The kids scattered, leaving us alone in the small kitchen. Ryker moved closer.
“We don’t have time for grocery shopping,” he said quietly. “We don’t have time for home-cooked dinners. The DA wants to bury you, remember?”
His proximity was doing things to my ability to think clearly. “They need to eat.”
“And you need to stay out of prison.” His hand found the small of my back, a touch so gentle, it was barely there, but it sent electricity shooting up my spine. The contact was possessive and protective, all at once, making me want to melt into it. “Every minute we waste is a minute the prosecution uses to build their case against you.”
I knew he meant well, but, “These kids don’t have anyone else, Ryker.”
“Neither will they if you’re behind bars. You can’t save them if you don’t save yourself first.”
The space between us felt charged, dangerous, because so much had changed. The times we’d kissed before, had done morethan kissing—it was all on neutral ground. In an elevator. Axel’s living room. In a bridal suite. But this … this was my sanctuary. The most intimate location of my life, and having him here felt like the most vulnerable I’d ever been with him.
I could tell how much it mattered to Ryker, that I’d let him in like this. Just like in the elevator, this kind of emotional intimacy made it nearly impossible to pull back on the romantic kind.
The kind that made it impossible to hold on to the rational reasons we needed to keep our romantic distance.
When he stepped even closer, I didn’t move away. Couldn’t. This was me—raw, unfiltered, everything I’d built from nothing—and he was looking at it all like it was exactly where he belonged.
I could feel the heat radiating from him, heat that intensified as his gaze dropped to my lips. Hell, every inch of my body stood at attention. While we had surrendered to that one moment of passion when he’d arrived at the station—when he’d ghosted my lips with his—in this moment, it felt like every other kiss we’d had wasbefore.
Before the night in the woods.
Before the arrest.
This was after, and there was something sacred about him still looking at me this way, especially in the wake of what he’d seen.
“Ryker,” I whispered, not even sure what I was asking for.
He answered by cupping my face, thumb brushing across my cheekbone. “Warrior.”
The way he said my nickname made something inside me crack wide open. He’d seen pieces of me no one else had. Covered in blood, begging for help. He’d caught me when my knees buckled, protected me from a problematic detective. He’d secured me in his gaze when cold metal cuffs locked around my wrists, and he’d fought dragons for me in that courtroom.
His eyes dropped to my lips, and then he tilted his head and slowly drew his mouth to mine. Soft at first, tentative, like he thought I might shatter. But when I kissed him back, desperateand hungry, he deepened it, pressing me back against the counter. His hand fisted in my hair, and I could taste coffee and forever, fire blazing over my skin and demanding more.
For a moment, the world narrowed to just this. The way he held me like I was precious. The way he kissed me like I was worth saving.
Like I was worth keeping.
Suddenly, Ryker stepped back, leaving me cold, but his eyes never left mine.
He dragged a hand down his face, like he was physically restraining himself from reaching for me again. I could see the war playing out behind his eyes, with duty and desire locked in combat, neither willing to surrender.
“Sorry.” He rubbed his forehead. “Staying away from you is going to be harder than I thought.”
Because this wasn’t just attraction. It was definitely more.
“Two hours,” he murmured. “Let’s spend two hours here, and then I need your help with my work.”
A dozen thoughts crashed through my mind at once. First, that wordlet’s. As in he planned to stay. With me. Shop beside me, cook beside me, exist in my little domestic world. Second, the way he’d kept his voice carefully low, protecting my secret from the teens.
And lastly, despite the chaos, despite everything that should have sent him running, he wanted to stay.
Which warmed my soul.
Because I needed him, I realized. Ryker. Not my lawyer, but the man I was falling for.
Yet our future conversation about my past loomed over us like a dark storm cloud on my sun-filled day … high speed winds and damaging hail threatening everything. And if I lost him, I wasn’t sure I could get through any of this.
