“Wrong side of the bed? Aiden, I thought you’d left me.”
His brows pulled tight into a scowl, all trace of humor fleeing his face. “You think I’d do that to you?”
“Well, what was I supposed to think when I wake up to find you gone? You didn’t leave a note, and after last night . . .” There was no way she was going to finish that sentence. But Aiden wasn’t going to let it rest—of course.
“What about last night?”
Shit. She could tell by the determination in that bold stare, he wasn’t going to let it rest. “After puking up my toenails and then telling you I was falling for you, I’m not sure I would have blamed you for running off.”
His top lip twitched into a crooked grin that, holy hell, had the power to make her instantly weak in the knees. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I don’t scare that easily. We all say stuff we don’t mean when we’re wasted.”
What was that? Was Aiden giving her an out?—giving her the opportunity to save face and retain a scrap of dignity? Or was this his way of asking her if she meant what she’d said? Did he want to hear her admit it now that she was sober? And what if she did? How would that possibly be a good idea considering their situation? But something in the way he watched her, the subtle tension in his jaw, told her he was waiting for an answer.
Shit. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
What he wanted her to say? Hell, he’d spent the last six hours in knots over what she’d said before promptly passing out on him, leaving him trapped against her with nothing but time to meditate on her confession. For the most part, he’d convinced himself she hadn’t meant it. How many women had told him in a lull of drunkenness or the throes of passion that they loved him? Too many to count. And he hadn’t once given a second thought to their declaration—until Ryann.
“Until Ryann” was pretty much turning into his damn mantra. He’d never wanted a woman to truly know him—until Ryann. He’d never known a woman who challenged him, excited him, and stirred him—until Ryann. And he’d never met a woman he’d considered opening himself up to—until Ryann.
He’d mulled on that epiphany for the next several hours as she lay passed out in his arms, wondering what in the hell he was going to do about it. Would she even remember what she’d said? And did he want her to? He didn’t need this complication—and this would most assuredly be one big complication. He wasn’t looking to fall in love. He liked his life footloose and fancy free and wanted to keep it that way—didn’t he?
Right now, his course was set. Ryann’s situation had been eating at him ever since she’d gotten that call from Moralli’s man. After discovering just how much trouble she was in, and what was at stake for her if he didn’t go back so she could get that reward money and pay off Moralli, he didn’t see how he had a lot of options.
Bottom line, he liked Ryann. Hell, he cared for her, even, and he had the means to help her out. Truthfully, he was her only hope. It was as simple as that, and he’d have to be a special kind of selfish bastard to abandon Ryann now and make her face Moralli alone.
He wasn’t excited about doing it, but it was a little easier pill to swallow when he knew he was making the sacrifice for her. He never thought he’d find himself agreeing to do this, but he’d meet with his parents. Ryann would get paid, and Moralli would get off her back. Then, Aiden could return to Vegas with a clear conscience and no worse for the wear. It was a good plan, a solid plan, so why was she rocking the boat now with talk of emotions? Why was he giving her the opportunity to tell him he meant something to her? Ryann was a smart woman. She had to see this couldn’t go anywhere. Or could it?—his Jiminy chimed in at the worst possible time.
Aiden knelt before her, staring into eyes that held a gut-wrenching amount of conflicting emotions, and he found himself holding his breath as he waited for her to respond. Something soul deep inside him flickered to life, burning slow and warming him from the inside out. It took him several moments before he recognized the emotion. God help him, it was hope. He wanted to hear Ryann tell him she’d meant what she said.
“Aiden, I—”
Her phone abruptly began buzzing on the nightstand, cutting her off. She tensed, a flicker of apprehension shadowing those jewel-colored eyes. He glanced at his watch, recognizing this was the same time she’d gotten the call yesterday. Before she could reach for the phone, he snatched it off the table and stood. Tension snapped through him like a whip, straining his sore, tired muscles. The ache in his shoulder intensified as he swiped his thumb across her screen to accept the “Unavailable” call and then lifted the phone to his ear.
“Hello?” He growled the greeting with all the friendliness of a pissed-off lion.
“Aiden?”
“Mother?” That was so not the voice he was expecting on the other end of this phone, though he was no more pleased by it.
“So you are alive after all. After fourteen months, I wasn’t so sure.”
When would she realize he didn’t respond well to sarcasm? He never had and he never would. Unfortunately, it was the woman’s main style of communication. Behind him, Ryann whispered, “Oh, shit, I forgot to call your mother back.”
His eyes lifted heavenward as if praying for patience. “I can’t do this with you right now, Mom. What do you want?”
“Well, I wanted to talk to Ms. Andrews. Seems she’s just about as good at returning my calls as you are.”
Aiden’s hackles rose. It was one thing to turn that snarky temper on him, he was used to it, but he drew the line where Ryann was concerned. “Don’t start, Mom. Ryann is busy right now. Can I take a message?”
“You can tell Ms. Andrews I’m not paying her to ignore my calls. And if I wanted to talk to her receptionist, I’d call him.”
“Well, you could try, but he blocked your calls when he left Manhattan over a year ago and he’ll be advising Ms. Andrews to do the same. I will contact you when I reach New York. Rest assured Ryann has done a spectacular job of doing your bidding.”
He regretted the words the minute they left his mouth. He didn’t hear what his mother said next, his attention caught on the offended gasp across the room. Fuck, he shouldn’t have said that. How was it that several states away, this woman could still manage to bring out the worst in him? As she continued to rattle on in his ear, he turned back toward Ryann to mouth an apology, but she was already off the bed and closing the bathroom door behind her.
“Mom, I gotta go.” Without waiting for a response, he ended the call and tossed the cell onto the bed before heading for the bathroom. “Ryann?” he called, rapping his knuckles against the door. She didn’t respond. He knew full well she heard him. When the shower started up he tried the knob—locked. Their conversation wasn’t over, not by a long shot, and he’d be dammed if he was going to let her get away with avoiding him. What had she been about to say before they’d been interrupted? “Ryann, I know you can hear me. Open the door.”
“I’m taking a shower,” she called back. “Why don’t you get ready to go? Your mother’s anxious to get you back, and she isn’t paying me to lounge around here all day.”
He knew from her brittle remark that he’d offended her with his thoughtless comment. Though spoken in haste, it might not have been such a bad thing to say to Madeline. If she so much as suspected there might be something between him and Ryann, his mother wouldn’t hesitate to renege on paying her, and that was a risk Ryann couldn’t afford to take. Getting involved with him was a mistake.
Reluctantly, he moved away from the door and began packing up his few belongings. Perhaps it was better this way, he tried to convince himself. Better to pretend this thing between them wasn’t happening, because come tomorrow they’d be in New York and this little road trip would be over—along with any reason they would have to see each other again. Best not make this any more complicated than it had to be. Piece of cake, right?
<
br /> Zipping up his newly purchased duffel, he slung the strap over his shoulder and headed outside to load the car before checking out. Feeling solid about his conviction and ignoring the cramp in his heart that told him he was a bullshit liar, he mumbled to himself, “It’s only one more day. What can possibly happen?”
CHAPTER
23
Ryann happened. She happened right out into their connecting rooms wearing nothing but a skimpy towel just as he was walking through the doorway to give her a room key. Certain he couldn’t bear the temptation and needing to put some space between them after spending the better part of a day cooped up in an SUV with her, he’d booked them each their own room. At her insistence, he’d gotten ones with a connecting door. The closer they got to New York, the antsier he grew, and he suspected Ryann didn’t completely trust him not to flake on her.
They’d been driving all day. She hadn’t brought up their conversation in the motel room or his mother. It seemed as if they’d both mutually agreed those two issues were off the table for conversation. She spent most of the car ride sitting in stony silence, leaving him alone with his thoughts—a dangerous place to be. Whether her silence was brought on by the lasting effects of a hellacious hangover or her still being miffed over his comment to his mom, he couldn’t know.
True to her promise, she’d answered his questions about her involvement with Vincent Moralli, and he’d needed to bite back a foul curse more than once. Ryann was in danger, for more reasons than she realized. After hearing her story, he had no doubt the man had her father killed and had been banking on the life insurance money to resolve his debt. But knowing Vincent Moralli, it wasn’t that simple.
Seventy-five grand wasn’t anything to him, but it was a way for him to get his hooks into a beautiful young woman. If Aiden were to venture a guess, he’d wager Moralli wanted her for something a hell of a lot more distasteful than paying off her father’s debt. He knew how the bastard thought, he’d been forced to work with him for enough years, seen enough manipulative, underhanded dealings to know he wasn’t going to let Ryann just walk away from this.
She was convinced that after she collected her paycheck from his mother and she paid her father’s debt, that’d be the end of it and fuck him, he hadn’t had the heart to dash her hopes. Time would tell. They’d play it her way and see how it rolled out, but Aiden couldn’t shake the feeling that returning was a mistake, and New York was about to deal them each a life-altering hand.
Aiden hissed a curse and abruptly spun around, giving Ryann his back, but it was too late. He was already hard as a rock, his pulse thundering wildly through his veins, centering in the base of his cock. “I’m sorry, I thought you were still in the shower,” he said to the wall. “I wanted to give you your keycard.”
“Oh . . . umm . . . you can just leave it on the table. Thanks.”
He set the keycard down and had to give his legs a firm command to get their ass moving, all the while his dick pitched a fit like a two-year-old who’d gotten his favorite toy taken from him. “Good night, Ryann.” Shit, he sounded like he’d been eating gravel.
“Good night, Aiden.”
Something in her voice made him pause. Hesitancy? Disappointment? Who the hell knows. All he knew was that this was killing him, being this close to her and wanting to get closer. But he’d done casual enough times to know that with Ryann, he couldn’t pretend it was just sex. Ryann was different. And if he crossed that line, he was going to be entering into uncharted territory. He cared about Ryann—more than he ought to—and if he let himself get closer to her, let himself explore what this was between them, there was a good likelihood he wasn’t going to be able to let her go.
How many times had he stepped into the cage and faced an opponent without giving it a second thought? And now here he was, backing down from a midge half his size, because she made him afraid of his feelings? Fucking embarrassing was what this was. If Easton was here, he would have been demanding Aiden’s man card. With a self-damning curse, he shut the adjoining door with more force than necessary and beelined it to the shower to try and take the edge off.
You’re effing kidding me! Ryann put a pillow over her head, trying to drown out the moans and sighs coming from the other side of the wall, opposite the room connecting to Aiden’s. The rhythmic banging of the headboard made sleeping in this room absolutely impossible. The screams were unbearable—seriously, was someone killing her in there? If he was, the guy wasn’t doing a very good job of it because he needed to do it “more” and “harder.”
With a frustrated groan, she lifted her pillow and glanced at the alarm clock—three a.m. They’d been going at it for almost two hours. Was that even possible? Who in their right mind could want to do it that long and that many times? Unbidden, an image of Aiden popped into her mind and she answered her own question.
Her pulse quickened at just the thought of him, and the symphony of pleasure playing out in the room next door heated her blood. She couldn’t get comfortable. Her skin felt too tight, the bedsheets too rough. Every one of her nerve endings seemed to tingle with awareness—awareness of the man one adjoining door away. She’d thought he would have tried to come over, but sadly that fighter had a will of steel. In the last two days, something had changed between them. Gone was the arrogant Disco Kruze who seemed to have a mind for one thing and one thing only, and in his place was a complex man who, if she didn’t know better, she’d swear was avoiding her.
This was ridiculous. Here she was, lying here and listening to this while a man who would rock her world, and undoubtedly put those two to shame, was no more than twenty feet away from her. Maybe he thought he was doing the honorable thing by keeping his distance. Maybe she’d scared the ever-loving hell out of him with her drunken confession. It didn’t matter. Tomorrow they’d be going their separate ways, and she was not going to pass up her last chance to be with him. Maybe he’d send her packing, but she’d never know unless she tried—what did she have to lose?
Throwing back the covers, her feet hit the floor just as the woman in the other room agreed with her.
“Yes . . . ! Yes . . . !”
Ryann rolled her eyes and padded across the floor. She didn’t bother knocking before turning the knob. It easily gave to the pressure, and she counted it a good sign he hadn’t locked her out. Silently, she slipped inside and closed it behind her—blessed silence. Her heart beat wildly as she approached his bed, her breath frozen in her lungs as she crept closer. The room was blanketed in darkness, except for the nimbus breaking out through the crack in the bathroom door, lighting the room just enough to see an outline of Aiden’s big body taking up a good portion of the full-sized bed. What should she do? Should she wake him? Take off all her clothes and slip under the covers with him?
She was weighing her options when his voice startled her.
“What are you doing, Ryann?”
“Aiden, you scared me,” she whispered, nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Did I wake you?”
“No. I haven’t been able to sleep.”
“Me neither. The couple next door is keeping me up.”
“You want me to go say something to them?”
“No, they’re umm . . . enjoying themselves. I was wondering if I could, you know, maybe sleep in here? With you?” Her courage started to waver when he didn’t respond right away.
“Ryann, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s killing me to do the right thing here, and if you get into this bed, I’m not going to be able to stop.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you do.”
“If you think you’re going to be able to have sex with me and then just walk away tomorrow like it didn’t happen, you’re either naïve or you’re lying to yourself.”
“Think you’re that good, do you?” she teased, a poor attempt
to lighten the mood. It was a fail.
“I know I am, but that’s not the point. Ryann, I’ve done this enough times to know when something doesn’t feel right, or maybe in this case feels too right. You’re going to get hurt.”
“Listen, Aiden, I’ve played it safe my entire life. Doing all the right things, following all the rules. And look where it’s gotten me—the nice guy cheated on me with my best friend a week before my wedding. I’m nearly bankrupt, and one of the most dangerous men in New York is hunting me down. From where I’m standing, safe and responsible doesn’t look quite so good.”
“Fuck, Ryann, you’re killing me.”
The raw honesty in his voice sent a shiver of anticipation up her spine. It was all the encouragement she needed. Ryann pulled her nightshirt over her head and slipped her panties over her hips, letting them fall to the floor. “I’m not under any misconception about what this is, Aiden. I’m a big girl, I know what I’m doing,” she whispered as she lifted the covers and slipped in beside him.
He tensed. A tortured groan rumbled in his chest when her hand made a slow trek down his abdomen. “I’m not so sure you do, Ryann. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to lie here and explain it to you.”
Before her fingers could breach the waistband of his boxers, he caught her wrist in a firm grip and pulled her arm up over her head, pinning it to the mattress as he rolled on top of her. His mouth followed, coming down on hers with zero finesse. A raw, masculine sound rumbled in his throat as his tongue thrust past her lips and commandeered her mouth. He filled her senses and she immediately yielded to him, desperate for more. Either the man was a mind reader, or he really was very good at this, because Aiden anticipated her every want, her every need, before it could take root as thought. He consumed her with ravenous hunger, his lips teasing, his teeth nipping, his mouth devouring . . .
The trail he made down her neck would surely bear the evidence of his touch. He was like a starving man, and she was his last meal. When his head dipped and his mouth covered her breast, sucking hard against the turgid peak, she almost lost it right then and there. His touch was electric, his tongue torturing. Oh, mercy, she was so out of her league with this guy. All she could do was hold on and enjoy the ride.
Passing His Guard (Against the Cage #2) Page 19