Chapter Fifteen
Back on the motorcycle,Ryker’s heat burns through his jacket, knitting my fingers together tightly enough to ache. Is he as aware of my body as I am of his? Nestled against him like this, I can feel the tight muscles of his back and shoulders on my chest. I’m completely at his mercy, and it’s as tantalizing as it is terrifying. The few small bites of lobster that I managed to gulp down sit uneasy in my stomach.
What on earth is he going to do to me?
I promised myself to him for the night when I let him lift me onto the motorcycle—and, worse yet, I meant that promise. Lies, no matter how big, are okay when I know what I’m doing. I can mislead anyone—but I don’t know how to betray myself.
The motorcycle snarls to a halt just outside of the school gates. It takes a moment to extricate myself from him after holding on for dear life—as soon as I do, he swings himself onto the ground and holds his hands out towards me expectantly.
“I got this,” I protest, wiggling one leg over the seat. The ground can’t be more than, what, ten inches below my feet? Fifteen? An easy jump. I scoot forward, brace myself, and hop down?—
Warm, broad hands clasp me below the armpits, suspending me in midair. Ryker ignores my huff of indignation, just sets me down on the gravel walkway and gives me a disapproving glare, his eyes almost black in the shadowy night.
“You could break an ankle doing that,” he warns me.
“I can take care of myself.”
“You’re half drunk, Lia. I should take you back to your dorm.”
Alarm sharpens my senses, surprising me in its intensity. “But you said?—”
“I should,” he repeats, sounding more than a little frustrated with himself, “but I won’t.”
My relief is disproportionate. Tipsy or not, I don’t want tonight to be over yet. It’s early, surely not past nine or so, and I’m still teeming with unanswered questions. What does he want to show me? Why does he want to show it to me—and why me, specifically?
“Can you walk in those?” he asks, gesturing to my black wedge heels. “Don’t tell me I’m going to have to carry you.”
Oh, God. Hopefully the darkness hides the flush that his words ignite in my cheeks. He could carry me—without an ounce of effort, I bet—but I can’t let my mind dwell on how it would feel to relinquish my weight to his arms, huddled close enough to feel his heartbeat through his tight?—
“Yeah,” I say firmly. “Of course I can walk.”
“Come on, then.”
I keep close behind him as he ascends the steps and leads me across the vacant quad, making no effort to ease his pace on my behalf.
“Hey, are you sure it’s safe to leave your motorcycle back there?” I check as we pass the castle.
“I’ll send one of the guys to lock it up later. Who the hell’s gonna try and steal it in the meantime?”
Fair point, I guess. His confidence entrances me—the way that he can afford such disregard. He knows that no one will mess with him—that no one can mess with him.
Or with anything he claims as his own.
Crap.
I might be in trouble.
When we reach the converted carriage house that serves as the home of the GODs, my stomach flips—but he’s not slowing down. Instead, he guides me around back, past the charred remains of last weekend’s bonfire, and into the inky mass of the woods behind campus.
After only a few steps past the first cluster of trees, Greek Row has vanished behind us. We might as well be in the middle of nowhere, and the dense canopy overhead blocks out the glow of the stars, making it almost impossible to see—but Ryker seems to know exactly where we’re going, picking his way between gnarled tree trunks and mossy boulders without a flicker of hesitation. My own steps are less elegant—briars catch in my jeans and twigs scratch my cheeks, but I refuse to slow down. I won’t let him treat me like a damsel in distress, even if it does make my insides flutter when he takes control.
Especially because of that.
“Not much longer now,” Ryker calls back. When did he get so far ahead? He must be on quite a regimen himself if he can outpace me like this. His ease of movement irritates me… at least, I think this feeling is irritation. It had better not be anything more than that—because if there’s one thing that tonight has taught me so far, it’s that this guy is more than a little bit of a jerk.
But here I am, still following him. And isn’t that what college is all about? Being normal, hanging out with jerks, wandering with them in the woods despite the warning signs?
Well, maybe not the last part.
Still, I may be wary of him, but I’m not frightened. I just hope he doesn’t try anything out of line—if he does, things are going to get ugly for both of us.
The slap of waves against rock signals the end of our trek. Ryker finally begins to slow down a bit, glancing occasionally back at me, until he reaches a halt between two ghost-pale birch trees, his arms extended and hands braced against their trunks.
“You want to be careful here,” he calls, voice raised above the crash of the water. “The cliffs get slippery, and the sea’s a death sentence.”
“Has anyone ever been killed?”
He shoots me a look over his shoulder. With his features shrouded in shadow, I can’t make out any hint of his expression. “What do you mean?”
“Out here. Has anyone ever fallen…?”
“Plenty, I’m sure.” He drops one arm and steps to the side, gesturing for me to join him. “In Count Verdo’s time, mostly.”
“…And what about our time?”
He doesn’t answer.
My instincts tug me backwards. I shouldn’t go any farther. But the sound of the sea beckons me, as does Ryker’s broad-shouldered silhouette, and I find myself stepping up to his side, one sweaty hand curled tightly around one of the birch’s lower branches.
“Look at it,” he murmurs.
I obey, casting my eyes towards the abyss sprawling below us. Just a few steps beyond where we stand, the rocky earth drops off in a cliff steep enough to make my head spin. I can’t see the bottom from here, but the roar of stone and seawater is enough to paint a pretty good image of it in my mind’s eye. Farther out, choppy black waves ripple like liquid obsidian, no trace of the hidden moon reflected upon them.
I glance towards Ryker, whose hair and eyes are equally dark. The starlight’s silvery kiss is just enough to highlight his chiseled profile as he glares out towards the invisible horizon. The tight half-scowl that he’s worn all night is nowhere to be seen now. He looks younger and older at the same time. Gentler, but sadder, too.
How many people have seen him like this?
Not many. I’m somehow very sure about that.
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask softly.
He says nothing, and at first I think he didn’t hear me over the cacophony of the water.
Then, in a single swift motion, he has me pinned against the birch tree.
My breath comes in stifled stutters. He’s staring down at me with his eyes ablaze, hands on my shoulders, his body curved over mine in a lithe, protective arch. I can feel my pulse fluttering in my throat like a trapped bird, and something tells me that he can sense it, as well.
Run, you idiot! You know what to do—go for his eyes, kick him in the balls if you can get a good angle… come on! What do you think you’re doing?
“What do you think you’re doing?” I echo aloud, barely forcing the words through my trembling lips.
“Testing a theory,” he rasps, “too soon, maybe—but I can’t put it off any longer.”
Even with his chest suspended inches from mine, I feel as close to him as I did on the motorcycle. His heavy breathing, his thudding heart—they drown out my own. Heat threatens to overwhelm me, and a deep, near-painful twinge weakens my thighs, until his vicious grip is the only thing that keeps me from folding to the ground.
What is this? My body screams at me, screaming to do the opposite of what my heart demands—and it’s getting stronger, overpowering the smarter part of me as he leans closer.
Wait, I should say, but my mouth refuses to obey?—
It can’t obey, because he’s trapping my lips beneath his, and I’m not thinking at all anymore.
He’s rough from the start, crushing himself against me, his mouth hot and dry and demanding. My jaw parts, and he invites himself inside, the tip of his tongue running beneath mine, teeth catching on my lower lip—the hands on my shoulders tighten to the point of pain, and yet I can still sense that he’s holding back, that he could break me—wants to break me—but resists, handling me with perfect precision.
“Ry…” I can’t find the breath to speak the second syllable of his name.
Something hot and hard nudges my thighs, stirring a shaky gasp from my core. That deep, deep ache lashes through me again—I need that heat closer, need to throw myself against it, into it, but still he holds me at bay, growling a wordless warning when I try to wriggle my shoulders free of his grip.
“No you don’t,” he whispers—and his hands lift to cup my jawline, thumbs brushing beneath it, insistent and tender all at once. His mouth parts from mine, and I don’t even have time to whimper in protest before his stubble grazes my cheek, nuzzling past the soft skin between my ear and my jaw. I twist beneath him, barely aware of the rough birch bark scraping open my bare shoulders. The warm lap of his tongue meets the point in my throat where my pulse pounds the most urgently—then his teeth are there, far from gentle—I’m so dizzy—but I have to stay upright, have to push my hips forward and upward, find that spot where he blazes molten hot beneath his jeans. The layers of rough fabric between us don’t matter because I can feel his body’s soaring temperature, and that’s enough to?—
Cold air.
Weightless, my legs liquid, I stagger in place?—
But his hands are there, framing my waist, holding me up against the tree?—
Breathe.
Breathe.
I have to breathe, but it’s never been so hard. My lungs and heart have gone rogue, ripped free of the careful control that has always harnessed them.
“Are you all right?”
Am I all right? A mundane enough question—and one that I can’t even begin to answer.
I can’t stop feeling him. Feeling his hands upon my hips, his body against mine.
Is this why Harper’s always talking about guys? Because they make her feel like this?
I thought I understood the tug of attraction, how it felt to truly desire someone.
But now, my gaze trapped in the depths of his rich blue eyes, I can see that I had no idea.
I can’t help but want more.
Though I’m not entirely sure what more is.
All I know for sure is that I don’t want this to stop. I want him to touch me again. To hold me closer and to kiss me more deeply, to steal my breath from my lips and my heart from my chest.. All of it to the point that it”s too much to take, an overdose of an addiction that I never want to give up.
It takes a moment for me to realize that his question has still gone unanswered. My lips are swollen from the ferocity of the kiss, tender when I dart my tongue across them.
“I’m fine.” Of course my stupid voice has to waver. I’ve never fallen apart like this. I can handle anything thrown in my direction—anything, apparently, except for Ryker. Not because he’s too strong for me… almost because of the opposite. I could easily stand up to him, but I don’t want to.
“Fuck, this was a bad idea—come on. I’m taking you home.”
The moment the words leave his lips, he steps back from me, and his overwhelming warmth is gone in the blink of an eye. Part of me sinks in the absence of his embrace. But another part burns with something akin to shame.
Did I do something wrong?
He’s right, reluctant as I may be to admit it. Whatever just happened, it was too much for both of us. I need to be alone for a while to pull myself together.
Somehow, I manage to get a hold of myself, pulling free of his grip and standing upright once more. My legs still feel like jelly, but I refuse to so much as sway in place.
“Good girl.”
Something brushes my neck—I flinch—but it’s just him, his middle and index fingers probing the tender spot where his teeth were fastened just moments ago.
“Now they’ll know,” he murmurs. “Now they’ll all know who owns you.”
“Nobody owns me,” I insist—but my words are softer than they should be, more of a reprimand than a declaration.
A low noise rumbles deep in his throat, somewhere between amusement and approval, sultry enough to make my head start spinning all over again. God, how long have we been here at the cliffside? Three minutes? Five? It might as well be a lifetime. The campus feels impossibly distant, like something from a childhood dream.
Ryker breaks the silence. “You need to get back to your dorm, and I have business to attend to. Can you walk?”
Probably not. “Of course.”
“Good. Try to keep up.”
Only once I feel him stride past me do I finally dare to raise my eyes. Looking at him is easier from the back, though the brute force of his every movement is still enough to make me giddy. I stumble my way after him, not really walking, more like falling and catching myself on repeat. More than once, his dark silhouette threatens to vanish amid the trees, but I keep going, one foot in front of another, until the dense woods part to reveal the cold, immovable stone walls of the Greek Row.
I made it. Somehow, I made it.
Ryker, a few steps ahead, turns to face me. I don’t look up—I can’t meet his gaze just yet. I’m still clinging to the way he looked at the cliffside: not vulnerable, exactly… but close. Maybe as close as he knows how to be.
I may not know much about normal people, but I’m pretty sure they don’t all possess the sort of silent, suppressed grief that I saw behind his tired eyes.
What have you been through? What aren’t you telling people?
I know he’s keeping something hidden. The signs are all too familiar—I see them in the mirror every day.
“Can you go the rest of the way yourself?” he asks. “Like I said, I need to take care of some things.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“Of course.”
He sighs, jacket shifting with the heavy rise and fall of his chest.
“Well… goodnight, I guess,” I murmur. It doesn’t feel like the appropriate thing to say. Nothing does.
He doesn’t reply. Not with words. Instead, he pulls me in close and gives me one more hard, insistent kiss, over almost as soon as it’s begun.
By the time I catch my breath again, he’s already gone.