Why did I ask? I can’t do this. It can’t matter.
He shakes his head in disbelief, hands throttling the railing at his sides. “I’m not the one being vague, Merce. You’re refusingto open your eyes. And for a brief minute down there, you saw it. You felt something—fuck if I know what, but it was there. Until you shut it down because I seemed too attached.”
My answer bursts out of me as if my soul was sharing it. “I don’t want to be attached to anyone, and that’s never going to change.”
“Wow.” He pauses, gaping at me in sheer … disappointment. “You’re just gonna let him win like that?”
That was a spear to the chest—a blow I’ve felt a thousand times, but never from Ryker. And so much of what I’ve held at bay pours out of me. Anger and pain and hollowness.
“You don’t get to fucking do that. To determine what winning or losing is for me. I’m the one who was on that floor.” I pound my chest as enraged tears stream over my cheeks. “I’m the one who was kicked and punched so many times that I lost consciousness, only to regain it and realize it still wasn’t fucking over. I’m the one who spent months recovering, undergoing surgeries to fix what he broke, in so much pain that I couldn’t hold my baby. Wishing I would just. Fucking. Die.”
Moving backward a few stairs, I perch on the edge of one—too weak to stand for these bone-deep confessions. I dry my face with my suit jacket and calm my breathing to squeak out the rest. “I’m the one with scars that are a forever reminder of the choicesImade. Waking up isn’t even a win because I am still on that godforsaken floor.”
Those icy eyes thaw and brim with so much heartache that it pierces me further as he climbs a step toward me. “Let me be there with you. Let me take it.”
“You’re the one who isn’t opening your eyes, Ryker. Youareon that floor with me. And all I want is to leave it behind.”
Fuck, I shouldn’t have said that.
Hurt flashes across his face. This is what I was so desperate to avoid. This is why I ran. He should’ve moved on. Ryker isevery dream I wish I could hold and the epitome of everything I lost, all at once. And that devastation in his eyes will haunt me for the rest of my life.
When you’re reduced to shards, it’s impossible not to slice those around you.
“I can’t do this.” I bolt up, ready to storm the last flight to the penthouse entrance. “I thought I could make it work for a while, but I need out of the contract.”
“Not happening,” he says.
In a blink, he’s a step below mine but still towering over me. He clasps my hip and hauls me into him until I’m pressed tightly to his chest, his arm snaked around my lower back to secure me in place.
And his lips are on mine.
Much like it did downstairs, my mind empties, my body soars, my core tightens, and my nipples pebble, begging to be noticed. Touched. Pinched. Sucked.
He fists my hair and groans into my mouth before lowering us to lie atop the rickety stairs. Every inch of him is taut and sculpted, larger than life. Rigid and demanding. Perfect. I always thought he was beautiful, ever since that first day on the playground when my heart fluttered because he chose to hang out on the merry-go-round with me. But this was never something I allowed myself to consider. It was always too messy.
I wish he were a random guy I could have a one-night tryst with. That I could revel in this can’t-wait-another-second electricity I haven’t felt surge inside me in … forever.
Ryker kisses with fervor and emotion, which shouldn’t be surprising. It’s how he approaches anything with the people he cares about. But as his tongue guides mine and his cozy-corruption scent infuses the air and his embrace on me is sure and unrestrained, desperate for more, it’s as though he’sreaching into those cavernous parts of my soul, the pockets of aspirations so covered with cobwebs that I forgot they existed.
No one else would feel this safe and alluring at once.
He tastes like a rite of passage and a forbidden door.
The celebratory spirit that escorts life’s milestones and the chicory coffee that fuels the next step.
Dusk to dawn. Roots to branches.
Moonbeams at midnight and the Sahara at noon.
Heat pools between my legs. I’m about two seconds from shamelessly grinding against his hard cock, which is currently saluting my abdomen. But this will already cost me. Anything more would be utter annihilation.
Breaking our kiss, I turn my head to say my piece before he can coax me into more. “I can’t, Ryker. You … everything that happened that night and now everything you’re doing … it’s too much. I’ll talk to Ty about a new placement. You can know where we—”
“I think it’s just enough, Merce.”
His scruff grazes my cheek, and his fingers slink beneath my skirt with resolute intentions. They swiftly glide to my inner thigh, dusting over the bare skin as tingles rocket through me. I’m not sure if I slip on the step or if my back arches of its own accord or if I’m drunk on that champagne toast, but a subtle tilt has him grazing my pussy. With a sharp intake of air, he seizes the opening, skimming over my wet panties with a delectable sense of pressure that has my hips aching to buck into him.
His lips move against my ear, showering me with an eruption of goose bumps. “It might be confusing to let me in, but we can figure this out. It’s time to feel something other than the agony of that night. Like it or not, you do with me. I’m the man you fantasize about, the one you can’t get out of your head, the one who makes your heart pound and your thighs clench. Your weeping cunt shouts it.”
