Stryker's Desire (Dragons Of Sin City Book 1)

by Meg Ripley

  “That was kind of the point,” Rachel told him. “I didn’t want to even be part of it at all anymore. Just… alone for a while. To think.”

  “Well, you’ve had a bit over a week, and now Brock is after you.”

  “It seems to me he’s after you,” Rachel pointed out.

  “Both of us, then. It’s not a competition, Love.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Why? You are a little Love, you know—with your scowl and your arms crossed over your chest like I don’t know what’s underneath, looking like you’d love to rip my ankles to shreds.” Rachel found herself letting out a sound like a growl. “See? There’s that Pekingese growl I’m so fond of.”

  “What if I don’t want you to protect me? You’re busted up and I can’t trust you anyway.”

  Dylan shrugged, wincing only slightly at the pain the movement caused. “Told you the day we met: I will follow you anywhere. Even if James stopped paying me.”

  “That makes you sound a little bit like a stalker,” Rachel said.

  Dylan smiled broadly. “If you didn’t have any feelings for me at all, you wouldn’t have stormed out when I couldn’t answer your questions fast enough.” Rachel gritted her teeth, irritated with Dylan. She stood quickly, not even entirely sure of what she actually intended to do. “You like me, little Love. Admit it.”

  “Liked,” Rachel said, turning to go into the bedroom and pack the few possessions she had managed to acquire since her arrival in the Alps. Dylan didn’t follow her, and Rachel wasn’t sure whether she felt relieved or disappointed.

  Rachel fought back the urge to fidget, glancing at Dylan occasionally as they strode through the train station at Annecy. She told herself that she didn’t want to trust him; that she didn’t even want to be in his company. But she had to admit that she felt slightly less jumpy with him around, even if she knew that he was injured.

  “Shame we couldn’t take in the old town,” Dylan said, acting as if there was absolutely nothing amiss.

  “I’ve heard it’s beautiful; the lake, too.” Rachel had passed through Annecy on her way to her secluded village in the Alps, a tiny little town in the Haute Savoie region called Tannings.

  “Maybe once you’re all good, we could come back.” James had ordered additional security efforts around them, saying that while he appreciated Dylan’s dedication to the contract, he wasn’t going to trust Rachel’s safety solely to a man who was barely able to walk upright.

  “When are you going to give up?” Rachel asked him, her irritation rising once more.

  “When you tell me flat out and honestly that you have no feelings for me. And trust me, Love, I know when you’re lying.”

  Rachel had no response for that; she couldn’t honestly say that she didn’t have some kind of feelings for Dylan, even if a large component of her feelings at present was confusion. All she wanted at the moment was to keep living, to get out of the mess she was in, and have something approaching a normal life.

  Dylan winced as they descended the stairs to the platform and Rachel shifted her backpack to one shoulder, wrapping an arm carefully around Dylan’s waist to cushion him against the jarring. “See? I knew you cared.”

  “I don’t want my body guard to have a punctured lung,” Rachel retorted.

  “That would, in fact, make it harder for me to keep you from getting killed,” Dylan admitted. “But I think you mostly just wanted an excuse to get close to me.”

  “You’re infuriating,” Rachel muttered lowly.

  “Says the woman who took five trains so I wouldn’t be able to track her.”

  “If you had left me alone you wouldn’t have two cracked ribs.”

  “Ah, but I also wouldn’t have this story to tell about chasing after the woman I love, following her from one country to another and then back to the original country, risking life and limb.”

  Rachel stopped, her grip on Dylan tightening convulsively in surprise. He groaned, taking a deep breath. “The woman you love?” she asked him, ignoring his discomfort for the moment.

  “Did you really think I’d keep protecting you after getting shot just for money? I’m greedy, but not that greedy, Love.”

  Rachel stared at Dylan for a long moment. “If you’re just saying that,” she said, holding his gaze. She couldn’t think of how to finish the threat.

  “I thought we’d agreed that I don’t disclose information that isn’t important to you?” Dylan said, raising an eyebrow.

  “No, our agreement was that you don’t disclose information that isn’t vital to you doing your job.”

  “Same thing. Wouldn’t you say it’s vital to me doing my job for you to know I will keep protecting you until someone ends me? I’d say it is.”

  Rachel bit her bottom lip. “We have a train to catch,” she said, turning to look away from Dylan’s probing stare. She heard his chuckle but pretended to ignore it as she helped him the rest of the way down the stairs and towards the voie.

  The feeling of being watched didn’t leave her as they boarded the train carefully, finding their reserved seats and settling in them. Dylan had suggested that they travel as if they were tourists, backpacking their way through the country; their tickets were first-class, but the distinction was not as obvious as it was on a flight. Rachel looked around her constantly, even as the train pulled away from the station. “Don’t look so nervous, Love,” Dylan said, sitting back in his seat heavily.

  “Where are the guys James is tailing us with?” Dylan shrugged.

  “Tailing us, I would suppose.”

  “Ha ha. You trust James?”

  “I wouldn’t work with him if I didn’t trust him.” Rachel absorbed that for a moment. She looked around again. There was something that wasn’t right; some sensation, some presentiment she had. “It’s unlikely that they’ll attack us on a moving train, Love. They’d want to get the drop on us.”

  “Unlikely isn’t the same thing as impossible. They could be getting desperate. You got away from them and they shot at you in a train station.”

  “With a bean-bag gun.”

  “Which only means that they’ll want to use a real gun next time.”

  “Are you worried for me, or for you?”

  “Both of us.”

  “They’d have a hard time bringing a gun on a train. Be more worried when we get to our destination.”

  Rachel sat back in her seat, but couldn’t quite shake the feeling—the near-certainty—that Brock’s people were there, waiting for them. Halfway into the trek, the ticket-takers came into the car, and Rachel got her ticket out irritably. I won’t even know what to do with myself when I’m no longer running away from people, she thought. She handed her ticket and Dylan’s to the man, barely looking at him.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to need to see your passport,” the ticket-taker said. Rachel rummaged in her purse; Dylan’s hand came down on hers, and she looked up. The uniform was just close enough to pass inspection from jaded, harried passengers on a train; the look the man was giving her was not the bored, ready-for-an-argument expression of a ticket-taker, but something more interested. It occurred to her then that not a single other ticket-checker on any of the trains she had been on had been the least bit interested in her passport.

  “Can I see your credentials?” Dylan asked in French.

  “Sir, Ma’am, please stand and we can discuss this situation in private.”

  Rachel looked from the fake ticket-checker to Dylan. He held her gaze for a moment before nodding. She was surprised to see that as he stood, Dylan did not cringe or even wince, despite his pain.

  The man grabbed her arm as they moved away from the incurious first class passengers, pulling her towards the door between cars. Rachel twisted, digging her heels in. “I know who you are, asshole,” Rachel hissed.

  In an instant, they were surrounded by fake uniforms, pretend ticket-takers blocking them from the view of other passengers who probably thought that they were just in the wron
g section or had counterfeit tickets. She heard a ratcheting clink, the snick of a knife flicking out of its handle. “Mr. Brock said to take care of him first,” one of the men said, and Rachel saw a flurry of movement.

  Dylan dodged a blow, and Rachel saw his reactionary wince for the instant it flickered across his face. “How exactly are they getting all these uniforms, do you think?” Rachel asked as she tugged her wrist free of a man’s hands, aiming a kick with her heeled foot into another man’s shin.

  Dylan’s hand closed on her wrist and he pushed forward, hitting the toggle to open the door between cars. The pretend authorities crowded them, and she heard one person mutter that Brock hadn’t said they had to kill the girl right away; they could take their time with her. There was something sinister in his voice, something that implied that they weren’t just going to ask her nicely to give up the money before killing her. She felt a flash of cold and then hot rake along her arm and Dylan shoved her through the door, following her into the second class passenger compartment.

  They hurried up the aisle, luggage and over-spilling passengers slowing their pursuers. “As long as we can keep them in front of other people, they can’t do much,” Dylan said lowly. Rachel felt hot liquid streaming down her arm and looked down to see a flash of red along her sleeve.

  “Motherfuckers cut me!” she said with a gasp. Dylan nodded hurriedly, shoving her through another door. Rachel glanced at him and saw that he was holding his already-cracked ribs. “They got you too, didn’t they?”

  “It’s nothing. Keep moving.” But their progress into the adjoining car was blocked by more fake ticket-takers. Rachel turned; they were surrounded again.

  “Shit,” she muttered. “What do we do?” Dylan looked from one group to another.

  “Keep fighting. Try and snatch a knife. Protect your middle.” Brock’s henchmen surrounded them in the space between cars, and everything became a blur to Rachel. She kicked, she punched, she grabbed for flashes and glints of metal. Next to her, she heard Dylan’s grunts of effort, crunching sounds, gasps. She clenched her teeth as she felt a burning, searing pain along her hand, and the next moment, it seemed her hand was full of something hard and cold—a knife.

  Figures crumpled around them, to be replaced by other figures, and Rachel struggled to stay upright as she felt blows land along her ribs, against her arms and legs. She felt hot, sticky blood—her own, and that of henchmen—as she fought to keep her organs protected, as she dodged and collided with phony ticket takers and Dylan alike. She felt the train shifting underneath her, slowing down—it was coming into the station they were going to change at. “You okay?” she called out to Dylan.

  “Keep it up,” he told her. “I’m still alive and so are you.”

  “That’s something at least,” she agreed, slashing at yet another phony ticket taker. How many of them were there?

  The train’s brakes squealed, and through the window Rachel saw the station flashing into view. More people were arriving—but they were not in phony uniforms. “We got you; we’ve got you. You’re all right.” Rachel felt her head swimming as the world spun and swooped around her and wondered just how many times she had been cut, how much blood she had lost. She staggered against Dylan and struggled to keep her eyes open, to know just what was going on as they arrived at their destination. A bland voice announced their location in both French and English. Rachel realized that the people who had come were the backup, the extra security that James had sent to tail them, as a failsafe.

  “Took you long enough,” she said, as darkness swirled around her. “Dylan, you okay? Dylan?” There was no answer from the man and she tried to pull him around to see his face, but her hands were nerveless and heavy. As the train came to a stop, the floor seemed to rise up underneath her even as her knees turned to jelly.

  “I’m okay, Love. Let’s get off this damn train.”

  Epilogue

  “Is it incredibly cliché of me to notice how incredibly green everything is here?” Rachel asked, turning to look at Dylan; he lay on a dinosaur of a couch, sprawled and looking as at-ease as ever.

  “Even if it is, it’s not like it’s a cliché for no reason,” Dylan pointed out. He opened his eyes and looked at her, smiling slowly. Rachel felt a rush of heat flash through her at the sight of the smile, accompanied by the tantalizing view of his nearly naked body, barely covered by a blanket.

  They had arrived in Ireland a week before; it was, as Dylan pointed out, the safest place for them to wait things out. After the narrow escape on the train, they’d both had to spend a little time at a tiny hospital in Belgium; the struggle had earned Dylan another cracked rib, and a few broken bones in his hand, and a few of the cuts that Rachel had received had required stitches to heal properly. But between them and the backup that James Whitley had set up, they had more than enough evidence to link the henchmen—dead and alive—to Jeffrey Brock, and enough witnesses to attest to multiple crimes. The henchmen who were alive were rotting in a Belgian jail, while Brock himself had gone into hiding.

  When it hit the presses, James had called Rachel directly. “You and Dylan should go to Ireland,” he had suggested. “Dylan has informed me he still has friends there, and you could lie low while I sort out the rest of this mess.” Rachel had only been too glad to get moving again.

  “You’ll catch a chill like that, Love,” Dylan said from the couch, extending one arm invitingly towards her. Rachel reluctantly left the window, walking across the living room to where Dylan sprawled. She sank down onto her knees next to the couch, looking at him intently. Dylan coiled his arm around her, drawing her closer, his hand sliding up along her back to cup the base of her skull.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself,” Rachel murmured, though she didn’t resist his move to kiss her.

  “Not if you’re careful,” Dylan countered, claiming her lips. He lifted her carefully and Rachel found herself standing, climbing onto the couch, straddling his hips slowly and carefully as the kiss deepened, Dylan’s hands wandering over her half-clothed body.

  “Has anyone ever told you that you have a one-track mind?” Rachel asked, barely breaking away from the kiss. Dylan chuckled lowly, his hands sliding up underneath the loose sweatshirt she was wearing to cup her bare breasts, giving them a lingering squeeze. Rachel’s nipples began to harden to his touch, a rush of heat flowing through her in automatic reaction to the caress.

  “A few busted ribs… are not going to stop me,” Dylan murmured, his fingertips wrapping around her nipples, teasing and rolling them slowly. Jolts of hot-and-cold pleasure crackled through Rachel’s body and she felt herself heating up from within, her pussy starting to feel slick. “I need to make up for lost time.” He pulled the sweatshirt up, over her head, and tossed it across the room, his hands falling to her hips.

  “You’re insane,” Rachel told Dylan, kissing him on the lips lightly. He shifted underneath her, groaning slightly; his ribs were healing, but slowly. Rachel squirmed against Dylan’s hips as she felt the blanket that separated them slipping out from underneath her.

  “You love it, really,” Dylan countered, and Rachel felt the heat of his erection pressing against her slick folds as he moved her body on top of his. She moaned as his cock slid and slipped along her labia, tantalizingly close but not exactly where she wanted it. “Let’s just take it slow,” Dylan suggested, rocking his hips up against hers. Rachel nodded, for the moment too turned on to speak; she caressed him carefully, holding herself up on her knees, balancing her weight on her hands above his shoulders. Dylan’s fingers slipped down between their bodies and Rachel moaned out again as he found her clit by touch, stroking her teasingly.

  “Slow is good,” Rachel managed to say, shivering as Dylan rubbed the bead of nerves, rocking his hips steadily to rub his cock along her slick labia. “But if you don’t—if you keep teasing me like this—it’s not slow, it’s just mean.”

  “Can’t have you thinking I’m mean…can we?” Dylan’s fingers retreate
d from her pleasure center and Rachel gasped as she felt him guide his cock up against her, as he thrust his hips upward, sliding inside of her inch by inch. She pushed down to take him in deeper, opening her eyes to look down at his face. Dylan’s dark eyes were nearly black with desire, staring up at her with undisguised need as they began to move together, friction building up between their bodies enough to make Rachel sweat in moments.

  She rocked and twisted her hips, rising and falling, as Dylan’s hands danced all over her body, caressing and teasing her. He cupped her breasts, bringing them up to his mouth to claim each of her nipples in turn with his lips and tongue. Rachel felt the tension mounting in her moment by moment, felt her body heating up, her muscles flexing in spasms around Dylan’s cock as she became more and more turned on. Dylan’s hand slipped between their bodies once more and as he thrust deeper and deeper inside of her, Rachel cried out at the feeling of his fingers playing against her clit, sending jolts of pleasure shooting through her body in crackles that lit up her nervous system.

  She struggled to hold back, wanting to savor the closeness of their bodies, wanting the moment to go on forever; but as Dylan pulled her face down to kiss her hungrily, his tongue probing her mouth as he thrust harder and faster inside of her, Rachel felt her self-control breaking. She held herself up off of his injured body with an effort, shifting her knees up to take him deeper, pushing herself down onto him harder as she moaned against his lips. In a matter of moments, it was nearly impossible for her to hold back her climax anymore, and Rachel grabbed at the pillow underneath Dylan’s head, every muscle in her body clamping down as the first wave of her orgasm jolted through her.

  Dylan kept himself under control, holding back, and Rachel’s climax deepened, pleasure rippling through her as he slowed down and then sped up once more, his hands wandering over her with possessive lust. Her spasms began to abate and Dylan continued to touch her, working her out of satisfaction and into renewed need. He groaned as her body heated up again, hands tightening on her, and Rachel found herself moving to his rhythm, falling into his movements as readily as a dance, as aftershocks crackled through her nerves and she felt the tension mounting once more.