Kristen Ashley - Raid

“We’ll go to a movie,” he stated.

“Great. I like movies.” At least that wasn’t a lie.

He moved into me.

I moved back.

He stopped, his brows snapping together. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I should never drink red wine,” I shared.

Another lie. I loved red wine and it loved me, though in abundance it could make me maudlin, but I was three whole glasses away from maudlin.

Something else was making me maudlin.

“It always does a number on me,” I kept lying when Raiden didn’t move or speak. “But I just can’t seem to eat a steak without it.”

“Next time, beer,” he said.

Like there’d be a next time.

Raiden still didn’t move.

I didn’t either.

This lasted some time.

God! He wanted to “end this”? Why didn’t he end it?

“I should probably get some ibuprofen,” I told him on a prompt for him to leave.

“Doesn’t feel good, leavin’ you alone and feelin’ like shit,” he replied, and seriously, seriously, what was it with him?

He could just go.

Why didn’t he just go?

“I’ll be fine.” More lying.

“All right, baby,” he murmured.

I closed my eyes.

Baby.

“Hanna?”

I opened them. “Goodnight.”

He held my eyes and his were searching. Then he lifted a hand and tucked my hair behind my ear.

I felt his sweet touch in my scalp, down my spine and the tingles it caused exploded along the small of my back.

And there he was, Raiden Ulysses Miller, in my foyer, tucking my hair behind my ear, faking concern about my fake headache and faking that he was into me.

He wanted to fake it?

Fine.

He could fake it.

I’d give him a doozy of a chance to fake it.

And at the same time, I was going to take my shot, my last chance, the only one I’d ever have.

And I was going to go for the gusto.

I lifted my hand, wrapped my fingers around his bicep, leaned in and went up on my toes.

I pressed my lips to his.

They felt great.

So great, I couldn’t take more. That was all I was could do. That took all the courage I had left. I didn’t want to know how good it could be and never have it again, even if it was fake.

So that was it.

But Raiden…

He was good at faking.

The master.

I knew this when his arm instantly sliced along my lower back. He hauled me into his hard body and his mouth opened over mine. Mine automatically opened under his and his tongue slid inside.

His tongue felt better, tasted divine, and I pressed into him, tangling mine with his.

My last chance.

He was giving it to me.

Suddenly, I didn’t care if it was fake.

Suddenly, I didn’t care if I’d never have it again.

I had it now.

I was going for it.

I tilted my head and offered him everything.

He slanted his. I heard the soft “flunf” of the afghan falling to the floor and his free hand drove into my hair, fisting. I felt pain that should have felt bad but felt oh-so-good spike across my scalp and I pressed deeper into him, giving more.

He took it.

My hands slid up his arms, his shoulders and finally, finally, I had his hair sliding through my fingers.

It was thick.

It was silky.

It was perfect.

He shuffled me back. I hit the door, the door hit the wall and he pressed in.

I pressed up, held on and kept giving.

Raiden kept taking.

It was the best kiss of my life.

It could have been the best kiss in history.

It took superhuman effort to remember it wasn’t real. To tear my mouth from his, wrench myself out of his arms and step out of reach.

Lost momentarily, I lifted my hand to touch my mouth, my breathing heavy. Then I lifted my eyes to see his head turned toward me, his eyes on me burning in a way that made me burn, everywhere.

Really, a great actor.

Tactical error, taking my last chance.

Now I had to get this done.

I rounded him, crouched where he dropped the afghan, picked it up and moved to stand at the other side of the door, holding it out to him.

“Drive safe home,” I said and he stared at me.

“Come again?” he whispered and there was something sinister in that whisper that scared the heck out of me.

But I ignored my fear, jiggled the afghan at him and repeated, “Drive safe home.”

He approached me and I felt my body stiffen from head-to-toe.

Raiden didn’t miss it. I knew it when his frame jerked to a wooden halt and his eyes bored into mine.

“Talk to me,” he ordered, his voice now low and rumbling, but also strangely rough and commanding.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow when you call. Now I really need to get some medication and lie down.”

He lifted a hand and curled it around the side of my neck, dipping his face close to mine.

“Now isn’t the time to start playing games, Hanna,” he warned quietly.

Was he serious?

He was saying that to me?

I looked him straight in the eye and declared, “No games, Raiden. It’s just a headache.” More like heartache. “With me, you get what you see, that’s it. No mystery. No nothing. Just me.”

“You aren’t you,” he told me.

“You don’t know me,” I returned.

Raiden went silent, but he didn’t move away.

Then he murmured, “Fair enough.”

Thank God.

He slid his hand to the back of my neck, pulling me close as his head lifted up and he spoke, “You kiss like that when you got a headache, honey,” he touched his lips to my forehead and they moved there as he finished, “lookin’ forward to havin’ your mouth when you don’t.”

Liar.

Liar.

Liar.

I decided not to respond.

I also decided not to allow myself to think about how wonderful it felt to have Raiden Miller kiss my forehead.

His hand slid to my jaw and his chin tipped so he could catch my eyes.

“‘Night, Hanna,” he said softly.

“Good-bye, Raiden,” I replied.

His eyes flashed at my words, but his face moved in. He touched his lips to mine, moved back, took the afghan from me and sauntered out the door.

Keeping up appearances, I stood in it, and when he swung in his Jeep I waved.

Raiden did not wave back.

Then I closed the door and locked it. I switched the outside lights off and turned off the lights that I’d left on in the foyer. That done, I dashed up the stairs as best I could because I was also tugging at the buckles and straps of my sandals to get them off while I went.

I hit the bedroom, tossed my shoes on the bed and turned on the lamp on my nightstand.

Only then did I hear the Jeep pull away.

He waited until I’d made it upstairs and he knew I was settling, getting ready for bed before he drove away.

That was sweet.

God, I wished he was real.

I dashed back down the stairs and grabbed the phone in the hall. I ran through the dining room into the kitchen, snapped on the light and found the phonebook.

I flipped through it and found the number for the Sherriff’s Police.

Then I called it.

Raid

Raid walked down the sidewalk to the shiny, black SUV parked on the side of the road in town. He pulled open the door and angled in.

Blue and red lights flashed into the cab as they did the same outside, illuminating the street.

“You hear the police band?” Tucker Creed asked.

Raid kept his eyes to the three squad cars and one K-9 SUV all angled in around Bodhi’s bike shop. Then he shifted his gaze down the street where, at a distance of a little over a block, two more squads and another K-9 unit were angled outside the gift shop.

“Raid, you hear me?” Creed asked, and Raid cut his eyes to his partner.

“I heard it,” he growled.

“She called it in,” Creed told him something he already knew.

“I said I heard it,” Raid repeated.

“You know how she knew to call it in? You said she was clueless,” Creed asked, and Raid’s eyes moved back to the flashing squads.

He knew.

She’d played him.

Sweet, shy, cute, goofy Hanna Boudreaux didn’t go out for a breath of fresh air to clear her head and try to get rid of a burgeoning headache like she told him she had.

She’d been the one he heard open the ladies room door.

She’d overheard him.

She’d covered it, came back looking freaked, lied that it was a headache and then spent the next thirty minutes acting jacked because she was freaked that her friends were fucking her over.

Then, minutes after he left her at her house, she’d made a call and blown their whole fucking, eleven month operation.

“This lead’s dead,” Creed declared, and Raid looked back at him. “They got both that Bodhi kid and his girl in custody. May luck out and they’ll flip for the police, but this guy pullin’ the strings, doubt those two goofballs got the breadcrumbs to lay that trail so they’ll probably only give the cops shit we already got.”

None of this was wrong.

Creed kept going, “Headin’ back down to Phoenix. Sylvie’s already pissed I’ve been up here this long. Says I need to haul my ass back to the valley and play Daddy to Jesse, and next time it’s her turn to try and track down drug supplying whackjobs.”

Tucker Creed had been coming up, on and off, a day here, a week there when things got hot, for the last eleven months.

Whenever it got hot it eventually fizzled out, so he went home to his family.

Raid had met Creed’s wife once. She was a relatively new wife, a new mom, but like her husband, she was a seasoned private investigator and ass kicker.

She was the ballsiest bitch he’d ever met in his life.

He’d liked her immediately.

Sylvie Creed had a baby boy named Jesse who she didn’t like leaving, but she also didn’t like her husband leaving. Further, they strangely, considering both of them were badass, consummate professionals and skilled, really hated being apart in a way you could almost taste how much they hated it.

Therefore, the longer this operation went, the more trips Creed took north, the more impatient Sylvie became.

And she was getting antsy down in Phoenix looking after a kid when she’d prefer to be in Colorado cracking heads with her husband, and she wasn’t all fired up about the fact that Creed got to have all the fun.

“You gonna call this shit in to Knight or you want me to do it?” Raid asked.

“You do it,” Creed answered, then his lips twitched. “You gonna wait until tomorrow to lay into your new babe for jacking up our action or are you headin’ there now?”

“She overheard me talkin’. We didn’t say much. She has no clue about the operation.”

Creed smiled. “So you gonna wait until tomorrow to lay your new babe or are you headin’ there now?”

Oh, he was heading there now.

It was fucking uncool she overheard him, came to the table, lied her ass off then pulled that tease shit at her house—whatever the fuck that was about—and called the Sherriff.

He had no idea what was in her head.

He was fucking going to find out.

Then he was going to drag her ass to her bedroom, which he hoped to God was as appealing as the porch and foyer of her house, and then “lay his new babe”.

Thoroughly.

She deserved a spanking for this shit.

But they were new. He had to break her into that.

Raid didn’t answer Creed’s question.

Instead, he asked, “You headin’ to DIA now?”

“Hotel, book a flight, then I’m out.”

“I’ll call it in to Knight, then I’m goin’ to Hanna’s. I’ll update you if we get a new lead and we need you or Sylvie to come back up. Though, advice. I’d throw your wife a bone. Knight says she’s threatening, we don’t find this asshole, then she’s gonna come up and do it on her own so she can stop livin’ the life of a woman without her baby daddy.”

“Right,” Creed grunted, his lips curved up.

“Later,” Raid said.

“Later,” Creed replied.

Raid threw open the door and knifed out. He walked the three blocks to his Jeep, swung in and headed to Hanna’s house.