Fighting for Control (Against the Cage Book 3) (31 page)

V
i’s cell chirped on the nightstand. She considered letting it roll over to voice mail, reluctant to leave the warm cocoon of Nikko’s embrace, but she was afraid it would wake him. He’d had a restless night, one of his worst yet. He’d left her bed sometime around three a.m. and had gone to the shower. When he couldn’t sleep, which was often, he would retreat to the bathroom and within minutes she’d hear the familiar groan of the water pipes and muffled hiss of the water’s spray.

She knew what he was doing. It was textbook behavior, the impulse to cleanse himself from the feelings inside him. Showering was a ritualistic coping mechanism common for many people suffering from severe PTSD.

As she always did, Vi gave him his space to battle his demons his own way. She knew her interference would only be met with anger and frustration. He might push her away even more, embarrassed, believing she’d view his struggle as weakness. But Nikko wasn’t weak. Nothing about this man was weak. He was a fighter, down to the very soul of his being, and it broke her heart watching him battle this darkness alone, knowing he would have it no other way.

He’d stayed in the shower long after she was sure the water had gone cold. When he’d slipped back into bed, his skin had been freezing. Feigning sleep, she’d rolled into him, snuggling her head into the crook of his shoulder. She wrapped her arm around his chest, her leg over his hips, blanketing him in her warmth and taking his chill into her, bearing at least that for him. If he would only let her in, she’d help him bear so much more.

It was probably close to five before she felt his body fully relax, submitting to the lure of slumber, but for him it was no time for rest, because that was when the battle truly began. He told her once that he slept three, maybe four, hours a night. He was lucky if he slept that. How he could push his body like he did on such little sleep was beyond reason. Each night she watched him endure this suffering in silence, and bit by bit, it felt like pieces of her heart were being torn out. But tonight she’d learned something. Mumbled in the thrall of his torment, Violet discovered the name of Nikko’s demon. Remmy . . .

She was one step closer to unraveling the secrets of his past. With any luck, she’d soon have them all and could finally help free him from this invisible bondage. The guilt she felt over going behind Nikko’s back and contacting Barry to get his military records was nothing compared to the agony of watching him suffer night after night and knowing there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Her phone chirped again and she winced. Nikko had finally slipped into a quiet, peaceful rest maybe two hours ago, if that. She didn’t want him waking yet. It was Saturday and he wouldn’t have to be at the gym until eleven. He trained half days on Saturday, and Sunday was his only full day off. Preparing for a fight was more grueling than she’d ever imagined. She had no idea the amount of training and discipline that went into getting ready for the cage. But Nikko never complained. He seemed to thrive on the physical pain and the sheer exhaustion.

Slipping her arm from beneath his blanketing heat, Vi reached for her phone. Fingertips just shy of touching the metal edge, she shifted just slightly, rolling away from Nikko only to be pulled back against the hard wall of muscle.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

His husky growl rumbled in her ear. Dammit . . . how long had he been awake? Nikko rolled over her, pinning her to the mattress. Lifting his head, he glanced at her cell, and his playful, sexy grin, darkened to a scowl.

“Your ex still calling you?”

Shit
. . . Vi hated lying, and she’d vowed she would never do it to him. Their veil of trust was too thin as it was. Nikko didn’t give his trust easily. “Just ignore it,” she whispered, reaching up and lacing her fingers behind his thick, muscular neck. “That’s what I do . . .”

She shouldn’t use sex as a tool for manipulation, or a distraction, though it was hardly a sacrifice. Tugging his mouth down to hers, she could feel the tension in his muscles, the resistance in his mouth, as her lips moved across his. So he was going to be stubborn, was he? Challenge accepted . . .

Vi nipped Nikko’s bottom lip hard enough to get his attention and shift his focus solely on her. It must have worked, because she could feel him hardening against her thigh. He pulled back far enough to lock those gorgeous sapphire-flecked eyes on her as his tongue slipped out to skate over the red mark she’d left behind.

His dark brow arched in wry amusement. “Careful, Clover. That mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble.”

His sleep-roughened voice was like fine sandpaper across her flesh. Just the sound of it flooded her veins with heat, centering between her parted thighs. Mercy, he was magnificent . . . Pinned beneath two hundred and twenty pounds of hard-muscled fighter was a heady experience she wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to. A man like this wasn’t used to submitting his back, whether in the cage or in the bedroom. He liked to maintain control.

Well, not this time . . .

“You’d be surprised what my mouth can do.” She pushed him over and he rolled with ease, bringing her with him and sitting her across his waist.

A sexy grin tugged at the corners of his mouth as he laced his hands behind his head, stretching into a lazy sprawl that took up the majority of her bed. How was it possible that even on his back he managed to dominate her? She was so wet, her sex aching . . .

She had to get control—somehow—throw him off his game, wipe that arrogant, cocksure grin off his handsome face. “I’ll be right back.” She placed a quick kiss in the center of his chest and then slipped off the bed. The ends of her hair tickled the center of her back as she walked over to the closet. The heat of Nikko’s stare burned into her bare ass.

“What are you doing, Clover?” Lust made his voice rough, but she could hear the slightest edge of curiosity in it.

She didn’t answer him as she opened the door and pulled out a pink scarf. He eyed the silk as she walked over to the foot of the bed and crawled up the length of him. Settling back over his waist, he watched her with an amused grin as she pulled one of his hands out from behind his head and tied a knot around his wrist. As she looped the long end though one of the spindles on the headboard, Nikko’s heavily muscled arm rose above his head.

“You tyin’ me up, baby? Cuz, I gotta tell you, it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a pink scarf to hold me.”

He allowed her to pull his other wrist above his head, maybe because she was leaning over him and her breasts were in his face. He lifted his head, capturing a sensitive peak in his mouth. She gasped as an electrical current shot to her sex. She fumbled at the knot, trying to cinch it as Nikko toyed with her breast, sucking, nipping, tonguing . . .

After it was fastened, she allowed herself another minute to revel in the feel of his mouth on her. She slipped her fingers into his hair, holding him to her breast. Then she fisted them into the short length and pulled his head back, separating them.

He went to grab for her, her headboard rattling, the spindles creaking, but they held firm. Something flashed in his eyes—a mixture of emotions—hunger, lust, and something else that had her second-guessing the wisdom of taking his control. “Violet . . .” The warning was clear in his eyes, and so were his demons.

He was slipping, she could see it in his eyes, feel it in the tension infiltrating his powerful body. He was fighting to control it. She could see him waging the internal battle. “Let me go.” It wasn’t a request but a harsh demand. The girlfriend part of her wanted to reach up and tug the tail of the slipknot free and release him. The therapist in her wanted to work him through this, talk him back from the edge and teach him how to control these moments when his demons tried to overtake him. He refused to let her in on his own, but now he didn’t have a choice. How hard should she push this? Could she get him through it without either one of them getting hurt? He’d told her before that little things would set him off. She didn’t know what those triggers were, but by the looks of him right now, she’d just found one.

“Nikko, do you trust me?” Violet’s words echoed in his head, sounding a million miles away.

He could barely hear them over the pounding of his heartbeat,
and the whup, whup, whup of the chopper’s idling blades. The urgent shouts of men called out the gruesome report, “Dead, they’re all dead.”

Searing pain tore through his chest with every shallow breath. He tried to stop breathing, to let the darkness take him, but his body refused to die, no matter how many times he commanded it to do so.

“Fuck, I got one!” a voice shouted above him. He tried to open his eyes, but the blood and sand ground into his corneas made it impossible to see. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move
. . .

“Alive?” Someone farther away shouted.

Fingers pressed firmly into the side of his neck. “Yeah, but barely,” the voice beside him answered. “Get me the fucking medic!”

Rough hands tore at his clothes, the rip of cloth giving way to the heat of the desert sun blazing down on his bare flesh.

“Who ya got?” a second voice asked, joining the first. “I can’t recognize him through all the blood. His face is too fucked up.”

“Check his tags.”

“He isn’t wearing them.”

“Underneath his arm. He’s recon. They’ll be tattooed under his right arm.”

Nikko’s arm was yanked above his head, sending a searing pain of holy fire into his right side. God, he couldn’t breathe! The pain was excruciating
. . .

“Fuck, it’s Del Toro!”

“Nikko . . .”
the voice of an angel beckoned him toward the light. Goddammit, he wanted to die. If only he could reach out and capture her hand, he’d be free.

“He’s got a sucking chest wound! His lung is collapsed. We gotta get this shrapnel out of his side and needle his chest before we move him! Grab his arms, hold him down!”

“Nikko, look at me . . .”
his angel pleaded, but he couldn’t see her, blinded by the blood and sand of this godforsaken land. If he could just reach her, it would be over. It would all be over
. . .

And then
she
found
him
. . . Soft hands reached up and touched his face. His vision cleared, and he was staring up into a pair of the most beautiful violet eyes he’d ever seen.

“Hey . . .” she whispered, smiling down at him. “You with me?”

Her hands skated down his neck and feathered up his arms. She slipped her small hands into his and laced their fingers. He curled his over her knuckles, hanging on. He tried to answer her, but the desert sand made his throat dry as ash.

“I’ll untie you if that’s what you really want. You and I both know you could snap these rails like a twig and be free in a heartbeat. But I’m asking you to trust me. Let me help you, Nikko. Let me replace those bad memories with a good one.”

She didn’t realize what she was asking. He hadn’t even known having his wrists bound was going to set him off until he tried to reach for her and couldn’t. He’d felt himself slipping, spiraling out of control, and by some miracle, she’d managed to drag him back from the edge. What was this power she held over him that was stronger than his demons?

His head was clearing, and his pulse had nearly returned to normal. The mischievous glint in her eyes promised he wouldn’t regret giving this control over to her. He could trust her . . . Maybe not with the truth, because there was only so much a person could take before drawing the line and walking away, but with this—his physical control—
that
he could give to her. Partially because he knew he could take it back at any time. One hard tug and these spindles would snap. But also because he believed the reward would be worth the sacrifice.

Who would have thought that this midge of a woman could be stronger than the memories that tormented him? Then again, why should he be surprised? She’d kept them at bay in the plane, and she’d chased them away a few minutes ago. As long as she was touching him, as long as he could see her beautiful face and focus on her connection to him, he could give her this. In his heart he knew it was important to her.