Chapter Seven
Brando
Sitting still was torture.
But thinking was worse.
My mind went rampant, as though being home let the monsters loose. I sat in bed and tapped my fingers on Cat’s pillow. She’d left almost two hours ago. I’d grown tired of CNN and flipped through the channels, settling on an animal show. The African Serengeti seemed endless, and it made me envious. I wanted to get up, to run without losing my breath, to be far away from myself.
I had this horror in the pit of my stomach that it was time to stop running, or that sitting still for so long would give the memories I ran from a chance to catch up. I’d be able to think better once I had my safe.
My body existed in a blanket of pain. If I sat still, it was manageable. Showering had been ten times harder than I thought it would be. Truth was, I couldn’t do this without Cat. I didn’t even want to try. She was the only part of my life that felt right. One look at her and I didn’t feel so fucking lost.
But I was lost. There would come a time when Cat moved on. The thought shouldn’t burn as badly as it did.
Cat got back home seconds from my implosion. I listened intently to the sound of her in the hall. There was grunting and sighing, and then finally, there she was, my safe in her arms.
Her neck strained under its weight, but she held on. I was struck watching her. I was struck, and I was done for. She carried my safe in for me, and there was no going back from there.
She set the safe down on the bed near my feet and gasped in relief, rubbing her forearms. “That thing is heavy.”
I struggled to slide to the end of the bed. The moment I reached for the keycode, she left. I punched in the code and opened the lid and sighed in acute relief. Without the code, the investigators couldn’t get inside. I closed the safe and punched in the code, feeling much better.
The bullets in my back had been worth it.
I pushed to my feet and took my time walking down the hall and into the kitchen. Cat was hauling in grocery bags. She hoisted them onto the counter. When she did, one bag fell over, and a jar of Nutella fell out, rolling to stop on the edge of my counter.
I grabbed for it and twisted the top, ashamed by how hard it was to free the fucking top. My strength was shot. I managed to get it open and leaned my hip against the counter, scooping out a huge fingerful and lobbing it into my mouth.
I needed to put on some weight. Cat frowned at me, her brow quirked, but she didn’t comment as she started unloading the groceries.
“Madi usually does the grocery shopping. I hope you know how demoralizing it was feeling up apples.”
I smirked, picturing her tattooed arm shooting out next to the Fuji apples. I couldn’t stop laughing at the idea of her feeling up fruit.
She glared at me across the counter. “You don’t get a fucking apple now.”
I pressed a sticky Nutella finger to my side to stop the ache laughing caused. I held up the jar in a peace offering. “Nutella?”
She snatched it from me and dug out a spoon from my drawer. “Doesn’t fix everything.”
Unable to help myself, I grabbed for a shopping bag and began unloading it. My mouth refused to stay shut. “When do we leave?”
She rested her hip on the counter and appraised me, hand pausing in the middle of bringing the spoon to her mouth. “How do you want to do it? Fly or drive?”
“We can drive my Charger.” I felt a spark of anticipation at the idea of being stuck in my car with her all the way to Portland.
She nodded, licking the spread from her bottom lip. “We’ll surprise Klay. That way he doesn’t have time to think too hard about having a cop living in his house.” She set the jar down and twisted the cap. “We can leave whenever you want. But you have to promise you’ll take it easy. We’ll stop every few hours so you can take a walk?”
She sounded like my mother. A doting badass that cared as much as she ruined, and it killed me in the worst way. I wanted to slam her against the fridge and kiss her at the same time I wanted to scream. “I promise, Catherine.”
“That’s a good boy,” she purred, a teasing glint in her eyes as she passed me.
I wondered if she had to be that way. Had to be the boss, had to have control. I knew she’d suffered from sexual assault at some point in her life, and I also knew that no matter how well she was doing now, unfortunately her attack might still play a large part in her choices and perception when it came to men. I would never push her, never force control. She had no idea that in that moment, I gave her every ounce of control I had in me.
Plus, the idea of her on top of me only made my cock hard. It flooded me with a strange feeling, something I’d never considered feeling before. It made me feel relieved. Relieved that someone had the control and wouldn’t ruin it the way I did.
“Hmm,” I murmured, studying her ass in the black jeans she’d put on before she left. They were like latex, skin tight. When my eyes shot to hers, hers were glowing knowingly. “I think you’re right. Your ass is first.”
She nodded. “Handsome and smart. That’s rare.”
I chuckled at her audacity. “You’re probably right.”
“I am about most things.”
“Oh,” I moaned, wanting to rearrange her cockiness. “Beautiful and misinformed.”
“Misinformed?” She snorted, pulling out a twelve pack of eggs. “I take it back. Handsome and nothing else.”
“Now that’s probably more accurate.” I settled on one of the bar stools pushed up to the island, watching her search for something until she gave up and spun around.
“Non-stick frying pan?”
“Don’t have one.”
She frowned at me, putting her hands on her hips. “Do you not cook?”
I shook my head. “Not often enough to have non-stick pans. I bought this place a year and a half ago, and I never really lived in it.”
“Why not?” She opted for a silver pan instead and grabbed the butter off the counter.
“Work. My life was my job.”
“Was?” She spooned butter into the pan and then lit the gas stove, the tick, tick, tick of the burner followed by a rush of blue flames.
Admitting that out loud felt mildly dangerous. It was one thing to feel lost inside. It was exposing to admit out loud. But she’d seen me in far worse positions. “I’ve spent the last two years consumed by Madison’s abductor, and the three months before that, I spent them looking for her. A few months ago …” I shouldn’t be doing this. The public didn’t know about the fifteen unearthed bodies yet. They knew we’d found more victims, but they didn’t know the extent.
She talked into the bowl she cracked eggs into. “I won’t tell Madison,” she said softly, smart and beautiful.
“We found fifteen more bodies.”
She spun around, an egg in her hand flying out of her hand and onto the floor. Her mouth opened wide and her face paled. “What?”
The horror on her face reminded me of every single reason I couldn’t go back to that case. “He wasn’t just an abductor and rapist. He was a serial killer. I couldn’t do it. The moment I killed him and solved Madison’s case, my soul refused to go further. Those fifteen skeletons pushed me over the limit. I was taken off the case the night I was shot.”
“Oh my …” Her hand covered her mouth. “You mean, if Madison hadn’t escaped …”
“She’d be one of those bodies,” I finished for her.
She puked into the sink. She grabbed a napkin off the hook and wiped her mouth, breathing through her nose. “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t be able to do that. To unearth fifteen broken souls. To know that I couldn’t save them, I could only give them a voice. That’s for a different kind of person. One who can still see the good in the bad. That’s not who we are, is it, Brando?”
It was the first time in my entire life that someone got me. The first time I didn’t have to say what I was feeling, she already knew. I wanted to beg her, to ask for a little warning when she crushed me. Instead, I found solace in her dark brown eyes. In her.
“You like your eggs scrambled?” she asked quietly, turning back to the now smoking pan. Her fingers trembled as they reached for a new egg.
“Yes.”
“We’ll leave at the end of the week, okay? This will be good for you. Get away, clear your head. Are you on permanent leave?”
“Until further notice.” I didn’t tell her that I resigned from my position at Denver PD last night. That I hadn’t called Ethan, I’d called Captain Gutierrez, and it hadn’t gone as smooth as I’d wanted.
I knew it would kill me, but I grabbed a rag off the oven handle and did my best to bend to clean up the egg she dropped. “No,” I growled, when she reached for my arm. I couldn’t take this helpless box I’d been crammed in. Most of my survival came from being able to take care of myself. I got this far because I had no choice.
“Damn it, Brando,” she hissed. “It’s okay to need help, you know? Fucking men and their tough bullshit. You know who’s tough? Me! Don’t do that again.”
I gritted my teeth and rose, tossing the eggy rag in the sink. “There. All cleaned up.” A wave of unbalance hit me; my vision blurred. I didn’t want to admit she was right, or even that I was wrong. I went back and settled at the bar, shielding my eyes from the light as I tried not to pass out.
It went on that way until I thought I couldn’t take it anymore. She watched me like a hawk, never letting me do anything on my own but to shower. At the end of the week, I felt stronger, but in many ways, I felt weaker. I lost my breath so quickly, it scared me even to laugh. And with Cat, it was hard not to laugh. She’d reach into my pain and turn it inside out, leaving me chuckling breathlessly more times than I could count. I wanted to tell her that every time she made me laugh when I was rotting, was one more reason for me to notice her. I’d never been so aware of another human being.
I listened to her at night when we slept, finding extreme comfort in her breathing. She mumbled in her sleep occasionally, but I couldn’t make out what she said, and she never repeated herself. That was true when she was awake too. She said things once, and if I didn’t hear it, I missed out.
I’d been home five days before my mind could no longer work past the things I dreamed about. Every night I dreamed about falling into a puddle of my own blood in my backyard. But in my nightmares, the thugs got away with my safe, and Cat wasn’t there when I woke up.
What terrified me was that the most horrifying part of that nightmare should be losing my safe.
But waking up without Cat hurt far worse.
The air was bitter cold, and the clouds churned in the sky.
I watched from the curb of my place, putting my hands in my pockets as Cat got out of the Uber. She paused and spoke to the driver, a small flirtatious smile lifting her lips. I studied her smile and then my eyes shot to the driver, narrowing on him. Fucking prick looked like a baby. Cat would eat him alive.
She winked, and her lips moved, but she was too far into the street for me to hear what she said. Her jeans were the same color as mine today, dark denim. She wore one of my black fleece Denver PD hoodies ‘for kicks,’ and her hair was in a French braid down the middle of her skull.
There was something between us. It was as alive as we were. But there was also something called self-preservation, and I thought it had a far bigger mind than our emotions did. For all I knew she was just being nice. When we got to Portland, I’d be on my own. I wanted to get away with her, and there was something between us, but that didn’t mean there would be.
“What are you doing out here?” she demanded, glaring at me as the Uber driver drove away. I saw that she’d tucked a piece of paper in her pocket and I instantly got heartburn.
“I missed you,” I teased, but my lips were pressed together and I wasn’t in the mood to laugh. I was in the mood to run. I really did miss her. That’s the fucked up part.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah right. You’re sick of me.” She gave me a soft smile and kept walking. I followed her into my house. “You’re all packed, right? It’s going to snow in an hour and I want to be out of Denver before it does.”
She turned in her rental today, hence the overly friendly Uber driver. I wondered if that was going to be a thing. Men and her. So far, it had only been us two together. Sleeping together. Waking up together. We’d set up a dangerous rug I had a feeling would get pulled out from under me the moment I got comfortable.
I felt my desire and pain twisting around the other. Things would get messy. My heart would bleed. But I was powerless to stop that from happening when I wanted it so much. Bleeding hearts made a sick kind of sense to me.
“Yes,” I answered, eyes following her around the house as she checked to make sure that everything was unplugged.
I didn’t tell her that it was pointless. I’d hired a realtor two days ago and they were going to man the sale of my house. I didn’t care about the furniture. I didn’t care about my suits in my closet. I would create a new pretense when I got to Portland, and even though the thought made me sick, it was a necessary evil to keep the world happy so they didn’t look too close.
She spun around in the hall and met my eyes, hers soft. Damn it, they were beautiful. So deep, endless brown. There was no other color in her eyes. Just this deep, glowing brown that never ceased boring into my fucking soul. “Did you move your safe? Is that why you were outside?”
I nodded once.
“Okay,” she said. “Then we’re ready to go home?”
I nodded once more.
She passed me in the hall and let her left hand rub against my thighs on her way. Just below my cock. “Hottest new roommate ever.”
“Me or you?” I called out.
She snorted. “Me, obvi.”
I chuckled and followed her, grabbing my wool coat off the counter. My beard had started growing in, shadowing my jaw. I was thankful, having caught Cat staring at my scar more than once. She was an intelligent woman, though. I knew she had questions, but I also knew she’d never ask them.
The first hour on the road was silent. My Charger was packed with two suitcases for me and the rest were her bags. I didn’t need much.
“I’ll split driving in half. Nine and nine. Stop halfway, get a hotel room, and then get back on the road. That cool with you?” she checked.
The second we left Denver, anything was cool. “Whatever works for you, dear.”
“Dear?” she repeated, scrunching up her nose. “Well aren’t you amendable, honey buns.”
My lips twitched. “I am nothing but amendable, babycakes.”
She snorted out a laugh. “The sky is so gray today, isn’t it, sweetie?”
“Stormy, honey doll,” I agreed, grinning at the side of her face. Her own lips lifted, and smiling like that, she was beauty.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “No more. I can’t take that shit. We deserve badass nicknames. Like …” She mulled it over, tapping the steering wheel. “Brawk.”
My brows quirked. “Brawk?”
“Brando and Hawkins together make Brawk. I love it. That’s your new name. Live with it.”
“I’ll stick with Cat.”
“Of course, you will. Why mess with perfection?” She gave me a sugary grin.
“Why indeed,” I muttered, wanting to kiss her. Filthily. Fucking dirty. I had to get that out of my system before I did anything gentle. I had a feeling she didn’t do gentle anyway. Gentleness took time. The bomb between us surely wasn’t going to wait for us to take our time.
After a few minutes of silence, she sighed. “I’m bored. Let’s play a road trip game.”
I took a deep breath and sank lower in my seat to find some kind of comfort. “Like what?”
“Every time we see a white car we have to … tell a secret.” She gave me innocent eyes that I didn’t dare fall for. “There’s a white car in front of us. Hope he doesn’t get off the highway soon.”
Brat. “Fine. Tell me a secret.”
“I’ve never tried anal.”
I choked on my shock, and then did the only thing I could. I laughed my ass off even though it hurt my entire body to do. She joined me. “Hate to break it to you, baby, but I can’t say the same.”
She stopped laughing abruptly and stared at the road. “I don’t want to play anymore.”
My smile dropped. She glared darkly at the road and her little hands on the steering wheel looked sickly pale gripping it with all her might. And something told me that a woman like Cat had a whole lot of might. “Why not?” I asked pointedly.
She bit down on her lip and if it were possible, the mood in the car got darker. “Tell me a secret. It’s your turn.”
I plucked a harmless secret from my safe. “I’m addicted to tattoos.”
The mood swirling around her began to settle immediately. “I can see that. You hide them, though. You’re ashamed.”
“I’m not ashamed of them. I’m actually quite proud of them. I drew them all myself. The world’s the one who’s ashamed of them.”
Her head turned to me. She gave me a wide-eyed look as best she could driving. “You drew all the tattoos on your body? You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not.”
She whistled. “I’m impressed, Brando.”
I shrugged. “You shouldn’t be.”
“How could you be a cop with that kind of magic trapped inside of you? It goes against everything to instill order and then go home and draw chaos.”
I rested my head on the seat and stared at her. “I had to become a cop. It was the only way to … fix things.” I sighed and looked at the road. The white car was still there. Might as well give her another secret. “I grew up in a fucked up world.”
“I didn’t,” she revealed. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours? I’ve never told anyone where I came from, Brando,” she added softly.
I had to know every single thing about her. “My father was in an MC. A motorcycle gang. The Hard Riders. He was deep in that lifestyle in Texas.” I skipped a humongous chunk of time and pain and then I continued. “After the dust settled, I knew if I didn’t become a cop, I’d end up buried beside him, with a trail of bodies and heartache in my wake.”
I heard her sharp inhale of breath. “Like the Sons of Anarchy?”
“Worse,” I admitted. “We didn’t have a Jax Teller around, I’ll just say that.”
“We,” she picked out, reading between the lines, like she could see that I had once grown up alongside the Hard Riders. “That’s probably as shocking as my past. But for different reasons.” She took a deep breath. “You ready?”
She was a dark angel. No pushing. No judging. Just openness and equality when it came to sharing our pasts. “I’m ready.”
“I keep this hidden, because in the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter where you come from, you know? It only matters where you’re going, and how you get there. Everyone looks at me and thinks it was always hard. But it wasn’t,” she whispered. “It was easy for me growing up in Maine. That was the problem. My parents are filthy, disgustingly rich. I saw my mother twice a month if I was lucky, and I saw my father even less. I always felt … misplaced. Like I was the right person in the wrong place. If I was going to be alone, I’d rather take care of myself. I took off when I was fourteen. And it was the biggest mistake of my life.” She exhaled in a rush.
I reached across the seat to touch her, settling my hand on her thigh. I rubbed from her knee to the top of her thigh. She jumped a large chunk of time too. Which meant it was as painful as mine. “Did you ever go back?”
“No,” she forced out. “And I never will.”
I didn’t lift my hand. I settled it on her knee as much for myself as for her. “How did you end up in Denver?”
She shrugged. “How did you?”
I smiled humorlessly. “Just sort of happened.”
“Me too. And then I was stuck there. Trapped. Until I met Klay.” Her sad smile became wistful.
“You and him ever …” I tapered off, unsure how to bring it up.
But she shook her head. “No. It was never like that.”
Good. “We done with secrets?”
She glanced down at my hand. “If we’re done, are you going to move your hand?”
“Yes,” I lied, to see what she’d say.
“Your turn, Brawk.” Her smile was pointed at the road.
So I crept my hand up, tracing the inseam on her jeans as I heard her almost inaudible swallow. “I’ve never been in love.”
She took a second to respond. I didn’t know if it was my secret, or the fact that my hand had inched higher. My knuckles were close to where her thighs met.
“I’m scared to love you.”
My hand stilled, and my heart did the same. “Then don’t. Because if you do, I’ll fuck it up. And you’ll destroy me.”
“Are you scared to love me too?” Her voice wobbled, weakened from the weight of her question.
“I’m only scared of things I can’t control. And I couldn’t control my feelings for you if I fucking tried.”
Her breath left her in a whoosh, and the moment the words left my mouth, the timer on the bomb that existed between us started ticking. It began counting down to our total destruction.
A tear trailed down her cheek, but she smiled morosely at the road. “I want to get married in Hawaii.”
“Why?” I asked.
She smiled privately.
I cleared my throat and squeezed her thigh before letting her go. “Duly noted.”
Behind us, it started to snow in Denver.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
I was jolted awake by the sound of a door closing.
I blinked aware under the blindingly bright lights of the parking lot we were in. Cat walked around the front of my car toward the lobby of the rundown hotel she’d chosen.
I groaned, running a hand down my face. Everything on me hurt past common sense. I reached down between my legs blindly to grab for the bag that contained my pain pills, swallowing two down dry.
When Cat returned, she opened her door and poked her head in. She tossed me a key card. “Room two zero one. Second floor. I’ll bring everything up.”
I ignored her order and went around back, braving her hostile glare to grab my own bags. I was in pain if I stayed still, and I was in pain if I moved; I might as well move. When she moved to grab up my safe, I fell a little harder for her. If we ever managed to diffuse our bomb, I’d probably feel that way every day. Love her a little more, fear her a little less. But the ticking thrived in the back of my skull, up every step I took to the second floor.
I managed to slip the key card in the door and dumped everything in my arms to the floor. The room was your standard hotel. Unwashed sheets from the seventies, tacky meaningless paintings, and one solitary window that opened to the street.
“They have a pool and a jacuzzi,” she said, reading the pamphlet left on the nightstand. She sank onto the bed. “There’s probably some booze at the gas station next door. Wanna get drunk and jacuzzi it up?”
“Not sure getting in a lukewarm bubbly tub of marinating ejaculate and feces from hundreds of other people is good for my wounds.” I joined her, grabbing the pamphlet from her hands to read it over.
She scrunched up her entire face and shook her head. “Right. Probably not. We can still get drunk in our room. Have some fun?”
She wanted to have fun. We would have fun. “Whiskey and cola?”
She beamed, eyes lighting with a flare of bad. She was beauty, but she also danced with demons. Made me want to dance with them too. I thought getting older would exterminate peer pressure, but Cat was a whole other influence.
“My fav.” She patted my thigh. “Be right back with some booze and food. Slip into something more comfortable for me, eh?” She winked and dragged her fingers over my jaw, her soft skin scraping against my stubble, her dark brown eyes shimmering with mayhem before she left me alone.
I could be alone. Before her, that’s what I was. Now, it made me feel … off. Like my scales were tipping too far into the unknown.
I kicked my shoes off and wriggled my wool coat off, laying it on the seventies bed spread. The bathroom wasn’t much better. Stained tile the color of bones and the light was so dull, I looked colorless. Pale and dark at the same time, with my pallid skin and the shadowy circles under my eyes. I turned the faucet and cupped the stream of water and brought it to my face, finding relief in being unable to see for a moment.
I grabbed a towel off the hook and dried my face, catching a glimpse of my empty dark green eyes before turning away from the smudged mirror. The scar on my throat burned.
Unable to stand it, I grabbed the key card and took off for the gas station to join her. The cold air bit at my exposed arms and face and the cold helped clear my mind. The gas station doors dinged when I came in and the attendant looked up. She had to be in her mid-twenties. She did a double take when she saw me, her eyes flashing to my tats and then my face before giving me a wide, indulgent smile.
“Hey,” she greeted.
I couldn’t help smiling back. Her shameless ogle didn’t go unnoticed. “Hey yourself.”
“Ahem,” a woman cleared her throat beside me.
I looked over to find Cat standing there, arms full of snacks and a six pack of soda. Where her brown eyes had shimmered with mischief earlier, they roared with fury now. Burning rage turned them into glossy black orbs of madness, and I’d be lying if I didn’t find the hardness sexy. I wanted to wrap my fingers around her neck and shove her against the cold storefront glass before I shoved my tongue deep into her mouth. I could only imagine how sweet she’d taste, how much her madness probably weaved the ingredients for addiction.
“Making new friends, Brando?”
I couldn’t help it. Out in the open, there were no rules. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to the corner of her mouth, getting the edge of her soft plump lips. Our eyes remained open, and I watched her pupils flare. “Who needs new friends with you around?”
She turned her head to the side an inch and brushed her lips over mine for half a second. The contact unleashed the worse kind of desire in me. The twisted toxic kind. “I like the way you think,” she whispered against my lips.
“Hmm,” I murmured, stuck on her. “You have any idea how sexy you are when you’re jealous?”
“Who say’s I’m jealous?” she quipped.
I clucked under my tongue. “Don’t start lying to me now.”
Mirth entered her eyes and she dropped the pretense. In that case, I didn’t want pretenses between she and I. Before she could answer, the ding of the doors opening sounded, ripping apart our bubble. She blinked aware and a flush entered her cheeks. “Yay or nay on Cheez-Its?”
I didn’t answer. I moved around her, brushing my hand over hers, before finding the snack aisle. I loaded my arms and joined Cat at the register. The attendant looked crest-fallen, morosely bagging our items after I ran my debit card.
“Have a good night,” she mumbled.
“One look and you broke her heart,” Cat said as we made our way across the parking lot for the hotel.
“Yeah, that’s me. A heartbreaker.” I snorted.
“What’d you think about her? Pretty eyes. Big tits.”
Was she fishing? I kept my smile down and shrugged. “Big tits are always nice.”
She made a sound in the back of her throat. “What’s your type?” she demanded, walking a little faster.
Truthfully, I didn’t have a type. I sought out women who wanted nothing from me but one night. “Empty.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw her brows draw down. “I mean physically.”
“Doesn’t matter to me. Limiting your tastes to one thing limits your experiences.”
“No,” she argued. “Setting no expectations limits disappointment. I have a type. And I’m not limiting myself.”
I saw what she did there. Baited me with her type because she was wondering the same thing I was. Was I her type?
“I’ll get the truth out of you once you’re drunk,” she said, taking the stairs to the second floor.
“I’m a mellow drunk, believe it or not. And … a horny drunk.”
“Interesting.” I caught her smile before she turned away to set the bottle of whiskey she got from the attendant on the desk below the television mounted on the wall. “Me too.”
I chuckled and sat on the end of the bed, ripping open a bag of Doritos.
Only she could make a back full of bullet holes and a dingy hotel room seem like a minor cut and a vacation.