“I know you.I remember you, every bit of it,” she continues, her voice getting stronger, “What I know and who you are is a man who would burn the world to protect me.A man who loves harder than he knows how to explain.A man who will withstand the storm in order to protect me from the rain.”
I swallow hard.“Kelly…”
“You’re the safest thing I’ve ever known,” she whispers.“Finish this and come to me, Ledger.”
Something breaks inside me.
Something heals at the same time.And for the first time in my life, I’m not Ledger.I’m not Riot.I’m not a soldier or a fighter or a monster built from war.
I am just hers.
Twenty-Four
Kelly
He thinks he scares me.I think he anchors me.
For a long moment after Jonas Greene is dragged away, I can’t move.Finally knowing Ledger would be with me soon, I manage to cut the connection from the television that came on not long after Riot left me to go find Jonas.The smart screen came on without warning and the man with the narrow eyes came on the screen and told me to stay online if I wanted to make sure Riot stayed alive.
Of course I wasn’t about to cut him off.Now, I watched him beat a man in the shadows of a strange room praying no matter what was to come it ended with Riot coming home to me.I never thought I would be that woman.The one that can set aside violence and danger as long as it means her man comes home to her.But here I am, waiting like a hopeless, lovesick fool.
In what felt like hours and seconds at the same time he is back with me.Riot stands in front of me, breath ragged, blood on his knuckles, sweat slicking his temples, his chest rising and falling too fast.He’s a storm barely leashed, violence and devotion woven into the same scarred skin.
And I’m not scared.
I should be.Every rational part of me should be screaming to back up, get away, put distance between myself and the man who just beat someone nearly unconscious with his bare hands.
But I remember now.More pieces than before.They click together slowly, like beads sliding down a thread.
Riot holding a door open for me at the bakery.Riot laughing under his breath when I teased him.Riot fixing the light in my kitchen without me asking.Riot touching me like he was afraid I’d break.Riot staring at me like I was the last bit of good in his world.
My heart feels full and tight all at once.
He stands there now, every muscle tense, hands curled like he’s afraid to reach for me, afraid of what I might do, afraid of what he’s shown me.
“Kelly,” he rasps, voice shredded, “I didn’t, I didn’t want you to see that.”
“I needed to,” I whisper.
He flinches.“No.You don’t need that in your head.”
“I needed the truth.”
Slowly, painfully, he lifts his eyes to mine.
His breath catches.“What you saw tonight, Kelly, that is part of the man I am.”
My voice softens as I nod.“You saved me.”
He shakes his head.“I became everything I told myself I wouldn’t be when I’m with you.Everything I didn’t want you to see.”
“You are a man protecting the person he loves,” I counter.“I don’t see where that should be hidden or something to be ashamed of.”
His entire body goes still.Frozen.
“Don’t say that right now,” he murmurs.
“Why not?”
