Unfinished Hero 03 Raid (27 page)

I watched his eyes flash then heat.

“Fuck me, I knew it would,” he growled before he repeated, “Fuck me.”

We were there. We were new but we were what we were and we both understood it, new
or not.

So it was time for more than just this. I knew it by just how much all that meant
to him and that he would let that show. Therefore, I pushed up and in and managed
to roll him with me on top.

Then I straddled him, planted my hands in his chest and leaned toward him.

“I’m not going to ask if I can tell you something
,
but I am going to tell you that I have something to tell you,” I announced.

Raiden stared at me a second before the intensity left his eyes
. H
is mouth twitched, his hands came to my hips, dipped down under his shirt that I was
still wearing, then back up, spanning them, skin against skin.

“Have at it, honey,” he invited.

“I’ve seen the picture,” I shared and his head tilted slightly against the mattress.

“Come again?”

“Of you and your buddies in desert fatigues.”

Just as I suspected, the pads of his fingers dug in
. H
is lips stopped twitching, his face went blank and
his lips started to say, “Han—
”

I pressed lightly into his chest and got closer. “You talk straight, I’m going to
try that and hope it works
,
but if it doesn’t, we’ll go back and try something different. But, Raiden, it isn’t
unusual when soldiers see stuff, do stuff and come home feeling disenfranchised and
–”

I said no more because I was flying through the air.

I landed on the bed near the edge
,
and by the time I pulled myself up Raiden was yanking on a pair of cargo pants.

Okay, that did not go well.

“Raid
—
”

“Goin’, you be gone when I get back.”

My breath froze in my throat.

I swallowed to clear it, got up to my knees and sallied forth a lot more cautiously.
“Okay, that didn’t work, honey. Maybe
—
”

He viciously yanked a tee down his chest then bent toward me so fast, he was a blur.

Hand in the mattress, other hand pointing an inch from my face, he growled, “Do not
think you know shit. You do not know shit.”

Motionless with fear, I forced my lips around the word, “Raiden
—
”

“I’m goin’ and you be gone when I get back.”

It took a lot but I lifted my hand, curled it around his wrist and started, “Sweet
—
”

Savagely, he yanked his wrist free and I went flying into both hands catching myself
on the bed. I pushed myself up just in time to see him, boots in one hand, stalking
to the door.

I started to scramble off the bed, calling. “Raiden! Please. I screwed up, honey.
Please, let’s talk.”

Before I got to the door, he’d slammed it behind him.

Which meant before I could get it open, he was already yanking open the door of his
Jeep.

And this meant, before I got to the bottom of the stairs, he was reversing then he
was gone.

* * * * *

Four hours later…

I did not go into town to sort my shipments.

No. I’d walked too close to the fire and got singed by the flames. I needed to do
what I could to try to bank that fire and retreat.

So I stayed at Raiden’s house. I cleaned his coffeepot. I did his dishes. With what
I had to work with, I made minimal sense of the mess on his kitchen-ish countertop.
I folded the clothes in his dresser so the drawers shut. I found a scary-looking but
functional washer and dryer in a small room in the back corner of the bottom level
and did three loads of laundry, including his sheets, which meant I cleared most of
the floor, hung his clothes and made his bed.

Once I’d cleaned the coffeepot (my first priority), I’d made coffee.

I’d also opened the fridge. The wave of scent that assailed me was so strong I was
certain my hair wafted back with it and the visions that assaulted my eyes didn’t
bear thinking about, so I erased my memory of them and shut the door as fast as I
could.

Therefore, I’d eaten nothing.

I wasn’t hungry
,
but I figured I needed to keep my strength up for the battle that lay ahead.

But after what I encountered in the fridge, caffeine was just going to have to do.

When I heard the Jeep return, my nerves, already frayed, unraveled completely. I was
so rattled it was a wonder I wasn’t a trembling mess, incapable of movement.

But this was important.

People were counting on me
,
and two of those people included Raiden and me.

So I held the good times close, like Raiden Miller telling me he was going to retire
at forty and he expected me to be around when that happened, pulled myself together
and faced the door
,
not having any idea that I was about to get scorched.

The door opened and a lick of white-hot flame surged through instantly when Raiden’s
eyes fell on me.

“I told you to be gone,” he growled.

I beat back the blisters and told him, “We need to talk.”

“You need to be gone,” he returned.

“I need to apologize. That was
—
”

He leaned toward me.

“Bitch, get
the fuck outta my sight!
” he roared and all my skin boiled away.

I braced against the pain. “Raiden, please
—
”

“Hanna, trust me, you stand there two more seconds, I’ll make you gone
,
and babe, you do
not
want me to do that.”

He’d do that. He would. He’d been physical with me before when he had a point to make.
And his face told me he was not making threats.

Thus I didn’t wait two seconds.

Not even one.

I ran to the door
,
even though he was still in it
,
and my heart splintered when he got right out of my way.

He didn’t call after me. He didn’t even come out to the landing at the top of the
stairs. I knew because, stupidly, when I was in my Z, I looked up.

The door was closed.

I hit the button. My baby purred, I reversed and tested her speed and maneuverability
on the way home.

She did not fail me.

I did this crying.

Because a Boudreaux didn’t cry unless she was in a place she could do it.

And my baby was that place for me.

* * * * *

Eleven fifteen that night…

I was driving home from my warehouse in town. The afternoon slid by without me able
to take my mind off Raiden, so I piled my SUV with finished afghans and went into
town, thinking that work would keep my thoughts occupied
,
so I’d done it for hours.

This, incidentally, was an
unsuccessful endeavor
,
but at least all my shipments were ready for the post.

I cleared the woods around my house and my heart started thumping when my headlights
fell on Raiden’s Jeep parked in front of it.

As I drove down the side drive, I saw him illuminated by the porch light
,
standing on the porch, leaning against the post he’d leaned against when, just days
before, he said beautiful things to me.

I looked away, rounded the house and hit the garage door opener.

I parked my SUV next to my Z
and
shut down the ignition
. I
hurried out, hit the garage door button and hustled out the side door of the garage
and across the yard toward the house.

I saw Raiden’s shadowed frame rounding the house.

I stopped myself from running
,
but hurried up the back steps, keys in hand. I now had two locks on the backdoor
(there were two on the front door too
;
Raiden put them in as he said he would on the day he said he would) and I had the
key ready that luckily unlocked all of the new locks on my house, so no fiddling with
switching keys.

Just unlock and in
,
and maybe, if I was lucky, I’d get in and keep him out.

The outside light lighting my way, I yanked open the screen door and got both locks
unlocked
,
but not before I heard Raiden’s boots on the steps behind me.

I didn’t look back. I pushed in and let the screen door fall behind me.

Except it didn’t shut for two beats.

He was in.

Since any further efforts to keep him out would be futile, I left the interior door
where it was, tossed the keys on my kitchen table and moved through the kitchen like
he wasn’t there.

I didn’t make it even halfway.

Two arms closed around me from behind and my back slammed into Raiden’s front.

My body went stiff.

I felt his face in my neck.

“I’m a dick,” he whispered into my skin.

Men thought they could get away with a lot if they admitted that.

Sometimes it worked.

Sometimes, like this time, it didn’t.

“You need to leave,” I stated.

His face came out of my neck
,
but his lips went to my ear, “Hanna
—
”

“You need to leave,” I repeated firmly.

“Baby
—
”

“I crawled across a floor for you and I said one thing out of kindness and concern
and you walked out on me, came back, called me a bitch and kicked me out.”

“Honey
—
”

“No one calls me a bitch, Raiden.”

“Give me one second
—
”

“No one makes me crawl across a floor.”

His arms got tight and his voice went low. “You dropped to your hands and knees yourself,
honey.”

“Because I trusted you then. I don’t trust you now.”

One of his arms shifted up, his hand curling around the side of neck and he whispered,
his voice
thick, “Listen to me.”

With a mighty heave, I tore from his arms. I whirled, lifted a hand and shoved him
in the chest, all the while shouting, “You need
to go!
”

His hand caught my raised one and held it firm.

“Baby,
listen to me.
”

I ripped my hand from his and took two quick steps back.

“No. I was wrong. I thought I could withstand the heat
,
but I can’t. I wanted to go slow. You pushed us to go fast and I didn’t have enough
good times stored up
. Y
our smiles, your laughter, there wasn’t enough to take the heat. You’re a
criminal,
Raid, and I accepted that. This, I can’t accept. I don’t know what hideous thing
happened to you over there except I know it was hideous.
But there weren’t enough good times whe
n
you were the Raiden I know you are to beat back the Raiden that fuc
ked up shit that happened to you
forces you to be that gives me the times I need to endure the inferno within.
You lose control of that and
I’m close, it doesn’t just consume you
. I
t consumes me.”

“I don’t want you to know what happened in that hellhole, Hanna,” he returned.

“You think that hasn’t escaped me?” I shot back. “The subject barely comes up before
you shut it down
,
but Raid, if you think I don’t feel the squeeze of the elephant always in the room,
you clearly think I’m a bigger idiot than I actually am.”

“You feel that squeeze, babe, and you can still breathe. If you actually knew, you
wouldn’t be able to live with that shit. You wouldn’t be able to sleep. Your mind
would go over it and over it
,
and since you weren’t there, you’d make shit up that would torture you
,
but I promise you, none of it would be as bad as it actually was.”

“I believe you,” I retorted. “What you don’t understand since you won’t let me
talk about it
is that I’d rather live with that torture, the pain of which I would eventually be
able to control, than let you hold onto that pain without even a little release so
you
can learn to live with it.”