Page 25 of Raiden

“The only thing we’ve ever going to do is hate fuck if it comes down to it. That’s never going to change. You do know that.”

“Yes. No. Fuck.”

“I’m leaving.” I don’t hate Raiden. I don’t want to hurt him. The safest thing to do is get out of here.

It’s a quick path to the door. My boots whisper soft sighs over the high pile green carpet. It looks like the fur on the back of a monster. The door is so, so close.

“Widow.” Raiden’s strong voice booms louder than the music. I don’t want to pause, but my feet come to a stop against my wishes. “Wait.”

If I asked you not to leave, would you still go?

“Yes.” I whirl, the anger and frustration that’s been percolating inside of me my whole life boiling over. “It’s always the same thing. I don’t want to be dominated. I don’t want to be broken. I don’t want to fix or be fixed. I just want tobe. I am who I am. I have never met a man who wanted that or appreciated it. I have never been with a man in any way who wasn’t afraid or intimidated by me and who didn’t want to reduce me to something else.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Just of the shower.” I’m always meanest when I’m closest to being truly exposed and vulnerable.

He winces as my words hit their mark but agrees. “Just of the fucking shower.”

I can handle anything else. I could walk away from anything else. But this? This unexpected vulnerability is disarming. I can feel myself collapsing, my resistance wavering.

I might never love Raiden, but this is frightening.

I ball my hands into fists, but the fight has bled out of me. “I’m sorry. That was beyond unforgivable. Cruelty isn’t my style.”

“We already know we bring out the worst in each other.”

What if that wild current could be properly channeled into a useful circuit? “My apology still stands. I can’t ask you to get help and insult you and shame you in the next breath.”

He scrubs a hand down his face. This is the first time I truly see how exhausted he looks. “I’m fine. Just go. I’ll shower and be back at the clubhouse in an hour.”

Reverse psychology usually doesn’t work, but there’s no way I’m going now. Unfortunately, I always have to rise to a challenge. “I’ll stay. But we should get back. I haven’t even turned my phone on.”

His brows crash together. “Mine’s dead. The constant searching for a signal finally did it in.”

He pulls it out of his pocket and goes to the kitchen, plugging it into a charger on the counter. I walk to the bathroom door down the hall and lean casually against the wall. Neither of us say anything as he walks past me and steps inside. He pauses, stares down the tub and shower combo with the black shower curtain cutting across it. The bathroom is pink. Fucking. Pink. Flowered wallpaper. Pink subway tiles. Pink free standing sink, pink toilet, pink tub. I love how ancient it is and that he hasn’t remodeled any of this.

He takes a breath, ragged and sawing in and out of wheezing lungs. “Fuck.” He curses, balling up a fist. He’s facing the mirror and there’s no way I can let him break something so historical. Punching glass never did anyone any good anyway.

His arms are slick with sweat again when I charge in behind him and take them in my hands. My fingers bite into his biceps. “Fuck the shower. Let’s go for a ride. We’ll take a long way to the clubhouse.” His eyes are blown from adrenaline, shadowed and vacant. “Raiden. I said, let’s go.”

I have to reposition my hold. The sweat is pouring off him like he’s making his own shower. I don’t think anyone,including myself, realizes how serious this is. How could I have just mocked him?

Doesn’t matter how sorry I am. The words are out. I’ll find a way to apologize with action. I’ll find someone he could talk to, someone who could help. He won’t want it, and I won’t force him, but just knowing that a real person exists, who might not be so bad… that has to be worth something.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. He shrugs me off, whips the curtain aside, and cranks the water on. The spray is so hot that steam rolls off it.

“Hey!” I dodge around him, adjusting the temperature.

He’s half terrorized as his eyes fix on my face again. It takes a lot to scare me, but whatever is happening right now, the ghosts living in his body, the memories that refuse to give him back, I feel like I’m fighting against something supernatural.

His hand snaps out, closing around my throat. The fear turns to terror. I scrabble at his fingers with my hands claw-like, until I realize that he’s just holding me there. He’s not squeezing. His thumb smooths over the side of my neck, against my crazed pulse.

“It’s been a long time since you had any sense of rightness or security. I’m so sorry that my father came into your world and tried to ruin the one good place you had left when it mattered most that it was there for you.”

I take one hand off his wrist and wrap it around his throat, holding him the way he’s holding me, just feeling his heartbeat thrum in his neck. It’s beating far faster than mine and mine sure hasn’t settled yet.

My terror is nothing compared to the fear seated deep inside of him.

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