BIG: (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (27 page)

He bent, pulling something from a side pocket in his bag. It looked like a thin strip of cloth, about a foot wide by four long with two thick threads at each top corner. He wrapped it round his hips and double-tied it at the left.

Annalesa’s mouth went dry. “That’s... a loin cloth.”

“Yep.”

“You’re wearing
a loin cloth!”

Ric looked down at her, bemused. “Is this something I should wear more often?”

“
Why
are you wearing a loin cloth?”

“Part practicality, part ritual.” He walked over to one of the pillars by the entrance, reached around and picked up three spears, one of which looked more like a harpoon. He brought them back over to her, bent down and kissed her forehead. “I’m not going so far I won’t hear you if you need anything. Sleep well, okay? You’ll wake up next to me.”

She sat stunned as he lit an oil lamp and disappeared through a tunnel at the back of the cavern. She should be angry at being left alone in a cave in the middle of nowhere during a weekend they were supposed to be spending together, but couldn’t summon an emotion even close to annoyance.

Her feelings kept getting trapped in a fog of the surreal. She took a couple of sticks from the bundle of kindling Henrik had given them and tossed them on the fire. A flaring blaze pushed up from the center of the fire pit, sending tongues of light leaping up the cave walls. The rapid rise and fall of the light blurred the edges of the cave paintings, making them not just shimmer but move. She had to stare at them a long moment after the fire had settled to convince herself that the pictures hadn’t taken on a life of their own.

She flopped back on the ad-hoc mattress and pulled the sheet up to her shoulders. It seemed more fun to cover her ‘normal’ clothes and pretend she really was a Valkyrie, waiting for some Asgardian hunter-gatherer to return home. Part of her wanted to stay awake so she could witness the moment Ric returned to the cave with his spoils, like some Norse God returning from a raid or—even better—a successful monster-slaying spree.

She laughed at her own silliness, but relished the reason she
could
laugh. She could be completely herself with him now and feel nothing but love in his presence. She no longer feared speaking her mind, and it just seemed that it was so easy to make him laugh again. Even easier than before Ryan came into her life and put the first strains on their friendship.

In some ways, it seemed like their relationship had run the fairy tale gauntlet, even if the fairy tale was more Grimm than Andersen. They’d had an evil witch and big bad wolf flung their way—admittedly flung there by Ric—but they’d both been vanquished.

The only hard thing now was being his sister while others were around. That was getting difficult.

Annalesa reached over to the hiking bag, grabbed Ric’s t-shirt and pulled it onto her lap, folding it into a thin pillow. She rested down on her side, inhaling his scent as she let her eyes close.

There was only one thing she could imagine that would make her happier. She imagined a party like their graduation, only this time they arrived together, hand in hand. As they walked around, Ric would have his hand on the small of her back. They’d dance to the slow-dances as well as the fast ones, hogging the dance floor. They’d leave together, helping each other with their coats. And as they said goodbye to Elsa and Brad, they’d say goodbye as a couple. No more hiding, no more fighting to keep their attraction a secret.

Would Elsa and Brad really be okay with it? She wasn’t sure. Elsa’s reaction to the marriage of cousins had been pretty judgmental and she couldn’t see Brad handling the judgment of others very well, even if he saw their relationship for what it was—something that had blossomed between two people who knew each other better than anyone else in the world.

Annalesa put her arm under the t-shirt pillow and set that worry to one side. There was no good worrying about openness right now. Over the years, she’d learned some pretty good coping tactics for getting to sleep—one of which was to remind herself that no situation, however bad, could get worse between falling asleep and waking up.

Besides, she wasn’t unhappy. Far from it, she was just dreaming about being happier, which almost seemed greedy.

She turned her back to the fire to get some sleep, feeling safer, more peaceful and contented than she’d ever thought possible.

Her face was warm. Annalesa stirred, trying to retrieve the dream in which she’d straddled Ric’s lap in a hot spring, running her lips down the side of his neck. She patted her hands out to the side, feeling only mattress. A sweetness reached her senses, something with a high, sharp scent like cranberries, and beneath that aroma, the darker, richer savory whiff of roasting meat.

She sat up on her elbows, wiping sleep from her eyes. Ric crouched by a tripod set over the fire, stirring something in one of the little copper pots. His jeans and sleeveless t-shirt clung to his skin, highlighting the contrast of his tight body and large, sculpted arms.

He glanced across at her, his face breaking into a broad smile to see her awake. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

“I thought I’d wake up with you next to me?”

“You did. Then you went back to sleep again, mumbling something about geysers.”

“What time is it?”

“Just after dawn.”

“It’s too early.” She flopped back on the mattress, squinting because she was right beneath one of the beams of orange bursting through the natural skylights.

“You wouldn’t have lasted long as a druid.” Ric chuckled and held the pan out towards her. “Breakfast?”

The smell tugged her towards the pot and she crawled out to the edge of the mattress, peering into it. It looked like Ric was making some kind of jam.

“What’s the fruit?”

“The red ones are lingonberries, the darker blue ones are bilberries. Not a lot else grows up here.”

She didn’t remember seeing any fruit shrubs while they were walking. “Is there a secret garden in the back of the cave or something?”

“I picked the bilberries, but the lingonberries are preserves. I stored a bunch in packed ice last time I was here. Give me a minute, the eggs are gonna set too hard.”

She got up and peered over his shoulder as he scooped a couple of small steaks and four eggs out of the pan over the tripod at the edge of the fire, slotting them onto a pair of copper plates.

She couldn’t stop staring at this new, relaxed Ric as he served up their breakfast. She’d always known he was strong but here, with all the frills of wealth and comfort removed, he was completely self-sufficient.

She stroked her hands across his shoulders and down his bare arms. He shivered and tilted his head back. She kissed him. His clean taste and warm mouth made her tingle. She took the plate and sat next to him on the edge of the mattress.

“I’m really impressed, Ric. I feel like I’m seeing a whole new side of you.”

“It’s always been there. I just buried it.”

Annalesa felt him tense against her and refused to let him retreat. “I didn’t say it wasn’t always there, or that I wasn’t impressed before. You’ve always made an impression on me, Ric. Always. But now... it’s like you’ve always had this light, but you covered it up. Now... you just shine...”

He flushed at her words, actually embarrassed by the praise.

“You’re an amazing man, Ricard Ryker.” She beamed at him. “But you always have been.”

“Thanks?” He sounded doubtful. “Sometimes it’s hard to navigate in the world now, when everyone is suddenly full of praise when they weren’t before. I have to be careful not to fly too low or too high.”

“Hey.” She frowned. “I was always full of praise for you, if you remember.”

“I didn’t really mean you.” He smiled. “Sorry.”

“Forgiven.” She was surprised that he’d taken her gentle rebuke without a blink. Apologized, even. This
was
a whole new Ric. She nudged his leg with hers and took a mouthful of the steak with a little of the egg yolk. “Wow, this is wonderful. What is it?”

“Don’t kill me.”

She paused her fork before putting more in her mouth. “Do I not want to know?”

“Remember teasing me about seal meals and Norse courses?”

“Oh God.”

“If it really bothers you, tell yourself it’s chicken.”

“It’s nothing like chicken!”

“You don’t have to eat it.” He tugged on her plate. “You might prefer arctic hare. I’ll find you a bow and arrow.”

“I’ll eat it.” She tugged her plate back, closing her eyes as she took another mouthful, this time mixing the meat with the berry jam. She inwardly apologized to every cute seal everywhere because she was really enjoying it.

They ate in silence for a while. She wanted to give him the chance to open up by himself. If there was one thing she’d learned about him since they’d reunited, it was that he liked to mull things over. Rehearse things in his head. As soon as she’d put her plate to the ground, he closed his hand over her knee.

“Do you feel safe here?”

“Yes, I do. Even last night, when you were out doing your hunter-gatherer thing, I was happy here in this cave.”

“Good.” He reached over and stroked the back of her neck. “I was happy staying here too.”

“Was the six months’ stay part of the re-birth ritual-event-thing?”

“‘Ritual’ is fine.” Ric chuckled. “Actually, that only took one day. Staying here after my rebirth wasn’t about anything more dramatic than getting away from all the shit I’d been eating all those years. Literally and figuratively. It was meant to be like one giant detox. I wanted to cut ties with everything related to my previous life so I could move on, and that involved not being able to eat whenever I wanted to. I felt the need to work for it. Give myself some limits that were real, where my survival depended on it.”

“That’s a helluva weight loss plan.”

“I’d already lost the weight,” he reminded her. “So I guess it was more like a maintenance plan. I figured, if I could make it here... I could make it anywhere.”

“Were you trying to prove to yourself that you were strong?” That was something that hadn’t occurred to her. She put her hand over his, stroking his thumb. “But Ric... you’ve always been strong. My God, you were my backbone for years. You carried that weight for both of us.”

“Not just you.” He shook his head, his eyes focused on the fire. “I was carrying the weight of the world. I was still doing it, even after the fat was gone. I’d made up my mind to lose the weight, and so I did. I can be pretty stubborn, you know.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” She smirked and he gave her a little smile.

“But I still didn’t feel free. I didn’t understand it.” His gaze moved back to the fire again, and there was a strange light in his eyes. “I thought shedding the weight would be like getting rid of all of the crap I was carrying. But it wasn’t until I came here that I realized it was still crushing me. I couldn’t breathe. I’d lost the physical weight—but the psychological weight was still there. It scared me.”

She nodded, not saying anything. He was talking almost like he was in a trance.

“I’d never been so afraid in my life. I was terrified of going back. But... it was even scarier to think about going forward. I felt stuck. That’s when it hit me. I’d always been afraid. That had never gone away. I was afraid of being invisible, so I made myself big. And at the same time, I was afraid of anyone getting too close. Close enough to hurt me again. So I built myself a wall. A great big wall of fat. I never let anyone past that wall. Even you, Leesa.”

The look he gave her was sad, regretful. “And I’ve never told anyone any of this. Until now.”

“Even Anders?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise. She thought his mentor must have heard at least some of this.

“No one.” He shook his head. “Just you.”

“Thank you.” It sounded so strange and formal, but it was really what she felt. “For telling me. For... letting me in.”

“Well... you won’t be thanking me in a minute.” His expression changed, the light of the fire throwing shadows on his face. “You’ll probably hit me over the head with a rock and run off. Not that I’d blame you.”

Her breath caught and her chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe.

He laughed to himself, giving a little shake of his head. “I think I brought you here to tell you this because I knew it was the one place where you couldn’t run away from me. You’d have to sit here and listen.”

“I was always here,” she told him. “Listening. Even when you weren’t talking.”

“God, Leesa.” He hung his head for a moment, his hair blocking her view of his profile. “I don’t know what the fuck I did to deserve you.”

“You didn’t have to do anything.” She moved closer to him, trying to wrap her arms around him the way he did with her, how he made her feel so safe. She could barely make her fingers touch over his opposite bicep, but she held on. “You’re Ric. That’s always been enough for me.”

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” He swallowed, not returning her embrace, but he didn’t push her away, either. “We were apart so long... I forgot how much I really loved you. Love you. Present tense. Very fucking much present tense.”

His smile was almost as sad as his eyes when he glanced at her and then looked away.

“I fought my death tooth and nail,” he told her. “I railed against it. I beat my fists bloody on these walls. I didn’t want to die. But I had to let the weight of the world I was carrying crush everything in me so I could be reborn.”

“Oh Ric...” She rested her cheek against his arm, feeling her eyes sting with tears.

“Being born... it’s all new.” He took a little, shuddery breath. “And you’re not sure how to be in it. It’s like learning to do everything all over again. You’re bound to fall down learning to walk, you know?”

“Sure.”

“I fell down a lot.”

“You’re sure-footed now.” She smiled.

“You taught me how.” He pressed a hand to her head for a moment, his fingers in her hair. “Ah, the irony.”

“Riddle me this, Batman.” She laughed. “I’m lost.”

“I came back to hurt you, Leesa.” He confessed this in a low croak and couldn’t even meet her eyes when she lifted her head to look at him. “I thought... God, I’m an idiot. I thought I needed to exorcise all my demons. And you... I thought you were my biggest demon of all.”

“Me?”

“They say there’s a fine line between love and hate, don’t they?” He gave a bitter laugh. “Razor thin. I loved you and hated you in equal measure. Or... I thought I did. Really, I just loved you, so much it hurt. So much it was crushing my soul, and I thought the only way to stop the pain was to cut you out of my life.”

“And that’s why you never called or wrote...?” she whispered, trying to wrap her head around this new information as she moved away from him a little to sit cross-legged beside him. Not that she didn’t understand his feelings. She had gone through periods of love/hate with him, too.