Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

During the course of our conversation we’ve moved back together again on the bed, and she’s resting her head on my shoulder. Her touch is thoroughly comforting.

  “When he died I lost my fucking mind. He was everything to me—my dad, my Chief, my boss, my best friend—and I went over the motherfucking deep end. I ran away from social services and every group home they placed me in. They tried forcing me to go to school to graduate. I was obsessed with finding Chief’s killer and exacting justice, but to this day he still eludes me. I was consumed with the understanding that I was absolutely and completely all alone on this big fucking earth—like I was the last one of my people alive. Two sets of parents had died and orphaned me—left me here, or so it felt. I was eaten up inside. I developed a major death complex—instead of being afraid to die, I taunted death—I took ridiculous risks to defy it. I wanted to hurt it like it hurt me; I wanted to deny it and take away its power the way it took everything from me. So I fought back, and I hated, and I shut everyone out who tried to enter my life.

  “When I was seventeen I got shipped off to Minnesota to a place called North House for troubled kids—the house-parents, Cade and Debra, and the other kids there saved me from a serious path of self-destruction and helped me to forgive myself—but I still just didn’t care. In fact, I never cared much about living life again until I met you.”

  Fuck. I can’t even look at her at this point. I can’t believe I went through it all—I just let everything spill. Not only does she know how I feel—about important things like life, death and her—she’s going to start psychoanalyzing me with her know-it-all textbook bullshit. And she’s going to want to talk! We do not have time for that! For all three of us to walk away even minimally unscathed, I have a lot of fucking work to do.

  I maneuver away from Farrington without even glancing at her expression and sit at the table, powering up the laptop.

  I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have exposed myself that way—especially to Farrington, who’s already so goddamn vulnerable. I have to keep this professional.

  From now on, business only.

  Then if we survive . . .

  I can’t even go there.

  Son of a bitch.

  I yank up my phone, about to call Briggs—we need to be accessing search engines and every database we’ve got ASAP. And I have a hunch that just may get her through this.

  Her hand lilts onto my shoulder. “Thank you, Ryder.”

  I can’t help but go still. That’s all she says before she walks away from me and goes into the bathroom. A moment later I hear the tub water running.

  I lean forward over the laptop. “Miguel, you’re going to wish you never fucked with her.”

  Rachel

  He sits in the other room, face forward towards the computer, and all I can do right now is escape into this teeny bathroom and steady my breathing and try to rein in my heart, which is galloping out of control.

  I get it now. I get it all.

  When hot tears rise between my lashes, I’m not surprised.

  I can see the sweet young boy, the turbulent and damaged teenager, all rolled up into this incredible, powerful protector of a man.

  I know I’m unequivocally in love with him. And that I want to go out there and show him how much. I want to hold him in my arms until all of the fury and pain and fear he keeps hidden and caged inside of him condenses, becomes vapor and is diffused into the immensity of the atmosphere.

  He doesn’t want anyone to see the pain he bears, the weight on his shoulders. He stands so tall and tough so as not to allow anything in this world to take the pain away—it’s how he survives—with it—with them, all of his dead.

  He’s become comfortable with the shrapnel buried in the depths of his soul—removing the shards will be agonizing.

  Ryder would hate for me to be thinking this way. He doesn’t want me to see anything besides what he wants projected to the world—that he is unbreakable and fearless.

  I listen to him talking with his partner Briggs, his voice rising in frustration as he pushes the pieces of what he has left to work with to get us all out of this alive.

  Stepping into the streams of pulsating hot water that pump hypnotically through the showerhead, I tilt my head back, stretch my neck and allow the water to rush like fingertips over my scalp. It tickles down my back and dampens my thighs.

  I want him.

  I want every part of him—the boy, the man, the love, the pain. I want the bravery and the power.

  I need his steel to my silk, his power to my weakness.

  I hunger and ache.

  As I wash and these thoughts are crowding out every last bit of doubt or restraint that I may have possessed, I realize I must be more like a demon to him than a woman. I’m taking him to a new level of hell—another tier to compound his pain and rise up in the center of his internal inferno. Another person that has touched his life, no matter how briefly, and will soon be transformed into one of his ghosts.

  Another haunting ghost of someone he couldn’t save.

  I wonder if I’ve become important enough to deserve a tribute in ink somewhere on his body.

  I’m torn between the selfish nature of the thought and the wishful plea—the hope that someone else will carry me in their soul and not let go once I’m gone.

  Isn’t that the sum of all human desire—to be remembered, immortal, unforgotten?

  But it’s more than that—my mom and sister will keep me in their hearts. It’s him. It’s Ryder who I want to remember me. If I could be kept in his soul and immortalized in his heart, it would feel like a piece of me was still living. Like a part of me survived.

  Because his love would make it that way.

  I rinse and shut off the water. I dry my body then squeeze the hotel lotion into my hand and smooth the cold cream over my hot skin. It smells good.

  It’s fitting that I prepare myself—like a funeral rite.

  After I run the comb through my wet tangles, I do something extreme and bold. I step out of the bathroom and into the hotel room completely naked.

  Each breath labors through my chest—I’m so scared, so fucking scared.

  “Ryder.” My voice is barely audible.

  He doesn’t turn, and I steel myself to be braver. “Ryder.”

  He turns—beautiful and brilliant. “Farrington.” My name is but a breath on his lips. His eyes widen, and even with all my degrees and knowledge of the human mind, I can’t read what’s behind them.

  His expression is full of anguish and distress.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t quite it.

  “No. Jesus Christ, Farrington, NO!” Ryder rips the blanket from the bed and quickly wraps me with it. As he covers my naked form, his throat makes a strangled sound and his green glass eyes gloss over. “It’s not going down this way,” he growls angrily.

  I don’t understand what he means, but I do understand that for me, the hourglass is almost empty.

  “Don’t you find me attractive at all?”

  “How could you even ask that, Farrington? Of course I do!” He sounds furious.

  “Then make love to me.”

  He pulls the blanket tighter. “You’re coming back from this.”

  I shake my head. “You don’t know that, Ryder. No one knows when death will take them. And I’ve been too close too many times now to think I can defy the reaper again.”

  Ryder crushes his eyes closed as he gathers the edges of the blanket into his fists and pulls me closer towards him until his forehead rests on mine.

  It’s our first real intimate physical exchange, and I relish it—a moment of silence that suspends us over the situation and binds us together in the face of our impossible odds.

  “I don’t want to feel like I missed something special in this life. And if I die without having kissed you it will be my greatest regret.”

  Ryder breaks.

  The seam of his thick, full lips presses over mine. I close my eyes—as
I’m swept into the raging storm of his passion and his torment.

  My eyes fall closed while my mouth opens and my lips part to receive him. His mouth takes my lower lip, slowly, purposefully.

  A moan escapes me, a cry of desire, a plea for more.

  “Farrington.”

  “Rachel.”

  Ryder stays tethered to the blanket he has knotted in his hands as a moment of silence slices between us.

  But instead of pulling back, he closes the distance.

  “Rachel.” The sound of my name spoken in the sexy, rough, resonant gravel of his deep voice with yearning hunger overwhelms me—it was well worth the wait.

  His fingers loosen on the fabric twisted over me, and the blanket tumbles from my shoulders, landing in a pile at my feet.

  Everything that is Ryder, everything inside of him, everything that has molded and shaped his life looks back at me through the soul of his eyes.

  “Oh God, I can’t hold you like this.”

  “I want you to.”

  “I don’t belong in your arms. I’m not the one you need.”

  “I can be the judge of what I need. And I need you, Ryder.”

  “My life . . . is cursed. I’m a curse.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re my hero, and it doesn’t even matter whether or not you can pull off a daring rescue tonight. What matters is this moment.”

  He touches my face. “Rachel.” My name caresses his tongue like an oath.

  “Let me touch your ink.”

  Without a word he keeps his soulful gaze locked with mine and strips the charcoal fitted t-shirt over his head. Out of the corner of my eye I see the shirt hit the floor behind him.

  I allow my right hand to hover mere inches from the heat of his flesh. In another time or place, I would have been shy and timid to reach out and lay my hands over the corded, sculpted muscle. I would have second-guessed what I was doing, if this were the right thing, what he’d think of me tomorrow . . .

  I don’t have such luxuries any longer.

  I don’t feel any of that; instead I experience a reverent awe as I stroke the tips of my fingers along the edges of the ink that enshrines his body and follow the contours and lines that form Ryder’s silhouette.

  I’m acutely aware of my bare breasts and the erratic breath overcoming me that causes them to heave and dip.

  It’s almost impossible that he’s real—he’s made of the stuff of myth and legend—but he’s true flesh, ink, blood and bone.

  I think back to our encounter with the alligator, and my hand trails up the sleek brawn of his arm to the wound that’s healed well since I last saw him.

  The scars developing there from the bite around his bicep reassure me that his moments with me have been etched into the epic history of his skin, like an ancient relief sculpture.

  There are no words needed, no questions to ask. We don’t deliberate or guess at what we’re doing—the possible repercussions. There will be no morning-after guilt—and honestly, on my end there wouldn’t have been any anyway. All that’s left is pure, raw need, wanting and the fulfillment of lust that blossomed the moment he smiled at me after taking on the massive reptile.

  Ryder finally succumbs to his own desire as his rough, calloused hand lifts to caress the round curve of my breast.

  His eyes are heavy with desire, and he burns me with slow touches that cause my skin to tingle and my heart to race.

  I know the deepest fulfillment for me is gratifying the love that began when we met and only grew stronger when we were apart. In this moment, whether I die or not is finally not in the forefront of my mind—the fear and the terror recedes in the wake of his attentions.

  The way his mouth takes mine when he lets go of his inhibitions is nothing short of heaven. My own personal heaven.

  His lips are soft and full, contrasting the rough skin of his hands and the hard muscle of his body, which he presses against me. Once that full contact is made—his delicious bare chest, the denim fabric of his jeans and the cold crudeness of the metal clasp on his buckle against my own supple and delicate body—each distinct point of contact is rapture. The sensations grip me in a tidal force.

  “Make love to me, Ryder.” It’s all I can do to get the words out in a breathy moan.

  His tongue plunges between my lips, discovering the taste of my mouth. He rubs it over my tongue and the roof of my mouth before bringing it over the sensitive flesh of my lips, wetting them for his service and then crushing me forcefully, body on body, mouth on mouth, lips and tongues transformed to demanding, fiery lashes—whipping us into frenzy.

  The fingers of Ryder’s right hand work steadily to unclasp the buckle and his pants, keeping us apart, while the index finger and thumb of his left tortures one of my pink taut nipples.

  I listen to the cadence of his breath as his jeans slip to his ankles. He curves his free hand over my throat, forcing the tilt of my head with his firm grip on the arc of my jawbone, while gentle fingertips stroke my pulse point.

  With the access he’s gained from the position of my head, he lunges deeper into my mouth, using his wet tongue to swipe over the back of my throat. He stays just above the gag reflex for my comfort while mimicking what it would feel like to have his delicious cock in my mouth.

  Exquisite tension like a hot ball of fire in the pit of my belly heats my most sensitive place, and I unthinkingly spread my legs to rub against him, needing the friction to relieve the pressure.

  “Oh fuck,” Ryder groans in my mouth. The trembling of his tongue makes me almost come.

  His left hand slides from my breast, down my belly—torturously slowly.

  “I want my tongue right . . . here,” he purrs in a low tone as the tips of his deft fingers dance through my slit and over my nub of overly sensitive nerves while he simultaneously glides his beautiful tongue down the arch of the roof of my mouth as if it were between the folds of my very wet arousal.

  My body begs him for more as I grind against his fingers. A needy moan rips through my throat as he continues to stroke and lick and pet—the tender skin of my neck, the darkness of my mouth, and my aching, tingling center.

  Ryder’s fingers advance, and he sinks one inside of me. I cry out and my knees begin to buckle.

  “You’re mine, Rachel.” The low vibration of the murmur from his own mouth to mine pulses shockwaves through my entire body.

  He keeps my head pinned against the wall as his own dips down to my breast. He licks around the hardened peak then flicks his tongue over it. Each lash sends a jolt of electricity like a lightning strike directly to my clit—which he is expertly and excruciatingly avoiding—building me up like a weak house of cards, sure to quake and shatter under the power of his say so.

  My back arches; I’m intoxicated, waiting for more.

  He sucks my nipple into the heat of his mouth. “I’m going to devour you.”

  Oh my God! Where the hell did he learn to speak and purr in that deep, vibrating tone against each erogenous zone? It makes my body mind-blowingly reactive.

  He spreads my legs and lifts me so my exposed, soaking wet arousal glides effortlessly over his steel nine pack abs. Without missing a beat, he grabs hold of the other pleading, neglected nipple with his lips while he grips my thighs in his firm strong hands and maneuvers my trembling, weak body in tight circles, rubbing my hypersensitive and oh so responsive clit against his rippling muscles.

  My whole being hums with a spreading energy that moves out from my core, through my belly, shooting explosive tingles into my arms and legs, fingers and toes.

  “I’m going to . . .”—I tense before the moment utterly engulfs me—“come.”

  I surge and swell and rush into the tide of Ryder’s making. My physical form is overcome, and I fall apart in his arms.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ! You’re gorgeous, Farrington.”

  Ryder snakes a supporting arm under my ass as his other hand buries underneath my hair at the nape of my neck and he pulls me into a soul a
wakening kiss.

  The words I love you flit through my mind, but I swallow them back, knowing they would ruin the moment with too much sentimentality. This unparalleled experience is organic, and I want it to stay that way.

  This may not be forever, I tell myself, but it is a lifetime contained in a moment.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ryder

  Her body is my holy grail, my Ark of the Covenant—a holy, priceless treasure that I’ve searched for and waited for all of my life.

  I lay her on the bed and spread my body over hers. I crush her delicious tits beneath the strength of my chest, and they feel incredible.

  “Say my name again,” she says.

  “Rachel.” I let the heat of my breath caress the inner curves of her ear.

  Her body shivers with goosebumps.

  I feel a wicked grin spread across my face. I’m going to live out my fantasies—the thoughts of what I would do to her if I ever had her under me—the sexual cravings that could only be relieved by stroking myself off so many times while wishing she was there.

  With the flutter of my tongue, the press of my lips and the pinch of my teeth, I work the flesh underneath the bend of her neck, over her shoulder and down the length of her arm. I pay attention to each hitched breath and tiny whimper as I swirl my tongue in the crease of her elbow and linger on her inner wrist.

  As I go, I push my steel against the door of her pillow softness.

  She whines, “Please, do it.”

  “Hmm . . . I fully intend on it.”

  “Now, Ryder. I want you inside of me now.”

  At the sound of my name coming from her pouty lips I nearly cave. “Baby, anticipation is half the experience,” I say and she groans in frustration.

  I move my head to her opposite arm and sink a love bite into the side of her bicep and pull gently. At that, she grinds her pussy into my shaft.

  I’m going to lose it.

  Quickly I maneuver myself so that, as she presses herself against me, she’s rubbing herself on my leg instead of along my dick. For good measure I slide my quad through her drenched folds.