Know Thine Enemy

by Stanton, Rosalie

  Ryker dropped a kiss on her inner thigh, shivering. "You think it would've happened like that with anyone?"

  "What?"

  "Had I been someone else. Anyone else. You think you would've felt what you felt with me?"

  Her response was instantaneous. "No."

  "You liked me before, didn't you?"

  "I didn't know you."

  Ryker shrugged. "I liked you, and I didn't know you. Your eyes—"

  "I was different."

  "Heard that, have you?"

  Her lips twitched in a ghost of a smile. "Once or twice."

  "Well, what can I say? The truth's redundant. You fascinated me, and the more I saw the more I wanted to see." He held her gaze as he lowered his face to her pussy again, unable to resist licking a long lap between her vaginal lips. "That hasn't changed. Everything you do surprises me."

  "Everything?"

  "Fuck yes," he purred, his left hand scaling up her abdomen and coming to rest over her bellybutton. "You take me by storm."

  Izzie's expression turned shy. "And you really . . . you really want me."

  "Is there any doubt?"

  "Well—"

  "I told you back there I didn't fake a second of it."

  She wet her lips and he swallowed a groan. "I didn't know what was real and what wasn't."

  "I'm real. You're real. We're real together."

  "Are we?"

  Ryker grinned and sucked her clit between his lips, watching eagerly as her head rolled back and a sigh trembled off her mouth. Almost instantly her body relaxed, her legs falling open to him, and if she wasn't the most gorgeous creature he'd seen, it would be the first time in over a century his eyes had failed him. The way she responded so passionately to the simplest touch, the raw heat in her gaze when she looked at him—yes, he felt she was real. Everything was real. Izzie wasn't the sort of girl who hid behind walls and spent the day wearing masks. She was genuine. She was the real fucking deal.

  And when she spoke, the word was, "Ryker."

  "I love hearing you say my name like that," he whispered before dipping his tongue inside her ever so slightly. Then again, and again, and then he was consuming her in earnest. Every sinful caress his taste buds stole of her sodden flesh furthered him down a path of sexual inebriation. She was so hot. So supple. So juicy. And it kept coming. Lick after lick. There wasn't enough. She was going to drown him with her liquid sugar and he was her willing victim. There was no better way to go.

  She gasped, flailing off the mattress. "Please!"

  He pulled back just far enough to whisper, "Please what?" before renewing his assault.

  "My . . . touch my . . . touch it again."

  Ryker arched a brow, his mouth curving into a grin. "Touch your what again, darling?"

  "You were just licking it!"

  "Licking what?"

  A long mewl rolled off her lips. "Ryker, please!"

  "You can ask as much as you want," he replied between licks, his eyes dancing, his tongue plunging in and out of her in a manner that made his cock twitch with envy. "I'm not gonna know what you mean unless you say it."

  "So unfair!" she complained half-heartedly, her hands fisting the bed sheets and yanking so tightly he was sure they would rip. "Don't—don't make me—"

  "What?" His index finger continued its tortuous circle around her clit, granting her the hint of touch without actually touching her.

  God, she was a vision. Her skin damp with sweat, strands of her midnight-hair clinging to her forehead, her eyes wide and locked with his. So trusting. So open. He slid the hand he'd planted on her stomach upward to play with one of her nipples, and he had to fight off a chuckle when she dissolved into another long moan. She was so gorgeous like this, and he would never take her for granted.

  "Don't make you what? Scream? Come till you can't come anymore? Help a fella out."

  "Say it." Izzie gasped, thrusting herself wildly against his face.

  Ryker blinked, all innocence. "Say what?"

  "I hate you."

  "Real convincing. Care to try again?"

  At last, he got what he wanted. "My clit. Please."

  Her voice breathing life to that one illicit word was perhaps the most erotic thing he'd ever heard. Of course, she kept redefining eroticism.

  "Izzie." He left his fingers to fill her opening, his mouth drawn immediately where she needed him. "You unmake me."

  "I will if you don't—"

  Ryker found her clit and sucked hard. He rolled her around his mouth, attacked her with his tongue, pulled lightly on her flesh and relished her every cry. His fingers developed a natural rhythm, pushing her closer to the edge. Feeling her body tighten and her legs close around his face. Holding him there as he gobbled her up, as her juices spilled down his hand, as he drew her harder between his lips, shaking her, massaging her, loving her with his mouth. With everything he was.

  "Ohh . . . oh my . . . oh my God—Ryker, oh my . . . ."

  He wanted to encourage her but didn't dare tear himself away. Instead, he focused on relaying as much as possible with the strokes of his tongue. With his eyes. With every dip his fingers took inside her.

  Drench me, baby. Drench me so good.

  Her back bowed off the mattress a final time, and she exploded with a harsh cry, shaking so hard the bed shook with her. The walls swallowed her euphoric gasp and he abandoned her clit to his fingers, rubbing her gently as his mouth greedily sucked in her spendings. She burned his throat and he couldn't get enough.

  He could never get enough.

  "Oh!"

  Ryker didn't try to conceal his self-satisfied smirk. He couldn't. No more than he could keep his tongue from stealing one final lap of her pussy before he rose up on his hands and knees. "Mmm," he purred, dropping kisses along her belly as he made his way up her delectable body. "Feel real to you?"

  "Shut up," she sniped affectionately, wrapping her arms around his neck and dragging him down for a long, desperate kiss.

  "Mum's the word," he teased when their lips parted. He slid a hand between them. Then—Christ—his cock pressed against her naked pussy, the head exploring her wet folds, teasing them both mercilessly with little jerks of his hips. "You didn't like me fucking you with my mouth?"

  "I never said that."

  "Well, if it didn't feel real—"

  "It was amazing and you know it." Izzie bit at his lips desperately and began to reach between them.

  "What are you doing?"

  "What we didn't do."

  Ryker sobered a moment, his eyes searching hers. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Gotta warn you, once I've had you whole, I won't wanna let you go."

  "Promise?"

  His heart wrenched. "Izzie—"

  "No, I know…I just…I need this with you." She licked her lips, her small hand at last finding his cock and giving it a firm squeeze. "It's only been once—"

  "I know."

  "And this, with you—it's so different."

  "Good different?"

  "Weird different."

  Not exactly what he wanted to hear. Ryker arched an eyebrow.

  "Okay, yeah, that sounded weird." She scrunched up her nose, then let out a deep breath. "I'm tired of fighting. Tired of fighting you, Briggs, Harrison, this whole fucked up mess, and I'm definitely sick of fighting me. Before I wanted it because I thought it'd help me."

  "With him." Ryker growled. He wouldn't mention the other man's name now. Not after what they'd shared.

  "Yes."

  "And now?"

  Izzie was silent for a long moment. "You're the first person I've wanted. Really wanted. For me. The first. . . and this is what this is to me, and it's what I . . . . Please, even though you don't feel it, just pretend. Can we pretend? Pretend like we're somewhere else and you—"

  "I what?"

  "Pretend…God, this is gonna sound so weak, but I don't care anymore. Pretend, for me, right now, that love me? That we love . . . . I never—I'
ll never have that. Can we pretend?"

  He knew it had happened before, but at that moment Ryker could honestly not remember anyone ever rendering him speechless. Izzie was his for the taking, and she'd stolen words off his lips.

  And he knew then what he'd known for what felt like an eternity. What had started as an infatuation, and cemented into the real thing the second he saw her on the other side of his cell door.

  He didn't have to pretend. The funny feeling in his chest.

  He was in love with her.

  Holy shit.

  "Please," Izzie whispered, cupping his face and drawing him back. "Please pretend with me."

  His heart sang and unneeded breath hitched in his throat. "Don't need to," he whispered, sinking inside her with a moan of completion. Nothing could be more perfect than her. Her pussy tightened around him as though determined to keep him locked in her body forever. "Oh Izzie. Izzie. So tight. So wet. Oh my God."

  He'd never felt anything like this.

  Her pussy clamped around him almost instantly, hugging his cock, pulling his flesh as though he'd always been made to be a part of her. As though her body identified him as a missing piece and was eager to invite him home. She was molten. She was the sun. Her soft, silky vaginal walls, slick with liquid fire, parted like a whisper. He was bathed in warmth, and in those seconds felt he at last knew himself.

  Izzie flexed and whimpered beneath him. "Ryker."

  "God, but you feel good," Ryker whispered. The words were an understatement. There had never been pleasure like this. Pleasure so rampant, his eyes crossed and he felt dangerously close to his happy ending at the simple feel of her. And beyond the physical awaited the knowledge that it was Izzie. Izzie's body beneath him. Izzie's heart thundering through her chest. Izzie's nails scoping trenches into his skin. Izzie's pussy squeezing his prick. Izzie's juices on his skin. It had taken forever to get here, but Izzie was with him.

  Her breaths crashed against his lips. She was so open. So vulnerable. So completely his.

  "This is different." She dug her nails into his forearms and gasped when he pulled away from her. Her breasts came up and she arced off the bed, taking him back, reclaiming him, marking him, pulling him into her pussy and squeezing so hard the world blinked into light. "So different than I thought."

  "Good different, I hope," he murmured, driving into her a little rougher. The widening of her eyes had his heart jumping. He kissed the side of her mouth. "You've imagined this, then?"

  "Lots of times."

  The admission made him ache. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah." A seductive little grin crossed her lips and she lifted her head to kiss him, her vaginal muscles constricting as he slipped a little deeper inside her. "Things I didn't think I should think about."

  Ryker grinned and sucked her lower lip between his teeth, his left hand scaling down her side and hooking under her knee. The rhythm they kept was careful but perfect. He felt every crevice. Every pull of her flesh against his cock. The way she molded around him, drank him in. And as much as he loved loving her slowly, the raging beast in his chest was roaring toward an unsteady explosion. He needed her hot and writhing. He needed her scratching his back and screaming his name so loud, the walls shook. He needed everything.

  He just needed.

  "So good, Ryker. You feel . . . ."

  She clenched him so perfectly with each thrust. His cock, slick with her juices, couldn't bury deep enough inside her. The springs of his bed whined with every plunge, the smacks of their bodies becoming heavier and more pronounced. His chest tightening as gasps pounded against his lungs. His eyes devoured her, his mouth helpless to keep from kissing her skin. Perfect. God, she was so perfect. So hot. So his.

  "Tell me," he pleaded softly, nibbling on her lips. "Tell me how I feel."

  "Feel like home."

  Tears blinked behind her eyes, scaring him witless until he caught the euphoria behind them. Her hands traveled down his back until she had his ass at her mercy, and then she was driving him. Faster. Harder. Her head flew back and a soundless cry rode off her lips.

  "Don't leave," she whimpered. "Never leave."

  "Never could," Ryker swore, and God how he meant it. He thrust harder still. Rougher. "I could never leave, Izzie. I love you. Fuck, I love you so much."

  "You what?"

  "I love you."

  She stared at him, then raised herself as far up as she could, their rocking bodies coming to a halt. "This is real, isn't it? You aren't pretending."

  He shook his head. "Not pretending."

  "Really?" The look on her face was somewhere between incredulous and hopeful. "You love me?"

  The question startled him but he wasn't about to break away from a challenge. "Like the sky has stars," he replied, and sealed the words with a kiss as his body began to move again. "That's how I love you."

  Izzie blinked rapidly and kissed him again before falling back to the mattress, her hips again dancing with his.

  She only said one word—"Oh"—her voice was so soft he thought for a second that he'd dreamed it. That was, until her face crumbled and she began crying in earnest. Tears she needed. Tears she gave him as he pumped hotly into her pussy, bathing her face with kisses.

  "Ryker."

  Ryker released her leg at last and slipped his hand between their battling bodies in search of her clit. "I'm here," he promised. "I've got you. I've always got you."

  He found her, rubbed her, and watched her dissolve. Her eyes locked with his and held. He felt her tense and tighten around him. Felt her hold on—and then she was gone. Crying. Trembling. Coming so hard she pulled him right along with her.

  Her arms went around his neck again, her lips ravaging his with desperation he recognized. Desperation he'd never thought anyone could feel for him. But there it was—she consumed his lips and claimed his tongue, cleansing him with her tears.

  "I love you," he told her again. "I do. I do, Izzie."

  "I know."

  He let her say it, let her feel it, but he doubted she realized exactly how much power she now held in her small hands. She could unravel him with a word. It was the first time since his human life he'd given someone the power to destroy him.

  But she wouldn't. Somehow he knew. Somehow, even he felt safe now. It might be fleeting but it was worth anything he had to keep it.

  And Ryker knew how to put up a fight.

  Chapter Sixteen

  His skin felt neither warm nor cold beneath Izzie's cheek. It was a pleasant place between life and death, and it felt right. Her heart hammered against her chest, skipping every now and then when she remembered where she was, who she was with, and that the moment wasn't fleeting. Ryker was really here. The hand stroking her back was real, as was the other that held hers to his chest.

  If it had been like this before, she didn't remember it. Her time with Wright had been uncomfortable and tense. Her skin hadn't tingled, her heart hadn't jumped, and she hadn't had to constantly reassure herself it was real. She hadn't cuddled next to him afterward, nor had she reveled in the sensation of his flesh against hers. Intimacy with Wright had seemed necessary—an essential human experience she didn't think she'd get anywhere else, at least not on her terms. Ryker changed everything.

  Ryker, she wanted. Hell, a part of her needed him, and the rest of her just craved.

  Izzie didn't understand it. How a vampire could make her feel alive, even in the wake of what she'd experienced made little sense—except, perhaps, he made sense of something she hadn't really understood. She was free. She always had been and she hadn't known it. As much as she owed Wright, as grateful as she felt for all he had done, he had cornered her into an existence she didn't want and hadn't realized she could reject until Ryker entered her life.

  For the first time since driving the blade through Harrison's chest, Izzie's earthly concerns melted away. The reality awaiting return outside this small haven was not forgotten, but even the horror of Dr. Briggs and the cell couldn't curb the tast
e of freedom.

  At last, her actions were her own. She didn't fear where her next meal came from or dread not having the strength to go on the hunt tonight. She simply was.

  "I don't know what happens next," Izzie murmured.

  Ryker raised his head. "Got a few ideas, though they all involve you and nudity."

  Heat tinged her cheeks. "You've seen all there is to see."

  "Doesn't make you any less spectacular."

  "Even the scar?"

  "On your stomach?" He didn't wait for her to agree. "The scar is like you, sweets. Tragic and beautiful."

  "I don't know what that means."

  Ryker chuckled. "It means I think every inch of you is gorgeous, even the scar." He lifted her hand to his lips. "Though we need to put some weight on you."

  Izzie's nose wrinkled. "You want me fat?"

  "I want you in whatever way I can get you."

  She blushed again and hid her eyes against his skin. "I don't know what to say to that."

  "Yes, please?" he volunteered.

  She laughed and rolled onto her back, feeling womanly for perhaps the first time in her life. "Seriously, what happens now?"

  "You wanting to have The Talk?"

  "What's the talk?"

  "Fuck if I know. Something I hear on sitcoms." Ryker dropped a kiss onto her shoulder and raised himself onto his elbows. "I don't know what happens now. This is new territory for me."

  "You've never . . . ." Izzie paused and bit her lip, unsure whether or not she should repeat the words he'd whispered while pumping inside her body. At once the confession felt too sweet, too intimate, and too fragile in her untrained hands. She feared him taking it back, and was terrified of what came next should he not.

  She didn't know what being loved entailed, or how she was supposed to react. Did she say it back? Should she say it back? Did she feel it? How did Ryker know what he felt for her was love? Hell, how did anyone know what they felt was love? What changed between being in love and being out of love? The burning feeling in her chest was new and frightening, and though she was well schooled in identifying anxiety, her current nervousness was unlike anything she'd experienced.

  Thankfully, Ryker seemed to understand her hesitation. "It's been a long time for me."