On that night, she hadn’t set an alarm because Ryske had told her that he’d wake her. The point hadn’t been to sleep for long, but somehow, when she next became aware of reality, Harlow’s internal clock betrayed that she’d been sleeping for a while.
Something moved her head, so her eyes opened a fraction. Being still half in the fog of slumber, all she registered was darkness. There hadn’t been an alarm… what had woken her?
If Ryske was trying to wake her, he wasn’t being direct about it. Rolling her head to the side to blink up into the shadows of the room, it took a few seconds to identify Ryske’s outline next to the bed. His arm was outstretched, taking the pillow she wasn’t using from the other side of the mattress.
The pillow he’d touched was overlapping the one under her head, which must have been the movement she’d felt. He hadn’t intended to wake her.
“Crash,” she murmured on a slow blink.
The back of his fingers drifted down her temple. “Go to sleep, baby,” he whispered.
Catching his hand as it was about to ebb, she unfurled his fingers to press his palm to her cheek. Her eyes closed. “Crash.”
“Mm,” he said like he was figuring something out. “I like tired Trinket.”
In a warm and snuggly mood, she let him go. “Lie down.”
Her eyes didn’t open; the proximity of cozy slumber was too pleasant to resist. The mattress moved and the heat of his body neared hers. Instinct helped her to lift his arm to hook it around her shoulders. Skootching closer to nestle against him, Harlow rested her head on the front of his shoulder.
Under the covers while he was on top of them, she didn’t let the full length of her body make contact with his. But a thrum of satisfaction at the contact they did have helped her to relax.
“I definitely like tired Trinket.”
His wound was on this side of his body and she didn’t want to aggravate it. “Am I hurting you?” she asked, wriggling just a little closer.
“Yep,” he said. “I think you should kiss it better.”
Her lips curled, but it was about ten seconds before she brought herself to speak. “Don’t push your luck.” They lay together for a minute or two. “Are the guys gone?”
“Couple of hours ago,” he said, his fingers trailing up and down her arm. “I didn’t want to disturb you. If I’d known this was waiting for me, I’d have come through sooner.”
Despite promising to wake her, he’d let her sleep. Harlow was too tired to scold him; she could do her college work tomorrow. It would just mean canceling her mani-pedi.
Another minute passed and her thoughts coasted. “In two days you’re going to be gone from my life,” she murmured. “Do you think I’ll ever see you again?”
“If you want to,” he said. “You know how to find me anytime you need me.”
“Need?”
“Or want,” he said with a thread of confusion in his voice. “Trink, baby, do you want something now?”
His hand started to edge aside the covers, apparently intending to slip beneath them.
What she wanted, she couldn’t let herself have. “Tell me about your family.”
His hand stopped. “What?”
Opening her hand on his torso, she felt his heartbeat. “I want to know something about where you come from. I want more than the player, more than the grifter. I want to know something about the man who’s been in my bed all week.” This truth made her eyes open. But, she didn’t dare move her head, not when tension was moving through him. This was a make or break moment. “Trust me, Ryske… I don’t even know if that’s your real name.”
A charged minute of silence passed. She held her breath, waiting to see how he’d react to her probing. “It’s my real name.”
“And your parents, what are they like? Do you still see them?”
“No,” he said. “My dad was a drunk, violent fucker. My mom was a whore, not a hooker, a serial cheater. One day she fucked off with some rich cunt, left me with the prick. Only saw her once since then. I didn’t even recognize her.”
Others might be shocked to hear of a mother abandoning her child. For Harlow, who saw it happen almost every day at work, it was no surprise. Didn’t make the idea of a young Ryske handling his aggressive father any more appetizing.
“She didn’t take you with her?”
He scoffed. “No chance. There was some satisfaction in finding out the cunt was playing her. He wasn’t rich, not even close. Least she was smart enough not to come back with her tail between her legs.”
“And your dad?”
“Soon as I was old enough to hit back, he kicked me out… Stayed with Floyd after that.”
Twisting to tip her head back, Harlow risked making eye contact. “Dover’s dad?”
He nodded. “I didn’t mind slinging cards or drinks, not when his roof was safer to be under than anything I’d ever had at home. Turned out I was the best kid in the state with a deck… Even though I’d win every time I played, I could always convince bastards to play and give up their cash. That’s when I learned about the con… that I was good at it. Dover and I had guys from the high school in Floyd’s basement first during school lunchbreaks, then kids started cutting to come over and the place was full dawn to dusk. We sold beer and took the rich kids cash teaching them blackjack. We had a full op running and were making more in daylight than Floyd was making in the dark.”
Propping her fist between his shoulder and her chin, she found herself fascinated. “And Noon? Maze?”
“Noon taught me everything I know about stealing and chopping cars. We built a career in swiping keys and picking pockets. We met when he tried dipping my jacket.” A glance of nostalgia crossed his face. “Not knowing I was as crooked as him, he tried to talk me out of calling the cops when I caught him. I made him a deal, we’d cut the deck, high card got the wallet… there was more than a thousand bucks in there.”
In the pause that followed, her anticipation rose. “What happened? Who won?”
“Both of us. As we were about to cut, the prep school let out. I knew I could take those kids. So, I told Noon to watch, he took my lead and we cleaned up in three-card Monte. Ended up doubling my money and splitting the pot with him. Never looked back. On the street, we were a double act. He’d do his thing taking car after car, I’d keep owners distracted, divert the cops, whatever was needed.”
She had no trouble imagining Ryske using his charisma to distract and facilitate Noon’s work. The man could talk his way out of anything. Awe-inspired and humbled, she was incredulous and impressed.
Whether or not someone agreed with Ryske’s tactics, no one could doubt his skill. “You could charm the panties from a queen, couldn’t you?”
“Doesn’t seem to be working with you,” he said, offering a wink. A second went by and his teasing became something more solemn. “Don’t know what it is about you, Trinket. I know what you want to hear, but I… I can’t play my game with you. I always know what people want to hear; that’s the key to grifting. You tell people what they want to hear.”
“What do I want to hear?”
He watched her tongue slide across her lips, curling his fingers around her arm again to pull her closer. “You want promises… Indiscriminate compliments make you feel good, they flatter you, but they don’t seduce you. Reliability seduces you. You want a guy who’ll be there for you every minute. A guy who won’t do stupid things and take crazy risks… I can make you promises and convince you I’m exactly who you want me to be. I could do that. I could talk you into it, make those promises and convince you to give me exactly what I want.”
Digging her elbow into the pillow by his head to pull herself higher, she looked deeper. “Then why don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t mean it,” he said, caressing her cheek. “I wouldn’t be able to keep my promises.”
“And that bothers you?”
His lips curved in a resigned, not joyful, smile. “Not with anyone but you.”
&nb
sp; Unsure if Ryske was doing exactly what he was claiming not to be doing, Harlow did feel drawn to him.
Honesty seduced her. If she could be sure this was genuine, that he was telling the truth, and showing her this vulnerability, she might let it work and surrender.
But Ryske had admitted how good he was at what he did, and he had promised to have her. If she gave in, and let him take her all the way, she could be walking into a savvy grifter’s carefully constructed plot, and it wasn’t like she could claim he hadn’t warned her what he was capable of.
8
Just being in her bed with Ryske went against what Harlow had been asserting since the night they’d met. But, he had wormed his way into her affections. As much as she wanted to believe him, Harlow wouldn’t be naïve.
Ryske was no romantic hero. It would be her own fault if she was dumb enough to cross this street without looking both ways.
Touching his brow with a fingertip, she wondered if anyone truly got inside this man’s head. “How many women have you made fall in love with you, Crash?”
“Love?” he asked and shrugged, finger-combing her hair to the back of her shoulder, though it fluttered down onto his bare chest again the moment it left his digits. “I don’t know. But, I’ve hurt more than I’d be proud to admit.”
Stroking her fingernail through his eyebrow, Harlow concentrated how the hairs moved rather than his gaze beneath. “My father owns an investment firm,” she said. “Sweeting Securities.”
“I know,” he said, curling his fingers around the side of her neck.
“He’s not a one percenter, but he has access to a lot of money.”
A twitch in his eyelid made her gaze drop to his. “What are you trying to tell me, baby? You want me to run a con on your dad? You got beef there?”
“I’m saying you could,” she said, slithering down his body to use her fingernail on the lines of his shoulder tattoo that stretched across his pec. Whenever she traced his tattoos, his voice got heavier, and his focus wavered. “I could get you in.”
But, if she thought she was manipulating him or going to get him to admit to something he meant to keep secret, she’d underestimated just how shrewd he was.
Catching her off guard again, he threw his arms around her and flipped her onto her back. The covers tangled between them, but there was no pillow for protection this time.
“Trink, I know what you’re thinking… what you think this is. But, if you saw the con coming, I wouldn’t be doing it right.”
So he recognized what her attempt to tempt him was. Yes, it was a test. Harlow didn’t want him to steal from her father and she sure didn’t want to be party to it. Finding out if Ryske was for real, if his choice to be here was personal or professional, was her goal. But he was wise to it.
Hearing his assurances did make her feel better. There was no point trying to trick him if he was just going to see through it. “How do you do it?” she asked. “How do you decide where to… you know?”
“You’ve heard of means, motive, and opportunity, right?” She nodded. “I know you have because I’ve read it in your textbooks.”
While she was at work, he had access to everything in her apartment. She hadn’t thought that meant reading her college work, but it didn’t upset her that he had. It was just lying there on her desk after all, it wasn’t confidential.
The warm weight of his body was calming… and intimate. “You always have the means. You’re skilled and capable. That can’t define what you choose.”
“No, but the other two do. Sometimes a situation presents itself and we have to deal with it, like this Hagan bullshit. Other times, we get a tip and find our way in. We’re always listening for opportunity. Sometimes we have to create it.”
For him, it was simple. For her, it was riveting. “And, how do you do that? Why do you do that?”
“Well, that’s motive, sweetheart. If I need the money, I have the motive, and that’s when I go looking for opportunity.”
“That’s when you go looking for a mark,” she said, captivated and intrigued. “How do you pick a mark?”
If he sensed the depth of her interest, he didn’t mock it. “I have my own triangle for that,” he said and pressed a fingertip into her as he counted off the three points. “Means, weakness, and karma. Means: does the potential mark have the ability to sacrifice something I need while absorbing the hit? I won’t leave anyone destitute.” That surprised her. Harlow’s expression must have changed to betray her emotion because he added clarification. “Doesn’t mean what I do doesn’t cause the mark problems. Usually does. Sometimes they lose a lot. Destitute to me isn’t the same thing as it is to them.”
Coming from the streets and living his life surrounded by poverty, Ryske understood what real need was. By going after the rich, who’d probably care more about embarrassment than losing money, their marks would be able to absorb the financial hit of whatever was stolen from them.
The Floyd’s crew didn’t wipe people out, which was what she took from what Ryske was saying. It was smart; maybe not so selfless. Hitting any one person too hard would bring unwanted attention to them, both from potential future marks and law enforcement.
“I suppose the weakness is how you get what you want,” she said. “Is there a weakness you can exploit to get in or extract what you need?” Wearing a smile, he nodded once. “But karma.” Harlow narrowed her eyes and gave a quick, shallow head shake to show her confusion. “I don’t—”
“Do they have it coming,” he said. “Every couple of years or so we do one big job; something that takes serious planning and a long con. There’s nothing more satisfying than giving some sick, rich bastard a taste of his own medicine.”
“Like a regular Robin Hood.”
“Nah, I don’t give it away,” he said. “Though, I guess you could think of me and my crew as poor and needy…”
“If you’re poor it’s because you spend so much on takeout and beer,” she said, opening her hands around the curve of his shoulders. “I have never known a group of men in better shape, yet you all eat so terribly.”
“I eat well when you cook for me,” he said.
“Something I won’t be doing anymore in a couple of days,” she said, feeling a pang of sorrow. “You will take care of yourself, won’t you, Crash?”
“Always have.”
Maybe because he’d never had parents or family to look out for him; his crew were his surrogate family. “I’m worried about this Hagan mess. His men are looking for you. Bale can’t go back to his apartment. He said today that he thinks Hagan’s men are following him, probably looking for you…”
“Probably,” Ryske said. It dumbfounded her that he was so casual about the potential danger waiting on the streets preparing for the next time he showed his face. “Hagan’s had a guy in Floyd’s for the last couple of weeks.”
Though her body tensed, her jaw loosened. “You know that? Why wouldn’t Dover kick him out?”
“Because while he’s keeping an eye on us, we’re keeping an eye on him.” His smile didn’t make her feel better. “Don’t worry, Trink. Soon as I run out Bale’s clock, I’ll deal with it.”
“That’s what worries me, Ryske. Hagan’s men favor weapons. Did you forget getting stabbed and shot at a couple of weeks ago? They brought a gun to Bale’s too. They’re serious men; don’t screw around with them. You’ll get hurt again.”
Swagger warmed his expression. “You worried about me, baby?” he asked, but she wasn’t messing around. “I won’t get hurt. I have my crew behind me. This is war, baby. You’ve got to be willing to take a few licks.”
Being stabbed was not a lick to her. Fearing for his safety, she wanted them to stop being stubborn and just make things better. No competition was worth losing their lives.
“Maybe if you just pay Hagan back the money,” she said. “I know it’s a lot. I can help. I could ask—”
“I could come up with ten grand if I had to… if I wanted to. Losing th
e money was the plan.”
Bale had told her Ryske would do anything for the job. Hearing that in action scared her. “Was getting stabbed part of the plan?”
“Just a slight detour.”
He was so glib that she was offended. “If it means so little to you, why did I bother to save your life?”
“It never hurts to let your enemy stew,” he said, trying to trail his fingertips into her hair, but she swatted his hand away. Seizing her wrist, he pinned it to the bed and bowed lower. “Tighter?”
The reminder of her slip up earlier became less embarrassing when his fingers strengthened. Need took humiliation’s place as it began to pulse through her. A squeak left her lips. His feral look of knowing was pure smug satisfaction.
“Ryske,” she gasped when the pain of his grip grew, enhancing her arousal.
“What is it that fascinates you about criminals, scholar?” The question surprised her. “That’s right, Trink, I read your essay. Their motivation. The excitement. The thrill… You don’t get it. Least you didn’t. Not until you met my crew. You want to know if I’m conning you? Well, I want to know if I’m just an academic exercise.”
It hadn’t even occurred to her that getting close to him and his friends was anything other than altruism. Not at first anyway. “No! Ryske, I wouldn’t—”
“Why didn’t you call the cops?” he asked, not soft and safe anymore.
For the first time, she realized he had questions of his own. About her. Questions about who she was. Not simple facts like names and dates, but on the inside, in those deep recesses of her that she’d never revealed.
The growl in his voice and glare in his eye made her more aware of her vulnerable position beneath him, trapped by his strength. Yet, in spite of the adrenaline coursing through her, she didn’t feel fear. She felt just about every other emotion there was. But not fear.
“You told me not to,” was as much of a response as she could muster while entranced by him.
“You didn’t give a fuck about me. I was bleeding out. I could’ve died on that street, but you risked your freedom by following my instructions… Was that it? The risk? Does taking risks excite you, baby? More than a good little girl like you wants to admit, right?”
Go With It (A Go Novel Book 1) Page 9
