by Jo Raven
Meanwhile, my head feels like it’s screwed on wrong. Apart from my worry for Mom and X, I don’t know what I’m doing with Brylee and Ryan.
I made out with Brylee.
And then I made out with Ryan.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing anymore.
Except Ryan walked out on me, like every time before, like he did with Brylee. Maybe we should band together against him.
I almost choke to death with laughter. Disgruntled housewives vs. Ryan Dawson.
Jesus Christ, Rid.
Then I think I should feel bad for making out with Ryan—but I remember that he’s still the one she wants, and I want to put my fist through the wall.
I asked her out.
She never replied, which is as good as a big fat NO.
I got the message loud and clear. Ryan is still her number one. I may be a close second, but I won’t make the cut.
So why did I pick a fight with Ryan—and ended up getting off together? Why was I so pissed at him? Why did I kiss him like my life depended on it?
I wish I fucking knew.
Just like I don’t know why I find Brylee waiting for me outside my building, in the freezing cold of night, wrapped up in her coat and scarf, only her eyes showing.
“What are you doing here?” I open the door and haul her inside. “You’re gonna get hypothermia and die. Why didn’t you call me first?”
“You’re in a good mood,” she mutters and follows me to the elevator. “I don’t have your number, and I’ve only been here for two minutes. I promise I’d have gone back to my car and left if you hadn’t shown up when you did.”
I smile in the dimness as the elevator creaks its way up and finally reaches my floor. “Good.”
She’s here. And I’m so fucking happy about it I can’t make myself care about what a bad idea this is, for all the reasons spinning inside my head.
I take her hand and tug her inside the apartment. I start the heater and shrug off my jacket. “You didn’t answer me. What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
“Yes. I think.”
“You think?” I turn to her, and she puts her arms around me. It’s such a relief to feel her body pressed to mine after this shitty week and an evening spilling my guts out to Jet I sag against her, letting her warmth seep into me.
“I’m just…can’t make up my mind on some things.”
“Need help with that?”
She rests her cheek on my chest and I stroke her soft hair that’s falling in loose waves around her face. “What do you think of Ryan?”
A sting in my heart, a wave of heat in my balls and dick, a flash of irrational anger. “I dunno,” I say carefully. “Why, having second thoughts about him?”
Or about me?
“Rid…his mother’s dead.”
I go very still, my breath hitching. With thoughts of my mom in the hospital like fresh wounds in my mind, I can’t help but feel an empathic stab of pain on his behalf.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper against her hair. “You care for him, don’t you?” As I speak the words, I know it’s the truth. “You’re in love with him.”
“I don’t know. Don’t know what I feel.”
But it’s obvious.
Anger flares again. “He treats you like shit, Princess. Even if you love him, that’s a bad deal. Don’t take it.” I beg you. “You deserve better.”
“You don’t believe in second chances?”
I bury my face in the scented cloud of her curls and say nothing. Not sure I believe in anything anymore. She loves Ryan, and I can’t fucking deal with this right now.
“Sit with me,” I whisper.
She doesn’t reply, but walks with me to the sofa and lets me pull her on my lap. Her arms are around me, and mine around her, and for a while the world goes still and quiet.
“Are you all right?” she asks, and it’s my turn not to reply.
Not sure I can without falling apart.
“Your mom?” she whispers, and I nod. “Still in the hospital?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, my voice lost in the sweet juncture between her shoulder and her neck, where she smells like flowers.
“Is she getting out soon?”
“I dunno. The fucking docs won’t tell me anything, and I just…” I bite a little into her soft skin, to muffle the howl that’s trying to escape me.
“And your brother?”
She’s stroking the back of my neck. It’s soothing. I exhale, kiss her neck. “Hasn’t come home in more than a week.”
She pulls back, puts her hands on my face. “Rid…”
And she kisses me.
It’s unbearably gentle. Her soft lips move over mine like a whisper, and I’m afraid this will finally break me to pieces, this gentle, tentative touch, so different to anything I remember, so perfect.
But it’s not enough. She seems to think the same as she climbs on my lap completely, straddling my legs, crushing our mouths together.
I kiss her like I’m drowning, like the air has been sucked out of the room and she’s my oxygen. Her soft center is pressed to my hard-on, and when she shifts, I see stars. She’s rubbing herself along my length, perhaps unconsciously, as we kiss, and at this rate I’m gonna come inside my pants.
“God.” She sits back, her eyes glazed over. “This is so good. I don’t think I can wait until my wedding day for sex.”
Caught between a desire to laugh and groan, I slide my hands over her curves, cup her tits. “I support that decision.”
“I haven’t decided anything yet.”
“Then I support that idea.”
“You just want to have sex with me.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice husky. “It’s true. I do. Can you feel how much?”
She tries to glance down at my trapped hard-on, going cross-eyed.
As if she hasn’t felt it. I think my zipper’s about to explode into metal confetti from the pressure.
“I want…” She swallows. “I want to touch you.”
My pulse speeds up. “I support this idea, also.” I hesitate to push, but… “And I wanna see you.”
“You have vision problems?”
I blink at her. “Uh, no. See you naked, that’s what I meant.”
“I know.” She grins up at me, and I stare at her.
“You have a weird sense of humor,” I manage.
“Ah-huh. Mom always says I got it from my grandfather. I inherited his eyes, too, along with other things.”
“What things?”
“A diary and a calligraphy pen.”
“Uh…” Is she joking now? “You didn’t really get his eyes, right? In a box with the diary and pen?”
She laughs delightedly. I love the sound of her laughter. “No, just their color.”
Phew.
“You’re funny,” she says.
I am?
“If I undress… will you answer my questions, too?” She’s looking at me from under her lashes. “Like you did with me last time? It’s only fair.”
“You just wanna ogle my awesome body.”
“Yes,” she says without hesitation, her cheeks coloring, with that particular mixture of innocence and determination that’s so much Brylee. “I want to ogle your awesome body.”
Hell, I’m up for that. Plus, I have nothing to hide. “You got yourself a deal, Princess. You undress, I let you touch my awesome bod, and I answer your questions.”
She lifts her gaze, and the wicked gleam there gives me pause.
But I’m already in too deep, and I know it.
***
Under her short coat, she’s wearing a short black dress. Girl likes her dresses.
That makes two of us.
“First question,” she says, smiling. “What is your full name?”
I frown. “Riddick?” Oh. “Riddick Evan Connors.”
Her mouth tightens. Guess she doesn’t like my name. Nothing royal about it. But she toes off her black pumps, distracting me.
My dick aches. I unzip my jeans, releasing some of the crazy pressure, and her eyes slide to the bulge between my legs. “Next question?” I prompt.
“What are your plans for the future?”
“My…?” The fuck. “To put my brother and mom in rehab, and get a permanent job,” I mutter, watching another shadow of disappointment glide over her features like a passing cloud. “Bry…”
This is going all wrong. Not sure what she expected from me, but…
She reaches behind her, unzips her dress. I’m utterly still as she lets the dress fall off her shoulders, then lower, uncovering her bra.
It’s black, shiny satin with pink bows, and it hugs her tits perfectly.
Jesus.
“Are you bisexual?” she asks.
I fall back against the cushions. Fuck, what did I agree to? Talk about a punch in the gut. “Bry…”
She’s waiting, holding her dress just under her boobs, a vision out of my wet dreams, her wide eyes knifing me to the heart.
“Yeah, I am,” I say at last. My sexuality was never a secret.
“And you think he’s sexy,” she says. “Ryan,” she clarifies, although it was perfectly clear the first time.
I don’t wanna talk about Ryan. “That’s another question,” I mutter.
She lets the dress drop.
Holy shit. I reach for my dick before I know it, cupping it over the cotton of my briefs.
She’s stunning. The matching black panties seem to be pointing at her pussy, a perfect triangle drawing my gaze between her legs.
She’s trying to kill me.
“So…” She arches a brow. “Ryan.”
“He’s hot,” I whisper, my brain on autopilot. “Just like you are. So fucking hot.”
Belatedly I realize what I said, and open my mouth in an effort to fix it—do I really think he’s as hot as she is?—but she beats me to it.
“Could you choose between us?”
And before I can think of an answer to that—and why do I even hesitate, dammit?—she reaches behind her and unhooks her bra. She pulls down the straps slowly, then holds the cups against her tits, not letting me see.
Tease.
“Well?” she whispers.
“Bry…” I lick my lips. “You. I’d choose you. I barely know him.”
A memory of his mouth on mine, of his strong body covering me, his ragged breathing, fills my mind.
“Have you kissed him?”
“Yeah.” It comes out without input from my rational brain.
This is it, I think. The moment when she’ll pull her clothes back on and walk out, never to come back. What girl wants to know that the guy she’s getting undressed for has kissed the guy she’s been pining for?
But like every time, I underestimated her. For some reason, she smiles.
And drops her bra.
She climbs back on my lap before I can say another word, and I don’t even have time to complain she’s still wearing her panties because she’s tugging on my briefs and curling her small hand around my cock.
“Come with me to the hospital next week? There’s an event for the kids.”
Am I supposed to be able to talk right now? “Yeah,” I groan. “Fuck, yeah.”
She smiles and presses her lips to mine, then draws back, squeezing and pulling on my cock, and I gaze down at the erotic sight of her dainty hand jacking me off. Her pretty tits are right in front of me, too, and I’m torn between watching them rise and fall with her breathing and watching her work my dick.
She’s goddamn sexy. And a fast learner. She uses her thumb to play with the piercing, and my whole body tenses, sparks of pain-pleasure shooting up my spine.
“Oh fuck, yeah.” I lift my hips, pushing into her hand, and try to think what…? “Here.”
I grip her hip with one hand, push the other under her panties. She gasps and squirms, and holy hell, she’s hot and wet. My finger slides along her seam, back and forth, finding her little swollen nub and pressing on it.
“Rid!” She’s trembling. I didn’t realize she was so close to coming, too, and my dick jerks in the hold of her fingers. “God…”
She puts a hand on my arm, steadying herself, and starts to move, pressing down on my hand.
We rock together, finding a frantic rhythm, her hand jerking on my cock, and my thumb slipping in her slick, both of us uncoordinated and clumsy in this position, but both so aroused it doesn’t matter.
She comes first with a long moan, her hand on my arm clenching, her breath stuttering, and I lose control a second later, spilling over her fingers and all over my chest.
I feel like I’ve been shot to the heart.
Which reminds me of Ryan pressing a hand to his chest right before fleeing last time. Did he feel that way, too?
***
“And what is Ryan’s full name?” I ask her later, lazily tracing a pattern on her arm as we lie on the sofa, dozing.
“Hm?” She lifts her lashes. “Ryan Prince Dawson.”
Holy shit. “A prince, huh? No wonder you’re so set on him.”
She smiles and yawns. “That wasn’t the only reason.”
“What else, then?” Sick fascination. Wins every time.
What does he have I don’t?
“He’s handsome.”
Okay, I noticed that. “And?”
“He’s so focused on his work. So serious.”
“And you felt he needed rescuing from his boring life?”
I was half-joking, but she doesn’t deny it.
Well, shit.
“Ask me,” she says, her smile lingering, like a faint star in the dark.
“Will I have to undress?”
She snickers.
“What’s his job?”
“Investment analyst.”
“He makes lots of money, huh?”
She laughs. “He does okay. His family is well off, anyway. His father’s military, a decorated officer. They own a lot of property.”
Lucky rich boy.
His mom’s dead.
Still.
“And you know a lot about his family.”
One slender shoulder rolls in a shrug. “I read up on him.”
“He’s your project.”
Another shrug. “You like him,” she says smugly.
“I don’t!” Arrogant, selfish bastard.
She winks.
What? Just because I said he’s hot?
But I remember how he caught me as I was falling in the snow, how he helped me look for my brother, how he came back to check on me.
How he held me, like I was his.
You stupid moron, Riddick. Stop.
“I think you feel it, too,” she says.
I lift my gaze. “Feel what?”
The only thing I’m feeling is that I’m missing something here.
“Don’t you see?” This time her smile is brilliant like a sunrise.
“See what?” It’s the night of riddles. Solve one, get one for free.
“That you also glimpse the gold.”
“The gold?”
“In the sea.”
I stare at her. Did she hit her head somewhere? Is she drunk? “The sea?”
“You see something in him, like I do. I’m not crazy. He’s not an asshole.” She gazes at me with clear eyes. “His mom died, Rid. That must have hurt him.”
“Are you saying, what—that he has problems getting emotionally close to women because his mom died?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Good question. Maybe she’s right. Or maybe not. “I don’t trust him.”
“Rid…”
“You are a nice girl,” I tell her, trying to put my jumbled thoughts into order. “You see the best in people.”
Which is probably why she says she likes a fucked-up guy like me in the first place. She could change her mind again, of course.
“But?”
“But if he acts like an asshole, Princess, he probably is an asshole.”
/> This is what my experience tells me.
A sexy, moody asshole.
She laughs at me as if I’ve said something clever and funny. “I know.”
“You do?”
I heave a sigh of relief—shocked to find a flicker of disappointment there, too. No second chances after all, huh? I feel strangely let down, as if this rule should apply to me, too.
Because I still don’t know where this leaves me.
“Good,” I say. “Bry…”
“But remember the gold.”
The gold.
Like his hair. Or the tiny flecks in his green eyes. Like his arms around me.
“I’ll try.”
Chapter Eighteen
Sweet Iron Bar
Ryan
“It’s over between us.”
Days later, Brylee’s words still echo in my mind. I work harder than ever, trying to erase her from my thoughts. Her, and Riddick, and how they both tasted, so different.
So good.
I hurt her. Probably him, too, by leaving like that. I keep leaving, keep walking out, keep telling them I don’t care about them.
You’re such an asshole, Ryan.
Chicken shit, too. Fucking coward. What are you afraid of? That you’ll follow your mom’s fate—or that they’ll leave you when they find out your secret?
Newsflash, idiot. You never had them. They were kind to you, and you only drove them away.
Nice pity party you got there, Ryan.
Look, I’ve been fine all this time because I’ve been careful. Did everything in moderation. Avoided intense feelings and shocks.
My father is wrong. I am living. A good life. I’m not missing out on anything. I mean, he’s one to talk. Living in a museum to my mom’s memory.
Christ. I should stop arguing with myself all the time, or I’ll get locked up.
Days pass buried under work. Sleepless nights. All quiet, too fucking quiet. I stop going to the gym. Too much work, I tell myself.
I pour myself a drink and remember the taste of it on Riddick’s lips.
I smile at a comedy show on TV and remember Brylee’s laughter.
At work, I listen for her steps outside my office. Look for her during meetings. I need to see her.
But she doesn’t come over.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
I tell myself that’s fine. That’s awesome, perfect. Who cares, anyway? Funny girl, but not for me. Not who I want. Not who I need.
