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  Justice’s eyes grew wide. Nolan had told her he and Declan were at odds because he didn’t sign up and was hitting the road instead. Nolan said he felt bad about it because knowing Declan it would be a distraction for him, and that was the last thing he needed.

  The idea that he’d worry about her as much as his brother, his best friend, flattered and ticked her off. She had issues, yes. But she was not broken. Cracked maybe, but who wasn’t?

  “You know what, asshole,” she said standing up. “Fine. My dad drinks, and he’s a dick. I look like my mom, which just makes him even madder when he’s had a few and I decide to speak my mind. Which isn’t often because it’s easier to dodge him.”

  She jerked a strap down from her dress, then the other.

  His mouth opened either in shock or to say something, but she didn’t care either way. She went on with her rant. “And I did fall. Into a tool chest,” she said, unzipping the side of her dress. Underneath she had a short tank because it was soft against her bruise, and girl briefs just because that was how she decided to roll that morning.

  Being more covered up than she would be in her bathing suit still didn’t make this viewing any easier. Declan’s gaze was hard to handle on its own; when it had a target and emotion it was beyond unnerving.

  She dropped the dress to the floor. “I pushed him. I knew to wait but I was mad and when he went to hit me I dodged it because I’m awesome like that.” She hitched her tank up to reveal her side, from her thigh to her ribs was black, blue, and brown. Only the black parts hurt now.

  “You listen to me,” she said, which did not draw his stare from her body like she thought it would. “I will be damned if you go anywhere, even down the fucking hall, and worry about me. I deal and I deal my way for my reasons. You need something to fix? Something to protect? A reason to beat your chest and say ‘I am alpha hear me roar’—then you’re looking in the wrong direction.”

  He didn’t say a word, his penetrating gaze locked on hers.

  Just like when they were kids, even recently, with their simple eye-contact they could say a million words.

  Declan was mad, more so at himself than anyone else. He’d been right there all this time...and he didn’t do anything. And she was telling him even if he’d tried, she wouldn’t let him.

  “Come here,” his voice rasped.

  At first her hesitation was involuntary. She couldn’t make herself move, there was too much emotion coursing through her. Both good and bad. How could two words make someone feel happy and terrified at once?

  Slowly she approached where he was still seated next to the wall, stepping just between his raised knees. His gaze didn’t fall from hers until she was still once more, then it gradually trickled down her body. Her ivory skin flickered with awareness as she felt everywhere his gaze landed on her flesh.

  His hands reached for the back of her calves and slowly slid up as his gaze landed on the first of her bruises, high on her ribs.

  When his touch reached her knees, he gently pulled her forward.

  Caught off guard, her hands landed on his shoulders and he steadily pulled her to her knees.

  The back of his hand slightly feathered up, carefully gliding over the bruise. His gaze was fixated on her body. She was fighting for breath, each sway of his hand was electrifying.

  Then all at once, his hands grasped her hips, causing her hold on his shoulders to slip around his neck as he gently urged her to lie across the mat pillowed with towels.

  As soon as she relaxed into the mat and stared up at him she found his gaze on her side once more and before she could comprehend how quickly this night had shifted, his lips fell to her flesh, whispering away whatever pain or frustration had come from her current bruise.

  She wanted to be humiliated, but she couldn’t find the will, not when his hand had reached down to her calf and slowly began to slide up.

  His touch was deliberate, exploratory, not like it was years ago when they knew they were stealing every second, yet this pace was racing her heart even more so.

  When his lips grazed her hips, the breath she shuddered was a bit too loud; at least, she thought it was. She was sure she was right when his lips left her flesh and she reluctantly looked down at him.

  His hand didn’t still its subtle touches when his gaze met hers. “I can’t give you what you deserve.”

  She felt her eyes well as she reached her hand to his face. She narrowed her gaze as she smiled. “I know. I always knew.”

  Rapidly the gray shattered with blue raced across her visage, scrambling to understand anything about this girl—anything. She was the epitome of enigmatic.

  The next thing Declan knew he was leaning forward and claiming her lips as he felt her fingertips gliding through his dark hair.

  They both trembled with emotion just before their kiss gained rhythm, before they took a breath that mimicked sweet relief.

  Declan became a starved man, needing to feel all of her, to become lost in the touch of her skin, the scent of her, how she was able to do what other girls could not—she made him feel. And she made him feel everything.

  When her hands became just as reckless, clothes became suffocating barriers. She tugged at his shirt then her hands struggled to touch as much of his chest and back as she could. If his skilled touch didn’t mark his experience, how fast he shed her tank and bra from her certainly did.

  The palm of his hand clasped a breast; his lips fell to her chin and then her neck as he rocked into her. Fast and slow, it was maddening how electrifying this felt. He wanted to savor it—he had to devour it.

  Justice reached for his belt and right as she had unfastened the buckle and aimed for his button his hand landed on her hers, his kiss broke, and a heated breath skirted down her neck as his gaze rose to hers.

  “You need to be sure,” he rasped. “Don’t if you can’t watch me leave.”

  Either way she was watching him leave, there was no doubt about it. The only thing she was sure of was he was the only person who made her feel alive.

  She leaned up to kiss him, and the second his lips touched hers, the power went out—something she doubted she would have noticed if he hadn’t pulled away.

  When she heard him open his bag, she was sure the storm, which she heard building, had broken the moment. He’d found the will to do what she was too weak to do, shut this heartache down before it became any more tragic.

  Seconds later she heard him move in the dark, his jeans rustled, and then his hands cupped the back of her knees, spreading them. At the same second she felt his kiss land at the base of her belly, his hands slid up grasping her panties and pulling them down with one swift motion.

  Her body was like a live wire. The utter darkness of the room, the lack of one sense, was causing her to notice every touch all the more intensely.

  She yelled out when his tongue lowered and flicked across the rosebud of nerves nestled in the blazing heat of her.

  Her hips bucked up but his grip held her in place as he kissed her, once, twice more. Justice couldn’t describe what her body was going through, all she knew was everything inside felt like it was building toward one point and she didn’t know what it was, all she could do was whisper his name, begging him to stop, and to never stop at the same time.

  When his kiss moved to her navel the rush didn’t stop building—if anything the ravenous hunger deep inside her grew. Right as his kiss landed at the base of her ribs, then slid up and all but inhaled her taut nipple, his fingertips slipped between her folds, gliding up and down and provoking any edge of control she could dare to have. Then the rush came, and saying his name was all she could manage to do for a few precious seconds as her body trembled with ecstasy.

  All at once she was alight with even more hunger. Her hands rushed over him as she leaned up so she could reach him. Right when she grasped the hard length of him she felt the cold slick plastic of his condom and her heart skipped a beat when she realized how real this was.

  �
��Careful,” he whispered, moving her hand then spreading her knees even further apart.

  Justice drew in a deep breath when she felt the crown of him at her entrance. In the next beat she was certain he had sliced her body in half. His thrust was sharp, quick, and deep.

  Against her neck he let out a growl across a sharp breath. “What the hell, Justice?” he said in a strained breath.

  “One second,” she panted as she blocked out the pain and her brain strained to pull her back into reality. He was inside. They were one. He was now immortalized in her memory.

  It was killing him to stay still, but he lifted his head then his fingertips moved across the side her face. In the darkness his gaze was searching wildly over her, trying to understand how this girl was untouched before this moment. It didn’t calculate, especially with the way she moved under his touch, how vocal she had been—how claiming her touch was.

  “Why didn’t you tell me,” he asked, on a breath, having no choice but to move. Under the tips of his fingers he felt her wince, and because she did it was killing him. His mind could not deal with hurting her in any way.

  “What?” she panted.

  “I’m your first,” he bit out.

  “You’re all my firsts,” she said, growing brave and moving her hands down his back as she lifted her hips. Her lips stole a kiss before she spoke more. “You’d be the only one I’d never regret.”

  Slowly he rocked into her. Her words made him tremble and he had no idea why. His hand moved down her side, then up again and across her chest. When she started to move against him it was all he could do to stay tender. In an effort to do so, he pulled her against him then rolled to his back, only managing to barely slip out.

  His hands gripped her hips and slid her down on him. They both cried out across a panting breath, but in a beat she was moving again with him and the feel of her hips in his hands, the wave of her body was more than enough for him to find his release. He eased upright as he felt it coming and claimed her kiss. Feeling her hunger, tasting her sweetness, moving his lips with hers like they were made only for each other caused his heart to thunder and dizzying sensation that seemed to sweep him into another world with her.

  Seconds later, he lifted her from him but he never let her go. He pulled her against him, and skin-to-skin, as the wind whistled through the vents and the thunder roared—and the pressure in the air built—he swayed her, holding her as tightly as if they were in the eye of the storm. For all he knew, they were.

  It was the same for him...she’d be he only girl he’d never regret holding. The only one who knew this side of him.

  Six

  The power was never coming back on, not that Declan cared one way or the other. He held Justice tighter as it sounding like the earth was crumbling all around them, not because of the storm outside, but the one inside. He didn’t know how to feel, really feel, so when he did he certainly didn’t know how to react to it.

  Declan knew what she gave him was precious and could never be undone. The knowledge just made everything else all the heavier. Even if he weren’t leaving, the two of them together would be hard.

  He didn’t want her to leave his sight, but she insisted. She took a flashlight and her clothes and vanished up the hall, toward the showers. Declan had dressed, packed the bag up again, thrown away a few towels, and threw the others in the pile to be washed. And now he was pacing in the hall under the red glow of the emergency lights, only halfway listening to the radio, the damage that was being reported, the waning warnings.

  He’d propped the double doors to the hall open and watched like a predator in the darkness. He’d heard the water cut off forever ago, but still stayed away. His mind was cruel. Declan imagined her breathlessly crying, regretting every second with him. And then he told himself it that was true—it was best.

  Then there she was, her silhouette emerged hauntingly in the threshold. She paused then moved toward him. He wished he could see more of her, more beyond what the dark red glow the hall offered. From what he could see, he knew if she had been crying she’d hidden the evidence.

  Rushing to her, pulling her in his arms, kissing her was what he wanted to do. But he didn’t. He stayed leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed, waiting for her to approach. Bravely she did, stopping just before him. But her gaze never met his.

  “Is it over?” she asked in a quiet tone.

  He didn’t want it to be—the storm or them—but he solemnly nodded once.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said when the silence became uncomfortable, when he felt the distance far sooner than he was ready to.

  “It’s all good, Declan. I promise.”

  He couldn’t handle it any more. He unfolded his arms and pulled her to his chest. Her arms slid around him and up, hooking around his shoulders as she rose to her tiptoes and nestled her face against his neck, breathing in his scent.

  She didn’t regret anything, but that didn’t make this any easier, it didn’t settle the sick, trembling feeling taking over her body. Feeling how his hold on her was tight, yet still avoiding every mark on her, the warmth of his lips against her temple made it all worse. She had no idea how many people had seen this side of him, but she knew they were privileged. Feeling as safe as she did with him was a gift.

  Declan was so immersed in the moment with her that he assumed the rustling sound he’d heard was the debris above that had been shuffling around in the wind, it wasn’t until he heard his father’s voice say his name at a distance and a flash of light came over his face that reality hit him.

  Both Declan and Justice broke away a bit too quickly to have any hope of maintaining an innocent outlook.

  Chasen Rawlings wasn’t alone. Nolan was with him and so was Atticus.

  At forty-one, Chasen carried a persona that stated he was in his prime, not that he’d lived a thousand lives already.

  You’d never know at a glance, in dim light, that the tall, fit man had given fourteen years to the Corps and had come home to take over his uncle’s bar and raise five boys on his own. Granted his parents were there, always helping him when it all seemed to be too much. Now the hard part was over. His baby was sixteen. He had men now and a business that had managed to meet ends for the last two quarters. In a way, he was ready to take a breath for the first time in a long time.

  There was a part of Chasen in every one of his sons. Declan was the all out warrior, hard-core. The one who never really managed to get worked up over anything. So when Chasen saw how flighty his son’s eyes were, how Declan’s jaw clenched and he all but put himself between Justice and them, he knew something had happened. Something had broken his boy.

  If this was any other time Chasen might be good with the notion, but not now, not six days before Declan was about to go through the hardest phase of his life. When Chasen had left for boot camp twenty-three years before, he’d been eighteen with a wife who was barely seventeen, carrying his first child. His head was never right when he was there. Not when he heard over and over “Jody’s got your girl,” as a taunt to bring out his aggression—that was one of the reasons anyway.

  “Jody” was a term that stood for any and every guy at home, and he was with your girl while you were going through hell.

  Tobias had gone into the Corps with only the worry of his baby brothers, and did just fine. Chasen was sure Declan would be even better. He had no reason whatsoever to think of home and he had the gumption to make his mark. To go and do anything he wanted.

  Any girl at this point would be an upset. This girl, one Chasen had caught his son gawking at since he was boy, a girl who had enough of her own issues, made it even more so.

  Atticus, who looked the most like his father with his striking dark hair and baby blues, along with a stubborn chin and critical eye, stood speechless at his father’s side as the ever-fun one, Nolan, spoke up. “You look whole,” Nolan said as he stepped forward and looked into the massive closet Declan and Justice had hid in. He glanced down to the bag,
then to Justice. “Good thing I packed a survival bag, eh?”

  Declan’s glare was homicidal, enough so that Chasen stepped up, smiling calmly at Justice as he pulled Nolan back a bit. Chasen could read Declan and knew he was seconds from snapping—on who it didn’t matter. He just needed a place to put his frustration with life as a whole.

  Before anyone could say anything else the doors at the other end of the hall opened and through them, with flashlights in hand, came the Sheriff and Murdock.

  Justice clenched her fist and did her best to seem calm. She had already assumed at this point, one way or another, her father was going to figure out she had been with Declan, but she thought she still had a hope of playing it down, at least she thought she’d have time to recover a bit from this emotionally strung out night before she had to deal with it.

  “What’s going on here?” the Sheriff asked as his flashlight hit everyone’s face at least once. The only one who bothered to flinch was Justice, the others stared him down.

  Chasen Rawlings nodded his head toward the Sheriff. “What’s up, Hoss,” he said, calling Monty Souter by the same he had called him since they were boys and Monty struggled to keep up on the ball field. “We found your girl down here, forget somebody?” he asked as his sharp gaze flipped to Murdock whose entire body was taut as he glared down Declan.

  “You found her?” the Sheriff asked in an incredulous tone. “Why are you here?”

  “Heard about the damage,” Chasen said, calm as ever, as he held on a little tighter to Nolan. He could feel him tensing, wanting another piece of Murdock just because he could take it.

  “You heard an entire wing of the high school was gone, and you decided to come and gawk?”

  “No,” Chasen ticked his toward Nolan. “He left his truck here. We came to see if it was here or in a tree somewhere. We needed the keys to his toolbox to get the tools to free the truck bed—they were in his locker down here, which is where we found your girl.”

  When the Sheriff glanced to Justice as if to confirm their story, Chasen spoke up again. “You need us to take your boy and her home? I’m sure you have your hands full.”