Better When He's Brave

She gave me a little half grin and went to move off my lap. The drag and pull of tender flesh against flesh as she moved had both of us freezing. No wonder everything felt better, felt like more, felt like forever. There was nothing between her and me literally or figuratively. I sighed and leaned forward so that my forehead hit her in the center of her chest.

Her hands came up to brush through the hair at my temples. She stopped on the side with the white spot and traced it.

“You know when I left WITSEC I didn’t take anything with me, right? That includes birth control.”

I nodded. “I know.” We had been having enough sex lately that it hadn’t escaped my notice that latex was a necessary evil when we did it.

“Ummm, okay. We can hit up a pharmacy or something. This isn’t a reason to freak out.” She sounded so calm, so okay with anything and everything I did to her that it hit me square in the gut and maybe in the heart, though I wasn’t ready to admit that yet. I ran my hands up and down her ribs some more and pulled back so I could look her in the eyes. They were swirling blue and black like midnight.

“This just turned to more and we’ll deal with it accordingly. If you want to stop somewhere back in the city, we will, but if you don’t, I’m okay with that too.”

She looked surprised and tentative at the same time. “Titus?”

I sounded like a lunatic. We were so not right for each other and here I was trying to tie her to me forever.

I pulled her to me in a hug and gave her one of those soft kisses she apparently liked. I lifted an eyebrow at her and lifted her up so I could set her back in her own seat so she could wiggle back into her clothes.

“I already told you I will do what needs to be done. Always.”

She still seemed a little lost, so she shook her head and started pulling her pants back up her legs.

“I’ve never set out to ruin your life.” She said it so quietly that if the car had been running I wouldn’t have heard her. “I just want to help you. I want to do the right thing.”

I tucked myself back inside my slacks and pulled my destroyed shirt the rest of the way off. I reached out and pulled on a lock of her dark hair and gave her a lopsided grin.

“The right thing for us might not be the right thing for someone else, and you didn’t ruin anything. In fact you might be fixing parts of me I didn’t realize were broken. Now, are we stopping or not?”

I shouldn’t push her. Hell, I wasn’t sure why it mattered. I should demand that she take the morning-after pill, but I didn’t want that. I absolutely didn’t want that. It felt wrong. I felt like I was supposed to be building something with this girl that understood me, got all the parts of me, and wasn’t scared of any of it. I don’t think I had ever been whole until she started pulling the beast out to play.

Oh so slowly she shook her head no without looking at me. Her gaze was trained on her bag between her feet and she was white as a ghost. Since I’d gotten the answer I wanted, I didn’t push her. I think we were both crazy, and I hadn’t decided yet if it was the good kind or the bad kind. Only time would tell.

Chapter 15

Reeve

I knocked on Race and Brysen’s door an hour or so after Titus left for work. I kept waiting for Booker to show up, and when he didn’t I figured I better go find out where he was. I needed to give the gun back. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t let myself fall back into the trap of trying to make decisions like who should live and die because I thought I knew the right answer. Not after the way things had shifted between me and the cop.

He brought me back to the loft and took me to bed. His tie got put to much more interesting use throughout the midnight hours, and being tied up, held down, and worked over by him, albeit more carefully this time around, had made me realize I couldn’t lie to him, couldn’t keep the secret agenda I had from him anymore. Not if I ever wanted a shot at the thing between us being real. He woke me up when he had to leave, took me into the shower with him, and kissed me good-bye when it was all over he was on his way out the door. The simpleness in that, the way it felt like a real relationship, made me hastily get dressed and pace back and forth while I waited for Booker to show. When an hour or so passed I got impatient and went downstairs.

Race opened the door wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung jeans and a grumpy glower on his too pretty face. His golden hair was messed and his green eyes looked dark and tired. He propped a shoulder on the door and leaned, crossing his arms over his smooth and defined chest. Boys that looked like him shouldn’t be threatening, but he was and I felt the warning zip along my nerves.

“Hey. Do you know where Booker is? I borrowed something from him and I really need to give it back.”

I was trying really hard to keep my gaze focused on his, but that was a lot of exposed skin, and really, I was only human.

Race lifted a tawny eyebrow at me. “He spent the night in jail. It was a pain in the ass to bond him out but he should be home soon. He was released this morning.”

I frowned. “He usually comes by as soon as Titus leaves for work. I haven’t seen him.”

He lifted a hand and ran it across his jaw. “I don’t know where he is, then. I’m not his keeper. After everything that happened yesterday, Bry and Karsen are staying home, so maybe he figured he deserved a day off.”

Booker didn’t seem like the type that needed a day off, but I didn’t share this opinion with Race. I took a step back and told him, “Well, if he does pop up, can you send him my way? I’m sorry about what happened to Karsen yesterday. Conner doesn’t have any limits.”