Chapter 38 Faith
FAITH
“Hey,” I said, yanking open the door. “Why’d you get here so fast? I thought you had a meeting—” The words died in my throat. My eyes went cartoon-character wide. “What happened to your hand?”
“Don’t ask questions that could incriminate you.” Ryker pushed past me, all six foot two of pure, distilled anger. His body radiated heat like a furnace set to destroy.
Rainbow noticed too. She started barking at him.
Now that I looked closer, his lip was split. And there was blood on his shirt. A smear of it across his collar, another splatter near his ribs.
“Oh my God.” The realization hit me like a slap. “You confronted Brett.”
More barking.
He stalked into my kitchen, yanked open the freezer, and rooted around until he found a bag of frozen peas.
The domestic normalcy of it was almost comical.
Almost. If you ignored the way his shoulders bunched with barely leashed violence, the way his jaw worked like he was grinding glass between his teeth.
“How bad did you hurt him?”
“Got any Tylenol?” He pressed the peas against his knuckles. The skin had split in three places, dried blood settling in the gaps.
“Rainbow.” I squatted down and scratched her head until she finally shut up. “Is he okay?”
“Ibuprofen works too.” His voice was casual, like we were discussing the weather instead of assault charges. “And he’s fine-ish.”
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Fine-ish. Which meant alive but damaged. “You shouldn’t have confronted him. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can.”
I rose to my feet. “Then why did you do it?” My voice betrayed me, coming out smaller, softer. Cracking on the last word like I was thirteen again, wondering why no one ever stayed. Dammit.
Ryker closed the distance between us, and suddenly, the kitchen felt microscopic.
He towered over me, fury and something else coiled in every line of his body.
The split in his lip had started to bruise, purple swelling the skin.
His knuckles were raw hamburger meat, red and angry.
And, God help me, he’d never looked more beautiful.
Not despite the violence written across his skin, but because of what it meant.
Someone had finally fought for me. Not to control me, not to own me, but simply because I mattered enough to defend.
“He disrespected you.” His voice was gravel and danger. “And I know he laid his hands on you.”
“What? How do you—”
“Your shirt’s ripped.”
I glanced down. Well, shit. He was right. “Because I fought back.”
“That’s not the point.” He stepped closer, his eyes darkening with something primal. “He laid his hands on you. That is the only point. If he ever contacts you again, you tell me right away. You hear me?”
I swallowed, wondering what Ryker would do if Brett ever did contact me again. The lawyer who lived by rules and precedent had just thrown those same rules through a window for me. My chest felt too tight, like my ribs had shrunk two sizes.
An arsenal of questions flipped through my mind: What if Brett called the cops? What if Ryker got in trouble? Less importantly at the moment, what if Brett tried to sabotage any other job application I ever had?
“He won’t be bothering you anymore,” Ryker said, his voice carrying a finality that made me shiver. “I made sure he understood the consequences.”
My throat closed up. This man—this brilliant, controlled man who defended the law for a living—had just broken it. For me. The girl who’d spent most of her life believing she wasn’t worth keeping, let alone fighting for.
My eyes stung, which was ridiculous. The appropriate emotion here was anger. Maybe horror at the violence. Definitely not this warm, melting feeling spreading through my chest like honey.
“You did that for me?” The whisper escaped before I could stop it.
His shoulders dropped, tension bleeding out as he exhaled deeply, shaking his head in a mixture of frustration and shock. “Sometimes, I forget you’re not used to someone protecting you.”
His hand came up, impossibly gentle for someone who’d just rearranged another man’s face, and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. The contrast made my heart stutter.
“Faith, I would tear apart anyone who tried to hurt you. Not because you need me to, but because the thought of someone causing you pain makes me see red.”
My lower lip trembled. I would not cry. I would absolutely not ruin this moment with tears. But my eyes had other plans.
“You’re looking at me like you’re surprised.” His voice roughened with emotion. “Like you can’t believe someone would fight for you. But, Faith, you’re worth fighting for. You’re worth everything.”
Something cracked open inside me then.
I had never felt closer to another human being. He hadn’t just defended my body; he’d defended my worth. And by showing me his own capacity for darkness, he’d somehow made mine feel less like a curse and more like just another shade of human.
So, I did the only thing that made sense: I crashed my lips against his.
The surprise froze him for a heartbeat. Just one.
Then he made a sound that was part groan, part surrender, and the bag of peas hit the floor with a wet thud.
His fingers threaded through my hair, gripping the back of my head as he leaned into the kiss like it was oxygen and he’d been floundering beneath the water.
His mouth moved against mine with desperate precision, like he’d been imagining this moment and the reality was somehow both better and more devastating than he’d prepared for.
His tongue swept through my mouth, hot and demanding.
I tasted copper from his split lip and something darker, hungrier.
A need that matched my own. My fingers dug into the muscles of his back because I needed more.
More of him. All of him. Needed to crawl inside his skin and live there, safe and wanted and his.
He walked me backward until my spine met the wall, the cool surface a shock against my overheated skin.
His lips blazed a trail from my mouth to my jaw to my throat, each kiss a small detonation.
“You have no idea how hard it’s been to stay away from you,” he murmured against my pulse point, and I felt the words vibrate through my entire body. “From this.”
His fingers worked the buttons of my shirt with single-minded determination. His damaged knuckles made him clumsy, and he cursed softly when the second button wouldn’t cooperate.
“Let me help,” I said.
“Hurry.” The possessiveness in his voice should have scared me. Instead, it lit me up from the inside, every nerve ending suddenly electric.
Yes. The word pulsed through my veins. More.
I helped strip away the ruined fabric, savoring the raw hunger that darkened his eyes as my shirt hit the floor. His pupils were blown wide, completely black. He stood there for a moment, just looking at me like he was memorizing every inch of exposed skin.
“You’re killing me,” he said, voice wrecked. “Do you know that? Every time you walk into a room, every time you look at me with those eyes that see too much, every time you pretend you don’t need anyone—you’re killing me.”
“Good,” I breathed, reaching behind my back for my bra clasp. “You’ve been killing me since day one.”
His lips found my collarbone, and I was liquid fire, molten need. When my bra fell away, he pulled back just to look at me, and the tenderness in his eyes made my knees weak.
“Beautiful,” he said, like the word was pulled from him against his will. “So fucking beautiful, it hurts to look at you.”
Then his mouth was on my breast, and I gasped as he swirled his tongue around my nipple, his hand kneading, worshipping.
My back arched off the wall, offering myself to him, and he took everything I gave with a greed that matched my own.
His uninjured hand traveled lower, breaching the waistband of my pants, slipping beneath fabric.
“Please,” I whimpered, not even sure what I was begging for. Just more. Just him. Just this feeling of being wanted, needed, chosen.
Ryker groaned against my breast, the vibration shooting straight to my core like lightning finding ground. “The sounds you make,” he said, lifting his head to watch my face as his fingers inched closer to where I needed them to be. “Going to dream about these sounds.”
His fingers trailed even lower, slipping beneath my panties.
“Already wet for me,” he murmured, voice thick with satisfaction. “Been thinking about me, Warrior? Been imagining this?”
“Every night,” I admitted, past the point of hiding anything from him. At least anything about this. “Every damn night since I met you.”
His fingers slipped through my slickness, and we both groaned. “Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me what you imagined.”
“Your hands,” I gasped as he found that bundle of nerves that made stars explode behind my eyelids. “Your mouth. You pressing me against surfaces and making me forget my own name.”
“We can do better than that,” he promised, circling with devastating precision. “Going to make you forget everything except how it feels to be mine.”
His fingers moved around and around, gathering slickness and circling that bundle of nerves until my vision began to go static at the edges. All while his mouth painted masterpieces across my skin.
“You have no idea what I want to do to you,” he confessed between kisses. “Want to take you apart piece by piece. Want to learn every sound you make, every way you shake, every spot that makes you melt.”
The space between my thighs pulsed like a second heartbeat, and tension coiled in my lower belly. My fingers tangled in his hair, holding him against me like he might disappear if I let go. Like this might be a dream I’d wake up from, alone again, unwanted again.
“You like that, Warrior?”
“Yes.” The word came out breathless, desperate. “God, yes. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”