“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Molls. I think we both know what I’m doing.”
Her long lashes fluttered, before she met his gaze. “But why? You’ve been gone without a word until last night. And the last time we were—”
“I came by earlier and saw you leaving with that walking corn nut,” he said in a harsh manner.
Her brows knitted together, gray-green eyes crackling feminine pique. “What?”
He met her gaze, stare-for-stare, giving her his own scowl. When it came to the staring contest, she wasn’t, nor had ever been, a match for him. “I. Saw. You,” he said, enunciating each word. “With the guy in the BMW.”
“And your point is?”
“I didn’t like it,” he snapped.
“That’s why you’re here?”
“Yes,” he said, voice filling with venom.
“Let me get this straight,” said Molly. “This caveman routine is because you saw me with Jack and you decided you ‘didn’t like it’?”
He snarled, “Jack is his name?”
Chapter Thirteen
Past.
“I can’t believe you were staring at her ass,” Molly said, miffed.
“Why the hell are you bitching at me? I’m a man, Molls. We do look at women.”
“You didn’t just ‘look.’ You ogled her as if you were going to take a bite out of her backside right there in the dealership.” She pointed her finger at him. “Do you ever think with something other than your—”
Ryker snapped and took her mouth in a punishing kiss in the middle of her diatribe about the way he’d eyed some woman earlier in the day. The well-rounded brunette had walked past them, and he’d made a show of eyeing her assets when he was supposed to be helping Molly pick out a new car.
One minute they were in her kitchen having a heated verbal exchange. The next they were tangled in a heated kiss. In the instant after that, he’d twirled her around, kicked his large Lugz-covered foot between her feet, spreading her legs, his hand splayed between her shoulder blades, pressing her torso over her kitchen table, hiking her skirt and ripping her panties from her.
“Oh God,” she uttered in a breathy voice when the cool air kissed her hello.
“Grab onto the edge of the table,” he said, his voice gone gritty. She did. “I’m going to show you whose fine ass I want to take a bite out of.”
He rubbed two of his wide fingers between her feminine crease, his other hand parting her ass cheeks. “Damn.” He gathered her moisture, fondled her clit until she pressed her ass back and lifted up on her tiptoes. “Yeah. There you go. Give me your pussy.”
The metal teeth of his zipper grinding down sent a chill of excitement over her skin. He was going to take her.
He struck. Only instead of his cock, he’d plunged two fingers, hard and deep, into her wet sex. Unable to hide the sharp pain, she stiffened and screamed. He froze. Was he even breathing?
“Oh God, Molls. Oh, fucking God!” He pulled out of her body, and that’s when she felt the rivulet of her blood trickle down her inner left thigh. “Why the fuck?” She felt him backing away from her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Shaking, Molly straightened, her skirt tumbling down her legs, stomach quivering, and turned to face him. “I-I….”
“How in the hell were you still a virgin?” His face was a combination of surprise and horror. He looked as though he’d killed someone, backing away—the suspect dropping the smoking gun. Ryker zipped his pants, spun, walked to the sink without delay, washed her blood from his fingers as if to remove the evidence from him, and then squeezed the back of his neck with his palm. “You’re almost twenty-nine years old, Molly.”
How could she tell Ryker she’d been a virgin for so long because she’d been waiting for him? Because no one but him would ever do?
“I just never—”
He turned back around to face her. “How the hell could you let me do that to you? You should have told me you’ve never been….” His voice trailed off into nothingness, and he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Molly, I—”
She tried to go to him, but he held up a hand, stopping her. “Ryker. It’s okay. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.”
His eyes flashed. “It’s not okay.” He shook his head, hair flopping over his right eyebrow. “It will never be fucking okay.”
He left her there, standing in the kitchen.
She’d waited a couple of days, hoping to give him some time to calm down before she went to see him at his office, intent on easing his conscience. When she walked in, cold eyes met her. “Leave, Molly. Or I will.”
She tried to talk to him. To apologize for letting things go too far and not telling him she’d been untouched, but Ryker didn’t allow her to talk. He just got up, walked around his walnut desk, and strode out of his own office.
The next day, when she tried again to speak with him, he was gone.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Monroe, but Mr. Cage has left for Singapore,” Laura, his office assistant, said.
She’d sent text, after text and made call, after call….
Chapter Fourteen
Present.
Molly gathered every bit of will power she was capable of grabbing hold of, settled her shaking nerves, and said, “Yes, Ryker. Jack is his name.” She straightened her shoulders and then ducked under his right arm, freeing herself. He grabbed her, his long, strong fingers wrapping around her upper arm. She yanked, however, while he held tight, and by all rights the way he handled her should have evoked fear and dredged up bad memories of her father’s angry touch, it didn’t. Molly didn’t fear him. “It’s none of your business who I’m with.”
“You are my business, Molly.”
“Oh? Since when?”
“Since now.”
She laughed a humorless sound. He let go of her. “You can’t just waltz in here, and get all….” Molly did an air circle with her hand in front of his face. “Whatever this is.”
“This,” he said in a low, too-calm voice, “is seething jealousy.”
My God. She’d just witnessed a crack in his steel will. He’d admitted he was jealous. The admission thrilled her, yet she kept her stony mask in place as if what he said made no difference to her.
“Well, you don’t have the right to be jealous.”
“I have every right, Molls.”
She took in a deep breath and set her chin. Defiant. “No. You don’t.”
“You know I do,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Any right you thought you had, ended last year when you left this house, and the country.”
Something. Some semblance of emotion she’d never seen in his eyes before flashed, then vanished.
“Did you let him touch you?”
She smirked up at him. “Why, yes. I did,” she said. “I still have his scent on my skin, if you must know.”
The muscle in Ryker’s jaw ticked, and his stormy eyes narrowed to slits.
“In fact,” she bit out, “I’m still wet.” She made a show of caressing the side of her neck where Ryker’s mouth had been earlier with her fingertips. “Sopping wet from coming my heart out because Jack, unlike you, fucked me senseless.” Ooo, the look he gave her now singed her skin. “And,” she continued, going for the gold medal in verbal javelin throwing, “unlike you, he wants to keep fucking me senseless.”
He stalked forward, nostrils flaring—a menacing wall of muscled man. She backed up. Maybe she’d pushed him too far, because he appeared as though he were going to tear a strip off her ass.
“Molly,” he said. The low rumble in his voice caused the fine hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end and held her still, tighter than any rope could. “If I ever show you what I want from you….” he paused, the hands at his sides clenched.
The anger vibrating off his body and the vision of his balled fists didn’t stop her from saying,
“Ryker. I want you to.”
He cocked his head. “What?”
She studied the man standing in her foyer. The boy she’d known since she was twelve was gone, yet she saw them both there. That boy he’d been. The man he’d become. Even so, Ryker never fully let her see him. For whatever reason, tonight, deep down on some instinctive level, she recognized something. The bad boy who feared nothing—feared her. Ryker kept a part of himself from her. The why of it, she didn’t know.
“I want you to show me.”
His brow furrowed into deeper grooves. “If I show you what I’ve always wanted...” There was a pregnant pause. “You would hate me even more than you do.”
She didn’t hate him. She could never hate him.
“Don’t be a pussy, Ryker. Show me.”
Those eyes of his sliced her through. “What did you just say to me?”
She fixed her gaze with his. She wasn’t going to back down and let him hide from her any more. And she was done being a satellite heart, orbiting around the subject of them.
“I said, don’t be a pussy.”
Ryker’s mind reeled. When it came to Molly, there were three things he feared most, and, if he were truthful, that fear was why he’d always sought out other women—pushed Molly away. Some women had been nothing to him but surrogates. Others, a way to forget, or to try to forget about her. He didn’t deserve Molly. Never had. He’d even been cruel to her at times, in an attempt to force her into the choice of being the one to walk away from him. The thing was, she wouldn’t. So, he took matters into his own hands and did the walking.
If he revealed what he wanted, he didn’t think she’d ever understand his need for her submission. Her complete surrender. And the truth was, he didn’t think he could ever be the kind of man she needed or wanted. She’d always talked of the cookie-cutter life, with the perfect husband and the kids. She wanted the romance and the ring. Nothing about Ryker was cookie cutter. And romance? He didn’t do romance. Nonetheless, there she was, standing before him, telling him not to be a pussy. He either manned up, or walked away again.
Part of him kept saying, Don’t do it. Walk. You’ll scare the shit out of her. He should go, knowing what he did about her past. Her father had been one mean son of a bitch, and he’d never forget the night Mr. Monroe went clear off the deep end, about beat his wife Madeline to death, and was put away for a few years for criminal domestic violence.
Could Molly separate the act of sexual dominance from the abuse she witnessed when she was young? From the abuse she still witnessed in the lives of the battered women she’d made a career out of helping? Would she understand the difference? He didn’t know, and that was the crux of it all. Yet, the other part of him—that side he tried to hide from her—reveled in dropping the veil and showing little Ms. Monroe what it would mean to be his woman.
Hell, he’d already claimed her as his, even though he fought a battle over taking her in the most horrible way a man could. Well, at least the most horrible way as far as he was concerned. If he would have known he was her first time, he would have done things differently. Not gone at her like an animal bent over a table. The thing was, it was too late for do-overs. He’d done what he’d done. And left her because he’d panicked and didn’t know how to deal. How could he ever make what happened between them that day in her kitchen up to her? He couldn’t. So because of it, Ryker stayed away. However, when it came to Molly, something always brought him back to her.
Don’t be a pussy, Ryker.
Decision made, he took the two steps it required to get to her, circling, circling, taking in the slight tremble of her body, then stopped behind her. The tick, tick, tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway sounded out his heartbeats.
He reached, hand fisting into the silky strands of her strawberry hair, and tugged with restrained force. She let out a small whimper, and he almost stopped.
No more running.
“You asked me once to make love to you. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t make love, Molly. I’m not a soft lover.”
He witnessed the goose bumps splay across her neck and arms.
“Do you think I don’t know you enjoy being in control?”
“Molls,” he said, voice gone guttural. “You have no idea what I like.”
“I told you to show me.”
Oh, he wanted to.
“You better be God damn sure you want this.”
“I am,” she said in a whisper.
“There will be no going back, Molly.”
“I know.”
All right. She wanted him to show her, and he would.
“Go upstairs to your bedroom, strip all your clothes off, and wait for me on your knees,” he said by her ear. “Do you understand?”
Her pretty pink tongue swiped over the swell of her lush top lip before she answered him with, “Yes.”
Ryker flicked the lobe of her ear with the tip of his nose. “Do it then,” he said, releasing his grip on her hair.
Chapter Fifteen
Past.
Fuck it.
Sniffing a line of blow from the mirrored tray, Ryker added to the burn with cheap whisky, listening to his cell phone ring, and ring, and the girl laugh. No. Girls. They were laughing. One stumbled around as she stripped out of her clothes. The other, already naked, sat on the floor by his leg and played with a cinnamon-colored nipple with delicate fingers, her left hand rubbing his crotch.
“Give,” said the one standing by the couch with her dress crumpled around her waist, her bare breasts jiggling when she tossed her hand out, reaching for the bottle he held.
Mila was her name. Or, at least that’s what she said it was.
She took a hefty swig once she tugged the bottle from his grip, so he got up and weaved his way to the bedroom of his suite, flopping down on his back on the king-sized mattress. The ceiling became a hazy blur, or was Mila crawling on top of him?
Earlier, he’d eyed her because of the reddish-blonde color of her hair, although he didn’t think it was her real color, and he’d known she’d be an easy piece of ass when she sauntered up to him in the hotel lounge. So when she’d put her hand down his pants after only a couple of drinks, and suggested they pick up the exotic babe sitting at the end of the bar and go up to his room, she’d proved him more than right.
Ryker didn’t try to focus. He wanted the feeling of numbness. He welcomed the fog overtaking his brain, helping him to forget about her. His eyelids closed, and for a moment, just one, he thought he smelled Molly’s vanilla perfume.
He didn’t even realize Mila was fucking him until she told him something.
“Huh?” he asked, heavy lids opening to see her.
The exotic, dark-haired girl bent to kiss him, yet even in his hazed state he had enough sense to turn his head away. She sucked his earlobe instead of his tongue. He didn’t kiss any of the women he banged. Ever.
“Put your hands around my neck,” Mila said.
When he did, she moaned, sat up, taking his hands with her as he squeezed.
“Yeah,” she croaked.
Mila lifted her hips up and came down, riding him hard.
He was detached from the moment, yet not. Inside his head came the sound of mingled breaths, groans, grunts, and moans. The bouncing of the bed started. The wet slap of flesh hitting flesh. The scent of sex filled his nostrils and rested upon his tongue. Then everything shifted, into shades of gray….
When Ryker woke, his head pounded as if someone had slammed him into a concrete wall—numerous times.
“Christ,” he muttered, and scrubbed a palm down his face.
He’d been messed up before, but this was a new high, or perhaps low, for him.
Blinking the grit from his eyes, the night before started coming back in increments. He recalled bringing some chick up to his room. Wait. Two chicks. He listened, only to be struck with silence. With deliberate slowness, he reached behind his back. No one was in bed with him. Thank God. He rolled over, and that’
s when something captured his attention. He stared at the used condom dangling off the edge of the sheetless mattress. At least someone in the fuck-fest had been smart enough to put a raincoat on him, though he didn’t remember being that person.
Glancing down Ryker groaned, realizing he was still half-dressed, his shirt hanging from one arm, his flaccid dick flopping out the fly of his pants catching some air. He tucked himself away, then sat up, legs going over the side of the bed. It took him a moment to gain his bearings. He shrugged out of the shirt. Rubbed at his temples. Glanced at the clock, only the clock wasn’t on the bedside table. It was on the floor, keeping company with a lamp.
He snagged his cell from the table, not remembering putting his phone there either, and peeked at the time, only to see a whole lot of indicators for missed calls, voice messages, and unread texts.
He tapped the icon to listen to his messages.
“Hey, man,” Declan said. “Just trying to get ahold of you. Call me back, bro.”
“Ryker Zane Cage. This is your mother. Your father and I are worried about you. We haven’t heard a thing from you in two months. Call me back.”
“Mr. Cage,” his assistant, Laura said. “I’m sorry to keep calling, but you need to call the office as soon as you can.”
“Son,” said his father, “your mother is beside herself with worry. You need to call.”
“Hi.” He closed his eyes, listening to Molly’s voice, and his chest joined his head in a joint ache. “I know you don’t want to talk to me. But call your brother. He called me and wanted to know what was going on. I didn’t tell him anything about what happened between us.” A sigh. “I’m sor—”
Ryker pulled the phone from his ear and turned it off.
Chapter Sixteen
Present.
Molly shook as she unzipped her sundress and stepped out of it, before tugging off her panties and unsnapping the front clasp on her bra, leaving everything in a pile on the tan carpet. With an unsteady hand, she swiped her fingers through the strands of her mussed hair, took a deep breath, and kicked off her sandals. She closed her eyes for a moment, allowing what she was about to do to sink in.
Claimed by the Bad Boy Page 8