Stripped Down

I agree, but I also see something more in Angel. And maybe I thought we were starting something, between the dancing, the kissing, and the relationship talk. Neither of us is good at expressing our feelings—and I suspect that Angel is every bit as broken on the inside as I am—but it felt like more than hot hook-up sex.

Angel, however, apparently saw an ending. What kind of guy sneaks out and leaves you asleep after an afternoon and night of hot sex? There are reasons to leave—like if he’d gone for food or his appendix had burst or the ranch had caught on fire. Pretty much anything else is a no-brainer, though.

“Maybe I imagined the sense of connection I felt.”

Rory sighs. “That’s his penis in your vagina and a really amazing orgasm.”

I elbow him. “It was more than that.”

“Then you need to decide if you’re going back in for round two—although I still recommend you kick his ass first—or if you’re walking.”

“It hurts,” I whisper. “And right now I don’t want to think about it.”

“I’ve got you,” Rory whispers back and I can’t say anything more right now. I just can’t. So I nod and we hold onto each other, and that has to be enough for what’s left of tonight.

ANGEL

It’s not like I’m planning on confessing.

Fuck. No.

Rose deserves so much better than me. Those men who hurt her deserve to die. Somehow, someday, I’m learning their names and then I’m going after them. They paid money to rape a girl and that’s a death sentence. You can’t put a man like that in prison and think you’re rehabilitating him. Some shit’s too broken to fix and you throw it out.

Those men are trash and someday I take them out.

Rose confessed, and I wanted to tell her that you only confess when you’ve done something wrong. Rose is the victim in her story, and it’s not her fault. There’s nothing she did that invited those fuckers to do what they did—and nothing that excuses it. And yet here I am, running from her out here in the dark. I can’t ride because it’s too fucking risky for the horse when I can’t see, and I’m not sure I should be trusted with a vehicle either right now.

So I climb instead. I hike out to the base of a cliff on the eastern edge of Blackhawk territory, trying to push the thoughts out of my head. Rose is amazing. Touching her, getting inside her—that was fan-fucking-tastic. She’s better than anyone I’ve ever had before, and I don’t plan to give her up. I have a bad feeling she’s gonna be my everything if I don’t, though, and that’s trouble.

I’m a possessive son-of-a-bitch. This isn’t news to anyone who knows me, and I did warn her. She came back to Lonesome—although I like to think of it as coming back to me—and so I claimed her. What happened in my bed was the seal on the fucking deal. She’s like the sweetest drug, and now that I’ve had a taste, I want more.

So why the fuck am I out here and instead of holding Rose?

The horizon is lighter, night easing up on its stranglehold. Kinda gray, but I’m able to see shit that’s not right in front of my face now. I don’t bother with ropes. You solo, you fall, you die. The only person holding me up out here is me. I shuck my boots, yank on my rock climbing shoes, and start pulling myself up the cliff face. Distance-wise, it’s not all that far to the top—maybe eighty feet.

And I’m gonna do it one foot at a time.

I find the first crack in the rock face with my fingers and pull myself up. It’s like scaling a four-story building from the outside. Most people would take the elevator. Fuck, even the stairs would be easier. Me? I know myself. I gotta do it this way.

Rose opened up to me every way possible.

I can’t fix what happened to her. Can’t erase it, can’t go back and kill each and every last one of those fucking bastards before they hurt her. I just get to do it after, which is gonna be satisfying but it’s still not going make her feel better. Killing them will be for me.

I’ve killed before, and I don’t mean the kind of killing that comes with the job as a US Navy SEAL. That’s not really personal, and it’s not something I enjoyed. I had a job to do, and I did it well. It’s what happened after that last mission in Afghanistan. I fucked that up, too. One minute of inattention and I had hostiles surrounding me. I got off a few shots, fought like a madman. I thought I was dead, but it was worse. After what happened, death would have been a blessing.

If I flashback now, with my nose inches from the cliff face, death is inevitable. I concentrate on my breathing. Rose survived. She’s strong. The sun’s more than halfway up now, lighting up my path. The rocks are spotted with lichens and tiny cracks. I pull myself up, assessing the distance between myself and the top. Another forty feet ought to do it. Unlike traditional climbing with gear, there are no bolts, no stops every ten feet. The only thing between me and empty air is my grip on the rock.