“And then some.” That pesky quaver threads my voice again. I clear my throat. “Our one night is done? You have to go?”
“Yeah,” he says, choking something down.
I want to ask him what he’s holding back, but that’s not what comes out of my mouth. “What happened? What’s counting room two?”
His index finger meanders all over me, drawing a soothing sinuous trail on my fiery flesh. “Do you want the truth?”
That response tells me all I need to know. This is the part of Ryker I’ve always struggled with, so I’m unsure if my answer is to wake myself up from this blissed-out stupor or if it’s because his face shouts that he needs me to accept him.
“Please.”
He pecks my temple, but he lifts me off him and rises to straighten his wrinkled attire and roll down his sleeves. “There was an altercation, which is a breach of our membershipagreement. Counting room two is an interrogation room or holding cell.”
“Someone was hurt?” I guess.
“Yes, which is unacceptable. We are responsible for the members when they’re here. No one harms what’s ours.” He shakes out his suit jacket and shrugs it on. “Dr. Landry is optimistic, but regardless …”
“So … how will they leave counting room two?”
He hedges, sauntering to his dresser and selecting a T-shirt and boxers before returning to me, urging me to stand, and sharing what I already know. “Ashes.”
My breath leaves my lungs in awhoosh. I can’t hide how that affects me. The same gentle hands that cared for me are about to take a life.
Reading that reaction, he points to the site of my night of climaxes. “That was me, Merce. But this is too.”
He slips the T-shirt over my head, stringing his fingers through my hair to tame it before holding the boxers out for me to step into them.
“I know.” I’m not sure how else to respond to what he’s about to do, so I focus on the rest of our evening. “This was … amazing.”
He bends down, cups my face, and softly presses his lips to mine. “It was more than amazing. It was perfect. You’re perfect.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to come.” That gusts out of me, clunky and not at all how I intended to broach this.
“Who said I didn’t?” he volleys.
My eyes drift to his pants, but he’s covered up with the suit jacket now. Ryker doesn’t say things just to say them. He came in his pants from getting me off?
Sensing my astonishment, he elaborates. “That’s how good you tasted, how sexy you were, sucking off that toy, clenching around my fingers, and coming undone on my tongue.”
A warmth engulfs me, igniting beneath my skin, so as he readies to leave, I blurt, “Are you celibate?”
“Yes,” he says without looking back.
“Why? For how long?”
He halts at the threshold, twisting to peer at me. “I decided years ago that I was tired of fucking just to fuck. So …” A smirk plays on his lips as he composes his explanation. “No one gets the cock unless they buy the cow.”
I laugh from my shock and his humor regarding my comment from last night.
“I’m the cow,” he adds.
“I got that.” I bite my lip, treasuring this final moment of his eyes on me, even though my mind is drowning in confusion for what this all means. “Cock, cow—sounds like a whole damn farm.”
“Yeah.” He chuckles, but it’s melancholy. “Or a kingdom. I’m waiting on my queen.”
We both know that’s probably not the role for me.
RYKER
