I gasped, feeling the touch buzz through my entire body like a fuse. To my horror, he pulled back with a groan and slammed the door closed before I could even react to his absence and the sudden shock of chilly air that filled the void he left. When he plopped into the seat, he swatted my hand away as I reached over to touch his denim clad thigh. “Stop that,” he said. “Before I stop trying to control this situation.”
“But Ryker,” I complained. “Why don’t you want me to touch you?”
“I want you to touch me. Not alcohol.” I flinched back, snarling at him as I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Of course. You have morals when it’s convenient for you. Taking me hostage and locking me in your home was acceptable. Putting me in a skimpy nightgown and putting your boxer covered dick-monster against my ass was peachy. But touching my freaking boob when I want it crosses a line. Got it.”
He smiled at my side, reaching a hand over to rest on my jean clad thigh. I immediately cursed the thick fabric from blocking the sensation of his skin on mine. I grabbed that offending hand, guiding it to the apex of my thighs in a desperate bid for friction. “Just fuck me,” I begged. The sound was needy and desperate, a combination I didn’t think I’d ever been before. I had no clue what the man had done to me, but I just wanted relief.
I wanted to know why his dick was a monster.
It earned me a swift swat against my core that made me cry out in shock. “Do you have any idea how much I want to throw you in the backseat and give you more than you bargained for? Stop trying to tempt me into something we’ll both regret, and be thankful that the long game is more important to me than getting inside you.”
I unbuckled my seat belt, diving across the center console to put myself in his lap as he stared up at me with wide-eyed surprise. My hands went to his belt, flicking it open before he stopped me with a tight grip on my wrists and tugged my hands behind my back. “We don’t have to get in the backseat,” I giggled.
He shook his head, trying to ignore me as I ground my center down against him. “Calla, I swear to fuck—”
“Do it.” I could almost feel myself sobering in the face of his control, but something in me wanted to test him. Wanted to push him to the limits and see just how far that control and the desire not to hurt me could be pushed. It was a dangerous game to play, but somehow seemed too important to our future.
“Take off my belt,” Ryker ordered and released my hands. I went for it immediately, pulling it through the loops and not for once stopping to consider exactly why it would need to be off.
As quickly as I’d put myself in his lap, he deposited me back into my seat and buckled me in. I stared at the belt in my hands in confusion, then widened my eyes as he wrestled my wrists together and used it to secure them together. “Ryker!” I glared at him and struggled, but the belt wouldn’t let loose no matter how much I pulled.
“You’re adorable when you’re pouting,” he said, and I leveled him with my fiercest glare as I tried to shove his hand off my thigh.
“Fine then. Leave me alone. I’m too drunk for your shit.”
He snorted a laugh, putting the car into gear. “Sunshine, I’ll never leave you alone.” Those fingers tightened on my thigh like the sweetest torment.
I’d kill him in his sleep.
That was decided.
✽✽✽
It didn’t seem fair that my head throbbed the next morning. It didn’t seem fair that I would be punished continuously. Nothing about me and alcohol was fair.
The foggy memories of Ryker holding my hair back while I threw up made me groan, and I thanked whatever God there might have been that it was Saturday at the least. Ryker wasn’t in bed, despite the early hour.
It was so early I knew even the kids wouldn’t be awake. I ran down the hallway, peeking my head in their doors to make sure they were both sleeping in their beds.
When the sight of them exactly where they should be comforted me, my shoulders sagged in relief and I made my way back to the master. The pain medicine and water bottle on the nightstand beckoned me over, and I swallowed both pills with a huge gulp. I tried not to think about the fact that it was sweet or that he’d taken absurdly excellent care of me in my drunken stupor the night before.
I was fairly certain I’d tried to cuddle him like he was a teddy bear while the kids watched. I was setting an impeccable example for encouraging my kids to keep Ryker at a distance.
I didn’t know where Ryker had gone, but I was in no hurry to go find him. Especially not when my cheeks flushed in embarrassment. A glance in the mirror confirmed just how much of a hot mess I was, with my wildly tangled hair and sallow skin that made me look just as sick as I felt. With a groan, I started up the shower and went to brush the taste of my hangover out of my mouth.
I’d already been hungover by the time Ryker tucked me into bed the evening before, and it seemed like if someone could be hungover at night they should get a break from the pounding head the next morning.
But not me.
I never could handle my alcohol.
By the time I stepped into the shower, I already felt more human. Drowning myself in the scalding water helped even more, despite how much it hurt to work the conditioner into the knots of my hair.
When I finally felt like my head wouldn’t explode the second I stepped out of the shower, I turned it off and went through my skin care routine. I stalled to my best ability, taking my time with tugging a comfortable dress over my head. After the jeans the day before, I was in no hurry to wear something so constricting. Even my yoga pants felt like they’d be a mistake.
I knew the moment I walked out of the master that the kids were still asleep. The sun had only just started to rise as I got dressed, and the house was mostly silent except for a subtle, rhythmic thumping from the loft space. I walked toward it, thinking I’d find Ryker downstairs, but when I peeked over the edge he was nowhere to be found.
The sound of metal clanking came through the open door to the empty office as I passed, and I stepped in to look around. Around the corner where there should have been a wall, there was nothing but a balcony overlooking wherever the sound came from.
Walking toward it, I tried to stay inconspicuous as I peered over the edge. The last thing I needed was to watch Ryker commit a crime or something and be seen doing it.
I didn’t expect to see his body folded in half, hanging from a bar as he slid his knees over it and hooked them to support himself.
Once that was done, he dropped his torso down and let it dangle for a moment. Shirtless, his muscles seemed to ripple with every subtle movement he made and his grey sweatpants clung to his hips. He kept his arms in line with his torso, using nothing but those abs that flexed like they were angry to do a crunch as he hung there. When he came back down, the motion was slow, controlled. Like everything he pushed his body to do was his choice, he owned every movement he made. He wouldn’t let something like gravity take away his choice on when and how he lowered. He did it again. And again. Droplets of sweat dripped down over his abs and chest, and I couldn’t remember there ever being a time that I thought sweat was sexy.
Until Ryker.
I let my eyes drift away from the half-naked man who proved all too tempting with every day that passed, looking at all the other workout apparatuses in the room. It was massive, at least half the size as the garage had been. The industrial nature of the gym was more apparent than in the house, but he made it work in a way that looked like he used the bones of the warehouse to exercise.
My eyes snapped back to him when he wrapped his hands around the bar, pulling his knees free and grasping it tightly. The change in position meant I stared at his back, at the intensely masculine lines of corded muscle along his shoulders and upper back and the beautiful ink of the angel tattooed on his skin. He hung for a moment and then swung his entire body up. When the bar lifted off the posts at the side, I panicked for him. But it jumped up to the next groove and snapped into place. He con
tinued on, one after another until he reached the top, climbing the posts with nothing but the bar in his hands on the pole and the strength in his body. Then he came back down, and when he reached the bottom post, he dropped to his feet and spun to face me, those blue eyes smoldering into mine in a way I knew without a doubt, that he’d known the exact moment I’d started watching him.
Fucking showoff.
It shouldn’t be possible for a man to be such a beast, for muscles to tempt innocent women against their better judgment.
I would not explore the grooves of his abs with my tongue.
“Why don’t you come down and join me, Tesoro?” he asked, his voice coming out with a seductive rasp and barely sounding breathless. Definitely a showoff.
“I’m not exactly dressed for death defying workout stunts today, thanks,” I shot back. He grinned at me before climbing the stairs that curled around the edge of the balcony and nabbing me off the steps to haul me down into the gym. “I just showered! You’re all icky,” I screeched. He ignored me, carrying me over to the bar he’d been climbing like a spider monkey and wiping it down with a rag. I laughed in his face.
“You’re stronger than you think,” he grunted, and he touched his arms to the biceps where my sleeveless dress left them bare. “Start with the low one.” Those hands of his drifted from my arms to my waist, grasping me there tightly. “I won’t ever let you fall, Sunshine,” he murmured. He stayed an arm’s length away from me, undoubtedly giving my body the space it needed to maneuver in my misguided attempt to somehow move a fucking pole, but I reached up to grasp it regardless of how foolish it would be. He lifted me until my fingers brushed the pole, and then I wrapped my palms around it. Once I’d gripped it, he released me, stepping around to the back, and I hoped to all that was holy that my dress wasn’t up around my waist.
If it was, he’d have a faceful of ass, and that was the last thing I needed.
I could feel his hands hovering just underneath me, and something in me realized that he truly meant it when he said he wouldn’t let me fall. It didn’t matter that his hands weren’t on me, or that he didn’t support me physically.
He’d catch me when I inevitably fell.
I wondered if I was losing my mind. I had to be, but I took a deep breath and swung my body in on itself in a crunch. I felt the moment the pole left the groove, felt the scrape of metal on metal and fought back the instinct to drop my grip.
There was another clash as the pole slid into the second groove, and I nearly lost my grip anyway. “I told you,” Ryker’s deep voice inserted behind me with a chuckle.
I laughed in response, unable to believe that I’d done something that seemed so superhuman. It didn’t matter that the first and second grooves were the closest of them all, that the gaps got bigger and bigger gradually as you climbed.
It was a victory either way.
Swinging my body for the next groove, I winced when I felt the pole leave the groove too soon. I hadn’t put enough effort in, hadn’t gotten the momentum I needed to make the next gap. The pole clattered against the side posts, slipping from my hands as the clang vibrated through me. I screamed softly as I fell, but like he promised, Ryker snatched me out of the air.
He caught me in a single arm, cradling me so I never touched the ground as he curled his upper body over mine protectively and grabbed the pole with his other hand when it nearly hit him in the head.
I clung to his shoulder desperately until he set me to my feet.
“You’re okay,” he murmured, and the pole dropped to the floor with a clang. “I should go shower. I have to go out for a while again today.” He made no move to pull away from me, no move to separate our faces in the slightest even though I could feel his breath on my face.
The minty freshness of it tickled my nose and something about it penetrated the haze of the day before. Something was familiar. “Thank you,” I said awkwardly. “For catching me, and for taking care of me last night. I shouldn’t have been drinking. It was stupid.”
“I meant it when I said you were safe with me. You will always be safe with me, Sunshine. You can drink and not worry that I’ll violate you. Even when you want me to,” he said, and his voice tapered off into a husky chuckle. “Though maybe you should worry now that you’re sober.” I was fairly confident he was joking, but when one of his hands drifted down to where my dress had ridden up my thigh and he trailed his calloused hands over the sensitive skin there, I knew he wasn’t joking at all. It pebbled with goosebumps in the wake of his touch, and I shivered as temptation slid through me. I’d never felt muscles like Ryker’s, never touched such flawless skin. My hand slid around his collarbone, touching the space over his heart on the side of his chest free from tattoos.
There was very little hair on him, and I couldn’t blame him for that decision. What was the point in such beautiful artwork inked on your skin if you couldn’t see it?
“Will you take us to Matteo’s again?” I asked, and the thought of my kids going to the prison of that house just felt too soon. Like they could never understand why we went places where armed guards patrolled the property. We were so far out of our comfort zone; I didn’t know how to make them understand that our lives had changed irrevocably.
“No. Your security should be here soon,” he told me, and that hand left my thigh. I fought the urge to put it back, to shove it up under my dress so he could touch me where I shouldn’t want him, where I couldn’t crave him. I didn’t want to think of what I’d done the day before to make him think I wanted him, but the fuzzy remnants of that desire pooled in my body.
His fingers touched my chin, tilting my head to look at him as he leaned in and dragged his nose against the side of mine. “My security?” I whispered, and anger had filled my veins. More like my babysitter.
“Yes,” Ryker mumbled, and any response I might have had died in my throat when his eyes blazed on mine and then darted down to glance at my lips. Leaning forward, he touched mine with his soft, full pillow lips that felt remarkably gentle against my own.
A man so hard everywhere else shouldn’t have lips as plush as the ones that pressed against mine more firmly. He groaned in his chest, the sound vibrating through me so I could feel it in the depths of my soul. It felt like an imprint, like a brand rippled across my skin, tying me to him so permanently that I would never get his touch off of me.
His lips parted, his tongue teasing the seam of mine until I caved and gave him what he wanted. The moment he surged inside, the moment we crashed together, drew a whimper from me. It only seemed to spur him on, only seemed to make him go mad as he lifted me higher in his arms and brought me over to a bench where he laid me flat on my back. His mouth never left mine, never stopped devouring me as I wrapped him up in my arms and legs and distractedly noted that I could barely touch my toes together when they wrapped around his hips.
His hand reached up, rubbing against my nipple through the fabric of my dress and making a shock of memory spin through my mind. I’d made him touch me. His body pressed against mine, and the minute I felt the heat of his hard length touch my core, I pulled my mouth back from his.
“Stop, Ryker. We have to stop. The kids could see us,” I panted, and he groaned against me, dropping his face to the crook of my neck and breathing deep.
“Fuck,” he whispered. He stayed on top of me, and he looked down at me with eyes full of regret when he pulled his head back just enough to study me. I trembled. I couldn’t believe I’d let him touch me, that I’d let him kiss me, like everything was fine and he hadn’t ripped me out of my life. “The first time I get inside you will not be when you’re drunk or on a workout bench.” He seemed to scold himself more than me, and as he shoved himself up and off me, he helped to tug my dress down to cover everything that he had no business seeing. That I had no business letting him anywhere near.
I hadn’t been with anyone but Chad. My husband had been the only man to ever see me naked or touch me, and now I threw myself at the first ma
n to get anywhere near me and show me attention.
A man who had known him, but didn’t seem to respect him.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” Ryker said with a nod as he turned and climbed the stairs to go back to the main house. He seemed to realize that I needed a minute to wrap my head around my stupidity and desperation. I didn’t understand what it was about Ryker that tempted me to do things I never would have even considered with anyone else. Even when Chad had been alive, I’d felt this irresistible pull to Ryker.
Like he was the one I was meant to be with, but I couldn’t be.
And I wouldn’t.
✽✽✽
By the time Ryker made his way down the stairs from the bedroom, the kids were awake for the day and happily munching away at bagels. I didn’t have the slightest idea where anything was in the kitchen yet, and spending my first day there without Ryker terrified me. “Good morning,” Ryker grunted, seeming moodier than he normally was. I tried not to glance down at his package in his dark jeans, because honestly from what I’d felt I had no clue how he even fit that thing in there.
A moment later he snapped out of his grumpiness, grabbing a bagel off the counter and smearing cream cheese on it before he shoved a bite into his mouth. “Good morning,” Axel said, and he pouted at the sight of Ryker shoving his feet into his boots. “Are you leaving?”
“Gotta take care of some business today, little man. But I’ll be back as soon as I can, and my buddy Dante will come hang out with you guys while I’m gone.”
“How come?” Axe asked. “Wouldn’t he rather hang out with us while you’re here?”
I resisted the urge to smirk, enjoying the thought of Ryker having to come up with an answer for that.
“Well, you know how I promised I’d protect you and your mom from bad guys?” he asked, kneeling down to be eye level with Axel. “Sometimes I have to go to work, and I can’t be with you guys. I can’t protect you if I’m not here, so some of my friends will keep an eye on you instead. Make sure nothing bad happens to any of you while I’m gone.” I’d never been more conflicted when my son smiled happily, like the answer made perfect sense. I didn’t want our security to confuse him, but I also hated that he just seemed to accept that I needed protection so readily. Protection I didn’t need or want.
Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3) Page 13