by Mara Leigh
“I’m glad to see you smiling,” Ryker says, shifting to turn slightly toward me. “But you seem pensive. Penny for your thoughts?”
“They’re only worth a penny?” He used that expression last night too.
“It’s an old expression.” His arm stretches across the top of the seat behind me, and I resist the urge to lean my head against his strong arm as I look into his eyes.
“I’d love to know what you’re thinking,” he says. “What put that beautiful, soft smile on your lips?”
I take another sip of champagne, hoping to buy time to find an answer that’s not—‘You’re super hot,’ or ‘I think it’s time for me to start having a sex life,’—which is the truth of what’s going on in my mind.
“I’m just happy to be here with you,” I finally answer. “It’s my first limo ride.” I look out the window, noticing that we’re on the highway now, going south on the I95. “Where are we going?” I thought that most of the good Philly restaurants were downtown or by the museum.
“To a little restaurant I think you’ll enjoy.” He smiles, looking down into my eyes.
“Keeping our destination a secret?” I didn’t expect to be headed for the suburbs.
Shrugging one shoulder, he winks.
“You’re certainly a man of mystery.”
He leans toward me, so close I can feel the air heat between our foreheads. “I suppose I am.”
“Here’s to solving mysteries.” I raise my glass, forcing him back a tiny bit and he clinks mine before we both drink.
“I’m ready.” He pours more champagne into my glass and his own.
“Ready for what?” Nerves and desire make my belly contract. Although I’ve decided that I’m game to have sex with Ryker tonight—if the opportunity comes up—I assumed we wouldn’t be anywhere near that stage until after dinner.
“For my interrogation,” he replies. “Do your worst, madam detective.”
Relief floods through me, and I take a sip of champagne to hide any facial evidence of my misunderstanding.
“Where are you from?” I ask, wanting to know everything about him. Not sure where to start, I remember the questions Zuben asked me. “Have you always lived in Philadelphia?”
“No, not always.” His fingers stroke the leather seat above my shoulder, the soft sound somehow erotic. “But I’ve lived here, on and off, for a very long time.”
“How long?” In spite of his confidence and wealth, Ryker’s young. He can’t be more than thirty based on his appearance, and his reference to a very long time seems out of place.
“You want my life story?” He clinks his glass against mine.
“Very much.”
He reaches for the bottle and pours more champagne into my glass, and then his. “I was born in the north of England.”
“You don’t have an accent.”
“That, my dear, is a matter of perspective.” He sets the bottle back into a hole in the shelf where it fits tightly. “Everyone has an accent.”
“Okay, okay.” I shake my head. “What I mean is, you don’t have a British accent.” I don’t even hear a trace.
He grins. “Like I said, I’ve been here a while.”
I nod, understanding his need to fit in after moving across the ocean as a kid, starting out in a new place. Even though it was the same state, my move from rural Pennsylvania to Philadelphia felt like relocating to another planet.
“My turn.” He shifts on the car seat, moving just a fraction of an inch closer, and a thrill races inside me. “How long have you been with Sanctuary House?”
“Two and a half years.”
“Joined right after you graduated?”
I shake my head. “It took me a while to land a full time job because…” I look down, feeling foolish.
His finger gently glides to lift my chin and he looks into my eyes. “There’s nothing you can’t tell me.”
Surprised at how easily he perceived my hesitancy, I gaze into his eyes, so brightly blue in contrast to his dark hair and eyebrows. Heat flutters inside me in the anticipation of what might happen later this evening, even though we haven’t even arrived at the restaurant.
“I have this strange phobia of being out after dark,” I confess. “It puts a limit on the hours I can work—especially in the winter.”
He leans forward slightly. “It’s after dark now.”
“Yes.” I shake my head, feeling foolish. “But… This is so embarrassing.”
“Don’t be embarrassed.” He shifts and whispers close to my ear. “I want to know all your secrets.”
Desire shivers through me—cool and then raging hot—and I close my eyes against the intense thrill. “Tonight—right now—it’s only the second time I’ve been out after dark.” I turn to look at him. “In my entire life.”
His eyes widen. “Really? How come?”
I look away. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Ember.” His finger grazes my cheek, gently nudging my gaze from the window and back toward him. “Nothing about you could ever be ridiculous. Not to me.” His hand drops from my cheek to my shoulder, and its heat reaches far below the surface of my skin to penetrate my bones.
Adjusting my body as it absorbs his warmth and support, I draw a breath and let it out slowly. “My mother…”
“Who disappeared.”
“Yes.” He remembered. “My mother forbade me to go out after dark.” I laugh. “It’s funny, now that I have some perspective, but… I’m not really sure what her issue was. I guess it was because we lived in the wilderness with wildcats and bears and no neighbors for miles. I guess that’s why her rules were so strict.
“But even after she disappeared, her warning stuck with me, and it turned into a…a kind of commandment I couldn’t break. I developed a phobia.” How else can I explain my bizarre behavior?
“If it is a phobia, you’re facing it now. Be proud of that.” His hand slides back up to cup my face, his thumb gently stroking my cheekbone as he looks into my eyes. “You lost your mother, the most important person to you in the world. It makes sense that you’d adhere to her rules, even long after she was gone.”
I nod, relishing the sensation of his hand on my face, his callused thumb strumming my skin.
Heat and wetness gather between my legs—a sudden flood that makes me fear I’ll discolor my dress—and then his thumb grazes my lower lip, and the heat and wetness throb.
I’ve never felt anything like this. The ache. The need. I can barely breathe.
Kiss me, I think, hoping I’m sending the right signals.
I’ve never been kissed, not properly, not seriously or with passion, and my lips are quivering, all the blood that’s not pooled between my legs moving up to my mouth, burning and twitching my lips, and they part as my breaths continue to shallow, coming too fast now to pass through my nose.
Ryker bends toward me, his lips hovering there, waiting, teasing, sparking messages across the millimeters that divide his mouth from mine and intensifying all the desire roiling inside me. Closing my eyes, I wait for him to make his move, my anticipation building so high that my head, my whole body feels like it’s about to explode.
He pulls back. “We’re here.”
Gasping I realize the car stopped. “What?” I can barely breathe, barely speak. I can’t remember where we’re going or why.
I shake the fog from my head. “Oh, yes. The restaurant. Right.” I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, hoping to regain my center—my sanity.
“We’re not at the restaurant quite yet, luv.” The limo door opens, and Ryker reaches back for my hand as he slides out.
Hand in his, I step out of the limousine, confused. We seem to be in some kind of industrial location near the river, the area lined with warehouses, and Zuben’s warnings about Ryker flash through my mind again. Is he going to torture and kill me in one of these warehouses?
Far in the distance, the lights over the Ben Franklin bridge shine, and much closer, I see and hear a he
licopter.
Eyes widening, I turn toward him. “Is that…is that for us?”
He nods. “The restaurant’s in New York.” He leans down, his lips next to my ear. “And as for that kiss… I’m saving you for dessert.”
Chapter Eleven
Ember
I feel like I’m flying. Well, technically we are flying, but it’s way more than just the helicopter causing this exhilaration, more than the cocktails and wine I had with dinner too. The restaurant he took me to was intimate, the food delicious, and the staff treated us like celebrities or royalty.
As the lights of Philadelphia come into view, I’ve never felt happier, and Ryker intertwines our fingers and raises them to his lips. The soft press of his kiss on the back of my hand makes my insides contract.
I look into his eyes. “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for the most amazing night of my life.”
“You might have already thanked me—once or twice.” Ryker winks, but other than that small gesture he doesn’t break eye contact, and I can no longer remember seeing anything beyond what I see in his strikingly bright blue eyes.
They’re so brightly blue they don’t seem real, and I feel different under his gaze, the same person and yet utterly changed, more mature, more desirable, more fully myself, and yet also someone who needs Ryker, needs his touch, his kiss, his body in a way I’d only imagined before tonight. Sexual desire—now that I’ve experienced it—my imagination did not do this feeling justice.
“Your car has arrived at the Heliport, Mr. Stone.” The pilot’s voice breaks into my fantasy world, and Ryker pushes a button and speaks into a small microphone. “Thank you.”
I’m panting now, like I’ve been running, even though I’ve been sitting for the forty-five minute flight, and I look out the windows to see we’re about to land back at the port on the Delaware River. Soon after that, we’ll get into the limousine and the driver will take me home.
But I’m not ready for this night to end. Assuming I can find the courage, I plan to invite Ryker up to my apartment, and then I’ll invite him to do other things, invite him to do anything he wants. My chest is heaving now, my breaths short and shallow.
“Nothing to fear,” Ryker whispers, and I wonder if he realizes what’s causing my anxiety.
The helicopter lands and Ryker gets out first. I shift to the door, and Ryker puts his hands on my waist, lifting me and gently setting me down on the ground. He releases me, but the expanse of skin he touched pulses with the sense memory.
He takes my hand, and we bend slightly against the wind of the helicopter’s blades as we walk to the car, where the driver is holding the door open. I slide inside.
He still hasn’t made any kind of a move on me—didn’t even kiss me for dessert like he promised, or threatened—but I’m certain of his attraction, certain his desire is building alongside my own. I might lack experience, but I’m acutely aware of the intimacy growing between us. I sense it with every fiber of my being, with every shallow breath I inhale.
Is Ryker the one? My one? I know it’s foolish to be thinking in those terms on our first date, but some claim love at first sight is real, and on our travels and at the small Italian restaurant in Manhattan, we talked nonstop about everything and nothing, and the conversation flowed so naturally. Even the moments of silence between us seem filled with the dichotomies of comfort and discomfort, relaxation and excitement, safety and danger. He makes me laugh, he makes me feel special and he makes my body sing with want.
I’ve never wanted anything the way I want Ryker.
“Cognac?” he asks as he pours amber liquid into two ornately carved crystal glasses. The drink reminds me of Zuben, and of his warnings, but all of that seems so ridiculous now. A vampire. Seriously?
Our fingers brush as Ryker hands me my glass, and desire ripples through me, parting my lips and arching my back—both things happening outside my conscious control. His expression darkens as his tongue grazes his lips, and he maintains eye contact as he takes a sip of his drink.
I taste mine too, even though I don’t need or want more alcohol. I’ve had more than enough to loosen me up, and don’t want to cross over to a place where I might fall asleep or be too far gone for a gentleman like Ryker to accept my consent—because as dangerous as he looks, he is a gentleman, and I plan to consent the hell out of whatever he wants.
Zuben’s warnings flash again and I smile as I swallow their absurdity. A vampire. A thief. A pirate. Ha!
“Something’s amusing you.” Ryker says, his body turned toward mine, one arm across the back of the car seat and the other holding his glass, resting on his knee. “What’s so funny?”
He reads me so well. “Nothing really. Something Zuben said.”
Ryker blinks, masking what looked like an instant of anger that flashed in his eyes. “And what did my good pal Zuben have to say?”
I shake my head. “I’m embarrassed to repeat it.”
“Come on, luv… As I’ve already said, you can tell me anything.”
The way he says anything whips up everything he’s already ignited inside me—the attraction, the affection, the lust—and I feel like I can tell him anything, in the same way I’m sure that I’ll let him do anything he wants with me tonight.
“First—” I shake my head “—Zuben claimed you were a pirate. Arr, Billy!” I grin.
Ryker just nods, swirling the cognac in his glass.
“And then he said you were a vampire. As if.”
Ryker’s fingers slide from the car seat to the back of my neck and then slowly stroke my sensitive skin there. I fight my body’s desire to writhe on the seat, to slide into his lap, to press the burning hot core of me into his hard thigh—or into the obvious bulge against it.
“But…” He licks his lips. “You don’t believe him.”
I take another small sip of cognac. “Of course not. Vampires, if they even exist, they’re monsters, killing machines. I know you’re not that.”
“You’re right. I am not that.” He nods, and something new flashes in his eyes. Uncertainty? “But what if I were a vampire, or even a pirate?” he asks, his voice deep and soft and dangerous, like the purr of a tiger. “If that were true, would you still be here with me? Would you still want me?”
The way he says want, stirs my desire, but then a nervous laugh rattles through me. I love his sense of humor almost as much as I love how he makes my body feel—and my heart—but I’m not sure I get this particular joke. Is he trying to scare me?
“Would I still…like you, if you were a vampire pirate?” I grin, but his expression doesn’t change. “You’re not serious.”
“There’s a lot of misinformation in the press about vampires, you know.”
“And about pirates too, I’ll bet.” Taking a sip of my drink, I realize my hand is trembling. I don’t love the direction this conversation has taken. Why is he giving any bandwidth to Zuben’s crazy accusations?
“I’m not even sure I believe in vampires,” I say. The press is so sensationalized.
“You don’t believe in the supernatural?” he asks.
The supernatural… I swallow, and the cognac burns on the way down. “I grew up believing in magic.” Another thing I’ve never told anyone. “But…” I look down.
“But what?”
I raise my gaze and his eyes show intense interest, and more than a little surprise, but then they soften, filling with so much warmth and not a hint of judgment about my strange confession.
I shake my head. “I believed in magic when I was a kid, but I realize now that my mother had some kind of delusional mental illness.” And somehow she drew me into her delusions. It’s the only explanation for my childhood, for how she disappeared.
Ryker lightly strokes the back of my neck, the base of my head, threading his fingers into my hair. “Did your mother ever tell you why you weren’t allowed out after dark?” he asks softly.
I shake my head.
He nods, but the limo stops and
he turns his head to the side. We’re in front of my condo building.
“May I walk you up?” he asks, turning back to me.
“Yes. Of course.” I set down my barely touched glass of cognac. “I’d like that.” My jets were cooled by this strange conversation, but they’re still running, and I still want to invite him inside. Invite him inside my house, my bedroom. Maybe even inside my body.
I tremble.
The driver opens the door, and Ryker holds out his hand to guide me from the car. After I enter my code, he holds open the door to my building, letting me go inside first where I use my keycard to unlock the door from the vestibule. Even if Ryker still has an air of danger about him, he’s a total gentleman. Suggestions of his being a pirate or a vampire are laughable. Even if I don’t quite get the joke.
Chapter Twelve
Ryker
The alluring Ember pushes the elevator button for the ninth floor of her building, and I lightly trace my fingers down her back. Under my touch, her body reacts in the most delicious way, so responsive, almost like I just sucked on her love nub or plunged my fangs into her neck.
My cock throbs at those thoughts, but I tell it to calm the fuck down. I do want to fuck her, not to mention feed from her sweet vein, but although I’ve had countless opportunities—in the limos, the helicopter, the private dining room—for some bloody reason I’ve thus far refrained.
There’s something about this woman, her effect on me, I don’t understand. At the gala I admit my attention was largely driven by pissing off Zuben, whose carnal interest in her is clear, but it quickly became much more than that. How else to explain why I lay down bars of gold for a night with her? Something I could have claimed without such a bold and expensive gesture. But what it is about her, I can’t comprehend.
There are so many wenches in the sea that I’ve never found myself craving any particular one.
Ember’s attractive, no doubt about that—her pale skin, her long silky hair and eyes the color of violets in spring—but attractive women are a dime a dozen, so it can’t be just that. As the elevator rises, her body trembles slightly, almost humming, and I stroke her back.
