There was no way for her to know how many other women had done this for him. Dozens, maybe, hundreds, perhaps more. Ryske probably couldn’t even tell her the number. But there, with him in that second, she knew he belonged to her.
They couldn’t make promises or define what this was, but in these times they were together, alone together, there was nothing more powerful than their connection.
He swore and began to take more control of her advance and withdraw. His other hand joined the first and he pushed forward, coming hard against the back of her tongue with a hiss that made her hold her breath.
Swallowing until his seed was all gone, Harlow took her time about letting him leave her mouth. She didn’t move away, just rested her head on his thigh.
“We should say goodbye like that every time,” Ryske said. His breathing was still shaky, but she could hear that he was smiling, which made her smile too. “You’re incredible, Trinket.”
The front door opened. “What the hell is—oh, fuck!”
Noon’s exclamation made her smile grow.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Ryske snapped.
“Least you got to finish,” she said, taking his hand so he could help her to her feet.
“You guys have a lot of sex,” Noon said.
That was ironic given that they hadn’t done anything but oral. She and Ryske shared a private smile as she moved in close to tuck him away and fasten his jeans again.
“You got a problem with that?” Ryske asked Noon, stroking a hand down the side of her face.
“No, I’m saying, you act like I’m doing this shit on purpose. But, the truth is, if you guys are alone, you’re gonna be doing… something. So it’s hard to avoid.”
And, Noon was the one usually sent to deliver messages. If anyone was going to be interrupting, it was going to be him.
“It’s okay, honey,” she said, turning her back on Ryske to address Noon. “We were just saying goodbye.”
“Wish someone would say goodbye to me like that,” Noon muttered.
She felt a little bad for him, but doubted any of the crew had to worry about a lack of female companionship. Each of them was hot and dangerous in their own way. Though, while this mess with Hagan was going on, they probably didn’t have a lot of time to socialize. If they weren’t allowed women upstairs in Floyd’s, they’d have to go back to the woman’s home and that meant separating from the group, from the pack, something else that wasn’t smart.
“I’ll call someone to say goodbye to you tonight, how’s that?” Ryske asked, bowing to kiss her shoulder before taking her hand to lead her toward the door.
Ryske had been the one to unlock her apartment and still had her key. Something Harlow only remembered when he took it out of his pocket.
“Cindy?” Noon asked, opening the front door.
“Cindy’s in Sydney,” Ryske said.
“Whitney?”
“Married,” Ryske said, holding the door open for her. Harlow stepped into the hallway and Ryske closed the door to lock it up. “So, that’s a maybe… I’ll call her.” He tucked the key into his pocket and put an arm around her. The three of them started for the stairway. “You know who is in town?”
“Who?” Noon asked.
“Svetlana,” Ryske said.
Noon paused at the top of the stairs. Harlow read Ryske’s smirk. He kept it trained on the stairs, pretending not to notice his friend’s reaction, though she didn’t doubt that he had.
They descended and were all the way down the first flight before Noon came thundering after them. “Is—”
“Lyudmila with her? Yes, she is,” Ryske said.
“How the hell do you know that?” Noon asked. “Why haven’t they been over to party?”
“She called me last week, that’s how I know,” Ryske said, opening the alleyway door for her. Maze was out there alone, sitting shotgun in the car with his window rolled down and his elbow on the sill. “And I told them not to come over.”
“What?” Noon said with such horror Maze looked up.
“What’s going on?” Maze asked.
Noon went around to get in the driver’s seat while Ryske tucked her into the back of the car. Noon started driving, but threw his passenger a look of shock. “Ryske told the twins not to come party.”
“I know, he told me,” Maze said, less horrified than Noon.
Ryske was laughing when he pulled her close to tuck her under his arm. “I’ll call and find out where they’re staying. You can go hang with them, have them both to yourself.”
“Won’t Zance…”
“What?” Ryske asked. “Not like they were exclusive.”
“No, ‘cause she was fucking you every chance she got,” Maze said.
“We’ve shared women before,” Ryske said. “Never bothered him. Never bothered me.”
“I don’t think there’s a damn woman on the planet you haven’t shared with one guy or another,” Maze said and there was a moment of silence. “You never did the threesome thing… did you?”
“Svet and Zance? No,” Ryske said. “Svet and Lyud…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. Having a threesome was something she’d expect from him, but finding out he’d had one with sisters was both horrifying and impressive in about equal measure.
“Their numbers are in the lockbox in the desk,” Maze said. “The key’s hanging on the back of the closet door, it’s not like he makes a secret of it. You can raid Ryske’s catalog any time. There are thousands of women in there. Just drop his name, they’ll come a’runnin’.”
“They’re more likely to show if he calls,” Noon grumbled.
“I’m not a pimp,” Ryske said in a kind of sing-song voice though there was humor in his tone. “You want it, you work for it. The rest of us have to.”
Noon snorted and even Maze laughed. “You’ve never had to work for sex in your life.”
It was a good thing that the guys were in the front, because Harlow’s lips began to rise. Ryske tightened his hold on her and buried his mouth in her hair. “Not a word, Trink.”
Still smiling, she dug her nails into him in a kind of teasing response.
“Bet Dover doesn’t know the twins are in town,” Noon muttered, checking a junction before pulling out. “We always make a mint when we have the girls in on a Friday.”
Friday was the main event in Floyd’s, the night they made the most amount of money in their basement casino. Harlow had thought it was just gambling that went on down there. Though, she hadn’t been down to check the place out and hadn’t thought to ask too many questions.
“They’re dancers?” she asked, tipping her head back.
Ryske kissed her forehead and kept his eyes ahead. “Hookers, baby.”
They had hookers in Floyd’s? She’d had no idea. “So, you are a pimp?”
Maze made a sound of amusement, and Ryske pulled her closer, nuzzling her hair. “Svet is a madam, Lyud backs her up… Whatever they make is theirs. We just give them a place to operate.”
“A safe place to operate,” Maze said and twisted to look at them. “How did we get to talking about the twins anyway?”
“Noon is lonely,” Ryske said, tilting his head toward the driver.
Maze gave Ryske a look she couldn’t interpret, but she felt the man holding her nod.
Turning back to the front, Maze slouched in his seat. “You like sushi, Nightingale?”
“Uh, yeah, I do.”
And, just like that the conversation moved on. Harlow still had questions, but when did she not? These men had complicated lives and histories more intricate than she’d be able to follow. She’d been naïve not to consider her life simple, as it had been before anyway.
Growing up in a semi-affluent family, she’d had an excellent education, always been safe, and for the most part, she’d been happy, even if she’d never quite fitted in.
College and Rupert were just extensions of that typical existence. She had
lived a simple life and even in spite of her work, she’d never fully understood what doing anything to survive really meant, not until she met Ryske and his crew.
Twisting around, she angled until she could look up at Ryske who was saying something to Maze about Dover’s issue with a liquor supplier and how they might have to pay the guy a visit later.
Ryske would do anything to survive. Noon and Dover were the same. Maze was more of an enigma. Having lunch with him would give her a chance to learn more about the man she hadn’t spent much alone time with.
Pushing up, she cut Ryske off in the middle of the sentence by kissing him. At first, he was too stunned to respond, but it didn’t take him long to catch up. He smoothed a hand over her cheek, and when he lost his hand in her hair, she leaned back.
The question of why was in his eyes, but she didn’t answer it, she just turned again and rested her head against him, closing her eyes. They’d probably get to the restaurant in a couple of minutes and Maze would keep her occupied while Ryske went to whatever appointment he had to keep with Noon.
Harlow didn’t know where the pair were going. Wherever it was, they’d keep each other safe. Unless she became more embedded in the group that was probably all she could ever hope to understand.
31
Lunch with Maze had been enlightening.
Turned out, when he was eleven, Maze had been adopted by an affluent couple who lived on a vast estate not a million miles from Harlow’s modest middle-class family home. The Rowes were members of the same country club as her parents. Harlow had never met either of them, but that was no surprise, the country club wasn’t exactly her favorite scene.
In his early years, Maze had bounced around a bunch of foster homes in the Floyd’s neighborhood and didn’t take the best attitude to his new home with him. In fact, from the sounds of things, he’d carried a massive chip on his shoulder.
Eleven was a late age for adoption. Usually people, especially those with means, would choose a baby over an almost teen. Maze had been lucky, though he hadn’t seen it that way when being ripped from his neighborhood and everyone he cared about.
His perspective on life was unique. He had experience from both sides having spent the first part of his childhood around abject poverty, and his teen years receiving the benefit of the best things life could offer… when he wasn’t busy shunning the luxury available to him.
His adoptive father was less involved in his upbringing than his mother, Amelie, who doted on him. In some of the stories Maze told, it sounded almost like his mother treated him as a pet rather than a child. His father certainly did because although Maze was given a good, private education, he wasn’t offered a position in his father’s successful company. Though through the course of the story, Maze made it clear that he hadn’t wanted one anyway.
Maze said he had tried to fit in, which was why he’d agreed to the adoption. The dream for any good-for-nothing orphan kid was to be submerged in lavishness and indulged in every way. But he’d never settled. A rift had grown in the family when he’d bonded more with the household staff than the elite socialites his parents wanted him to associate with.
Parents and child argued, deepening the rift, which hadn’t been helped when Maze began inviting his old street friends back to the mansion to play on the estate and with the vast array of tech he’d been spoiled with.
Floyd had taken him in during his pre-teen foster years. Maze’s residence at the bar was unofficial, but it was his home of choice. Almost as soon as he was placed with a new foster family, Maze would run away back to Floyd’s. The placement family wouldn’t put up a fight as they’d inevitably care more about the stipend than him. Harlow liked to think that such a thing wasn’t as widespread these days, but it wasn’t the first time she’d heard the tale, not by a long shot.
The trend continued after the adoption. Whenever Maze ran away from his adoptive family, the Rowes, he’d go back to Floyd’s. Dover’s father had been a steadying influence for him, and other strays as well.
Maze talked about Ryske too. Noon had told him that Ryske was open with her, and that seemed to open the doors for all of them to be honest about their joint pasts.
He talked about how Floyd’s had been the regular haunt of Ryske’s father. Floyd would take pity on the young Ryske when his father drank himself into a stupor, letting him hang out and often sleep in the den overnight. Floyd made a conscious choice to serve Ryske’s father even when the man was blitzed. That way he could know Ryske was safe. The alternative would be to boot Ryske’s dad out and leave the kid at the mercy of his father’s violence.
If the boys hadn’t met at the bar, they’d have met at the school where they’d also crossed paths when they bothered to show up for lessons. Though Maze had been moved from one school to another and back so many times that he lost count. Floyd’s, and his friendships with Dover and Ryske, were the only constants he had known.
Understanding more about how the crew were connected to each other helped her to see why they were so loyal and how that loyalty would never be broken. They cared a lot for each other and she cared a lot for them.
Cared, yes. But, boy, was she bored.
After lunch, Maze had dropped her off with Dover at Floyd’s and gone to do whatever he did. So, Harlow had spent the rest of the day alone in the apartment catching up with her college work.
While it was nice to lose herself to the concentration required for college, she couldn’t maintain it after night fell and sound rose from the bar below.
Taking a long shower and blow-drying her hair, she took her time about putting on makeup and one of her favorite dresses. Getting herself ready killed some time that apparently she had a lot of.
No one had come to check on her, and she couldn’t stay upstairs forever. Harlow was getting bored and wanted to be useful, or at least part of the fun. So, donning some shoes, she went on the hunt, creeping down the spiral stairs.
The first person she found was Felipe. In the den, sitting in the middle of the couch, stuffing his face with potato chips, he was watching something on the TV with the volume up high.
“Miss Sweeting,” he exclaimed, crumbs of the chips spouting from his mouth.
“Hello, Felipe. Are you okay?”
Going over to sit next to him, she propped herself on the edge of the couch and ran a hand over his hair. He didn’t recoil, even though he probably thought she was weird for stroking him. Smiling at her, he closed up the chips and wiped crumbs from his hands onto his jeans.
Something compelled him to explain his presence. “My mom’s at work ‘til midnight. I’ve been working today. Mr. Dover lets me watch TV in here after ‘cause ours is out. Do you need something?”
“No, honey,” she said. “Are you going to be here tomorrow?” He nodded. “I’ve got something I want you to help me with. Will you do that?”
He nodded again. “Do you live here now? You’re in love with Mr. Ryske, aren’t you?”
Moistening her lips, she didn’t expect that restraining her smile was going to be so difficult. “Mr. Ryske is very special to me,” she said. “And I’ll be staying for a while. So, if you need anything, you can talk to me, okay?”
“Yes, Miss Sweeting.”
“Good boy,” she said, patting his hand.
As his social worker, she wasn’t supposed to touch so much. But she wasn’t sure she was his social worker anymore. She wasn’t sure she was anyone’s.
Leaving him to enjoy his movie on the TV, Harlow got up to head into the bar. The moment she left the den, the noise of Floyd’s hit her. Passing the restrooms, she decided to go to the left and hop up behind the bar as opposed to going around the front of it.
The place was busy, but it was dark, so she couldn’t pick out who anyone was. Music played on the jukebox and the usual smell of beer and sweat permeated. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant smell, but there was comfort in it now that it had become so familiar to her.
Rounding the corner of the L-shap
ed bar, she found Dover talking to a bunch of guys crowded on the customer side of the bar. The drinkers noticed her before Dover did. His hands were propped on the bar, far apart, supporting his weight. Ducking under Dover’s arm, she wrapped both arms around his torso, taking him by surprise.
“Oh, who’s the hottie?” one of the patrons asked.
“I want a go after you’re done,” the second said.
“Sorry, guys, this one’s not mine to give,” Dover said, resting an arm around her. “You’ve got to talk to Ryske if you want to take a run at her. Without his say so, you’ll get your ass handed to you if you think about feeding this girl a line.”
This was a different world. She’d known that. But hadn’t known that a guy could hit on an involved woman as long as he got the approval of the man she was involved with… or maybe they were just playing, she wasn’t really sure.
The trio on the other side of the bar were still eyeing her. Even though they were bulky and covered in tattoos, she didn’t feel intimidated. Floyd’s was one of the first places she’d been warned about when taking up her work in this neighborhood; she used to adjust her route to avoid it. Now, Harlow was sleeping there and considered the place a sanctuary and a comfort.
“He’s always the guy, isn’t he,” the third patron said.
“Always is,” Dover said and pointed at each of the guys. “These guys here work certain nights for us, we call ‘em Tom, Dick, and Larry… Guys, this is Nightingale.”
Certain nights, she took that to mean on nights they were busiest, like Fridays.
“Charmed,” the one on the end, Tom, said, making the other two laugh.
“Don’t fall for it,” Dick said, giving Tom a shove. “He’s as rough as they come.”
“Hey, she likes Ryske,” Larry said. “I say that’s got to mean she likes it rough.”
Go With It (A Go Novel Book 1) Page 29
