Crash & Carnage by Emma Slate

Chapter 21

My mind wasa swirl of thoughts. I hopped in the shower, hoping to clear it. While I was rinsing my hair, there was a quick knock on the bathroom door and then it opened.

“Linden?” Boxer called.

“Yeah?” I poked my head out from behind the shower curtain.

He leaned over and kissed me. It was quick, and then I ducked my head back into the steaming heat.

When I didn’t hear the door open, I asked, “Are you still in here?”

“Yup.” He paused. “I told you some dark shit last night.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“I wanted to make sure…fuck, I don’t know. Are you okay?”

I scrubbed my arm with a lather of bubbles. “You mean am I going to go on a dish-smashing spree?”

“Are you?”

“The problem with falling apart is that there’s always a chance you can’t scrape your feelings off the floor and stuff them back in the box where they belong.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. What if you let them out instead of getting to the point where they blow up the box you put them in?”

“Messy, either way.”

“Life is messy.”

I rinsed and then shut off the water. I grabbed the faded blue towel on the rack and quickly dried off before wrapping it around me and sliding back the shower curtain.

Boxer was leaning against the sink, looking deceptively casual. “I think you’re doing a fair bit of deflecting, Doc.”

“Ask what you really want to ask,” I snapped.

His hands reached out to gently grasp my upper arms, and he rubbed his thumbs along my damp, warm skin. “Why can you be honest when it’s the middle of the night and I can’t see your eyes, but in broad fucking daylight, you can’t be real with me? You didn’t flinch, you didn’t panic, you didn’t break down. Why the hell not?”

“Did you and Ramsey talk or something?” I demanded. “Because he all but asked me the same thing last night after I put you to bed.”

“And that’s another thing. I won’t be put to bed, woman, unless you’re in it with me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Stop. Just stop.”

His grip tightened, and he hauled me toward him. Boxer’s lips covered mine, and then his tongue was in my mouth.

I knew the real problem between us.

He ripped the towel from my body and flung it to the floor. And then his hands were between my legs, questing, seeking, needing. My hands went to his flannel shirt and with clumsy fingers, I managed to get the buttons open. I pressed a palm to his warm skin.

He undid his belt buckle and shoved his pants to the floor, including his underwear, and then he was backing me up against the sink. Boxer lifted my leg, opening me to his sensual, heated gaze.

With one quick thrust, he buried himself inside me to the hilt. He pounded into me like it was a punishment, like he was angry at me for something I couldn’t name.

If anyone had any reason for anger, it was me. The Blue Angels had come to me. I’d put my career on the line. And Boxer was the one who’d taken a bullet.

He could’ve died.

I grabbed the back of his head, sinking my fingers into his hair. He wasn’t going to break. I had no reason to be gentle. Even when he was injured, Boxer was stronger than most men.

He rammed into me harder, without mercy. “You shut me out.”

We glared at one another as our mouths and words clashed. I bit his lip, tasting blood, tasting life.

“What is it you’re still hiding from me? Because I know there’s something.”

I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want him to see what I was truly feeling in that moment, so I closed my eyes and gave him everything I was feeling through touch instead of brutally honest words. My passion, my rage, my terror that we were all just one moment away from death and my fear that even though I was a doctor, I wasn’t God, and I had no control over anything.

So I let him use my body as a battlefield, and did the same to his.

We collided against the bathroom mirror, and I heard a crack. Boxer pulled me away and the mirror fell to the floor. Glass shattered and littered the ground.

Neither of us stopped to assess the damage.

I wanted it to be like this forever.

My heart beat with adrenaline and lust.

I knew what it truly meant to be alive in his arms, and for the first time in my life, I could finally admit what I’d been too damn scared to face.

I was in love with Boxer.

After my body shook and quaked and my orgasm nearly ripped me apart, I pressed my forehead to Boxer’s shoulder while my breathing returned to normal.

His arms tightened, and he just held me.

It took me a moment to realize he hadn’t slid out of me. He hadn’t come yet, and he was still hard.

I squirmed against him, wanting him to move again. I was primed, ready for more.

“Linden, stop,” he said, his voice low.

“No,” I begged. “Please, Boxer.”

His hands swept up my body to cradle my head, and he forced me to stare into his eyes. And when he began to move again, thrusting softly at first and then harder, he wouldn’t let me go.

He wouldn’t let me hide.

We stared into each other’s eyes as I clenched around him, another wave of ecstasy pouring through my body. He slammed into me one final time and with a hearty groan, he came.

I placed a hand on his chest and felt the thundering of his heart.

While he’d been inside me, I’d had to stop myself from screaming the words. Saying them out loud to him would feel like a vow. Like a true commitment, one I wouldn’t be able to walk away from. I was living on borrowed time before I told him.

He stared at me for a long moment, and then a veil went down over his eyes, shielding any vulnerability he might have been inclined to let me see.

I hurt him when I emotionally pulled away. But I wasn’t ready to face it and all it would entail.

Boxer eased out of me. He grimaced when he reached down to pull up his pants. He didn’t bother buttoning his shirt before leaving.

I looked at the shattered remains of the mirror on the bathroom floor, wondering why I destroyed, when all I wanted to do was heal.

* * *

Boxer wasn’t in the living room when I came downstairs. I assumed that meant he was gone. Most of the Blue Angels were absent, too. A few remained—the young prospects and the newly patched in members.

“Hey, Doc, think fast,” South Paw said. He lobbed a set of car keys at me which I caught in one hand.

I frowned. “These look like my keys. To my car.”

South Paw grinned. “They are.”

“But how did—these were in my purse last night.” I blinked. “I don’t get what’s happening.”

“I took your keys from your purse and drove with Crow to the hospital. We grabbed your car and brought it back for you.”

“Was this part of the prospect hazing?” I demanded. “Because I don’t know if I subscribe to that brand of torture.”

“Happy to be tortured,” South Paw said with a grin.

“Thanks, South Paw. I appreciate it. Have you seen Boxer?”

“He hitched a ride with Colt. They had shit to do.”

I nodded, my heart heavy. He could’ve waited to see me off. He didn’t, but I didn’t blame him.

I waved to Acid, and he gave me a perfunctory chin nod. Reap was more effusive with his goodbye and gave me a quick yet strong hug.

“Glad to have you aboard, Doc,” he said with a wink.

Was he letting me know that I was welcome in their lives as Boxer’s woman, or was this because he expected me to patch them up in the future?

I decided not to ask.

The day was bright without a cloud in the sky, and I hardly noticed the chill.

My heart—and my mind—were with Boxer. I didn’t like how we’d left things. Even as lovers, our last interaction had made me feel like we were adversaries.

Was I doomed forever, unable to open up?

I was just getting settled into my car when my phone rang.

Peyton.

Before I picked up, I took a deep breath. “Hello?”

“So…” Peyton began.

“So?”

“Why did a biker who wasn’t your boyfriend show up where you worked last night?”

“You’re going right for it, aren’t you?”

Crow and South Paw were on the porch, watching me. I waved at them, and they waved back. I shoved the key into the ignition and turned on the engine.

“You never texted to tell me you weren’t coming to Tony’s, so I know something happened. So, what happened?”

“I can’t tell you,” I said quietly.

“You can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t,” I insisted. “I would if I could, I swear.”

She paused and then sighed. “Just tell me if everyone is okay? That guy looked pretty intense.”

“Zip,” I said, supplying his name. “And yeah, everyone’s fine.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you fine?”

I leaned over and pressed my forehead to the steering wheel. “I’m fine. But I think I’m crazy.”

“Why are you crazy?”

“For sticking around. I mean, Boxer’s a biker. That’s asking for trouble. I’m stupid. Aren’t I?”

Her light chuckle came through the phone. “No. You’re in love.”

I sighed. “Same thing.”

“You didn’t even deny it.”

“Who are we kidding at this point?”

“You know what I think?”

“What do you think?” I repeated.

“I think you should stop fighting what you think you should do, and instead you should follow your heart.”

“Follow my heart.” I sighed. “Yeah. If only I was good at that. Peyton?”

“Yeah?”

“When you and Tom would fight, and you were the instigator, how did you apologize? How did you make amends?”

She fell silent for a moment. “You guys had a fight?”

“Not a fight, per se. Just a sort of…I don’t know. A disagreement, I guess.”

“Whenever I felt I was at fault, and sometimes when I wasn’t, I always made him food. When you apologize, be sincere, then feed him. It works every time.”