Chapter Thirteen
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Emma pulled into her garage and shut off the engine. The quiet hum of the motor died, but the roar in her head didn’t.
She didn’t move. Neither did Ryker.
They just sat there in the dim light of the garage, the heater clicking as it cooled, the windshield beginning to fog slightly from the contrast of cold air and shaken breath.
She gripped the steering wheel, not even realizing she was doing it until her fingers started to ache.
She’d been trying to process what happened for hours now. Since the cabin. Since the explosion. Since the shooter in the stairwell.
Since Ethan.
He was alive. And she’d shot him.
The bullet had landed, she’d heard the impact, the grunt, but clearly, she hadn’t killed him. His body wasn’t in the rubble. Only the front of the house had been destroyed, and the working theory was that he’d jumped from the second-story window and slipped into the yard before the blast.
He was always good at escape routes. Always one step ahead.
Thankfully, he hadn’t come to her place. Not yet anyway. Emma had checked the monitors on her app, and all was well. Since the system was one of Strike Force’s, that meant it was good. Damn good. But if Ethan got even more desperate than he already was, he might try to override it and get in.
That didn’t help her tangled nerves one bit.
Her chest felt tight. She closed her eyes for half a beat, trying to find the calm. There was none.
When she finally looked over, Ryker was watching her, one elbow propped against the center console, that steady, unreadable look in his eyes. But not cold. Never that.
Their gazes locked, and a corner of his mouth lifted, just enough to make her stomach dip.
“I’m hoping you’ll apologize for something,” he said, voice low, a little rough. “Give me an excuse to kiss you again.”
Despite everything, the corner of her mouth twitched. That was Ryker. Unshakable. And somehow, exactly what she needed.
Emma leaned over and kissed him.
It wasn’t reckless or rushed, but it still carried the weight of everything between them, the near-deaths, the truth they were still uncovering, and the fire that kept sparking no matter how often they tried to douse it.
There was heat, yes, but also something soothing in the press of his mouth against hers. A steadying, anchoring kind of connection she hadn’t even realized she needed.
When she pulled back, her hand lingered lightly on his chest. His breathing was shallow, his eyes locked on hers, and that mask of calm he always wore had cracked just enough for her to see what lay beneath.
He’d needed that kiss too.
She saw it in the way his jaw flexed. In the flicker of something raw behind his eyes.
Ethan Ross, his former friend, his brother in arms, had tried to kill them.
The weight of that reality settled over her again, heavy as lead.
“Is there any chance…” she began, voice quieter now, “that it wasn’t him? That someone wore a mask, disguised their voice?”
Ryker’s answer came after only a second.
He shook his head. “No. I know how he moves. How he breathes under pressure. That was Ethan.”
Emma nodded slowly, the certainty sinking deep into her bones.
Then that meant he was still out there.
And next time, he might not miss.
Ryker’s phone buzzed, breaking the fragile quiet between them.
Both of their phones had been going off for hours, texts from deputies, updates from Hallie, check-ins from people who cared. And then there were the messages that hit a little closer to home.
She’d already responded to one from her mom earlier, typing out a lie with fingers that still felt numb.
Everything’s okay. I’m safe.
But she wasn’t. Neither of them were.
Not with Ethan alive. Not with the weight of what they now knew.
He wanted them dead. That much was crystal clear.
Ryker glanced at his phone, then turned the screen toward her. “It’s from Griff. Traffic cam footage from Charlotte’s street in Austin.”
Emma leaned closer, watching the grainy image load on his phone.
The timestamp matched the window Charlotte had given them. And in the corner of the feed, half-shrouded by a privacy fence and trees, a figure moved. Quick. Intentional. Masked in darkness and grain, but clearly real.
“There,” Ryker said, pointing. “Slips around the side of the house. Right through the backyard. Right where the wine would’ve been.”
Emma stared at the still frame as he paused it. “So… Charlotte might’ve been telling the truth. About being drugged. About someone stealing her blood.”
“Maybe,” Ryker said. “If that’s Ethan, it tracks.”
“But why frame his own sister?” she asked quietly. “Why draw that kind of attention to her if she’s not a threat?”
Ryker’s brow furrowed. “Or maybe it’s a setup. The whole thing, a way to make us think Charlotte’s innocent. That she’s being framed when she’s actually helping him.”
Emma didn’t respond right away.
Because either possibility twisted her stomach. And neither one ended with Ethan Ross giving up quietly.
Emma let out a low groan and dropped her head back against the seat.
It was all too much, Ethan alive, the blurred figure in the traffic cam, the lies, the blood, the bodies. Every time they thought they’d gained ground, the rules shifted, the game changed. She wasn’t sure who was helping Ethan and who was just another pawn in his twisted narrative.
She closed her eyes, trying to breathe through the frustration.
Then she felt Ryker’s hand on her arm.
Gentle. Anchoring.
He pulled her toward him, slow but certain, and she didn’t resist. She let herself lean into his chest, his strength, his steady heartbeat beneath the fabric of his shirt. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her fully against him.
The first brush of his mouth against hers was soft, but that didn’t last.
The kiss deepened fast, hot and full of everything they hadn’t had a second to deal with. Heat. Tension. The rush of nearly dying. Again. Her fingers fisted in his shirt, and he angled toward her, deepening the kiss with a low sound that rumbled in his chest.
His hand slid to the back of her neck, tilting her head to take him in deeper, and she let him. Let herself get lost for a moment in him, in the taste of him, in the feel of his body pressed so close it left no space for doubt.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t slow. And it wasn’t enough.
But it tore through the fear, through the uncertainty, and left her breathless in its wake.
When they finally broke apart, their foreheads touched, breathing heavy.
She didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to.
And neither did he.
Ryker’s forehead rested against hers, his breath warm, steady, and just as uneven as hers. Then he murmured, voice rough and low, “We need to take this inside.”
She shifted, crawling across the seat, straddling him as her mouth found his again.
The kiss reignited instantly, hot, demanding, tangled in need.
His hands gripped her waist, sliding up her back beneath her coat as she deepened the kiss, chasing the heat that had been smoldering between them for far too long.
Ryker fumbled with the handle and managed to shove the door open. They damn near tumbled out together, catching themselves against the frame, laughter mixing with breathless urgency.
She was the one who finally broke away long enough to get them moving toward the door into the house. They kissed their way there, lips finding skin and mouths again and again, the heat simmering hotter by the second.
As they reached the keypad, a small thread of clarity threaded through the haze. Emma reached out and quickly disengaged the system, thank God she remembered, so they wouldn’t trip the alarms.
The moment the door opened, they were inside the mud room, and Ryker immediately locked it behind them.
Emma reset the alarm with practiced fingers while he hovered behind her, his hand brushing her hip. The second the beep sounded to confirm it was armed again, she turned.
And he was there.
The kiss started back up, harder this time. Deeper. No space left between them now.
Emma didn’t remember exactly how they ended up in the laundry room.
One minute they were tangled together in the hallway, heat pulsing through every kiss, and the next, Ryker had her pressed against the wall, his hands gripping her hips like he couldn’t decide whether to hold her still or pull her closer.
Their mouths never parted for long.
Buttons slipped open. Jackets and holsters hit the floor. His touch was strong but careful, like he was learning every inch of her, like he wanted to.
She felt herself falling. No not falling. Moving toward the floor. Ryker was easing her in that direction, and she had no intentions of stopping him. She was all for whatever put them body to body. Breath to breath. Because this fire was burning hot inside her.
When they finally dropped to the floor, surrounded by the faint scent of laundry soap and the hum of the house settling around them, Emma didn’t care about the cold tile or how close they were to the dryer.
All she cared about was him, warm, solid, his skin against hers, his breath catching when her fingers dragged across his chest.
Ryker’s hands moved with purpose, peeling away her clothes piece by piece, every inch of skin revealed under his touch, leaving her more breathless than the last. He kissed her neck, slow and deliberate, then lower, his mouth tracing along her collarbone, the swell of her breasts, the softest parts of her until she arched against him.
Her breath hitched. The need built, pressure coiling inside her like a lit fuse.
He kissed lower, teasing and deliberate, and she forgot where they were, what day it was, even the name of the man they were hunting. All that mattered was the fire he was feeding with every pass of his mouth, every graze of his hands.
By the time he came back up to kiss her again, she was burning, wild with it, and she dragged him closer, her body more than ready to meet his.
What followed wasn’t soft.
It was heat. It was desperation. It was everything they’d held back, poured into every movement, every sound, every gasp between kisses that had nothing to do with survival and everything to do with want.
And Emma wanted Ryker like nothing else. And now, finally, he was hers.
Emma was frantic to get his clothes off.
She tugged at his shirt, fingers fumbling with the hem, then yanking it over his head in one breathless move. Her mouth followed the path her hands had taken, pressing kisses along the firm lines of his chest, his stomach, the warm slope of his shoulder.
Every inch of him was muscle and heat and tension barely restrained.
Ryker groaned, low and rough, his hands sliding over her with a kind of reverence that made her shiver. Then one hand moved between them, finding her with enough precision to pull a gasp from her throat and send a wicked urgency pulsing through her.
“Now,” she whispered, shifting beneath him, tugging him closer, needing more, needing all of him.
But Ryker stilled, his breath brushing her cheek.
“Condom,” he murmured, his voice like gravel as he reached for his wallet in his jeans, still half-pushed down. He found it fast, tore the foil with practiced ease, and then he was back, above her, over her, his body braced but trembling with the same need she felt burning through her.
Their eyes met, just for a heartbeat.
And then they moved together.
The moment he entered her, it shattered something inside her, pressure, grief, fear, all of it undone by the way he touched her, the way he held her. There was nothing slow about it, nothing measured. It was wild and deep and absolutely right.
Emma clung to him, breathless, lost in him, her world narrowing to the sound of his voice whispering her name against her throat, to the heat between them building and crashing and pulling them both under.
When they had found that release from the pressure cooker heat, when her body stilled and his weight settled against her, she kept her arms wrapped around him.
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. They didn’t need to.
They were still here. Still alive. And for now, for now, they had each other.
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