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“I try.” He kissed the top of my head, and my heart skipped a beat. “Should I call you Gabriel?”
“As long as you don’t do it around anyone else. Should I call you Ri like Rhys does?”
“Only if… Only on special occasions.”
I wanted to ask what he was going to say after the if, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to find out.
24
ROGUE
“What are we going to do about this… about us?” Ghost tensed, and I immediately regretted asking the question out loud.
“Do we have to decide that now?”
I let out a long breath. “I don’t know.”
“Could we just enjoy things right now for a few more days.”
“You’re going to be here for a few more days?”
“Yes. What we did this morning was just the start. I’m not done yet.”
“Just don’t…” I grinned. “Don’t ghost me, okay?”
He rose up on his arms and looked down at me. “I know you didn’t just say that.”
I gasped when his cock slipped from my body. I was going to be sore as hell, but I really didn’t care. I wasn’t sorry any of this had happened. I doubted myself right up until the moment I’d looked across the pasture at him. When he stepped out from behind the tree, I knew right then that I was going to fight for this.
I’d jumped to conclusions and listened to what that asshole agent said. The man clearly had it out for Ghost. I’d already known that from the way he’d acted in our planning meeting, but it hurt so badly to feel like what had happened to me with Teddy was happening all over again.
But as soon as Ghost touched me, he’d felt more real than the fear and hesitation. I’d let myself fall too far to get back up. I was committed to this path now. I needed to find out where we could take things, and that meant I was going to have to tell my brothers, eventually, but not now, not today. Probably not tomorrow or the next day either. But one day.
When Ghost sat back and tucked himself back into his pants, I reached for mine so I could pull them on. “Can we stay here for a little while?”
“Here in the field?”
“Yeah. I like it out here. Since I was a little kid, lying in the grass and looking up at the clouds has been one of my favorite things to do.”
“Then we’ll stay.” His smile warmed my heart.
Once I was dressed—if someone headed out this way unexpectedly, I didn’t want to have my dick out even if it would be obvious what we’ve been up to—I lay back and studied the sky. Ghost lay beside me. I reached for his hand, and he threaded our fingers together.
After a few moments of silence, I said, “Tell me something nobody else knows about you.”
Ghost remained silent for several moments. I thought he was going to ignore me, but finally, in a voice smaller and softer than I’d ever heard from him, he said, “My older brother tried to kill me when I was fifteen, but I was stronger than him by then. I beat the shit out of him, and he left town and never came back.”
My stomach churned at the thought of what that must have been like for Ghost. I knew all too well how it felt when someone who was supposed to love you hurt you instead. “You didn’t tell anyone?”
“No. I never said a word. My mother would have blamed me, no matter what I said. As long as she believed he’d just up and runoff, I had a chance of getting a little bit of the affection she’d always reserved only for him.”
“Wow. I figured you probably had a better childhood than mine, but no, you didn’t. Do you have any other siblings?”
“I had an older sister, but by that time she had run away too. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to leave, but I wished she’d stayed so I had an ally. She sent me messages occasionally, but I don’t know where she is now or if she’s even still alive.”
I already hated his sister. Why would she abandon him? “My father was a son of a bitch, but at least I had Rhys, and Grant moved in with us when I was ten. I could always count on them.”
“That must have been nice.”
We gazed at the sky for a little while, then he said, “It’s your turn.”
“What?”
“What’s something you’ve never told anyone?”
My heart pounded so hard I heard the blood rushing in my ears. It drowned out everything else. Did I dare say what came to mind? Was I actually going to confess to attempted murder. Ghost was an FBI agent for God’s sake.
Despite the risk, I let the words spill out. “I would have killed my father. I went looking for him with the intention of shooting him and getting rid of the body. Rhys had made me promise to stay home until I graduated from high school. I could do that, but not with my father living in the house.”
