“She’s better.” I knew he was talking about Phebe. “Maddie has seen her, and she’s better. Maddie has been watching her for me, for you. You saved her.”
I nodded, the tightness in my chest loosening some. She was better. Fuck, from Flame that may as well have been a fucking happy jig. Red’s face came to my mind. I hadn’t been to see her since she’d been up at Ky’s. I hadn’t even asked how she was. I’d gotten her out, gotten her off the smack. That was enough. Though I’d thought about her pretty much every day. Thought about her out here, looking at the stars. Her reunion with Lilah . . . thought of her face when she saw her sister’s scar . . . of her hand in mine when she had thanked me, so fucking small in her bed . . . her telling me she was afraid . . .
“I don’t . . .” Flame gritted his teeth. “I don’t like you . . . like this.” The sound of Flame’s low, rough voice made me feel nothing but guilt.
“I know,” I said. “I’ll get through it.”
Flame’s shoulders dropped in relief, then he got to his feet. “Good.” He started to walk away.
“Flame?” I called as my brother’s huge body almost disappeared into darkness. He turned. “You spoke to Ash much lately?”
He was as still as the night. “We worked on the bike today.” The tension was back in his voice. It always was when he feared he’d fucked up somehow. That he’d disappointed me.
“Just keep talking to him, okay? Keep asking him around for dinner and shit.”
“Okay,” Flame said, then without another word, left for his cabin.
“Fuck!” I said to no one. I closed my eyes, letting the alcohol take its hold. I heard the sound of a twig snapping and sighed. “Flame, I promise, I’m good. I just wanna be left the fuck alone.”
I opened my eyes . . . and froze. I blinked when I saw her standing there, watching me. She took a step forward, and another, until she came into the light. It was her hair I saw first, long and down to the middle of her back. She was dressed in a long dark-green dress, tied at the top by some flimsy piece of silk string. The sleeves covered her arms, but fuck . . . the deep color made her freckles stand out more everywhere else.
“Hello,” she said eventually, her fucking sweet voice drifting through the night. I ran my eyes down her body. She was still rail thin, but she looked better than she had five days ago. Had some color back in her white cheeks. The bruising and marks had faded. She had some dark circles under her eyes, but that was about it.
Shit. She was fucking stunning.
“Hey.” I sat straighter in my chair. Phebe’s dropped her head and looked back up at me through hooded eyes. My cock hardened as she started walking toward me.
She smiled and tucked her long hair back behind her ears. “I wanted to come and see you,” she said. I let my eyes run down her tall body. The dress was fitted to her small frame, emphasizing every one of her curves. Perfectly showcasing her full tits under the almost-nothing material.
She slowly lowered her body into the seat beside me. The smell of flowers and some other girly-smelling shit filled my nose. As if she knew the effect she was having on me, she fucking smiled. But her smile quickly faded and her eyes lost their shine. “I . . . I have been having trouble sleeping.”
I took a sip from my beer, letting her speak.
“I have found that since I have been here, I cannot settle.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head to the side, exposing her long, smooth neck. Her hand lifted and, painstakingly slowly, drifted down the skin. A breathy sigh left her naturally red lips. I gripped my beer bottle tightly. “I love nothing more than having the wind on my face,” she said without opening her eyes. A smile formed on her lips. “I like to feel the heat on my face when it’s light and the moon’s rays when it’s dark.”
She arched her back, and I gritted my teeth as her round tits pushed against the fabric of her dress. There wasn’t much light out here, but it was enough for me to see that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Her eyes blinked open, and leaning across the space between our two chairs, she took the beer from my hand. Giving me that fucking smile again, she brought the bottle of Bud to her lips. Slowly and carefully, without fucking taking those blue eyes off mine, she wrapped her lips around the bottle and tilted her head back. She swallowed one, two, three sips before lowering the bottle, licking the rim with the tip of her tongue. She handed it back to me.
I was pretty far gone on liquor. I’d barely drunk anything but tequila, whiskey and beer since I’d dropped Red off five days ago, and right now she was fucking with my mind.
Phebe ran her hand through her hair. “I . . . I could not sleep again tonight and decided on a walk. So I followed my feet.” She paused. “And they led me straight to you.”
“They did, huh?” I said gruffly, feeling my ever-expanding cock practically ripping at the fly of my jeans.
“Yes.” She glanced at the floor. Her casual manner disappeared, and she twisted her hands in her lap, her fingers shaking. “I keep remembering your eyes,” she said suddenly, lifting her gaze to mine.
I drank my beer, but fuck if I could drag my attention off her. My motherfucking eyes. When she was under, when she was awake, she kept talking about my eyes. My eyes and that goddamned tree.
“I do not remember yet. I keep trying to recall what happened when he took me. Where I was. What happened there. I keep feeling as though there was something that I need to know. Must know. Something big that I am forgetting. That I am blocking out.” She raised her hands to her head. “But my head is a great fog, one which I cannot break through no matter how hard I try.” She looked at me, and she stopped shaking. “But strangely, I remember you. You, above anything or anyone else.” Leaning forward, she brought her hand to my face. I fucking froze as she ran her fingertips down my cheek. “I remember you. And these angel eyes.”
Phebe got to her feet and came toward me, stopping at my knees. I sat back in my chair, and she looked down at me. Even in the dim light, I could see her pale cheeks were red. “You saved me.”
There wasn’t one bit of me that wasn’t tense as she spoke those words. She bent down and placed her palms on my thighs. My hips shifted as I felt the heat of her hands through my jeans. “I remember being in your arms.” Her hands started moving up my thighs, one inch at a time.