Chapter 25
“Idon’t care if he doesn’t want us there. We’re watching his every damn move.”
Emily stopped at the entrance of the kitchen. Even though Ryan faced away from her, the tension in his bare shoulders was impossible to miss. His fingers were wrapped so tightly around the phone to his ear, the other around the counter, that his knuckles were white.
“You’re kidding me? He’s going to the fucking bar?”
Really? Preston was that stupid? Because that had to be who Ryan was talking about.
Why would he do that? He was scared. She’d seen it in his eyes more than once. Was he in denial? Or did he think being in a roomful of people would protect him?
When Ryan’s head dropped, she didn’t hesitate. She crossed the space between them and wrapped her arms around his middle.
For a second, he tensed. He hadn’t heard her coming. Then he turned, his free arm slipping around her waist, his gaze going to the bruise on her temple, then the bandage around her neck.
The darkening of his eyes resembled steel.
“I don’t care that he already has a bodyguard,” Ryan growled. “You go to Trap and watch him. If this psychopath is going after Preston, they’ll probably be there.”
Finally, Ryan hung up.
She reached up and ran her finger down the line between his brows. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because this movie brought trouble to your town.”
“Better my town, where my team can personally take the asshole down, than any other.” He studied her wounds again. “How are you feeling?”
“Good.” Well, good was a bit of an overstatement after what she’d been through that morning, but she was in Ryan’s house. She’d showered and rested and wore his big, oversized shirt. She was safe. “Hungry.”
“I’ll feed you.” He kissed her temple before lifting her and setting her on the kitchen island. “How’s mac and cheese sound?”
“Ryan Slade, you know the way to my heart.”
“I’m already in there though, right?”
The corners of her lips lifted. “Right.”
She watched as he moved around the kitchen, pulling out ingredients and pans. There was something so sexy about watching a man like Ryan, someone who knew a hundred ways to kill and protect, being so…domestic.
“I’m surprised he let Mom’s bodyguard, Darcy, watch him.”
Ryan glanced up from where he was filling a saucepan with water. “Who?”
“Preston. I thought he’d be in denial. He’s not good at…hard stuff like this. He probably intends to drink himself into oblivion and let his ego take over so he doesn’t have to think about the fact that someone might want him dead.”
“You sound like you know him well.”
“We’ve costarred in a few movies. You can’t help but know someone after working together so much.”
“But you never…”
She chuckled. “No. There was only ever camera chemistry between us. The rumors started after our first movie together, and he and my mother thought it was good for us and our movies, so no one corrected it.”
“What did you think?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t care enough to correct anyone.”
He nodded before he turned back to the saucepan. “Are you worried about what that article did to your image?”
“Not at all. Considering I plan to take an extended break from the profession, I don’t think it will have any impact on my life.”
There was a flexing of the muscles in his back. “What will you do?”
The uncertainty in his voice made her pause.
Was he still worried that he wouldn’t be enough for her?
“I don’t know. I don’t have to work, but I want to figure out who I am without the big fancy career and a mother who dictates my every move.
I want to do something that feeds my soul, you know?
I could start a small production company here in Deep River.
I could teach. I love that, for once, my future isn’t set out for me.
There isn’t one path that someone has painted my name on and told me I have to walk down. I have options.”
He nodded again, his shoulders visibly relaxing as he focused on the stove. “What about your mom? How will that relationship play out, do you think?”
If she had a dollar for every time she’d asked herself that same question…
“Honestly, I have no idea. She’s my mom.
And despite everything she’s done, I love her.
I do think, in some twisted way, she believes that everything she did was for me.
But I also can’t trust her. She’s meddled in my life too much. ”
“Maybe you just need some time apart.”
“Hopefully.”
A few minutes passed while she just watched Ryan work. The muscles in his arms bunched as he grated cheese. The flex in his forearm as he stirred the roux.
There was such practiced precision in the way he moved. But it was the crease between his brows, the one that deepened with every passing second, that held her attention.
“What are you thinking about?” she finally asked.
“I probably should have asked this already, but in the movie…Faye’s the killer, right? She’s always the person wearing the mask in your scenes.”
“Yeah. It’s revealed at the end that her character’s in love with Preston’s character. But he chooses me. And she decides if she can’t be happy, no one can.”
His frown deepened.
She held out a hand. “Come here.”
Without any hesitation, he turned down the heat on the stove and stepped between her thighs.
“Tell me what’s going on with you.” She ran a palm over his hard shoulder. “Because I feel like I’m missing something right now.”
“I keep seeing you on the floor.” His voice was low and controlled, but there was strain in his eyes, like it was costing him to keep calm. “I can’t get the image out of my head.”
“If the person is truly going by the movie, they were never going to kill me. But even if they were, you would have made it there in time.”
“I didn’t get there in time. You got hurt.”
“I’m alive.”
Some of the armor fell, and she saw just a bit of his raw, unguarded fear. It looked so unfamiliar on his face. “I can’t lose you a second time.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She ran her palm over his rough, day-old stubble.
His gaze lowered to her mouth. One glance. Then he kissed her. And this kiss wasn’t slow or calm. It was urgent. Fierce. Maybe even a bit reckless.
He buried a hand in her hair, fingers slipping between the strands. She wrapped her legs around him, tugging herself to the edge of the counter.
Thank God he was shirtless. She needed the warmth of his skin. The feel of him with no barriers and nothing between them.
She gasped into his mouth and he took advantage, tasting her.
She made a noise. Maybe a moan. Maybe a hum. Maybe something in between that couldn’t be defined.
She hadn’t gotten nearly enough when he lifted his head.
His attention lingered on her temple. Then her neck. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You can’t. Not like this.” It would hurt more to stop. She needed this. Needed him.
She pulled him back, but his mouth was only on hers for a second before grazing over her throat. Then the curve of her shoulder. Gentle, feather-like kisses that slid over her skin like she was fragile.
His carefulness made her chest ache.
God, she loved him. A whole-heart, whole-body kind of love that no time or distance could erase.
In one tug, he pulled her shirt over her head so she only wore panties. But she didn’t feel naked. He covered her. Held her. Surrounded her.
When he lowered his head and took one nipple between his lips, she whimpered, her fingers going into his hair this time, pulling.
Her breaths grew short and shallow, her heart starting to pound. “Ryan…now.”
He teased her bud with his teeth before releasing her.
She pushed herself up so that he could slip her panties down her thighs.
The material had barely hit the floor when she reached for his shorts.
She’d just slid her hand inside and pulled him out when he froze.
Going so hard that for a moment, everything in him seemed locked into place.
Slowly, she ran her palm up his length, then back down. His temple fell into the crook of her shoulder, his fingers tight on her waist.
She stroked upward again, unhurried, her thumb tracing a slow path along the underside, before her grip loosened into a featherlight drag down.
His breathing turned into short pants as it hit her neck.
When she placed his tip to her entrance, those fingers cinched her waist. She tightened her thighs, nudging him inside her just a fraction.
He growled.
It wasn’t enough. She wanted more of him. All of him.
She looked up, found his mouth, and kissed him as he entered her. Slowly. Fully. Deeply.
Ryan stilled, his forehead against Emily’s, his heart fucking racing. Her arms were locked around him, the heels of her feet against his back like she was holding him in place.
And maybe she was. Maybe she was the only thing keeping him standing.
He’d been running on controlled rage since opening that door to see her on the floor. Since hearing her scream. Seeing the blood and the bruise. He’d shoved it down. Compartmentalized. Focusing on Ward and his team and her safety.
Now, there was just her, wrapped around him. Her beating heart against his chest.
And all that control just disappeared.
He started to move, long, deep thrusts. In and out, absorbing every groan from her.
He lifted his head, watching the flutter of her closed eyes.
Jesus, she hypnotized him. No one could demand as much of him as she did. And he was powerless not to give her everything.
He continued to move, to pull out slowly before driving back in hard. Her hand came to his face, cupping his cheek. And when her eyes finally opened, he only had a second to look into them before she pulled him back to her, her mouth covering his, her tongue tasting him.
One kiss. One taste. Then her forehead touched his again.
He cupped her breast, palming her. Running his thumb over the sensitive nipple. Loving the way her breathing caught. How a shudder rolled down her spine.
She fisted his hair and said his name. It was only a whisper. But fuck, it hit him hard.
He lifted her and turned, pressing her against the closest wall as he continued to move, balancing the gentleness she needed with the urgency to have her that drove through his body like fire.
He reached between them and ran his thumb over her clit.
She jerked, air audibly stuttering in her lungs.
He moved his thumb in a circle, remembering what she liked, memorizing every little flutter and twitch and moan.
Her fingers started to pull at his hair, eyes scrunched now, needy and desperate.
Good. He wanted her desperate. He wanted her to feel the same need, the same ache that consumed every part of his being.
He knew the exact moment she was there. Her thighs tightened, her breathing heaved, and she dug her nails into his skin.
Two more thrusts, and she cried out, her walls clenching and pulsing around his cock as her head dropped to his chest.
He held her through the peak, struggling to continue his thrusts.
She was here. In his arms. His home.
Safe.
That final thought finished him. He buried his face in her hair and broke, her name growling out in a single breath.
Then, finally, there was stillness, her forehead against his shoulder, both of them coming back to reality in short gasps.
The morning tried to slip back in. The way he’d found her behind the door. The cut. The bruise.
He pushed it down.
Not now. Now, it was just the two of them.
One gentle kiss to her forehead and he stepped away from the wall, bodies still entangled, and moved upstairs to the bathroom. They’d shower together. Eat. And he’d make damn sure he didn’t take his eyes off her until he knew with absolute certainty that she was out of danger.