Pulling back, the drag of his dick through her juices made her arch. Her whimper of need became a call when he slammed forward and thrust her into orgasm.
The clench of her inner muscles around his member gave him the push he needed to go off inside her. Once the explosion of their furious union was over, his arms buckled and he toppled onto the bed beside her.
Harlow skootched over and propped her head on his diaphragm.
“Mad?” he asked, combing his fingers through her hair, spreading it on his chest.
“Hurt,” she said, drawing her fingernails around his abdominal tattoo that was right in front of her face.
“Baby, I’m not a words guy… I’m not worried I’m hooking up with a girl like my mom…”
It wasn’t like him to undersell himself; he was better with words than he claimed. But, she understood what he was trying to convey.
“I’ve never felt like you didn’t trust me,” she said. “I kiss the guys, hug them, sit with them. You have never looked at me with suspicion. Even with Clyde and Costello, it felt primal, not insecure. I don’t mind you making it clear to outsiders that I’m yours. It’s hot when you and the guys are possessive of me. I always thought you wanted to protect me.”
“I do, baby.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s okay to hurt my friends,” she said, digging her nails in a little deeper.
“You’ve made that clear,” he said, scratching his fingers on her scalp. “You really like seeing me with other women?”
“Not sleeping with them, I don’t want a threesome… I guess its ego. I’ve always just known I was more to you than they were… Dover thought I was. Maze too… I had no idea, no notion of how little you thought of me.”
“Hey,” he said, taking her shoulder to roll her onto her back, her head still rested on his torso. “You’re my Juliet. I’d slit my own throat for you. I worship you, Trinket.”
She rolled her head on him in a shake. “You can’t think that and say you expect to lose me to another man.”
He rested a heavy hand on her forehead, and stroked her hair back, then returned his hand. “My dad didn’t lose my mom because she was a ho…” Though she turned her head further to try getting a better look at him, Ryske chose that moment to raise his chin so his focus was on the ceiling. “He lost her because he was an asshole and a drunk. Getting out of there was the right thing to do. She should’ve got out of there sooner. No woman should put up with a guy like that.”
Something about his tone flipped a switch on her thinking. Slowly, Harlow began to sit up, almost in a trance. After taking a few seconds to gather herself, she curled her legs beneath her.
Grabbing his chin, she forced his head around, compelling him to look at her. “Have I ever been shy with you?” she asked. “When we met and you wanted to sleep with me, was I coy about saying no?”
“You didn’t mean it.”
“Ryske,” she yelped. “If I was unhappy with you, or thought you were an asshole, I’d tell you. And if you beat me or mistreated me, I’d sure as shit be out of there in a flash… Though that would be after the guys put you on your ass. You are not your father.”
“Fuck my parents,” he said, flying up out of the bed. “The guy who decked out the sap in Floyd’s, that’s who you hooked up with, babydoll. That’s who I am and you’re just gonna have to live with that. I am not letting you go anywhere and I promised I would never leave you again.”
“Okay,” she said and had to admit he was right. “Good, this is the Ryske I know. I expect you to confront guys in bars. You fly off the handle, but you bring yourself back. You’re reasonable with Clyde, most of the time. You apologized to Costello. This is never a huge problem. You have your moment and it ends just as fast. But, it feels different with Rupert. Whenever he’s around—”
“Because he had you,” he growled, leaping to the side of the bed. “He fucking had you!”
“Shh,” she said, clambering over the bed to rise on her knees and touch his lips with her fingertips. It was unlikely that the others in the house were asleep; they didn’t need to be sharing their grievances with them. Everyone had their own issues to process tonight and there were various other mumbles echoing through the house. But, this was theirs and all she cared about. “What do you mean, Crash? I meet your exes all the time. Rupert’s the only one of mine you’ve met, but we broke up long before you and I ever met.”
“Not in my head,” he said, stabbing his finger to his temple.
Her hand slipped away. She sank down to sit on her feet, trying to figure him out. Ryske turned his back on her and went to the window.
He was quite a sight there in front of her window seat, bathed in the moonlight and completely nude. Thinking about the nights she’d lay in bed arguing with him in her head, she realized this was how she’d pictured him. Ethereal in the darkness, bathed in an almost blue moonlight, cocooned in night. When she’d thought he was dead.
“When you were with Anwen,” she murmured, catching up. “You thought I’d gone to him after you died.”
“You know all those weeks lying in that bed, every time the door opened, I wanted it to be you coming in with soup and cookies. Like you did at Bale’s when we met, remember?” He didn’t wait for a response or turn to look for one. “I’d imagine you coming in and kicking off your shoes like you always did. Climbing into bed with me, running those damn fingernails all over me. Just the memory would get me hard. I knew I loved you. Goddamnit, the pain of loving you was worse than the bullet.”
Lying down on her side, Harlow curled an arm under her head and drew up her knees toward her chest.
He kept talking. “What we have is perfect. Yeah, you’re a pain in the ass with an answer for everything and you’re too independent for your own good. But, damnit, baby, I can’t imagine how any other woman could ever be more right for me. You don’t bust my balls over shit that you know means nothing. You can see what I feel for you, how real it is. You don’t demand that I prove it all the time. I’m not great at the romantic gestures shit, you know? I mean, I could be. But, I think it would always feel fake and I don’t want that with you.”
He’d spent so long protecting himself from feeling anything. Pushing away women who got too close to him. When it came to addressing his true emotions, he was a little more resistant.
The man could sell any line, so long as it was a lie. The truth wasn’t so easy to part with.
“And the shit when you’re with other guys, there’s theater to it. I like playing the macho boyfriend. Scaring the sap is fun. I love you; every minute of every day I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for the faith we have in us. Whatever the fuck this is between us and wherever the fuck it came from, we’re not ever going to find it again. I’m not sure it exists anywhere else. This isn’t love like I ever understood the word.” The almost childlike sentiment of the last sentence made her smile. “We don’t have to be together twenty-four seven. It’s always there whether we’re together or not… I can know you’re with him, that you’re here or he’s around, and it doesn’t affect me. But…” His fists began to clench and a growl slipped into his voice. “When he’s talking to you like you’re his, or acting like you are and you… It feels like I’m back there, lying in that fucking bed at Anwen’s, miles away from you. When I lay in the dark thinking of you, baby, when I thought of you with him, building a life with him… It’s not even the fucking, you know? I mean, that’s bad, but…”
Turning around, he scrutinized her lying naked in the bed where they’d just been joined. Relaxed, sleepy, adoring him, Harlow was warm and content just to be existing with him.
Tilting her head, she smiled. “What? Finish what you were saying.”
“This is what I envied him,” he said, coming over to sink down in a crouch by the bed, sweeping one of her hands into both of his. “Being with you when no one else is. Seeing you in the dark.” Leaning in, he pressed his kiss to her knuckles. “Whispering with you… These are th
e moments I want, when we can be us and nobody else exists.”
Slipping her hand from his, she ran it through his hair, stroking and admiring him. Witnessing Rupert talk to her with tenderness or need, it reminded Ryske of the possibilities he’d tortured himself with when they were apart. That’s why he was so hard on Rupert, even in his vulnerable moments.
“But you spent time with him,” she murmured. “When you were at SweSec, wheedling your way into my father’s good graces so that he’d bring you home. You were kind to Rupert then.”
“My claim to you wasn’t so strong back then. I wanted us to be this, but I didn’t know we would be, you know? And when I’m running a con, there’s a part of me that just switches off. I guess it’s a defense. I can’t have a weakness in the field. I can’t react. I’ve had to watch men scream at their wives and then listen to them quip about what a bitch she is. If that part of me was on, I’d put my fist through their teeth. I’ve made love to women I’m not attracted to, women I don’t even like… Anwen used to instruct me to be tender with her; I was basically her puppet at that point. I fucking hated every second. Resented the shit out of her for blackmailing me into her bed. Those first few weeks, if I’d let that part of myself lead, I’d have throttled her.”
“Damn,” she whispered, enjoying the intimacy of the dark. “Lucky her.”
Exhaling a laugh, he picked up a loose section of hair from her brow to tuck it back in her locks. “There’s no woman like you, Harlow Sweeting. I know I’m an arrogant ass. Every time you’ve called me off one of your boys, I’ve taken your orders, but with him…”
“I understand.”
“I always fucking managed to push it down deep. It was there, but I controlled it. Except with this Lena shit… I fucking sent you to him, Trink. A guy who’s capable of doing this to you. What if I hadn’t come back and you had married him? How long you think before he fucked your little sister and your family in the process?”
“He was always faithful to me,” she said. “He’s a good man. We weren’t together when he slept with her. He just got a little lost. I don’t know why he fell into bed with Lena when he could’ve had any of a dozen other women.”
“She’s a substitute for you,” he said. “He doesn’t love Lena; he still loves you.”
“He doesn’t, that’s your bias talking,” she said and tried to roll away, but he caught her shoulder and pulled her back.
“You remember how I dismissed you when you said Ophelia was into me?”
Rolling her eyes, she tsked at him. “That’s not the same. Ophelia never got a chance with you.”
“Yeah, but he did and he blew it. He knew what he had with you and how incredible you are. He’s probably hated himself every day since he lost you.”
“Ryske…”
Tracing the back of his finger down her cheek from her temple to her chin, he soothed her. “He doesn’t love you like I love you. Maybe he’s not in love with you. Maybe you’re just familiar and he doesn’t want to let go. I took you seriously when you told me to watch my ass. Just tell me you’ll take me seriously too.”
Easing herself up, she kissed his mouth. “I promise to take you seriously if you get your fine ass into this bed and hold me.” Wearing a smile, he stood up to leap over the top of her. Scooping her into a spoon position, they twined their arms. “Ryske?”
“Yeah, baby,” he said, kissing her head.
“Ophelia asked me to make a move.”
He didn’t tense, but she did feel the air in the room alter. “Tell me.”
“Not yet,” she said, turning her head to rub her lips on his arm. “I have to talk to someone first. Dover knows all about it, so I do have backup. But… if I make an odd suggestion this week, I… I need you to support it.”
17
For a score of seconds, the room was quiet. “Parratt wants control and he’s not against using our past to get it.”
Ryske and Parratt’s past wasn’t a happy one. “Is that the lie he was talking about?”
“He lied about what happened to the money he gave to me,” Ryske said. “If he tells the truth…”
To authorities, it would get their crew into a lot of trouble. Even if Parratt couldn’t prove Ryske’s deception, they could be opened up to all sorts of scrutiny. The last thing they needed at Floyd’s was people snooping around.
Having that threat hanging over their heads put more pressure on all of them. Relying on each other was more important than ever. Sharing her own suspicions, even though she had no proof, could lead to them having ammunition of their own against Parratt.
“I think they had an affair,” Harlow said. “Him and Ophelia. I think that’s how she found out about Pothos and got the idea to pull you and Hagan into it.”
“Think they’re still fucking?”
“Maybe,” she said. “She told me I should… Back when you were dead, we talked about it.”
He cleared his throat. “I know.”
Sensing he was holding something back, she twisted herself toward him. Still in his embrace, she looked up at him. “Ryske?”
“I was at Ophelia’s,” he said. “That day you went to see her after I got back… The day you found me in bed at home, when we talked and you got that call and left Floyd’s… I went over there. I was there when you arrived. I stayed in the hallway outside the kitchen. I heard every word.”
“Oh my God,” she said.
“That was how I knew you’d come back to your parents. From there, I made the plan to infiltrate through SweSec… which was how I got to your parents’ dinner table.”
It hadn’t occurred to her to question how he knew where she was. The new revelation made her recall that there had been no delay between her coming back to her parents and him conning his way into SweSec. There were only a few days between her leaving the city and him showing up. He’d used every one of those to endear himself with her father.
“I… guess honesty is good.” Even if it was late. Sagging against him, Harlow tried to remember what else she might have disclosed in that meeting. “I was so hurt then,” she murmured and then smiled. “I can’t really have been thinking straight, I still considered Ophelia a friend.”
“I knew I had to have you back,” he said, squeezing her tight. “No matter what it took. Soon as I heard you were back at Floyd’s… I don’t know. I knew you were mine. Karma was telling me that it was okay. That I was allowed to have you… The guys told me to wait, to come up with a plan, but… you before them, that’s what I told them.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t resent me after that.”
Running a hand down her body, she felt his appreciation for her, inside and out. “You don’t understand how mad they were that we left you. They knew what you were before I was willing to admit it.”
“And what am I?”
He bowed to kiss her. “One of us.”
Smiling under his mouth, she hadn’t thought it was possible to be closer to him. Yet, somehow, they’d strengthened their bond with their honesty. “Any more revelations?”
For a moment, he considered it then shook his head. “Don’t think so.”
Before he could kiss her again, she pulled her head back. “I have one.” He crooked a brow. “The night of the fire…” He nodded, a frown forming on his features. “I heard you and Anwen… in bed.”
The frown faded and he brushed his lips on her. “I figured.”
Harlow subdued a laugh. “And you can keep your balls,” she murmured. “You win the bet.” Seemed from his expression of confusion that he didn’t remember. “I do love you… I did then, I do now.”
“Never doubted it.”
Recalling that conversation gave her an appreciation for Ryske’s possessiveness. Something she had to remember in context of their conversation that night.
Though it was Anwen’s assumption that she could speak about their relationship that had really aggravated Harlow. “Kind of made me mad,” she said.
Ryske made
an assumption of his own. “Nothing happened.”
That hadn’t been what she was implying. Harlow had no doubt he hadn’t been intimate with Anwen on the night of the fire.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she touched his mouth. “Don’t ever say those words to me,” she said, and opened her eyes to look at him. “I told you I didn’t want promises.”
His frown came back, more fierce than before. “That was before.”
“If you have to say those words to me then I’ve failed you. I’ve failed to express how secure I am with you, how much I trust you… How much I love you, Huntley Ryske. I don’t want promises because we don’t need them. With the kind of life we live, anything could happen. Either of us could be conned or cornered into doing things. We could be blackmailed or coerced because we both have secrets. Our love for each other and for our crew, it makes us vulnerable. We want to protect those things; we’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe…” He inhaled behind her fingers, but she carried on before he could talk. “But, it doesn’t matter, Ryske. What matters to me, is this.” Her hand trailed down to his chest. “It doesn’t matter if we’re together or not. It doesn’t matter if we’re fucking other people or not… You said it. You got it perfect when you said every breath you are is me. You are my soul, Crash. All I need is your heart. So long as you promise that belongs only to me… I don’t need any other promise.”
Brushing his fingers across her face, he let them sink into her hair beneath her ear so he could cradle her head. “You’re amazing. You’ve no idea how completely I belong to you, baby. God, just breathing with you teases me… I want you every fucking second.”
Skimming a hand up his arm, she curved it around his shoulder. “Except when you’re with your crew,” she said, recalling something he’d said to her a long time ago. “You don’t think about sex around them.”
“Oh, yeah, that was a lie,” he said. Her mouth opened in mock outrage. “I was always thinking about sex when you were around whether they were in the room or not… Still am… And, you are my crew, so… yeah… total lie.”
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