Page 88 of Resist

“Mmm?” My eyelids are heavy, my body listless, my mind hazy.

“Would now be the time to ask you if you can remember your name?”

I laugh—well, more like chuckle, because it takes way too much effort right now to full-on laugh—at his reference to one of our first conversations.

“Mmm.”

“Don’t you dare tell me it’s too personal”—he places his hand atop my lower belly and pats—“because what I just did to you? What I plan on doing again to you in a few minutes? That’s way more personal to me than your last name.”

“Noname?” I tease.

“Not gonna fly, Vaughn.”

“What if I hold out for more? A girl’s got to have seconds in order to make sure the sex is mind blowing enough to give up the goods.”

“You’re going to give it up, all right,” Ryker says as he rolls partially on top of me so his lips can find mine and persuade me with a long, lazy kiss that adds more vibrancy to the Technicolor world he’s just found within me.

“I am, am I?”

“Baby, I’m just getting started.”

“In that case, then . . .”

A kiss. A slide of his hand over my breast and then back down to my hip. The feel of his cock already swelling back to life.

“Sanders,” I murmur against his lips. He pauses ever so slightly as if he’s surprised I just let him in.

I’m surprised too.

“It’s nice to meet you, Vaughn Sanders.” We chuckle. “I think it’s time we meet each other in every way possible.”

“By all means, then.”

And later, much later as the sky begins to turn a muted blue and the city that never sleeps slowly stirs to life with coffee and energy drinks, I stare at Ryker as he slowly drifts off to sleep.

Sated, overwhelmed, and with a soft smile on my lips, I follow soon after him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Vaughn

Toot. Toooot.

The room lights up some as the door creaks open. Glass clinks against glass before the sound of a bottle being set on my dresser. The music is on downstairs again—the kind without words composed by the man with the white wig who played them forever ago. It’s fancy music for another party of people who talk way too much about things that make no sense: inflation rates, GDP, capital, depreciation. Things I don’t understand but that Uncle James is constantly being praised and awarded for. Boring.

But right now I wish I were down there with the boring people instead of up here.

Right now I wish I could go back to sleep and not be scared.

The floor creaks, and I stiffen when the hand slides over my mouth. My body jerks in awareness, in fear, but when I breathe in, I smell the icky smell of the absinthe he drinks mixed with his fancy eau de gross cologne and the cloves of his cigarettes.

It’s just Uncle James.

Not a monster.

Just him not wanting me to yelp and wake Sam up.

Just him knowing the train scares me when it sounds off in the middle of the night.