by Isabel Wroth
Ripley was Saint’s fire hydrant, and last night was the equivalent of him marking his territory. Proving it was his without care that he’d pissed all over her heart. Now, while he lay behind her and held on while the tears fell silently, she allowed herself to acknowledge the truth.
There would be no getting over Saint. Not ever.
She had loved this man from the start, and even at her lowest point, even now when his behavior had made her feel absolutely worthless, she hadn’t stopped loving him.
What a fool she was.
He was still there when she woke up, the low light filling the room suggesting she had slept most of the day away. Saint’s arms still wrapped tight around her, despite how she must have turned over in her sleep, seeking to burrow deeper against his chest. He must have been waiting for her to wake up, or maybe it was the stiffening of her muscles that alerted him.
“Feeling better?” he rumbled, his lips cruised across her throat.
From the depths of her soul, a shuddering little sob welled up. “What are you doing?”
“Doing?”
She truly did not know what to expect from him. Naked? Sure, she knew what to expect then. This? Saint acting like a normal guy taking care of someone important to him? It made her nervous as hell. It made her babble. Made her fight to say anything she could to make him decide he was the one done with her. Trying to tell him she was done clearly hadn’t worked, so now he had to be the one to walk away.
“We have sex. Had sex. A lot. You’ve stayed the night less than ten times over the course of a year and never once have you stuck around to do anything other than pee before you take off. I don’t understand what you want from me. I’m not trying to piss you off, I just don’t understand.
“Especially as you’ve suggested this psycho might be the guy I’m seeing. Whether that suggestion is legit or born from a place of jealousy and just a convenient avenue to get me to drop him, I can’t tell.”
Saint gave a humorless laugh, shoving away from her, sitting up behind her to rake both hands through his tousled hair.
“For not trying, you’re doing a great job at pissing me the fuck off.” he snapped, pulling his hand down over his mouth as he drilled her with a narrow-eyed glare. “Until Perdition can, without a doubt, identify this Ghost and put his ass in jail or in the ground, I’m not going anywhere.
“If I can’t be the one looking out for you, it’ll be one of the others. You’ll have a security system here and at your shop to rival the Pentagon. Non-negotiable. It’s getting put in today. And I don’t need an avenue, convenient or otherwise to get you to drop your boy toy. You’ll do it all by yourself. And you know why? He’s not me.”
Ripley wasn’t sure what was stronger. The immediate hurt his arrogant words brought or the humiliating shame as a result of them being the total truth. This whole crying thing was starting to really annoy her, but she couldn’t stop the tears that welled up.
Sam wasn’t Saint. Would never be Saint. And that was absolutely the problem.
Which was ridiculous and most likely some kind of repressed masochistic tendency finally surfacing. Finding a perfectly nice, considerate, respectful, fun-to-be-with man lacking, because he wasn’t a dickhead who used and discarded her at his whim.
The truth was that Sam deserved better than her. So much better. Ripley almost found the power to smile, wondering if all those times that she herself had been told by a man she deserved better than him, had that man meant it? All this time she had believed it to be a cop-out, had Gage been right? That it was the truth?
Wasn’t that nice. Now she was acting like one of those crazy women that went viral on Facebook memes. Stomach churning with queasiness, Ripley pushed herself up and clumsily got out of bed. She felt strangely heavy and yet off balance at the same time as she stood up. Like her equilibrium was all wrong and her blood wasn’t pumping to all the places it needed to be pumping.
“If you need the keys for the shop to put in the alarm system, they’re the green pair on my key ring. You’ll have to wait until Tuesday. The spa is booked for a private event tomorrow and I have to prep it in the morning.”
She actually wondered if she was speaking aloud. Ripley felt like she was trying to breathe through a tiny coffee straw. Spots were starting to dance in front of her vision now and a black shadow crept in closer around the edges of her sight.
“Ripley-”
“I’d already stopped seeing Sam, not that it would matter either way. I can’t make you hear me. I can’t make you do anything. But I can stop letting myself make the same mistakes with you over and over. I won’t come to the hog roasts anymore and I’ll tell Ever to stop inviting me to the club functions-”
“You’re not tellin Ever shit, Ripley. Come back here.”
She went on like he hadn’t spoken at all. Using the wall to support her now, wondering if the clenching in her chest was the residual pain from the broken pieces of her heart trying to shred through her soul.
“I know you won’t call or text me, but don’t drive by. Or come by for a booty call-”
“I’m not going anywhere, princess. I love you.”
*****
Ripley stopped dead in her attempt to get away from him, her hand spread wide against the doorframe as though she needed it to keep her upright. Saint watched a quiver work down her body, saw her wobble a little. She turned to put her back to the wall, staring at nothing while a trail of tears slid down her pale cheeks.
“I wish I could believe you.” she whispered.
He launched out of her bed to get his hands on her, done with this bullshit, but she held up her dainty little palm to keep him away. Anguish and struggle plain in her expression, her body language screaming at him that this was it. His very last chance to make her believe it. In him. To somehow fix what he had broken, namely her heart.
If he left now, left her again, he knew there would be no way to get her back. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the compound without taking his eyes off of her.
Top answered gruffly. “I thought I said no one goes anywhere alone, butthead! Where the fuck you been?”
Ripley looked away from him, trying to be covert about how she sniffled. “Ripley’s. I fucked up and need to get it sorted before we update all the girls.”
Top grunted at him. “Bout fuckin time. I’m surprised after that last stunt you pulled on girls night, she didn’t kick your balls to the curb and take off with Gage.”
Saint frowned, not sure how Top would have known about his fuck up with girls night…
“I can hear you frowning, boy. Don’t you know yet, with age comes omnipotence? I tell you what, I will be pissed the hell off if that girl goes over to the dark side and starts ridin around with the Praetorians on account of you being a blind fool. She brings me cookies when no one’s looking. Good ones. Do not screw that up for me, asshole.
“You got till Ever gets outta the hospital to sort your shit. Nasa gets anything, Pen will handle it. Unless he suddenly starts shacking up with a woman. Swear to god, it’s a pussy pandemic, and all of you little shits are infected.”
Next thing Saint heard was dial tone.
Saint watched another tear drip off Ripley’s unbelievably long lashes, still leaning up against the wall, staring at her feet dejectedly. His jaw clenched when she flinched away from his hand. Away from his intention to wipe away tears he was getting sick and damn tired of seeing in her eyes.
Ripley was a dramatic chick, no doubt about that, but in the year he had known her he hadn’t seen her cry anything other than happy tears. Except these last few times where he had opened his mouth and the stupidest shit had come out. Despite that flinch, despite the raw feeling in his stomach her withdrawal caused, Saint moved forward to brush the cooling tears off her hot cheeks.
“I thought for all of a month that I could show up, get us both off, and not get in any deeper than that. Then one night I come over here to find you in that goofy damn apron, sprink
ling lemon bars with sugar. I remember kissing you, tasting the lemon and the sugar on your lips.
“Pike and Susie were dead the next day, and some stupid ass part of me believed if I hadn’t been wrapped up in bed with you, it wouldn’t have happened. I blamed myself. I think I even blamed you for all of five seconds.
“When I came back after the funeral, you let me in and all night long the only thought in my head was how thankful I was you were alive. Told myself so long as you were okay, I could go out and hunt down the men responsible for the death of my brother and his woman. My friends. My family.
“I’m sorry I made you feel worthless, or like some cheap drive by hook up. I want to say I have a reason, but none of them would be good enough. I’m sorry I hurt you. If you can look me in the eye and tell me you feel nothing for me, I will let you go. I won’t come around anymore. If you come to a club function, I won’t be there to make you feel uncomfortable. Say it, and I’ll stop fighting so hard to make you stay.”
Saint held his breath as he waited for her to say something. Watched her struggling to still the quivering of her lips and almost let go a huge sigh of relief when she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and let her head fall back against the wall with a thunk.
He shoved his hand between her head and the wall when she made to bang her head back again, pulling her forward instead to hug her up. Burying his face in her hair to breathe deep of that warm gardenia smell so unique to her. Loving how her curves filled the hollows of his taller frame, perfectly.
“I hate this.” she muttered.
Saint frowned into her hair. “Hate what, princess?”
“I can’t think when you touch me. I lose all free will and turn into one of those sniveling bimbos. I’m disgusting.”
He managed to huff a laugh despite the tightness in his chest. “The words ‘sniveling’, ‘bimbo’ and ‘disgusting’ are the three least likely words anyone would ever use to describe you. I love you, Ripley. I love you so much. I’m so fuckin sorry.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tired, emotionally exhausted, still not feeling right after her over indulgence at the strip club with Sam, pissed about all the cameras Saint had insisted on putting up around her house, trying to deal with everything Saint had told her, Ripley was not in the best mood. A mood that further tanked when she showed up to the spa Tuesday morning and found both Ruckus and Gee inside the building.
Inside, on ladders, taking measurements.
They both greeted her with bright, goofy smiles. Clearly noticing she was displeased, make that severely displeased, by their presence and possession of keys to her spa, the pair almost in tandem told her,
“Saint told us to start installing the security system today.”
Ripley threw her hand up for silence and fumed as she went about her normal morning routine. She made coffee for herself. She opened the safe up and put the cash drawer in. Turned on the computer, turned the phone lines over, made sure everything was clean and removed her own keys from the front door.
“If you wreck my crown molding, I will ensure you don’t see your next birthday.” she informed the prospects coldly.
Both of the guys smiled like her threat was cute. Ripley contemplated kicking the ladder out from under them just out of spite. The legal issues that might bring, however, didn’t seem worth the effort. The prospects were still up on the ladder when the familiar sound of the bell over the door jangled loudly.
Ripley looked up and found herself having to force a smile when Sam walked into the spa. She could practically hear leather creaking behind her and the rapid fire clicking of a text window having been opened. Sam smiled at her, barely glancing at the pair of prospects behind her and set the vase of pink roses he had brought on her desk.
“Hey, Ripley. I just wanted to bring these by as a thank you for all the trouble you went to yesterday. The shoot turned out to be everything I needed and more.”
Sam was so congenial and sweet, Ripley, for the thousandth time, questioned her sanity. She came around the desk to wrap her arms around him for a tight hug.
“It was no trouble. I’m glad everyone had such a good time. These are so beautiful, thank you!”
Sam chuckled and bent down to drop a kiss on her cheek. The increasing speed of the texting behind her was now an annoying stream of clicks.
“You are so welcome.”
One of the prospects made a choking sound. When Ripley turned to glare at them, Gee beamed at her full wattage and waved his phone at her.
“Almost dropped my phone!”
She narrowed her eyes at the kid. “How long is this going to take, by the way?”
“As long as it takes for us to do it right. Nasa will have our ass if we screw up.” Ruckus told her, his ginger hair on end like he had driven over with his truck windows down. Or stuck his finger in a light socket.
“Uh, is NASA booking out your place for an event too?” Sam teased, still standing close enough for her to feel the heat of his body.
Ripley blushed hotly and smiled up at him sheepishly.
“No. Nasa is a…” she waffled her hands around in front of her while she tried to find an accurate description for the seven foot tall biker who looked as though he ate babies for breakfast instead of pear jelly beans. “He’s a friend of a friend. He does IT stuff and is installing security cameras for me.”
Dread filled Ripley as the roaring sound of a motorcycle suddenly reached her ears. Getting louder by the second.
Sam, concerned, reached out to curl his big hands around her shoulders. “Security cameras? Is everything okay?”
It was on the tip of Ripley’s tongue to tell Sam the truth. That her ex-lover was concerned Sam was a murerer and wanted to make sure Ripley was safe at all times. Just in case. But the bestial growling of that approaching motorcycle had reached a crescendo, stopped, and any second Ripley knew the bells were going to jangle over the door.
“Everything is fine, Sam. Just some escalation in crime around town has me thinking I should better protect my investment here. And Sam? I’m really sorry for whatever is about to happen.”
Ripley’s preemptive apology made Sam frown in confusion. The bells over the door jangled so hard it was shocking they didn’t go crashing to the floor. Ripley pivoted on her favorite pair of pink Loubiton pumps and drilled her finger in Saint’s direction, totally unsurprised to see him all windblown and sexy, filling the entryway of her spa.
“Don’t. You. Dare.” she hissed. Infuriated by the way her hormones surged and jiggled with lust at the manly way he peeled his sunglasses off and raked a hand through his hair. One scoop of his fingers through the thick mass and it was tamed perfectly. Ugh.
“What?” Saint drawled, like he didn’t know exactly what.
“This is my place of business. Don’t you dare come in here and start some kind of pissing contest.” Saint smiled at her and she almost wavered.
“You’re fuckin adorable when you try to act tough, princess. Where’s all your shit?” he waved his hair-perfecting hand at her product shelves.
“The seventeen women I hosted that event for yesterday, bought me out. Leave.” Ripley determinedly pointed at the door behind Saint, and Sam totally ruined her attempt to divert the testosterone hose down by being the nice guy he was.
“Everything okay, Ripley?” Sam stepped up beside her as though willing to protect her. Despite the fact that Sam had about fifty pounds of muscle on Saint, unless Sam was a closet badass, Saint would wipe the floor with Sam.
“Yes. This is my ex-”
“Not your ex-anything, princess.” Saint interrupted blandly, yet seriously. Still smiling a wolfish smile that was mostly teeth.
“My EX!” Ripley insisted and Saint rolled his eyes.
“We’ll talk more about that later. You must be Sam.” Saint purred devilishly.
Ripley threw her hands in the air, apologized again to Sam and turned around to glower at the prospects still up on their ladders.
“You two, I’m never making you cookies again.” The two twerps shared a pained look. “And I’m telling Ever.” Ripley added, knowing full well if Ever had the boys on her shit list that meant they were on Athena’s shit list, and it was a fact they’d never get home cooked meals again. The looks on the two prospects faces went from hangdog puppies begging for food, to hardened fury in the space of a few seconds.
The sound of a loud roar followed by a loud popping and the shattering of glass came next. Saint shouted her name as she shrieked and shied away from the sparks that flew at her from her desk. More popping, someone was screaming, and she felt pain streak up her hands and knees when something slammed into her and knocked her to the ground.
“Stay down! I got you, Ripley.”
Saint. His voice, the heaviness she was feeling pressing her down was Saint, using his body to protect her.
“RUCKUS!” he bellowed.
The prospect answered back immediately. “White SUV, no plates, heading east. Gee’s hit.”
Ripley shuddered to hear the quaver in Ruckus’s voice.
“How bad?” Saint demanded, hugging her tighter and keeping her pressed to the floor.
“Right leg. Knocked him off the ladder and he hit the coffee bar. He’s out, got a pulse. I’m good. You?” Ruckus called back.
“Not sure. Call 911.” Saint came up on his knees beside her and started running his hands over her. Insistently turning her this way and that to examine her. “Ripley, are you hurt?”
Ripley shook her head, or maybe it was just that her entire body was shaking from shock. Saint hissed when he peeled her jacket up.
“You’re hit.” he snarled.
“I am?” Ripley hiccupped, not feeling any pain. Saint didn’t answer her.
He jerked her silk shirt out of her skirt and heaved a sigh when he pressed his palm to her bare back, low on the left side. “Not yours.”