Surviving Raine 02 Bastian's Storm (8 page)

“
All right, folks,” the announcer said as he waved his hands at the crowd, “that’s it for tonight! More fights next week! Don’t miss ‘em!”

The bouncer who had taken me to the locker room knelt down next to Battered Brutus and hauled him out of the cage while the referee chick escorted me through the screaming patrons. They reached out to me, patted me on the back, and yelled out various forms of congratulations as we made our way to the locker room so I could get dressed.

When I came out, the ref was still there and still dressed in nothing but the skimpy bikini. She was all smiles as she took my arm again and led me over to the bar. She handed me an envelope full of cash, which I didn’t bother to count. The guy standing behind the bar with an empty beer glass in his hand reached out to give me a high-five.

“
Buy you a drink?” the referee asked. She leaned against the counter, which hiked up her boobs to put them more on display than they already had been, and motioned to the bartender.

For a moment, I almost accepted her offer out of habit.

“
Nah, I’m good.” I shook my head and looked out at the people milling around. Most of them were looking at me with bright eyes, and many were leaning in to talk to their friends with hushed voices and nodding in my direction.

“
You sure?” Referee chick tilted her head and smiled up at me.

“
Yeah, pretty sure,” I gave her a half smile back.

I should have picked up on her vibe right away, but I was still in the zone from the fight and I wasn’t thinking straight.

“
I’m Andi,” she informed me as she leaned forward again.

“
Daniel,” I said.

“
I heard that…
Dangerous Daniel
.” She giggled. “I think it suits you.”

“
Sometimes.” I smirked back at her.

She pushed off the bar and took a step closer.

“
I like dangerous guys,” she said as she placed her hands on my chest. Her eyes followed the movements of her fingers as she took inventory of my pecs and shoulders through my shirt.

“
Doesn’t seem very smart,” I observed. I took a half step back, feeling a little uncomfortable. As my violence-induced haze began to fade, I realized she was coming on to me.

It was a strange feeling. A chick hadn’t hit on me since Raine and I had returned from our little exile. When I’d been living on my ship, I’d usually been the instigator of any contact with the opposite sex. Still, as long ago as it had been, it felt familiar.

Not just familiar, but
right
.

This was what was supposed to happen after a fight. Fight, win, sex. That was the natural order. As if it were ingrained somewhere deep inside of me, my body began to react to the situation.

I was instantly hard.

Andi’s hands were running from my chest to my abs, and she was standing close enough for me to feel the heat from her body all around me. She reached around and placed her hands at the small of my back as she pressed her body against me. There was no doubt she could feel how affected I was—my dick was right up against her stomach.

Then panic set in.

What the fuck was I thinking? This wasn’t a normal tournament fight, and I wasn’t a single guy. I had Raine back at our condo, probably freaking out, wondering where the fuck I was, and my dick was reacting to some random chick in a bar.

I grabbed her wrists and pushed them down.

“
Sorry,” I said with a shrug, “I really ought to go.”

“
It’s not that late,” Andi said. She twisted her wrists in my hands and looked up at me with a twinkle in her eye. “I don’t live too far from here.”

“
Maybe another time,” I said quietly. A lump in my throat formed, and I had to swallow hard to get past it. I took a step back and dropped her hands. “Thanks for the offer.”

I turned and got the fuck out of there.

Back at my bike, I sat down and tried to regain a little composure. I closed my eyes tightly and took a few calming breaths. My stomach was churning, and I felt like I was going to puke. I’d let that girl run her hands all over me, and I hadn’t even been thinking about Raine at all.

You didn’t do anything wrong.

No, I didn’t, but damn if my dick didn’t want to.

I slammed my foot against the kickstand and started up the bike with a roar. It was nearly three in the morning, and I kept the motorcycle at the speed limit through the streets, down the highway, and back over to Miami Beach.

I needed the time to think, but it didn’t help that much.

I was still sweating as I headed up the stairs. I wanted to blame it on the humidity, but I knew that wasn’t it. I had no idea what I was going to walk into when I got up to the condo. Were Nick and Lindsay still going to be there? Would Raine be waiting up for me, pissed off and ready for a fight?

A mental image of her sitting at the kitchen island smoking my cigarettes and drinking scotch came to mind. It was a ridiculous notion, but the vision wouldn’t go away as I quietly slid the key into the deadbolt and opened the door.

The living area was empty. There was one dim light still on above the stove, but that was it. The whole place was quiet.

Was she even here?

I swallowed hard. My skin began to crawl at the thought that she might have left. I tiptoed to the bedroom, terrified of finding the room empty. The space beyond was dark, and the door was partially closed. I pushed it the rest of the way open.

I could see Raine on the bed, lying down and breathing steadily, her shape clearly outlined by the light slipping through the blinds. A breath escaped from my lungs, and my shoulders dropped in relief. She didn’t move as I carefully and quietly slipped off my T-shirt and jeans and ditched them in a pile by the laundry hamper.

Slipping into bed as silently as I could, I shoved my legs in under the sheet. Raine didn’t stir as I maneuvered myself behind her and snaked my arm around her waist. I relaxed against her, let out a long breath, and closed my eyes. For a moment, I thought I was home free.

“
You going to tell me where you’ve been?”

Ah, shit.

I opened my eyes though I couldn’t really see much in the dim light from the balcony door. My throat seized up on me, and it took me a second to find my voice. I tensed my fingers around the fabric of her shirt and gripped it tightly, like I was afraid she’d try to get away from me if I wasn’t holding on.

“
Just took the bike out for a ride,” I claimed. I swallowed a couple of times and licked my lips.

“
For seven hours?” Raine rolled over and looked into my eyes. Even in the dim light, I could still see the shine in her beautiful, red-rimmed brown eyes. She’d been crying, and I felt like a total asshole.

I kept my grip on her shirt as if I could keep all of this from happening just by holding on tightly enough.

“
I just needed to…to get away for a bit.” I looked down her bare arm and dropped my head against her shoulder. I rubbed my forehead against her skin and felt myself relax further when she didn’t push me away. “Those people were driving me bat-shit.”

“
Those people,” Raine snarled, “are my friends!”

Yeah, there I went again—making shit worse by opening my big fat mouth.

“
I didn’t mean it like that…I mean…ah, fuck it!” I started to push away from her, but my arm got wrapped up in the sheet and held me back. Maybe it was because my fingers wouldn’t initially loosen from her shirt—whatever. I fought with it for a second, finally freeing myself, and sat up.

Raine sat up beside me, glaring.

“
Well, what did you mean, then?” she asked.

I had meant exactly what I said, but I wasn’t about to admit that. There was no way I was going to come out and say I hated them being in the condo at all, even if they did keep their mouths shut, which of course they didn’t. She was already pissed off at me enough, and I had to figure out a way to make it better, not worse.

“
I just…I don’t like people.”

Raine stared at me for a moment.

“
Why?” she asked.

My mind began to race. I wasn’t really sure how to answer the question. I never considered myself a people person, but I never really thought about the reason for that. It was just the way it was.

“
I just…don’t.”

Apparently, Raine wasn’t going to let me off the hook and prodded me to give her a better answer.

Tensing, I tried to come up with a decent answer that didn’t make me sound like an ass, but I couldn’t think of anything. As I struggled inside to come up with the perfect words, the turmoil inside of me increased and eventually overflowed. Closing my eyes tightly, I opened my mouth and let shit run out of it.

“
Because I don’t have anything to say to them!” I blurted. I covered my face with one hand and slammed the back of my head ineffectually into the pillow. It didn’t help.

“
What does that mean?” Raine’s voice was soft as she propped herself on one elbow to look down at me. A small amount of my tension ebbed.

“
When people are around, they end up asking me questions,” I said as I shoved myself off the pillow and sat up. I wrapped my arms around my legs and put my chin on my knees. “I don’t have any answers for them. I don’t have anything to say.”

“
Will you give me an example?” Raine asked, her tone going soft.

“
What the fuck am I supposed to say?” My voice rose in pitch as my throat constricted. My gut churned as if a little tornado were forming inside of it. “What am I supposed to talk about? About how I was such a fucked up kid that my own parents dumped me? Should I tell them about how every foster home I was ever in kicked me out? How about my time in juvie? There’s a fun topic. Or the best question of all—‘what do you do for a living?’ How am I supposed to answer that? Oh, you know, I made a shit-ton of money killing people, but I’m retired now.”

Raine’s face scrunched up, and she squished her lips together. She let out a long sigh through her nose before opening her arms and pulling me back down to the pillows.

“
I never thought about it that way,” she admitted. “I can see where that would be difficult. You are right—the kinds of things people usually ask would be difficult for you to answer.”

With a shudder, my body relaxed, and the whirlwind inside dissipated. I wrapped my arms around her and held her against my chest in silent appreciation of her understanding.

“
But, Bastian,” Raine continued, “even though you might not be able to answer the questions people ask, that doesn’t mean you get to blow up at them and storm out, leaving me to try to explain and defend you. You can’t do that.”

Well, yeah, obviously I could. I had in the past, and I’d probably do it again in the future.

“
You think I should just stick around and tell them to fuck off instead?”

“
No,” Rain said with a loud sigh. “There are other options, you know.”

I took a deep breath as the anger inside me began to bubble again at the thought. There was one option I had considered but didn’t take.

“
I didn’t think you’d appreciate me hitting him,” I said.

“
You’re right,” Raine replied. I could hear the tension rising in her voice again.

“
It’s better if I just leave,” I rationalized.

“
Maybe for you,” Raine agreed, “but what kind of questions and comments do you think I get when you do something like that?”

I hadn’t thought about it. Once I left, everything that happened afterward had never really concerned me before. I wondered what Lindsay and Nick had to say after I took off and how Raine responded.

“
I spend enough time trying to get them to understand you,” she said. “When you do something like that, I can’t defend your actions. It just gives them more justification when they start telling me I ought to get rid of you.”

I secured my grip on her clothing as a wave of panic crashed over me. It was just one more thing my selfish ass hadn’t considered. Of course Lindsay would be telling her to dump me, and Nick would be right behind her. They probably had another guy already picked out as a better suitor for Raine, and he probably hadn’t killed anyone lately.

“
What did they say?” I growled. She had known Lindsay since they were kids. Raine was bound to listen to whatever advice Lindsay had to offer. The thought kick-started my paranoia.

“
It doesn’t matter,” Raine said. “I’m not going anywhere, Bastian.”

I relaxed slightly, but the idea of Raine with someone else continued to terrify me.

“
That doesn’t stop them from saying I should, though. When you behave like that, it makes it a lot harder to explain to them why I love you.”