Chapter 14
EMILY
The thing about being angry was that it needed somewhere to go.
She'd learned that as a young child. Her mother's method of handling anger was to compress it into a tight, polite silence until it came out in an explosion, and Emily had inherited the instinct without the methodology and had spent years trying to find a different way.
Normally she ran. Earbuds in, pavement under her feet, the physical motion of going somewhere being enough to metabolize whatever the emotion was.
She'd built her gym piece by piece partly for this reason, to have a backup for days when the weather was bad or the anxiety lived specifically in the part of her brain that didn't want to be outside alone.
She couldn't run alone right now. She knew Rampage would never allow it.
She came downstairs at seven in the morning and found Rampage already up. He seemed to always be already up, she wasn't sure he actually slept, she'd started to suspect he just stood somewhere in the compound in the dark and recalibrated. And said, "I need to run."
He looked at her over his coffee. At this point, she wondered if she poked him would it be blood or coffee that came out?
The man was always awake and always drinking coffee.
He looked at her, seeming to read the energy level she was bringing into the kitchen, which was the particular vibrating quality of someone who'd been awake since five thinking about a man spending two months watching her.
"Give me ten minutes," he said.
She blinked. "You're coming with me?"
"You're not going alone."
"I run fast."
"Okay."
She looked at him. At the complete absence of any reaction to that information.
"I'm not going to slow down for you."
"Emily." He set his mug down. "Go get your shoes and meet me at the door in ten minutes."
She got her shoes.
He ran like he did everything else, without apparent effort, the long easy stride of someone who'd covered significant ground in significantly worse conditions than a beautiful Colorado morning.
She'd told him she ran fast and she did, her actual pace, no accommodation, and he matched it for four miles without once suggesting they slow down.
It helped. The anger didn't disappear, but it organized itself from the tight compressed pressure behind her sternum into something that had edges, that she could look at and work with. She could use it as a weapon against the bastard who made her leave home and threatened her safety. Not just her physical safety, her emotional safety. And damn it if that didn’t piss her the fuck off.
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of fear again. No, now? Now she was angry.
"I keep thinking about the Facebook group," she said, on the way back. "The neighborhood one. I post in there all the time. Lost dog alerts, restaurant recommendations, asking if anyone knows a good electrician." She kept her breathing steady. "He was in all of it. Reading it. Using it."
"Yes."
"It makes everything feel contaminated. Like I have to go back and look at every normal interaction and wonder if it was—" She stopped talking and focused on running for a beat. "I hate that."
"That's a reasonable reaction. He violated your trust in your community."
"I don't want to be paranoid for the rest of my life."
"You won't be." His voice was even. "Right now you're processing a threat. That's not the same as permanent paranoia."
"How do you know the difference?"
"Because paranoia is fear without an object.
What you have right now has a very specific object.
When the object is neutralized, the fear recalibrates.
" He glanced at her. "You'll be more careful online and speaking with strangers, even those who claim to be in your neighborhood. That's not a bad thing."
She ran with that for a minute.
"Did you ever—" She picked her words. "After deployments. Did it take a while for things to feel normal again? Like ordinary things?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Depends on the deployment." He paused. "Depends on the support."
She looked at him sideways.
"First time back," he said, which she understood was not something he offered easily, "I went to a grocery store and stood in front of the cereal aisle for fifteen minutes because the number of choices felt unreasonable and overwhelming. Why are there so many brands and types of cereal?"
She laughed. "What did you do?"
"Picked the first one I reached out and touched. Went home. Ate it for three weeks."
"Did you even like it?"
"Didn't matter. It was decided."
She was still laughing when they reached the outskirts of the compound, and the laugh metabolized the last of the compressed anger, and by the time they came through the gate she felt lighter than she had since she'd arrived.
She stopped at the porch steps, hands on her knees, catching her breath.
He stopped beside her. Not even winded.
"That's infuriating," she told him.
"What is?"
"That you're not tired."
"I'm tired."
She straightened and looked at him. He looked exactly the same as he had at the start. "You are not tired."
"I'm tired on the inside."
"That's not—" She shook her head. "That's not how tired works."
"It's how my tired works."
She was reaching for the door when his hand came over hers.
She turned.
He was looking at her with an unreadable expression.
"You sure you are good?" he asked.
"Better." She held his gaze. "Still—" She pressed her lips together.
He looked at her for a moment. Then he opened the door and held it, and when she went through he followed, and at the base of the stairs he said, quietly so only she could hear, "Come upstairs with me. We can shower and then make breakfast together.”
Her heart rate, which had been coming down from the run, did something different.
She went upstairs.
His bathroom was large and clean and smelled like him, something simple and grounded, cedar and soap, and he turned the shower on without asking, adjusting the temperature, and by the time he turned around the room was already filling with steam.
She stood in the middle of the bathroom and looked at him.
"Still angry?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. Honest.
"Okay." He crossed to her. Reached up and took the hem of her shirt and looked at her face, a question, and she lifted her arms and let him pull it over her head.
The air was warm already, the steam wrapping around them both.
"You're beautiful," he said.
She felt the truth of it land differently than compliments usually did, not as something to deflect or qualify, just as information he was giving her.
She didn’t doubt for one second the words coming from his mouth.
He thought she was beautiful and that admission meant more to her than any gift he could have given.
She reached up and started on his shirt.
He let her.
The shower was large enough for both of them and the water was the perfect temperature, and when he pulled her under the spray, she tipped her head back and let it hit her face and exhaled and felt his hands come to her shoulders.
His touch wasn’t like the other men she’d been with.
It didn’t feel urgent with sexual need or like he was trying to push her toward anything.
It was just there. He turned her, slowly, so her back was to him, and she felt him reach for the shampoo, heard the quiet of the bottle, and then his hands were in her hair and she stopped thinking.
He washed her hair with complete attention, his fingers working through from root to end, no rush, and she stood under the spray and felt the anger leaving in stages.
Not forced out. Just — released. The way things released when someone was taking care of them.
He massaged her head and she leaned back into him. It felt amazing.
"Close your eyes," he said.
She closed them.
He rinsed the shampoo out, slow and careful, one hand shielding her face from the water, and she thought about the way he'd said you're beautiful and the way it hadn't required anything from her in return. How carefully he was taking care of her right now, bathing her gently.
His hands moved to her shoulders again. Sliding down her arms, then back up. His arms came around her from behind, and he pressed his lips to her temple, the side of her head, the curve of her neck, unhurried and warm, and she turned her face toward him.
He kissed her jaw. Her cheek. The corner of her mouth.
She turned all the way and kissed him properly.
It was the kind of kiss that took its time, slow and intentional.
Then he took over. His lips were pressed firmly against hers and it wasn’t gentle.
No, this was anything but. It was him reminding her who was in charge.
He let her kiss him, giving him the consent with her action, but then he took it over.
His tongue charged in and mated with hers. Fully claiming her.
She pulled back to breathe.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi." He brushed a strand of wet hair from her face.
"I'm still a little angry," she said.
"I know." His mouth curved into a smile. "We're working on it."
He reached for the soap, worked it between his hands, and when his palms came back to her skin it was different, still warm, still deliberate, but covering more ground now. Her shoulders, her arms, the curve of her sides.
She closed her eyes again.
His hands moved over her like he was learning her.
He took his time, in that specific way a man who intended to know everything and wasn't going to shortcut the process. He traced the curve of her waist, the line of her ribs, and she felt every point of contact with an intensity that had nothing to do with how slow it was and everything to do with how much attention he brought to it. The water was hot, but that didn’t stop goosebumps from rising all over her naked body.
"You can breathe," he said.
"I am breathing."
"You're holding your breath, baby girl."
She exhaled.