Page 29 of Ripple Effect, Vol. 3

A dumber woman would’ve gotten all warm and giddy over those words, but instead, I lift the bottle as I pad cautiously across the wooden floor. “Thought you might want a night cap.”

His gaze slices to the left, presumably where he stores his liquor, and back on me, brows dipping to a frown. “I’ve got a fully-stocked liquor cabinet.”

With a grin, I fall into the chair across from him and kick my feet up onto his desk, watching his brow slide into an arch. “Okay. I lied. I just wanted to see what you were doing in here. You’re quiet.”

He stretches his arms toward me and flicks his fingers, eyes on the bottle, and I pass it over to him. “You’re a nosey little shit.” Popping the cap, he pours it into a glass beside him and tips back a sip.

“I believe that knowledge is power. The more I know about you, the more power I wield.” At his frown, I can’t help but chuckle and cross my bare feet, still propped on his desk.

“It’s what you already know that could get you killed.”

“And what do I know about you, Ripley?”

Eyes on me, he sits back in his chair where shadows leap to the hard edges of every muscle in his chest. “You know more than anyone.”

“Is that so?” My eyes roam his body’s rough-hewn landscape and fall on a wicked scar along his collarbone. “I don’t know how you got that scar,” I say, extending my finger toward the marking.

He rubs his hand across the long white line and smiles. “Knife fight. Only time I didn’t strap a bastard down before interrogating.”

His voluntary response prompts me to rise up from the chair and round the desk, where he eases back in his chair, turning toward me. The man is absolutely delicious, sprawled out, looking all casual and relaxed, but I know he’s not.

I can see it in the lines of his face which tell me dark things that I probably don’t want to know about are churning behind his eyes. Parking myself against the desk beside him, I point to another scar along his bicep, this time allowing my fingers to drift across his ruined skin.

“Two enforcers tied me to a tree with wire and proceeded to beat the ever-loving shit out of me. Assholes cracked my ribs that night,” he says on a laugh and guzzles his drink.

The visuals of that keep me from laughing, though, and I push off the desk, coming to a stand behind him. I don’t like the thought of anyone hurting him that way, stringing him up like an animal, even if he’s done it himself. Even if he’d convince me he deserved it.

Trailing my fingertips down his nape edges him forward, and with a tired groan, he leans onto his elbows, allowing me to touch his back. The occasional patch of raised skin brushes the pads of my fingers and I stop on a scar more jagged than the others below his shoulder blade. “And this one?”

“Barely escaped a car explosion and took a nice shot of metal as a consolation prize. Stapled it myself.”

“I’m seeing a pattern here.”

His body is a warzone of pain and suffering, a canvas of torment. It’s fitting that Veni, Vidi, Vici is tattooed down his spine in thick black script that I can’t help but trace with my fingers.

I frown at the thought that every scar was inflicted as a result of his work, confirmed when he says, “Occupational hazards.”

The expanse of his back rises and falls with each easy breath, and I lean forward to kiss the damage.

When he spins the chair around, I take a step back, caught by his grip and he yanks me to stand before him. He buries his face into the fabric at my stomach at the same time his palms skate along the edge of my thighs. “You’re looking at a dead man, Dylan. Time’s just not up yet.”

I thread my fingers in his short-cropped hair, tipping his head back and stare down at him. “You look pretty damn alive to me, Ripley.”

“You see something I don’t then.” He glides his hands up the back of my thighs, cupping me just under my ass and squeezes, drawing me nearer. “Why’d you come here? Huh? I’m surrounded by hell and you show up like a breath of salvation. You some kind of angel or something?” Clearly he’s had more to drink than the Hennessey I brought him.

I smile at that, still lightly massaging his skull. “Do I look like an angel?”

“Yeah. You do. My angel.”

“Then you see something I don’t.”

He pulls me onto his lap, and the second I hit his thighs, his hand grips the back of my skull, dragging me to his lips. His kiss is soft and reverent, his mouth a whisper against mine and the sweet flavor of cognac dances across my tongue.

Heat warms my cheeks, and instead of wanting to fall into it entirely, a part of me wants to push him away and climb out of my skin. No one’s ever kissed me like this, so tender yet possessive, as if I belong to him.

“You charmed a killer to save a dog.” There’s a hint of amusement in his voice that has me smiling against his lips.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”