by Tessa Bailey
Troy grabbed her wrist and stopped her. “So do I. She’s at our apartment.”
“What?” She and Bowen asked simultaneously.
He divided a glance between them. “As always, your faith in my police work is humbling.” Hesitant relief transformed Ruby’s worried look, tension ebbing from her body as he spoke. “We’ve been working on locating her for days. Right before you took those last three shots, Daniel texted me that they’d found her. He explained everything to her and she’s been taken to our place. She’s out of Jim’s reach. For now. We’ll need to—”
Ruby threw herself into his arms. “Thank you,” she whispered into his ear.
He squeezed her tight. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Ruby. You know that.”
“I know. I love you.” Her quick exhale fanned his neck. “I can’t believe Mya is my mother.”
Inhaling her scent greedily, Troy nodded. “Baby, I really need to get you out of this dark alley in New Jersey before I have heart failure.”
A shaky laugh escaped her. “Okay, let’s go.” Reluctantly, they parted, both searching the darkness in confusion.
“Where’s Bowen?” Troy asked, realizing they were alone in the alley, Bowen nowhere to be seen.
After a beat, Ruby sighed and started for the car. “He’ll show up again when he’s ready.”
Forty-five minutes later, they stood outside their apartment door. On the other side, he could hear pacing, layered above the television. On the way in, he’d double-checked to make sure Brent was stationed outside in his squad car, as promised. Knowing Jim might already be on his way to Mya’s apartment, ready to break and enter if necessary, Troy had asked Daniel to remove any trace of Mya’s professional ties to Ruby from the woman’s apartment. But Jim Elliott was a smart man. He would make the connection sooner or later. Mya wouldn’t be able to remain in their apartment forever. Until tonight, he hadn’t been aware that Ruby’s mother was a potential witness against Jim, making her proximity to Ruby all the more dangerous. The longer she stayed, the more risk mounted for Ruby. Troy would prevent that at all costs.
Before turning the key in the lock, Troy paused. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” Ruby shook her head as if to clear it. “This is stupid. I spend every day with her. It’s just Mya in there.”
He brushed his thumb over her jaw. “Because it’s different now.”
“Yeah.” She blew out a breath. “I never let myself think too hard about my mother, but now I have a thousand questions. I don’t even know where to start.”
Troy started to answer, but the door swung open, revealing Mya. Silhouetted by light, her face was obscured by shadows, but her relief at seeing Ruby unharmed was unmistakable. She steadied herself with a hand on the doorjamb as lessening tension deflated her. “Don’t you know never to go to New Jersey on days ending in Y?”
Ruby crossed her arms, chin going up a notch. “What, are you my mother or something?”
A beat of silence passed, before both of their mouths edged up into hesitant smiles. Mya stepped back to let them into the apartment. “I deserve that.”
“You think?”
Mya rubbed her arms vigorously and nodded toward the living room. “Can we talk? Alone?”
Wanting to give them their privacy to hash things out, Troy nodded encouragingly at Ruby and headed for the bedroom, but she snagged his hand before he’d made it two steps. “I want to talk. But Troy stays. We don’t have any secrets.” She looked at him meaningfully. “Never again.”
Christ, if they didn’t have an audience at that moment, he would have kissed her within an inch of her life. He let the feeling of happiness replace the dread he’d been experiencing for days, allowing himself to simply be grateful for her. For what they had.
Just for a moment, Troy wanted to stop mentally replaying the ways he’d almost lost her, everything he had to do to keep her, and what his life would be like without her. Instead, he pulled her onto his lap on the couch and enjoyed her familiar weight. Her hand, so trusting, in his. His girl needed his support and he was all too ready to provide it, for as long as she’d have him.
…
Ruby stared at Mya and tried to reconcile her former wild-child employee with the woman she’d subconsciously created to fill in the gaps since childhood. It made sense now. The immediate bond she’d felt for Mya from day one. She’d always wondered about it, but had ultimately decided to count herself lucky instead of thinking too deeply about it. That female bond had been lacking in her life, and the sudden appearance of it had made her uncomfortable enough to push it aside. Not inspect it for flaws or inconsistencies.
Now that she knew what to look for, their relationship became glaringly obvious. Ruby didn’t know if she was projecting the resemblance she suddenly craved like air, but she saw it nonetheless. Underneath her piercings and heavy eyeliner, her mother looked back at her.
“Are you just going to stare at me all night?”
Yup. Definitely my mother. Based on Troy’s grunt behind her, he’d had the same thought. She elbowed him gently in the ribs, but he only tightened his hold.
Ruby sat a little straighter on Troy’s lap, taking a moment to acknowledge the rightness of having him there for this life-changing conversation. “So, I guess you didn’t just have an insatiable interest in the custom pool cue business?”
Mya’s lips twitched. “It’s growing on me.”
“My professor, when he said he had a friend who was interested in investing…?”
“We were sleeping together.”
Ruby wrinkled her nose. “All right. We’re going to have to set a whole new level of boundaries now that I know you’re my mother.”
“Boundaries are boring.” When Ruby prompted her to continue with silence, Mya sighed. “I asked around the old neighborhood and found out where you were going to school. I might have…met your professor on purpose. Dug around a little bit.” She lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “I saw the opportunity to get to know you without any of the inevitable pressure of a reunion. And I took it.”
Ruby wasn’t fooled by her mother’s seeming nonchalance. She recognized the blasé attitude Mya was using to camouflage her true feelings. Underneath all of it lay vulnerability. A fear of rejection. If she hadn’t been concerned about Ruby’s reaction to her sudden reappearance, she would have simply approached her, without any of the false pretense. As if reading her thoughts, Mya looked away.
“Why now?”
Mya looked up at the ceiling as if searching for an answer. “I left because I wanted to see the world outside of Brooklyn. At some point, it stopped being about discovering myself and more about avoiding. I cut the bullshit and came back.” Her throat worked. “I thought about you all the time. Figured I’d come see what you were up to.”
“You should have told me who you were. I don’t like being played, Mya.”
“Pamela.” Her mother held up a hand. “And you’re right. I’d be angry, too.” She glanced around at the apartment. “It’s just…look how well you’re doing for yourself. Running your own business. Living on the Upper East Side with your hot boyfriend—”
“Seriously.”
Pamela lifted an eyebrow. “Just stating the obvious.”
“State less of it.” Ruby elbowed Troy again when laughter rumbled in his chest.
“Fine,” she relented with a small smile. “Anyway, it didn’t feel right to disrupt your happy life.”
“It’s happy now.” Ruby swallowed hard, surprised to feel tears gathering in her eyes for the second time that night. “It hasn’t always been this way. Far from it.”
Finally, Pamela’s careful control slipped, a flash of anguish crossing her face. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Ruby nodded, suddenly wanting to flee the living room and the entire emotionally draining scene. She appeased herself by changing the subject. Someday they would get into those childhood years she’d spent living in dingy motel rooms or ducking down in the ba
ckseat of Jim’s car in case of gunfire. Not tonight, though. It was too soon. Something else weighed on her mind just then. “So should I assume the money you invested in my business was stolen from my father?”
Pamela fell back against her chair with a shaky sigh. “Only a portion. Most of it was mine, though. You’d be surprised what you save on rent when you work as a roadie nine months out of the year.”
A roadie. Of course she’d been a roadie. “If given the choice, I never would have touched a dime of Jim’s money.”
Her mother studied her closely. “I still have most of the money. Maybe deep down, I didn’t want to touch it, either.”
Ruby didn’t respond to that. She hadn’t had enough time to process what she wanted to do about her business being built, even partially, on a foundation of illegal cash. “Whatever you saw must have been pretty bad if he wants to kill you for simply showing your face back here. What—”
Troy stiffened behind her, and Pamela shook her head adamantly. “It’s safer if you don’t know.”
Her boyfriend’s body deflated and once again she felt staggered by his protectiveness. “You know, if it wasn’t for Troy, there’s a strong possibility Jim might have already gotten to you.”
Pamela bit her lip and nodded at Troy. “I realize that. Thank you, Troy.”
Troy acknowledged her gratitude with a nod that bumped his chin into Ruby’s shoulder. A sudden wave of love for him almost toppled her. She knew he felt it, too, when he squeezed her hand and brought it up to his mouth.
“I also know you did it for my daughter. No other reason.”
“It’s the only one I’ll ever need,” he answered steadily.
Pamela laughed to herself. “Good Lord, I wish I’d had your taste in men when it was young enough to matter.”
Her mother’s comment brought the memory of her father’s words back to her then. Besides sleeping with my best friend at the time and taking off with one hundred thousand dollars of my hard-earned money? Obviously she’d only gotten half the story, but tomorrow would be soon enough to find out the rest. She’d learned more than enough tonight already, and frankly, she wasn’t quite ready to open a discussion about her mother two-timing her father. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with Troy and let him soothe away her father’s betrayal, her mother’s lying to her about her identity for months…all of it.
“I know how lucky I am.” Ruby stood and pulled Troy to his feet, stifling a shiver when his full height caused him to look down at her from a good six inches above. With difficulty, she looked back at her mother. “Can we talk more in the morning?”
Pamela gave a half smile. “It’s not as if I can go anywhere.”
Ruby nodded stiffly, not remotely ready to let her mother off the hook by sharing the joke, then led Troy from the room. At the end of the hallway, she pulled him into their bedroom and locked the door. When he looked at her through concerned blue eyes, every thought fled her mind but him. She’d rejected his help this week, pushed him away, yet here he was, standing strong enough for them both. He’d kept the promise he’d made all those months ago. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll never get more than a block away.
Their nights apart suddenly felt like an unforgivable sin. How had she survived even one night without his arms wrapped around her, his breath even and sure against her neck? His hard body moving over her in the mornings, hot and demanding. Rough hands shoving her legs apart. Mouth growling filthy words against her ear as he pumped his hips faster and faster.
Watching Troy’s eyes darken with uncanny awareness so perfectly attuned to her body, Ruby’s pulse fluttered wildly, air in her lungs growing short. “We have to be quiet.”
“Whatever gets me inside you, hustler.”
Her starvation for him shot past the point of unbearable. With a boldness she couldn’t suppress, Ruby hooked her hand in his waistband and yanked him toward her. Obviously sensing her need to initiate, Troy simply licked his lips as he watched her unbuckle his belt and unzip his fly, hands flexing at his sides.
“Do I have something hot and wet waiting for me inside those panties, baby?”
She moaned in her throat. “Aren’t I always wet and ready for you, Troy?”
His jaw tightened when her hand closed around his rigid erection, teasing him with a light stroke. “You going to talk dirty to me tonight for a change?” His head tipped back when Ruby nodded, exposing his corded throat. “Fuck. You choose the night we have to be quiet to flip the script on me?”
Resolving not to second-guess any of her urges, Ruby shot forward and bit the side of his neck. “You’ve had trouble keeping quiet ever since I started riding you bareback.” She swirled her tongue over the red bite mark. “Will I need to slow down just to keep you from moaning too loud?”
He pulled his shirt over his head, exposing a rock hard muscle that shifted sexily with his every movement. “We both know once you get moving on my cock, there’s no slowing down.”
Feeling dizzy under the onslaught of anxious need, Ruby pushed him back onto the bed so he sat on the edge. Waiting impatiently to be pleasured, with an air akin to royalty.
A king. Her king. He deserved to be treated like one.
Without removing her hot gaze from his, she stripped out of her jeans and panties quickly, then using his wide shoulders for support, she straddled him. When she didn’t immediately impale herself on him, Troy growled dangerously, hands gripping the supple flesh of her bottom in warning.
“Ruby, you’re sorely underestimating how badly I need to fuck.” He took her mouth in an impassioned kiss, forcing her mouth wide and giving her just enough erotic treatment from his tongue to leave her clinging to him. He pulled back to let her suck in air, nipping at her chin and neck.
Ruby struggled back to herself, unwilling to go under his spell so easily this time. She was encountering the fierce desire to reward him for being steadfast, refusing to let their foundation crumble in her moment of weakness. Troy always took control in bed, praising her every movement, sound, reaction. So much of that was the way he spoke to her. Coached her. Could she do that for him? She slid her fingers into his hair and tilted his head to one side, tracing her lips over his ear. “You always need to fuck. It’s the kind of man you are. Powerful, insatiable. Dirty.”
He traced a path down her chest and sucked her right nipple into his mouth. “You love it dirty, baby girl.”
“Damn right,” Ruby breathed, reaching behind her to wrap greedy fingers around his thick shaft. With her tongue, she licked along the seam of his lips, at the same time dragging the plump head of his erection through the dampness between her thighs. “I love everything you do to me. Whether you fuck me fast, or slide in and out until I shake, I know you’re going to make me come. You do it every time, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he hissed against her lips, chest shuddering where it pressed to her breasts. “Let me tell you why. Because I’m a fucking addict and satisfying you is how I get high.” His hips surged off the bed. “Now stop being such a goddamn cock-tease and put me in.”
Ruby didn’t need another word of urging. Clamping her teeth down onto her bottom lip to contain the moan, she guided Troy to her entrance and sank down inch by inch. His head fell back when he’d completely filled her, a low growl escaping on a breath. They both took a moment to savor the feeling before Troy began rolling his hips beneath her.
“Move, baby.” With one hand, he grasped her bottom hard, possessively. “You know the way I like it.”
Ruby brought her feet up, bracing them on either side of his hips on the bed. Using his shoulders for balance, she rose up until just the tip of his erection remained inside of her, then she came down hard with a buck of her hips. She did it again and again, faster each time until she bounced up and down on his lap. Her stomach muscles bunched and released, the flesh between her legs starting to quiver. The look of raw heat on his face only heightened every sensation until she felt seconds from imploding. Wanting t
o prolong the experience, she slowed her rhythm, dragging her damp mouth over Troy’s. “You like that?”
“You know I love it.” He fisted her hair in his hand, dragging her forward for a wet kiss. “And if you stop to ask me another question, I won’t give a fuck who’s in the next room. Your ass is going to feel both sides of my hand.” Whatever he saw on her face made his eyelids droop. “You get off on just talking about it, don’t you? Tell me how much you love it, baby.”
Losing herself in the moment, her hips began to pump mindlessly. “I love when you spank me. When it hurts…”
“You come harder?” He covered her mouth with his hand, capturing her moan when he tilted his hips, the new angle firing her toward the precipice. “You don’t think I know that?”
“Troy. Oh, God.”
Both hands on her bottom, he began lifting her up and down at a delicious pace. Every time she slid down onto his thick flesh, her orgasm loomed closer. Troy pressed their foreheads together, forcing her to open her eyes and look at him. “Tell me I rule your world, Ruby.”
“You rule my world. You know you do.”
“Tell me you love me.”
“I love you. I love you,” Ruby chanted, unable to hold back the rush of sensation any longer. Legs clamping hard around his waist, she rode her climax out relentlessly, hips pumping in a blur as Troy came apart beneath her. He shot forward to capture her whimpers with his mouth, swallowing them with throaty groans. Ruby could sense how badly he wanted to raise his hand and slap her bottom, and his hard-won restraint somehow made her orgasm all the more powerful.
When she’d finished shaking, Ruby slumped down into his welcoming embrace and buried her face against his neck. He kissed her hair once, twice, whispering praise and love, words that made her heart swell huge in her chest. Finally, Troy laid them back onto the mattress, still wrapped around each other.
Blue eyes pleaded with hers. “Please don’t spend the night away from me anymore.”
