by Harlow Stone
I hear arguing coming from the living room and what I most certainly can tell is Laura’s voice. I have no idea what rant she could be onto now, and at the moment I don’t care. I take my time in the bathroom and quietly cross the hall into Jimmy’s bedroom.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and stare out the window, reminding myself most jail cells don’t have windows and the one last night was a small exception. I allow myself a minute to be thankful for the help of Ryder’s men, and people like Bryan Miller.
I absorb the sunlight coming in through the window and the feel of it warming my skin. I noticed my bag on the floor next to the bed when I sat down and waste no time in digging out my smokes. I never smoke in my bedroom, but this one isn’t mine and it already faintly smells of them. Most likely because the first thing Jimmy does after nailing some nameless woman is light one up.
My solitude is short lived when I feel a large body sink down to sit at the end of the bed. I was going to look, but I don’t. I can smell him. I can feel him. I know who it is without turning around to verify it.
He says nothing as he sits there, but I sense him looking at me. Studying me. Wondering when I’m about to crack.
Soon, I think to myself.
My breakdown last night is evidence I can only hold strong for so long before I finally need a break. One might think living the way I have for the past half a year or so is a break. But it’s not. When that time is constantly spent assessing your surroundings and watching your back, there is no real break. It was like a full-time job. Add in a few nightmares and a lot of paranoia, what you have left is a woman who most certainly will fucking break at some point.
My emotions are bleeding through and essentially corrupting the cold-hearted bitch I had become. Some think the mind runs the heart. Some think the heart runs the body. Essentially I think everything works together. My heart was cold, but my mind was focused enough to keep me alive.
Now my heart is unfocused, all over the place, not knowing for one second what I should feel. In turn my mind is trying to make sense of all these new emotions and not knowing where to stick them to keep myself on the cold-hearted track. It’s like my brain has run out of space to hide everything I care about and now it has just come crashing in all at once.
My dead family.
Laura.
Jimmy.
And now, Ryder.
“I never fucked Claudia while we were together, Elle.”
His words give me a bit of shock, but not enough for my half-empty soul to process at the moment. Being mentally and emotionally drained has taken its toll on me.
“Do you have anything to say to that?”
My voice is low, tired and beaten. “I’m tired Ryder. I spent the night in jail after being apprehended at my daughter’s grave. I’m all out of words. I’m just...........I’m just all out of everything.”
I put out my smoke and continue with my blank stare out the window. I don’t look at him, I can’t right now. Or maybe I don’t want to burst this small little bubble of pleasure I have at staring out the window. The bright sun in the sky is completely at odds with how I feel. Ryder’s next words catch me completely off guard.
“I was blackmailed. Becker blackmailed me which caused me to leave Indy. I didn’t want to worry you with what he said, so I went to Chicago to be his fucking dog for a week and escort his daughter to a fundraiser. He figured out who you were, don’t ask me how. But he did, and he used it against me, telling me he would basically hang you out to dry if I didn’t cooperate with him. I promise you babe I never touched her, I didn’t want to touch her. I haven’t been with anyone since I met you, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
I soak in the news with a mild bit of hope and then I remember Foley’s parting words when I left the station.
Do I think the child belongs to Ryder?
No.
He’s too smart for that.
But what about me? What about his life too? What if Becker pulls something on him like he did with me? Ultimately if it were not for him, I would not have slept in jail last night.
If it weren’t for me, Ryder would not be in the middle of this mess with Becker right now. Becker would have no leverage over him, nothing to make him cooperate, because at the end of the day, it has always been Ryder and his men. Ryder has never cared enough about a woman for her to be used against him.
Now I fully understand the term ‘love hurts’. I guess if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be love. But what the hell am I supposed to do with this information? I can’t very well go back into hiding. We still haven’t found Shawn and Ryder runs a business he can’t hide from. He can’t very well go into hiding with me.
How would it work?
Someone wants me dead, and an influential person wants Ryder to play his daughter’s baby daddy. If Ryder refused, then Becker would probably begin his own hunt to find Shawn to ensure I did in fact, die. Thus freeing up Ryder, but essentially losing his leverage on him.
The only win here is if I die, Ryder is free. Or I need to let Ryder go and suffer the consequences.
“Claudia is pregnant, Ryder.”
He jumps up from the bed and moves in front of me, pointing in my face.
“That’s not fucking true! And if she is it sure as shit isn’t mine!”
I move my hands in a motion of surrender.
“I know it’s not, Ryder. You’re not that reckless.”
Seeming placated by my words he settles down, if only a fraction.
“You need to go, Ryder. You can’t stay here.”
He bends his legs and gets down to my level on the bed.
“If you think for one fucking second after everything we’ve been through and how much it fucking killed me to be away from you that I’m going to leave just because you say so? Well wake the fuck up beautiful because it’s not going to happen.
“I may have played along, I may have did what he asked, but that does not mean I didn’t lie awake in bed every goddamn night hating that I hurt you. Hating that you were there, alone, next to my own fucking house and I couldn’t come to you.
“I’m done! I’m done playing Elle! I had to do it until I got enough dirt on the bastard to get myself out of that mess, but here I am. And I’m not fucking leaving just because you’re too tired to put up with me. I told you I would help you, I told you I wouldn’t stop. This is me not stopping Elle. Even when I was in Chicago I was working on a way out of it. When I was home, I shipped Denny or someone else to Chicago to get me what I needed.
“I’m done! And I’m here. So please don’t be so damn stubborn for once and fucking keep me!”
“I CAN’T!”
His hands come up to grasp me on either side of my face, his only inches from mine.
“Why? Why can’t you Elle? Give me one good reason!”
“You know as well as I do. If Shawn doesn’t find me, Becker will make sure he does. He needs me out of the picture, Ryder. And for whatever sick fucking reason he wants you for his daughter.”
“I don’t want her Elle! I never fucking wanted her. I fucked her a handful of times over the past year before I met you, and many other women in between. I never let her stay the night and I never asked her for more. She knew what the score was with me from the beginning, just like anyone else I fucked.
“The only time I ever ate with the woman was at a few business dinners hosted by Becker. I never, not once, gave her any idea we would be something more.”
I shake my head as much as his hands will allow.
“Well she obviously wants more Ryder, because Foley showed up last night and again this morning to solidify the fact I need to stay away from you, or there will be consequences.”
Ryder punches the mattress beside me, then stands up and angrily grabs his phone out of his pocket. He punches something in and holds it to his ear.
“You have twelve hours to get Foley out of the fucking Country and to call off the rest of your dogs.”
“NO BECKER! I
’ve had it. It’s not my fault your whore of a fucking daughter can’t keep her goddamn legs shut. That’s your problem to deal with, along with the bastard grandchild. Get off my back, and stay away from my woman. You have twelve hours to confirm or I’ll make sure those photos go public. You can kiss your seat on the high chair goodbye.”
He tosses his phone onto the bed and hauls me up by my arms.
“Nobody will keep me from you, babe. Not Becker, not Shawn, nobody!”
I don’t get to respond before his lips come crashing down onto mine.
The feel of him, the smell of him, the taste of his minty mouth in mine. I absorb it and shut down everything else other than the man who’s currently holding me in his arms. I don’t listen to my head, telling me this could go horribly wrong. I don’t listen to my heart, telling me this could potentially break it.
I run my hands across the scruff that’s much more than two days of growth and continue into his long inky dark hair. I can’t help the whimper escaping my mouth when he puts his hands on my back, forcefully pulling me closer to him. He immediately lets go, even though I don’t want him to.
“What’s wrong beautiful?”
I come back to the present and vaguely note the bedroom door is wide open. I decide to address that issue first, since there’s nothing but silence in the upstairs apartment.
“Where is everyone?”
“Downstairs, I told them to give me an hour after your friend called me every name in the book. She apologized after I told them what happened and why I had to do it.”
I knew I heard Laura’s harping from the bathroom, and now it all makes sense.
“You’re off topic though, babe. Did someone hurt you in jail? Why does it hurt when I touch your back?”
I give Ryder a kiss on his scruffy jaw before turning around to close the bedroom door. I walk back to the side of the bed and grab them hem of my shirt, pulling it over my head. He reaches out to do it for me, but I stop him with a small shake of my head.
I unbutton my jeans and slowly lower them down my legs. I can already see the evidence that Ryder is aroused through the front of his jeans as I reach behind my back to undo my bra. I toss it on the floor with the rest of my clothes and do the same with my thong.
I look to Ryder, still dressed in his usual garb of dark jeans, black boots and long sleeve black shirt before I turn around.
I hear his intake of breath behind me before I feel the tips of his fingers on my back. They lightly trace the small flowers at the top of my back, before following the branches down to the top of my ass. His lips begin to follow the path of his fingers and I close my eyes, absorbing the feel of his skin touching mine.
“I still thought you were beautiful with your scars babe. They didn’t define you, they were just a part of you.”
I open my eyes and let the first tear fall, half-hating myself for letting so many go lately, but knowing regardless of where my head or heart is at, this man has a way of bringing the emotion out of me.
His strong hands work their way over my hips, up my rib cage, alongside my breasts and over my shoulders. He adds pressure to turn me back around and moves them up my neck to hold my face. His eyes tell me what words cannot and I lean forward to tell him with my lips what I can’t say with my voice.
Ryder sheds his clothes in the quickest way a man can before laying me down on the king size bed. He wastes no time in reconnecting himself with my body and I let my hands wander every inch of his that I can reach. His hands and lips travel every inch of my body, from my hips to my toes, and back again.
No part of me is left untouched. No erogenous zone is left un-kissed. The only way I can describe this moment is being worshipped.
Ryder got to know my body in Indy. It was a moment of discovery, in all senses of the word. Not just getting to know my body, my scars and my flaws, but spending time to discover what makes me moan.
The act Ryder is doing is pure worship. I’ve never felt anything like it and I don’t suspect I would again with any other man. There are pheromones and chemistry, and everything else beautiful in between.
By the time he enters me, I have already come twice from his touch alone. His lips have not left my body until he finally makes it back to my mouth, devouring me in a passionate kiss deep enough to leave me breathless. He nibbles on my lower lip before letting go and planting himself to the root.
“Keep me. No more games, Elle. No more running. Just fucking keep me.”
I look into his beautiful black eyes, running my hand around the back of his neck into the thick hair I’m insanely jealous of.
“I’m scared.”
The deep roll of his hips leaves me momentarily speechless and I close my eyes on a deep moan.
“You don’t have to be. You had me on the beach with ‘fucking peachy, neighbor’. Hell, you may have had me when you almost run me down in the middle of the street. I didn’t need to clean your gutters babe, and I sure as shit didn’t need to fix a sink that you may never have come back to. But I needed to, because I wanted to be near you. You’re mine, babe. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. So fucking keep me, beautiful. Because I sure as fuck am not letting you go.”
His lips crash back down onto mine, and I pull his hair, tight to the roots. I wrap my legs around him, keeping him as close as I possibly can for however long this messed up life of mine will let me.
“Ride me, beautiful.”
Strong arms close around my back and he sits up on his haunches, taking me with him. His hands firmly grasp my thighs, his fingers digging into my ass. I place my hands on his shoulders as he lifts me up, and drops me back down on his long hard shaft.
Repeatedly.
“Fuck you feel so good, too fucking good.”
He releases one of his hands from my rear and moves it up my back, burying his fingers in my hair. He gently pulls back to expose my neck before he attacks the sensitive flesh like a man starved for the taste of my skin.
When his teeth hit that sweet spot above my collarbone I come undone. Soaring towards bliss and one hell of a climax. It doesn’t stop, just keeps going as he continues to drive deep, never letting up, never slowing down.
My internal muscles contract around his cock as he places both hands back on my hips, holding me close enough that his groin hits my clit in the most incredible way. My body is shaking, my skin is dampened with sweat and in this moment I can truly say that I would never want to be anywhere else than right here, watching Ryder’s handsome face as he too comes undone inside of me.
“Keep me beautiful.”
I stare into those beautiful black eyes, absorbing the sincerity. I keep eye contact as I lower my head and bring my mouth to his.
“I’ll keep you, handsome. Just don’t let me go.”
Chapter Thirty-one
I slowly wake to the feel of warm kisses dancing across my shoulders. I let out a little hum in appreciation.
“I missed you, babe.”
“Missed you too,” I softly say, still half in slumber.
I’m rolled onto my back, and the kisses from that wonderful mouth give the same treatment to my collarbone, neck and face. When his gentle lips finally meet mine, I’m ready.
Jesus I missed this. Missed him.
As usual I was just too stubborn to admit it.
Ryder positions himself on top of me. At the same moment the bedroom door bursts open.
“What the fuck?” Ryder curses, while trying to cover up my body.
Jimmy rushes into the room and turns on the side lamp since the sun has now set. Or maybe it’s almost morning, I don’t know.
“The cops are here to arrest you Jay. They said you have ten minutes to get downstairs.”
What the fuck?
“Do they have a warrant?”Asks Ryder, always the smart one, even while he unabashedly jumps out of bed naked and begins tugging on his clothing. Boots and all. I follow suit, a little more discreetly, and thankfully Jimmy has turned his back to give m
e privacy.
“Yes, they have a fucking warrant. Denny is on the phone with the lawyer and Laura is down there half-licked, doing her best to end up in the cell with you again.”
“Jesus! What the hell did I do? I thought that shit was over this morning, I don’t understand!”
Jimmy cuts me off mid rant.
“It’s not the shit with Andrew. They say it’s an assault charge.”
Ryder is long ahead of me, storming out the door and down the stairs.
“What do you mean, assault. On WHO?”
Jimmy wastes no time now that Ryder is gone, embracing me in only my jeans and bra.