by Selena Kitt
She pressed the broadest part over his wound and lifted his forearm to bind the sleeves in both directions. She steeled herself to keep going, tightening the improvised bandage, even as his moans gave way to a cry, his eyelashes flickering in his waxy, glistening face.
He was already going into shock, but she couldn’t put him on his back with his legs up, as all the first-aid manuals said she should. There was too much glass stuck in him. She didn’t even dare throw her jacket over him for warmth in case its weight moved one of the shards, putting him in even more danger.
“Ric?” She tilted his chin up and stroked his face.
He couldn’t open his eyes but mumbled something, which was at least a response. She left him for a moment to rummage around Brad’s office, looking for something she could use to deal with the wound at his waist.
There were two shirts still in their dry-cleaning packages in Brad’s closet. She yanked one down, ripping the plastic and folding the shirt into a wad. As she bent back over Ric and pressed it against his waist, he jerked and his eyes flew open.
“Leese?”
“Ric? I’m calling 911. Please try to stay awake now, all right?”
“I’ll call,” he rasped. “Just... put the phone on the floor.”
“Why can’t I—”
Ric sucked in a breath. “Need you to... check... on Henrik.”
“Shit! Yes, yes... be right back.” She stooped to grab her gun as insurance against any more nasty surprises, then sprinted out into the hallway, finding Henrik exactly where they’d left him. The letter opener was on the floor behind him, having rolled out of his fingers, but when she felt for a pulse, she found one, albeit irregular and weak.
She couldn’t wake him, but at least managed to treat him for shock, going back into Brad’s office to grab her jacket and a couple of Brad’s suit jackets to use as a combined, extended blanket.
Henrik’s face was an artist’s pallet of bruised shades. She dropped a light kiss on his forehead in silent thanks for his sacrifice in refusing to hand over evidence—whatever it was—of her relationship with Ric. She hated to think about how long Arensen had beaten him before stopping for a break so he could terrorize Alan Bremmen instead.
When she got back into Brad’s office again, Ric was trying to talk to Agent Goddard, whose voice pounded over the speakerphone, saying that one of the terrorists had flipped on Arensen as the guy who’d paid them to hit the Rykers, and that they’d got the sniper. He wasn’t letting Ric get a word in, and the case-closed triumph in the man’s tone made Annalesa’s blood boil.
“We’ve got a team clearing the building, then we’ll send in the EMTs,” Goddard announced, like he was doing them some huge favor. “What’s your status?”
“Six down and two friendlies wound—”
“Status?” Annalesa shouted, drowning Ric out. “Our status, you negligent bloody wanker, is that while you’ve failed to notice our absence from the house your agents were supposedly guarding, two guys have had the living shit beaten out of them. The building’s clear—Ric made sure of that, and he’s been shot—so get those paramedics here right now!”
Goddard muttered something and clicked off at his end of the line then Annalesa cut off the call, climbing back over Ric to keep some pressure on his side wound. He grunted as she held the shirt against him, but in the dim light, she saw the corner of his mouth twitch, and realized he looked remarkably like a guy trying to keep a straight face.
“What?” She glared down at him.
“Leesa, Goddard knows my background. He was asking me about body-count status in a military context. Not... y’know... requesting a Facebook update.”
“Whatever.” She stroked her fingers through his hair. “He just sounded so damned smug. It got on my tits.”
“Speaking of which, you’re only half dressed.”
She glanced down at her bra, unbothered, but was glad to hear that he no longer sounded like a guy knocking on death’s door. Relief blew through her like a warm wind. She stroked his forearm with her thumb, nudging the bandage around his shattered wrist.
“You’re wearing my top. Don’t worry, I’ll grab one of Brad’s free shirts before the Feds get up here. If they’re brave enough, that is.”
“If,” he agreed, resting his head back down on the ground, exhausted.
They rested silently for a few minutes, her fingers toying in his hair, him staring out of the non-shattered part of the window into the night. Far beyond the roof of the kill house where the sniper had stood, the moon rose high in the sky. The glow pressed across the floor of Brad’s office. Suddenly Ric’s good hand lifted, resting on her knee.
“Hey.” His voice was weak, but warm. “You okay?”
“Not really. I’ve killed two people tonight.” The realization caught up with her, making her shaky. “It wasn’t... it wasn’t really a bullet point on my five-year plan. Wasn’t even on my bucket list.”
“You did what you had to do.” He pulled his hand from her knee and moved it to the shirt at his side, pressing. His face scrunched, but his breathing remained regular. “I’m proud of you.”
She turned to follow his stare out of the window into the night. Everything seemed so still, so peaceful. It seemed impossible that there had been a sniper on the opposite roof less than ten minutes ago, or that life was going on as normal for everyone else—or that they’d be burying their parents in a few days.
Her eyes stung and she pushed the moisture away with the back of her hand.
“Ric, is it over?”
“I think so.” His voice was faint, slurred. “When there’s a death, there’s also a rebirth. But first, wounds need to be healed, grieving has to be done, and then... I need to put everything right.”
She knew that tone. “Put everything right?”
“Hmm-hmm.”
“Ric, you’re hurt, but you’re not going to die.” She patted his face gently, trying to keep him alert. “And I’m pretty sure that everyone involved in the death of our parents is about to be arrested. So get your head out of Valhalla and back in the office, okay?”
“I’m here.” Ric coughed. “But I can’t let people like Anders think the world belongs to them.”
“Ric, all the people you would think about getting back at are dead.”
“Hmmm-hmm.”
“Stop saying that, you evasive, vengeful Norseman!” She prodded the front of his shoulder, the only part of him that could take some mild abuse without his condition seriously deteriorating.
She could see him fading right in front of her, but would be damned if he passed out in this state of mind. She heard the distant sound of EMTs and the squeak of gurney wheels. She bent down, scooping her hand between Ric’s face and the floor, stroking his cheek with her thumb.
“Ric Ryker, if you recover from all this and leap straight back on your muchos-revengos hobby horse, you’re going to be in big trouble.”
He took a couple of stuttering breaths and, with huge effort,
pulled an eye open. “Is... that an ultimatum?”
“No! You and your bloody ultimatums!”
“Seriously, I find it... hard to tell.”
The footsteps were getting closer so she ducked down and kissed him full on the lips, relieved to feel a weak but determined response. “I’m just saying that a focus on vengeance has been proven to be very, very bad for your health.”
“I’ll... give that... some thought.” A tiny smile played around his lips, then his eyes slipped closed. He blacked out just as the EMTs ran in and took over in a vigorous assault of IV lines and oxygen masks.
She stepped back, going into Brad’s closet for that spare shirt, buttoning it down before standing over Ric, smiling.
So, he’d give peace some thought, would he?
She’d believe it when she saw it.
Epilogue
“This is perhaps the most intriguing of the reclaimed paintings,” Annalesa explained, pointing up at the letter-sized oil on
the brightest spot on the wall. “The gentleman you see with Camille is Frédéric Bazille, Monet’s best friend and godfather to his son. It’s an affectionate hold you see here, to the point that one might wonder, looking at the picture, whether Claude suspected Frédéric of having an affair with his wife. But from the context of Claude’s letters, as you’ll see to your immediate right—”
Annalesa cursed as her phone buzzed in her purse, choosing to ignore it for the time being. The buzzing of a text gave way to the more insistent buzzing of her phone ringing, but it stopped the moment she retrieved her phone from her bag. She gave the art historians behind her an apologetic smile and stepped to one side, checking the text she’d received.
Ryker emergency. Your place. ASAP
She rammed her phone back into her bag with a force that strained the straps and herded her group of five historians over to David, whose eyes were wide with anticipatory dread. He knew the entire history but kept ducking out of gallery tours for fear of encountering an insufferable know-it-all.
“David will talk you through the provenance documentation. The original copies are in the rear gallery. I’m sorry to have to leave before we’re completely finished, but it seems I have an emergency.”
“Oh dear,” one of them murmured. “Troubles with a little one?”
“I wish—wish—that he were little,” David answered for Annalesa, his face stretched in a particularly murderous smile, which he softened as he turned toward the specialist tour group. “If you’d like to follow me, ladies and gentlemen...”
Sorry, she mouthed at him and made her way down the steps to the street. She was back in her apartment in five minutes, hurtling up the stairs at a speed that shouldn’t be possible in a pencil skirt. She pretty much hurled herself into her apartment.
“Ric? You okay?” She found herself looking around at empty space. “Ric?”
“On the couch.”
She dashed over and peered down to see him bare except for his black arm brace and his boxers, a wine glass balanced on his hard gut, a remorseless little smile playing around his lips. His boxers were doing a bad job of containing the joie de vivre taking place inside. She glared down at him.
“You seem absolutely fine to me.”
“I am, now that you’re here.”
“What’s the emergency?”
“I haven’t seen you for two weeks.” Ric stretched his arm out, settling the wine on the coffee table, then jerking upright at lightning speed, hauling her over the back of the couch on top of him.
Annalesa landed with a thud he didn’t even seem to feel and suddenly his fingers were stroking up through the back of her hair and he was kissing her, holding her hard against him like he hadn’t seen her for months.
Annoyance made her fight the kiss for perhaps two whole seconds but his palm closed around the back of her thigh and she postponed the lecture. The light hold became a stroke that moved higher until he was pressing her skirt up with his thumb. His fingertips grazed the tendons on the inside of her leg, making her moan into his mouth. She wanted that warm, strong hand stroking her through her panties.
She also wanted to beat him around the head with her handbag.
She smoothed her fingers over his boxers, feeling him jerk under her touch. He murmured as she cupped him, feeling his balls hot, high and taut in her palm. He broke off the kiss to drape his head over the back of the headrest and release a long, open-mouthed groan.
“Close?” she asked.
“I’m really aching.”
“It would serve you right if I sucked you slooooowly... for an hour... or two...”
His groan rumbled through her as she slipped her fingertips around the edge of his boxers and raked her nails lightly behind his balls. “That’s... not a helpful thing to say.”
“I’d tie you down so all you can do is thrash around while I hum around your cock without letting you come.
“Oh... don’t.”
He seemed to be failing to notice her annoyance. She snatched her hand from his balls and narrowed her gaze at him.
“But right now, I’m more inclined to tie you face down and beat your arse.”
“Huh?”
“If you think you can haul me away from work at a moment’s notice on an ‘emergency’ and expect me to take loving care of your blue balls, you can think again!”
“Whoa.” He blinked at her in bewilderment. “Chill.”
“Chill? The last time I got an emergency Ryker call, you’d been airlifted back to the hospital after a clot broke free from your wrist. That was the longest night of my life—”
“Okay, hey. Sorry.” He put both hands up, his face genuinely penitent. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about that. It’s like a year ago, now.”
“Well, it rather sticks in my mind.” Annalesa narrowed her eyes at him again, but knew a genuine apology when she heard one.
“And there was another point,” Ric encouraged. “C’mon, let’s get the ball-busting over with.”
“You want me to bust them, do you? Careful what you wish for.”
He chuckled and took her hand in his, caressing the back of her knuckles with his thumb. The velvet of his brace was warm against her forearm. The design was pure drama—all black with silver trim, to match his Brann Jotun. More importantly, all his fingertips were warm now, and moving way better.
She gave up on being angry and rested her cheek on his chest, too pleased to see him to waste any time on an argument. He planned to create a second Ryker office in Paris but it wasn’t set up yet. They were still stuck in their pattern of visits every couple of weeks.
“Also, it does my reputation as a curator no good at all if I have to dash off just because my husband wants a swift bonk.”
“Swift... ‘bonk’?”
His outraged tone made her giggle in spite of herself and she kissed the side of his neck.
“Ugh! You’re so... English!”
“Does that mean you don’t want one?”
“There is nothing...” He sat up, scooping her into his arms and standing. “Nothing swift about my ‘bonks’.”
“Prove it.” She quirked a brow at him as he carried her into the bedroom, loving the sudden, indignant rigidity in his arms and chest. He still had that aggressive, competitive side and she loved bringing it out of him.
He had her standing with her hands laced behind her head as he unbuttoned her blouse and skirt and she shivered as his fingers slipped around her back and unhooked her bra. She was allowed to relax her stance as he slid both blouse and bra straps off her shoulders, then her panties down her legs.
Then he pressed her back on the bed, both her wrists beneath his braced hand as he slipped the other between her legs.
She drew in a sharp breath as he coasted his fingertips in a tender line between her clit to the opening of her pussy, pressing lightly before retracing his path. The tingle made her abs tighten and juice began to trickle between her thighs. He repeated the motion over and over, lingering longer on her clit, stroking, pressing deeper with his fingers, teasing.
She arched her back, pressing herself down on his fingers, but he didn’t up his pace. He just claimed her mouth with his, pressing his tongue into her as his fingers made her slick in that same slow, delicious pattern.
He pressed down on her clit with his thumb, sinking two fingers into her right up to the knuckle. She almost came, but he just held that position, neither increasing the pressure nor moving.
“I want to be inside you.” Ric pulled back from the kiss.
“Why are you even asking?”
He climbed on top, spreading her arms wide and then releasing them, scooping his palms under her shoulder blades. He filled her in one fluid motion, the head of his cock finding her slick entrance and pushing in without any guidance.
She cried out as he took her, no longer giving a damn about the noise they made, or who saw Ric coming or going from her apartment. He started rocking his body, his breath hard and short
against the side of her face, his cock expanding and trembling inside her soaking, sensitive channel.
She felt all his muscles brace and harden, preparing herself for him coming before she’d had her release. Instead, Ric pulled out, shifting them onto their sides so they were spooning, then pressed back in, his index finger rubbing soft circles over her clit as he resumed his slow thrusts.
“Swift, my ass,” he muttered into her ear.
She grinned, then moaned, closing her eyes with pleasure.
The soft dip of his hips didn’t accelerate. His breathing grew louder and more desperate at the back of her neck, but he was clearly holding back.
She wanted to hear him come, feel him come, as much as she wanted to reach her own climax. She squeezed hard around him and tipped her head back. Ric pressed an arm beneath her and wrapped it around, cupping a breast and running his finger-tip around her nipple before giving it a light squeeze and tug. The primal pleasure this caused ripped a cry from her throat and he fucked her harder, the fingers of his braced hand still circling steadily over her clit.
She felt her body begin to spasm from her pussy outwards, a ripple of heat traveling up her spine. She called his name as she came and he pounded up into her, coming too, with a long, protracted moan as her climax massaged the cum from his rigid pole.
She felt every soft, hot splash inside of her and reached a hand back to his hip as a silent message to stay put as they came down together. She was so sensitive she had to move his hand to her thigh as her clit contracted slowly down to something less like a tiny little nerve-bomb.
It took him a long time to go soft, but eventually he pulled back and she rolled over him to lie against his side, her face tucked against his shoulder. She rested a while, just breathing him in, tracing her fingertips over his chest and abs, loving the expression of peace on his face as he dozed.
The change in his temperament had shown itself in the change of the landscape of his body.
