by HELEN HARDT
One of the orderlies flanking her stood. “Sir, you need to sit down and calm yourself, or you’re going to have to leave.”
Get a grip, Ryan. She’s talking. Don’t stop now.
I sat down.
I clenched my jaw. “Where the hell is my father?” I said through gritted teeth.
“He will come to you when the time is right.”
“Did you help him fake his death?”
“I’d do anything for him.”
Not an answer. “How can you continue to say that, when you had his son abducted and raped?”
“That was a sad casualty. It was unfortunate. But you should be thanking me, Ryan.”
“Thanking you? Are you crazy? What the hell for?”
“They let you go that day. Because you’re my son.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ruby
So tell me, then. Is the love you feel for him stronger than whatever is holding you back?
Melanie’s question played over in my mind.
Yes! The word was in my head, where I was shouting it. But instead, I said, “I don’t know. These feelings are all so new to me.”
“I understand.”
“I never thought I’d feel love for a man. Not like this.”
“True love can be a little surprising when it creeps up on you. I should know.” She smiled.
“It’s not just the feeling that’s surprising,” I said.
“What else?”
“It’s…” I swallowed, embarrassment overwhelming me. “It’s the sex.”
“What about the sex? Are you not enjoying it?”
“Oh, no.” God, my cheeks must be red as a fire truck. “I’m definitely enjoying it.”
“Then what?”
“I’m… I feel like I’m no longer me when I’m with him. Like I’m losing myself. Like I want to lose myself. It scares me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been on my own since I was a kid. I’ve depended on no one but myself for seventeen years. And now all of a sudden I’m ready to give all that up? It doesn’t make any sense. Like last night…”
“What happened last night?”
“I…forced myself not to have an orgasm. Which I know sounds ridiculous. Orgasms are pretty amazing. Part of me can’t believe I went this long without them.”
“Why do you think you forced yourself not to have one?”
“I was afraid. It was like I wasn’t me anymore. We were becoming this Ruby-Ryan creature. I’m not ready for that.”
“I think you need to take a step back here and put this in perspective,” she said. “You have very little experience, so you have nothing to compare this to, but true love with the right person can definitely feel like you’re becoming one being. That’s part of what makes it so special.”
“So this is true love, then?”
“Only you and Ryan can answer that.”
I closed my eyes for a few seconds. I already knew the answer.
“Let me ask you this,” she said. “Did you dislike the feeling you were having? Of becoming part of him?”
“No.” I remembered the headiness, the nirvana of melting into his skin, his body. “I loved it. That’s what freaks me out. I don’t want to lose myself.”
“Ruby,” Melanie said, edging along the couch so she was closer to me. “I think you might finally be finding yourself.”
* * *
I finished the afternoon at work and then headed to the gym to do some kickboxing. I hadn’t said anything in my session with Melanie about the eerie text I’d gotten last night or the phone call I’d missed from an unrecognized number. Of course it hadn’t been traceable. The blues had been to my apartment and checked it out, assuring me it was safe. Still, Ryan had arranged for me to spend the night at a nearby hotel, and I wanted to go there. I just didn’t want to want to go there. Story of my life these days. I wanted to retain my independence, go to my apartment, prove that no one could harm me.
But I wasn’t invincible. If I knew anything, I knew that.
Melanie had said that maybe I was finding myself, not losing myself. I had gone to her for a reason—to become whole before I took more of a plunge with Ryan. Was it possible that taking such a plunge was part of becoming whole?
What makes you think you’re not already whole, Ruby?
I finished my workout and toweled off my face. Time for a quick shower and then…
The hotel.
* * *
A key had been left for me at the front desk, and I quickly ascended to the fourth floor to find my room. I opened the door and tossed my purse and overnight bag on a nearby table. The blues had been kind enough to pack for me, and God only knew what I'd find inside. Where was the bed? Shit, had he really reserved a whole suite for me?
Steel money. They certainly didn’t do things halfway.
I picked up my belongings and headed toward the door near the end of the small living area. I opened it—
I gasped.
Ryan stood there, fully clothed, his hair in disarray and a primal look of lust in his dark and blazing eyes.
“Get undressed.”
“Ry—”
“I said get undressed. I need you. Now.”
Something in me forced me to obey his command. That something that scared me. That something that made me feel I was losing myself.
Ruby, I think you might finally be finding yourself.
Was I? Truly?
Did I become any less Ruby Lee just because I wanted to obey Ryan Steel? Give him what he wanted? What he needed?
How did he know I’d come here? Was I that transparent? I’d nearly gone back to my apartment.
But I hadn’t.
And he’d known I wouldn’t.
How had he known? How?
“I’m waiting,” he said.
I shed my jacket. My fingers shaking, I unbuttoned my shirt and shed it as well. Then my bra. I bent down to untie my shoes and then kicked them off, toeing off my socks. I unbuckled my belt, unzipped my pants, and slid them off my hips along with my panties.
I stood before Ryan naked.
Naked and vulnerable.
Ruby, I think you might finally be finding yourself.
It was time to find out.
Chapter Thirty
Ryan
I yanked her toward me and crushed our lips together in a kiss of passion and lust. Her scent was already lingering in the air. I’d smelled it even before she’d taken off her pants.
She was ripe. Ripe for me. Only for me.
I ripped my mouth from hers and inhaled a deep breath. “No one else will ever kiss these lips, Ruby. No one else will fuck your tight little body. Do you understand?”
Her blue eyes were glazed over, her lips ruddy and swollen from the bruising kiss I’d given her.
“Answer me. Do you understand?”
She nodded, shivering.
I clamped my mouth onto hers once more.
She responded to me as no woman ever had. When we kissed, with so much passion and fervor, I could hardly believe no one had kissed this mouth before. But no one had. Only I had, and that knowledge made me crazy. Crazy with lust. Crazy with passion. Crazy with desire.
Crazy with love.
What I felt for this woman was something I’d never felt before. It ate at me, consumed me. It was a hunger that demanded to be sated. As I held her against me, her naked flesh against my still-clothed body, I knew I was never letting her go.
Her hair fell down her back in a long ponytail, and I grabbed it and pulled on it, yanking her mouth away from mine with a loud smack.
“I love kissing you,” I said. “I love kissing your lips. I love how our tongues feel together. I love everything about what we are together, Ruby.”
Before she could answer, I clamped my mouth onto hers once more. We continued our kiss, and I walked her toward the bed, until her knees met the mattress and she sat down.
I knew what I wanted from her. I did
n’t want to scare her, but I had to ask for what I needed. I unbuckled my belt and unsnapped my jeans, sliding them and my boxers over my hips. My cock sprang out, so fucking hard. As hard as I’d ever been. Her beautiful dark lips were right at the perfect level.
“Suck my cock,” I commanded.
Though I expected her to start with tiny little kisses, she instead thrust her mouth upon me, taking me about three-quarters of the way before she backed off, licking my head.
I groaned. So good. Had anything ever felt as heavenly? Maybe. Maybe being inside that tight little twat of hers. And one day, inside that sweet ass.
I grabbed her ponytail and began moving her mouth on and off me. She could have stopped me if she’d wanted to. She was a trained policewoman. But when I looked into her blue eyes, they shone with lust and satisfaction.
She liked what she was doing. She liked what I was doing to her.
God, she was the perfect woman for me.
I was so turned on, so hot, and I knew I wouldn’t last long. As much as I wanted to shoot down her throat, I needed to get inside her first.
Shit. I still had all my clothes on. But I couldn’t wait. I needed her. Now. As much as it pained me, I pulled my cock out of her mouth. “Lie back, baby.”
She obeyed, spreading her legs.
For a moment, I looked at her. At the beautiful swollen pink flesh open for me. I inhaled that scent all around us that seemed to be coming from everywhere, only it wasn’t. It was coming from her beautiful body exposed to my view.
I planted my hand on the bed, forcing her thighs closer to her body, her entrance at the perfect angle. And I thrust into her.
Sweet heaven.
Sweet home.
Inside Ruby, I was home.
I stayed locked to the hilt for a few seconds, loving the way her walls hugged my cock. For an instant, I thought my life would be perfect if I could just stay embedded in her body forever.
But my balls ached, my cock throbbed. So I pulled out and pushed back inside her wetness. She cried out, her fingers sliding toward her vulva. She rubbed her own juices over her hard nub, and I lost it.
“Come,” I commanded. “Come now.”
Her walls spasmed around me, and she cried out my name—an angel’s song to my ears.
Could I truly induce orgasm in her just by demanding it? The thought made me hum with power. I pulled back out and slammed home, filling her, taking her, giving myself to her and only her.
When my body stopped shuddering, my cock finally stopped throbbing, I closed my eyes, trying to hold back what I knew was coming.
But I couldn’t.
A tear fell from one eye and trailed down my cheek, and then one from the other.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ruby
I was still enraptured from my orgasm when I noticed his tears. He pulled out of me and pulled his pants up around his hips, although he didn’t snap or buckle them.
I waited. Waited for him to tell me what to do. As wrong as waiting for a command felt, it also felt so very right.
Instead, he only stared at me. Not at my naked body. He looked into my eyes with a look so tortured that I thought I could see into his soul. Something was bothering him. Something big. So big that it elicited a tear…and then another.
I stopped my mouth from dropping open. I wouldn’t mention the tears. That would embarrass him.
He was still fully clothed, and I sat up and took his hands, bringing him down upon the bed beside me.
“Ryan,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
He let go of one of my hands and trailed his finger up my arm, my shoulder, my cheekbone, around to the band holding my ponytail in place. He pulled it out of my hair and let my tresses fall down my back. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said.
His eyes were still tortured, his lids heavy, his dark irises glassy. He continued touching me, lightly running his fingers over my body.
Then he closed his eyes and inhaled. “I can always smell you. Your scent intoxicates me. Makes me want you so much.”
I touched his cheek. “I’m right here. You have me.”
He opened his eyes. “Something happened today.” Then he tilted his head slightly to the side. “No, that’s not right. Nothing happened. I just found out something. Most of my life has been a lie.”
“Ryan, your life hasn’t been a lie. I know you’re still dealing with the fact that you have a different mother than your brothers and sister. But you will—”
He placed two fingers over my lips. “I’m not talking about that. Am I used to it yet? Hell, no. But I will deal with that. What I found out today is, in a strange way, even more important to me. It changes everything I’ve known as truth for the last twenty-five years.”
Twenty-five years? Ryan was thirty-two years old, same as me. What could he have found out that changed the past twenty-five years of his life? He would’ve been seven years old.
He’d been seven years old when Talon was taken.
I gently removed his hand from my mouth. “What is it, Ryan? What are you talking about?”
“For the last twenty-five years, my brother Talon has been my hero. And now…”
“And now…what?”
“My psychotic mother. I went to see her.”
I knew that, of course. I’d told him about the e-mail I got from Wendy.
“What happened?”
“I asked her to tell me the truth. I asked her to help me understand.” He threaded his fingers through his unruly hair. “I’ll never understand, Ruby. I’ll never understand how or why she could’ve done the things she did.”
“That’s a good thing,” I said. “I’ll never understand why my father has done the things he’s done either. I don’t want to understand. I don’t want my mind to work in that warped way.”
“I know that. I agree with you. But what I found out today changes everything.”
“I can assure you that nothing has changed,” I said. Perhaps he found out that Wendy was more than any of us had bargained for. That she was the mastermind behind all of this. But now was not the time to voice my theory.
“But it has.” He squeezed my hand. “I got away that day. I got away because Talon freed me from the guy holding me and told me to run. At least that’s what I always thought.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything, just continued holding his hand, rubbing my thumb into his palm.
“But my mother told me… God, do you have any idea how much I hate calling her my mother?”
I couldn’t help letting out a stilted laugh. “Of course I do.”
Finally, a tiny smile twitched at Ryan’s lips. “Of course you do. That was a stupid thing for me to say.”
“Tell me. You can tell me anything, Ryan. I… I love you.”
He sighed. “I love you too, baby.”
“Then trust me.” Those were loaded words, I knew. In his eyes, I had betrayed him when I gave a strand of his hair to Marjorie to have his DNA tested. We loved each other, but it would still take some time to recover from that.
He closed his eyes. “I’m trying.”
“I know.”
He opened his eyes. “My mother said Simpson and Mathias let me go that day because I was her son. That’s why Talon was taken and I wasn’t. Because I’m the spawn of that psychotic bitch who apparently was calling the shots that day.” He paused a moment, swallowing hard. “Do you have any idea what this does to me, Ruby? Any idea how this changes my history?”
“Ryan, it doesn’t have to change anything.”
“All these years… The way I remember it…” He rose from the bed, holding his pants up. He buckled them and began pacing around. “Talon. The brother I trusted with my life. The brother I thought had saved my life. Saved me from the horrible fate that he endured those months.” He slammed his fist against the closet door. “And now? I find out it’s been a lie. Talon didn’t save me that day. My fucked-up mother did.”
“Look,”
I said. “The most important thing is that you got away, isn’t it?”
“No. No, it’s not, Ruby. I got away solely because of my parentage. And my poor brother…” He choked back a sob. “My poor brother went through hell that I was spared because I’m the son of that fucked-up maniac.”
Guilt. More guilt. Ryan had always harbored guilt because he got away. He loved Talon almost to the point of worship because his brother had saved him from that fate. Yet still the guilt ate at him because he had gotten away. And now this… I rose and went to him. I wrapped my arms around him, but he did not respond.
“It’s not fair,” he said.
I caressed his upper arms still covered in his cotton shirt. I could say many things right now. I could tell him none of this was his fault. I could tell him there was no reason to feel guilty. That Talon never wanted him to feel that way. I could tell him that maybe it did happen the way he remembered it. That maybe his psycho mother was lying. But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I nuzzled into his chest.
“No, it’s not fair, Ryan.”
He sniffled, and I knew he was trying to hold back tears. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to hold back tears in front of me, that he could cry if he wanted to. But I knew how hard it was for me to cry in front of another person. He needed to believe in his strength right now. I wouldn’t take that away from him.
I continued to hold him, still naked, he still fully clothed. We stood together for seconds that turned into minutes.
Finally, I pulled away. “Let me get you something. A glass of water maybe?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
I walked into the bathroom and draped one of the luxury robes around me. Then I filled a glass of water and returned, handing it to Ryan. He had sat back down on the bed.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about what happened that day?” I asked.
He nodded. “I had to tell everyone when I got back. I told my mother—or the woman who I thought was my mother at the time—my father, the police. For a long time I had nightmares. Even after Talon came back. But we never talked about it. My mother and father never wanted to mention it. And then my mother…er…Daphne…”
