17. Ryder #2
I keep the flashlight low and stop several feet away. “Storm took the power. Backup generator’s delayed like I figured it would be for the first storm of the season. I’ve got to check on it, but first I’m going to come closer unless you tell me no.”
Her head moves a little, not quite a nod, but enough to give me her permission.
Right now, that’s the most important thing, because I can physically feel her panic rising with every passing second.
I cross the space slowly. When she reaches for me, I let the flashlight fall to the floor and catch her with both arms. She comes into my chest hard, fingers twisting in my shirt, her breath too fast and too small against my neck. I don’t need to ask her what’s wrong.
“Front door’s locked,” I say near her hair. “Back door’s locked. Alarm has a battery. I’m here. Nothing, Allycat…absolutely nothing is going to get to you.”
Her hands tighten.
I sit on the couch and bring her with me because standing can’t be comfortable for her.
She folds into my lap sideways, knees tucked against my thigh, face pressed under my jaw.
I set one hand between her shoulders and count her breaths by the movement against my chest. Too fast at first, her panic clinging to her and making it impossible for Alex to do anything but hyperventilate.
They finally turn slower when I take even, deep breaths that she can mimic.
A branch scrapes the side of the house, and she jolts so hard my arm clamps around her before I can stop it.
“Sorry,” I say immediately, loosening my hold.
“No.” Her fingers dig into my shirt before I can give her more room. “Don’t let go.”
I stay.
For a while, that’s all we do. The flashlight throws pale light across the ceiling.
Rain works at the windows. The generator finally catches, and one monitor flickers to life with a dull blue glow before going black again.
I want to get up and fix it. I don’t. Alex is shaking in my lap, and the system can wait.
“He used to do this at night,” she says.
Every violent thought in me goes quiet enough to listen.
Her voice is muffled against my shirt, the words scraped thin from having to come out.
“Cut the power. Take my phone. Sometimes he’d just turn off the lights and sit there, waiting for me to panic so he could tell me how dramatic I was being.
” She shifts her grip from my shirt to my shoulder, like she needs somewhere stronger to put the memory.
“If I got up, he’d tell me to sit down. If I cried, he’d laugh and hit me some more.
If I got quiet, he’d say he was proud of me for finally learning. ”
I keep my hand moving over her back. Not too slow. Not too soothing. Just enough to remind her this room has a different body in it now.
“He called it helping me,” she says, and I feel the words hit her before I hear the next part.
“The sex part too. He liked having me in the dark because I couldn’t see what he was going to do or when he was going to stop.
He’d get me close to an orgasm and take it away until I was begging, then act like I should thank him because edging was supposed to be hot. ”
My eyes burn from holding still.
“It wasn’t edging,” I say.
“No.” Her face lifts from my chest, and the weak light catches the tear tracks before she wipes them away with the heel of her hand.
“It was him making sure even my own body had to wait for permission. He took everything from me, Ryder. Every single thing that I ever thought would be mine. And then, when I finally got away, I wasn’t even strong enough to take it back. ”
I want to say a hundred things. Most of them are useless. A few would scare her with how intense they are. So I cup the back of her head and bring her forehead to mine, letting her feel the words where they leave me.
“He never deserved you. And you deserve every ounce of good and peace that you could ever want.”
Her breath shakes. “I know.”
I believe her. I also know knowledge doesn’t strip a memory out of the body just because the mind acknowledges it.
Alex shifts in my lap, and the movement changes the air between us before either of us says anything. Her thigh slides against mine. Her hand moves from my shoulder to the side of my neck. It isn’t accidental. Neither is the way she watches my mouth in the dark.
My hand stills at her back.
She catches it instantly. “Don’t.”
I keep my palm where it is. “Alex.”
“I need you not to stop because you’re afraid.” Her voice is quiet, but there’s nothing uncertain in it. “I’m afraid too. That doesn’t mean this isn’t what I want.”
The storm rolls over the roof again, lower this time. I stay where she put me, hands on her, breathing through the line between helping her and taking from a moment that already has too much pain in it.
She presses closer, her knees bracketing my thigh now, her hands sliding into my hair. “Help me take back one of the pieces of me that Preston stole.”
That breaks the last of my hesitation.
Because I’m not afraid of kissing her, or touching her, or even fucking claiming her. I’m afraid that Alex is going to see that I am too much.
I kiss her carefully, but she doesn’t let it stay careful for long. Her mouth opens under mine, warm and angry and alive, and when her hips move against me, I keep my hands on her waist instead of using them to hold her still.
She sets the pace at first. I let her find it, let her use the pressure of my thigh and the grip of my hands while the room stays dark around us and the flashlight glow trembles across the ceiling.
She pulls back to breathe, her forehead against my cheek. “Don’t make me chase it alone.”
“You’re not alone, Allycat. I’m here. Always here for you. Take what you want and trust me to give you the rest.”
My hand slides beneath the hem of my hoodie, over bare skin still chilled from fear and the remnants of the dark trying to force its way in.
I wait there, palm spread across her lower stomach, and she covers it with her own before pushing me down so that my fingers meet the sensitive nerve bundle of her clit.
There’s nothing unclear about that.
“Are you ready for me, Alex?”
Her whimper of need and the nod I feel more than see is the only answer I need.
I slip my fingers through her silky folds, teasing. She makes a sound into my neck that nearly empties my head, but I hold on to the point of this with both hands. Alex asked for the dark back. She asked me to keep going. She asked not to be left begging at the edge of something she chose.
And in this moment, I swear that I will never leave her on the edge, ever.
I touch her slowly at first, learning the difference between the tremor fear left behind and the one my hand earns while giving her pleasure. When I find the right pressure, her hips roll forward, demanding more friction. Her grip in my hair tightens. Her breath catches, then breaks against my jaw.
I almost slow down.
Her hand catches my wrist, not stopping me, anchoring me. “Ryder.”
“I’ve got you.”
“Then keep going.”
I do.
Her body bows into mine, thighs tightening around my leg, mouth finding mine because not kissing isn’t an option. I keep my fingers moving through the darkness and hold her with my other arm when her rhythm starts to fall apart.
She’s not quiet now. Every little gasp, every broken piece of my name, every desperate press of her body into my hand feels like a door being forced open from the inside.
“Good girl,” I murmur before I can stop it, then still for half a second because I don’t know what that phrase does for her or if it pushes her past an imaginary boundary.
All I know is that she’s my good girl, and I want her to take everything from me.
Alex bites my lower lip and rocks harder against my fingers. “Don’t you dare stop.”
The relief hits so hard I almost laugh. Instead, I kiss her and give her exactly what she asked for.
Her orgasm builds under my hand, not rushed, not stolen, not held out of reach.
I feel it in the way her stomach tightens beneath my forearm, the way she buries her face against my shoulder, the way her whole body locks around the pleasure instead of shrinking from it.
When she comes, she says my name like she’s furious with me for making it that good, and I hold her through every second until she softens against my chest.
Lights blink on in the hallway while she’s still shaking with pleasure. After a few minutes, she draws in a long breath and lets it out against my neck. “That was mine.”
My arm tightens around her in the smallest way I can manage. “Yeah, Allycat. It was.”
She stays there until the weight of her turns heavy with exhaustion.
When I carry her upstairs, she doesn’t joke or argue or tell me to let her go.
She keeps one hand curled in my shirt and her face turned toward my chest, trusting me to know the way through a house I suddenly understand will never have enough lights to erase what was done to her in the dark.
I put the flashlight on the nightstand before I climb into bed with her. Alex turns into me immediately, one thigh sliding over mine, her cheek settling against my chest. Within minutes, her breathing evens out, and the storm starts to loosen its grip on the windows.
I don’t sleep.
The bedroom faces the back of the house. From where I’m lying, I can see the yard beyond the glass and the faint reflection of Alex curled against me. Downstairs, the monitors are running again. The report is filed. The new equipment is ordered.
I keep my hand spread over Alex’s back while she sleeps, feeling each breath move beneath my palm, and stare at the window until the first gray wash of morning cuts through the rain.
By sunrise, the answer I didn’t give Alex about what comes with the next gap is clear.
It’s me. I’m what stands between Preston and Alex.