by S. Nelson
Hell, possibly worse.
From what I understood, most of the men in the club lived close to the compound, yet on their own parcel of land, with top-of-the-line security installed to deter any unwanted guests. Ryder’s house was no different. Sitting on three acres of land, he was housed in solitude yet close enough that he didn’t live in the middle of bum fuck Egypt.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he mumbled before lifting his head to look at me. Several seconds passed of looking into each other’s eyes before he placed a chaste kiss on my lips. It was almost as if he wanted to tell me something but thought better of it. Ryder fell from my body, pulled up his boxer briefs and jeans and tucked himself back into place. He reached for a box of tissues sitting on the counter.
“What?” He pushed my legs apart to wipe himself from my inner thighs.
“Nothing. I just like when you take care of me after sex. It’s nice.”
“Nice?
“Yeah.”
He mirrored my expression, his smile melting my heart. Ryder was a tough guy, his appearance matching his personality. It was only during these tender moments that I glimpsed another side to him. A more intimate side I cherished because I knew it would disappear soon enough. I realized that sounded odd, seeing as how the act of sex was intimate, but sometimes sex was just sex. Primal urges between two people. It was the aftermath that could sometimes be more rewarding.
After he finished, he hoisted me off the table and helped to steady me until I found my footing. Grinning widely, he turned and moved to retrieve my clothes. Normally, I’d be self-conscious standing naked in front of a man. I had a little more junk in the trunk than I’d like, and my belly wasn’t as flat as it used to be—I was a sucker for sweets—but the way Ryder stared at me made me feel like the most perfectly shaped woman in the world. I felt sexy and confident whenever his eyes raked over me, clothed or otherwise.
Walking back toward me, he held my clothes but made no attempt to hand them over.
“Can I get dressed now?” I asked, extending my hand so he could pass me my bra, panties, and outfit.
“What’s the rush?”
“You’re dressed.”
“I kinda like you naked, though. You know, you can stay that way all night if you want. No complaints here.”
“Nice try,” I replied, snapping my fingers. With a loud sigh, he passed them to me, and within a minute I was fully clothed.
When I came to his house to cut his hair, I hadn’t planned on having sex with him. Not really. I knew it was always a possibility, but I thought my smoldering anger would’ve blocked my lust.
I guess that didn’t work out too well.
Ushering past him, I took a seat on his couch, crossed my legs and leaned back against the cushion. “We need to talk.” I tried like hell to appear as if fighting was the last thing on my mind, but the reality was we would most likely end up there.
“The four magic words every man loves to hear,” he griped sarcastically. Fiddling with the television remote, he clicked on a sports station before giving me his full attention. “What’s up?”
His question was guarded, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him. We still had a lot of unfinished business to discuss, and no doubt our conversation was going to turn heated. We were both stubborn, neither of us ever wanting to give in. When our fuses were lit, there was no stopping the explosion.
I wasn’t a submissive person—not outside of the bedroom, at least. And Ryder sure as hell was domineering. He’d said on multiple occasions how he wished I’d just do as he asked without issue, but he’d been with me long enough to realize that was not how I was wired.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I braced for impact, ripping off the Band-Aid and blurting out, “I want to know what caused you to do what you did the other night.”
His chest expanded as he inhaled a deep breath. Then his lips parted, expelling the air in the form of a shout.
“Jesus Christ! Are we goin’ over that again?” Pacing in front of me, he ran his hand through his newly cut hair. “I told you I don’t wanna talk about it. Look, I’m sorry for holding you down while I was dreamin’, but it won’t happen again.” The vein in the middle of his forehead bulged, his breathing increasing the more aggravated he became.
“You can’t say that.”
“Yes I can,” he gritted, tossing the remote on the couch next to me.
“If you talk about what’s bothering you, you’ll feel better.”
“Nothing is fuckin’ bothering me. Let it go, Bray.” The rasp of his demand should’ve halted any further discussion on the matter, but of course, I just had to push.
“You need to let me in if we’re gonna continue doing whatever it is we’re doing.”
“Fuckin’?” A look crossed his features so quickly I didn’t have time to dissect it. Was it disgust? Uncertainty? I just couldn’t be sure.
His choice of words hurt. Ryder was guarded, and I feared he always would be. If I was a sane woman, I’d just walk away, wish him well and move on. But I never claimed to be in my right mind when it came to the infuriating man.
“That’s what we’re doing? Nothing more than fucking each other?”
“Yeah. No.” He planted his ass on the arm of the sofa at the far end. “I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m not delvin’ into my deep-seated feelings about what may or may not be bothering me. And if you can’t deal with it, you can leave,” he said, pointing toward his front door.
My lungs seized, taking in air seeming too difficult a task. He kept spouting off at the mouth, hurting me more and more with every syllable. The muscles in my chin started to quiver, so before he bore witness to the tears that would surely follow, I rose from the couch, grabbed my keys and bag from the kitchen counter and hustled toward the door.
But not before tossing “Fuck you” over my shoulder, then disappearing outside and slamming the door behind me.
Ryder
“She just had to fuckin’ push, didn’t she? Couldn’t leave well enough alone,” I mumbled, whipping my beer bottle into the hearth of the fireplace, the shattering glass doing a less than stellar job of releasing any of my pent-up fury. “Fuck!” I roared, adrenaline coursing through me with no end in sight.
My cell rang, vibrating on top of the end table and cutting through the expletives I continued to yell into the silence around me.
“Hello,” I shouted into the receiver.
“Hey, it’s Stone. No time to ask what’s up your ass, man.” No break between words before he asked, “Do you know if anyone visited Braylen at work? Or approached her on the street? Anything weird?” His words were clipped and quick.
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“Are you with her right now?”
“No, she just stormed outta here a few seconds ago. What the hell is goin’ on?” I’d begun pacing again once I answered the call but I halted, fear of the unknown freezing me in place.
“Addy and Sully were approached on the street by some guy, telling them that they would get what was coming to them soon enough. The whole club would. Same fuckin’ thing happened to Reece and a few of the strippers at Indulge and Flings.”
“Who was it?”
“Don’t know. He wasn’t wearin’ a Reapers cut, although that doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’ll call you right back.” I hung up on Stone while he was still talking, ran out the front door and raced down the steps toward Braylen’s car. Thankfully she hadn’t left yet; she was sitting in the driver seat texting someone.
Whipping open her door, I grabbed for her hand to pull her out of the car. Startled, she dropped her phone, but when she realized it was me, she shot me daggers before leaning farther into the vehicle.
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she yelled, bending over to retrieve the fallen device. Her blonde hair looked disheveled, as if she’d been tugging at it, and her eyes were red, almost like she’d been about to cry. No time to feel bad about ups
etting her, though. There were more pressing things to deal with right then.
“Did anyone strange approach you recently?” My forearm hung over the top of her door, refusing to budge in case she tried to slam it shut.
“What?”
“Just answer the question, Bray. Did a man approach you recently? Spouting off at the mouth about getting what’s coming to you?”
“No.” Worry etched deep around her eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was freak her out, but I needed to make sure she was safe.
“Listen, put everything else aside. I need you to trust me. Don’t go anywhere alone. I mean it. Not to work, not back home. Nowhere.”
“You can’t seriously think you’re gonna tell me what to do, especially after what you just said to me in there,” she spouted, angrily pointing to my house. “Because I’m not listening to anything you have to say.”
“You can be as stubborn as you want, woman, but I’m fucking serious. There’s a possible threat out there and I’ll do what I have to in order to keep you safe. Even if that means being your goddamn shadow.”
Unlocking her phone, she frantically started typing a message, biting her lip in concentration while waiting for a response. “Where’s Jagger?” she asked. “Is he with Kena? Is she safe?”
“I’m sure he’s with her. He won’t let anything happen to her.”
“I need to go. I need to find out where she is. She’s not texting me back now.” She said something under her breath before turning the key in the ignition. Grabbing the door handle, she tried to close it, but I still had it braced open.
“I’m following you home,” I instructed, my tone deadly serious.
“Fine. Hurry up.”
As I removed my arm from the door, she slammed it shut, threw her four-door sedan in Drive and peeled out of my driveway.
That woman was gonna be the death of me yet.
Braylen
Five days had passed since Ryder freaked me out with his sudden and random interrogation. I’d asked him later that night, when he insisted on following me home and then walking me inside, if I was in any real danger. He said no, but I couldn’t help but feel that he was lying to me.
Against my wishes, he’d continued to show up at my house to follow me to work, then at Transform to follow me home, making me promise to call him right away if anyone strange tried to talk to me. I’d wanted to ask him to define “anyone strange,” but I had a gut feeling he wouldn’t be too happy with my lack of concern about the situation, one I was still left fumbling around in the dark about.
Ryder and I weren’t any better off than when I’d rushed out of his house the previous week. He refused to open up and I refused to keep quiet about his lack of sharing. Maybe because there wasn’t anything in my past worth shielding, I didn’t fully understand the ramifications of guarding secrets. And I would’ve been okay with allowing him to open up when he was good and ready, but then he basically attacked me in his sleep. He could’ve killed me. If he ever wanted me to share his bed in the foreseeable future, he’d better start talking.
Then again, maybe I didn’t mean anything more to him than someone to fuck, as he so eloquently put it. The thought alone had my chest tightening, but if that was how he felt, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
So why try and protect me?
And men say women are confusing.
“Are you sure you don’t mind me hangin’ out with you two tonight? It’s been a long day and I could use the company.” Tucking my leg underneath me, I plopped down on the couch, wineglass in one hand and a bowl of popcorn in the other.
“It’s your place,” Jagger said, smiling at me before wrapping his arm around Kena’s shoulder and pulling her closer. “Besides, I need a witness to prove that your little sister does indeed fall asleep during movies.” Jagger laughed, but not before Kena slapped his thigh for making fun of her.
It was in fact true; I couldn’t recall a movie I’d watched with her where she’d made it all the way through to the end. That wasn’t the case for me, however. I was always up for a good flick. If it held my interest, I was in for the long haul—or the typical hour and forty minutes, give or take.
“What did you put in?” I asked, throwing some air-popped goodness in my mouth while watching the opening credits. The lights were dimmed low, and we were all sitting comfortably on the couch, Kena between Jagger and me. No doubt, my sister would be lightly snoring in T minus thirty minutes.
Far from the Madding Crowd, Kena signed, flashing me a smile before resting her head on Jagger’s shoulder. He groaned, earning him another playful tap on the leg. Maybe it’d be more like T minus fifteen minutes before she passed out.
The way Kena and Jagger snuggled on the couch made me think about Ryder. I tried to stop it and focus on the film, but his image kept popping up in my head.
He’d obviously made his decision not to integrate me further into his life, and while it hurt because I’d grown fond of the broody, arrogant man, I took the opportunity to gain some space as well. Though that didn’t stop Ryder from continuing to follow me to and from work or calling me multiple times throughout the day and night.
The man was infuriatingly confusing.
After two hours the movie finally came to an end. Exhaling a breath of satisfaction at seeing what I deemed a wonderful film, I stretched my arms over my head and groaned out a hearty yawn.
“My damn leg’s asleep,” I bellyached, untucking it from underneath my body and straightening the appendage, pins and needles in full force.
“And so is your sister,” Jagger teased.
“How long did she make it this time?” I was so engrossed with the movie right from the beginning, I hadn’t taken notice of exactly when Kena fell asleep.
“She made it forty minutes,” he replied, shifting slightly so as not to wake her. “I’m impressed.”
“Me too.” Rising from the couch, I stretched once more, tugging down the hem of my yellow cami before striding toward the kitchen. “Do you want something else to drink? Another beer?”
“Nah, I’m good. I should be going.”
“Oh. You’re not staying over?” Even though Jagger slept in Kena’s room with her when he stayed the night, I felt safe knowing he was under the same roof.
Scratching the light dusting of hair on his jaw, he cracked his neck from side to side. “Wish I could but I can’t. Have to deal with something at the club.” Gently picking Kena up from the couch, he rose and tucked her back into him before walking out of the room.
A few minutes later he returned, yawning and doing a bit of stretching himself. Jagger’s hair was sticking up in the back and a little bit on the sides, but he somehow still pulled off the tough guy look. I’d come to enjoy his company, even though I hadn’t been his biggest fan in the beginning. Scratch that. I was, then I wasn’t, and then I was once more.
Pulling on his club’s vest, he snagged his keys from the coffee table. “Make sure you lock the door behind me,” he warned. “And use the new deadbolt too.”
Before he opened the door, I seized his arm.
“You’d tell me if we were in some real danger, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t hide something like that from me? From Kena?” Worry bubbled forth on every word. I’d meant to simply ask if he thought whatever threat they were concerned about was viable, not appear shaken and nervous, riddled with stress over the whole situation. If only I knew exactly what was going on; then maybe I could relax. But nothing was simple and upfront with these guys.
Codes.
Underlying messages.
Secrecy.
“We’re just being cautious, Braylen. That’s it.”
“You promise?”
Jagger had the decency to look away for a brief moment, inadvertently telling me everything I didn’t want to know. “Ryder will be here in the morning. He’ll meet you outside as usual.”
“If he’s just being cautious, then I don’t need him to continue to follow me to and from
work. I think it’s overkill, don’t you?”
He knew what I was doing, trying to trick him into revealing that they weren’t simply being vigilant. There was some sort of real danger and it could possibly involve Kena and me.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” We were both standing near the door, a battle of wills ensuing the more hush-hush he remained.
“Just let him do this for you. It puts his mind at ease. Mine too, and no doubt your sister’s.”
“Had to play the sister card, didn’t you?”
“I do what I have to.” He winked, a small smile tilting his lips. His phone rang, killing anything else he would have said. “I gotta go. Call us if you need us.”
For a brief moment, I’d thought about texting Ryder and telling him I didn’t need him to babysit me any longer, but I had a feeling he’d either call to argue or show up on my doorstep to convince me otherwise. The energy required for such a confrontation was my sole deterrent.
Ryder
“Settle down,” Marek demanded, looking a little worse for wear. Although the stress of the Reapers most likely being responsible for threatening some of the women, and knowing our enemy was certainly planning some kind of retaliation for the absence of their president, Psych, the Knights Corruption leader looked to be in control. For the first time in what seemed like a very long time.
After everything he and his wife, Sully, had battled, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t push through, knowing damn well he had a great woman waiting for him at home. And although Sully had technically been kidnapped and forced to marry the man sitting at the head of the table, their love was one for the ages.
Not that I was all sappy or anything, but everyone knew those two were meant to be together.
Placing the gavel to his right, Marek leaned back in his chair and not so patiently waited for the chatter to cease. All of the men’s words soon faded as we focused on our leader.
“I’d bet my life it’s a fuckin’ Reaper who’s rattling our women, and for that alone he’ll pay with his life.”