Raid

chapter Seventeen

Absolutely



The next morning…

The phone rang. It was Raiden’s cell. My eyes opened and I saw gray sheets.

I smiled.

Raiden’s body, spooning mine, didn’t move.

“Honey, you awake?” I whispered.

“Yep,” he replied.

“Your phone is ringing.”

“I know. I’m ignoring it.”

“Oh.”

I fell silent.

So did Raiden’s phone.

I snuggled my booty into his lap. His arm around my belly tightened and I drifted into a doze.

His phone started ringing again.

“F*ck,” he bit off.

“I’ll get it,” I offered.

“Babe—”

“I got it,” I said.

I shifted out of his arms and instantly, a drowsy, crazy, insane but hopefully hot idea came to me.

He was moving, but I moved, too, to my hands and knees, wearing nothing but his tee. The hem slid up over my hips as I crawled to turn around then proceeded to crawl down the bed.

I got there, looked down my body at Raiden who was up on a forearm, his eyes glued to my behind in the air.

They came to my face. I gave him a naughty grin (or what I hoped was a naughty grin) and kept my booty in the air as I turned back and reached for his cargo pants.

His phone had stopped ringing by the time I dug it out of his pocket, but I kept it in my hand as I turned and crawled back.

I stopped close and stayed on all fours, but placed his phone on the bed in front of him.

“I took too much time,” I pointed out the obvious.

His eyes burned into mine. “Babe, tell me right now you aren’t f*ckin’ with me.”

“I’m kind of f*cking with you in the hopes that you’ll return the favor,” I replied.

Even as his eyes flashed, Raiden didn’t miss his opportunity.

“Crawl over me and stay on all fours when you get there,” he ordered, rolling to his back.

My body did a delicious shiver as I did as I was told until I had my knees and hands in the bed around him, my body suspended over him.

His hand instantly went between my legs. It felt good, my head fell between my shoulders and I let out a little mew.

“Wet. She’s not f*ckin’ with me,” he muttered.

My eyes moved to his and I knew what he saw because I could barely focus and he had to see what he was doing to me.

“Stay still, let me play. Can you do that for me, Hanna?” he asked, his fingers still toying between my legs.

I could do that for him.

I could do anything for him.

“Yes, honey,” I whispered.

I stayed still. Raid lay under me, his eyes moving on my face, his hand moving between my legs. His other hand glided over my body and he played with me.

And played with me.

And kept doing it until my thighs were trembling and I whimpered.

“Now you’re ready to eat,” he growled and he disappeared, sliding down the bed, and before I knew it his fingers curled around my hips and he pulled me down to his face.

My head shot back and I moaned.

He pulled me deeper.

“Honey,” I gasped.

I was close.

He sucked hard on my *.

I couldn’t help it. I shot up to sitting on his face. His hands pulled me down deeper, and I rocked myself against his mouth, chanting, “Ohmigod, ohmigod.”

I was even closer, sliding along the edge when his mouth was gone.

“No,” I breathed.

I felt his chest at my back, his arms moving around me with his mouth at my ear. “Do not come without me.”

“Raid.”

His hand dove between my legs and my hips bucked.

“Raid!”

“Hold on for me, honey.”

“Oh God,” I whimpered.

His fingers slid back and plunged up.

My head fell back to his shoulder.

His other hand moved under the tee, up, and his fingers closed around my nipple, tugging. My whole body jolted.

“Raiden, I can’t hold on.”

“Hold on.”

My hips rode his fingers desperately. “I can’t.”

“F*ck, you’re wet, so goddamned hot,” he growled. “F*ck yourself, baby.”

I already was, but I slid my hand down his forearm, wrapping it around his between my legs and did it harder.

“Beautiful,” he rumbled. “That’s it. Harder, Hanna.”

“I’m going to come,” I whispered.

“You’re gonna wait for me. Ride those wild, honey.” I kept at his fingers. His thumb came out and pressed against my *, I cried out but kept going. “My girl. So f*ckin’ wild. Give that wild to me.”

“Please, honey. I can’t hold on any longer,” I begged.

“Then get my tee off and position for me. Your choice, baby, show me how you wanna take me.”

I instantly pulled his tee off and threw it to the side. I got on my back, opened my legs and he was there, slamming into me.

I rounded him completely with my limbs, lifted up my hips, glided my nails up his back and pleaded, “Harder, Raid.”

“F*ck. Wild. Wet. Mine,” he groaned, his face in my neck.

I felt his teeth scoring gently up a tendon there. I liked that so much that my nails dug in deep, my legs convulsed and my head pressed back. I felt his teeth sink into the flesh of my shoulder where it met my neck and I came apart at the seams.

Raiden was right there with me.

I came down to feel Raid’s lips gliding soft against the flesh his teeth had sunk into, something he did often, branding me, and after, finding a way to soothe my skin with a tenderness that was unreal in its beauty.

I loved it.

I wrapped my arms around him and tightened my legs, and his lips moved up to the skin beneath my ear.

“Pretty sure you broke skin again, wild one,” he muttered with deep, throaty approval.

“I can confirm she did,” a woman’s voice came from the room.

I tensed, blinked, prepared to have a heart attack, but Raiden moved.

He pulled out and rolled off at the same time he yanked the afghan over me and barked, “What the f*ck?”

I clutched the afghan to my chest, pushed up, stared at the busty, blonde skank I saw Raiden making out with months before, and my lungs seized.

“Didn’t know whether to clap or join you,” she remarked.

“Ohmigod, ohmigod,” I started chanting for a very, very different reason this time.

“Please f*ckin’ tell me you did not walk in my place and watch me f*ck my woman,” Raid snarled in a way that anyone in their right minds would say they did not.

She seemed immune. She hitched a hip, planted her hand on it and shared, “I caught, ‘Harder Raid. F*ck, wild, mine,’ but that was enough. Talk in town is right. You’re steppin’ out on me.”

What?

My mind refused to process that. Actually, it refused to process anything. The only thing it could think of was getting the heck out of there.

Immediately.

I sprang from the bed, holding the afghan around me, and raced to my clothes on the floor.

“Hanna, get back in bed,” I heard Raid order, but I had my panties and I was struggling to keep the afghan in place as I pulled them up my legs.

“Hanna?” she sneered. “Jesus, Raid, you do vanilla. This is so disappointing.”

“Bitch, advice. Disappear. Right now and I don’t see you again,” Raiden returned in a warning low that scared the dickens out of me.

I could tell he was moving around, but I was concentrating on yanking up my shorts.

The woman again was immune to Raid’s warning.

“Honey, you feel like adventure, Raid likes it wild and I got time. You just gave him good but you and me together? We’ll blow his mind.”

She was talking to me.

And I couldn’t believe what she was saying to me.

I ignored her and held the afghan up with my teeth as I wrapped my bra around my ribs.

“Meg, not gonna say it again. Get the f*ck out,” Raiden growled.

“Talking from experience, sweetie,” she kept ignoring Raid and addressing me, “brought him a friend. He likes it like that. I know ‘cause he came back for more.”

Pain seared through me, but I couldn’t focus on it since I heard a terrified squeak. My head shot back and I watched Raiden, in nothing but cargo pants, zipped but not buttoned, dragging her by her upper arm across the room.

He opened the door and bodily tossed her out onto the landing.

“Swear to f*ckin’ Christ, I see your f*ckin’ face again, I’ll devote my life to makin’ yours a misery. You feel like testing me, you’ll learn real f*ckin’ quick I do not f*ck around. And after that shit in there, Meg, I’ll go slow and enjoy every f*ckin’ minute of flushin’ your life right down the toilet.” He threatened then finished, “Nod if you get me.”

“All bark, no bite, ‘cept sweet, vanilla Hanna in there. Now she gets your teeth when I thought they were all for me,” she jeered.

It might make me weird, and before this I didn’t care, but I could make Raid lose it often, lose control enough to sink his teeth into me and, as I mentioned, I loved that.

Actually, to be honest, I lived for it.

And it wasn’t just mine.

I closed my eyes against the pain, then opened them, dropped the afghan and bent to snatch up my blouse.

“You just tested me,” he whispered sinisterly.

“Do your worst,” she hissed. “No one steps out on me.”

“Clue in, bitch,” Raiden shot back. “I haven’t spoken to you for months. A man f*cks you and your friend, no dinners, no movies, there’s nothin’ but p-ssy to step out on and p-ssy that’s just p-ssy is also just nothing.”

“You dick!” she yelled.

“Yeah, I’m a dick, but you’re a goddamned cunt. Prepare, Meg,” he finished on a warning and slammed the door right in her face.

He twisted the lock, turned to me and lifted a hand to drag his fingers through his hair, his blazing eyes landing on me.

“F*ck me, so goddamned hooked on my woman, come home to her in my bed, didn’t lock the motherf*cking door,” he ground out.

“I need to leave,” I whispered, and Raid focused on me.

“Come again?”

“I need to go,” I told him.

“Hanna, that was jacked. Do not take her shit in,” he ordered.

“I need to go,” I repeated.

“Babe, again, that was jacked. I was never seein’ her. It was casual. You cannot step out on what’s not real. I haven’t even spoken to her in f*ckin’ months. Way longer than you’ve been with me. She heard talk about us, woke up feelin’ like bein’ a bitch and came here to spread that joy.”

“You called her a cunt,” I reminded him.

He threw out a hand, his brows shooting up. “Were you not just here? She is a cunt.”

This was not debatable. I didn’t even know why I brought it up.

I moved on. “Did you… did you… bite her like you do me?”

“Honey, why do you think that shit tripped it for me? That bitch has never had my teeth. F*ck, no bitch has ever had my teeth.”

Thank God.

At least that was good.

Again, moving on. “Did you sleep with her and her friend?”

His torso swung back, his mouth snapped shut and I knew.

God.

I moved toward him because he was at the door, my head was down, my mouth repeating, “I need to leave.”

I didn’t make it. He didn’t step out of my way this time. He wrapped his hands around both my arms and moved me back five feet into the room.

I tore free and stepped three wide strides to the side, lifting a hand his way.

“Don’t touch me!” I hissed, and this time his head jerked.

“Hanna—”

“You had threesomes!” I cried.

“I told you, baby, we do not wanna go over past shit.”

I threw out both hands. “Now I understand why,” I shared. Then I asked, “Are you going to want to do that with me?”

“F*ck no,” he clipped.

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” I pushed.

He leaned toward me and bit out, “F*ck yes.”

“How?” I snapped. “She’s right, you like it wild. When is vanilla going to wear off, Raid?”

Suddenly he smiled huge, white and amused, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he looked like he was fighting laughter.

“This isn’t funny!” I yelled because it dang well wasn’t!

“Honey, you’re wrong. You thinkin’ you’re even close to vanilla is goddamned hilarious.”

“Unh-hunh,” I mumbled disbelievingly.

His body started visibly shaking.

Yes.

With laughter.

“This isn’t funny!” I shrieked.

Raid crossed his arms on his chest, tried to fight back his smile without hiding he was fighting it back and began.

“Hanna, baby, I told you we do not wanna go over past shit and I was right. We really don’t. But you’ve worked yourself up so you give me no choice.”

I didn’t like this start, but had no chance to share that because Raid kept going.

“Meg spends her days at a shit job she hates and spends most of the rest of her time working out and starving herself, so she’s usually in a bitchy mood because she pretty much hates her life, but definitely needs a sandwich. Contradicting that shit, she doesn’t have a problem pouring alcohol down her throat and smoking a shitload of grass, which gives her the munchies she refuses to give into, thus the vicious cycle with her bein’ a bitch and makin’ the mellowing qualities of pot lost on her.”

“Raid—” I snapped to get him to shut up because I did not want to know any of this, but he talked over me.

“What I’m saying is she’s a party girl, up for anything, and she was up for anything with me. When she was able to tamp down the bitch, we had a good time. Maybe she’ll get a guy who’s into fake tits, lots of hair and women who care more about having a toned body than they do about having a decent state of mind so he’ll put up with the bitch to have her brand of fun, but that guy isn’t me.”

“Raid!” I yelled this time, but he kept right on going.

“You wanna hear this or not, honest to Christ, if you didn’t ignite for me our first time, and you were vanilla—you are fabulous, baby—but you would not be here right now. With you I got the whole package. If I had it with her, she’d be here, not you.”

“This isn’t making me feel better,” I informed him.

His amusement died and he shot back, “Then how’s this? You ignite for me, but more, you make me ignite for you. And no woman, not in my whole goddamned life, has made me ignite the way you do.”

Wow.

I knew he did that for me, but I had no idea I did it for him.

I shut my mouth.

“You get my teeth, Hanna, ‘cause makin’ my own personal Peggy Sue go wild for me drives me f*ckin’ crazy. You do it for me like no woman before you. I lose control because you make me and you get my teeth, and what makes that shit better is you love havin’ my mark on you.”

I fought back the desire to touch my skin, knowing, since it happened before, I’d have to choose my top for that day carefully. Because his mark was always mild, but it was there and he was right.

I loved having Raid’s mark on me.

He was far from done and he also saved the best for last.

“She doesn’t do it for me, Hanna, because I didn’t fall in love with her when I saw her across a street, hair shining in the sun, laughing. You do it for me because you were that girl across the street, your hair shining in the sun, laughing, making me fall in love with you, and I didn’t even goddamned f*cking know you.”

Did he just say that?

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

He just said that.

“Oh my God,” I repeated.

“Yeah, honey,” he again agreed.

“I—” I started, but again he spoke over me.

“So thank f*ck, my mouth on yours, you explode and let go and latch onto my dick while I’m drivin’ your car and dig your nails in my back when you come for me, ‘cause, baby, that means you give it all to me. Not one woman in my life gave it all to me and not one man can expect that. Hope for it. Yeah. Get it. No. You give it all, so that means I’ve got it all.”

I stared at him.

He let me for a while then he went on.

“Now, I can share what came before you, and I had fun, Hanna. I make no apologies. But I think it’s best we leave it where it lies. ‘Cause all you gotta know is it’s gonna be you—and only you—until the day I die, because life did not lead me down the wrong path when I fell in love with a girl who had the sun shining in her hair who would eventually not do it for me. You’re not just enough for me. You’re everything I want. So that works for me.”

When he stopped speaking, unfortunately, I started.

“Her breasts are fake?” I blurted.

“Absolutely,” Raiden replied.

“You’re in love with me?” I kept blurting.

“Absolutely,” Raiden replied.

We stared at each other while my heart raced and I fought panting.

Then, not finished blurting, I shared, “I beat you. I fell in love with you when I was six and I didn’t know who you were.”

I saw the tension flow out of his body. His neck twisted, head dropping forward, eyes closing, and he stood in silent contemplation for a moment before he lifted his head, looked at me and said quietly, “Okay, baby, you win.”

“Absolutely,” I replied.

It was then Raiden Ulysses Miller scorched me a second time, but I didn’t battle this blaze. There was no pain. But that didn’t mean I didn’t end up branded.

“I told you I didn’t dream as a kid of bein’ a cop or an astronaut, but I gave a lot of thought to the woman I’d want in my bed. I grew older and gave more thought to that woman, but it was also about the woman I wanted in my life. And she was you. Then I met you. And now, every day I wake up I cannot believe my luck because you’re here.”

Was he for real?

“How can you take a totally insane situation that should never happen, was intense and humiliating, and turn it into something I never want to forget in my whole life?” I asked.

“Because you love me,” Raiden answered.

“Oh, right. That’s how,” I muttered.

His fire burned white-hot.

“Get over here,” he growled.

I got over there.

The instant I did he crushed me in his arms, buried his face in my neck and I went up in flames.

It felt great.

* * * * *

Late that evening…

Wearing a tank and pajama shorts, I lay astride Raiden in my bed, my eyes watching my fingertips exploring his collarbone as I felt his fingertips exploring the skin of my thighs.

“Are you really going to make her life a misery?” I asked his collarbone.

“Meg?” he asked me, and I looked at him.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Yeah,” he confirmed, and I tipped my head to the side.

“Really?”

“That situation was intense It embarrassed you and it should never have happened. She should never have walked in there in the first place, but she did. I gave her a chance to walk away, she didn’t. Now she’s gotta learn a lesson.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Somethin’ that’ll make her learn that lesson.”

“Raid—” I started, but his hands lifted up and gripped me at my hips.

“You don’t f*ck with me,” he declared firmly. “She f*cked with me.”

That she did.

I said nothing.

“And she f*cked with you,” he went on. “She saw you were freaked and she went in for the kill. You don’t f*ck with me. You absolutely do not f*ck with you.”

“Okay, but that led to us—”

“No, Hanna. No.” He shook his head on my pillow. “Love knowin’ you love me, feels good you knowin’ I love you, but that was ours to share and we would have eventually done it anyway. But what I share with you in bed is mine. It’s yours. It’s ours and no one else’s. She watched me take you, and I don’t give a shit she was only there at the end, that’s not hers to have. She doesn’t get to hear the words I say to you when I’m inside you and she doesn’t get to hear what you whisper to me. And no one, but no one, gets to share in you comin’ for me.”

I had to admit, he was right. I didn’t like that she got that from us either.

“So she pays back,” Raiden declared. “She hates her job, she’s not gonna have it much longer. She likes to haunt a certain bar, she’s gonna find herself not welcome there anymore. She rents, her landlord is suddenly gonna rethink her tenancy. Next time she wakes up and feels like bein’ a bitch, she’ll think again.”

I felt my eyes get big.

“Are you seriously going to do all that?”

“I am seriously gonna do all that.”

“Holy Moses. Now I feel sorry for her.”

“You should, baby. She’s a sad, lonely bitch who needs to eat a sandwich and get a life.”

It was mean, but he was funny so I started giggling.

Raiden smiled as he watched, his arms moving to circle me.

When I quit giggling, he remarked, “Speakin’ about people f*ckin’ you. You’re gonna be getting a check from Bob.”

I was confused. “Bob?”

“Reimbursement for the sports package he sold you on the Z, but didn’t tell you he sold you.”

I blinked.

Then I shared, “The car came that way.”

“Other Z’s on that lot that come other ways, honey. You drive that Z like it’s your grandmother’s Buick. You need sports shocks like you need a hole in the head.”

I pushed slightly up, or as up as his arms around me would let me go, and protested, “I do not drive my girl like the Buick!”

“Do you know what sport shocks are?”

I could make a wild stab, but the truth of it was I didn’t really know what shocks were.

I decided not to answer.

He grinned at me and ordered, “Cash the check.”

“It’s not Bob’s fault I’m an idiot.”

His grin died, his hands slid up my back, pressing down so I was face to face with him.

“Cash. The. Check,” he growled, his voice rough and commanding.

I stared in his eyes.

Then I said, “All right, honey.”

Raiden looked to the ceiling and cursed under his breath.

I let him and when he looked back at me, I asked, “Do you want a late night sundae?”

His eyes got hot, his hands moved to my behind and he answered, “Absolutely.”

* * * * *

Two days later…

I got the check from Bob.

Then I drove to Bob’s.

We sat down and talked.

An hour later, I signed the check over to the local hospice where Bob’s Mom died.

I walked out to my girl thinking KC was a genius.

Then I called Raiden and asked if he wanted to meet me at Rachelle’s for lunch.

* * * * *

Three days later, early evening…

Raiden walked into the kitchen, came up behind me at the stove and kissed my shoulder.

I twisted my neck to grin at him.

He grinned back.

I turned my attention back to the pan thinking it was awesome Raid had a bunch of cargo pants, a trunk, a weight bench and not much else. It took his Jeep and my SUV, two hours that was mostly packing, and he was in.

And this living together business was the business.

“Babe?” he called and I turned to him.

“Yeah?”

He was standing at the opposite counter where my opened mail was piled. He had a piece of paper in his hand and was waving it.

“The Hospice?” he asked.

Oh boy.

That paper was a thank you letter from the Hospice for Bob’s and my donation.

I said nothing and waited.

“Bob’s check,” he stated.

Raiden had put it together.

I bit my lip.

He shook his head, dropped the paper to the counter and grinned at the floor as he walked to the fridge, got a beer and walked out of the room.

I turned back to the stove.

Absolutely.

KC was a genius.