Chapter 5

Except, tomorrow wasn't for another week. She didn't dare text him first, by fear that what they'd done - or almost done - the other night meant more to her than it ever did to him. She didn't want to appear desperate, like the girl who calls nonstop the morning after a one night stand. She didn't want to appear like the girl who'd suddenly developed feelings...because that's kind of what was happening to her. Against her will.

She'd woken up the day after they'd almost kissed, and she'd felt as if a greater part of herself wasn't the same. Like finishing a puzzle in the middle of the night, just to wake up the next morning and realize one piece was forced into the wrong place. As if something had dislodged in her chest and now all she wanted, all she could think of, was Rio. She wanted him there, with her, at all times. She needed to know he was safe, that he was happy.

She needed to feel him beside her.

But there was no way in hell that she would let him know that. For some reason, Lara believed - or made herself believe - that he didn't care about their intimacy as much as she did. That for him, almost kissing her and touching her was like child's play to Rio. After all, she knew his reputation in high school, she knew he'd acquired many tastes.

But a week without a word from him?

She kept looking up at the door whenever someone entered the bookstore, and soon enough, the chime of the bell became an irritant. Every time she heard it was a reminder that he wasn't coming. That he was gone - again.

But then on Sunday night, she got a text from him. And it was the strangest thing ever.

everything alright?

As if something had happened and he was just doing his due diligence. As if she was one of his boys doing a job.

Maybe he didn't mean to text her? Could he have texted her by accident?

She felt like being petty and not answering. So she closed her phone and pocketed it to close the bookstore door. She locked it and made her way to her car. The entire drive home she kept rummaging over what she should answer him. Should she be mad that he vanished? After all, it's not like they're boyfriend and girlfriend. They aren't even that close friends anymore.

But then the other side of her was telling her that yes, they were that close. They'd almost kissed. And the way he had touched her was indicative that their friendship was crossing a few lines.

She was so lost in thought that she didn't even remember to text him when she got inside her apartment. She took a quick shower, ate a snack, and decided she'd sleep on it and answer him int he morning. He left her rotting for a week. She could leave him festering for a night.

But when she walked down the hall, looking at her bedroom, she spotted a shadow stretching on the wall like black tar. And by the way her stomach start to seize, the way her heart started to tear at her ribcage, this wasn't Rio.

"Mick?" she asked, slowing down her steps. She looked down at herself, at the tiny pink shorts and oversized white shirt. She wasn't dressed to entertain company.

But the shadow didn't move. It didn't even seem to acknowledge her.

She tried again. "Mick, Rio, is that you?"

She stopped, a few inches from her bedroom threshold, and stared into the dark. And that's when he stepped into her line of sight. A tall man, brutish and built like a bull, a black hood pulled over his curling brown locks. His face, cast in shadow, except for the corner smile that seemed razor sharp.

Lara's heart leapt and every instinct in her body scream at her to run, but the blood in her veins froze, closing her throat, shutting down her brain.

"You run, I kill you," he said, his voice like sandpaper on chalkboard, nailing her down on the spot where she stood.

She felt her entire being burst into flames and it was the worst agony she's ever felt. Her brain - on fire. Her limbs - aching and screaming, seizing with instinct, begging to run. Her heart - battering painfully, throbbing in her throat as if it would tear at her skin and flood down her neck.

She started shaking uncontrollably, watching with round eyes, blurry vision as tears clung to her lashes. At this man with a rancid smell. At this intruder who'd just robbed her of ever feeling safe again in her home. At this abomination as he sauntered towards her like a lion to its prey.

"They said you'd be here," he said, looking over her shoulder. "Where is he?"

She closed her eyes, breathed through her nose, but she couldn't shake this nightmare away.

"Where is he!?" he yelled, making Lara flinch, sob behind her clenched teeth.

This wasn't happening.

"Who?" she squeaked, feeling tears track down her cheeks.

Something hard hit her in the jaw, sending her entire body flying back, thudding on the ground. She felt like her world had been tipped upside down, ears ringing, head foggy and stuffy. She felt the pain radiate from her mouth, something thick and sour flooding in her mouth. She turned to her side, groaning, spitting up the blood that had accumulated in her mouth. It splattered on the wood, bouncing back onto her cheeks.

She opened her eyes, blurry vision and tears. But she could see his feet, black boots like the military. He was rummaging around her living room, throwing papers, ripping through her sofa, tearing open kitchen cabinets.

It's when she pushed herself up on shaky arms that she noticed he had a gun. And he was speaking to her.

"He comes here almost every day, but now he isn't here?"

She got on her knees, careful to avoid the puddle of her blood.

There was no way this was real.

"Did he tell you where he went?"

She looked back at her room, thinking that if only she could get to bed, she could sleep the headache off. Sleep away the bruise that was surely forming on her jaw. Sleep off the ache in her teeth. Her teeth! Did she lose any?

Lara put shaking fingers up to her lips, feeling through her teeth. She opened her mouth, sticking fingers along her teeth, counting them.

"Oh my fucking God!" the intruder yelled, stomping his way back to her. "Don't tell me one hit and you've already gone crazy!"

And he hit her again, backhanded her across her temple. Her head snapped backwards, hair falling into her eyes. The back of her skull cracked against the wall and she yelled, knees giving up. She slid down the wall, clutching her face with her hands, her toes pressed against his boots.

"Where is Rio?" he asked, and she could tell by the way he was biting his words that he was getting impatient. That he was on a thin layer of ice.

She mumbled something that even she couldn't understand. The dull ache in her head had intensified, as if someone had amped up the electricity in her brain and now all she heard was buzzing.

"Seems like you need a little incentive."

She barely felt it when he gripped her hair at the roots, pulling her up to her feet. She groaned, but the pain didn't register. It's as if suddenly, she'd been pulled out of her body and placed inside her feet. She felt every crack of her wooden floor as he carried her into her bedroom. She stepped in her own blood, stumbled into her room, and careened onto her bed.

The wooden floor was cold when Lara fell to her knees, elbows on the edge of her bed, as if she was praying. She lay her head there on the mattress, feeling an inch of relief. Her eyes closed, lids heavy with pain, and she waited for sleep to claim her. She could hear her own breathing, as if she was locked in a tiny room with it.

But whatever was going to happen never did. Outside of the tiny room she'd locked herself in, she heard shouting. Two, three voices. Stumbling, squelching, skin tearing. It sounded like spaghetti.

Lara turned her body, tried to see whatever this man was doing. She sat down, lay the back of her aching skull against her mattress, and took the hair out of her face with shaking fingers.

She was kind of surprised by what she saw, as if she was coming into a movie halfway through.

Rio.

He was there, crouched beside a still body with a black hoodie. And there was so much blood. It covered Rio's hands, dotted his face like a connect-the-dots puzzle. It leaked onto her floor, covered this man's body.

And in the doorway, Mick, cleaning a pocket knife on a black bandana.

She started to cry when she realized her attacker was dead. She saw Rio's head cock through the blur of her tears, saw Mick's shadow move towards the body. And soon, the panic set in and she pulled her knees up to her chest, sobbing into them.

And the fear that shook her rooted inside her like a hundred-year-old oak.

She felt hands on her cheeks, slick with blood. Hers and his.

Rio pulled her face up, nuzzled her nose with his. "Mama, shh," he cooed, pressing her knees down so he could hug her to him.

His familiar smell invaded her nose, cut out the smell of copper, of blood. She sobbed into his black t-shirt, clinging to it with tight fists. "He was in here," she hiccuped. "He hit me. He tried to kill me. He was-"

Rio cut her off, putting a finger over her mouth. She could feel how tense he was, how angry. His entire body was stiff, his muscles like hard cement under her hands.

"It's okay, ma, I'm right here," he whispered, bringing her face back up to his. He was clenching his teeth, eyes so black, so pitless she was afraid she'd never find him in there again. "He won't hurt you again."

He breathed in, knocking his forehead to hers. "I'm so sorry I didn't get here any sooner." He rocked forward on his knees, his fingers hard, digging against her cheeks, against the bruise on her jaw. She hissed, gripping his t-shirt. "I'm so sorry I let him put his hands on you."

She nodded, trembling.

"No one's ever going to hurt you again, ma, you know that right?" he asked, voice rushed. He brushed her cheek with his thumb, smudging blood on her skin. She nodded again, eyes glazed.

He leaned in, trying to catch her mouth with his.

"Rio, not here," she whispered, but she'd been taken out of her body again. It was like she'd handed all the reins to Rio and the only thing she had left was her voice.

"Yes, here," he groaned, kissing her roughly.

His mouth was like a solace from the violence she'd just lived. She couldn't hear or feel or understand anything else but the way his lips parted hers, the way his tongue brushed against hers in a wet embrace. She fully melted into him, offering herself up to him willingly as he angled her head for him, as he kissed her roughly, with ardour, with hunger.

She could feel the mix of her blood and tears stain his cheeks, but he leaned over her, deepening the kiss. He smelled of mint and cologne and his unique scent, and she surprised herself when she gripped his shirt even tighter and pulled him snug against her.

Somewhere, she registered the sound of her attacker's body being dragged; blood on the wood floor, his booted feet scraping against it. But she didn't care enough to break away from Rio. She didn't care that Mick was probably seeing them, or that he was probably hearing them; the breathing, the soft groans Rio kept pushing into her mouth.

She flinched when Rio bit her lip, drawing a fresh drop of blood to well on her mouth. She pulled away, frowning, a shaking finger wiping the blood from her lips.

"Don't," Rio whispered, his voice broken, torn from the fight, from the kissing. He captured her mouth again, thumbs on her jaw so she didn't pull away from him. "Let me have you a moment," he continued between kisses, fanning her mouth with his words, kissing her so harshly it hurt.

She felt herself melt again, grabbing onto his forearms to get on her knees, to push back against him so she could better kiss him. So she could push her chest into his, press her hands against his hair, down his neck.

"I never thought I'd have you," he muttered, his own hands skimming down her sides, dipping at her waist and settling on the slice of skin exposed between her shirt hem and where her shorts started. He felt the goosebumps there, the little pebbled flesh that sent a zing of heat down his spine. "Always thought you'd slipped right through my fingers." his voice was wretched, as if he was crying, as if this was the most painful experience of his life.

One of his hands found home against her cheek again, caressing her as he dipped his tongue past her lips, savoring the taste of her. He wrapped his other arm around her waist, bringing her up to her feet in one motion.

She swayed, breaking the kiss, pressing her hands against his chest gently. Rio brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. "We should get you checked out," he hummed, pressing chaste kisses on her hairline, on her temple, showering her in gentle caresses.

She pressed her cheek on his chest. "Hmm."

"Come on, ma," he cooed, hands at the base of her spine, his rough palms scratching at the soft, plush skin of her back. She liked the feeling, especially knowing it was Rio's hands touching her so intimately. She nodded.

"We can't go to the hospital," he said, picking her up in his arms so easily. She kept her head on his shoulder, eyes closed. She didn't want to see the blood stains of her attacker. Or her own.

"Mick, get the door," Rio ordered. "I'm bringing you to a safe house, okay, sweetheart?"

She smiled at the nickname, nodding.

"I won't let anyone ever hurt you again, mama," he whispered, kissing her hair as he carried her through the open door.

Lara fell asleep in the backseat of Rio's G-Wagon to the sound of him and Mick talking quietly. She got flashes of the streetlights, a stop sign, even a few headlights washing white on the backseat. But she was mostly knocked out, the pain in her jaw and temple throbbing like a second heartbeat against her skin.

A one point, they carried her inside. It was colder, darker, and the streetlights had been swapped for overhead dimmers. They were talking louder, and someone else had joined the group, a third male voice.

"Probably a concussion," he was saying as Rio carried her through a door, setting her on a couch - she thought.

"Asshole hit her a few times," Rio answered, and she could tell by the strain in his voice that anger simmered beneath. "Can't tell you how many, but she spat up some blood and the back of her head is wet with it."

She opened her eyes, squinted at the bright light, covering her face with her bloodied hand.

"Hey, mama," Rio whispered, taking her hand in his, covering it in warmth. "Don't get up, no, no." He put a hand on her shoulder, resting her against the plush cushions.

"Where am I?" she asked, looking up at him. He was still dotted in blood stains, but he was smiling with all his teeth.

"I brought you to a friend's," he answered, looking over his shoulder. There was a short man standing there, worrying his thumb with his teeth, and he smiled at her tightly. "Gonna get you all patched up, huh?"

Lara smiled back, her jaw aching. "What about the uh...mess in my apartment?"

"Took care of that, miss," Mick said from the door, where he was leaning against the wall. "I'll get a few guys to clean your place up tomorrow."

Lara frowned, nodded, settled back into the couch.

"Might even get you a few more decorations, eh, Mickey?" Rio laughed, trying to diffuse the situation.

Mick laughed, but he didn't seem to find it particularly funny.

"Alright, Manny, why don't you give me that first aid's kit," Rio demanded, looking at the younger, shorter man that had graduated to eating his forefinger now.

"She might need a few stitches," Manny said, scurrying back into another room.

"So what?" Rio called, shrugging.

"So she could get an infection!"

"Just put some alcohol on it!"

Manny emerged from the other room, shoulders up to his ears, carrying a small red box. "This isn't like the movies, Rio!" he exclaimed, big bug eyes huge with worry. "She might get sepsis from this!"

Rio chuckled. "Ain't nobody getting whatever the hell sepsis is."

"Sepsis is," Lara echoed, smiling.

"See!" Rio said, pointing at Lara with a shit-eating grin on his face. "She's talking normally. She's fine!"

"Talking out of order and speaking silly is the first sign of a concussion, genius," Manny mumbled, putting on blue medical gloves with a snap. He walked over like a scared ant, jittery and cautious.

Rio helped Lara sit up, the world spinning for a few seconds, and she felt like she was inside a very annoying rollercoaster. She closed her eyes tightly, gripping Rio's hand with the force she uses for her pickle jars.

Rio covered her bare thighs with a blanket and stood, leaving Manny to kneel in front of her. "Watch your hands, pretty boy," Rio muttered, coming to sit right beside the brunette.

Manny rolled his eyes, but when Lara opened hers, she could see why Rio called him pretty. He was jittery like a bug and he kept passing weird looks at Rio, but he was soft and beautiful. He had big round eyes, round cheeks, and a mass of curly black hair that flopped over his forehead. If he wasn't big with the ladies yet, he was about to be.

He brought a tiny little flashlight up to her eyes. "I'm just going to look at your pupils, okay?" he asked.

"You're a doctor?" She didn't mean to ask it incredulously, but it came out that way anyway.

Rio chuckled. "My little bro is in med school!"

Little bro?

"I'm not," Manny sighed, shining the light in her eyes. She blinked, scrunched up her face like she'd just had a lemon for the first time, and then opened her eyes to the light. "I'm really in my first year of university."

She smiled.

"Studying to be a doctor, though, right?" Rio corrected.

"Studying in health sciences, that's correct."

"So what the hell am I paying the doctor school for?"

Manny sighed, hung his head. "We talked about this, Rio."

"Well, then, Manny," Rio grumbled, scooting closer to her. "What's the diagnosis?"

Manny put the light away. "She doesn't seem to have a concussion," he concluded, but then he motioned for her to bend forward. "Can I see the back of your head?"

She bent in half, letting Manny prod through her hair to find the throbbing spot that had split when her head thwacked on the wall. He hummed. "No stitches," he said. "But you'll need to clean up your cuts real good. And get all this blood off you."

Lara straightened, working out the kinks in her neck.

"I got this," Rio said, getting to his feet. "If anybody's going to wash her, it's not you, pretty boy."

Manny grumbled something unintelligible and Lara laughed at their complicity. She took Rio's hand and got up slowly. "Thanks, doc," she mumbled, watching as Manny's face lit up red and he started nodding uncontrollably.

Rio put a careful arm over her shoulders, steering her through the small, cramped apartment. "You messin' with my little bro, there, ma?"

His voice was like warm honey, rich and delicious as it patted the side of her face. "Why, you jealous?" she mumbled back. She heard him chuckle against her hair as he led her into a small, grey bathroom with a lot of male paraphernalia strewn across the counter.

Rio closed the door. Locked it. Opened the little lamp over the sink so the room was awash in yellow.

He put warm hands on her waist, where her shorts and shirt met, where a slim slice of skin showed. He picked up her and set her on the countertop gently, spreading her knees so he could stand between them.

"You have a brother?" she asked, trying to divert his attention. Now that she was regaining all her senses, regaining her right mind, she didn't know if she had it in her to kiss him again. Kiss him like that, teeth and tongue and all passion.

He smirked slowly. "Yeah."

"I've known you all my life," she mumbled, twirling a finger in the hem of his black shirt. "This is the first time I hear about a brother."

Slowly, he bent forward so they were eye to eye, hands on the counter top each side of her bare thighs. His eyes drank the little light in the room, seeming to see her in all her glory, as if she would never be able to hide from him.

"I've known you all my life," he echoed. "And tonight was the first time I kissed you." To prove his point, he gave her cheek a chaste peck. She smiled, watching him straighten slowly. He reached for her shirt, tugging it down so her bloodied chest appear. "Even though I've spent...how ever many nights thinking of you." He licked his lips slowly, reaching for a clean towel and opening the sink, wetting it.

He slowly brought the towel up to her bloodied skin, washing the red away. She felt trickles of water run down between her breasts, settling against her tummy, just above the waistband of her shorts.

"I used to think about kissing you at first," he said, his voice lower and lower with each word, as if he was afraid of Manny or Mick overhearing them. Lara looked up, mesmerized by the way his mouth formed the words, her aching head making her push away all inhibitions. She didn't care if he caught her looking. He was beautiful.

"But then, when we got older," he continued, brushing her collarbone with the wet towel, enjoying the way her skin pebbled with goosebumps. "When we got older, I couldn't stop thinking about the way your body felt."

She felt her cheeks warm. She tried to push her knees together, but they knocked against his hips and he smiled. "And sometimes, I'd try to imagine what you taste like."

Her chin tucked against her chest and she looked down, incapable of bearing the heat of her cheeks, the slickness that was starting to pool between her legs.

What was wrong with her? She had almost been killed and she was sitting her, getting turned on?

He finished cleaning her chest and he moved to her temple, careful not to put too much pressure. "Did you ever think of me like that, ma?" he asked, his voice raspy.

She bit her lip. "Sometimes."

He chuckled. "Sometimes," he repeated, nodding as if she'd given him the clearest of all answers. "And what would you think about when you sometimes thought of me?"

It made her laugh the way he could so easily meander through her words like that. He was a professional at speaking her language. "I used to think about... your hands," she admitted on a whisper, looking at her right knee. It was covered in crusted blood - hers?

"Oh, yeah?"

The towel moved to her lip, where he brushed away the bloodied cut there. He returned the towel under the sink, wetting it again, and then he got on his knees.

She felt her face heat like a burning sun, watching him there, his innocent brown eyes looking up at her. "Yeah," she said, swallowing hard.

He pressed the towel on her knee, brushing and washing away the dried blood there. Water leaked down her calf, over her anklet, and clung to her pinky toe for dear life.

"And what about my hands?" he continued, dragging the towel up her inner thigh.

She closed her eyes, breathing in shakily. "About... having you... touch me." She hissed quietly when the towel was replaced with his fingers, brushing along her inner knee, spreading her wider for him.

"Touch you where, princess?" he asked lowly, switching the towel to her other knee, bringing a very light kiss to her left one. She almost jumped at the contact, watching him between her knees like that. She had to leaned back, hands gripping the counter, to regain her focus. To get her breathing back to normal, to stop her heart from beating right through her ribs like a mad horse. "Too much?" he asked quietly, almost seriously. "You want me to stop, darling?"

"No," she said, almost whined, almost pleaded. She felt the rumble of his laugh across her knee, where he planted another kiss, and this time, his tongue flattened on the very beginning of her thigh.

She almost lost it, groaning, hanging her head back. He was once again making the pain go away, replacing it with something a few thousand times better, and she could barely hold on.

"Then tell me where you dreamed about me touching you," he rasped, standing slowly, kissing her bare hip, kissing her nipple through her t-shirt, kissing her neck. He dropped the bloodied towel into the sink with a wet sound, bringing humid hands against her waist. "Look at me when you say it."

She straightened her head, felt his hands flat against her ribcage. She opened her eyes and swallowed hard. "On...on my chest," she said, her voice so little, as she touched her breast through her shirt.

"Mhm," he hummed, looking at her hardening nipples through her shirt. "Where else, ma?"

She breathed in hard. "Between...between my legs, here," she answered, patting herself over her shorts, her cheeks so hot she feared her face would melt off.

He smiled, leaning in so his mouth was right at her ear. "That's my good girl," he whispered, kissing the space where her jaw met her neck. "That's where you want me?"

She nodded.

"Words work better with me, sweetheart," he said.

She heard herself say it in her head, that she wanted him every where. She wanted him here, right now, however he wanted. But the coldness of the water still dripping along her feet brought her back into her body, as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water all over her.

She straightened, pushed lightly against his chest.

She heard him swallow, the first sign she's ever had that he was nervous.

"I should... I should shower," she said, pressing her forehead against his collarbone, pushing her hair behind her ears.

He put a delicate hand on her back, caressing her spine. He was so warm, like he was overheating.

He slowly put both hands on her cheeks, bringing her face up to his. He lay a sweet, delicate kiss on her lips, thumbs pressed against her jaw as if he didn't want her to fly off into the wind. And then he left, closing the door behind her.

She felt dumb. Would he hold it against her for rejecting him? What would he have done, here, on his little brother's bathroom sink?

She decided she had better, bigger things to worry about, like why someone had just tried to kill her. Who was he and why did he target her? Would there be more coming for her? Could she go back to her apartment ever again, feel safe between those walls?

Those were the questions she should be worrying about.