Ranger liked the sun.
He lay beneath the late afternoon rays on the patio, angled so the golden warmth hit his whole body, and tipped his face to the sky like a stretching cat.
It was quite the sight, and only making sure my nephew didn’t fall from the tree he climbed stopped me from gorging on it.
Yuri brought me the orange I’d selected. He dropped it in my palm, but his usual question was derailed by Ranger’s simmering presence.
At least, it was simmering to me. Like it had been for the last three days, or however long it had been since he’d got here.
Longer than three days.
Soon it would be the widest stretch of time I had gone without a hit of heroin since I had come here. An itch scratched my soul, one that often sent me to my knees, but...
Ranger is here.
“Who’s that?” Yuri’s whispered Spanish drew me down to his level.
“A friend.” I examined the orange, hating that I had already come to rely on Ranger’s dark, comforting stare. “He helps me in the house, like you help your mother.”
A distortion of the truth, but a truth nonetheless. Ranger coerced me to eat. Irritated me enough to seek refuge in the shower, or retreat to my room where there was nothing to do but sleep. And I could not deny that I felt a thousand times more human for it.
Yuri ambled away, and for once, I did not throw the orange at the wall. I took it back to where Ranger tormented me with the long, leonine lines of his body.
He wore only his ripped jeans, and his skin called to me like nothing ever had, save the cursed wrench rotting beneath my skin.
What he does to you is stronger than that.
For now. I could not say how long it would last, and thinking about it made me think of hurling myself from the cliffs.
I crouched beside Ranger, avoiding the healing slash wound to his torso, and dug my fingers into the orange peel, stripping it away from the fruit while he watched, propped on his elbows. Another game of chicken that would hopefully end in him consuming more than bread, meat, and packaged snacks. “Maybe I have an addictive personality. I got hooked on these in the same place I found Lida, and the smell and taste of them has always reminded me of that day.”
On to me, Ranger curled his lip. “Still not eating it.”
“You need some vitamin C.”
“I’m all right with my vitaminD, thanks.”
“Is good for you.”
“Youeat it then.”
“That is not how this works. Not if we play by your rules.”
“My only rule is that you don’t die for no fucking reason. Force-feeding me freaky shit has nothing to do with that.”
“You don’t think I need vitamin C too?”
“I think a lot of things, Vik. No—no. Don’t wave it at me.”
I would do more than wave it at him. Because touching him had become oddly normal in the strange existence he and Jake had forced on me.
So normal that he did not blink as I threw a leg over his waist and pinned him in place.
Straddling him.
Blyad.
This man.
