Better When He's Brave
Page 45
I smiled at her and grabbed hold of the door so I could swing is shut. “Good luck, Key. I wouldn’t want to be you when Nassir finally catches up to you, but I promise not to rub it in when he brings you back.”
The cabdriver took off as soon as metal touched metal and I crossed my arms as I wandered back inside. I really didn’t want to go up to Bax’s room and intrude on the brother’s time together, so I went to the snack bar and got myself a bottle of water to bide some time. I didn’t need Bax in a worse mood than usual trying to give me hell for getting my hooks into his brother. He was injured and needed to focus on getting better. I took my water and found a waiting area to sit in for a little bit, flipping through old magazines until almost an hour went by. I figured Titus would be wondering where I had gotten off to by then, so I headed back to the elevators to take me up to the intensive care unit.
When the doors opened I ran immediately into a broad chest and had strong arms wrapping around me and moving me backward the way I had just came. Titus wore a thunderous expression on his face and looked mad enough to spit nails. It was amazing to me how much emotional damage Bax could do confined to a hospital bed and unable to speak.
“Are you okay?” Those heavily muscled arms tightened a fraction around me.
“No. My brother is a dipshit and reasoning with him feels like beating my head against the wall.”
“He really doesn’t want Dovie here?” That was sad and wrong in so many ways.
“Oh, he wants her here, but not until he gets rid of the armed guard outside of his door and gets to take a shot at Roark. Bax thinks once Roark hears that he survived the crash, he’ll come after him. He wants me to get him a gun.”
“Oh no. He didn’t really ask you that? He had to know you would say no.” I shivered at the uncanny way Bax’s plan echoed my own.
“Of course he knew. It was just his none too subtle way of telling me what he has up his sleeve so I’m not surprised when it all goes to hell. And you know what sucks? Of course I told him to fuck off, but Race won’t. If Bax asks Race to help him set this up, he will. Goddammit. Everyone I love has a death wish.”
He put his arm around me and tucked me into his side, and I wrapped an arm around his lean waist. It was such a normal, couple-y type thing to do it made my heart thump a happy beat and I immediately chastised myself. Stuff like that most definitely fell into the category of more and Titus wasn’t there yet. And if he knew what I was planning, knew that this was going to end with me dead or behind bars, more wouldn’t even be an option, so why couldn’t I stop myself from asking for it, from chasing it every time he touched me? Good thing he wasn’t even close to loving me, or I would just be one more person he cared about playing a dangerous game of chicken with fate.
“Did you tell him what you and I have been up to?”
He grunted and paused next to the sparkly-blue car. I was stunned when he bent his head down and gave me a hard and searing kiss. It made me tingle all the way to my toes.
“I told him that you and I have a thing. I told him he doesn’t have to like it, but it is what it is. He was surprisingly quiet on the subject, well quieter than he was about other stuff. He told me not to get my dick shot off.”
I cringed and ran my hands up his chest. I loved the way he felt so solid and hard. I liked to think of him as unbreakable, bulletproof, even if it wasn’t true. I curled my hands around the back of his neck and drew him down so I could kiss him much softer than he kissed me.
I teased his lips open with my own, ran my tongue along the seam of his mouth, and dipped inside when he finally opened up. I licked across the curve of his lower lip and darted inside to twist my tongue around his. He tasted like coffee and a faint hint of toothpaste. He tasted real and clean. He tasted like everything that made life worth fighting for.
In typical Titus fashion he only let things be soft and sweet for a second before he took over. One of his hands found my ass as he jerked me closer and bent his head closer to mine so he could devour me. When he finally pulled away we were both panting and had dirty, sexy things floating around in our eyes. I could see my own rumpled, anticipatory expression shining back at me in the translucent silver of his eyes. It was a good look for me. It was a better look on him.
He pulled open my door for me and I slid in, making sure to drag my fingers across the front of his jeans and the straining hardness that I knew was waiting for me there.
He got behind the wheel of the car and gave me a hot look out of the corner of his eye. “Did you see Honor?”
“Keelyn,” I corrected automatically. “Yeah, I saw her. She’s having a hard time with getting shot.”
“Anyone would.”
I nodded absently. “She’s looking to make some changes.”
“Nassir mentioned that she told him she was leaving. I didn’t think it was a serious threat. I didn’t think he would let her leave. He has women crawling all over him, but for some reason she’s the only one he treats like an actual human being. Typically he treats everyone like they are just a nuisance and a waste of his time.”
I fiddled absently with my hair as the graffiti-covered buildings and broken sidewalks flew by in a blur. If you squinted just right it was almost pretty, like abstract art. Almost.
“I don’t think he’ll know she’s gone until it’s too late. She knows he wouldn’t let her leave and she would let him convince her to stay. She needs to see what it’s like out there. She needs to see that nowhere is like the Point, and that isn’t always a good thing.”
He reached out a hand and settled it on my thigh. Again it was the normality, the simple gestures between us that were tearing me apart and making me crave more. I took my index finger and traced the heavy veins on the back of his hand around the clean bandage I had wrapped around it after our sexual acrobatics on the bed earlier. He was lucky the stitches hadn’t pulled open, as aggressive and handsy as he tended to get when he let loose.
“Is that what you figured out in WITSEC? The grass isn’t always greener?”
I gave a bitter laugh and rubbed my finger across his cut-up knuckles. “I had never even seen grass until WITSEC. I wasn’t one of those girls that chased boys on the Hill. I wasn’t trying to date outside my class. I had no desire to be some Point trash that got used and abused. I was always the one that was doing the using. I learned grass is hard to keep green and you need a lot of idle time and disposable income to even try and grow it. I’m not comfortable with either of those things, so I’ll take the concrete and the asphalt any day. You don’t have to keep it alive, you just have to hose it off.”
The cabdriver took off as soon as metal touched metal and I crossed my arms as I wandered back inside. I really didn’t want to go up to Bax’s room and intrude on the brother’s time together, so I went to the snack bar and got myself a bottle of water to bide some time. I didn’t need Bax in a worse mood than usual trying to give me hell for getting my hooks into his brother. He was injured and needed to focus on getting better. I took my water and found a waiting area to sit in for a little bit, flipping through old magazines until almost an hour went by. I figured Titus would be wondering where I had gotten off to by then, so I headed back to the elevators to take me up to the intensive care unit.
When the doors opened I ran immediately into a broad chest and had strong arms wrapping around me and moving me backward the way I had just came. Titus wore a thunderous expression on his face and looked mad enough to spit nails. It was amazing to me how much emotional damage Bax could do confined to a hospital bed and unable to speak.
“Are you okay?” Those heavily muscled arms tightened a fraction around me.
“No. My brother is a dipshit and reasoning with him feels like beating my head against the wall.”
“He really doesn’t want Dovie here?” That was sad and wrong in so many ways.
“Oh, he wants her here, but not until he gets rid of the armed guard outside of his door and gets to take a shot at Roark. Bax thinks once Roark hears that he survived the crash, he’ll come after him. He wants me to get him a gun.”
“Oh no. He didn’t really ask you that? He had to know you would say no.” I shivered at the uncanny way Bax’s plan echoed my own.
“Of course he knew. It was just his none too subtle way of telling me what he has up his sleeve so I’m not surprised when it all goes to hell. And you know what sucks? Of course I told him to fuck off, but Race won’t. If Bax asks Race to help him set this up, he will. Goddammit. Everyone I love has a death wish.”
He put his arm around me and tucked me into his side, and I wrapped an arm around his lean waist. It was such a normal, couple-y type thing to do it made my heart thump a happy beat and I immediately chastised myself. Stuff like that most definitely fell into the category of more and Titus wasn’t there yet. And if he knew what I was planning, knew that this was going to end with me dead or behind bars, more wouldn’t even be an option, so why couldn’t I stop myself from asking for it, from chasing it every time he touched me? Good thing he wasn’t even close to loving me, or I would just be one more person he cared about playing a dangerous game of chicken with fate.
“Did you tell him what you and I have been up to?”
He grunted and paused next to the sparkly-blue car. I was stunned when he bent his head down and gave me a hard and searing kiss. It made me tingle all the way to my toes.
“I told him that you and I have a thing. I told him he doesn’t have to like it, but it is what it is. He was surprisingly quiet on the subject, well quieter than he was about other stuff. He told me not to get my dick shot off.”
I cringed and ran my hands up his chest. I loved the way he felt so solid and hard. I liked to think of him as unbreakable, bulletproof, even if it wasn’t true. I curled my hands around the back of his neck and drew him down so I could kiss him much softer than he kissed me.
I teased his lips open with my own, ran my tongue along the seam of his mouth, and dipped inside when he finally opened up. I licked across the curve of his lower lip and darted inside to twist my tongue around his. He tasted like coffee and a faint hint of toothpaste. He tasted real and clean. He tasted like everything that made life worth fighting for.
In typical Titus fashion he only let things be soft and sweet for a second before he took over. One of his hands found my ass as he jerked me closer and bent his head closer to mine so he could devour me. When he finally pulled away we were both panting and had dirty, sexy things floating around in our eyes. I could see my own rumpled, anticipatory expression shining back at me in the translucent silver of his eyes. It was a good look for me. It was a better look on him.
He pulled open my door for me and I slid in, making sure to drag my fingers across the front of his jeans and the straining hardness that I knew was waiting for me there.
He got behind the wheel of the car and gave me a hot look out of the corner of his eye. “Did you see Honor?”
“Keelyn,” I corrected automatically. “Yeah, I saw her. She’s having a hard time with getting shot.”
“Anyone would.”
I nodded absently. “She’s looking to make some changes.”
“Nassir mentioned that she told him she was leaving. I didn’t think it was a serious threat. I didn’t think he would let her leave. He has women crawling all over him, but for some reason she’s the only one he treats like an actual human being. Typically he treats everyone like they are just a nuisance and a waste of his time.”
I fiddled absently with my hair as the graffiti-covered buildings and broken sidewalks flew by in a blur. If you squinted just right it was almost pretty, like abstract art. Almost.
“I don’t think he’ll know she’s gone until it’s too late. She knows he wouldn’t let her leave and she would let him convince her to stay. She needs to see what it’s like out there. She needs to see that nowhere is like the Point, and that isn’t always a good thing.”
He reached out a hand and settled it on my thigh. Again it was the normality, the simple gestures between us that were tearing me apart and making me crave more. I took my index finger and traced the heavy veins on the back of his hand around the clean bandage I had wrapped around it after our sexual acrobatics on the bed earlier. He was lucky the stitches hadn’t pulled open, as aggressive and handsy as he tended to get when he let loose.
“Is that what you figured out in WITSEC? The grass isn’t always greener?”
I gave a bitter laugh and rubbed my finger across his cut-up knuckles. “I had never even seen grass until WITSEC. I wasn’t one of those girls that chased boys on the Hill. I wasn’t trying to date outside my class. I had no desire to be some Point trash that got used and abused. I was always the one that was doing the using. I learned grass is hard to keep green and you need a lot of idle time and disposable income to even try and grow it. I’m not comfortable with either of those things, so I’ll take the concrete and the asphalt any day. You don’t have to keep it alive, you just have to hose it off.”
