Chapter Seventeen Ryder #2
“Am I?” Her dark brows lifted, and a sexy smile cut across her lips.
She moved her hands to her legs and curled her fingers inward, resting her little fists on those tan thighs I desperately wanted to feel.
“Aside from obvious attraction, though, it could be that I feel this way, at such an inappropriate time, because I haven’t even touched myself in thirteen months. ”
Fucccck, I’m so done. The sky was officially purple, and as of now, three and three would forever equal eight. No one could ever prove me wrong.
I shoved away from the counter, my arms going dead at my sides. I replayed her admission in my head and tried to soldier forward and speak, but I was still hung up on the fact this woman just told me she hadn’t had an orgasm in over a year.
She’d already told me in my bedroom she hadn’t been touched, but this was another level of that.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, given what she’d gone through.
Yet there I was, working to get a grip, to not ask her to let me be the first to get her off, to show her beauty could still exist after pain.
I hoped it did, at least. I was still searching myself to see if that was possible. If there really was life after death.
“So, you know why I’m nervous.” She licked her lips, because if she was going to kill me, why not make it slow and long-lasting? “Now, what’s your reason for wanting me at a time like this aside from attraction? I don’t take you for a guy who hooks up with the women he rescues.”
“I’m definitely not,” I answered immediately, a bit roughly, too. I needed her to know her assumption of me was accurate. She was the epitome of this is different. Special. Lightning striking the same place not twice, but over and over again.
“You were drawn to me on the balcony before you even knew the truth about me, when you still thought I worked for a criminal. Is it rebound desire, though? Is that all this is for you?” There was a timidness to her tone she’d never really exhibited before that had me wondering if it stemmed from jealousy.
Jealous of an ex? What ex? “‘Rebound’?” I choked on the word, and it came out muffled. “What makes you ask that?”
She unclenched her hands, spreading her fingers out on her thighs. “Lainey and your reaction to that name. You weren’t happy to hear it, especially in front of me.”
Lainey. Oh, that ex. Fuck, I was so wrapped up in the woman in front of me, I’d forgotten other women existed.
“Is she an ex? How long ago did you split? Did you end things, or did she?” The questions struck my chest like bullets, sending me back a step.
Was she really suggesting what I was feeling for her was because I was on the rebound? And was she right? Fuck, I didn’t think so. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind once, not even when I’d tried to understand why I’d become so obsessed with a woman I barely knew.
“Yes. Three months ago. She broke up with me.” My answers were succinct and to the point, and I hated delivering them. I hated that she’d think what I was feeling for her was because she was a rebound.
I wasn’t some fuck boy. I hadn’t had sex since Lainey. No one-nighters to try to get over her. Because in truth, I hadn’t been all that beaten up about the split, which meant Lainey was right to end things with me. I’d returned the engagement ring I never gave her a week after we broke up.
I’d only been upset finding out she’d cheated with my friend. Learning about the betrayal had done a number on me Saturday, but not the breakup itself.
Closing the space I’d created between us, I reached for her chin. “You’re the one who admitted you only want me because it’s been a long time since you’ve been touched. What am I supposed to think?”
I let go of her, angling my head, trying to remember how we got here. What kind of U-turn did we take from her telling me how she’d wound up undercover, working for Ezra as an accountant?
“It’s not just that. I haven’t wanted anyone to touch me in over a year.” She finally gave me her eyes. “And yet here I am, feeling like I’ll die if you don’t.” Emotion strangled her last few words, and I hung my head.
She was vulnerable. She’d lost her family, had put herself through hell for revenge, and was currently in danger. That was the definition of a lot .
She may have been sober right now, but fear and stress could still do a number on the mind and body.
Did I think she had Stockholm syndrome, falling for her rescuer?
No, definitely not. And I didn’t need to verify with the alleged psych expert on my team, either.
But until I knew without a doubt her feelings were genuine and not artificial, I couldn’t risk that I was taking advantage of her.
So I had to sit on my hands and behave. To obsess from afar.
Unfortunately, my body missed the memo, and I didn’t sit on my hands. Instead, I touched her. Went straight for her leg, skimming the soft flesh of her outer thigh. “We’re here to take down these assholes so you can have your life back.” That was my valiant effort to redirect us somehow.
“I told you, my life in California is gone.” She closed her eyes.
“All that’s left there is my parents’ house.
I don’t have it in me to sell. I only had two close friends.
We were basically a triangle. My group was that small, and they already replaced me.
And my ex? He’s now engaged to his female best friend, the one he told me not to worry about. ”
“Screw them. Their loss.” Jealousy fueled those words. Because fuck her ex and anyone who’d ever try to replace her. The woman was irreplaceable. “You’ll start over. Somewhere better and new. But without any threats hanging over your head.”
“You really think I can just do that? Let go of the past?” She opened her eyes, and they were gleaming. She was on the verge of tears, and that was all the proof I needed that she was confused, and I had to remember that. To pull my hand away from her and stop touching her.
In one more second I would.
Just one more.
My hand went still on her leg as a thought hit me. “Did you go into this assuming you’d never make it out alive?”
She was quiet for a moment, and that felt like an answer in itself.
“I went into this feeling like I had nothing to live for aside from my revenge, but I never thought about what would happen if I actually got it.” Her voice broke as one tear escaped down her cheek.
I moved my hand from her leg to her face and caught her tear, as if I could take her problems away with it.
“Well, you didn’t have me before. You have me now.
” I cleared my throat, realizing how forever-like that sounded.
“My team, I mean. You have us. We’ll take them all down, so you better start thinking about that future you never considered. It’s happening.”
She reached for me, her small hand resting on my forearm. “Then I guess I better finish my story so you can get me that happily ever after sooner rather than later.”