Ryder

by Diana Gardin

  After the day I’ve had, my throat clogs with emotion. I don’t have the words to thank him, so I just nod. He slaps my back and walks away.

  I’m waiting for Frannie in the lobby when my team walks in, along with Grisham. Each one of them grasps my hand, pulling me in for a bro hug before releasing me.

  “Glad she’s okay, brother.” Lawson looks me over. “You look like shit, though. Go home. Take care of them.”

  I nod. “Can’t thank you—”

  Ben cuts me off. “Don’t do that shit. We don’t thank each other. This is what we do. Every time. Frannie wasn’t just a client for us. We knew that. We would have brought her home no matter what, but there was extra incentive.”

  Bain nods. “And now Ward is where he belongs, in a federal prison. He won’t get away, and he’ll end up in even deeper shit for trying to run.” He shoots Grisham a meaningful glance. “And we did it all with no shots fired.”

  Grisham meets his gaze head-on. “I don’t have an itchy trigger finger, Bull’s-Eye. That’s not who I am. I just wanted to make sure he was down and that Frannie was brought home safe.”

  Bain lifts his chin. “That’s what we all wanted. I could have made that shot with my eyes closed. But Wolf loves that woman.” He tilts his head toward me. “Wouldn’t take that risk, not with her and the baby’s life on the line.”

  Grisham nods. “I get it. Listen, I’m still learning when it comes to leading the pack. You guys are a tight team. I’m impressed.”

  Bain shoots me a glance, and I can read it loud and clear. Bain isn’t trying to impress Grisham Abbott. Grisham hasn’t earned his respect as a leader, and if the day comes when the Boss Man turns the reins over to his son-in-law, I’m not sure where that’ll leave Bain and Grisham’s working relationship.

  Frannie walks out into the lobby, cuddling Dove in her arms, and every single ounce of my attention is immediately drawn to them.

  Walking toward them, I wrap an arm around Frannie’s waist. “Ready to go?”

  She looks up at me, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her with a shy expression on her pretty face. “Where exactly are we going?”

  “Home,” I say simply.

  She doesn’t ask any more questions, just lifts a curious brow, and I usher them out the front door and into the BMW. Frannie leans her head back against the seat as we drive, but her eyes aren’t closed. She keeps checking the backseat, where Dove is turned around in her car seat.

  I glance toward the back. “Shit. Guess I’m gonna have to get an SUV. Feels wrong carting a baby around in a sports sedan.”

  Frannie’s lips spread into a beaming smile that brings sunshine into all the darkest places inside me. “Careful, Ryder. You’re gonna make a girl think you want this to be a habit.”

  The fact that there’s a question in her tone means that we still have so much to talk about. We’ll get there. First I need to get her home. I need to get her fed, and showered, and rested.

  Then we’ll talk.

  When the elevator opens into the foyer of the penthouse, everything looks the same.

  And everything looks completely different.

  For one thing, there’s a stroller standing by the elevator, right beside the entryway table. There’s a playpen in the living room, with plush toys littering the floor inside it. In the kitchen, we find a full stash of baby bottles, formula, and baby foods.

  Frannie looks at me with wide, confused eyes. “How did you do this? Why did you do this?”

  I hold my hands up in the air. “I didn’t do this, sweetheart. I swear to you, I would have done this if I’d had the time. But Jacob called Dare Conners’s wife, Berkeley. She’s an interior designer, and I guess she put some shit together for us. Some of the Rescue Ops wives are tight, and they have kids and stuff. They must have helped.”

  Frannie and I walk up the stairs, where we don’t usually have much of a reason to go, and peek into one of the secondary bedrooms. The first one, which previously had a queen-sized guest bed, is now fully outfitted as a nursery with a crib and changing table, a shaggy pink rug, and an overflowing box of toys. There’s a comfortable-looking rocking chair with a bookshelf beside it, and I just keep staring around the room.

  “Fuck me. Do they think we’re staying here forever? This isn’t our place!”

  Frannie’s giggle is breathless, and she carries Dove around, showing her every piece of furniture in her new room. I watch as she talks to her, cooing and pointing. That feeling I got in my chest earlier when I looked at Dove returns full force when I watch the two of them together.

  I don’t understand it. I’m not Dove’s father. I didn’t watch Frannie carry her in her belly for nine months. I didn’t help create her. I don’t even want to think about the bastard who did. But when I look at the two of them, with their identical blond hair and blue eyes and the way they both look at me like I belong to them…I feel like I’m home.

  They belong to me just as much.

  “They just wanted to help us feel safe and secure again. After everything. I get it. It was so nice of them. I’m going to have to meet them…thank them in person.”

  I nod. “We can make that happen.”

  Frannie walks toward me where I’m standing at the entrance to the nursery, and Dove blinks, curling her little lips upward.

  “Boosh,” she says, and extends her arms out toward me.

  I go still, and Frannie’s footsteps stutter to a halt.

  She glances down at Dove, whose arms are still extended. The baby makes an impatient sound, and stretches farther toward me.

  “Do you…” Frannie’s tone is hesitant. “Do you want to hold her? Just for a minute, while I get her bath ready?”

  I’ve never held a baby before, because I just haven’t been around them very often. Some of the guys at work have had them, and I’ve met them, but I’ve never held them. Dove isn’t a newborn, but she’s still fragile and small, and…

  She reaches for me again, and I automatically reach back, plucking her from Frannie’s hold. She settles naturally into my arms, one arm going around my neck, the other hand resting on my chest. I hold her tight, and warmth radiates from her and into me.

  Frannie stares at us, until I give her a nudge with my hip. “Bath? I got her.”

  She blinks like she was lost in a daze, and then nods. “Oh…right.” A faint blush tints her cheeks, and now I want to know what she was thinking about. But before I can ask her, she’s rushing off into the bathroom across the hall from Dove’s new nursery.

  While we wait, I walk around the room with Dove the way her mom did, pulling a purple elephant out of the crib and holding it up to her so she can see it. “See this little guy? He’s frowning because he has to be purple. So we’re gonna name him Gray, because it’s the color he wishes he was. Sound good?”

  Dove coos, and I take that as an agreement. Stopping my pacing, I stare down at the baby girl in my arms. “Not sure what life is gonna throw at us, Dove, but I promise you one thing: I’m gonna make you and your mama happy. Starting today. Okay?”

  She lays her head against my chest, nothing but peace and calm radiating from her, and I’m filled with a surge of protectiveness the likes of which I’ve never felt before. There’s a sense of purpose that comes with it, and energy, and drive. To do more. To be more.

  For them.

  “She usually naps in the morning and the afternoon, so this should be a long one. She probably won’t be awake until five.” Frannie yawns as she enters the living room in a T-shirt and sweats, fresh from a shower.

  We bathed Dove and fed her, and we both ate a couple of sandwiches from the fridge and took showers ourselves. I’ve been sitting on the couch waiting for Frannie to get out of hers, which was way longer than the one I took in the guest bathroom.

  I pat the cushion beside me, and she sits, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged and placing a pillow against her chest. I grip her chin in my fingers, holding her cheek up to the light. The skin is brui
sing in earnest now, turning an angry shade of magenta, and the anger bubbles up inside me all over again.

  He tried to take what’s mine. Both of them.

  Instead of letting go of her, I let my hand slip down to find one of hers. “I could have lost you today.”

  She glances down at our hands. “But you didn’t.”

  I gesture toward her, and then point at my own chest. “Nine years ago, when I lost Echo? The whole trajectory of my life changed. It just fueled my drive to join the military. To protect and serve. When I lost her, I felt like it was such a waste of potential. Of a good life. And I felt like I could have prevented it, if she had just trusted me to help keep her safe.”

  Frannie’s head jerks up, her eyes meeting mine. “It’s not the same thing, Thorn.”

  My chest constricts, because she used my first name and because I don’t think she’s getting it. “It’s not the same situation, but it’s the same concept. Don’t you get that? You walked out of here last night. Because you didn’t trust me to keep you safe.”

  Frannie shakes her head, her hair falling out of its bun in chunks. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you! It’s that I knew you didn’t have the whole picture. I had to protect Dove; it wasn’t just about me.”

  I sit back, studying her. As quickly as they drained away earlier with the relief of feeling her in my arms again, the hurt and the anger wash back inside my heart like the ocean rushing back to the shore. “Why didn’t you tell me about her? The most important part of you…and I didn’t even know.”

  She shrugs, a helpless expression on her face. “I was going to…you know I told you there was something I needed to talk to you about. At first, it was because I didn’t trust anyone, anyone with the secret of her existence. I knew that Eli finding out that I’d had her meant he would never stop until he had her. I couldn’t let that happen. Not to her. So I swore to keep her a secret from everyone. But when I did finally trust you, when you earned that from me, it all happened so fast. And then it was too late.”

  Can I fault her? I still haven’t told her about Nevaeh.

  Releasing her hand, I slide mine to the back of her neck and pull her close until my forehead is pressed against hers. “Do you trust me enough now? For anything?”

  “Yes,” she whispers. “And everything. I want it all with you, Thorn Ryder.”

  I’m kissing her before she finishes the last word, my lips pressing against hers like I need her. Her hands go to my hair, pulling at the short strands like she wants me closer, until she finally pulls herself into my lap and straddles my waist. Her legs press against the outsides of my thighs, and I probe her lips until she finally moans and opens to me. I plunge inside, tasting her, and she rocks her hips into me.

  It’s all I can take, and even though this wasn’t in the plan for this afternoon, I need to be inside her as much as I need air right now.

  Groaning, I pull my mouth from hers and pick her up, moving us into the bedroom. Setting her down on her feet beside the bed, I pull her shirt off over her head. She’s not wearing anything underneath, and I murmur my approval as my hands splay out over her bare shoulders, just grazing her full breasts as I slide them down to her flat belly. Inching the band of her sweatpants down, I drop to my knees in front of her.

  Her hands rest on my head as I work to remove her pants and underwear together, waiting while she steps out of them one leg at a time. When I have her standing naked in front of me, I glance up at her and take in a breath.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful. And brave. You know that?” My hands slide around to the backs of her thighs as I plant a kiss on her hip bone.

  She shivers under my touch, and my dick swells to painful proportions in my own sweats. “I could say the same about you.”

  My lips land on her other hip bone before sliding down to kiss where a thin strip of dark blond hair leads to her pussy. “I’m gonna taste you…gonna make you feel so good, sweetheart.”

  She moans, and I haven’t even touched her yet. I smile just before licking her right at her center, feeling how dripping wet she is. “Fuck, baby. So damn sweet. Always.”

  “Oh God, Ryder. I can’t take it when you talk. Please…just…”

  Swirling my tongue around her swollen little clit, I slide two fingers inside her and curl them upward. Her knees buckle, and I grip her tighter to hold her upright.

  “Just what, baby? Just make you come? That what you need?”

  I pull her clit inside my mouth and suck, and she cries out. Her walls clench around my finger, and she chants: “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod…”

  She quivers and quakes around me, and I keep letting my tongue swipe and lick and my mouth continues to suck at her until I know she can’t take any more. Then I let her fall back on the bed, and I strip down until I’m bare. She watches me, the daylight allowing her to see every inch of my hard cock, ready for her in every single way. Reaching into the nightstand, I grab a condom and rip it open. Sliding it over me with one hand, I brace myself above her with the other.

  Looking down at her, I know that after everything we’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours, I don’t want to fuck her right now.

  I want to worship her.

  Leaning down, I whisper in her ear. “Turn on your side.”

  She does what I ask without question, turning toward the window. I lie down behind her and pull her in close, pressing my body against hers until a sheet of paper couldn’t fit between us. I drop one leg over hers and slide into her from behind.

  We both groan at the same time at the depth of the angle, at the feel of our bodies pressed this closely together. I’m not looking at her, but somehow this feels more intimate than it’s ever felt before.

  “I love you,” I whisper in her ear as I start to slide in and out of her, slowly. “So fucking much, baby.”

  One of my hands rests on her hip, and I slide it up to cup her breast as my lips press against the back of her neck. She moans, arching back against me and pushing her ass into my hips in a way that has my balls drawing up tight way too soon.

  “Jesus, Ryder.…I love you too. I’m going to…again…”

  I drop my hand, letting my finger draw lazy circles over her clit, and she ignites, catching fire in my arms as she shakes and shudders and calls out my name.

  It’s the best feeling I’ve ever had, and I’m not going to get tired of it. I’m going to want to make love to this woman over and over again, every day for the rest of my life.

  That’s a damn fact.

  She reaches up above us and grips the headboard, using the leverage to push her hips back against mine in a faster rhythm.

  “Fucking hell, Frannie…you’re gonna kill me.” I grind the words through my teeth as I meet her thrust for thrust, driving until I can’t hold back anymore.

  Our skin slick with sweat, our bodies collide together, hands slipping to find purchase, and I growl in her ear, “Come with me, baby. One more time.”

  She’s already rising again, her walls clenching and squeezing me tight, and I bite down on her shoulder to keep from roaring with the release that rocks me harder than I’ve ever been rocked before.

  We lie there panting afterward, coming down from the high of sex and love and everything in between, and then Frannie rolls over to face me. She tucks her hands under her chin, sleepy eyes blinking up at me.

  “I’m going to keep pinching myself,” she murmurs, her voice throaty with sex and exhaustion, “because I’m never going to understand how my life has changed this much, this fast, for the better.”

  Dropping a kiss on her forehead, I get up and take care of the condom in the bathroom. Then I climb back in bed and wrap her up in my arms, prepared to sleep exactly as long as Dove does.

  “Let’s not question it,” I advise her, as we both fall toward oblivion. “Let’s just enjoy it.”

  28

  FRANNIE

  The next morning I wake up to one of my favorite smells in the entire world—bacon fr
ying. And when I pad barefoot down the hallway and into the living room, I hear what’s about to become my very favorite sound in the whole entire world—the sound of Thorn Ryder talking to my baby.

  “That’s right, angel, you sit right there and be a good girl. They tell me you can be quite the troublemaker. Wild parties, late nights, loud music…we aren’t having any of that this morning. You know why?”

  There’s no response from Dove, but I hear a banging noise that sounds like a hand on plastic. I cover my mouth with a hand to hide my giggle.

  Ryder continues, and I can hear him moving around the kitchen from my position at the mouth of the hallway. “Because we’re letting Mama sleep in. She had a hard day yesterday and deserves some extra rest, you know?”

  Dove finally speaks. “A-duh.”

  There’s a scraping noise that might be a utensil against the frying pan. “That’s right, angel. That’s your breakfast. Cheerios. You can have those, right? Google said you could.”

  My other hand is now required to contain my laughter. Leaning my back against the wall, I roll my eyes toward the ceiling and wonder, again, how this happened to me. I could be halfway through the day in Switzerland right now, with Eli. My own personal version of hell. Instead, I’m here in a penthouse with Ryder, and he’s talking to my baby while he cooks me breakfast.

  My own personal version of heaven.

  My stomach rumbles, and I can’t stand in the hallway anymore. Gathering myself and setting my face in a neutral expression, I waltz into the kitchen like I haven’t just been standing in the hallway listening to Ryder being the sexiest man alive. Because watching him with my baby has turned out to be the biggest turn-on imaginable, and we can’t have sex this morning while Dove is awake.