Hard as You Can (25 page)

The fact that he was six-plus feet of gorgeous man was just the cherry on top.

She’d been so comfortable, so blissed out, that Crystal hadn’t become conscious of the wandering of his hands until after they’d slipped under her hoodie and the tank to her uniform and stroked upward, just lazy, massaging drags of his fingers against her bare skin.

Oh, no!
She jerked back out of his arms so hard she had to brace on her hands to avoid falling flat on her back across the seat.

But Shane’s darkening expression told her she hadn’t moved fast enough. He’d felt the scars.

Crystal’s throat went tight as tears of humiliation and disappointment threatened. Of course this moment of happiness couldn’t last. Not for her. She swung her legs off him, slid across the seat, and went for the door.

“Crystal, wait,” Shane said, grasping her by the elbow.

“Let me go,” she said. Last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of him, but the emotional roller coaster of this day had left her fragile and shaky. She had to get away.

“What the hell was that?” he asked in a disgusted tone. God, she didn’t want to see the expression that went with the voice.

The leather of the seat creaked like he was sliding closer.

It’s midnight, Cinderella. Your coach just turned into a pumpkin.

Shane’s hand landed gently on her back.

Without another thought, she yanked her elbow free, pushed open the door, and jumped out of the truck so fast she pitched forward and had to catch herself on her hands. Gravel and macadam bit into her palms, leaving them raw and burning.

“Crystal!”

She took off at a dead run. Up the sidewalk and across the street. And, as little rocks and other debris flayed the soles of her feet, she realized she’d left her flip-flops in Shane’s truck.

Lost her shoes. Just like Cinderella.

Except her life was no fairy tale. Not by a long shot.

“Crystal!” Shane’s voice—desperate, closer.

She wrenched open her truck door, scrabbled in, and shut and locked the door. Her hands were shaking so bad that it took three tries to get the key from her pocket and into the ignition. By then Shane was at her door and knocking on the window.

“Please don’t go,” he said, voice muffled by the glass and the pounding beat of her pulse in her ears. “Crystal, please.” He smacked the flat of his hand against the glass. “Please talk to me.”

The truck started on a roar. She hit the gas, and the truck lurched forward, forcing Shane to jump back.

For a good thirty seconds, Shane ran after the truck. And it was staring at him in the rearview mirror that made her realize she was crying, sloppy streams of tears that streaked mascara under her eyes.

When she looked in the mirror again, he’d stopped. Hands on his hips, head hanging low, he just stood there. And then he turned in a slow circle, like he was lost. A huge tattoo she couldn’t quite make out covered his back. Crystal hated how defeated he looked, hated that she’d been the one to do that to him.

After everything he’d done for her.

W
anna talk about it?” Easy asked from the passenger seat.

“No,” Shane said, entirely aware his tone gave a lot away but too fucking tired and pissed to care. Not pissed at Crystal. Pissed
for
her.

Goddamnit, he could barely breathe for the Humvee of rage parked on his chest.

Shane’s fingers might’ve only been on her back for a few seconds, but he’d felt enough to have a damn good idea what was going on underneath her clothes.

Lines of scars.

Some shallow, some knotted and deep.

Lots of things might’ve made them.

Problem was, he’d seen the backs of men who’d been struck by a whip while serving various places overseas. And whips left a distinctive pattern of diagonally placed straight lines. And that was too damn similar to what his fingers had traced on Crystal’s bare skin.

As if Shane hadn’t been horrified enough by her swollen cheek and bruised arm.

With every fiber of his being, Shane hoped he was wrong about what he’d felt. He might never feel a greater happiness than to know his imagination had run away with him, and he had it all wrong. But instinct and intuition had his stomach rolling and the whiskey he’d drank earlier burning a hole in his gut. Add that to Crystal’s reaction to his discovery, and Shane knew he wasn’t wrong.

And that was another thing his brain couldn’t stop chewing on. Why had she panicked so badly? Why had she run away? She’d nearly thrown herself from his truck, and no way her near fall and barefoot flight hadn’t chewed up the skin on her hands and feet. When he’d finally caught up to her at her truck, she’d been crying so hard he’d worried she wouldn’t be able to see to drive. Jesus, after the privilege of sharing a moment of passion with her, the evidence of her pain had just about broken his heart.

He peered down at the pair of white flip-flops resting on the seat beside him. They had a small fabric flower on the strap over the toes. He remembered them from the night he’d carried Jenna up the steps. As he drove through the quiet, mid-night streets of Baltimore, Shane debated the best form of death for the asshole who’d done this to her. Bruno.

Shooting? Too fast and impersonal. Poison? The scumbag might not be conscious of the fact he was dying. Drowning? Not painful enough. Cutting off his hands and dick? Messy but poetic.

“You like her,” Easy said, his voice pulling Shane from his murder fantasies.

Well, hell. And then there were three teammates who suspected the truth. No sense in doing a duck and cover now. He glanced toward his friend. “Yeah.”

Easy nodded and ran a hand over the side of his head. “Then you gotta get her out of there.”

Gripping the wheel harder, Shane heaved a deep breath and strove for a bit of levelheadedness amid the rage whipping up inside his chest. Everyone knowing he’d crossed an emotional line was one thing. But responding emotionally was another. “I know, but it’s complicated. And we’ve got just about enough of that on our plate these days.”

“I won’t disagree with you there. But most of the time, there’s a difference between what’s right and what’s easy. Maybe you should think about bringing her to Hard Ink.”

Shane cut his gaze across the cab to find Easy staring at him, a tired, almost weary, expression on his face. “I don’t know that I could convince Crystal of that. Or Nick.”

Crossing his arms, Easy shook his head. “I don’t know, man. But how many more people gotta die?”

That was for damn sure. Zane, Harlow, Axton, Kemmerer, Escobal, Rimes. His six teammates who’d died in the ambush on that dirt road that day. Merritt, though he’d brought that shit on himself. If the surgery hadn’t worked out, Charlie might’ve been on that list, too. Might still, depending on how well he responded to the meds.

Molly.

Not that she’d died as a part of this fubar, but she was one more reason Shane refused to allow Crystal to be next. Or Jenna, because he knew enough to know that loss would devastate Crystal to her very core. But it wasn’t like he could drag them to Hard Ink against their will.

Given what he suspected about Crystal’s situation at Confessions and with Bruno, the idea of doing
anything
against Crystal’s will sat like a jagged rock in Shane’s gut.

“You talk to Jenna at all?” Shane asked as his thoughts churned.

“A little. This whole thing being the clusterfuck that it is, I checked the apartment when we got back. She gave me a little shit for that. And then she gave me a little more for planning to watch over the place until Crystal got home. And then a while later she came outside looking for me and gave me shit because she couldn’t find me right away.”

Shane arched a brow and slowed for a red light at an otherwise empty intersection. “What did she want?”

Easy cracked a slow grin. “To see what I was doing. I asked what part of covert she didn’t understand, and she turned around and stomped away, right before she looked back to ask if I needed to use the bathroom or anything.”

“What did you say?” Shane said, chuckling. Shane hadn’t gotten to spend much time with Jenna yet, but she seemed to have a feisty streak, part impetuousness, part fighter.

“I just stared at her until she rolled her eyes and went back in.” Easy rubbed his fingers over the hint of his smile on his lips.

Turning onto Hard Ink’s street, Shane imagined the look Easy had probably given her. The one so intense it made you want to apologize even though you hadn’t done anything. The one that had made the newbies in camp stammer and back away. And here it had just made Jenna annoyed.

Easy chuckled under his breath. “She was fine, though.”

Shane grinned, only too happy to turn the tables. “Interesting choice of words.”

“What?” Easy asked. “Aw, come on, man. You’re cracked out of your head. I didn’t mean it that way.”

Waiting for the fence to open and allow access into the Hard Ink lot, Shane nodded. “Sure, sure. Of course not.” But
something
had to explain the fact that Easy had said more on the subject of Jenna than on anything else since they’d reunited.

A fist lit into Shane’s biceps, and he couldn’t help but laugh through the ache. “Ouch, motherfucker. Don’t kill the goddamned messenger, now.” He pulled into a spot and killed the engine.

A satisfied smile on his face, Easy reached for the door.

“Hey, E?”

“Yeah?” he said, his smile fading.

Shane girded himself to give voice to what he’d learned—or what he was pretty sure he’d learned, anyway. He wanted the guys on his side if Crystal’s situation escalated because no way was he leaving her to fend for herself. If she’d have him, if she’d let him in, he’d want her by his side. And, for now, that meant at Hard Ink.

“What is it, Shane?” Easy said, all the humor gone from his voice.

“She’s got”—he swallowed, hard, just from the memory of her ruined flesh under his fingers—“she’s got scars all over her back.”

Easy went still. “What
kind
of scars?”

“I didn’t see them, but I felt them.” He finally looked at Easy, whose gaze narrowed and brow slashed down. “So I can’t be sure.”

“But?”

I’m pretty damn sure.
“I think she’s been whipped.”

Easy’s expression was dark, lethal, rankly pissed off. “Then you need to do something about it. I’ll back you up, a hundred percent. However I can help, you just say the word.”

Shane gave a tight nod. He needed to keep himself buttoned up on this and not fly off the handle. He didn’t want to scare Crystal. He didn’t want to make the team doubt his objectivity. And he certainly didn’t want to do anything that might further jeopardize Crystal’s or Jenna’s safety.

“You need to come clean with the team on all this,” Easy said. “That’s the only way forward.”

“Yeah,” Shane said, feeling the lateness of the hour in every bone in his body. “Roger that.” Laying all this out there and trusting his teammates with it was the right way to go. They’d have his back. They always had. “I will. First thing in the morning.”

Easy nodded, and they both shoved out of the truck. The decision invited a sort of peace into Shane’s psyche, calming at least a little the whirlwind of rage he’d felt since he’d discovered Crystal’s scars.

Inside Hard Ink, they made their way up the stairs, surprised to hear low voices coming from the gym.

Shane keyed in the code and followed Easy inside.

“Look, they threw a party and didn’t invite us,” Easy said, crossing the room.

What the hell was everyone doing up? Nick, Becca, Jeremy, and Beckett all sat around Marz, the only one in his street clothes from earlier in the night and still at work on the computer. Becca in pajamas, she and Nick were stretched out on a blue gym mat on the floor, Jeremy sat on a chair close to Marz, and Beckett reclined in one chair while he propped his feet up on another. Even Eileen was here, currently doing an impression of a fur ball curled up on the blanket covering Becca’s legs.

“No rest for the wicked,” Marz said, pulling an earbud from one of his ears. He glanced up from his monitors, a tired smile on his face.

“Everything okay with Charlie?” Shane asked.

Becca nodded from where she sat on the floor between Nick’s legs. “Yeah, thanks. I just couldn’t sleep for worrying about him.”

“That pretty much went for all of us,” Nick said. “Eventually, we all congregated over here rather than risk disrupting his sleep over at the apartment.”

Shane nodded. “Has he woken up yet?”

Becca smiled, and it was so good to see happiness brightening her face again. “Yeah. And his fever’s down, too.”

Beckett nodded. “We’d been overdue for some good news.”

Damn straight. Shane thumbed over his shoulder. “Is he due for a check? I could go look in on him.”

“No,” Marz said. “I set him up with a walkie-talkie. He’s lucid enough to give a shout if he needs something.”

“Besides, don’t you have some business here?” Easy asked, nodding at the group, a pointed expression on his face.

Right. No sense waiting for the morning with everyone up and at ’em now. Shane pulled a folding chair closer, sat, and rested his elbows on his knees. His head hung on his shoulders, and it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. The combination of exhaustion and worry and anger.

“What’s up, man?” Nick asked, concern clear in his tone.

Shane lifted his gaze and met Nick’s. No sense beating around the bush, not when most of the team already knew. “I’m falling for Crystal.” Despite the fact that he felt every pair of the eyes land on him at the same time, Shane resisted the urge to squirm or look away. He wasn’t used to hanging his laundry out for everyone to see—
hell,
he wasn’t used to having laundry of this kind at all, but he wasn’t ashamed of what he had to say, either.

Nick’s entire initial reaction involved a single lifted eyebrow, but Becca’s smile was big and immediate. She glanced around the room at the others, and Shane’s gaze followed. Marz wore a small smile and nodded like he approved of Shane’s admission. Jeremy frowned, like he wasn’t sure why Shane had made this a topic of general conversation. And Beckett’s expression remained a careful, serious blank. Easy stood at Shane’s side, a physical manifestation of the promise he’d made a few moments before in the truck.