She chuckles. “Well, isn’t this familiar.” Her hands move to my chest, and she looks up at me, but the longer I stare, her laughter disappears, discomfort taking its place.
Her touch slowly retreats, and she subconsciously pushes against the metal at her back as much as the space allows.
“Raven,” I call her name when her eyes fall from mine and they snap right back.
Her features tighten, and she rubs her lips together, but the vulnerability she hates seeps through for a split second before her shoulders square and she forces it back. She lifts her chin, so I give her the space she’s demanding.
“If you’re lying to me, if you knew, I will ruin everything you’re trying to do,” she threatens. “I will fuck you harder than you’ve ever fucked anyone, Maddoc, I swear on my life.”
Call me a fucking masochist, because goddamn if her words don’t make my blood burn hotter for her. So fucking fierce and determined, strong and unafraid to go head to head, even when her ammo could never match ours if push came to shove.
It’s exactly fucking why I was drawn to her when I never wanted to be.
I don’t doubt her words for a second, and if anyone else on the fucking planet stood here and said this to me, I’d have thrown them from the moving train already and never looked back.
I push my hard-on against her stomach, and she takes in a slow breath. “I have no intention of fucking you over, Raven Carver,” I whisper, my thumb coming up to pull her bottom lip free of her top one. “But I do plan to fuck you ... over and over.” I kiss the corner of her mouth and her warm exhale hits my cheek. “And over.”
I move back to look at her.
Her eyes bounce between mine a moment, and then she gives a curt nod. “Maybe I’m dumb, and maybe I’ll regret this, but I believe you.”
She drops her eyes down between us, and I step back slightly, my muscles lock when they come back up to mine and she says, “I have to tell you something.”
It only took a half hour to be able to jump from the train, and Maddoc had a car already waiting to take us back to the SUV.
Once we get back to the hotel we dropped the boys off at earlier, we find Royce, no damn surprise, booked a flashy suite he could get with a fire pit on the balcony, and ordered room service to be delivered in perfect time for our return.
They joke lightly about basketball, both cringing when they finally get the chance to tell Maddoc about the game he missed.
As soon as everyone is done eating, the trays are pushed to the side and Royce passes around liquor from the mini bar.
“The video’s real,” I blurt out, starting the conversation off and they look my way, waiting for more. “I saw it, it’s not the greatest, but it’s clear enough and there’s ... sound.” I smash my lips to the side, but I end up laughing lightly anyway when Cap and Royce grin at me. “Anyway... I guess it was some outdoor style, night time camera.”
“Even a phone is capable of that nowadays,” Maddoc says.
I shrug. “I wouldn’t know, but either way, what do we do about it?”
“Nothing.” Maddoc sits up straighter, a frown splitting his forehead. “The video’s trash, useless.”
“How?”
“Why do you think he was trying to shop it around?” Maddoc asks in a flat tone. “He wanted the news of it to get back to you. He played on the only soft spot he saw. You for us, and us for you.”
“To get our attention?”
“To get your attention,” Captain confirms.
“He bet against us when he put word out of that video, and you fell right into his hand, proving him right,” Maddoc says.
“Again. How?”
“By showing him you had to rely on yourself to fix it, making it seem like you couldn’t rely on us.”
“It wasn’t about that,” I shake my head.
“We know.” Maddoc sits back. “He gets it now, but there never should have been a second where he doubted us. If you’d have done what you should have and come to us with the issue first, he wouldn’t have,” he snaps.
“Look, this is all new for me, okay?” I snap right back. “You seem to love to forget that I didn’t have this” – I play connect four between us – “where I came from. It was me, and that’s it. I’m not gonna all of a fucking sudden be ‘go team’ because that’s what makes sense to you.”
“It’s not all of a sudden,” he bites out.
A laugh bubbles out of me even though I try to fight it, and some tension leaves his shoulders. I’d swear there was a soft side of him hidden in there somewhere, covered in anger and buried with bitterness.
“What I’m trying to say is I don’t know how to ...” Shit.
Captain leans forward, his little whiskey bottle hanging in his hands. “How to be a part of a team?” he asks and I’m glad we’re on a dark balcony with nothing but the fire between us for light.
My neck heats, in doubt or awkwardness, I don’t want to know, but it’s annoying.
“You don’t know how to be a part of a team?” he tries again.
“No. I don’t.”
“Raven ... you stood with us when you had no reason to, fought with us, defended us.”
“But I didn’t do any of it on purpose,” I whisper, a heavy weight on my chest making it hard to bring in a full breath. “I just did what I felt like doing.”
“Stop trying to convince yourself that’s true. Quit telling yourself that deep-down you didn’t feel connected to us right away, because you did. You passed on the chance at a new life when Perkins hit you with that offer, something even we know you want, to stay with us. Then you went there, willing to give it all up to protect us, meaning you’d walk away with nothing.” Captain glances at his brothers before continuing.
“You fire off on reflex, which is a really good thing most of the time, it means you’re quick to the wit and can turn a bad situation into a favorable one when needed. Knowing that about you makes us more comfortable when you’re not in our sights. But Raven, do not ever think you need to protect us from anything.”