Handcuffed by Her Hero (6 page)

“You came out
here half-dressed because you had your dick in my sister last night.”

Rayna stomped
forward and bared her teeth at her brother. “You are
not
helping your
case, counselor.”

“You think I
care about ‘winning’ this one, Rayna?” Trevor spread his arms. “I care about
you
,
damn it!”

“Me? You mean
your sister, the child who can’t tie her own shoes, or your sister, the grown
woman capable of making decisions about the men who share her bed?”

Z had to give
the guy props for getting to his feet with steady calm. “I mean my sister, the
woman who has a heart full of compassion and care…and love. I mean my sister,
who would willingly give her incredible heart away to a guy like that,” –he
jabbed a finger toward Z—“only to find he’d ground it up and spat it out.”

Zeke sloshed
some cream into his coffee and swished the shit around. The action was purely
for show. If he took even a swig of the liquid, it’d come back up in a second.

The man was right.
Down to the last syllable. He’d avoided the truth of it last night in the name
of “being there for her.” In a thousand ways, even Rayna had avoided it, too.
There was no escape hatch anymore. The truth, spoken by her brother with nothing
but love in the words, forced both of them to listen. 

If only Rayna
had gotten that memo, too.

“Get out.” Her
dictate punched the air like acid. She yanked away Trevor’s coffee cup, marched
across the kitchen and hurled it into the sink. The mug shattered, spattering
her Provençal trim tiles with black coffee stains. “You heard me,” she spat
when Trevor froze in shocked silence. “Get the hell out, Trevor!”

The guy
attempted a snort. It came out more a geeky sputter. “Are you kidding me?”

“’Kidding’ left
this conversation a long time ago. Get out of my house. Now.”

“Rayna!”

“Now!”

“
No.
”

Z hadn’t meant
for the command to sound like a boot camp order. Or maybe he had. Maybe he knew
nothing else would get through the fury that dominated her face, her stance,
her voice. Hell. The last time he’d seen her like this was the moment after she’d
shot King in the head.

He stepped and
caught both her hands in his. “Bird, listen to yourself. You’re practically
declaring war on your own brother.”

Rayna’s lips
screwed together. “Because he’s being a dickwad!”

“I won’t refute
you there.” He shrugged at Trev. “Sorry, man. That part’s true. I think Big
Boss Creator Man just had it in for you and slapped it on your DNA.”

She wriggled her
grip in his. Zeke clutched her tighter. She needed to know serious he was about
his next statement.

“What’s your
point, Zeke?”

He looked down
at their clasped hands. Shit. Now that the moment was here, he really did feel
like hurling.

“He’s a dickwad,
honey. But he’s also right.”

Every inch of
her body stiffened. He hated being the one who’d caused that shock. His remorse
was so great, he forgot about holding on to her. When she wrenched her hands this
time, she stumbled free with awkward momentum and crashed into the refrigerator.
Papers slid free from the magnet clip things, fluttering to the floor.

“Z-Zeke?” She
said it like he’d disappeared and she was searching for him. “What do you
mean?”

He forced
himself to look at her. Compelled his mind to take the reins over his heart, to
remember that all the pain he saw in her eyes would only be a hundred times
worse if he didn’t have this conversation with her, here and now. If he didn’t
set her straight about the limits of knowing a guy like him. If he didn’t
remind
himself
about those limits, too.

He swung his
gaze at Trevor. Lifted his hand with the fingers spread. Trevor nodded,
respectful for once, understanding the request. The guy could afford the
magnanimity. It was easy to give a man five minutes alone with your sister, if
you sensed they were the last.

When the door
leading to the garage clicked behind Trev, Z reached for her. She slapped him
away.

“You know
exactly what I mean, don’t you?”

She pulled her
sweater tight, coiling the collars into her fists. “Like that gets you off the hook.”
She lifted her face, letting him see the tears tracking down her cheeks. “Say
it,” she spat. “You do not get out of doing this, Sergeant. Say it. Every damn
word.”

Zeke slammed
down a deep breath. “It’s been said already, Rayna. By you. Last night.
Somewhere between calling my number on the Dom disguise and begging me to go
vanilla for one night—”

“Vanilla?” Her
face went mutinous. “Gee. Thanks for the free scoop, buddy.”

Take foot. Dip
in shit. Insert in mouth. “It’s just a term we use in the D/s community,” he
explained, “to describe the act without—” He shook his head. “And it’s all
wrong for what happened last night between us.” Holy hell, was it wrong. Just
letting in a few images of his hands on her skin and his cock inside her body
were enough to make him shift from foot to foot, trying to adjust his fresh
erection. He cracked his neck to refocus. “But before we went there, you told
me you could deal. You told me you knew me; that you accepted what I’m capable
of giving, and not giving. Look, Ray-bird—”

“
Don’t
call me that.” She turned her stare out the window. The dark weather looked
like a basket of fabric softener spring compared to the storms in her eyes.
“Please don’t.”

Again, he tried
to step toward her. She didn’t flinch this time. He lifted his hand to brush
his knuckles along her shoulder. He dared breathing her in one more time. Shit.
All her cinnamon and spice warmth filled him again, mixed with something new:
the heady scent of her orgasm from last night. Every muscle in his body yearned
to pick her up, haul her back into the bedroom and do it all over again. No.
There’d be a new twist this time. He’d order her to get naked while he fished
some rope from his truck. He’d spread her atop the bed and make her shiver with
need as he tied her up. He’d use her bondage ropes to drag her sweet body onto
his dick, nice and slow, taunting them both, and—

And there was
the arrow that pointed him to Fate’s shitty
You Are Here
for the day. If
this situation were a mission, he’d be telling the guys to start writing final
letters home.

 “Look,” he
finally grated, “Trevor’s right, okay? I’m sick to my fucking stomach that he
is, but…I’m not good for you, Rayna.” He shook his head. “Goddamnit, I wish I
was, but—”

She slammed a
hand to the counter. “Here we go again. Are you really going to pull out the
‘different sides of the tracks’ schpeel, Sergeant? ‘I’m not good for you, Rayna;
I wish I was.’ Really? What made you good enough last night, but not good
enough today?” She turned in front of the sink, arms slammed across her chest.
“We slept together, Zeke. It was nice. Very nice. But it doesn’t have to dynamite
our friendship. I can get over it if you can.”

Get over it.
She thought it
was that simple? This very second, he locked his legs to keep from crossing to
her. His arms ached from resisting the need to crush her to him again. His cock
swelled from the memories she invoked, even with her casual allusion to last
night.

Hell.

If he stayed,
nothing would be casual between them again.   

Which was why it
was time to pull out the guns he didn’t want to use.

But sometimes,
the best way to save a friend was to shoot them.

“Okay, great,”
he said, spreading his arms. “Nothing changes, huh?”

A smile lit up
her face. Just what that choir in his gut needed before their encore of
King
of Assholes, Zeke Hayes are Thee
. Rayna made a perfect muse for their next round
by rushing over, circling her arms to his waist and laying her head to his
chest.

“See? I knew
everything would be okay.”

“Right.
Everything’s fine.” He pulled her arms away so he could see her face again.
“So…what? Tomorrow’s Saturday. You suppose I grab a pizza, get here around
eight, and we rent a movie or something?”

His biting
undertone was lost on her. She shrugged and flashed a goofy grin. “Sure. If
that’s what you—”

“No.
No,
Rayna.” He shoved her hands down. “That’s not what happens tomorrow night.”
There was no way he’d turned his back on her for this, though distance was
going to help. Maybe a little. Three steps back got him away from her
intoxicating scent. Another step made the confusion in her eyes look less like
darts aimed at his sanity.

“You know what’s
going down tomorrow, honey? I have a special appointment at a little place
called the Bastille.”

She frowned at
him, searching his face in clear confusion. Shit, why didn’t she put it
together? Was she going to make him spit it
all
out?

“The Bastille.
You mean, like the French prison?”

“The one known
for its vast dungeons. Yes.”

“Oh.”
Comprehension pushed her eyebrows toward each other. “I see.”

She saw. Finally.
Thank fuck.

He gave her a
few seconds to process that knowledge—and jump to all the assumptions he needed
her to because of it. “So you still with this ‘let’s be besties’ program,
Chestain? Is everything still ‘ay-okay?’”

Rayna’s features
bunched tighter, like she tried ciphering a long math problem. “Why don’t you
just cancel?”

“Because I
can’t. I won’t.”

He hated himself
for the vicious snarls. The anger wasn’t meant for her. It wasn’t really meant
for him, either. His sexual triggers were just…like this. He’d accepted it a
long time ago, though there were times when it was still damn hard to do that.
Now was one of those occasions—maybe the shittiest one of them. Tomorrow’s
session wasn’t for education, edification or satisfaction. Nothing remotely
close. It was payback, pure and simple. Luna, the submissive who automatically
gotten his first appointment when he returned, had supplied the intel that led
him, Garrett, and Wyatt to King three months ago—and gotten Rayna, Sage, and
Josie back alive. The woman’s price? One D/s session with Zeke. No time frame.
No toy restrictions. No hard limits.

Luna hated
limits. It was why he’d always refused to dynamic with her.

Because, God help
him, he hated limits, too.

“You really look
like you want to cancel it.”

That was the
second he turned his back on her. “I’m not going to cancel it, Rayna!” When he
got to the middle of the living room, he pivoted back. “Fuck! What do you need
to hear, to understand this? I’m a Dominant. I can’t stop being a Dominant. I
can’t be re-worked, rewritten, or re-trained, even if you click your heels
three times and wish on a crapload of shooting stars. I’m not the guy in the
cape. I’m not the goddamn hero you keep seeing, just because—”

“Just because you
were
mine?” She stomped out of the kitchen, making the fallen papers
swish in her wake. “Twice?”

“I was doing my
job,” he retorted. “That’s it.” He jammed a hand through his hair. “Look. I
didn’t grow up saving kittens in trees and walking old ladies across the
street. I was a thug, Rayna. A street rat, living and fighting for every meal I
ate. I was out for
my
ass only until a social worker cared enough to
knock some sense into me. I joined up with the big green machine only because I
wanted to impress her. I had no idea it would change my whole goddamn life. Everything
was transformed for me, thanks to the Army. Everything—except the D/s.”

He sucked in a
breath and squared his stance toward her.

“It’s a
lifestyle I can’t change. I
won’t
change.” He re-set his jaw. “Tomorrow
night, I’m going to meet a submissive in the dungeon, strip off all her
clothes, tie her down and whip her until she’s spun so far out of control, she
won’t remember her own name. But she’ll remember mine. It’ll be on her lips
when she falls down on her knees at my feet, and thanks me for the scene. And
I’ll love doing it for her, Rayna. I’ll love every fucking minute.”

There was no
sense in going beyond that. Rayna’s potent silence told him so. There was no
need to blurt that Luna was likely going to beg him for a hard pounding after
she twirled down from subspace, and he’d refuse before making sure she had the
most perfect aftercare on earth. There was no sense in trying to explain that
after opening a submissive with a shell as thick as Luna’s, the last thing he
wanted to do was drive his cock into that mess.

He saw the
conclusions painting their way across Rayna’s face and knew they were both
better off if she thought the worst of him for it. Sure, he wouldn’t screw Luna
tomorrow. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t fuck another subbie one day.
Long
after today.
Very
long after Rayna Chestain was nothing but a distant
and beautiful memory for him.

Especially if
this was the last sight he’d have of her.

She’d scooted
out a little more, stopping next to the living room window, through which a
shaft of sunlight had suddenly burst from the storm clouds. The rain turned the
beam into a rainbow. The colors washed over her adorable little frame in its
bulky sweater, tight leggings and bunched-up socks. The cyan in the rainbow hit
her face. It made her features even more unreadable. In contrast, her hair was
a fiery mane, tumbling over her shoulders. They were covered by the sweater now
but it took a simple mental click to remember how they’d felt under his fingers,
bare and sleek, as she’d drifted to sleep in his arms.