Chapter Seventeen Ryder
Chapter Seventeen
Ryder
Are you serious? Did she just drop that bomb on us and head into the kitchen?
Drop that on me like I wouldn’t lose my mind and imagine all the horrible things that could’ve gone wrong for her that night in the club? Because what if something did happen when he’d cornered her? Or something went sideways any of the other days during those nine-plus months she worked for him?
I wasn’t the kind of guy to get chills, but there they fucking were, shooting right up my spine. I was pretty sure both my shoulder and my eye twitched as a reaction.
This was not the second bolt-of-lightning feeling I’d been hoping for.
This was pure, unadulterated rage striking me.
Because no one, not even the president himself, would stop me from going to Miami if I so much as found out Ezra had set an unwanted hand on this woman.
Ezra’s blood wouldn’t just be spilled—I’d fucking swim in it.
“I need a minute,” Seraphina called out to us, and her words stole my attention away from the dark-red pool invading my mind and back to her. “Can I take a break?”
She didn’t wait for an answer and went over to the sink and— Is she washing dishes?
I looked over at Alex and Reed, and Alex hiked a thumb over his shoulder toward the front door.
“Yeah, uh, do a security check,” I said in agreement to his silent suggestion. “Inside and outside the building. Wait to come back until I text.” Until the both of us calm down.
Reed grabbed the keys. “What are we doing about DHS? Lainey?”
I turned to the side so Seraphina was still in my peripheral view as she scrubbed a pan. “Buy us time. Tell them we’ve yet to find her exact location but we’re getting close. Just make something up that they’ll believe.”
“Roger that.” Reed nodded, then went over to the door and held it open, waiting for Alex.
“Good luck,” Alex mouthed, and once they were both gone, I locked up and made my way into the kitchen.
Keeping her back to me, she flipped her hair away from her face as she continued to soap up the pan, the water running in a slow trickle. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t owe me anything, certainly not an apology.” I came up behind her, doing my best not to set my hands on her hips or reach for her arms, to try to stop her from cleaning the dishes. “You definitely don’t need to be washing our dishes. We’re grown men; we can do that ourselves.”
“My mom could never focus if there were dirty dishes sitting in the sink.”
I took a moment to translate what she was trying to tell me. “So, you’ll feel better if the dishes are clean?” I stood alongside her, her glossy eyes meeting mine from over her shoulder.
“Yes,” she breathed out before resetting her focus on her mission.
I picked up a clean towel. “Then I’ll help you.
” I took the pan from her and went to work drying it, and we remained like that for a few quiet minutes.
Washing and drying. It felt oddly normal.
Like something I could do for the rest of my life.
Stand beside this woman in a kitchen doing the dishes, and I’d be happy.
When the sink was empty and there was nothing left for her to clean, she turned off the faucet and bowed her head. Her hair fell forward, shielding her face from me.
I put away the last plate, tossed the towel, then did the only thing that felt right. I reached for her arm and guided her around to face me.
I lifted her up, set her on the counter, and braced my hands on either side of her so I didn’t touch her bare thighs.
Gone now were thoughts of Ezra. Gone were thoughts of the murdering rampage I’d need to go on if he ever hurt her.
He wasn’t here with us right now. The past was exactly where it was supposed to be: behind us. All I could see, feel, and, God help me, wanted to taste was in front of me. No one or nothing else mattered as she lifted her dark lashes to look at me.
Lightning.
Fucking lightning, all right.
There it was. In her eyes. A storm of emotions. I’d take every single painful one from her. Absorb them all so she’d only be left with the good ones.
I shifted a bit closer to her without our bodies touching, her knees between us serving as a barrier. But then she all but green-lighted me. She parted her legs and bent her knees, creating a tantalizing V shape between us that I needed to do everything in my power not to fill with my body.
“Are you okay?” Why was it when this woman asked me that, compared to Alex always badgering me, I actually wanted to answer?
I wanted to tell her I was far from okay, that I hadn’t been okay in a long damn time. Probably not since my father walked out on our family when I was six, if I was really being honest.
But today wasn’t about me. “I should be asking you that.”
“Why, did I say something that’d indicate I wouldn’t be okay?
” Sarcasm, in a playful way, cut through.
She was one strong woman, I’d give her that.
Her eyes fell to that V I’d yet to fill.
“This is probably hard to believe, but I used to be funny despite being a total nerd. I just didn’t always have the best timing with humor.
You know, like nervously-laughing-at-funerals kind of thing. ” She looked back up at me.
“You’re talking to a guy who used dark humor to survive war. I get it.” I smiled. “Also, it’s not hard to believe you’re funny. You made me laugh the first night we met.”
“I did, you’re right.” She settled her hands on the counter to maintain her balance.
I wanted to help ease her concerns. Take away her problems and pain. Distract her with my body. But I behaved. I behaved because she deserved that from me.
She didn’t deserve for me to be thinking about peeling down those too-thin, tiny gray shorts and getting as close to heaven as a man like me would ever get, burying my face between her thighs.
“I know you have questions, but I’d prefer to talk about something else before you get to them. I hate small talk, though. And frankly, I don’t give a damn what your favorite color is.”
I loved her honesty as much as I loved even the smallest of touches from her.
And right now, her pinkie was brushing up against my thumb.
So help me, that little touch was all it took to nearly send me over the edge, and I was two seconds away from jumping.
Testing to see if I’d land on my feet or fall on my face.
“What would you like to talk about to fill the space until you’re ready to get back to it, then?” It took effort and an act of God to get me to say that instead of what I really wanted to say. Start off slow. A simple command, like Sit on my face.
“Do you like math?” She tipped her head to the side, studying me as if this would be a make-or-break answer. Also not where I’d been expecting (or hoping) she’d go.
“I love it.” I’d say anything to make her happy right now. She could tell me the sky was purple, and I’d be on board. Three plus three was eight. Abso-fucking-lutely.
She stopped brushing my thumb with her pinkie, and I lowered my attention to our hands as she moved hers on top of mine. “Math is straightforward. Comforting. It’s always been there for me.”
This woman could math me anytime, just as long as she kept her hand on mine.
I also wanted to tell her that I could take math’s place. Comfort her and be there for her.
“Seraphina?” I lifted my head to find her eyes again. “Are you nervous right now?” Was that why she was talking about this?
Her expressive eyes softened. “You’d think after what I’ve done the last year I wouldn’t be—but yeah, maybe.”
I didn’t want to remember what she’d done in the last year, because then two plus two would equal four again, and I’d have to focus back on color, and she didn’t give a damn about color, but I did. One color in particular: red. The color Ezra’s blood would become once I cut his throat.
“Why do I make you nervous?” I tightened my brows, remaining locked on to her face as I waited for her to share more.
The woman sitting before me wasn’t the one who’d boldly gone into that club full of fighters last night.
The woman in front of me had lowered her guard, letting me get a look at who she was behind the shield.
And I was drawn to both. The badass and the angel. Both still kicked my protective instincts into gear around her, but for much different reasons.
“Because you make me feel things I didn’t think were possible ever again.” Her shoulders collapsed as if that’d been heavy and hard to admit. “And that scares me.” Ah, there it was. Fucking same, too. “Because I don’t understand it the way I understand math, and I hate not understanding something.”
I didn’t have an answer for her, because I was just as confused. “Maybe we should try and figure it out, then? Problem-solve together.”
She squeezed the side of my hand, and I took that as her okay.
“Any theories?” I couldn’t believe we were going to talk about this thing between us instead of discussing Ezra and her plans here with the cartel.
But why was I surprised? I’d been incapable of thinking clearly since we met, and I didn’t even give a damn.
If being around her meant I’d never think clearly again, then so be it.
I’d stay dazed and confused for the rest of my life.
She lifted her free hand from the counter and reached for my face, dragging her palm over the scruff I needed to shave. “We’re obviously attracted to one another. I mean, you’re ridiculously handsome, so it’s impossible to not want you.”
I was pretty sure men rarely received compliments (or hugs). So hearing this woman tell me I was handsome had me fighting a grin. “And you’re ... well, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, so it’s impossible not to want you, too, you’re right.”