Page 16 of Steel Rain

But now I am. I could fix this. I could save her.

“If I could have saved my brother, I would have,” Harrison said into my ear. Even he knew not to speak too loud in this wretched place. There were spies everywhere. “So go get your sister. You know you’re not alone, right?”

He let me go, walking back to the driver’s seat.

I tapped on the roof as he settled in. Instead of driving off, he opened the passenger side window and leaned over the center console.

“You’ve got my number, right, battle?” he said, loudly. “You have it memorized?”

I nodded but didn’t give a verbal response.

“Call me anytime, and I, or someone else will be out here within a few hours, okay?” His blue eyes were pleading, as if he was throwing me a lifeline. “I got some buddies from 6th Group not far from here. One call and they’ll be here. Okay?”

“Okay, hero,” I said with a little laugh. “Get out of here, Captain America. Your do-gooding is about to give me diabetes.”

“You’re a Captain too, dipshit,” he said and stuck his tongue out like a child. Then he stopped, ran a hand through his hair, and looked at me with a worried crease on his brow. “I mean it. Call me.”

Then he pressed a button, and the window closed. He started the engine. As his car disappeared down the long drive to the guarded gate, I suddenly felt a sense of loneliness I did not have in the outside world. The “real” world. The world outside of the Green Fields life.

Standing on the gravel driveway, staring at the big house, I was 18 years old again, watching my illusions shatter in the dark grass.

As Guile drove off, the exhaust marking his wake, I said farewell to my only ally. My only friend. Now, I was well and truly on my own in the lion’s den.

I felt eyes on me. It raised the hair on the back of my arms and made my skin crawl.

I looked up at the porch where an angry Ajax LeBlanc stood, his feet shoulder width apart, his arms crossed over his massive chest. His biceps bulged with the tension of his body. His thick, gorgeous lips were in a straight, disapproving line as he looked at me.

I pulled the green duffel up my shoulder as I walked up the stairs.

I was walking right through the door, ready to ignore him and whatever irritation he was feeling when his deep voice stopped me in my tracks.

“You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend,” he said.

“Are you accusing me of something, coach?” I turned my head to him, trying to remind him that he had been less than forthcoming about who he was, too.

“Just wondering why you let me balls deep inside you when you clearly had a discount Liam Hemsworth ready to do the deed for you.” He was looking at where Guile’s Audi had been. “Or was that too much of a conflict of interest?”

I smirked. “If you’re jealous, you should just say so.”

“I don’t like complications.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “There won’t be any additional …complications.”

I adjusted the strap of my duffel again.

His arm shot out, grabbing me by the bicep and pulling me close. The tug was so forceful that I almost crashed into him. My face was inches from his as he looked down at me.

“See that there isn’t.” His warning sent a shiver up my spine. Though, not the kind he was going for. At least I don’t think so. It was a shiver of anticipation. It was the shiver that came before mouths crashed and hips pistoned together in a sensual rhythm. “I have never once fucked a subordinate, or a trainee. And I am not going to start now.”

Was that a warning? A threat? A challenge? A promise?

I could smell him. Musk, and woods, the scent of an oak tree that’s alive and climbing above the canopy around it, soaking up the sun and pulling everything into its shade. The way he was pulling me in now. His scent, his heat, his magnetism … The thing that drew me to him when I surveyed the men sitting alone at a bar near the fighting arena.

It was that strange quality that made menotshoot him down when he said he’d buy me a drink. It was also why I had countered his offer and negotiated for a fuck instead.

But he was so good looking that it made him dangerous.

Don’t ever trust a gorgeous man. They are devils that will destroy you.

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