Her books would give her something to do during her indefinite time at Floyd’s. No reason she couldn’t keep studying there. Some of her assignments were almost overdue, she’d have to buckle down.
In the living room, sorting through papers, Harlow was interrupted by a knock on the front door. Unsure who it could be given that no one would know she was home, Harlow looked up from the desk, glanced back toward the bedroom, and then cursed herself for being dubious. It was a knock on her own door, why should she be suspicious of that?
The peephole helped her out, Harlow checked it to see who was on her threshold. Though, she couldn’t have been more surprised to identify who it was.
Opening the door, she didn’t have time to speak before he came barreling inside. “Harlow!” he exclaimed, storming through the kitchen to stop in the middle of the living room. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Please, come in, why don’t you, Clyde?” she said, swinging the door into its frame as she turned to face him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been coming every day! I don’t know what happened. Does this have something to do with what happened in Floyd’s? I was mad. I was. I don’t deny it. I planned to avoid you. But… I heard you were in the office on Monday and then, you disappeared. What happened?”
“What did you hear?”
“Gina just…”
Ryske and Noon came sauntering out of her bedroom. She didn’t know if they meant to look as menacing as they did, but they didn’t make a welcoming picture. At least they wouldn’t for the nervous Clyde who stumbled and had to grab for the back of the couch to stop himself from falling on his ass.
“Look, Noon, prey,” Ryske said.
Clyde pulled himself closer to the couch.
Noon laughed. “Just in time for lunch.”
“Stop it,” she said. “Both of you. Clyde don’t—”
“You have two… two men in your bedroom?” Clyde asked.
Well if that didn’t just offend the shit right out of her. Opening her mouth, Harlow wrinkled her nose a little, but Ryske just laughed. “Yep, she’s a dirty, dirty girl, with a voracious appetite. Sometimes I have to pimp her out ‘cause I can’t keep up. I’m always there to watch… make sure she doesn’t get too excited and damage the johns.”
“Are you kidding me?” she demanded. “Don’t say things like that! He’s my colleague, he might believe you!”
“Trinket, if you think you’re ever going back to that office, you haven’t been paying attention.”
He could deliver shocking news in a matter of fact way. Maybe instead of spending so much time making out, they should’ve spent a little more time talking. There had been time this morning that she could have asked why they weren’t letting her go back to the office or what Dover had meant about Maze checking out her work.
Never had Harlow assumed going back to work would be off the agenda forever. In his defense, Ryske wasn’t telling her she couldn’t go back to work, just that she couldn’t go back to that workplace. At least, that better be what he was saying. If Ryske was implying that she should stay home while he took care of her, she’d dump him faster than she dumped Rupert.
“What is going on?” Clyde asked.
“None of your business, Flaxman,” Ryske said.
So, Clyde was his first name and somehow Ryske had known that about her colleague before she did. Asking his name had been on her agenda, she just hadn’t got around to it.
In that minute, something else occurred to her and she paused to squint at the guy who’d been eating her out that morning. Harlow had no idea what his full name was. He’d told her Ryske was his name, but his first or last? And what was his other name?
Another knock at the door made her reverse. This one was melodic and familiar. It sounded like the knock Dover had used to request entry to Bale’s on the night she’d met the crew.
Guessing the new guest was a friend, she didn’t bother to check the peephole. Declaring his identity through the knock helped her out, no way did she want to take her frown off the man who was growling at Clyde.
Opening the front door without turning around, she figured even if she was wrong about the intentions of whoever was on the other side, Ryske and Noon could probably handle the visitor if the need arose. And, Clyde was always around to call the cops if things got desperate.
Turned out, she didn’t have to be concerned. Maze was the guest who walked around her, pausing to kiss the top of her head.
“Hey, look at that, Trink,” Ryske said. “Your next appointment is here. It’s a grand for the hour. No extras. Extras cost more.”
Maze was probably confused, but Harlow smiled. “Wow, I’m expensive.”
“Just like you always told me,” Ryske said and winked.
Staying with her at the door, Maze slid an arm around her shoulders, giving her some of his weight. His burden was reassuring, and made her feel secure, even if he was crushing her a little. Harlow didn’t know why he was there or what had happened at his work to bring him home early. Though, like she’d said to Dover, she doubted what Maze classed as a job was anything close to a regular nine to five. The word “freelance” had given it away for her.
“Should we take this asshole with us?” Noon asked.
She thought for a second they were talking about Maze, but Noon was actually pointing at Clyde. “Take him where?”
“Yeah, take me where,” Clyde said, his pallor noticeably paling.
“Away from my girl,” Ryske said. “You don’t get any cookies.”
Her man was so random. Wait, no, she had to remind herself she wasn’t pleased with him treating her friend this way. There was no thinking of him as ‘her man’ while he was being an unreasonable asshole.
Harlow didn’t need to be saved from Clyde, especially not before he’d filled her in. “He hasn’t told us what Gina said yet,” she said.
Everyone paused to look at Clyde. “I… I…”
“You, you, yeah,” Ryske said. “Speak.”
When he took a step toward Clyde, her friend gasped.
“Crash, would you stop making him nervous,” she said, pushing away from Maze to go over and stand in front of Ryske, as a shield for the colleague she faced. “He won’t hurt you, Clyde.”
Ryske took her shoulders and pulled her back a step. “Long as he’s not within ten feet of you, I won’t.”
Harlow chose to ignore him. “What did Gina tell you about where I was?”
“Just that you were taking some personal time,” Clyde said. “The office was whispering about your absence. You haven’t been with us long. There was that Felipe thing and then you disappeared.”
“But, we found him,” she said. “Did they think I had been suspended for something?”
“I think they thought you couldn’t cut it.”
30
In disbelief, Harlow sagged against Ryske who was still holding her shoulders. Although she might be new to that specific department, she had worked social work for years. Runaways were common, bereavement happened all the time. Harlow was no rookie and had supported kids and parents through all kinds of fraught and tragic circumstances.
The man at her back squeezed her shoulders, maybe sensing how Clyde’s statement hurt her. “Shows no one in that department has a fucking clue who you are, Trink,” Ryske said, pulling her back to kiss her head. “My girl’s a fucking rock in any situation, Sap.”
Even the most dire of situations as Ryske knew firsthand. Much as she appreciated his support, Ryske was biased, she had saved his life.
“I didn’t think you’d folded,” Clyde said, quick to assert his faith in her.
To further prove it, he reached for her, probably to offer some kind of physical comfort too. Just attempting it was enough to make Ryske pull her back against his chest. Being possessive was just ridiculous. Clyde was nowhere near touching her, but apparently he was too near for Ryske’s liking.
“You know, Crash,” she said over her s
houlder, sharing her observation. “Your boys kiss me and touch me all the time. I’ve never seen you even blink about that.”
“My boys wouldn’t compromise you,” Ryske said with a growl of impatient irritation. “That fucker would.”
She rolled her eyes and mouthed an apology to Clyde who smiled in response. “I was naked when Noon walked in on us this morning.”
“He’s already erased whatever he saw from his memory,” Ryske said, making her laugh even though he wasn’t joking.
In the field of her peripheral vision, Noon passed on his journey to Maze and saluted in agreement. The pair did their familiar huddle thing, exchanging murmurs, blocking out the rest of them.
“You have some warped rules, baby,” she said, taking Ryske’s hand from her shoulder to pull it around her collarbone so she could dip to kiss his forearm.
“You really are with him?” Clyde asked, his eyes narrowed like he couldn’t quite believe it.
“You got a problem with that, Sap?” Ryske snarled.
Harlow dug her nails into his wrist to quiet him. “I don’t know what I am with Ryske,” she said to Clyde. “But I do know it wouldn’t be smart to cross him.”
The second part didn’t register to Ryske because he was stuck on the first. “You don’t know what you are with me,” he said with a tone of incredulity.
Maze raised his forearm to tap an imaginary watch. “We’ve got a reservation, Night. Gotta hustle.”
No one had clued Harlow in on the plan. If she’d guessed on it, she’d have said Floyd’s was her next destination. A date with Maze wouldn’t have crossed her mind. “We… we have a reservation?”
“Yeah, Maze is going to take you for food,” Ryske said, guiding her around to face him while Maze and Noon headed into her bedroom.
“Noon and me got a place to be,” Ryske said. “Stick with Maze, he’ll bring you home after.” Searching him, she got a flashback of the night he’d left her here alone. “I’ll see you later.”
It was like he could read her mind. Those last four words were deliberate. They weren’t a casual “see you later” they were giving her the message, “I can hear what you’re thinking and I’m thinking it too.”
“Why is now different?” she asked, fingering the hem of his tee-shirt.
“Because of this,” he said and bowed to kiss her.
Harlow let her head fall back to better experience the texture of his mouth and the insistence of his tongue.
His kiss was so good it kicked her off-balance. “Oh, Crash,” she whispered, her eyes still closed, her mind swimming.
“I’ll stay if you want me to,” he murmured on her mouth, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You have the one thing it takes to stop me walking out that door.”
Her lips curled up. “I thought it wasn’t safe here.”
“I’d take the risk for that.”
Laughing, she slid her arms up around him and pulled him down for another kiss. There had been a time when she’d told him to keep his lips away from her, that they would never be together. It was a vague, distant memory and one that she didn’t like to dwell on.
Harlow had been falling for this guy since the moment he’d fallen on her. Fighting it would’ve been smart, distancing herself would’ve been safer. Except, she’d been ensnared by the allure of him, and probably wouldn’t have been able to free herself from his web if she’d wanted to.
Mumbling his approval, Ryske wrapped both arms around her torso and raised her off her feet, kissing her. One of his arms kept its grip but angled so he could cup her ass, squeezing her hard and letting her feel just how happy he was to be kissing her.
“No time for that,” Noon said from beside them.
Breaking the kiss, both she and Ryske turned to him. “You seriously want me to kick your ass today, don’t you?” Ryske said to his friend.
Noon just smirked, making her wonder if his interruptions weren’t some kind of prank arranged by his supposedly supportive crew.
“You’ve got your own appointment to keep,” Maze said.
Ryske lowered her onto her feet, but kept one arm tight around her while he raised the other to check his watch. The timepiece was above the double-wrapped leather band on his wrist. Touching the edge of the engraved metal that circled one strand of the wristband, Harlow thought about the night Bale had read its words to her.
“Carpe noctem,” she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.
His focus lowered to her. “We sure will, Trinket… We are gonna own the world.”
There was so much meaning and innuendo behind his tone that it became profound. She might have said something in response, but when her attention ascended, she noticed Maze and Noon were nearby with her luggage.
Harlow had been told to hustle. Instead, she’d stood basking in the man holding her. Time to get with it. “Oh,” she said. Pushing away from Ryske, she hurried to the desk to scoop up her books. “I need these too.”
Maze put her suitcase down. She crouched to open it up and put her books inside, using Maze’s legs as a stand for the back of the case. “She just kneels in front of any guy, doesn’t she?” he asked.
“I’m gonna start a list,” Ryske said. Harlow glanced over his shoulder to see him run a ragged hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t let you punks get in my head.”
“Yeah, you should really know better than that,” Maze said, leaning over to sock his buddy’s shoulder. After enjoying the frazzled Ryske for another few seconds, Maze’s focus dropped to her. “You done yet, Princess?”
“Where are we going to eat?” she asked, zipping up her case.
“Sushi,” Maze said.
The answer made her grin up at him.
“Yeah, he’s the only one of us who’ll eat that posh shit,” Noon said. “You want cheap Chinese or greasy burgers, call me.”
“I could take you to lunch, Harlow,” Clyde said, drawing everyone’s attention. “We could catch up with—”
“Ha, Flaxman’s funny, who knew,” Ryske said on a fake laugh, which his crew joined. Three seconds later, the sound died, giving way to an abrupt cold silence and a trio of glares. “Think about trying to get her alone and she won’t be the only one missing from your department.”
Surging to her feet, Harlow smacked his chest. “What did I tell you about scaring him?”
In response to her scolding, Ryske’s hand shot up to her throat, squeezing her tight. “I don’t have time to play this game with you now,” he growled. “But I’m thinking you might want to be punished later.”
Maze picked up the case and Noon handed him the sports bag too. Harlow didn’t see it, her eyes were trained to Ryske’s, but she heard the movement.
“Time to go, Flaxman,” Noon said.
“Wait, you can’t just leave her there with him like that,” Clyde said.
She’d guess they were going toward the door because the sound seemed to be receding. “He can handle her,” Noon said. “She always leaves him in one piece and a few bruises never hurt any guy.”
That suggested she was going to be the aggressor putting Ryske in his place. Though, that might make sense because technically Harlow had hit Ryske first. But, if anything was going to end up bruised, it was going to be her throat in the force of that grip.
She relished every second.
Damnit, her man knew what his forceful actions did to her hormones. It was intoxicating to be held under his strength, overpowered, yet still in complete control. Control. Even with his superior ability, Harlow was confident in her influence over him.
The front door closed. The room fell into silence. The air crackled with a desire thicker and more potent than the need they hadn’t sated.
Ryske looked angry, but he wasn’t. He was turning her on and he knew it. Harlow couldn’t deny it, she was weak in the face of his strength, but only because it proved to her what this man was capable of. Her capability was in holding sway over him. She had her own power because he gave it to her.
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Without so much as blinking, she angled her body closer, reaching for him. Unbuckling his belt, she did her best not to smile when she read his subtle flicker of surprise.
Ryske did a good job of not reacting when she opened his jeans and slid her hand inside to rub the reaction that had persisted since he’d been kissing her. The change in his breathing betrayed that her actions were having an effect. His lips got narrower. He pressed them tighter together as she curled the fingers of her free hand around his strong wrist.
Guiding his curved hand away from her throat, Harlow didn’t want it to leave her body, she just wanted to reposition it. Ryske didn’t argue when she directed it around to the crown of her head.
Rising to her tiptoes, he lowered his chin to accept her kiss. “Tighter,” she whispered when his mouth was a few millimeters from hers.
Tensing his fingers in her hair, they tangled in her locks, tugging on the strands, sending a sting through her scalp that made her hiss in satisfaction. His nostrils flared a little when he smiled, showing her that he was enjoying this as much as her.
Harlow winked at him and unlocked her knees, sinking down in front of him to breathe his dick into her mouth. Ryske hissed, a loud, almost pained noise, but she took it as a positive sign because his fingers clamped even tighter in her hair.
Her experience giving head was limited to a small number of men. Ryske was larger than Rupert, who’d been the only man she’d pleasured with her mouth for a long time. Harlow’s drive to please the man in her mouth now made her work harder.
Until Ryske, giving head had never given her pleasure. Something about this was arousing her though. Maybe it was the sensation of his fingers matting her hair or him hitting the back of her throat every time she sucked him into her. Harlow felt powerful and strong and alive, more than she remembered feeling before.
Ryske took risks, he was a danger to society and, in a lot of ways, to himself, because of the risks he took. But he was no danger to her.
Pulling his jeans further down, she kissed his thighs, up to his scar that she brushed her lips across, making quick eye contact with him before descending to his groin. Kissing him there, she kissed his shaft, licked him, and sucked him once, working him with her hands while she gave his balls a little love.
Go With It (A Go Novel Book 1) Page 28