Promise Me Light (24 page)

“I want to take you on a bathroom counter, Maddie. I want to stand
between your legs and tell you how much I want you. How much I want to
fuck you. Remember that?”

When I nodded, he continued, torturing me with his words. “I think
we need to repeat that moment,” he said, his lips leaving a warm path
down my neck. “A few times.”

I blushed, my skin becoming heated.

“Come on, you two! We’re waiting!” Brody yelled, banging on the
door with the palm of his hand.

Ryder’s head fell against my neck as he let out a deep groan of
frustration. I held his head, keeping him next to me as a smile crossed
my face.
He is so impatient when it came to
sex.

With a growl, he jumped out of bed, throwing the covers off and
cussing under his breath the whole time. Picking up his jeans from the
floor, he jerked them on, staring daggers at the door.

When Brody knocked again, Ryder headed for the door but stopped. I
sat up, watching as he turned back around. Suddenly, he was back beside
the bed, looking down at me with heat in his eyes. His hands went to my
hair, delving into the tangled mess he had created last night.

I opened my mouth to ask what he was doing but his mouth was there
immediately, covering mine. Letting me know what I would miss when he
walked out of the room.

His tongue tasted me. His teeth nipped at me.

I was lost.

Pulling away, he kept his hands in my hair. Both of us were breathing
hard, wanting more.

“I love you, Maddie,” he whispered.

“I love you too.”

Letting go of me, he turned away. I watched his body move with grace.
A man in control of himself, everything, and everybody around him.

Yanking open the bedroom door, he faced Brody who had a hand raised,
ready to knock again. Brody’s mouth dropped open, seeing the fierce
look on Ryder’s face.

“What the fuck, Brody! We were kind of busy,” Ryder said, pulling
the door shut behind him. Their voices faded away as they walked down
the hallway.

I laid back down and pulled the covers up to my chin. I was cold
without him. The bed, the room, it all felt empty without Ryder beside
me.

Smiling, I remembered his hands on me. He was my addiction and I was
his obsession. We couldn’t get enough of each other.

We never would.

But my daddy always said, ‘Never say never.’

~~~~

Things seemed perfect in our little bubble of a world. We were
sheltered from the outside and hidden from the terror that consumed the
rest of the country. Our lives were as close to perfect as possible
considering that a war raged around us. But the perfection was only an
illusion. One that could break in a minute. Crumble in a second. Die in
a moment.

In the bathroom, I brushed my teeth and washed my face with ice-cold
creek water that had been sterilized then brought into the house.
Brushing my hair, I worked the knots out of it, blushing when I
remembered why there were so many tangles.
Ryder and his
hands.

Picking up his jacket lying nearby, I pulled it on before leaving the
bathroom. As I walked through the house, I pulled a beanie hat on my
head with cold, numb fingers.
Someone must have let the
fire go out again. It’s freezing.

I rubbed my hands together then cupped them around my mouth,
breathing into them. The overcast sky outside gave the house a dark,
dreary feeling. It made me want to grab Ryder and spend the day in bed
cuddling.
Yeah, right. Ryder didn’t cuddle he just
fu–

I stopped in the kitchen doorway, my thoughts of being in bed with
Ryder disappearing.

The room was cast in shadows. Someone had lit a lantern, placing it
in the middle of the table. It brightened the room but didn’t chase
away the chill in the air.

Or the tension in the room.

Ryder and Gavin faced each other, looking like giants in the tiny
kitchen. The table was between them, overflowing with water bottles,
plates of powered eggs that had congealed into a smelly mess, and what
looked like pieces of beef jerky that Janice had made when we butchered
the cattle.

“We’ll leave Cash and Brody here with the girls. Dad’s at their
house, double checking everything,” Gavin said, glancing at me when I
walked in.

Fear rolled through me.
They’re leaving? No! Ryder
couldn’t leave again! He just got back!

“Where are you going?” I asked, trying to control my panic as I
walked over to stand near Ryder.

He glanced down my body then over my freshly combed hair. His eyes
had craving in them but his words were hard, his tone flat.

“We’re going to ride the property line. Cash thought he spotted
some squatters so we’re gonna check it out.”

Gavin grabbed the shotgun lying on the table. With an impatient flip
of his wrists, he opened the barrel.

“You up for this?” he asked, glancing at Ryder as he grabbed a
couple of shotgun shells from a box. His black hair fell over his eyes
as he pushed the shells into the chamber of a double-barrel shotgun.

With a cool, detached expression, Ryder watched Gavin load the gun.
Another shell went into the barrel, the sound of the shell scraping
against metal ominous. Deadly. Using both hands, Gavin snapped the
shotgun back together, the noise loud in the small kitchen.

Ryder’s body tightened, his back growing stiff. Glancing down at
the gun in Gavin’s hands, his face was blank. His emotions closed off
to everyone. I knew the nightmares still bothered him. They were still
there, never letting him go. The sound, the sight of a gun, may have
made the memories come back, sending his mind into a dark place that
only he could see.

“You sure you’re okay?” Gavin asked, watching Ryder carefully.
“You’re looking a little pale.”

Ryder picked up a knife, raising his shirt just enough to put it in
the back pocket of his jeans. Before he dropped his shirt back down, I
saw two small white bandages covered his bullet wounds, reminding me
that he was almost completely healed.

Staring at Gavin, he ground his teeth, keeping his anger in check.
Barely holding it in.

“I’m fine,” Ryder said in a deadly, don’t-mess-with-me voice.
His eyes never left his brother as they stared at each other, the
animosity between them building to a point I’m surprised fists
didn’t fly.

Ever since Ryder had cornered me in the bedroom, causing me to hit my
head, the tension between Ryder and Gavin had grown. You could feel it
when you were around them. You could see it when they looked at each
other. And right now, the tension was massive, threatening to explode
and take all of us out with it.

I wasn’t sure what was going on between the two of them. I thought
finding out they were cousins, not true brothers, might take some of the
competition away but it hadn’t. It seemed to be getting worse.

“I just want to make sure you’re not a liability for me out
there,” Gavin said with a shrug, smirking as he handed the shotgun to
Ryder, almost daring him to take it.

“I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” Ryder growled, grabbing
the gun out of Gavin’s hands.

The back door opened, breaking up the pissing contest between the two
brothers. Cold air wrapped around me, making me wish we had some heat. I
would give anything right now to feel warm air blow from the vents in
the ceiling, chasing the chill away.
Never again.
That’s a thing of the past, Maddie. Get over it.

Cash ambled in, slamming the door behind him. He wore an army jacket
full of holes, one of the sleeves barely hanging on by the threads. His
light-colored eyes were hidden behind the cowboy hat he always wore.
They touched on each of us, analyzing the situation in seconds like only
Cash could do.

Taking off his hat, he ran a hand through his hair, looking at me
with a raised eyebrow.

“You got something to say?” Ryder asked him, holding the shotgun
loosely in one hand.

“Nope,” Cash answered calmly, sitting his hat on the table and
picking up a piece of jerky. Biting off the end, he chewed slowly,
silently challenging Ryder to say more.

Despite my reassuring that Cash was harmless, Ryder still wasn’t
happy he was here. He said he just couldn’t let go of the fact that
Cash had taken me to prom and wanted to date me in high school. Yeah, it
was years ago but I guess I couldn’t blame him. I don’t think I
would have wanted to live with one of his ex-one nightstands either.

“I want to come with y’all,” I said, breaking up the
testosterone-filled tension in the room.

Three sets of eyes glanced at me. Two no’s and one particularly
strong ‘
hell no
’ were my answers.

I huffed with frustration, tired of people bossing me around. If it
wasn’t Ryder, it was Gavin. If it wasn’t Gavin, it was Janice. I was
tired of it.

“Why can’t I go? I’m tired of being stuck in this house,” I
pouted. “And you’re just riding the property line anyway. I rode all
the way to town. I can handle a couple of hours in the saddle.”

So maybe I was a little stubborn. At least I went after what I
wanted.

Ryder’s face turned dark. With a calmness that didn’t quite match
his eyes, he took a step closer, putting me on eye level with his chest.
Glaring down at me, he seemed intimidating with the hardness lining his
face and the firm set of his jaw. But it didn’t work.
Well, it almost didn’t.

I fidgeted nervously, my gaze dropping to his chest. I remembered the
muscles hidden there. His skin against mine. My breasts pressed against
his chest, rubbing across his skin.

Dammit! Okay, I was lying to myself; intimidation,
Ryder style, did work.

“First of all, you can’t go because you’re pregnant,” he
said, his eyes dropping to my rounded stomach. “I don’t want the
mother of my baby injured riding a crazy-ass horse. Second, what the
fuck
were you doing in town?”

Gavin came to my rescue. “We weren’t in town, per se,” he
said.

Ryder whipped around to face him. “And what
per
se
were you doing in town with Maddie? You know what they would
have done to her if she had been caught? They would have raped her then
killed her,” he said, enraged.

Gavin opened his mouth to answer but Cash cut in. “Listen, man. It
was a while back. We were going to attempt to get you out and Maddie
wanted to go. It was either take her with us or let her follow. She was
going one-way or the other.”

Wow. I hadn’t heard that many words from Cash in
weeks.

Ryder kneaded his forehead, letting Cash’s words soak in.

“I know how stubborn she can be. I’ve known her my entire
life,” he said, his eyes skimming over me before turning his attention
back to Cash and Gavin. “And I’m glad you two kept her safe. Hell, I
owe you my life for it but if you put Maddie and my baby at risk again,
you’ll be limping around here with some broken bones and missing some
balls.”

“We hear you loud and clear, Ryder. Now can we get out of here?”
Gavin asked, appearing bored and unfazed by Ryder’s harsh words.

“Yeah, just give me a second.”

Holding a shotgun in one hand, Ryder reached for me. His arm wrapped
around my body, pulling me close. His lips went to the top of my head. I
felt strands of my hair catch on the stubble of his jaw. Holding me
close, his hand traveled beneath my coat, out of sight. The layers I
wore couldn’t protect me from the desire that flared between us,
raging out of control whenever we were near each other.

“I’ll be back. You still got the pistol?” he asked, his lips
moving against the top of my head.

I nodded and grasped his shirt tighter, not wanting him to leave. I
know it sounded silly but I had this awful feeling that things were too
good to be true. Every day, I waited for the anvil to fall, crushing us.
Ending what we had.

I pushed the thought away and started to tell him not to worry but
Gavin interrupted me.

“She’ll be fine, Ryder. Let’s go before this weather turns
crappy,” he said over his shoulder, heading for the back door.

Ryder’s hand lingered a second longer before letting me go. I
watched him walk away, his faded jeans riding low on his hips and his
shirt pulling taut across his shoulders.

He stopped to grab a jacket that had been tossed over the back of a
chair. Pushing his arms through the sleeves, he eyed Cash with
warning.

“Keep her safe,” he said. “With your life if you have
to.”

“Understood,” Cash said, nodding.

Ryder started to walk away then stopped. Turning on his booted heel,
he faced Cash again, his eyes hard.

“This isn’t high school anymore. She isn’t your prom date.
You’re not giving her a corsage and hoping to score at the end of the
night. She’s the mother of my baby. The woman I plan to marry. Got
it?” Ryder said, his threat apparent.

“Roger that,” Cash answered, sarcastically.

“Hey, I’m standing right here,” I said, pouting. “Stop
talking about me like I’m invisible.”

Ryder glanced at me one more time before turning away. A second
later, he disappeared outside, letting in more cold air but leaving
behind an emptiness that always gripped me whenever he was gone.

Cash’s loud snort grabbed my attention, making me look at him with
curiosity.

“If he only knew that the one he should be worried about was riding
alongside him, we might have a murder on our hands,” he muttered.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, my heart thumping
harder.

“I’m talking about that kiss you and Gavin shared. Gavin can’t
keep a secret. He’s going to spill his guts, Maddie. And when he does
come clean,” Cash paused, pushing his cowboy hat further back on his
head, “watch out. It ain’t gonna be pretty.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, glancing back at the closed door.