If he spoke, he might break the spell of this confession. But he just gazes at me patiently, waiting for me to speak, his expression calm and accepting.
“When I was older – maybe thirteen – she finally told me the truth. And it shattered me, Ryland. It made it so I could never trust anybody ever again. It made it so I had to question everybody I met, all the damn time. Because if I didn’t, then maybe they’d be doing the same to me.”
“What did he do?” Ryland asks, a growl forming beneath his voice.
I was wrong before.
I thought speaking would break the spell.
But when I hear the protective vibrations in the tone of his voice, I know that he’ll do anything to make me feel safe again.
I think that’s what I hear, anyway, but how can I ever be sure?
Can one person ever really know another?
The question should be absurd when I’ve known this man for less than twenty-four hours.
“Rosie,” he growls, pulling me from my thoughts.
“He tricked her,” I say. “She was forty-one when they met and he was twenty-three. They met at a club and they hit it off. Mom thought she was a little old for him, but, hey, he didn’t seem to mind. They went home and they—Well, there’s no need to go into that, is there? He left the morning after and that was the end of it.
“But when she found out she was pregnant, Mom found him through a mutual friend. And he laughed, Ryland. He laughed in her face. He’d only gotten with her for a bet. He wasn’t actually attracted to her. He’d made her fucking pregnant for a bet. It was his idea not to wear protection. Which would’ve been one thing if he did the right thing and stood by her. But he humiliated her.”
“Evil,” Ryland snarls, his jaw becoming tight, his hand closing into a fist on the back of the couch cushion. “Where is this animal?”
“Dead,” I sigh. “He got into a car accident a few years ago. The mutual friend told us. My so-called dad didn’t want anything to do with us.”
Ryland shifts down the couch and wraps his arms around my waist.
I’ll always be shocked by how easily he handles me, pulling me into his lap as though I’m one of the weightless cheerleaders in high school. He pulls me into his lap and brings his lips close to mine, painting my cheeks with his warm breath.
“I am not like that,” he says fiercely. “I’m not tricking you. I’d never trick you. I swear.”
I nod shortly.
“Thank you, Ryland,” I murmur. “It means a lot. But…”
“But what?” he prompts when I trail off.
“Do you think I could go to bed? I need time to process all of this. I need sleep.”
He nods, kissing my cheek with surprising softness, and then stands up.
I slide from his lap and gaze up at him.
He leans down and scoops Chopper up, cradling him to his chest. The tiny, loud dog curls up and closes his eyes, content to be so close to Ryland.
“Take the time you need,” he says fiercely. “But don’t for a second think I’m ever going to let you go.”
With that, he leaves me, striding away in his armor-colored suit.
I sit back, staring up at the stars, willing myself to stop questioning this fate-fueled gift.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ryland
I sit on the balcony with Jackie’s nurse.
Harold is a tall, thin man with sharp cheekbones and a tufty red chin beard. He sips his coffee and then lays it on the platter, moving with the slow certainty I’ve come to expect from him.
It’s why I chose him.
He did an excellent job in my father’s final days.
“She’s doing tolerably well,” he says in his swanky British accent. “There isn’t much I can do but keep her company, make sure she takes her medication, and pray with her.”
“Pray,” I grunt, laying my coffee down and turning to my estate, the sun rising over the long green fields and turning them verdant and vivid.
I try to focus on this moment, on Harold, and talk of Rosie’s mother, but my mind keeps returning to last night and all the crazy heat that passed between us.
Rosie knows how I truly feel now. There’s no going back.
She said she felt the same.
But she also said she needed time to think.
Think about what?
I’m dead certain she’s the one for me. My stomach twists at the thought she might not feel the same.
“It seems to help her,” Harold says, with a shrug.
“Are you two getting on?” I ask.
“Yeah, very well,” he says. “She says I have a kind voice, which I’ve never been told before, but which means a great deal to me.”
“My old man thought the same,” I tell him.
Harold smiles, shaking his head. “With all due respect, Ryland, I can’t imagine Bucky Radley saying something like that.”
“He didn’t say it. I could just tell. He was one-tenth less a dickhead when you were around.”
Harold chuckles. He’s about to say something else, but then footsteps approach from behind us.
I turn when I sense that they’re Rosie’s. I’d be able to pick her footsteps out of a hundred, I’m sure. She has a particular sound, as though part of her is nervous about where she’s going, but the rest of her won’t let those nerves hold her back.
She appears at the door. Her auburn hair in loose waves around her shoulders. She’s wearing no makeup, making her face look flushed and fresh in the morning sun.
Her voluptuous body is a prisoner within her summer dress, settling lightly against her curves.
“Sorry, Harold,” she murmurs. “Mom is asking for you.”
Harold rises with a short bow. “No apologies needed, ma’am,” he says. “It is my duty, and I do it willingly.”
She giggles as he leaves us, head held high.
“Is he always so official?” she asks.
I smirk over at her. She’s talking to me, but she’s studying the grounds, the sky… looking anywhere, it seems, except for directly at me.
I stand up and move over to her.
She flinches when I bring my hands up to her face, hungry to clasp the warmth of her cheeks.
“Why so skittish, Rosie?” I ask, leaning down to kiss her forehead.
My body stirs at the taste of her. All night, I’ve been waiting to feel her fire-hot skin against me again, dreaming of it.
“I thought I might wake up and discover I’d dreamed last night,” she whispers, her smile quirking as she gazes up at me.
“Disappointed?” I ask, taking her hand and leading her to the table and chairs.
“No,” she says firmly.
“Did you talk to your mom about us?” I ask.
She bites her lip as she drops into the seat, shaking her head. “No, not yet. I don’t really… maybe we should try an actual date or something before I tell her.”
I smirk, chuckling as I pour myself a mug of fresh coffee. I gesture with the pot, and she nods thankfully.
“That sounds like a delaying tactic to me,” I say. “But I’m not going to turn down an offer like that. I’ve never been asked on a date before. What a modern little minx you are, Rosie.”
She mock-glares at me, pouting her lips adorably. “I did not ask you on a date.”
I smirk teasingly. “No? That’s what it sounded like to me.”
“You need to listen better, then,” she says. “I was suggesting the idea of a date one day.”
“Fine,” I growl.
I reach across the table and take her hand, squeezing it possessively, letting her feel all the hunger rioting through me, all my need to own her.
“We’re having a date this evening,” I snarl. “I’ll leave a dress in your bedroom for you. Wear it, and don’t wear any makeup. I like your face how it is, fresh and naïve and young and beautiful. Clear enough for you?”
She whimpers, the sound traveling through my body and making the base of my cock
ache.
“Yeah, I think so,” she says. “But why do we have to wait until the evening?”
I sigh, leaning back.
The effort of breaking contact with her is more than any workout, any job, anything I’ve ever done before I met her.
“I have to go into the city,” I tell her.
“Why?” she asks.
I chuckle, shooting her a bantering look. “You’re a little question machine this morning, Rosie, you know that?”
She folds her arms, causing her breasts to push together and up, her cleavage tantalizing and captivating in the summer dress. My insides twist with a hunger for her, roaring out at me to reach across and palm her.
She’s mine. I can touch her any damn time I please.
But if I start, I won’t be able to stop.
It’s clear she doesn’t want to go all the way before the date.
“Why, Ryland?” she persists.
“I don’t want to lie to you,” I say.
“Okay…”
“But I don’t want to worry you, either.”
“You’ve already failed,” she murmurs. “I’m already worried. You’re acting weird.”
I smirk at this.
You’re acting weird.
It should sound strange coming from a woman I’ve only known for a day. Nobody has ever felt intimate enough with me to comment on my behavior, on how it’s changed or remained the same. But Rosie and I are fused together – by fate, by instinct, by certainty – and it feels right coming from her.
“Vito wants to see me,” I tell her.
A tremor moves through her. “What if he hurts you? What if he—”
“I won’t let him hurt me,” I growl. “I need to be around to take care of you. I never had much of a reason to live before, except for Chopper, the little rascal. But now I have you, I’ll fight ten times harder to keep myself breathing.”
“Why does he want to see you?” she asks, voice trembling, but masking it beneath forced steadiness.
“He didn’t say,” I tell her.
“What will we do?”
“I have a special wing of my house that serves as a safe room slash bunker,” I say. “It’s about the size of a normal home, but it can be sealed against attack. Once you initiate the sealing sequence, it automatically calls my contact in the police. It’s built for nuclear explosions. Nobody will be able to hurt you. No matter what happens, you and your mother will be safe.”
She springs to her feet, walking over to the balcony, the same way she did last night when we first revealed our innermost desires to each other.
She looks so radiant standing against the sun, the brightness framing her, making her sparkle like a jewel just for me.
I stand up and walk up behind her, reaching around to grip the railing, trapping her body against mine. She falls back against me, and I close my arms around her.
“I still can’t believe how natural this feels,” she whispers.
“I’m going to start calling you Miss Skeptical,” I say banteringly. “You need to start believing, Rosie. This is real. This is us. This is everything I’ve been waiting my whole damn life for.”
She smiles, eyes closed, but then her smile wavers and she opens her eyes, tilting her head to look up at me.
“You have to promise me you won’t let anything happen to you,” she says.
I chuckle darkly.
“If this is all a trick,” I say, “why do you give a damn?”
“I don’t think it’s a trick,” she replies. “I don’t feel it’s a trick. I was thinking about it last night. And I think, maybe… maybe I should stop letting the past rule me, you know?”
I lean down and claim her lips, kissing her passionately, spinning her so we can press our bodies together. She grips onto my shirt and moans as she rises to her tiptoes.
“Promise,” she says.
“I promise,” I snarl, gazing into the shifting copper of her captivating eyes.
“I hate that you have to leave me,” she murmurs. “I feel like there’s so much left for us to learn about each other.”
“Yeah?” I smirk, smoothing my hand up her body to her face, tucking wild strands of oaken hair behind her ear. “I feel like everything I need to know about you, I learned when I tasted you last night.”
“So that’s all I am, huh?” she giggles, shoving me playfully.
“That’s all that matters,” I chuckle, adding heavy sarcasm to my tone.
We both know I’m joking, that she means so much more to me than her body alone. We can joke like this, knowing it’s not serious, knowing we’d die for each other, because of how sharp and potent and real our bond is.
“What do you think I need to know, then, Miss Skeptical?” I ask.
“Well… what’s my favorite color?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “That’s vital knowledge, is it?”
“So what you’re saying is,” she says with a fun, captivating smile, “you don’t know. So you admit defeat, hmm?”
“No,” I say, tickling her in the side, long-dormant parts of me flaring to life when she giggles and twists against my touch. “I know what your favorite color is.”
“Hmm, go on, then.”
“Silver,” I tell her, after a pause.
Her mouth falls open, her eyes narrowing.
“How the heck did you know that?” she giggles.
“Because it’s the color of my hair,” I grin, wolfishly, enjoying myself more than I have in years. “And you can’t stop ogling me.”
“Ogling?” she laughs. “What a lovely way to put it.”
“How else would you describe it?”
“I’d say admiring,” she whispers, her fingers driving me near-wild when she trails her hand through my hair. “It’s so freaking hot, Ryland.”
“I’m just relieved you don’t give a damn about our age gap,” I say.
“I like it,” she says passionately. “Boys my age are so immature, so weak. Half of them act like they’re still ten years old. With you, I feel safe. I feel like I have a man. As long as it’s not—”
“It’s not a trick, Miss Skeptical,” I snarl.
She nods, biting her lip, making me want to claim her right here.
“Okay,” she says, letting out a shaky breath.
I step back with an effort.
“I need to leave soon,” I say. “Come on. I’ll show you how the safe room’s controls work.”
I just hope she doesn’t have to use them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rosie
“This is a lovely couch,” Mom says, sinking into the cream leather with a contented smile on her face.
I exchange a look with her British nurse, Harold, and he smiles. I can’t believe that mom is so at ease here, in the bunker wing of Ryland’s vast estate. I expected her to be constantly on edge, questioning everything, but Harold is doing a great job taking care of her. He’s made her completely at ease.
But just because mom is comfortable, that doesn’t mean I can stop my mind from flooding with images of Vito and Ryland.
As he showed me where the control panel was – in the ensuite, built into the shower unit – to lock us down and contact the police, I felt the urge to tackle him to the floor. I wanted to mount him right there, to draw his massive length inside of me despite my nervousness.
If it meant keeping him here, making it so there’s no chance he’d get hurt, I could overcome my anxiety and take him as he’s never been taken, as I’ve never been taken.
“Do you need anything else, Miss Smithson?”
“No, thank you, you kind boy,” Mom says, smiling up at him.
“Then I’ll go and call my boyfriend,” he says, with a slight bow. “He hates when I leave it too long.”
“Yes, go, be young and in love.”
Harold chuckles. “I’m thirty-six, but I feel about a decade older. Call me if you need me. For anything.”
He leaves the room, closing the door behind hi
m. I settle myself into the armchair next to the couch. The room is cozy, with plush faux-fur rugs and a log-cabin feel to it.
Chopper pads over and looks up at me for a few moments and then does a cute-as-heck little run-up to jump up with me. I catch him and let my hands move over his short fur.
He rumbles as I tickle him behind the ear, tilting his head contentedly.
On the arm of the chair, I’ve placed the tablet Ryland gave me before he left. It shows security footage of the only entrances to the bunker wing, meaning I can close it down before anybody gets close.
“But that won’t happen,” he assured me. “Nobody knows you’re here. Nobody would dream of assaulting my estate. They know who I am. They know how I’d react.”
Fierceness crept into his voice when he told me this, his eyes burning like twin flames, flickering threateningly.
I wouldn’t want to be the one to cross Ryland Radley, that’s for sure.
“You seem happy,” I murmur, gazing over as mom rests on the couch, staring with a smile up at the ceiling.
“It’s all very strange,” she says. “But it’s so nice, Rosie, for you not to have to take care of me.”
“I never minded it,” I tell her fiercely.
“I know, I know,” she rushes to say. “But I did. You’re young. You’re clever. You should be out in the world, living your own life, not wasting these precious years with your silly old mom.”
“Really,” I say, passion flaring in my voice. “I’d take care of your for the next fifty years, Mom. I’d take care of you forever.”
She looks over at me, her cheeks flooded with affection. “I know, dear, I know.”
I sit back as Chopper props his forepaws on my belly, angling toward my face. His little tail wags side to side crazily, so fast it causes his hips to swish like he’s strutting down a catwalk.
“What is it, little man?” I giggle. “You want kisses?”
I lean down and he grins, lapping at my chin, painting me in warm doggy kisses.
Mom chuckles and shakes her head. “That was really something when we heard him growling when we first arrived. I thought he was going to be a ferocious beast.”
“Me too,” I laugh. “That was crazy.”
Chopper settles down and I reach for my paperback novel. I collected it from Ryland’s magical, fairytale library before he brought us here. But I can’t focus on the words.
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