rest. When I did wake, it was in the wee hours of the morning. I was nude, I was warm, and I was safe in the circle of his arms, his chest pressed to my back, his deep and even breathing a comforting thing in the dark.
I lay there in peace, eyes closed and dared to dream for a moment of what this could be like if it were to last… but I didn’t dare hope that it would.
“What’s on your mind, baby?” he murmured, warm breath stirring my hair at the side of my neck.
“I don’t know if I should say,” I murmured with hesitance.
“Of course, you should,” he said, arms tightening around me as he nuzzled my shoulder.
“I know I could, but I don’t know if I should,” I hedged.
“Mm,” he grunted lightly in acknowledgement. “You can tell me anything,” he said, and I fought not to roll my eyes at the cliché, but then he tacked on, “Likewise, you ain’t gotta tell me shit. Just whatever it is, I’m here for it.”
I’d never had anyone take that approach with me.
“You’re really fine with me keeping it to myself?” I whispered.
He kissed the back of my shoulder, once, twice, a third time and sighed in what sounded like contentment.
“Do I want to know all your secrets?” he asked rhetorically. “Yes. But I want to know them on your time. I think you've been pushed around enough, Zaychik, and those aren’t the buttons I want to push with you. I want you to trust me. That doesn’t happen on my time. It happens on yours.”
I let his words sink in, food for thought and finally after swallowing hard asked, “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“Damn straight, I do,” he said gruffly, kissing the side of my neck and holding me tight.
I closed my eyes and sank into the feeling, confessing out loud, “I love it when you hold me like this.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?” he asked gently.
“Feels safe and good,” I murmured. “Like you won’t let anyone hurt me.”
He went very still and with his lips against my skin swore, “I won’t. Those days are over for you.”
I closed my eyes and breathed in slowly. I wanted to believe him. I desperately wanted to believe him, but it was honestly outside his control, what other people did.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” I whispered softly, after a long time.
I thought he had drifted back off to sleep, but he kissed the back of my shoulder one more time and said, “I never do, baby. I never do.”
It was even more food for thought, and something I chewed on until the sun came up outside.
It was our final day of travel back to Seattle, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I ached, and there was no getting comfortable. Though I loved to ride, especially with Maverick, I was quickly reaching the point I never cared if I got on the back of a bike again… which I was equally sure that feeling would only last around twenty-four hours or until the aches dissipated before I was dying to get back on again.
“Lookin’ forward to today’s wind therapy,” Tic-Tac muttered as he strapped his pack to the passenger backrest of his bike, sitting the squat canvas pack on the passenger seat and winding a bungee cord around it like six times.
“Ready to be home, brother?” Glass Jaw asked.
“Like nobody’s business.”
Fenris slipped out of one of the rooms and grimaced at the sun, flipping his shades off the top of his head and over his eyes.
“You look rough,” Maverick declared, looking the big Viking over.
“Hurt like a bitch,” he complained and put a hand to himself, over his gray tee and the slash across his middle that rested underneath.
Nine laughed. “I thought it was just a scratch.”
“Yeah, well, that scratch took nineteen stitches in areas,” Cipher said, and Mav scowled.
“Say what now?”
“I was there with the bottle of whiskey watching each one go down. Fen, you’re a fuckin’ badass.”
I stared at Fen who wouldn’t make eye contact with any of us. He simply grunted and sat his own duffel on the back of his bike and started to strap it down.
Cipher wandered over and batted his hands away ignoring Fen’s exasperation and finished the work for him.
“Right, let’s get you home where you can rest,” Maverick declared.
“I’m fine, you buncha fuckin’ mother hens, you all acting like I’m some kinda pussy is gonna get old real damn quick.”
“Don’t go thinkin’ I give