arrogant as fuck, but I love you.”
His breath caught, and for a heartbeat, he just stood there, like he didn’t quite believe what he’d heard.
Then the tension snapped. Letting out a fractured groan, he caught her face in his hands and kissed her.
It wasn’t like the other times. Not the desperate clash in the corridor, or the passion-filled kisses in her quarters, but something slower. He kissed her like he was mapping the shape of her mouth, mindful of her split lip, dragging his tongue gently over the edge of her teeth.
Fred, she thought, offline. Now.
Already ahead of you, Fred’s voice came through her implant, dry as dust. I have no interest in… you know what, never mind. Powering down. Don’t break anything.
The connection went silent.
He pulled back just enough to breathe, his forehead resting against hers. “I thought I’d lost you,” he rasped. He dragged a hand down her neck, fingers brushing the medical tape on her shoulder. “I saw that screen and the evidence and thought… and I… I’m not letting that happen again.”
“Stop talking,” she ordered, grabbing the edges of his jacket and pulling him closer. “And put your mouth on me.”
Heat flickered in his eyes. “Where?”
“Everywhere.”
Growling low in the back of his throat, he stooped and lifted her as if she weighed nothing. Her legs wrapped around his waist automatically, and then they were moving, his mouth on her neck, her jaw, the corner of her split lip where he pressed the softest kiss she’d ever felt.
They made it to the corridor bunk. Not the bunk in her quarters. That was too far, and she didn’t want to wait. She wanted him now. Needed to feel him against her, solid and real and here.
Raaze braced himself over her on one powerful forearm, his hand warm as it slid under the fabric of her jacket, working carefully around the dressing on her shoulder.
Her bra followed. Then he dropped to his knees in front of her, right there in the corridor, and looked up at her with an expression that made her stomach flip.
“Hold on to something,” he said.
She grabbed the emergency handle above her head just as his fingers hooked into the waistband of her pants and pulled them down.
His mouth found hers before she was ready for it.
Her head hit the bunk and her hips jerked forward, but his hands were there, holding her steady and pinning her in place while his tongue worked slow, devastating circles against her clit.
“Fuck,” she breathed. “Ohmygod, Raaze—”
He hummed against her, and the vibration shot straight up her spine.
One big hand slid up her thigh, two thick fingers pressing into her without warning.
The stretch burned, and she saw stars. He curled them just right, stroking that spot inside her while his tongue worked her clit in steady circles.
She shook, her thighs trembling against his shoulders as the handle creaked under her grip.
“Raaze, fuck, I’m—”
He didn’t stop. Instead, he just growled against her and doubled down. The orgasm hit her like a freight shuttle, rolling through her in waves that left her wrecked, her knees buckling as she came on his tongue. He licked her through it, gentling her until the last tremor faded.
He pressed soft kisses to her inner thighs until she stopped shaking. Then he looked up at her with wet lips and dark eyes, and she ached.
“My turn,” she said.
Pushing up, she grabbed his shoulders and turned them, shoving him onto the bunk hard enough that he grunted when his back hit the metal.