by Lynn Burke
I didn’t trust the snake, not one bit.
I spent the next couple of days going through files, making phone calls, begging other families to make themselves available for a young woman a few months away from eighteen.
No one offered. I came up empty, feeling I failed the poor girl.
Wednesday afternoon, I sat, head in hands on my desk, my stomach unhappy as it had been since waking from a disturbing dream. I couldn’t remember it clearly—didn’t want to, but Dasia’s tears, her sobs, remained in the forefront of my mind.
Just a dream, I told myself for at least the tenth time.
My cell rang, and I picked myself up off the desk, bleary-eyed and tired as hell thanks to the three a.m. jolt awake I hadn’t been able to shake.
Ryker.
I smiled, my insides sighing as I swiped to answer. “Hey.”
“I’m in town.”
Blinking, I straightened in my chair. “Oh?”
“Want to go out for dinner?”
“Yes.” I shut down the open tabs on my computer before he could say another word.
“What are you in the mood for?”
You.
“Did you bring the bike?” I asked instead.
“Yeah.”
“Warden’s comfy one or yours?”
“Mine—sorry.”
I couldn’t stop smiling. An excuse to push those touching boundaries, my ass be damned. “That’s fine.”
“I’ll pick you up at six?”
“I’m leaving the office now,” I said, glancing at the clock. Four. Too early, but I needed to breathe. I could feign sickness and take a few hours sick time. “We can go sooner if you want.”
“A half-hour?”
“Sounds good.”
I scurried to shut everything down for the day, telling myself I’d dive back into Dasia’s case in the morning. Butterflies fluttering and insides jittering, I hurried back to my apartment, so ready to live again.
****
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said with a laugh, stirring my tonic with its straw.
Ryker peered across the table at me—a real dining table, at a steakhouse with dimmed lights and everything.
“Well?” I prompted, trying to bite back a smirk.
“Eleven.”
“What?” I didn’t mean to laugh, but I totally did, sitting back in my seat. “Eleven? I don’t think I even knew what sex was at that age.”
Ryker glanced around the dining room, and I swore a hint of pink flushed his cheeks.
“Who was it?”
“Some girl in the neighborhood. Older. Offered to take all three of our cherries.”
I bit my lip, knowing my eyes danced. Sipping my drink, I watched his face, noticed his shift on the seat. He’d told me about the two boys he’d hung around with all throughout childhood until into their twenties when they went their separate ways.
“It was the first time I realized I could never be normal.”
I sobered quick as hell. “She tried to touch you?”
He shook his head, pushing his empty plate away to cross his arms on the table without meeting my gaze. “I went last—saw the hickey on Martínez’s neck when he came out, smug as a goddamn dog with a bone. The scratches on Klingon’s cheek after his turn churned my stomach.”
With a shrug, he finally lifted his focus to my face. “I knew right then I didn’t want her hands on me. Couldn’t be a chicken shit, though. I went in, told her to bend over the edge of her bed and not touch me or I’d to hurt her if she did—not in the good way I figured she’d like, either. Wasn’t my best moment.”
“My first was awful,” I blurted, needing to take his mind off what should have been a good memory for him. “His … thing was all of three inches.”
“Dick. Say the word, Pia.”
I swallowed, my face heating.
“Come on. You blurted all kinds of sewage that first day we met.”
“Fine.” I cleared my throat and straightened. “His dick wasn’t much to look at, but at least it didn’t hurt like I’d expected.”
Ryker’s eyes hardened. “How long were you with him before giving it up?”
“Six months. I was twenty-two.”
One of his eyebrows shot upward. “Why the hell did you wait so damn long?”
I shrugged, glancing away. “Didn’t exactly have anyone interested in popping mine, if you know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t know what you mean.”
Anger furrowed his brow when I glanced back over at him. He studied my face. My neck, my chest—until the table blocked his downward appraisal. “You’re fucking fine, Pia Hill. Fucking fine. I wish I was norm—”
He snapped his jaw shut, and I longed to reach over the table to touch his arm. “I think you’re fucking fine just the way you are, too, Ryker McGrath,” I whispered, leaning closer. “And if all I can have is a brush of clothing, or a three-second touch of my fingers to your beard, I’ll be happy.”
“You couldn’t possibly.”
“I think with time things could be different.”
He eyed me for a while, the play of emotions on his face plain for me to inspect. Longing. Fear. Shutting down.
I forced a smile. “Ready to roll?” I asked, sitting back and slipping on the light sweatshirt I’d needed since the all the rain had brought on a much cooler late August.
His lips didn’t twitch. “Sure,” he muttered, and tossed a few twenties on the table. “Let’s ride.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ryker
The fuck was wrong with me? I wanted her touch. Wanted her arms wrapped around me while I sped back southward toward Boston. I wanted her cheek pressed against my cut, her hands creeping up under my shirt, warm palms on my abs.
My dick even jerked thinking about it. So, why the goddamn cold shiver down my spine?
She invited me in once we pulled up to her apartment. I followed her in like a lost dog, wanting to beg for scraps, beg for fucking affection I didn’t know how to handle.
We went straight to the kitchen where she offered me a beer. Having no intention of staying the night, I turned the offer down.
She poured herself a glass of wine and ambled into the living room, me once more on her heels.
My throat felt tight as fuck, and I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
Pia sat first—right in the middle of the goddamn couch, and I lowered myself down beside her, antsy and tense as fuck. Same as last time we’d sat on her couch, she angled toward me, drawing her knee up onto the cushion inches away from my thigh.
“How’s Dasia?” I asked the first non-sexual, emotional thing to pop into my head.
She didn’t answer right away, and I glanced over to find her peering at me with that stare, the one that saw too fucking deep. “Oh. My. God.” She straightened, her hold on her wine glass tightening. “You did it, didn’t you?”
“What?”
Her lips pursed for a second, and she set her wine onto the coffee table, putting a few more inches between us. “Don’t what me, Ryker. You know exactly what I’m talking about! Ted Griffey!”
Her withdrawing tightened my gut more than the mention of his name. “What about him?”
“You put the fear of God into him.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So?” Her eyes tried to bug out of her head, and she shifted back another inch or so, the distance she put between us furrowing my brow and twisting my insides to hell.
“This is who I am, Pia.” Voice raised, I slapped my cut, the fear of rejection rising to harden my voice. My heart. “I’m a callous, cold hearted fucking criminal, Pia. Have been since my teenage years when I ran with the Irish mob’s goons.”
She didn’t open her mouth to reply, but I didn’t give her time to.
“You know the cut I wear, know what I am. Don’t act all surprised or disgusted by my giving the man just a taste of what he deserves. He’s lucky I only broke his pretty face rather than slit his
goddamn throat!”
My chest heaved, fire flooding through me.
Pia’s face crumpled, and she reached out her hand for my leg.
I hopped up off the couch, hands fisted at my sides, my gut heaving with the need to empty my dinner battling the yearning for that caress she wanted to offer.
“You want something to touch?” I lashed out, yanking down my leather’s zipper. “You said you’d be happy with this—well, this is all you’re going to get from me, Pia. My dick.”
She stood, quivering, tears replacing the pity that had shone in her eyes. “You’re an asshole.”
“Never pretended to be anything else, sweetheart,” I said with a sneer, reaching into my leathers for my flaccid cock.
“You…” She spun away from me—needing more distance, and I couldn’t fucking stand it. Couldn’t have it.
I grasped her arm, spinning her back toward me, and she shied away with a gasp, her eyes wide, the fear in them knocking me on my goddamn ass.
“I won’t hurt you,” I heard myself say, all my focus on loosening my hold—and being unable to remove my fingers from her softness. Her warmth.
“I-I know.” A shudder rippled down through her and a whimper escaped her trembling lips—and not the kind that came from arousal over my light hold remaining on her arm.
“Pia?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and it fucking hit me like a goddamn hammer to the head.
“Who hurt you?” I asked, my voice broken. Low as fuck—all anger ripping away at the need to protect her emotions, her mind.
“Foster father.” Her whispered words tore my fucking heart to shreds.
“It’s why you’re such an advocate for those kids.”
She managed to nod before breaking down, her hands over her face.
I dropped my hold on her arm and stood there like a goddamn idiot while she sobbed—same as Jenny that day I’d learned about the rape.
We’re both broken…
But I was powerless to do a goddamn thing to help her. My jaw fucking ached, fingers clenched in fists at my sides as I waited, cursing myself a million times over in my head over being such a chicken shit.
Big tough biker ruled by fear.
She pulled in a few deep breaths, swiping at her tears, and finally stopped crying enough to wrap her arms around herself.
I stood like a goddamn buffoon, unmoving, unable to comfort her. Fucking broken asshole.
“I thought I’d found my forever home,” she finally said, her gaze drifting toward the dark window beside us. “Sweet mother, kind-hearted father. Two younger kids I could maybe call step-siblings someday. It started out innocent enough. Pony tail tug. A pat on my shoulder when I came home with a good report card.”
Pia sniffed, and I held my breath, wanting to know it all—wanting to help carry her pain even if I couldn’t reach to take it from her.
“We were a week into the adoption process when it happened the first time. He brushed too close against me for my liking. The second time, I asked him to not do it again—and that pissed him off.”
A muscle ticked in my jaw as I fought off the spark of anger in my gut.
“It quickly escalated.” She turned toward me, pain tugging on the corners of her eyes, but the resilient soul inside shown through. “It took my social worker three months to find me a new home when I’d begged for it. I never told her that he’d crept into my room twice and touched me, but then bruised me when I told him no. He always hurt me after that—but in places that would be hidden by clothes.”
“Goddamnit, Pia,” I managed through my clenched teeth.
“Once he realized I intended to fight off his advances, he never bothered with gentle touches. His fists, his digging fingertips, though, scarred me for years beyond the physical. That’s the real reason I didn’t let another man touch me until I was twenty-two. I couldn’t stomach the idea of anyone’s hands beneath my clothes.”
I struggled to swallow against a range of emotions I couldn’t even fucking name. “How’d you get over it?”
“I decided I wouldn’t let that bastard ruin my life. It still took me a long time to get to second base with Phil, but he was patient. Helped me through without even knowing all the details of those months other than my vague explanation of having issues.”
My goddamn gut clenched again. “You loved him.”
A soft smile lightened her face and eased my insides the slightest bit. “My feelings for him don’t compare to what I feel for you, Ryker.”
Chapter Twenty
Pia
Ryker stared at me as though unsure of anything—his next breath, let alone words to use in reply to what I’d told him.
I knew he thought he’d scared me, that I feared his fists when he’d grabbed me, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. My instinctive reaction was to cringe, but only because of the sudden contact of skin—from his initiation, something I certainly hadn’t expected.
His grip didn’t scare me and neither did his lack of response.
Ryker had been nothing but kind to me, fiercely protective over his sister—and to a young woman he didn’t even know.
No, I knew my cold hearted bastard would never abuse me. But did he?
“Do you fear becoming like him?” I asked as he continued to stare at me.
“I’m nothing like him,” Ryker swore, his scowl returning.
“You’re right. So, why fear touch?” I lifted my shirt off over my head and it dropped to the floor in a quiet swish before the plan that sparked in my head even took full clarity.
Ryker’s focus flitted down to my chest, to the flush rising upward over my breasts.
I unhooked my bra and let it fall, my nipples pebbling as his gaze ate them up. Dampness grew between my thighs, and I pushed off my jeans, my hands starting to shake as butterflies took flight inside me.
His focus slipped to my fingers as I hooked them beneath the sides of my panties. He held his breath, his own fingers flexing at his sides.
I bent to push my panties to the floor and stood once more, completely bare before him. Vulnerable in the worst way—and loving every damn second of it.
“You touch me, Ryker,” I whispered. “Put your hands on me—prove to yourself, your unconscious, that you’re a gentle man.”
He didn’t meet my gaze as his throat worked to swallow. Muffled thumps of my heart beat in my ears over the tense silence between us.
Realizing he needed more help, I lifted my left breast. “Touch me, Ryker.”
“Damnit, Pia,” he whispered, his voice ragged. One stuttered step brought him close enough…
His hand shook as he raised it, and I bit back my gasp as his fingertip danced over my aching nipple.
“I need you,” I whispered as he repeated the motion, sending a rush of wetness to coat my thighs. “You make me insane with desire. I’m so wet…”
He stepped back, his hands once more fisting, his stare between my thighs. “Bedroom,” he rasped out, erasing the spring of disappointment his withdrawing had brought to life in my chest.
I turned and made for my bedroom, glancing over my shoulder to make sure he followed.
His gaze was glued to my ass as he slipped off his cut and ripped his shirt off overhead.
Broad shoulders … muscled and thick …
I bumped into my door jam and quickly turned back around, biting the inside of my lip to keep from giggling.
“How do you want me?” I asked, turning as I reached the foot of my bed.
“On your back.”
He pushed down his leathers, not even bothering with ridding himself of his boots and the pants below his knees before following me up onto the bed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ryker
My heart beat erratically as fuck as she laid back and spread her thighs, hands on the headboard.
“I won’t touch you,” she promised, so much emotion in her eyes, I had to give in to what we both craved. Fucking neede
d it even if my gut clenched in rebellion. I’d managed to touch her tit without vomiting—maybe I could do more.
I started with my breath held while kneeling between her thighs, one fingertip trailing up the inside of her calf. Satiny soft. Smooth and warm. Goosebumps broke over her skin, and her legs spread open farther, going lax on a sigh as I touched the inside of her knee.
I can do this.
Jaw clenched, I trailed toward the cream dripping from her slightly gaping pussy lips hiding what my dick throbbed for.
Pia was panting by the time I reached the apex of her thighs—the blonde hair, the protruding clit, something I’d never touched on a woman, but knew all about. Swollen labia, slick with need, and that droplet of arousal stretching toward the mattress.
I caught it with my finger and slid it back up through her slick, petal-soft slit, her whimper and the rise of her hips toward my touch too fucking much.
I planked and shoved in with one forward movement, stilling as she stared up at me, wide eyed, her pussy clamping down on my rigid shaft, sucking me deeper—fucking deeper than I thought possible.
Skin on skin.
Forgot the fucking condom in my lust to take her. Should have freaked out by the closeness, the lack of anything between us, but absolute heaven slammed into my brain.
“Touch me,” she whispered again, and I pulled out, bent my head, and clamped my lips over her nipple.
“Oh!” She arched up in offering, and I slid back home, her wet heat enough to make my eyes roll back into my head.
Fucking hell. Lug nuts and wrenches…
Don’t fucking blow.
I dragged out and flexed my ass, burying myself to the hilt.
Ratchet sets and carburetors.
I twirled my tongue around the hard nub between my lips, gently bit.
She shuddered beneath me, gyrating, definitely fighting the desire to wrap her body around mine.
Knowing my time ran short, I sat back abruptly, watching my dick disappear into her creamy pussy as I nudged forward while on my knees.
“Fucking beautiful,” I stated with a groan. I wanted more. Needed to see more.
