21. Viktor

[ 21 ]

VIKTOR

I took Ranger to my bedroom and into my bed. Every fibre of my body felt reborn with him, but I was so fatigued I could only lie down and stare at him in the dark, muddling a question I’d asked of him before. “My brain is tired. Will you stay if I sleep?”

In my bed.

I knew he would not leave me alone in the house.

Ranger pillowed his head on his arm and thumbed a lock of hair out of my face. “I’m here, Vik.”

Vik. I had always longed for someone to call me Vityasha. But Ranger’s rough voice embraced me however he addressed me, and Vik? I liked it almost as much as I had loved being with him tonight.

It was my last thought as I fell asleep.

My first, as I woke sometime later, was that he was still beside me, his arm around my waist, his long legs tangled with mine.

Also, he was awake, and I could not tell if he had been the whole time I had slept.

I love him.

“You look worried,” I whispered. “What is wrong?”

Ranger’s eyes glittered in the dawn. “Jakov called. He wanted to know how operational you are.”

“He wants to know if I can fight.”

“Can you?”

“With a gun?” I shrugged. “Of course—any fool can do that. Hand to hand, I am not so sure.”

Ranger ran his gaze all over me, though what he looked for, I could not say. “He said two weeks. And made me promise to tell him if I thought you wouldn’t make it.”

“I already told him I am ready.”

“You lied.”

“No.” I tapped my head. “I feel ready, up here and in my heart, because I have to be. Jake is my brother and he needs me.”

“He needs you to stay alive,” Ranger countered. “That’s not gonna happen if some giant cartel cunt comes at you before you’re fit to fight.”

“It is not about size. You know this.”

Ranger’s gaze flared with heat.

He tempered it, digging in like he always did when he cared about something. “You’re not fucking ready,” he said plainly. “You’re one of the toughest bastards I’ve ever met, but you’re not there yet. Even if you train every day⁠—”

“That is what I will do.”

This man was argumentative. The epitome of belligerence. But he was also perceptive. And whether I liked it or not, he knew me better than anyone who was not Jake.

“I’m not going to lie to your brother, Vik. If you ain’t sharp in two weeks, I’m gonna tell him.”

“I respect that.”

“Do you?”

“I respect you.”

Ranger exhaled through his nose. “That’ll do, I suppose. Are you hungry?”

I was not, but it didn’t matter. If I was to train, I needed to eat. And Ranger needed to eat because the extra bacon in the refrigerator truly made him happy.

Which made me happy.

We separated to put ourselves back together. The shower felt like a strange place now, but I did not think of all the times I had been held to a tiled wall against my will. I thought about Ranger and the utter acceptance he gave me for anything that did not cause me harm. His open gaze as he’d dropped to his knees and swallowed my cock.

I had come twice with him.

I had come on him and down his throat, and I had fallen asleep certain that if I could only have stayed awake, I could have come more.

The scent of bacon reached me. I shut off the shower and ventured out of the bathroom, expecting the brand-new experience of Ranger cooking breakfast.

I did not expect my sister.

Katya had her back to me, tending a pan with one hand while she peered at something Ranger showed her, and curiosity burned my soul.

I dressed in clothes I could train in and emerged to the sound of her soft laughter.

Ranger smiled too and it was a world away from the grump he sent everyone else’s way.

“Is this witchcraft?” I spoke Russian to my sister. “He does not smile at me so easily.”

Katya had a shy grin of her own. Meek, if you did not know how strong she was. “It wasn’t easy. He’s cross about the fish.”

Of course he was. Ranger was good at many things, and bearing a grudge was one of them. “He will forgive you for bacon. Why are you here?”

“Jakov wanted me to check you were well.”

“He already asked Ranger.”

“Then perhaps he wanted me to check he spoke the truth.”

“Ranger does not lie.”

Katya piled bacon onto a plate and added eggs to the grease in the pan. She pointed to a jar of pickled vegetables.

Ranger pulled a face that made him look twelve years old and my sister laughed again.

“He is nice, brother.”

I sighed. “Indeed, he is.”

Katya left us after she had prepared a breakfast far better than any I was capable of.

She took Lida with her. Because she knew that I would spend my morning goading Ranger into fighting me, and as much as my loyal dog loved Ranger, she could not watch such things without ripping his throat out.

Ranger inhaled his food, washing the dishes while I picked at mine. Loitering with intent until I was finished. “Is it easier if it’s on my plate?”

“Maybe. I have come to like sharing things with you.”

“Makes a change from you outright twoccing them.”

“Twoccing?”

“You’re the linguist. Work it out.”

He left me with that while he showered, something he had not done before. Perhaps because he knew too that fighting for Jake trumped everything, even the festering desire for oblivion.

It did not stop me thinking about drugs. Already missing Lida, I went outside and sat on the patio steps, watching the horizon—the birds, the cloudless sky, and the distant glittering ocean. The air smelled of oranges. Of health and vitality. Was I ready to return to a world heavy with smoke and blood?

Ranger emerged from the house, Jake’s loose sweats low on his hips, boots jammed on his feet, no shirt.

He was beautiful.

He was dangerous.

And for the two weeks of borrowed time, he remained all mine.

The thought of what would happen next drove me to my feet. Ranger flashed to help me, but that had to stop. I had to stand whether it hurt or not. I had to remember how to fight.

And then I had to leave him with no guarantee that I would ever see him again.

“Did you sit on a wasp?”

“Excuse me?”

Ranger made use of his extra inches and gazed down at me. “You’ve got that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“This one.” He pushed my lips down. “Makes you look old.”

I swatted him away. “How old?”

He shrugged. “You look twenty-five, but I reckon you’ve lived too much life to be that young.”

“I am not twenty-five.”

“Neither am I, luv.”

Because he was twenty-nine now. I’d seen his passport. The one that identified him as Asher Moore, a name indelibly etched on my heart, and reminded me of something I’d asked Katya to do for me.

“I have something for you.”

Ranger brought his gaze back from the horizon. “If it’s more bacon, it’ll have to wait till later. Your sister sorted me right out.”

“Is not bacon. And I will give it to you later. But first I need to ask something of you—something more than you have already given.”

Wariness crept into Ranger’s gaze. “You want to fly again?”

“I need to fly again. Every day. But no, is not that. I need to fight against someone who is not afraid to hurt me, and Jake is not here to oblige.”

“Ah.” Ranger relaxed and wedged a cigarette between his lips. “That I can do. Though, you’ll probably have me on my arse in six seconds flat. I was forged in cold rainy Leeds, not the Bahamas.”

“This is not the Bahamas.”

“Fucking Brighton’s the Bahamas when you’re from round my way.”

We were getting off topic.

We were wasting time.

But I had trouble believing any moment I spent with this man could ever be wasted. And I did not believe I could take him down, not yet.

An hour later, under the blazing heat of the summer sun, I proved myself right. I fought Ranger in a clearing among our tallest trees and he put me on my back.

“Again.” I rolled to a stance. “Harder.”

Ranger pushed his hair from his face and got low, fast on his feet, a knife in his hand. He feinted left and darted around me, sweeping my legs, and got the blade to my throat before I found the balance to dance away from him.

And so it went on.

Ranger was a good fighter. So good, he could’ve killed me several times over. But I did not resent it. I needed it—the uncensored dose of reality. To know where I was vulnerable so I could make it not so.

It was early afternoon before I got the better of him.

“It’s all there.” Ranger lay beneath me. Dirt on his face. Leaves in the dark mess his hair had become. “You’re just knackered. And you’re scared of that hip.”

I could not deny it. “It is my worst enemy. One of them, anyway.”

Wiping sweat from my brow, I made to shift my weight off him.

Ranger held me in place.

I let him, though I knew it was because he wanted me to elaborate more than he wanted me to sit on his chest. “The pain is terrible.” I leaned over him, dropping a hand either side of his head. “Not an ache, but this sharp and wicked thing in the nerves. Without it, I might have been strong enough to bear everything else.”

“There weren’t other painkillers you could take?”

I allowed him a humourless smile. “There were, but my tolerance for opiates was too strong for them to work. And my mind . . . it was too late. I had mapped out a plan to get more drugs before I left the hospital. I knew—” Nausea curdled my stomach. “I knew it was wrong and I did not care.”

Ranger rubbed both my hips. “You care now.”

“I want to.”

He gave me a long look. Then moved fast, rising and taking me with him, using his longer limbs to handle me.

Grinning as I let him, his rough voice a whisper against my lips. “That’s enough heavy for now. Take a shower with me, Vik.”