Page 30 of Swerve (Boosted Hearts 1)

I was curled around Ruby, her smaller body wrapped in mine, shaking as she cried silently in my arms. I didn’t want to move, didn’t think I would even if the walls started to fall down around us. Her face was swollen, cheek cut, I’d barely recognized her beautiful face when I walked in. I was going to end Scott’s life for this. When I found him, and I would find him, I’d make him suffer like Ruby had suffered.

I held her tighter.

She’d been tense when I lay down with her, but she was relaxed into me now. Because I knew what she needed, what we both needed. Of course I did. Ruby was my girl. She’d been my girl since she was six years old. That relationship, and what it meant, had changed over the years. From big brother and protector to something else as we’d gotten older. A mix of the purest, most innocent kind of love, now all twisted and wrapped in a lust that’d had the ability to burn me alive, which had brought us to the fucked-up place we found ourselves in now.

I knew Ruby better than anyone on this planet. Which is why I knew she’d been trying to hold it together, to not show anyone how she was really feeling. I fucking knew she’d been lying in here afraid, and so damn alone. No one could ease that fear like me. No one. My intention when I climbed up here with her was to remind her of a time when she could count on me, how safe I’d made her feel, to drown out the noise in her head, the memories. She used to try and catch me singing all the time, but I always stopped as soon as she pulled off the headphones. So, I’d sung for her, used music to quiet her mind like my mom did.

But instead of just helping her, a lot of shit had become clear to me. Fucking crystal.

Ruby was mine.

And there was nothing I could do to change that. I didn’t want to change that. So, I needed to stop fighting it and finally claim what was mine. I tried, but keeping her at a distance wasn’t working. I wasn’t going to do it anymore. I needed to protect her, look after her, do what I should have been doing for a long time.

I’d pushed her away, twice, and both times had resulted in her getting hurt. That would never happen again. She needed me. No fucking way would I allow her to be in a situation like the one she’d been in with Scott ever again. I was done fucking around, literally and figuratively. I’d kept the ugly in my life, inside me and around me, away from her all these years. I could still do that.

I just had to keep a lid on my shit. Keep my relationship with her separate from the dark place inside me.

“I’m not going anywhere, baby,” I said against the smooth skin of her throat. “I won’t let you down again.” My voice cracked on the last word, the conviction I felt clear. I hoped like fuck she heard it too, believed it. I’d had her trust and I’d thrown it away, like some scared asshole. I wasn’t a slave to the emotions swirling—fuck, raging inside me—and I refused to let them swallow me whole. And I could do it; I could fight the devil on my back for Ruby.

She didn’t know it yet, but things between us had changed, in a way that was permanent. There was no gray anymore. What we had, it was black and white.

I was her man and she was my woman.

The way it was always meant to be.

She twisted toward me, giving me her eyes for the first time since I walked in here. They were bright, glistening in the moonlight streaming through the window. The sight knocked the wind from my lungs like a strike to the sternum.

A frown creased her brow. “What are you talking about? You didn’t let me down . . .” She blinked and a fresh wave of tears ran down her bruised cheeks, slicing right through me.

Ruby didn’t cry. The fact she was now, that she was doing it in front of me, just reaffirmed what needed to happen between us. She’d been faking it, locking it all down as long as I had. I was done, and so was Ruby.

“You’re in here because of me,” I told her.

Her eyelids drifted shut. “I knew you’d do this.” She shook her head, lids lifting again, bright blue eyes back on me. “You were right . . .” She swallowed hard, turning away from me, staring out the window. “I was playing stupid games with you . . . I just . . . I missed us . . .” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I went about everything the wrong way, and yeah, I kept Scott around because I knew you hated him. I knew it made you crazy that he was my roommate, so I kept him around. I ignored the signs, that he was getting deeper into drugs, the weird way he’d been acting.” She shook her head again. “This is not on you, Neco. This . . .” She motioned to her face, the damage, the bruises. “ . . . May as well be self-inflicted. God . . . what you must think of me . . .”

“Stop,” I growled. She thought she was coming clean, admitting that shit to me. What I heard was something else entirely. What she was really saying was she’d needed me, plain and simple, had needed me for a long fucking time. I’d fought it, shoved her away, denied it, so she’d gotten what she needed from me the only way she knew how, or tried to. “You called me, you needed me, and I’d turned my fucking phone off because . . . shit, I thought staying away from you was the right thing to do. I was wrong, Ruby, so fucking wrong, and you paid the price for that mistake.” I brushed her hair back from the side of her face. “That changes now, you understand? Everything changes.”

She twisted again, looking up at me, confusion clear in her eyes. She didn’t get it, and now wasn’t the time to fill her in. I wanted her to concentrate on getting better, nothing else. Not yet.

But fuck me, looking at her battered face, knowing what she went through? I wanted to get down on my knees and beg her to forgive me, to trust me like she used to, to promise me she’d never do anything crazy or reckless again.

“Neco . . .”

I shook my head. “Close your eyes, baby girl. Time to sleep. We’ll talk later.”

For once she didn’t argue and turned back to the window, eyes closing on a soft sigh. “Are you staying for a little while?”

“Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

Ruby

I dreamed I was at the zoo, walking around, looking at the animals. I stopped by a lion exhibit and two lions stood face to face, growling at each other . . .

I startled awake.

Not lions.