by Bromberg, K.
But this? I can win with this.
I push her backward so she’s against the far wall of the pod. Away from the door. More in the dark. When her back hits the wall, when my lips find hers again, when our bodies are pressed against one another’s, I push that hem up to do what I’ve wanted and dive my fingers between her thighs.
I swallow her gasp.
And then her moan.
As my fingers find her wetness and her heat and tuck inside her without any warning.
Good. God. What am I doing to myself?
“Fuck,” I groan as I force myself to stop, to voluntarily lose this fight.
“Cancel with your client tonight,” I tell her, my fingers still buried in her, my hand still wet, my cock still hard as a rock.
Only so I can win it later.
“No.” It’s part growl. Part moan. Both pure sex.
“What was that?” I ask as I chuckle against her lips and curl my fingers against the parts of her begging to be rubbed and fucked.
Her legs tense, her fingers tighten on my shoulders, her breath hitches. A simple “Ohhh” falls from her lips, its heat hitting my ear.
I still again. “Cancel your meeting.” I nip her earlobe and circle my fingers against the rough patch inside her. “And we’re going to finish what we started here.”
“Ryker.” My name breathless has never sounded better.
“Cancel.” A rub of my thumb over her clit so that she bucks her hips into my hand.
“Yes.” Another rub. “Damn it, yes.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
And without another word, I remove my fingers from her and walk toward the stairs.
Hell if that’s not the hardest thing I’ve ever done before. Leaving her wet and wanting while I’m hard and needing.
And need her I do. To abate my anger. To take a hit of the drug she’s become. To forget the bullshit.
To be mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Vaughn
I’ve thought about Ryker all shift.
How could I not?
Christ, he worked me up—in anger and arousal, so that the scent of sex is so strong I can smell it on my skin—and then left me high and dry and wanting.
But the thrill of anticipation trumps everything as I walk down the exit of Apropos.
The town car startles me at first. My thoughts veer to the senator, and fear has me thinking it’s him. But when Ryker opens the door and steps from it, I swear that every part of me clenches—chest, lungs, thighs, knees—at the sight of him.
He’s standing at the dimly lit curb, making it hard to read his expression. But his eyes—his eyes I can see. They glint through the darkness and are just as telling as the tension in his posture.
A small thrill reverberates through me with every step I take. This whole liking sex thing is still new to me, and yet each and every time we’re together, Ryker shows me a different side of him. Of it. And of us.
I stop when I reach him where he’s standing with his hand on the roof of the car. We share a look—one that is riddled with so much tension—before he glances toward the inside of the limo, telling me to get in without words.
And I do just that: slide into the limo with a glance back toward Ahmed—who’s watching us like a big brother on his little sister’s first date—and nod.
Ryker is beside me in an instant, the town car on the move as if the driver already knows our destination despite the privacy shield never being lowered, but he doesn’t say a word to me. He doesn’t even offer a glance my way. He just sits with his fingers tapping on his knee while his other hand runs over his jaw as the lights from the city around us glitter and glow.
“Is something wrong?”
He chuckles, but it’s strained. “Everything is wrong.” He lifts a glass to his lips and then looks at the ice in it rather than looking at me.
“What do you mean, everything is wrong?”
Where is the man from earlier? The one who waltzed in and has had me strung so tight, one touch and I’m going to snap?
He shakes his head and looks out the window. “I tried to work. I tried to figure shit out. I tried to do a million goddamn things, and fuck if it doesn’t help one iota.”
He’s not making sense. “What is it you need help with?”
“It’s nothing you can fix.”
“Ryker? Did something happen?” I reach for his hand, and he moves it the minute we touch.
“Yeah,” he chuckles. “You.”
“Me?” I laugh and turn so that my knee is angled against the back of the seat, my other on the floor. It’s the first time he looks my way, down to the darkness between my thighs where my skirt has risen up with the motion, before finally meeting my eyes. “What the hell have I done to you?”
The muscle in his jaw pulses, and his hand flexes on his leg. “You’ve made me want you like I can’t fucking live if I don’t have you.”
And before his last word is finished, his lips are on mine in a kiss that bruises my mouth as much as his love has marked my heart. Unrelenting, unforgiving, and irrevocable.
“Fucking hell, woman,” he murmurs between licks and nips and kisses. “The shit you do to me isn’t legal.”
I chuckle with pride and then gasp when he lowers himself to his knees and buries his face in the V of my thighs. He makes a show of inhaling my panties, and I know damn well how wet I was when he left me earlier. The scent of my arousal is on them. From then. From now.
“Ryk,” I moan when his tongue licks a line up the seam of my panties to press against my clit in a pleasurable pressure.
“You.” He grabs both of my thighs and pulls me down some so I can spread my legs farther apart. “Fucking irresistible.” A flick of his tongue. “Your scent.” An audible inhale. “How wet you are.” The hook of his fingers to pull my panties to the side. “Christ.” His moan as his fingers dip into me. “Your taste.” The heat of his mouth as the barrier is gone and his mouth closes over me. “Goddammit, Vaughn.”
My hands grip in his hair. My hips buck up. My teeth bite into my bottom lip as Ryker takes his time showing me just what it’s like to be pleasured properly.
I lose all sense of my surroundings. The driver up front who can no doubt hear my moans. The people in the cars beyond the tinted windows. The honk of horns from the cars around us.
I lose sense of everything except for the man between my thighs.
When I finally come, when my heart is racing and muscles are tensing and body is awash with so much pleasure that speaking or thinking isn’t an option, Ryker sits back on his knees and watches me. My arousal on his chin glistens from the lights of the passing cars.
But it’s his eyes as I come undone that hold my attention. His fingers are still sliding in and out of me, but it’s his expression, the lust mixed with desperation and paired with love etched in the lines of his face that owns every part of me when I crash over the edge.
“So beautiful,” he murmurs when he leans forward and kisses me as my body still pulses from pleasure.
And when he slips into me, the tires of the car still moving, I can’t help thinking I don’t want it ever to stop.
It’s just him and me together in here.
A world where no one can touch us.
It’s just us.
Two people who can’t seem to stop fighting their way toward each other despite everything trying to hold them back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Vaughn
“Hey there, pretty girl, are you all set?”
Lucy’s smile widens, but then without warning her bottom lip trembles. The sight of it kills me. I lower myself to my knees and run my hand over her hair. “What is it, Lu? What’s wrong?”
“You didn’t come last week.” She fights the tears that well in her eyes and refuses to look at me.
“Oh, Lu. I tried. I was here, but there was something going on, and they wouldn’t let anyone go on outside visits.”
“But you prom
ised. Every Tuesday was our day.”
“I know.” My voice breaks right along with my heart. “But it’s a new week, and while Tuesday is our day, we never just have Tuesday.” I try to sell her on why she shouldn’t be disappointed when I know it won’t work. “I always see you more than that. In sleepovers at the house. In dates to the park. You’re my Lucy-Loo. I need you more than just on Tuesdays.”
I pull her into a hug, hold her tightly against me, and squeeze my eyes, praying this won’t happen again.
“Promise?” Her voice is muffled against my shoulder.
“I promise. You know I’d rather be with you than anyone else in the world. And even when I’m not with you in person, I’m still here in your heart.”
“But that’s where my mommy is, and I never get to see her anymore.”
I take a deep, fortifying breath and kiss the tear tracks on her cheeks as I try to hold my own back. “I know, sweetie. I know.” I hug her one more time and then put her hand in mine. “You ready to go have some fun?”
She nods, but I stare at her with a funny face until I get a smile.
“Yes?” I ask.
She nods more emphatically. “Yes.”
“Good, because we have two Tuesdays’ worth of fun to make up for.”
“Like?”
“Like pizza and . . . I don’t know, but it will be fun!”
“Pizza?”
“Yep. Pizza. Does that sound good?”
Her squeal of delight is probably the best thing I’ve heard all day. “There’s my girl,” I say and head to the front desk to sign her out. She chatters away—music to my ears—as we head out into the sunshine toward the parking lot.
“Hey. Wait up!”
I turn to see Joey jogging after us, out of breath and with a jacket under his arm. It’s the first I’ve seen or talked to him since the last time I was here when he told me I couldn’t take Lucy. He never called with the more information he said he’d find out. All I have in my head as I look at him and force a smile is that for the first time, I’m not sure if I trust him.
Was he the one who spoke to Priscilla? Was he the one who told her about the various men I had at the house—all innocent but portrayed to be anything but?
“Joey. Hi.” I stop, and Lucy’s hand tightens in mine, her instinct the same as mine. Don’t take her away from me.
He stops and looks at me for a beat, head angled to the side, confusion etching the lines of his face. “You’re going just like that?”
“Like what?” I look down at my clothes, wondering what in the hell he’s talking about. Did I get something on them?
“No.” He laughs and waves a hand at my shirt as if it’s fine. “I meant, you’re just going to leave? It’s the second Tuesday of the month. Pizza night.”
And for the briefest second, I look at him like he’s crazy. Like I’d really invite him with us for pizza on the second Tuesday like I usually do after all the weirdness that happened here. “Oh. I’m sorry. You wanted to—”
“Go. I always go.”
“I—uh—” I look over to where we’re parked and then back at him. “Not today. We’re not going to do pizza today.” The words tumble out of my mouth, and I mentally cringe, hoping that Lucy doesn’t say differently.
“You’re not?”
“We’re not?”
Both Lucy and Joey speak at the same time.
“It’s—I—there was a change of plans.”
“Mr. Ryker!” Lucy yells, surprising both of us when she runs into Ryker’s arms as he approaches. My heart warms seeing her reaction to him and even more so when he gets down on his haunches and straightens the crown on her head after telling her she looks just like a princess but even prettier.
Ryker stands with Lucy’s hand in his and nods. “Joe.”
I glance toward Joey. His expression is guarded, and yet I notice the brief lift of his eyebrows and subsequent clench of his jaw when Ryker addresses him.
“Joey,” he corrects.
Ryker returns the same insincere smile that Joey gave him before glancing to me and then back to Joey. “Was there a problem? I saw you running out after Vaughn and Lucy, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay, Joe.”
Ah, jealous Ryker is in full effect.
“Yes, everything is fine. I was just . . .”
“Sometimes Joey goes with us for pizza on the second Tuesday of the month because he gets off early. It’s just something we’ve always done,” I say, ignoring the lift of Ryker’s eyebrows.
“Yeah. That.” Joey shifts on his feet, clearly not comfortable. “We do.”
“How sweet.” Ryker’s tone is anything but genuine, and I shake my head at him. “I’m sorry for the confusion today, but we have plans already.”
“Fine. Yeah. Sure.” Joey shakes his head and licks his lips, and for the briefest of moments I feel bad for him. For forgetting to tell him there was a change of plans from our usual. But then I think of Priscilla and last week and know that I really don’t owe anything to him.
Especially if he’s spying on me for social services.
“Maybe next time, then,” Ryker says before leaning over and saying something to Lucy that has her giggling like crazy. The deep kind of belly laugh you hear every once in a while and that makes you stop just to enjoy the sound.
“Yeah. Next time.” There’s defeat in Joey’s tone, and now I feel like shit.
“She’s spending the night tonight,” I explain even though I don’t have to, as Ryker begins walking hand in hand with Lucy to the car. I know I don’t have any obligation to say anything, but it’s my way of trying to feel less guilty. If I’m not coming back here like I usually would, the break in routine explains to him how I forgot it’s pizza Tuesday. “I was able to get approval to have her stay tonight to make up for not getting to see her last week.”
“Great. Good.” He glances over my shoulder to Ryker. “Have fun.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all. I just didn’t know you were still with him is all. After the other night when he was at your house . . . never mind.”
I roll my shoulders at the mention and hate that it only serves to prove he was one of the only people who knew. I look out to the cars in the parking lot, debating whether I should just ask flat out if he said anything or not.
“Is everything all right?” he asks, bringing my attention back to him.
“Everything is fine.”
“You sure? I didn’t hear from you at all the past week.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Did he forget what was happening? “That’s because I wasn’t allowed to see her. Remember?”
“You could have called, though. I would have picked up.” He looks back again to the facility, his hands fidgeting with the jacket in them. “Everything’s all better now?”
“Appears to be. I’m getting to see her, aren’t I?” Something is off here.
“Yeah. I’m sorry. It’s just been a long week.”
“For you and me both.” I pause as he looks back to the office yet again. “Is everything okay with you?”
“Fine.” He takes a step backward. “I need to get back inside.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Vaughn
“Keep your eyes closed,” Ryker instructs as Lucy and I walk over uneven ground.
“This is ridiculous,” I mumble as Lucy giggles, and then I remind myself to see this through the eyes of a curious eight-year-old instead of a woman who isn’t too fond of surprises.
“It really is hard for you to let someone else be in control, isn’t it?” Ryker’s voice heats up my ear. “Relax, Sanders.”
“You’re right.” He is right. But having to cover my eyes with my hands while being led through wherever he’s leading us is downright ridiculous.
“Can we write that down? That I’m right?” His laugh rumbles over my skin as Lucy keens in excitement beside us.
“Funny.”
“Where are we?” I
ask as the sound of people laughing in the distance can be heard. Horns honking. Birds chirping.
“I asked you to trust me,” he warns.
And I take heed of the warning, all the while trying not to be a little miffed that he took complete control of my first day with Lucy in a while.
“I had things planned out perfectly fine,” I say, knowing I sound like a brat, but the unknown is unnerving me.
“Up these steps here.”
“Because that’s easy to do when you’re blindfolded.” Another grumble from me.
“It’s like we’re on a secret treasure hunt, Auntie Vaughn,” Lucy says, the excitement in her voice snapping me out of my grumpiness.
“Right, Lucy? Just like that one princess movie,” Ryker says and chuckles because I know damn well he has no idea what he’s talking about.
“Smooth, Lockhart.”
“I try. A few more steps, ladies.”
“’Kay,” Lucy says.
The sounds all around us are so familiar, recognizable, and yet so generic that I have absolutely no clue where we are.
“Stop here,” he says and holds our arms in place. “Are you ready, Lucy?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she squeals.
“I figured since you were a princess, I needed to arrange a date fit for royalty.”
Her giggle fills the air as she all but vibrates in anticipation beside me. “Can I look?”
“Yes.”
And if I thought her squeal was loud, then I don’t even know what to say about the sound she emits when she sees the scene set before us. We are on the terrace of the Belvedere Castle in Central Park. The whole thing has been transformed.
There is a canopy draped in some kind of sparkly fabric that sits over a table complete with candles and fake gold goblets and covered in all kinds of arts and crafts. Standing beside the table are two women who are wearing royal garb, and their smiles are as wide as Lucy’s.
“What?” she exclaims as she looks at Ryker and me with wide eyes and a disbelieving smile, all but bouncing out of her shoes.
“Well, if you’re a real princess, then you need to do real princess things. These two ladies-in-waiting are here to transform you into the princessiest princess of all time. And after you have your makeover and complete your majestic art, then we’ll have a feast fit for royalty out here.”