Chapter 13

The rest of the show passed in a blur. Once again instinct and autopilot got Raina through as she rode the wave of adrenaline, shock and anger churning her stomach. Whoever was messing with her, she was going to kick their ass if she ever got hold of them. This was her damned club and her damned people and no one fucked with them.

After the show, she skipped her usual post-performance mingling and stomped up to her office. Brady knocked on the door about two minutes later.

"What?" she demanded.

"Maggie Jameson asked if she can talk to you a moment."

Raina sighed. She wasn't exactly in the mood for a chat but Maggie was the Saints in a way, and the Saints were paying her. She wondered if Mal had called Maggie. Raina had half expected him to call her but so far, nothing. So maybe he was, like a sensible person, asleep in Baltimore.

Brady reappeared with Maggie in tow. He showed her in before pulling the door closed and leaving them to it.

"I saw the police," Maggie said as she took a seat. "Did something happen? Mal told me about your truck. I'm sorry about that."

"It's not your fault," Raina said. "And yes, there was a little incident with some idiots and some fireworks out the front of the building. But everything is okay now."

"You need to tell Mal," Maggie said. "He can help you if someone is giving you trouble. It's what he does."

Raina regarded her for a moment, unsure of the best approach to this. For all she knew, Mal had called Maggie even if she hadn't said so. In which case Maggie already knew that Mal had talked to Luis and this might be a test to see exactly what Raina was going to say.

The muscles in her neck tightened as she thought about it. She decided that it was simpler just to tell the truth. Only maybe not the whole truth. "Luis—he's my security guy—he already talked to Mal."

"Good," Maggie said. Then she paused. "How does your security guy know Mal?"

"Mal had a chat with him after the truck thing," Raina said. "Made some suggestions." There. Mostly the truth. Slightly out of order. But she wasn't about to tell Maggie Jameson that she'd slept with Mal without asking Mal if he was okay with his friends knowing about that first.

"I see," Maggie said. "Well, good. Mal can help. He's a good guy."

"Yes," Raina said. "He is. All three of them are from what I've seen."

Maggie rose, nodding. "We're going to grab some pizza. Soak up some of that vodka. Do you want to come with us?"

"I should talk to the staff here," Raina said. "Tell them what happened and what we're doing about it."

"We can wait," Maggie offered. "Alex's driver is coming to get us. We're not going to be too late. Hana and I are going to Baltimore in the morning and Shelly and Sara have to work."

Pizza and some girl talk sounded pretty good. She hung out with the gals from the club but when it came right down to it, she was their boss, so apart from Glynna and Tallie, who'd been there the longest, she couldn't really let her hair down around them. "Let me go see how everyone is doing and then I'll let you know," Raina said. "Sorry about this, normally I'd love to but it's been an odd night and I need?—"

"You need to make sure your people are okay. I get that," Maggie said. "I grew up with a baseball team. I understand what it's like."

It was nearly two thirty when Raina arrived home suitably stuffed full of pizza and the glass of scotch that Maggie had insisted of buying her at the pizza place. The food and the spirits had taken the edge off the night. She'd talked all the Madame R staff through what had happened to Tallie and sent everyone home with the promise they'd discuss it more on Monday if anyone wanted to.

She really wanted a long hot bath but wasn't sure she'd stay awake if she indulged. So instead, she took a ten-minute steaming-hot shower, climbed into an old Hamilton T-shirt she wore to sleep in and her red robe, and then wandered back out to feed Wash. While he was chomping through his food with his usual enthusiasm, she boiled water to make peppermint tea. That would finish the wind-down process. Help her sleep, hopefully. She almost dropped the teacup in her hand when her intercom buzzer sounded. Catching it just before it got away from her, she swore as she stalked over to the phone. If some idiot kid was playing games, she was going to give them a mouthful.

"What do you want?" she said into the speaker.

"You," Mal's voice replied.

She pushed the button to let him in so hard and fast she wondered if she'd broken it.

Apparently not. And apparently Mal could levitate because she'd barely finished unlocking the door when he knocked.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in wonder as she threw open the door. He looked tired, stubble darkening his jaw, hair wild. The gray Henley underneath his leather jacket was creased. He'd never looked better to her.

"Are you okay?" he asked roughly.

"I'm fine," she said, feeling a smile spread across her face. "But you're supposed to be in Baltimore."

"Do you want to talk about where I'm supposed to be or do you want to get naked with me?" He pushed the door shut behind him then reached for her.

"I'll take door number two, please," she said, and laughed as he picked her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and started kissing him wildly. Mal bumped his way through the kitchen then stopped at the sofa. Wash protested and bolted as they descended onto it in a tangle of limbs. Mal's hand slid up her leg. "No panties. That makes things easier."

"Speak for yourself, you're wearing far too many clothes." Raina said, then gasped as Mal pulled her T-shirt up and fastened his mouth over a nipple, drawing it into his mouth and making her shiver.

"Actually, I take that back. Keep your clothes on."

"I can multitask," Mal mumbled, and she heard the sound of a zipper being lowered.

Raina giggled. "Condom?" she suggested.

"Wallet. Back pocket," Mal said. His fingers slid into her and she lost track of what she was supposed to be doing. Wallet. Condom. Mal inside her. Right.

She tried to reach around but given the angle and the sheer size of Mal, she couldn't reach. "Wait," she muttered. "Let me up."

Mal looked up, frowning. That didn't stop him driving her crazy with those long clever fingers, she noted.

"Something wrong?"

"My arms are short and your body is long," she said. "If you want that condom, you're going to have to let me up."

His face cleared. "Ah." He looked down the sofa. "This is never going to work. You need a sofa for normal-sized people." He sat up and she pushed him off onto the floor.

"The floor is flat," she said.

He grinned then. "So it is." He raised a hip, pulled his wallet free of the offending pocket, and passed it to her. She found the condom and then found herself pulled down on top of Mal. Who'd managed to lose the jeans and his boxers while she was condom hunting. He didn't mess around, her Malachi.

She decided to follow his lead, tore open the condom packet, and then sat up.

"Hello again," she said and wrapped her hand around the lovely erection that she'd spent all day trying not to think about. God, had it only been this morning that he'd left? It felt like forever.

But that didn't matter because he was here now. Here and naked and waiting for her watching with those sin-dark eyes. So maybe there was time to take a little time. She wriggled farther down on his legs and bent forward to taste him.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Mal asked as she closed her mouth over the head of his cock.

She let him go again and smiled up at him. "I can answer that question or I can keep doing what I'm doing. Your choice."

"I'm shutting up now," Mal said.

"Not for long, I hope," she muttered and then she took him again. Took him slowly, learning the contours and taste of him. Experimenting with fingers and tongue to find out what he liked and what he didn't until he was panting and groaning and his hands fisted in her hair, guiding her to take him deeper.

She did so. Slowly at first and then more feeding, sucking harder and faster and deeper until she felt his stomach muscles start to tremble. Then she stopped and he groaned. She rolled the condom into place and slid back up his body, groaning a little herself as she slid over the hard length of him. It felt so damned good she slid back down, taking her weight on her arms to enjoy the sensation all over again. And again. And a fourth time.

Apparently that was about the limit of his tolerance. Because he grabbed her and rolled her and then slid inside her with a fierceness that made her clench around him. She closed her eyes and let him take her, needing him to drive away the day and the fear and the anger. Letting him use her to drive away whatever demons were driving him, too. Faster and harder until there was only flesh meeting flesh. Pure sensation. Pure delight. No idea what was her and what was him. Until the orgasm exploded through her and dissolved her completely.

"That was lovely," Raina said some unknown time later when they were both lying in her bed, naked and sweaty and boneless. Mal was pretty sure he'd melted completely. He'd come twice already and he was fairly sure Raina was one or two ahead of him. Either that or she was a better actress than he'd thought.

"Thanks," he managed.

"You want to tell me what it was about?" she asked.

He came back into his body with a thud. "What do you mean?"

"You just flew for about three hours in the wrong direction in the middle of the night to land on my doorstep. Don't get me wrong, I'm very, very happy you're here, but it's a little … unexpected."

Odd was what she really meant. He felt himself stiffen. Had he screwed up coming here?

Raina's lips brushed against his shoulder and he relaxed a little. Even if she thought he was odd, it didn't seem to have put her off.

"You don't have to tell me and I really do appreciate you coming to make sure I'm all right," she said. "But I feel like maybe I've tripped and hit a button of yours. Something to do with some of those wrong choices you keep telling me you've made, maybe? So if you tell me, maybe I can avoid tripping over it again." She pressed another kiss against his skin. "But it's up to you. Your secrets are yours."

His secrets. Not so much secrets as failures. The dead he carried with him like any soldier did. Friends he hadn't been able to save. And then there was Ally.

Raina needed to know about Ally sooner or later. "I lost someone," he said softly. "I mean, I've lost plenty of people. Kind of hard to avoid in my old line of work."

"But this one was different? Who was she?"

"How do you know it was a she?"

"Call it a lucky guess," she said and snuggled closer.

He tightened his arm around her, breathing in the smell of her.

"Do you want to tell me?"

Ally. How did he start with Ally? How to describe who she was? Who she had been. Who she'd become. The fierce wildness of her. Though the woman in his arms, though smaller and very different, had her own flavor of fierce and wild. So maybe she'd understand. Ally would have liked Raina. Probably would have gotten up on stage and demanded to learn how to dance in a corset and four-inch heels if she'd had the chance. But she never would.

"Ally was a soldier," he said. "Kind of wild. I was kind of wild back then, too. We got each other through some tough times."

"You loved her?" Raina's voice was very quiet.

"Yes," he said and even now, it made his breath go rough for a minute. "Very much."

"What happened?"

"She got out of the army a few months before I did," he said. "And by the time I got home, she wasn't doing so well. Finding the transition hard. Stay in long enough and some people get addicted to the adrenaline rush."

"I get that," Raina said. "Performers get addicted to the high of it, too."

"I thought she'd settle down," Mal said. "I got her to talk to a counselor, thought that would help. Thought she just needed time. But she kept taking risks. Rock climbing. Parachuting." Too much alcohol and other things. But he didn't need to tell Raina that part. "One day she went ultragliding and things went wrong. She died."

Raina didn't say anything for a moment. Her arms tightened around him. "I'm sorry. That sucks. You must have been pretty mad at her."

It felt like she'd just pitched a fastball straight through his defenses. No one close to him had ever said that to him. Recognized that, tangled up with the grief, there was a healthy dose of Why the hell did you have to go and fuck this up? The therapist he'd seen a few times had. And now Raina. Damn.

"Yeah, I was. Mad that I couldn't help her. But you can spend a long time being mad about things that will never change. So I had to let her go."

"And have you?"

She didn't sound mad or offended. She sounded curious.

He nodded. "She's gone. I loved her. Part of me will always love her. But she's gone and I'm still here. And she'd kick my butt if I spent the rest of my life moping."

Raina laughed. "I think I would have liked her."

"I think she would have liked you." He sighed. "I'm over her. But sometimes I get a little…"

"Overprotective?" Raina said. She rolled herself over and pushed up so that she was looking down at him.

"Yeah. Lucas says I want to save the world."

"You already did that part in the army, didn't you?"

"I like to think I helped make things better but that's a hard thing to know. War isn't that simple."

"Nothing's that simple. So you want to save the world. Slay the dragons and keep the princesses safe?"

"Something like that."

She smiled. "Well, as much as I like a good knight, I have to tell you, I'm not a princess. I don't need to be locked up in a tower. I won't be locked up in a tower."

"I don't need to lock you up."

Her face went pensive. "Not literally. That would be weird. And really creepy and I'd have to call the cops on your ass. But there are things I want to do in my life. And some of them aren't the safest things on earth. I want to learn to ski and maybe bungee-jump and some other stuff that I never got to do when I was dancing because I couldn't afford to injure myself. I don't live my life within the lines. Not all the time."

He sucked in a breath. "I know that."

"Yeah, but can you live with it? Because my choices are mine. No one else gets to choose for me. Or control what I do. So if you already know that the answer is no, we should cut our losses. Before anyone gets hurt."

It might already be too late for that. But saying that would probably just scare her off.

"And if I don't know?"

"Then I need to know if you can try to be okay with it. Otherwise, it's that cutting-our-losses thing again. I know this is early. And maybe we'll do this for a few weeks or months and get sick of the sight of each other but like I said, I've made bad choices before. You might be a knight—even a slightly rusty one—but that doesn't mean you're not a bad choice. Not if you want to change who I am or what I do." She put her hand on his chest. Right on the scar that cut across under his right pec where he'd been sliced open by a flying piece of glass in an explosion. "You've got scars. I do, too. Maybe we're both sliced up into puzzle pieces. But that doesn't mean we're the right fit, no matter how well we do this"—she waved her hand at his body and hers—"together."

"I know," he said. "You're right."

"But?" she said.

"But I'd like to see if we could fit. See what happens. I promise to try not to be a douche and try to wrap you up in bubble wrap."

She laughed "Bubble wrap? Isn't it usually cotton wool?"

"You're not the cotton wool type. Bubble wrap. Fun. Addictive. Like you."

That earned him an eye-roll. "Are you trying to charm me?"

"I'm trying to picture you wrapped in bubble wrap. Maybe you could meet me at the door like that next time."

"Sounds sweaty."

"Sounds fun." He grinned at her. "So what do you think? You have permission to call me out when I'm being ridiculous. I'll do the same for you if you refuse to listen to perfectly reasonable suggestions. And we'll see what happens."

Her head was tilted, her wild red hair sticking up in all directions. She smoothed it down and studied him. "I think … I think there's something else I need to tell you."

He felt himself go alert, tried to still the reaction. "Okay."

"I had an email from my ex. The wall-punching one." Her expression was wary.

He kept his voice calm, with an effort. "Does he email you often?"

"No. No, I haven't heard from him in a long time. I think he must have seen one of the news stories about the Angels."

"And what did he have to say?" He didn't like coincidences. Someone was harassing Raina and here was her ex popping up. Then again, he didn't like solutions that were too neat.

She shook her head, looking frustrated. "It wasn't anything bad. Not overtly. More like he was just letting me know that he was still out there."

"That doesn't sound good," he said. "When was this?"

"Earlier today."

"Before I called?" Why hadn't she told him?

"Yes. And before you get mad, I didn't tell you because I didn't want to distract you from Baltimore. And there's nothing really to tell."

"A potentially violent ex is not nothing." This time his voice wasn't quite as calm as he would have liked.

"I was going to tell you when you got back. And if he'd emailed again I would have told you straightaway." She studied him, green eyes serious. "I was handling it."

Her definition of handling it was apparently different from his. But he remembered what she'd said. About not wanting to be controlled. So he couldn't just take over and do things his way. Not if he wanted to keep waking up next to her. He took a breath. Pushed back the worry and anger. She was safe. And she had told him. She'd given him that much. He could respect her boundaries in return. "Okay." He nodded once. "Okay. Let's see what happens."

A delighted smile spread across her face. "Really? You're okay with it?"

He shrugged. "I'll deal."

"Good." She leaned forward, kissed him.

Relief made him go boneless again. He hadn't screwed it up. Then he remembered there was something he needed to tell her. "While we're sharing, there's something else you need to know."

Raina drew back. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I told Alex that we were … considering our options."

"You did?"

"I had to tell him I was leaving," Mal said. "It was pretty hard to explain why without that part."

She chewed her lip. "Did he?—"

"He was fine. It's fine. He's happy about it. And he won't tell anybody else until I say it's okay. Okay?"

"Okay. I just wasn't expecting it."

"Well, your friends know. Or suspect. So it's fair that mine do, too. Eventually." He smiled and pressed a kiss to her hand. "So what do you think?"

She bent forward to kiss him again. Longer this time. Slower. "I think it's okay. And I think you're about to get lucky."