Guts & Glory: Ryder (In the Shadows Security Book 2)

by Jeanne St. James

  She never looked in the rearview mirror to make sure, because even if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to see much. Not with the tears blurring her vision.

  Chapter Twenty

  The blonde he was watching wasn’t the blonde he wanted to be watching.

  She was just one part of a job he had taken—in truth, volunteered for—because it took him away from Shadow Valley and had greatly reduced the chance of him doing something stupid.

  However, he’d been gone for weeks now. On a job that was complex because there were multiple moving pieces. Could he use extra eyes? Fuck yeah. But he told D he could and would handle this job himself. The reason being, a multi-faceted case should keep his mind busy. It was also supposed to keep his thoughts off another blonde, a whole lot curvier than the one he was currently stalking.

  However, that was a complete fucking failure since he couldn’t shake thoughts of Kelsea no matter what he did.

  The client he was working for was being double-crossed by his wife of less than two years and his long-time business partner, so Ryder had been tailing them, doing some digging, and gathering the evidence of not only their embezzlement scheme but of their cheating on their spouses. With each other. These kinds of jobs weren’t ones he normally enjoyed. In fact, he hated them. Walker was the one who enjoyed solving complex puzzles and putting two and two together.

  Ryder hated puzzles and sucked at math.

  He preferred jobs where he had a semi-automatic .45 in his hand, a tactical knife on his hip and was slamming his heavy combat boot into a door while taking out any threats with either a well-aimed bullet, a sharp serrated edge or his fists. Or all of the above.

  That shit got his blood pumping. This shit made him want to run out into traffic on a busy highway.

  And, not to mention, it pissed him off.

  The bitch who was currently sitting in a Starbucks on a corner in downtown Chicago, drinking a triple, venti, half-sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiato with exactly four pumps of vanilla syrup and heated to a perfect one-hundred and twenty degrees, pissed him the fuck off.

  Her two plastic Barbie doll-like friends who sat at the same table as her, sipping equally obnoxious drinks as they gossiped and laughed like rabid hyenas also pissed him the fuck off.

  He hoped they all choked on their over-priced caffeine and spit it all over their obviously fake tits.

  He hated fake tits. He hated fake bitches. He hated fancy fucking coffee.

  Black. Coffee was supposed to be enjoyed black, like the good Lord intended.

  He knew a woman whose blonde hair was natural, whose eyes weren’t blue because of colored contacts, whose squeezable, suckable tits were one hundred percent real, who didn’t melt down when she broke a fucking nail and could curse like a fucking tattooed biker. She could also ride his cock until his balls were nothing but empty sacs, while blinking those pretty blue eyes at him, talking to and touching him sweetly one minute, cursing him out and biting him the next, all while squeezing those real tits or digging those nails into his flesh. Preferably both.

  That woman had also learned to appreciate black coffee.

  But then, he hadn’t given her a choice.

  He also hadn’t given her a choice to spend two weeks with him in a cabin in Kentucky.

  Nor did he give her a choice when he dropped her off at her mother’s.

  But he had given her a choice when he let her get into her fucking Toyota in the parking lot at Shadow Valley Fitness and drive away.

  He shouldn’t have. But he, stupid fucking dumb fuck that he was, did.

  And now, as he sat in a city that made his skin crawl, he realized he maybe should’ve done things differently.

  He’d confronted Steel later that day—once he found the man—and they’d had words. Lots of words. Some words both of them regretted later. But they were said, they were heard, and unfortunately a lot of them were the hard truth. So, afterward they both moved on.

  When any of D’s crew had issues with each other, they hashed it out, either bare-knuckled, wearing boxing gloves, or simply with words, and then they moved past it. They did not hold onto that shit, because clinging to that would rot their team from the inside out.

  He didn’t like what Steel said to Kelsea, but he understood why he did it. While he appreciated Steel’s concern, it wasn’t his place to step in. Steel apologized to him, they clasped hands and bumped shoulders, but the damage was already done.

  That day, Kelsea had driven away from him hurt, which had been plain to see.

  And worse, he stood there like a dumb ass because he wasn’t sure he was ready to reveal some of his own past struggles, even though he knew all of hers.

  Unfair? No doubt. But when was life ever fair?

  However, she was right about one thing. Any man walking up those steps to her apartment and her bed should be able to do it in the light of day.

  Any man who wanted to do it only in the dark didn’t deserve her.

  So, he let her go even though every cell in his body screamed for him to stop her. Every instinct he had to chase her down, spill his secret and deal with the possible fallout, was extinguished like a lit cigarette butt crushed on the pavement under his boot heel.

  He hated the fact that Steel was right, that he had been unsteady since Kentucky and every day had been a struggle to remain grounded. And until he had no fear of faltering, he wasn’t ready to rip himself open and possibly undo all his hard work.

  It wasn’t a horrendous secret. He had plenty of those, too. Missions he could never talk about. But this secret was his and his alone, and he wasn’t proud of that time in his life when he had been weak.

  Kelsea needed someone who was strong, unfaltering, someone who could be her solid rock when needed. She didn’t need an unstable rock that could topple over when she leaned on it and possibly take her with it.

  He wasn’t sure he could be that solid rock. Until he was...

  Well, that was one reason why he’d taken this suck-ass job in Chicago.

  The other reason was because every blonde he saw in Shadow Valley made his heart skip a beat until he realized it wasn’t her. And that’s why he convinced D to send him to the windy city instead of Walker.

  Not that D needed a lot of convincing. Maybe the big man knew it was what Ryder needed.

  The man could be surprisingly intuitive.

  Now, weeks later, Chicago was leaving an acrid taste in his mouth. He wanted to strangle every one of those bitches sitting at that table in an effort to make the world a better place. And he wanted to cut off his male target’s hands for not only stealing from a partner who trusted him but touching that partner’s wife.

  You do not fuck with another man’s woman. Ever.

  It should be an unspoken rule for men.

  But his male target was just as much trash as his female target who was currently cackling with her friends, showing off her capped teeth and blood red lipstick.

  Lipstick. Yeah, he hated that, too. If he wanted a ring left around his cock, he’d prefer it to be a cock ring, not something that came from a tube.

  He yanked his baseball cap lower and clenched his teeth when all he could think about was that he never remembered Kelsea wearing lipstick in all the times he’d come in contact with her. Not once.

  Whether she had started her evening wearing some, he didn’t know, but she didn’t seem the type to spend hundreds of dollars to cake shit on her face since she was naturally beautiful without it.

  Her eyes, her lips, her cheekbones didn’t need anything to enhance them. They were perfect the way they were. Like black coffee, the way the good Lord intended them to be.

  He took a sip of his own coffee which he’d picked up at a gas station for a buck. Since he had a feeling those bitches were going to cackle for another damn hour while they picked at their lemon poppy muffins because, for fuck’s sake, to take a real bite might make them take an extra Zumba class in a high-class, overpriced gym.

  He would l
ove to feed them a whistle pig sandwich without them knowing what they were eating. They’d probably shove two fingers down their throat to rid themselves of a meat that didn’t come from the grocery store on a Styrofoam tray, wrapped in fucking plastic.

  Kelsea hadn’t even flinched when he told her she was eating groundhog. She’d gone for seconds.

  The only gagging a woman should do should be when he fucked her face too hard.

  Ryder shifted in the seat of his non-descript rental car when his dick became suddenly interested in the direction of his thoughts.

  This trip had not helped rid him of thoughts of Kelsea one fucking bit.

  In fact, during the rare opportunities he found a moment to lay his head down, he used memories of her sucking him off, riding him like the mechanical pony in front of the grocery store, or him taking her tight ass, so he could relieve the neglected load in his balls.

  Unfortunately, he needed to break up with his palm soon. That relationship just wasn’t working out for him.

  And the occasional women who had approached him while in Chicago hadn’t worked out, either. Some were pretty damn determined to get him out of his pants, especially if they got a whiff of his southern accent, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

  Not once had he been tempted. Not. Fucking. Once.

  In the past he would have fucked one one night, another the next, then on the third night convinced both of them into a threesome. He would have laid it on thick, not only his southern accent, but his southern charm. It had never failed him.

  But he couldn’t.

  For some fucked up reason, he didn’t want to be like the male target he’d been investigating. A cheater.

  Ryder was not a cheater.

  Why would fucking another woman make him feel like he was cheating? It shouldn’t.

  And that’s what pissed him off the most. He shouldn’t feel obligated to keep his dick in his pants because of a woman who wasn’t his.

  But something happened in that cabin, something he never expected. And he was having a hard time convincing his brain otherwise.

  He only wanted one woman.

  One.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that fucking any other woman would be wrong.

  And, fuck him, no matter how much that scared him, no matter how much that made his psyche stumble and sway dangerously, he couldn’t break the spell that blonde, blue-eyed woman with the fucked up past put on him.

  He didn’t blame her. He doubted she was even aware she had done it.

  But she did.

  He was done.

  He was toast that came out of a toaster which had been set to the number ten.

  In truth, he shouldn’t be surprised. If it could happen to Mercy, who had a black heart and eyes that could freeze radiator coolant, it could damn well happen to any of them.

  None of them were immune.

  Mercy proved it.

  The only difference was, Rissa was good for Mercy’s scarred and damaged soul. Kelsea was not good for Ryder’s.

  Did he want her to be? Fuck yes. Could she eventually be? Possibly.

  She was headed in that direction, but he wasn’t sure when she’d get there. And until then, he couldn’t risk it.

  Mercy checked in with him every few days. And without Ryder asking, he’d mentioned that Kelsea was continuing to do well. She hadn’t slipped once.

  She had taken on even more responsibility with Brooke’s interior design business, including working overtime and weekends to bank funds so she could eventually build her own place in the DAMC gated compound.

  That news surprised him. The apartment above her uncle’s pawn shop was easy to deal with and most likely rent-free. A house was a lot of responsibility. Especially for one person.

  Mortgage, utilities, taxes, upkeep. Shit like that could become overwhelming. She needed to be standing on solid ground before she took on that burden. Or she needed to find someone to help shoulder that burden first.

  Someone like him.

  Or...

  Someone who was him.

  For fuck’s sake.

  He should be paying attention to that bitch inside the coffee shop, not staring at his cell phone, fighting the temptation to call Kelsea.

  He was slipping. Maybe it was time to call Diesel instead, get Walker out here to finish up what Ryder started. While Hunter was good at finding people who didn’t want to be found, Walker was an expert at tailing people and observing. Steel and Mercy were intimidating and good muscle to have at your back. Brick was just cunning in general, as well as one of the best snipers Ryder ever met.

  What was Ryder good for?

  Maybe it wasn’t Kelsea who had made his resolve waver. Maybe he had lost sight on what his purpose was. For a while it seemed as though his job was rescuing a woman who didn’t want to be rescued. But now he didn’t even have that.

  He had done his job well enough that she no longer needed him.

  Only now he needed her.

  He needed her.

  He.

  Needed.

  Her.

  Fuck.

  He grabbed his phone, hit the power button, punched in his passcode then scrolled through his contacts.

  When he got to the one he was searching for, he pushed the round green phone icon. He needed to make some decisions.

  It was time to go home or time to move on.

  Head back to Shadow Valley or start again elsewhere.

  Stay with In the Shadows Security or go lone wolf.

  And if he headed back to the life he actually liked to work with a team he trusted, he needed to decide about Kelsea.

  He was either going to claim Kelsea or he wasn’t.

  His only fear was, if she slipped, he might, too.

  And that wouldn’t be good for either of them.

  Epilogue

  Kelsea glanced down at the text message that popped up on her screen. It was from her sister, Brooke.

  When UR done there, head 2 new house 2 doors down. Wants an estimate.

  Who? she texted back. Who wanted an estimate? She knew it had to be one of the DAMC members, but which one?

  As she waited for an answer, Rissa and Mercy walked back into the living room, distracting her. “Is everything as you wanted it?”

  Rissa’s smile was huge as she first glanced at Mercy, then at Kelsea. “It’s perfect. I always hated decorating and, honestly, I’m awful at it. You have a natural gift, Kelsea. First my office, now our new home.”

  Kelsea eyed the tall man with the scar running across his handsome but fierce face. Unlike Rissa, he didn’t crack a smile. Not even a small one.

  “Well?” she asked him.

  “Well, what?”

  Kelsea sighed. Men! So fucking clueless. “Do you like it?”

  “I don’t give a fuck about decorations and furniture. All I need’s a roof, a bed, running water and...” He let the rest trail off.

  Kelsea had no problem filling in the blank, because the man’s normally cold silver eyes suddenly flickered with heat as he stared at his woman.

  Well, at least someone was getting some. Hell, all the DAMC sisterhood was getting some except for her. But she’d been working her ass off helping Brooke grow her interior design business, and had even taken some online design classes, with the hope she’d eventually get to be a partner instead of just an employee. While that kept her mind off her loneliness during the day when she was busy, after climbing into her bed at night alone, it hit her hard.

  It had been three months since her time in Kentucky and she could never remember going that long without sex.

  Then again, this was a “new and improved” Kelsea.

  Yeah, whatever. The new and improved Kelsea’s vagina still wanted some action once in a while. Something besides her own fingers or her vast collection of vibrators.

  While they took the edge off, they didn’t satisfy her like...

  A certain someone.

  But that someone took off, hea
ding to Chicago instead, right after their “talk” in the gym’s parking lot.

  He left instead of fighting for the two of them and proving Steel wrong.

  So that meant he didn’t want to.

  Apparently, he had been fine with how things turned out in the end. Which meant she needed to stop obsessing over a man who she knew didn’t want her, but stupidly kept wishing that he did.

  That was getting her nowhere fast.

  However, whenever another man showed any interest in her, she just couldn’t drum up any interest in him. Case in point, Coop. He chatted her up the couple of times she’d attended the pig roasts after the club’s Sunday runs. He even invited her to be his backpack on the next one.

  Even though she planned to turn him down, she never got a chance because Diesel had stepped in and made it very clear that Coop needed to “get gone.” Coop was smart enough to do just that. And not even a half hour later, Kelsea witnessed the newly patched member getting a head job under the pavilion from a new sweet butt named Mini. Why Mini was named Mini, Kelsea didn’t know or care.

  But apparently Coop wasn’t too torn up about Kelsea not sitting on the back of his sled. But then, neither was she.

  There was only one Harley she wanted to sit on the back of, and it didn’t belong to anyone in the DAMC.

  A grumbled, “You done?” brought her back to the present.

  “As long as you are satisfied,” she answered Mercy.

  “Gonna be satisfied once your ass is out of our house. Can’t get satisfied while you’re still standing in it.”

  “Ryan!” Rissa exclaimed.

  Mercy shrugged.

  “Sorry I’m cock-blocking you. I’ll just take that as your seal of approval.”

  “It’s beautiful. I love it and that’s all that matters. Thank you for all of your hard work,” Rissa said quickly, putting a hand on Kelsea’s shoulder and guiding her toward the front door of their expansive, open-floor plan, ranch home with expensive tile and wood flooring and arched doorways, along with top-of-the-line furniture and appliances, thanks to Kelsea.

  The home fit Rissa perfectly. On the other hand, Mercy would be perfectly fine in a drab olive tent. In the jungle. Surrounded by machine guns and enemy guerilla forces.