26 Austin

Austin

“I’m thirsty,” I said as I came out of what felt like a thirty-year-long sleep. My lids were heavy, so I didn’t even bother trying to force them open.

“Here,” a rough voice said as I felt something gently press against my chest. I wrapped my hands around the cylinder, quickly realizing it was a bottle. “Full disclosure, it’s half-full and I don’t know whose it was. They’re likely dead, so it’s not like they’ll be coming back for it.”

“Don’t care,” I mumbled as I blindly brought the bottle to my lips and tilted it up. Water went everywhere, all over my face and my chest. I didn’t care. I greedily swallowed down the mouthful I eventually got.

“You’re a mess,” the deep voice said.

For some reason, it made me chuckle.

“Ford,” I croaked.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, softly.

He sounded wrecked. Like he’d been put through the worst and was still dealing with it.

A second later, I felt the pressure of his hand on my thigh.

My strength was slowly returning. I wanted to look at him, but I was scared to open my eyes. What if we’d been captured? What if we were currently in a situation we couldn’t get out of? What if it was worse than I could even imagine?

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Currently, we’re in a stolen SUV driving to Reed’s safe house in Tennessee. We’re a little over halfway there. You were out for six hours.”

“Are we safe?” I asked, voice raw.

“As safe as can be,” he said, a slight tremble in his voice that could have been fear or an attempt at hiding laughter. I wasn’t sure. “I was scared.”

“Why?” I rolled my head in the direction of his voice and cracked an eye open. “I saw you. You’re a total badass.”

I gave him a smirk that was surprisingly easy to do. Though, it did hurt my entire face.

“Might be too soon to say this, but it was kinda hot,” I added, only to receive a snort in return.

“You were passed out for most of it,” he said, cutting his eyes in my direction. “And do you even remember what you did see?”

“No,” I admitted, wrinkling my nose and shrugging. “Not exactly. But in my mind, you were like one of those extremely hot dudes in an action movie. Nothin’ was gonna touch you.”

“I wish I could say the same was true for you.”

“Yeah, about that…” I closed my eye again. “Can we pretend that I didn’t lose and go down like a chump? When we tell people the story, we can just leave that part out and say that I took down all of them.”

“Whatever you want, Austin.”

I smiled at the hint of laughter in his tone.

Something flickered in my mind.

“Honey,” I said, then swallowed hard.

“What?”

“You called me honey,” I clarified. I’d been out of it, but I hadn’t missed that part. I’d hold on to that one for a long time to come. Now as I thought about it, something inside my stomach fluttered.

“I think you’re confused.”

“I’m not. You,” I lifted my finger and blindly poked it in his direction, “called me honey. Which could only mean one thing.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” He sounded amused, which was a lot better than the almost broken tone he’d had a moment ago. I felt like I could breathe hearing it, like maybe we’d be okay.

“You like me,” I sing-songed, and the sound made me cringe.

“I think we’ve already established that I like you,” he shot back, causing my lips to curl up in a smile.

I forced my lids open so I could take him in. I got lost looking at his tired but incredibly handsome face for a few minutes.

“You’re right. It was the moment you put my cock in your mouth, right?” I teased with my cockiest smirk.

He coughed awkwardly as his eyes practically bulged out of his head. His mouth opened and then closed, but not a sound came out. I barked out a laugh, unable to hold it back at seeing his sputtering reaction. I think making him speechless had become my favorite thing.

“You can’t say things like that while I’m driving.” His tone was scolding but his face betrayed him. “And that wasn’t the moment I was thinking about.”

“Oh, it was the time when you let me jerk you off in my bed, wasn’t it?”

“Christ,” he swore under his breath. “That was pretty much the same time as…”

“When you dropped to your knees in the kitchen and sucked my cock?” I finished for him. “Yes, but not really. It was at least an hour after. We hung out in the back of the truck like a couple of country teens not giving a damn about curfew, and I thought about what it would be like to get you off the whole time. But it was too cold, of course. So when I had you in my bed, I simply couldn’t resist makin’ you come. I have to admit, thinking about the smell of our cum mixed together is making me regret not cleaning you up with my tongue. I think we’d taste good together.”

“Austin,” he growled, shifting in the seat like the thought was making him hot and bothered. I had this urge to tell him to pull over because I was the same. If only my head weren’t throbbing and my face didn’t feel like it was swollen in a way that probably made me look like something out of a horror movie.

With a sigh, I shifted my thoughts. There was no sense in torturing both of us. We couldn’t do anything about it right now.

“It was in the barn, wasn’t it?” I asked, circling us back around. “That was when you realized you had feelings for me. The moment you told me I wasn’t a monster.” My voice was so soft I wasn’t sure he’d heard me. I swallowed hard as I itched to sew up the vulnerable cut I’d just exposed on myself.

He glanced at me for a beat of my heart. His brown eyes were so warm and soft. I had this strange urge to cry.

“It was before then,” he told me. “But that moment did make me realize something.”

“What?” I asked hesitantly, not entirely sure I wanted to know what he was about to tell me. My brows drew together as I studied him for even a hint of a lie in what he was about to say.

“I always knew you weren’t a monster.” He looked sad for a second. “But in the barn when you were breaking down, it made me realize just how protective over you I feel. I had this deep need to make sure you knew you weren’t this thing you’d made yourself to be in your mind. Because you’re not. You won’t even be a monster, Austin.”

I didn’t know what to say back to that. I’d be lying if I said his words didn’t get me right in the chest.

It kinda made me feel things I wasn’t quite ready for. I wasn’t resisting those feelings, but maybe I needed a small adjustment period. Everything was happening so fast, and though I seemed like I was diving into these feelings with open arms, if I stopped to think about it, I might realize that it was freaking me out on a small scale. It was a lot of change in a short period of time. Not like easing into these feelings. It had been like switching on a light— no, a spotlight.

Plus, I was worried I’d scare Ford off if he knew how intense and deep this shit was hitting me.

Like… I wanted him to be mine. All mine. I didn’t want anyone else to have him. Hell, I didn’t want anyone else looking at him.

Believe me, I knew that shit bordered on toxic. I was well aware of that. But I was also certain there was a level of possessiveness that was healthy. Right?

“I’d kiss you if my mouth didn’t feel like a week-old pile of garbage,” I said with a hint of a smile playing at the corners of my lips.

“I wouldn’t care.” His face lit up as he reached for something on the console between us. “But I do have gum.”

“Is this half used by an unknown person too?” I asked as I reached for the pack.

“Would it matter at this point?”

“Nope,” I said as I tossed a piece into my mouth and chomped down hard, already feeling less gross as the wintergreen flavor came alive on my tongue.

The air in the car went from light and flirty to tense in one breath.

“Your brother called,” he said, voice flat, but there was a waver to his tone that gave me the feeling he was bordering on angry. Maybe not angry, more like hurt and cautious.

His eyes cut to the side as he pointed at the phone sitting in a slim cubby under the radio. I didn’t have to pull out the phone to know it was mine. Mine, as in the other phone that I had.

The look on his face said it all. One, he was hurt and confused. Two, he was unsure of why I had such a phone, and why he didn’t know about it. And three, he was waiting to see if I lied to him… or avoided the whole truth.

Which, for the record, I was not going to do. I hadn’t even thought of doing that.

I hadn’t told him about the phone because I simply hadn’t really thought to.

“What did he say?” I asked hastily, sitting up in the seat with a pained grunt.

I wanted to give him answers and set him at ease, I really did, but if my brother called me, it had to be bordering on an emergency. He didn’t just call me to call me. He didn’t check in to see how my life was going.

“Not much. Just wanted you to call him when you could.”

I snatched the phone up, rushing to get to the call log. An outgoing call to Reed, I recognized the number right away. There was also an incoming which had to be my brother. That number wasn’t familiar, so he must have changed his phone number. It was a reoccurring thing with him. I hoped it wasn’t because he was being harassed again.

I called it back without giving myself a chance to think about anything else.

“Austin?” My brother answered before the second ring. He sounded tired.

“Yeah, Braden. My… friend said you called but didn’t say why. What’s goin’ on?” I hated how I instantly fell into that Southern accent when I talked to my brother. It was like a trigger in my brain that I couldn’t stop from clicking. I locked my gaze forward, scared to see if Ford had noticed and what his face would have said about it if he had.

What the hell was I talking about? Of course he fucking noticed. He noticed everything.

“I don’t know what to say.” Braden blew out a hard, heavy breath. “Look, Ma isn’t doing good.”

“What do you mean?”

“These people called. Something about an interview about… about…”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said quickly. Neither one of us wanted to say it out loud. In fact, I wanted this conversation over as quickly as possible.

But I did. I kept trying, because of my sisters. At this point, they were the only reason I even put up with the ridiculous nonsense Ma lived her life by.

“I thought she was getting better, but the call just stirred up everything. She thinks it would be a good platform to… ugh, you fuckin’ know what I mean. Don’t make me say it.”

I did know. It was the major reason I didn’t have a relationship with her. It was why Braden barely had one with her. Why I had this damn phone so my younger sisters could always reach me if they needed to.

What was the point of him calling me? Ma didn’t want me around. We fought nearly every time I tried and went to see her. It always ended the same way, with her saying shit I couldn’t believe a mother would say to her son and me storming out of the house, vowing I wasn’t going to come back.

Because, plainly put, my mother lost her mind when they took my father in.

I zoned out, only half listening to Braden and giving short responses at the appropriate times. I didn’t need to hear the conversation, and he didn’t really expect me to listen. He called because he wanted me to tell him what to do. He wanted me to step in and figure it out.

But above everything, he wanted me to tell him it was okay to walk away, and then he wanted to make me feel like shit because I gave him the permission he couldn’t give himself.

It was a fucked up cycle we lived in.

I didn’t give him what he wanted.

I didn’t have it in me at the moment. I was in pain. My head was still foggy. I was fucking exhausted. And I still had to figure out how the fuck to keep Ford safe. I had to get him out of this mess so that he could have his life back.

For once, I wasn’t using my job as an excuse not to deal with my family, though I did think the missions I went out on were more important than family drama. This time, I was putting my job first as a stand. Maybe my brother wouldn’t get it. Maybe my mother wouldn’t even care. But to me, it meant a whole fuck of a lot, because I had someone I wanted to fight for, to help make their life better.

I sighed as my brother’s tone got snippy because I wasn’t responding the way he wanted me to. I hated that we’d fallen into this pattern. One thing I needed to fix once this shit was all over.

“Austin, are you hearing me? I can only take off three days from work. I’m running out of personal time.”

“I hear you,” I replied flatly. “Give her a day and see how she’s doing.”

“And if it doesn’t get better?” He huffed out a breath. “What am I supposed to do, pack the twins up and take them back home with me?”

“Yes,” I snapped, then immediately regretted it. This was the last thing I needed. “It won’t be forever. But I need you to handle it for a few days.”

I hung up before he got another word out.

Slumping back into the seat, I felt like shit. I shouldn’t have treated him like that.

I looked down, realizing that I was holding Ford’s hand.

He’d given me comfort when I needed it, without interrupting me. He’d made it about me and not him.

I was so drained that I almost couldn’t hold back the tears.

How fast was too fast to fall for someone?