Edge of Desire

by Rhyannon Byrd

  The words hit his chest like a physical blow, stealing his breath. His throat worked as he threw a stunned look over his shoulder, and then he finally managed to say, “She’s worried about me?”

  Millie looked as if she wanted to smile. “Don’t sound so surprised. You’re not an idiot. You must know how she feels about you.”

  Turning to face her, he said, “I take it that she hasn’t told you about our…uh, talk.”

  “No, she did,” Millie corrected him again, taking another sip of her tea.

  Riley went hot around his ears. “And you’re still okay with me being here?” he asked. “You don’t want us to leave?”

  Setting down the fragile teacup, Millie said, “I’m not going to blame you for the circumstances, Riley. I’m trying to have an open mind about things, and I trust Hope’s judgment. If that cross is buried on our land, then all this would have come crashing down on us sooner or later. But Hope…I’m not sure how to explain it.” She paused, her troubled gaze sliding away for a moment, before she looked him in the eye again. “She’s been more alive these past few days than she has been in years. Since things went wrong between the two of you. There’s a fire in her again. A spark. So, no, I don’t want you to leave, Riley. I do, however, want your promise that you’re going to do everything in your power to keep her safe.”

  “You know I will. But aren’t you going to warn me not to hurt her?”

  “Do I need to?” Millie asked, pinning him with a matronly gaze that would have made most men think twice about crossing her.

  Cutting his gaze to the nearby wall, Riley shook his head and gave her the honest truth. “I don’t know, Millie. It’s the last thing in the world I want to do. But…”

  “But you think it’s inevitable?” she supplied, finishing his unspoken statement as he swung his gaze back to hers. “Hope knows you aren’t staying. And however different I wish things could be, I guess I’d like to think that she could have at least a little happiness, for however short a time, instead of none at all. And you’re the thing that makes her happy, Riley. It isn’t fair, but then life rarely is. If Hope were to ask my advice, I’d tell her to hold on to it for however long she can, and enjoy the moments that she has with you.”

  “Yeah,” he breathed out, unable to get anything else past the choking knot of emotion that had lodged in his throat. Feeling as if the floor were falling out from beneath him, he tried hard to mutter something that he hoped sounded like a halfway decent goodbye and headed out the back door. With his hands shoved deep in his pockets, he trudged across the back lawn and into the soggy forest, heading toward the perimeter markings that he and Kellan had set up around the search area. He couldn’t go and chill out in the cabin, and he couldn’t sit and make small talk with Millie. He needed to keep moving…going…until maybe he’d worked out some of this seething frustration that wouldn’t leave him in peace.

  But he was sliding, skidding into a dark, dangerous unknown, and the only one who could save him was Hope. She was his only lifeline. The shining beacon of light that could guide him through the blackened, toxic waste of his soul.

  Suddenly, he stopped walking, looking down to see that he had looped his way through the woods and was once again standing in the middle of the path that snaked its way through the trees, leading up to the cabins. Every muscle in his body was coiled hard and tight, and he knew what he was going to do. It was wrong, in more ways than he could name, but he was still going to do it. He had to.

  The rain had soaked him to the bone, but he wasn’t cold. No, he was burning, so hot he was surprised steam wasn’t rising from his clothes. Lightning crackled over-head, ripping through the dark gray sky like a blade, the echoing thunder vibrating up through his boots.

  He was just about to turn, heading back toward the house, when he felt it. Felt her.

  Turning, Riley could only stare, unable to believe she was there. That she was real. She was everything he’d ever wanted…ever needed…so vibrant and beautiful that it almost hurt just to look at her. He didn’t understand how she did it. How someone who’d gone through what she had could stand there and look at him as if she was seeing something worth believing in. Trusting. Saving.

  He wanted so badly to take her in his arms, but fear swelled up, crashing over him, and he heard himself say, “You need to go home, Hope.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE INSTANT THE graveled words fell from his mouth, Riley wanted to strangle himself. Why in God’s name was he sending her home?

  Gritting his teeth, he watched as Hope came closer, until she stood no more than a few feet away from him. Her mouth trembled, and though she didn’t say anything—just stood there wrapped up in jeans and a white button-up shirt, clutching a dark gray sweater around her shoulders—he could read the question in her eyes. The unspoken why?

  Swallowing past the knot of emotion in his throat, Riley fisted his hands at his sides to keep himself from reaching out and grabbing her. He stared at the way the raindrops glistened on her long eyelashes…at the lush swell of her soft, pink mouth, and struggled to put his tormented emotions into words. “I don’t want to be the thing that hurts you.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “I’m afraid we passed that point a long time ago, Ri. When you walked away from me, I should have been able to blow it off. Cry for a few weeks and get on with my life. But it never left…never faded. That raw, wrenching pain, like something important had been ripped out of me, and I had to go on living without it. It hurt worse than you could ever imagine.”

  “I left you a virgin,” he argued, as if that could somehow make it better. Make him less of an ass, when he knew damn well that it couldn’t.

  She made a hoarse sound that was too painful to be a laugh, and flattened one hand against her heart. “You may not have claimed my body, but what you did to me in here. God, Riley. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like you marked me. Cursed me. And it’s never gone away.”

  “Christ, Hope. What do you want from me?” he growled, hating how the rain looked like tears slipping across her skin. But her eyes were dry, and he suddenly realized that no matter how upset he’d seen her get, she never cried. The realization jarred him, as if it was a sign of some deep, emotional scar that had never healed. That was shutting her down…closing her off. “If I could undo the past, I would.”

  “Yeah, well, you can’t,” she breathed out on a shaky whisper. “And you owe me for that.”

  “Hope,” he said in a warning tone.

  “I want what I missed, Ri. After what happened to Neal…and then that monster coming into the café, threatening both of us, I’m worried and I’m scared, but I’m not going to just hide up in my room, shaking with fear. I’ve been wrenched around on an emotional roller coaster since the moment you walked back into my life, and I’m tired of it. Enough already. You told me you wanted me, though God only knows why. Still, I’m not so stupid as to argue when the man I’ve always longed for says he wants me, too. I’m ready for you to make good on those words.”

  “Damn it, it isn’t that simple,” he argued.

  “Because you’re leaving, right? You don’t love me? You won’t stay?”

  “I can’t,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time, the sound of his voice fractured and raw, as if something inside him had broken…shattered. He felt like an idiot bleating the same things over and over again, but he couldn’t stop. What if he touched her and started making excuses not to go through with his plan? It was too dangerous for him to want things for himself—to want more time with her. The temptation could lead him to thinking of ways to put off the inevitable, and he’d end up making a crucial mistake that could be costly. “Why do you insist on making this so goddamn difficult?” he growled, the harsh, hard-edged words torn up from the depths of his soul. “You’re asking for something that I can’t give you, Hope.”

  Stepping closer, she tilted her head back as she stared up at him. “I just want you to be close to me, Ri. I’m
not asking you to give me anything other than that.”

  “Bullshit. You want to go back to where we were,” he roared, his words lashing with frustration, “and I can’t do that.”

  “No, I’m not asking you for that,” she whispered. “I just want you now. For however long it lasts.”

  Staring down into her upturned face, Riley tried to hold firm in his conviction, but he could feel it slipping away, like grains of sand sliding through his fingers. He’d wanted her…had hungered for her for so long, but Hope was no longer the girl he’d known. He’d lost his hold on that girl a long time ago, and couldn’t get her back. But the hell of it was, he wanted the woman standing before him even more, because the woman affected him in ways the memory of the girl never had.

  The need was so much that it hurt, down in his blood…in his bones. All the passion and aggression and wrenching, gnawing years of wanting…craving, and not being able to have. And now that the Merrick’s hungers were blending with his own, he felt crushed beneath its force.

  “It’s going to happen soon. The fight…the end.” His voice was low…breathless. “I can feel it, Hope. And then I’ll leave you. Even if I want to stay, I’ll go, and I’ll never come back.”

  “I know that,” she breathed out, her voice so soft, it was like a cloud…an ethereal stream of smoke. Something magical and filled with mystery.

  Lifting his hands, he held her face in his palms. “Then tell me to turn around and get the hell away from you.”

  She blinked, the tiny movement sending a cascade of water droplets running down her cheeks as she told him, “No.”

  His breath jerked from his lungs, his body hard and shaking. “Don’t do this, Hope.”

  She wrapped her fingers around his wrists. “I know it will kill me when you leave, but if I don’t do this, then I’m already dead inside. I need you, Ri. I need to know, at least once in my life, what it’s like to have you covering me, inside me. I need to be a part of you, no matter how much it’s going to hurt. No matter how this all comes to an end.”

  Damn it, he didn’t need to wonder…to guess. He already knew exactly how it was going to end. With Hope getting hurt. Because of him. And he had no one to blame but himself.

  “You hurt me before, and you’ll no doubt hurt me again, Riley. It hurts just having you here. Seeing you. Breathing you in. I might as well get some pleasure out of it, to soften the blow.” He could feel the way her words chipped away at the tattered remnants of his control, the way it cracked and gave way beneath the gentle pressure, and then she said, “I’m so scared, Ri. Not of you…but of everything. I’m cold inside, and you’re the only one who can make me warm. I just need…I need to feel the heat of your body to remind me what it feels like to be alive.”

  As the last soft, halting word left her lips, he finally broke. One moment he was standing there, trapped in hell. And in the next…he was in heaven as he kissed his way into her mouth, tasting every sweet, delicious part of her. It was paradise. One that he knew he would never get more than a glimpse of. A forbidden taste, like Eve sinking her teeth into the apple. The consequences were going to be disastrous, but the flavor…Christ, it was unreal.

  Powerful. Darkly sensual. Wild and seeking and hungry. The kiss was nothing short of hard, explosive aggression, both of them going at each other as if they wanted to devour…conquer…dominate. She matched him every step of the way, blowing his mind, making him harder than he’d ever been in his life. Every movement, every moment, was sucking him in deeper, pulling his head under the water, until he was caught. Trapped. He couldn’t get out. Like sinking into quicksand, he just kept going under…and under.

  And if he’d taken one bite of that exquisite, forbidden fruit, Riley figured he might as well eat the whole damn thing.

  Pulling her against his chest, he carried her into the cabin as she eagerly wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms thrown around his shoulders, stroking his hair with her fingertips…the back of his neck, each touch sending a shiver of sensation racing through his system. He had no idea how long Kellan would be gone, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Without breaking the kiss, Riley carried her into the small space that connected the cabin’s massive bedroom to the bathroom that lay beyond the closed door on their right. With only a small vanity counter and mirror, the room was really only good for giving a woman a place to do her hair and makeup. Riley had thought it was a complete waste of the cabin’s floor space, until now. He didn’t want their first time to be in the goddamn bathroom, and yet he wasn’t about to risk Kellan walking in on them in the bedroom.

  Kicking the door shut behind him, he set Hope on her feet as he ripped off his flannel shirt and shoulder holster, tossing them onto the floor. Then, with his breath jerking from his lungs in hard, sharp bursts, Riley pressed her back over the counter, the sweater falling from her shoulders as he kissed his way over her chin, down the delicate line of her throat, while his hands attacked the buttons on her shirt. He’d only worked his way through the top half when he lifted his head, staring down with hot, burning eyes as he ripped the half-opened shirt off her shoulders, leaving it to bunch at her elbows. With shaking fingers, he pulled down the satiny cups of her bra, and bared the pale, exquisite perfection of her breasts to his gaze for the first time ever.

  Swearing softly under his breath, Riley beat down the snarling, vicious demands of his body, and simply gave himself a moment to soak in her beauty. She panted beneath him, her chest rising and falling with short, shallow breaths, while her soft fingertips stroked the burning heat in his neck, in his face, and then he couldn’t hold back anymore. He made a thick sound of lust that vibrated through his entire body, and lowered his head. Closing his eyes, he opened his mouth over one soft, swollen nipple…and then the other, intoxicated by their texture, their taste. The way they fit against his tongue. Reaching between their bodies, he started to wrench open his jeans with his right hand, still working one plump, velvety-soft nipple against the roof of his mouth, when he looked up at her from beneath his lashes, and his breath caught at how beautiful she was. He was mesmerized by the way her head tilted back at that perfect angle. By her long, dark hair as it flowed across her bare shoulders, gleaming against the paleness of her skin. By the smooth, tender line of her throat that called to the savage, visceral darkness within him.

  As if she felt the primal heat of his stare, she lowered her head, staring straight into his eyes while he held her nipple against his tongue.

  And then she smiled. Beautiful, sweet, perfect.

  The wrenching intimacy of the moment swept through Riley like a hot, blistering wind—the inherent purity of her trust…her shining, shimmering goodness a stark contrast against the dark, midnight pitch of his soul—and he suddenly felt like a criminal. Like something dirty and corrupt, soiling her with his filth.

  “Stop,” she whispered, cupping his hot face within the coolness of her palm. “Wherever you were going in your head, Ri. Don’t go there.”

  He blinked, drowning in the luminous depths of her eyes, while his own felt gritty and raw. She should have hated him for what he’d done to her life, in the past and now. God, she should have been trying to kill him—but not Hope. No, instead of raging at him, she was worried about him. Wanted to give him the gift of her body…to seduce him with tenderness…with her light and her heat. It made him vibrate with some strange, inexplicable energy. Lust. Need. Hunger. Adoration.

  He moved his hands down her sides, over the womanly curve of her hips, and caught the flare of uneasiness in her eyes, before she quickly snuffed it out, her chin lifting to a proud angle.

  “What?” he asked, his voice little more than a guttural rasp.

  “I know I’m not a scrawny little wisp,” she whispered, wetting her kiss-swollen lips, her eyes heavy-lidded and smoldering with need. “I know that I’m scarred and plump and not at all like the women you usually do this with, but I don’t care. It’s not going to stop me. I’ll do whatever you want, Ri. Give you w
hatever you need.”

  She blazed, vibrating with desire, the sexual frequency so high and vivid and sharp that he felt burned…scorched, as if he’d touched his hand to a flame. And he could have wrung her precious little neck for saying those things about herself.

  Working to find his voice through the raging storm of emotion blasting through him, Riley finally managed to say, “You’re beautiful, Hope. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Every part of you. Every inch.”

  She shook her head, a small, chastising smile curling the corner of her mouth. “You don’t have to lie to me, Riley. It’s enough just knowing that I’m the one you want right now.”

  “Damn it,” he growled, his control slipping as he suddenly leaned over her, fisting one hand in the soft hair at her nape to hold her in place. He pressed between her parted thighs, his unbuttoned jeans slipping off his hips, a pair of black cotton boxers the only thing that kept him contained. “Don’t give me that shit about wanting you right now, as if it’s some kind of goddamn miracle,” he growled, grinding his cock against her mound, wishing that the layers of clothing weren’t separating them so that he could shove himself deep inside, proving just how much he wanted her. “Christ, Hope, I want you all the time,” he practically roared, going nose-to-nose with her, her sweet breath pelting against his face. Her eyes widened with surprise at the way he was holding her…at the barely leashed violence of his tone and hard, shaking body, and it tore a low, bitter laugh from his throat. “I tried to warn you,” he rasped. “You’re playing with fire, being here with me…offering yourself up like a tender little sacrifice. I’m not the man you think I am. I’m not the boy from your past. And if you don’t stop this now, before it goes any further, you’re going to find yourself getting fucked by someone you don’t even know.”

  She narrowed her eyes, bristling with challenge. “Do you know what I think, Ri? I think you’re the one who’s scared…who doesn’t recognize himself. I think you’re hiding. Behind anger. Behind your fear. I think you’re terrified of letting yourself feel anything that isn’t angry and hard, anything that makes you feel vulnerable. But I’m not asking you to feel anything you can’t handle, that you don’t want to. I’m not asking you to be anything other than what you are. I’ll take whatever I can get from you. Hard. Angry. Violent and out of control. Take me on the floor, right now. Up against the wall. I don’t care. Just stop running, because we both know it’s going to happen!”