How could he sound so bitter about that?
It was as if he wasn't even talking to me anymore. “A week later, he came back to base with a cast over his leg, claiming he was ready to get back to work. They searched him, like they did for everyone entering the base, but they didn't check him well enough. My friend had his leg amputated and had hid a bomb in the cast, knowing they wouldn't check it. He walked into the busy mess hall during lunch and detonated. Dozens of good men were killed or wounded.”
The kindling popped, making my pulse skip.
He whispered, “I saved the man that went on to kill my comrades.”
Ronin strangled the plastic bottle absently. I imagined what he was seeing in the embers. Was it himself burning away, or his friends?
“It wasn't your fault,” I said gently.
He still didn't look at me. Across his lips, a tormented smile peeled free. “I was at the gate that day when he came back to base, I vouched for him because I trusted him. Trust...” His chuckle was black. “They sent me home with an 'honorable' discharge for it. Saints and sinners.”
This revelation was opening my mind, and my heart. I was so busy with my own suffering, I'd never considered what tragedies a man like Ronin had endured. The hard claws of empathy ravaged my guts. Suddenly, everything about this biker made sense to me.
Reaching out, I clasped his forearm. A magnetic rush slid between us, sparking our awareness. I saw it happen for him, too, those gorgeous irises focusing on my surprised face.
“You couldn't have known,” I said softly, earnestly. “But your good deed isn't wasted just because another man chose a terrible path.”
Ronin's stare was intense, pushing me down into the earth. “Here I am, a killer, standing by a campfire with a beautiful woman, while better men—brothers, even—are below ground somewhere because of my choices. Does that seem fair to you?”
Of course it didn't seem fair, but since when was the world fair? If I knew anything at all, it was that life didn't care where you weighed in on the scales. My own life was proof of that.
But somehow, faced with his dilemma, I couldn't let such a cynical thing be said.
I clutched his hand, squeezing. “Maybe you still have some saintly things to do.”
In the hard lighting, the corners of his lips looked deeper, lusher. His skin was crimson, like he'd stolen the heat of the fire, letting it dance over his flesh where it belonged.
Sliding my fingers to his wrist, I noticed how true that was. Ronin was burning up, a beacon that called to me the way nothing else ever had.
I didn't know if I was a helpless moth, fluttering towards a candle... or if we were both just creatures crashing to our own destruction together.
That time, I was the one to kiss him.
Outside the diner, he'd tasted like fresh air, freedom and ice. It had been a refreshing thing, waking me up from my toes and onward. This kiss, though... I swear the flames slid out of him, crawling over my tongue until I was sweating.
I wanted to say something, anything. To ask him why we were doing this, what he was after, why he was helping me or following me or doing any of the things he had. Ronin hadn't lied, men were after his blood. I'd witnessed that tonight.
Being out in the open with me was a risk to him.
So why was he bothering?
What were we now?
And what would we become?
Our noses brushed; I pulled back, seeking enough oxygen to settle my floating brain. He made me light, airy. Only the weight of my heart kept me from flying into the night sky.
“Wait,” I whispered against his teeth.
Wrapping his fingers in my loose hair, he forced me closer. “No. No more waiting, darlin'. I've been waiting too long already.”
Trembling, I slid my chest against his, heartbeat pounding madly. “It's only been a few hours since we first kissed. That's not very long.”
Capturing the nape of my neck, Ronin grazed his teeth down my throat. My goosebumps became mountains. Tilting my chin back, he kissed my jugular—felt the way it drummed. “Flora, since this started, I've measured my existence in borrowed time. A few hours might as well be a lifetime, and in this lifetime... you're all I can think about.”
Everything around me shrank until I could see only his smile. That wonderful, ever present smile.
Bending into me, he said, “I can't wait any longer.”
He was speaking in a way I couldn't fully grasp. The film cloaking my skull was too thick, or maybe it was our constant running from danger, but...
I thought what he'd said was the most romantic thing I'd ever heard.
Reaching for his shirt, I pulled it up. My gasp had him smirking along the side of my jaw. “Don't faint on me yet,” he said. “That comes later.”
My tongue was too thick to make words. Ronin was cut like a gem, rows of muscles leading across his torso, everything heightened by the swirls of black ink and occasional ridge of a scar.