[ 13 ]
VIKTOR
Ranger was a contradiction. Adaptable. Adventurous. But impossible to persuade of just about anything when he cemented his boots to the ground.
“Car.” He pointed at Jake’s SUV. The one parked next to the bike I assumed Jake had arranged to be delivered here. “You’re a fucking menace on that Ducati.”
“You have never seen me ridethat Ducati.”
“I’ve seen you ride the other one. From eighty miles behind. That’s not happening here.”
“Scared you will get lost?”
“Scared I’ll losesomething.”
Truthfully, it did not matter to me how we travelled, but the masochist in me craved to know every thought that passed through Ranger’s head. I wanted him tosayit. That he was scared to lose me. So I could bathe in how much it hurt to know he cared. “I would not leave you behind.”
Ranger grunted and opened his hand, revealing a set of keys I had not given him. “I’m driving.”
“You know the way?”
He pointed down the mountain. “That way, innit.”
Gruff by nature, it was hard to tell if he was annoyed or making fun of me. And I was okay with either scenario. Ranger was never hotter to me than when fire raged in his dark gaze, unless he was laughing. And he laughed at me a lot too.
I got in the car—in the passenger seat, not all that upset that I did not have to drive. Or ride. In recent days, with Ranger to occupy my thoughts, the pain in my hip had been less, but I was agitated right now, despite Ranger’s presence, and I felt the warning in every nerve from my ribs to my foot.
Relax.
Stretch.
I extended my sore leg.
Ranger noticed, but for once in his life said nothing. Just draped his arm around my seat and casually reversed down the mountain to the turning point, before spinning the car in the right direction.
“You could have turned around by Katya’s house. By the window Lida watched us from.”
Ranger’s boyish grin returned. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Fun was not something I had contemplated in a long time. But with Ranger, even the most awful things were bearable.
He drove, complaining about everything from the car’s quiet engine to the air conditioning smelling funny, while I watched him. Studied him, as if his tattooed neck was the only thing on earth that could calm the gnawing in my gut, my blood, and my bones.
Worry.
Cravings.
Pain.
Sometimes, it all felt like one and the same.
“Cam made Jake promise he wouldn’t kill me if I couldn’t protect you.”
I dragged my gaze from the tinted windows—it was the first time Ranger had called my brotherJake, and it meant something to me that I could not quantify. “He wouldn’t kill you.”
“That’s what he said. Cam made him swear anyway. It was cute.”
“Did you believe him?”
