Secrets to Hide 3: Just a Little More (6 page)

It took a moment for her to gather her words. “I don’t…” She jerked her head once, a clear negative. “I can’t go, Brad. I can’t be exposed like that. Not right now, not with him out there.”

Brad’s fists clenched behind Angel’s back and damned the man who’d hurt her. Brad swore if he was ever lucky enough to get his hands on Angel’s attacker, he would relish tearing the man into tiny little pieces, preferably with his bare hands. The need burned hot inside him every time Angel admitted what the attack had done to her. The man hadn’t raped her, but then, he hadn’t needed to, to ruin her life.

No, not ruined. Torn apart, maybe, but they would mend it. Together. No way would Brad let that bastard win.

Pulling her across the seat and into his lap was as much for his comfort as hers; the closer she was to him, the easier he breathed. He didn’t argue with her, didn’t point out that she’d been exposed in the snow for Lord knew how long. Perception often mattered more than physical fact. He knew the hospital was most likely safe, especially since he wasn’t leaving her side for a long damn time after this, but now that he understood her fear, he wouldn’t force the issue unless absolutely necessary.

“Okay.” With a sigh he kissed the top of her head. “I’ll take you home, but only if you promise to cooperate.” Palming her cheeks, he forced her to meet his gaze. “Will you?”

Torment filled her eyes, but she nodded.

“Good. Let’s go home.” Every instinct he had screamed the need to take care of her. He planned to do just that, and then he planned to make sure nothing like this happened ever again.

Angel was his, and by God, it was time she knew it.

* * * *

The tingling pain of warming up bore a distinct resemblance to ants running along her veins and muscles and bones. The crawling sensation made her want to scratch her skin off, but she was too tired to dig under her clothes to get to it. All she could do was rub ineffectively at her limbs. The rustling sound of her actions was the only break in the silence that filled the car.

Bleak billows of snow obscured the windshield. When she’d been walking in it, she’d been thankful for the blanketing obscurity; now her heart jammed in her throat, not for her but for Brad. If anything happened to him…

God, she didn’t know what to do. How did she fix the clusterfuck that was her life when she couldn’t even crawl out of the sinkhole she was in? Sometimes fixing it seemed impossible. Sometimes, like earlier tonight, she felt like she could at least take those first tentative steps out into the open.

Until the memories hit. The drop back to the bottom of the hole seemed twice as long and three times as hard when she hit.

Cut the pity party, Angel
. That’s what she’d decided tonight, why she’d taken those first terrifying steps into the world again—because she wasn’t going to give in, to the depression or to the man who’d attacked her. Not anymore. It was time to wake up from the nightmare.

That black hole might try to suck her in, but giving up was no longer an option.

Brad shifted in his seat. Angel turned to him, her gaze landing on his white knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel. A glance at his face showed equally white lines around his tight mouth. His cheeks were wet. Without thinking, she dug her way out of the blanket and reached up, tracing the moisture with a shaky finger. “Brad?”

“How could you do that to me?”

The harsh words slapped into her, pushing her back against the passenger door.

Brad didn’t even notice. It was as if a dam had cracked and everything he’d held inside was gushing out, hard and fast. “All night I’ve been calling, worrying. All night. Hel—”

He cut off the curse just in time, and Angel almost smiled at the habit. The tiny gurgle of happiness fizzled before it ever fully started.

“For weeks I’ve worried. I’ve tried to help you, to make things better. I’ve tried to be enough. Is it really so bad that you would rather die than stay with me?”

“No!” She practically strangled on the word, her throat closed tight against the idea that she’d even thought about leaving him to deal with that kind of pain. “I didn’t want to die, Brad. I—”

The rear end of the car slid on the ice. Panic cut her off, but she focused on Brad’s hands, on his firm handling of the wheel as he turned into the skid and eased them forward once more. “Jesus,” he muttered. His hand shook as he wiped it across his face.

“Brad, please—”

“Don’t. Just…” He sighed, the mix of emotion that’d filled him to bursting now deflating before her eyes. The weariness in his shoulders heaped guilt on her head. “Just don’t.”

At the next red light he turned right, then pulled into their parking garage. Suddenly the muffling snow was gone, replaced with mellow light and cold concrete. Brad made short work of parking and turned off the car. They sat in the silence, him staring straight ahead, her watching his face, searching for some clue of what he wanted her to say.

When he shifted to face her, Angel startled. Fire burned in his eyes, a glimpse into the hell he must’ve lived through tonight. That she’d put him through—unintentionally, yes, but she hadn’t been thinking about him, had she? She’d been thinking about herself, about handling her problem. She hadn’t taken his reaction into consideration. Brad was her best friend and she was his; she knew that with rock-solid certainty. He might not have been physically assaulted, but he had been beside her every step of the way since her attack. He’d been with her in the hospital, through the weeks of nightmares, the first time she’d tried to leave the apartment and practically suffered a nervous breakdown. He’d gotten a lot less sleep than she had, staying up to watch over her when she’d used the oblivion of sleep to escape the depression that dragged her down further than she could handle.

He’d been her rock, and he should’ve been her first thought this afternoon, not herself. She’d done too much of that lately.

Daring to reach out once more, she rubbed her fingers over the dark hollows under his eyes, the sharpened cheekbones that testified to the weight he’d lost. He was still the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, all shaggy blond hair and rough, chiseled features, but their joint suffering was carved into that beautiful flesh. And how had she repaid him?

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t intend…” She dropped her hand, closed her eyes. “I wanted to prove he couldn’t control me anymore, that I could walk out onto the street and still
live
. And then I got cold and the fear faded…and it was just…nice for it to stop for a little while.”

Brad’s forehead met hers. They absorbed the feel of each other in the dim light, ignoring the time ticking away. When he finally moved, it was to cup her cheek. He tilted her chin until their noses slid against each other, until his warm breath ghosted over her chilled lips and her eyes had no choice but to meet his. What she saw there woke her body up in ways that had nothing to do with warmth.

“That”—his lips went tight—“
man
stole enough from us,” Brad said, the fierce rasp of the words cutting through the quiet. “Don’t let him steal anything more.”

She was stuck back on his first sentence. “Us?”

“Us.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, and he smoothed his thumb across her bottom lip, tracing the chapped, ragged edges. His tongue followed, flicking against the skin, warming and moistening. Angel gasped at the sensation, her breath locking in her lungs as she waited for more. So, so gently he brought his lips to hers. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt his kiss, but it felt like it, like this man’s touch was both brand-new and as old as time. The rake of his mouth over hers brought tears to her eyes. She held herself in absolute stillness, afraid the least little movement would wake her from this dream moment. Since the first day she’d met him, she’d dreamed of Brad’s kiss. In the past few weeks she’d worried that she would never feel it again, yet here it was—and it was good. Pleasure shafted through her shivering, aching body as his lips melded to hers, and when his tongue entered her, she opened, eager and afraid. Brad took advantage, delving deep into her mouth.

His hands held her still as he angled his head, his movements going from soft to fierce in an instant. All the emptiness that had consumed her was suddenly filled. She groaned her pleasure around his thrusting tongue, pain forgotten in the fierceness of her hunger for him. Her wildest dreams were coming true, and for a moment she wondered if she really had gone to sleep on that desolate stoop, only to wake up in heaven. But no, this was real—Brad’s heat seared her, his taste consumed her, and the scent of his body heat and musky cologne and the faint edge of beer from the bar wrapped her in a blanket tighter than the one he’d brought to keep her warm. This wasn’t a dream; it was reality. The man she loved made love to her mouth with all the ferocity of desperate need.

Brad eased back, his invasion shifting to licking and nipping and teasing her mouth. With a final bite to her chin, he leaned his forehead against hers once more. Angel opened eyes she hadn’t realized she’d closed and stared up into the depths of Brad’s dark gray gaze. The determination she saw there sent a shiver through her.

“I love you, Angel.”

Oh God. The first time she’d heard those words from his lips. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed them, needed to hear that he loved
her
, screwed-up, messed-up Angel. “Brad—”

“Hush!”

Angel shut her mouth with a hard
clack
of her teeth, her eyes going wide. Brad had never spoken to her like that, but his harsh tone was cut by the hungry desperation shining in his expression. He dropped his hands to her shoulders, gripping tightly, but the shake he gave her was gentle. “You listen to me, Angel. I love you. I have for a long, long time, but—” He waved away whatever that thought was. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I love you. I want you—not just for my best friend, but for my lover, my wife. Don’t you ever put that in jeopardy again, do you understand me?”

She watched him closely, searching his eyes for the truth, a truth she didn’t dare believe. “No, you’re just saying that because you—because of what happened, because you’re afraid I might—”

“You’re darn right I’m afraid, beautiful. And this”—he grasped the hand still lying outside her blanket and brought it to his thigh, laying her chilled fingers right next to a more than obvious erection—“what you do to me with just a kiss? It can’t be faked.” He lifted her hand to his thudding heart. “And neither can this. I love you.”

Now it was Angel whose tears slipped down her cheeks; she couldn’t hold them back any longer. “I’ve wanted to hear you say that for so long.”

“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “And I’m sorry. I wanted you to have the freedom to choose, to go away and experience something else and decide for yourself if I was what would make you happy. That night at Thrice— You don’t know how many times I wish I could do that night over. Make it different. I would never have let you leave alone; I’d have gone home with you and taken you to bed and told you I loved you like I desperately wanted to. After… Well, I just didn’t want to spoil that experience for you by rushing it, by having it mix in your head with what happened to you. I thought waiting was better. Maybe that was stupid; I don’t know. What I do know is I won’t wait any longer. I love you, and nothing that’s happened to you, nothing that bastard did or that has happened since is going to change the way I feel.” He stroked her cheek with a rough thumb. “Even if I’d lost you tonight, it wouldn’t have changed. You’re mine.”

Uncertainty flared in her chest. “You deserve a lot better than me.”

“No, I deserve you.” He got that stubborn jut to his chin that meant he would get his way, come hell or high water. “Now let’s go inside. I’m getting you warm, and then we’re getting a few things straight.”

Chapter Four

Brad’s cell buzzed in his back pocket as they reached the third-floor corridor. Angel hesitated. He settled a hand at the small of her back to urge her along the hall as he fished out his phone. “Yeah.”

“Update?”

It was the same demand Damien made when he was out of town and called to find out what was going on at Thrice. The concern lacing the word, though, told Brad that his boss was worried about him and Angel, not Brad’s work. He had to clear his throat before he could speak without his voice cracking. “Found her. We’re almost home.”

“Where was she?”

“Out.” The word grated across his vocal cords.

Damien picked up everything Brad didn’t say aloud. “Shit. But she’s okay? Do you need one of us to come over there?”

“No. No, we’re…fine.”
Fine
wasn’t the right word, but it was all he could come up with.

He could practically hear Damien’s brain working through the phone. The man wouldn’t be fooled by his word choice any more than Brad was. “What can we help you with, then?”

What could he say? Was there any help for the fact that he’d lost his mind somewhere out there in the snow watching Angel slowly freeze to death? Nothing anybody else could do would get him back on stable ground, nothing but what he intended to do as soon as they got back into their apartment. After he got Angel warm. And after he was absolutely certain it was what she needed from him, right now, tonight. Only then would he let go.

Either way, he was certain he couldn’t handle anything but Angel at the moment. “I’ll have to let you know on that one, Boss.”

“Whatever you need; you know that, even if it’s just to talk. Of course, Harley might be better at that, but she’d kick my ass if I didn’t at least offer.” Damien’s forced amusement faded to something serious as he said, “You’re not carrying this alone.”

“I know.” He wished Angel did, but he planned to fix that as soon as he could.

The apartment door loomed at the end of the hall. Brad separated his door key from the pile on his key ring. It only took two tries to get the door open. “I need to get us settled and get Angel warm. I’ll call you in the morning, okay?” He motioned Angel through the door and watched as she walked to the couch and settled in one corner, the blanket he’d given her in the car still locked around her.