In a snap, his hand shot out to grab her wrist. Yanking her upward with his bruising grip, he forced her body onto his. The sudden move had taken Harlow so by surprise that adrenaline streamed into her system, firing up her heart. There was no time to react; her gaze landed on his and her mind blanked.
Strewn across him, her chest on his ribs, it once again felt as though their mouths were seeking each other out. They were being drawn together by an invisible magnet she struggled to resist.
Easing her higher, his strength made short work of narrowing the space between their mouths. “I am dangerous, Trinket,” he murmured. “More dangerous than you know. And I’m in your arsenal now. Me and my crew.”
If it had been his intention to scare her, he’d failed. That didn’t mean her baser instincts weren’t firing. Choosing to resist, she acted like she wasn’t aware of the thud of his heart rocking her ribcage.
Just the taste of his breath was enough to intoxicate her. “Where are the guys tonight?” she asked.
Smirking, he tightened his hold on her wrist, making her lips open further. Harlow had never been with a man who’d physically hurt her. Ryske was doing it now, though not in anger; he was a man overwhelmed by the moment. That pain he was causing, that niggling sensation in her wrist, she was surprised to find… she liked it.
He didn’t answer her question. “Conversation’s a diversion,” he said, watching her lips as he licked his own. “You’re still fighting it. Stop fighting, Trink.”
One solid tug on her wrist would bring their mouths together. He tried to do it, to pull her higher, but she resisted. Feeling the pull of his strength working in opposition to hers did something to her gut. More than that it warmed her, tormenting her hormones and sending a buzz of need down through to her core. It wasn’t right that he turned her on, or that she liked his insistent strength and that twist of pain. But there was no denying it. At some point in the week, she had admitted to herself that her intrigue had become attraction, irrational though it was.
“You’re injured.”
“My mouth’s just fine.”
If Harlow let him kiss her, if she kissed him, she wouldn’t be able to control what came next. Before being forced to make a choice between surrendering or resisting, there was a knock at the apartment’s front door in the room beyond, which she supposed Bale would answer.
“Guess that’s your crew.”
Harlow didn’t knock when she arrived at Bale’s apartment anymore. As far as she’d seen, Ryske’s crew didn’t either. In all the time she’d spent there, she’d never seen the doctor have another visitor. If the crew were knocking, she supposed Bale must have locked the door, or maybe she’d done it by mistake, which would be why one of the guys would have to knock to get in.
Ryske must have thought the same thing. “They won’t interrupt us,” he said, keeping her wrist locked in his fist while sliding his other hand down her spine to cup her ass.
Trying not to notice how his large, entitled, capable hand squeezed her closer with an almost territorial grip, Harlow kept talking. “Noon promised to bring me Kung Pao chicken. I didn’t want to drink on an empty stomach.”
“Hitting the town to have yourself some fun?” he asked, squeezing her harder with both hands. “I won’t let another man have you.”
To win this battle, she had to be strong… stronger than him. Ryske was more practiced, but Harlow knew how to be stubborn. “I told you, it’s not a date. It’s drinks with colleagues,” she said, thinking about how long she’d been lying on him, putting so much of her weight on his body. Sure, she was draped against his uninjured side, but being under her couldn’t be comfortable for him. “Let me go, Crash. I don’t want to hurt you.”
His brows rose in amused surprise. “Is that a threat, Trink?”
Taking control, he flipped her onto her back. The sudden move made her gasp, but when the weight of his body settled on hers, it stunned her into silence. The pillow on his lap was still between them, which she guessed frustrated him. A kiss would’ve been one thing. It wasn’t like there was a chance of them doing anything else, not with…
Recalling what had brought Ryske to this bed in the first place, Harlow yelped. “Ryske, your wound! It’s healing so well…”
The noise of a scuffle came from beyond the bedroom. Though his eyes didn’t leave hers, she knew that Ryske had heard it too. Maybe staying put was his way of trying not to scare her.
The bang that followed erased any hope of staying calm.
Harlow thought she’d seen Ryske move fast; that was nothing to what happened next. Shoved aside and flipped over so she was face down on the bed, Harlow didn’t have time to do more than turn her head before Ryske pounced across his side of the bed to drop onto the floor in a crouch.
A nightstand drawer opened. A moment later, Ryske spun toward the door, still hunkered down, checking the clip of a gun she’d never seen before.
“Ryske,” she hissed.
“Get in the bathroom. Lock the door. Stay in there until I come for you.”
“No,” she said, bouncing onto her knees on the bed.
Making himself a bigger target, he surged to his feet, the gun firm in both hands. “Harlow—”
The bedroom door opened. In a single leap, Ryske put his body between her and the door, while extending the gun to aim at whoever was entering.
When they registered Bale was the person coming in, Ryske lowered the gun, though he kept it in his grip.
“What’s going on?” Ryske demanded of their host.
There was a frantic air about the doctor who was wide-eyed. “I guess they know you’re here,” Bale said. “Two guys came to the door. They asked for you. I told them I had no idea what they were talking about. One pulled a gun, it went off in the struggle—”
“Is anyone hurt?” Harlow asked.
Ryske didn’t flinch while Bale’s wild eyes went from Ryske to her and over his shoulder toward the living room. Clearly, he wasn’t a fan of this kind of excitement.
“No,” he said. “They ran off. But, if the neighbors heard, the cops will be on their way.”
“If they know where I am, they’re onto you, doc,” Ryske said, stooping to grab the sports bag she’d brought him on Sunday from under the bed. “You can’t stay here.”
It had taken Ryske no time at all to make a plan and jump to action. Harlow was still reeling; Bale too.
“I would say I can stay with a friend from the hospital,” Bale said. “But I don’t know how I’ll explain my patient.”
“Watch your own ass, I’ll worry about mine,” Ryske said, sticking the gun in the bag. Other things from the nightstand followed.
Giving him a medical problem focused the doctor’s mind. “I told you two weeks under medical supervision,” Bale said, moving deeper into the room. “It’s been less than one.”
“Adapt, doc,” Ryske said. “You’ve gotta be willing to bend the rules when lives are at stake. Know who said that?”
Bale wasn’t buying it and just narrowed his unimpressed focus. “Probably you, asshole. Don’t feed me your crap like I’m one of your marks. Stop believing your own bullshit. It’s bad for your health.”
Sidelining their sniping, Harlow scrambled over the bed. Stopping high on her knees, she leaned over the bag and scooped her hands under Ryske’s jaw, forcing him to look at her. The depth of concentration and concern in his focus startled her. It shouldn’t have given how serious this situation was. But, for a second, he didn’t look like the Ryske she’d come to know.
That said, Harlow didn’t feel like herself either. But, she was so used to Ryske being happy, laidback, mischievous… Ryske. With him, she felt safe. With this stern Ryske, she got a new respect for the gravity of the situation.
“Crash,” she whispered, pulling his head up when he tried to look to the bag again. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Trink, we don’t got time for—”
“Yes, we do,” Bale said, rushing ac
ross to the closet to begin pulling out medical supplies. “You have to change the dressing at least once a day, Nightingale. Twice would be better. Keep an eye on the wound, watch for redness, swelling, pain, fever.”
The doctor was on a mission, and it was one that daunted her. “Wait. Me?” Harlow asked. “You want me to care for him?”
Bale turned to dump a bag on the bed to zip it up. “Yes, you,” he said. “You’re the only one I trust to look after his medical needs. Do you remember what I said?”
If anything happened to Ryske, Bale’s ass was on the line. Hers too. “I remember.”
Taking that as acceptance of his request, Bale nodded once. “I’ve put antibiotics in there, instructions are on the label.” He picked up the bag of medical supplies to thrust it toward her. When she didn’t take it, he shook it. “You’re running out of time, Har. You have to go.”
The cops would be here any minute. Ryske pulled on a tee-shirt and then tossed the strap of the sports bag over his head to arrange it across his body.
The sight of that strap cutting across his torso and the possible weight in it prompted her to take action. “No,” she said, snatching the medical bag from Bale then spinning around to yank the sports bag off over Ryske’s head, using the height of the bed to give her reach.
Clambering off the furniture to stand at Ryske’s side, she arranged both bags across her body, adjusting the straps as she did. “Trink, what are you—”
“I’m carrying these,” she asserted.
The decision was non-negotiable.
While they stared each other out, the doctor came around the bed, pausing only to grab up her shoes. “You guys have got to move,” Bale said, thrusting her shoes at Ryske then herding the couple toward the door.
Difficult as it might be to explain the gunshot to the cops, it would be harder to explain the busted criminal in his bed. Harlow didn’t want to explain her presence either, especially when she was just beginning to build up relationships with the law enforcement officers she came across through her work.
Harlow was in front as they crossed the living room. Ryske seized her hand just as she grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door to tuck it over the sports bag. Taking her shoes from Ryske, she put them on in a flash.
“Call me if you need anything, Nightingale,” Bale said and kissed her cheek just before Ryske pulled her out into the hallway and to the stairwell.
They got to the street. Harlow tried to step out to hail a cab, but Ryske didn’t let her stop and instead kept on dragging her down the block.
“Crash,” she objected, trying without success to tug her hand out of his. “You’ll tear your wound. We need a cab!”
“Not outside Bale’s,” he said, intent to keep striding on. “We don’t leave an evidence trail.”
If the cops asked questions, if Bale said something to make them suspicious, catching a cab right outside his apartment could implicate them or at least betray their presence.
A block later, Ryske stepped into the street and raised a hand to hail a cab. One stopped almost immediately and he pushed her into the back. Harlow took off the bags, dumping them on the furthest seat, so she could settle in the middle. Ryske got in after her. The moment he closed the door, she started to peel back the waistband of his pants to check that he hadn’t damaged his wound.
Ryske slid down in the seat to give her better access and spouted her address for the driver. Giving him a passing glance, Harlow let him know she’d registered that he knew something about her she’d never told him. But, in fairness, she was sort of used to that by now.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” she asked, struggling to see beyond his dressing in the dim illumination offered in the back of the cab. She didn’t want to take off the dressing all the way until they got inside.
“The doc will be fine. You got a phone?”
Her phone was in her jacket pocket. It had been dumped with the bags. After rooting around for a few seconds, she pulled out the device and handed it over to him. “Here.”
As he began to dial, she retrieved a hooded sweatshirt from the sports bag and fed his arms into it. Gallivanting around the city in nothing but a tee-shirt and sweats wouldn’t be good for him. He was wearing sneakers too, though she had no idea where they’d come from. Under the bed? By the door? She had been too swept up in getting herself together to notice him slipping his bare feet into them.
“Flip,” Ryske said into the phone. “Yep… It’s black… Yep… I’ve got her.” She paused in zipping him up, wondering if he was talking about her. He winked. “Tomorrow. I’ve got a debt to pay tonight.”
He hung up and slid the phone into his pocket before putting an arm around her. Instead of settling against him like he tried to get her to do, she picked up his arm and guided it away from her shoulders.
Although their positions were inverted, having his arm over her shoulders in that way reminded her too much of the night they’d met. That wasn’t a memory that she liked to relive.
Clasping his hand in both of hers, she held it in her lap.
He kissed the top of her head and didn’t force the issue. He linked his fingers through hers and held her hand while they rode the rest of the way in silence.
6
After getting out of the cab, Ryske put his arm around her again. Instead of shrugging it off, Harlow took his forearm in both hands and pulled it further around her body, nestling it between her breasts. It wasn’t like he’d be explicit about asking for support; all she could do was assume that he needed it.
Guiding him up the stairs and into her apartment, she worried about why he was being quiet, fearing he could be in pain. Turned out, she was worrying for nothing because he was full of confidence from the moment they stepped over her threshold.
Ryske boosted her forward out of his way so he could close the front door and plucked the keys right out of her hand. Forging ahead, flicking on lights as he went like he’d made himself at home there a dozen times, he checked the kitchen and closet. Having no idea what he was looking for, Harlow stayed by the door, just watching him, waiting for his curiosity to be satisfied.
Once he was done with his inspection, Ryske came over and linked their fingers. The man had purpose, she couldn’t deny that. His grip was sure and strong as he pulled her past the breakfast bar and into the living room. Much to her relief, he ignored her messy corner desk, and kept on going to stop by the open arch that led to her bedroom.
Well, what had been her bedroom. She’d have to give it up to the patient who’d been thrust upon her. Caring for Ryske for the remainder of his recuperation was a huge responsibility that she hadn’t expected to shoulder.
Ryske scanned the living room, but she didn’t let him loiter. He’d been on his feet for too long already. Squeezing his hand tighter, she swiped aside the beaded curtain of transparent crystal beads that covered the arch to lead him to the bed. Pushing him down, she wanted him to rest.
Ryske didn’t interpret her actions that way. “Love a woman who knows what she wants.”
Her sense of humor was dormant. Adrenaline was still too potent in her bloodstream for her to relax enough to joke. This might be run of the mill for him, but Harlow needed some time to calm down and get herself together.
“Good, then you won’t mind stripping for me,” she said, sitting on the end of the bed to check what supplies Bale had packed into the med bag.
“I’ve been waiting all week for you to ask, Trink,” he said, kicking off his sneakers and wasting no time stripping to the waist.
All week, he’d proved time and again that he had no modesty. The moment his tee-shirt hit the floor, he raised his hips to drive his thumbs into the waistband of his pants.
As soon as she saw his thumbs disappearing into the elastic, Harlow stopped rifling to hold up both hands. “Ah, that’s enough. I can see your wound from here.”
With a sly smile, he tilted his head. “But, Trink, I’ve got so much more to show you.”
/> Already she was beginning to feel more at ease. “So much more, I don’t have to see,” she said, leaving her seat to turn on the lamp by the bed. “Lie down.”
He leaped onto the bed and locked his fingers behind his head. Kneeling on the floor next to the bed, she carefully edged the waistbands of his pants and underwear down just enough to give her space to work. Being as gentle as she could, Harlow began to pick off his dressing.
“I think this is the first time we’ve been all alone,” he said. “We’ve got the whole place to ourselves, Trinket.”
Keeping her concentration on inspecting his wound, she couldn’t be as chilled. It was on her to keep this man alive; Bale was trusting her. “Just because I haven’t called the cops on you yet, doesn’t mean I won’t,” she said, peering closer. The wound was one problem, but his constant flirting and cajoling would have to be monitored and handled too. “Bale put a couple of syringes in that bag. Don’t know what’s in them, but I’m sure one of them will subdue you.”
In Bale’s apartment, with the gun, Ryske had been a serious, almost menacing guy. The man in her bed was the relaxed, teasing Ryske she’d hung out with all week.
“Wow, baby, you surprise me,” he said, breathing out and closing his eyes as a smile curved his lips. “Was that an offer to get high with me? I had no idea you were the type. Let’s do it.”
“I do not want to get high with you,” she said, not satisfied that the dressing she’d started to take off was clean enough to put back on. Ripping it off fast, she got a shot of pleasure when he tensed in a recoil that proved he hadn’t been expecting the action. “What drugs do you do, Ryske?”
He didn’t answer her and seemed to have moved onto something else in his mind. “You know what I love?” he asked, settling against her pillows again, satisfaction written all over his face. “I love it when you use that sexy stern tone on me. Tell me off, Trink. Damn, it gets me hard.”
So, not really something else. Sex. That was where Ryske’s mind seemed most comfortable.
Just the threat of him getting aroused was enough to make her rise and bow over him. She meant to show him that she wasn’t to be messed with, but he took the opportunity to stroke her ass. Telling him off was exactly what he’d told her to do. Instead, she reached past him to retrieve a pillow from the opposite side of the bed and thrust it onto his lap.
Go With It (A Go Novel Book 1) Page 7
