by Stacey Lynn
He paused in his steps, looked back over my shoulder—not at me—and said, “Jaden.” Then his steps continued.
He was halfway to the door of his room before my mouth started working.
“I don’t blame you, you know.”
I looked down at the floor, unable to watch to see if anything I said mattered to him at all. And because I was looking at my feet, I didn’t hear him quietly pad back over to me until I heard his breath directly above my head. His bare feet appeared in my line of vision.
“Blame me for what?” His deep, gravelly voice rolled over my shoulders. It felt like a soothing balm to the aches on my skin and the bruises that were healing as I shivered beneath him.
I could never help my physical reaction to Ryker when he was so close to me.
It terrified me, wondering if I’d ever be able to get over the man who had meant so much to me but so clearly moved on.
I bit my tongue and shook my head. The fear of the honesty that would pour from my mouth prevented me from speaking.
His thumb was at my chin, pulling my face to his but I turned my head and only saw his dresser. Underneath the towel was a corner of the silver frame I’d knocked over.
“What don’t you blame me for?” His thumb tightened on my chin as he spoke and his words were more tightly clipped, as if he had to restrain himself from lashing out.
“None of it.” I swallowed, sandpaper lined the edges of my throat and my tongue as I tried to tell him that even when I had wished he’d come back for me, I always understood why he’d left. Not that it hadn’t hurt, it still did, but it never changed the fact that I always got why he felt the need to put Jasper Bay in the rearview mirror and never look back.
He tugged my chin so I stared directly into his eyes. His left eye was swollen, almost matching my bruised one, and the cuts above his right eye leaked a tiny trail of blood drops down the edges of his eye. My breath hitched as I stared into his black as night eyes that swirled with unspoken thoughts I couldn’t decipher.
“Would you have had to work for Black Death if I’d stayed? If I would have stayed weeks ago, do you think you would have ended up like this?” His eyes quickly scanned my body, and I watched his eyes flash in anger and horror.
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
His hand fell from my chin and he took a step toward his dresser. He scoffed in disgust, his hand flying to the back of his neck and rubbing fiercely.
“Damnit, Faith!” I jumped as one of his arms swung out, and in one large swoop, all the knick knacks and towels and change that littered the top of his dresser smashed to a mess on the floor. “Don’t you fucking get it?” he yelled, facing me with his face a mask of complete and utter rage. He pointed at himself. “It’s all my fucking fault!”
Fear spread through my veins at his outburst. Never had he scared me in such a way like he did in that moment with his breath filling the room and the remains of his outburst scattered all over the floor. In an instant, I was curled into a ball on the floor up against the bed; my knees curled to my chest and my arms wrapped around them. The pain shooting from my ribs was minimal compared to the pounding in my head.
“Fuck!” He roared and stared at me wide-eyed, his hands balling and flexing into fists over and over again.
My entire body shook as tears filled my eyes. I closed them, trying to prevent them from falling, but it was no use once Ryker’s arms surrounded me and he held me, still curled into a ball, and sat us both on the bed.
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Faith.”
My shoulders shook against his chest and I shook my head furiously back and forth. I swallowed and tried to tell him it wasn’t him, because it really wasn’t, but all that came out was a garbled sob.
He shushed me, and with one of his hands on the back of my head, he held me tightly and securely to him. “I’m so fucking sorry for scaring you.”
“You didn’t—”
“I did. Jesus, Faith. This is why I haven’t tried to see you since you’ve been here. All this rage in me, all the anger and disappointment with myself. I’m too much of a loose cannon to be around you. Not with you still reminding me of everything.”
I tensed in his arms and tried to pry myself out of his iron grip. Of course. Of course I would remind Ryker of all the shit in his life.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, but it was too late. I understood completely.
He tried to pull me back to him, but my hands finally uncurled from my knees and I pushed him away.
Wiping my nose, I nodded. “I got it.”
I stood up, searching for new clothes to wear. I’d find a new place to stay. Maybe Jules would take me in. It would just be for a few weeks while I found a new job and a new place to live—maybe somewhere other than Jasper Bay. God knew it was time I tried to put the past behind me, even if it wasn’t in the past yet.
I was halfway through finding a new outfit to put on, something nicer than the knit shorts and Nordic Lords T-shirt Liv kept supplying me with, when Ryker’s hand wrapped around my wrist.
“Look at me.”
I shook my head. No way. He yanked on my arm again until I was standing in front of him while he spread his legs on the bed in front of me.
“That’s not what I meant.”
I looked at the door behind him. Twelve steps and I could figure out a way to start my life over. Again. “I know.”
“Is that why your pulse is pounding against my fingers and you look about two seconds from bolting.” My eyes flickered to his. I saw nothing but anger.
It shocked me.
“You’re… you’re mad at me?”
He dropped my hand as if I’d burned him and his eyebrows rose. “No… shit. I’m not mad at you.”
“Then what?” Protective instincts instantly surrounded me. Somehow, I suddenly had no idea what I was feeling when it came to Ryker, but something told me I could get hurt. And quickly.
He pushed off the bed and walked around it, immediately putting space—lots of space—between us. For some reason I was more fearful of the space than I was of his outburst.
With his hands fisted on his hips and his feet braced as if ready for the fight his life, he raked my body slowly with his eyes. Everywhere he looked heated under his narrowed and fierce eyes. “I didn’t mean that you remind of me the shitty times. I meant that every time I look at you, I’m reminded of how much I’ve failed.”
I stood there, our stances matching, hands on our hips, chests both raising and lowering, and tears fell again.
Jesus. When had I become such a damn ball of emotions? For years I had been able to bottle them all up and shove them into a corner of a room I never entered. Weeks ago Ryker entered my life and suddenly I was a bumbling mess. I swiped the tears away with my fingertips.
My lips twitched and I nodded. “I think it’s better if I go somewhere else. I think… I’m doing better. I just…”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
I licked my suddenly dry lips. “I think it’d be better if I did.”
“Where would you go?”
His question was sarcastic and I knew he was right—where else could I go?
“I don’t know, but you have a family and it’d be better if I wasn’t here, in this room or this place. I need to go somewhere else.”
While I talked, I watched his shoulders soften and he took a few hesitant steps toward me until the space between us was minimal.
“You’re my family.”
God I wish I could be. I shook my head. “I’m not…” My eyes glanced to the broken frame on my floor. When I glanced back to Ryker, his eyes had trailed mine and his mouth was slack.
“You did hear me in the hotel,” he nodded toward the photo on the floor, “talking to them.”
My chin shook as I willed my body to stay strong. I would not cry again. My tongue pressed against the inside of my teeth.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, looking over his shoulder and no longer at him. I couldn’t.
Quietly, he laughed once and then his hands were cupping my cheeks. “Is that why you threw that fit in the hotel? Because of Meg and Brayden?”
I stiffened in his hands. They felt too warm, too perfect, and so… not mine.
“It’s none of my business. I think that you saved me, and I appreciate it.”
“You appreciate it.” His eyes danced with a small amount of humor as I tried to look away from him.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “But really, I should go somewhere else to heal. I’ll be fine.”
His lips pulled into a full smile. I didn’t know what in the hell was so funny. “You are a stubborn, stupid girl.”
“I’m not—”
“Jesus, Faith. What did you think that kiss was for in the hotel? When I couldn’t keep my hands off you? You think I’m the kind of man to cheat on someone?”
I had asked myself those same questions. Never had I thought of an answer that made sense. One of my shoulders rose and dropped. “Old time’s sake? We have history and it was overwhelming.”
This time, Ryker’s fingers pressed into my cheeks and he threw his head back and laughed. My body felt inflamed with heat at the glorious sound and at the frustration that he was laughing at me.
“You’re fucking shitting me!” he exclaimed when he was done laughing, still wiping water off his cheeks. “Don’t you think we’ve wasted enough time with misunderstandings? Why didn’t you just fucking ask me?”
I was so lost I couldn’t find myself with a map and a compass. “I heard you—”
His eyes darkened instantly. “They’re not mine.”
“He called you daddy.”
Ryker shook his head, the damn smile still on his lips while I was mortified we were discussing this. “No.” He raised a finger and shook it at me. “Brayden probably said he missed his daddy.” The same finger moved to his chest. “Which isn’t me.”
“Oh.”
“His dad’s dead.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that. But…”
“And I had promised Brayden’s dad, and Meg’s husband, Byron that if anything happened to him I’d watch out for them.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. When he put it like that, it sounded so innocent. And somehow, so Ryker. Always the warrior—the knight even though he hated being called one just because of his last name. He was always the person people ended up leaning on for help and to protect them.
Which reminded me that that’s what I was to him—the damsel in distress.
Despite that, I still couldn’t forget the kiss. I didn’t want to, either. I simply wanted it to mean something different than it probably did. But if it meant something to him, it didn’t matter—I was way too broken inside to give anything to him.
“Faith.”
My eyes flipped to his. They were no longer angry, no longer laughing—they were pitch black and completely serious. I felt the change in the energy between us immediately. It flickered and danced along like a live wire filled with electricity.
I raised a brow, my nerves beginning to dance in anticipation. I remembered that heated look vividly.
“I didn’t kiss you in that hotel room because I was overwhelmed with remembering what it was like to be with you five years ago.”
“Oh…” I mumbled and wanted to smack myself. Or buy myself a dictionary to think of a new response to him.
His hand reached out and ran down the length of my black hair. When he reached the end, he let it drop before he took my hand and pulled me closer to him. I winced from the small pain in my ribs the sudden movement caused.
His other hand came out and cupped my cheek right before his forehead dropped to mine. I felt a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead slide against mine.
“Don’t you know, babe,” he said right as he turned his head and pressed his lips against my skin, “that you’re the only woman who’s ever been mine?”
Her shoulders tightened under my grip.
I could have held back. I could have given her more time to get used to the fact that I wanted to move past all of this and I wanted to do it together.
But fuck it. We had lost five years.
We had waited long enough.
“Faith,” I whispered into her ear.
“Hmm?”
I grinned. “You need to know that whatever has happened to you, whatever has happened to either of us over the last five years, it’s always been you. You’ve always been the only woman I’ve ever wanted.”
Her head tipped back so she was looking directly at me with pale as ice eyes that were still blank as fuck. I hated seeing that in her. In that moment, I decided it would be my mission to do whatever I had to do in order to get those eyes sparkling like diamonds all over again.
I also realized it was the first time Faith had willingly looked at me directly in the eyes since we’d gotten her out of Sporelli’s hotel room.
She bit her bottom lip gently. “I’m not the girl you remember, Ryker. What I said to you in the hotel room is still true. I don’t have anything to give anyone anymore.”
Pain squeezed my heart like it did the first time I heard her say those words. What was worse was that she looked like she completely believed it.
“You don’t have to give me anything except yourself.”
“There’s nothing—” She shook her head adamantly. I felt her tense under my arms again, but I kept a gentle yet firm hold on her.
“You have everything to give. And we’re going to remind you—all of us that love you—what it is that has always made you so special, Faith. You can stay in this room hiding from everyone who cares about you or you can walk out of this room and embrace the fact that despite Cain majorly fucking you over—he didn’t fuck you up.”
Something flashed in her eyes. She shook her head again. “I can’t talk—”
My hand snaked around to her neck, cupping the back of her head, and I pulled her toward my chest. Her forehead hit my shoulder and heat instantly radiated out all over my fucking body. Faith was in my arms. Again.
It was so utterly perfect.
I leaned down and pressed my lips against her hair. “When you’re ready.”
Her head rubbed against my shirt. “Never.”
I sighed, blowing out a breath, and relaxed my body into hers. “Okay.”
She had to. If she knew anything, we could finally take care of Cain once and for all. A small voice told me she was still protecting her mom.
But considering she was still recovering from her last beating, we could wait and give her some time.
And in the meantime, I’d do everything I could to prove that Faith may not be the girl she used to be, but she was the only woman for me.
A part of me wanted to cling to the words Ryker so easily spoke to me as he held me cocooned in his arms. I wanted to revel in the heat from his skin on mine, the way his breath tickled my skin, and the way it felt to have his lips on mine.
I wanted to forget everything else except for him.
Which was why, when he finally pulled away from me, I let him take my hand and pull me out into the Nordic Lords clubhouse and plop me down onto a stool at the bar.
I felt everyone’s eyes on me. My skin prickled with paranoia but settled on reality when I looked around the room. At least twenty men and about half that amount of women were staring directly at me.
I shivered under their gaze, too afraid to consider what they would see when they looked at me.
I could be the daughter of the man who almost ratted out the club to the FBI.
I could be the daughter of a worthless drug addict.
I could be the whore.
None of it was good, but all of it was me.
Instead of shrinking under their stares, I straightened my back and then rested my head on Olivia’s shoulder as her arm went around my back and pulled me to her.
“They’re all glad you’re okay.” She whispered it into the top of head much like Ryker had done a few minutes earlier. The e
ffect wasn’t nearly the same.
“They think I’m scum,” I told her quietly.
Liv’s small fingers dug into the skin on my shoulder and she squeezed tighter. “Say that shit again about yourself and I’ll kick your ass in the ring.”
It was absurd. I could totally take Liv.
I laughed, a snort-filled laugh, in agreement and it felt good. The sound was foreign coming out of my mouth and my throat, and it only increased the attention I already had on me.
I didn’t care. Not in that moment. In that moment, I simply wanted to laugh for once.
“Drink.” I looked at Switch behind the bar as he slid a beer toward me. His eyes were narrowed on mine, and he didn’t sound happy at all about having to serve me in his own clubhouse, especially now that he was the Vice President.
“Thanks,” I told him quietly. It was barely audible because Switch was large and scary, and when he stared at me, it made me nervous all over again. He had been friends with my dad. He was one of the men who had taken him out.
I scooted back as Switch leaned over the bar, rested his elbows on top, and dropped his eyes closer to mine.
His head tilted to the side and he blinked.
I stared at him, my hands frozen on the beer he had opened for me.
Then, he pushed off the bar and nodded once toward me. “You’ll be all right.”
He walked away as Liv’s fingers squeezed my shoulder again.
It wasn’t much. He hadn’t said anything at all, really, yet a warm sensation filled my stomach and the backs of my eyes began to burn.
Jules sat on my other side, a wiggly two-year-old, Sophie, balanced on her lap. “He’s right, you know.” She nodded her head toward Switch. “You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever known and I don’t know what’s happened to you, but we’ve always been your friends and we always will be.” Her hand left Sophie’s blonde mane and settled gently on my thigh. “We’re all here for you.”
I blinked away the slowly increasing burn in my eyes and pulled a large swallow from the beer.
“Thanks,” I choked out. I doubted anyone’s ability to help me, but I agreed with Ryker on one point. If anyone could do it, these people—these friends—could. I at least wanted to pretend a little while longer.
