Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
RYDER
I sit back down at the table and watch Eve talk to Jake about the tattoo job that he did tonight. I know I’ve upset her, and I feel like a piece of shit about it. My eyes have been glued to her all night on the dance floor, and I wasn’t the only one. The minute a slow song came on, I knew I had seconds before someone tried something. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin her night, but I wasn’t about to have some other guy's hands on her.
She throws back another shot, and I can tell the alcohol is starting to take effect. Her eyes are more glossy, and her words are slurring a bit.
“I’ll be right back.” I stand up, and she ignores me as she turns to watch the people on the dance floor. Jake shrugs and looks amused at my discomfort. Walking over to the bar, I place an order and wait for it to be done. I look back at the table, and she avoids my gaze again.
Sighing, her words play through my head, leaving a destructive path in its wake. It was like a knife to the heart when she told me she couldn’t do it anymore. Forgiving is the easy part…it’s the forgetting that I’m having problems with.
I take the order back to the table and sit some fries in front of her. “You need to eat something,” I say, pushing a glass of water towards her. “Drink some water, too.”
“I’m not hungry, and I already have something to drink.” She takes another sip of straight tequila.
“I’m just trying to stop you from regretting this later when you have a massive hangover in the morning.”
“Yeah, well, there are a lot of things I regret in my life, and a hangover is the least of them. I’m going to the bathroom,” she storms off, and Jake chuckles softly.
“You are so screwed right now.” He reaches for a fry as I glare at him. “She’s finally reached her breaking point with your grumpy ass.”
“Thanks for the obvious,” I mutter, getting up and going after her. She’s had too much to drink, and I don’t trust that she’s safe being alone. I wait outside the bathrooms, and as soon as she sees me, she heads in the other direction.
“Eve, wait!” I follow her down the deck stairs toward the beach. I easily catch up to her and grab her arm. “Will you just stop and talk to me?”
“No.” She turns to go, and I throw her over my shoulder.
“Let me go!”
“Not until you talk to me.” I walk us under the dock where we can have privacy and not be the main attraction of the restaurant. I set her down, hoping she’s not going to run this time.
“Do you regret us?” I quietly ask.
“What?” It’s dark under here, but I can still make out the confusion on her face.
“You said you have a lot of things you regret. Do you regret us?” It’s been bothering me since she said it, and I need to know her answer.
“No. I regret that I didn’t stand up for myself more with my parents. I regret hurting you when I left. I regret it took so long for me to get back to you, but I don’t regret us…I could never regret us.” She looks up at me and hesitates. “Do you…regret us?”
I step closer to her and back her up against the wooden post. “Not for one second.”
“Then why don’t you like me anymore?” She asks quietly.
“Why would you think that I don’t like you?” I frown at her.
“You’ve been avoiding me and won’t even look at me anymore. At work, you send Bobby in to ask me for things you need. I feel like you can’t stand to be around me.”
“I have been avoiding you,” I sigh. “But not for the reasons you think. I don’t…I don’t trust myself around you. I needed time to think, and whenever you are near me, I feel myself lose control.
“Do you feel like you are losing control now?” She places her hand on my grey t-shirt, and my skin burns from her touch.
“I’m barely hanging on,” I softly growl.
“Maybe it’s time you let go,” she whispers.
“Maybe it’s time I did.” I force myself to take a step back even though every part of me wants to go toward her. “But not tonight. You’ve had too much to drink, and I’m not about to do something that either of us will regret in the morning.”
“I haven’t had too much to drink.” She pushes herself off the post, and I catch her by the elbow as she sways. “Oh God.” She covers her mouth, and I have just enough warning to hold her hair before she bends over and empties her stomach onto the sand.
“You were saying?” I chuckle softly.
“I think I liked it better when you were avoiding me,” she groans.
Laughing, I pull out my phone and text Travis that it’s time to go and to meet us at his truck. Putting it back in my pocket, I scoop Eve up in my arms and hear her moan softly against my chest.
Travis chuckles when he sees us walking up to the truck. “Did the tequila get the best of you?”
“Don’t mention the word tequila,” she mumbles.
Sophia hands Eve a bottle of water. “Drink some of this. It will help.”
“Thanks.” She takes a sip and sighs. “I’m so sorry I ruined your night out. You guys don’t have to leave. I can Uber back home if you want to stay.”
“You didn’t ruin our night,” Sophia laughs. “We told the babysitter midnight, and it’s almost 11:30, so we were leaving soon anyway.”
“I’ve got to get my wife to bed,” Travis points to Sophia.
“Hey…I’m not that drunk. I’m not even tired yet.” Her green eyes narrow at Travis.
“Who said anything about going to sleep?” He winks and opens the truck door for her.
“I like where your mind is going,” she giggles and hops into the truck. Chuckling, he opens the back door for us and walks over to the driver’s side.
By the time we get home, Eve’s sleeping against me.
Sophia looks over her shoulder at me. “Go ahead and get Eve to bed. I’ll watch Ryland until you come to get her.”
“Thanks.” I gently lift Eve up and carry her back to my place. I bypass the couch and head for my bedroom instead. Lying her down, I take off her sandals and get one of my t-shirts from my drawer. I dress her quickly, not wanting to torture myself with images of her finally naked in my bed.
Pulling the covers around her, I head to the main house to get Ryland. She barely stirs as I lie her down in her bed. Smiling, I kiss her soft curls before turning on her night light.
When I come back in to check on Eve, she is still sleeping. I place a glass of water on the nightstand with two Motrins that I know she’ll need in the morning.
I start to leave, but her soft voice stops me. “Stay…please.” I glance down, and her blue eyes blink sleepily up at me. “I just want to feel you next to me again while I sleep.” The plea in her voice has me lifting my shirt and stripping down to my black boxers.
She turns away from me as I climb in, and I know she’s remembering how we used to sleep. I feel another piece of my wall crumble as I settle behind her and bring her close. Emotions slam into me as she sighs and burrows deeper against me. Her strawberry scent hits me as I breathe deeply into her soft hair.
“Thank you,” she whispers before sleep takes her back under.
My arm around her tightens as I hold her close to me. I’ve craved her body next to me for years, and I wasn’t prepared for the rush of feelings it brings to hold her like this again. I want this every night for the rest of my life. She said she was waiting for me to be ready, and I really hope she means it because I don’t have the strength to stay away anymore.
I scroll through my emails, but I’m not able to focus as I wait for Eve to appear in my office. We have a meeting in five minutes to go over her trial this week. It’s completely unnecessary, but it was already scheduled and will give me a chance to say a few more things that I held back in our last interview.
She walks in, and my breath still gets stolen every time I see her. It took everything in me to leave her sleeping this morning when all I wanted to do was wake her up with the feeling of me being inside her like she used to love.
By the time I got back from the gym, she was showered and feeding Ryland breakfast. I told her to take the day off if she wasn’t feeling good, but she insisted it was just a small headache thanks to the Motrin I left by the bed.
“How has your morning been? Headache better?” I’ve been under a car all morning and haven’t seen her since she arrived.
“Headache is gone. Thank God.” She hesitates, looking embarrassed. “Thanks for taking care of me last night. If you couldn’t tell, I haven’t drank in a long time,” she gives a small laugh.
“We’ve all been there.” I watch her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. I can tell she’s nervous. What I can’t tell is if it’s because of this meeting or if she’s remembering how our bodies were perfectly molded together all through last night.
“So about this job…I’ve almost got everything transferred over to the new electronic system. You will be able to track all your inventory and parts that go through this garage. I’ve also inputted all your contacts into the system so they can easily be accessible. If you are looking for a rare part, it will be a lot easier to put feelers out that way. I’ve also…” She stops when I hold up my hand.
“I already know you can do this job, Eve. You’ve been amazing this week. Before you go any further, I need to say something .”
“Okay,” she warily looks at me. I take a deep breath to try and gather my thoughts. She needs to know what her working here means to me.
“This business was initially my dream, but as soon as I met you, it became more than just mine. It became something that I wanted you to be proud of, something that we could pass down to our kids if they wanted it.” I run my hand through my hair as the painful memories try to take hold of me. “But when you left…this business became my lifeline. It was the only place I could go to breathe. It became the only reason I would get out of bed in the morning. I could forget about you when I was here. It was my…safe space.”
“I get it.” Sadness fills those blues as she looks away from me. “You don’t want me in your safe space. The trust isn’t there yet,” she says softly.
“I know we still have some things to work through, and I have some shit to get past, but as soon as you came back into my life, my end game has never changed. Everything we talked about wanting together suddenly became possible again.” She looks back up at me, and I see a sliver of hope in her eyes. The same sliver that I’m taking a chance on and holding onto for dear life. “I’m not going to hire you as my office manager,” I say quietly.
Hurt flashes across her face, and she looks away. I immediately step closer and bring our bodies flush against one another. Lifting her chin with my finger, I need her to see what I’m feeling. “I’m not going to hire you as my office manager because this place is as much yours as it is mine. If you want to help out here, you can. If you want to stay at home with our daughter and not work at all, you can. Either way, this business, our family business, was always meant to happen with you by my side.”
I watch a tear fall and brush it away with my thumb. The contact with her skin takes me off guard as she leans into my touch. Both of us feel this pull that we’ve never been able to resist. “It’s still our future, just like we always talked about if you still want it.” My heart beats fast against my chest. If she’s still the Eve I love, this should be an easy decision for her.
“I’ve always loved watching you work on cars. Jimmy’s was a place I could go and forget about the life I hated at home,” she says quietly. “It saved me more than you know…your love saved me. I want to be a part of this place. I never stopped wanting that future, not for one second.
“Then it’s yours. It’s only ever been yours.” I watch the emotions swimming in her eyes as I study her reaction. When her lips part and I hear a small intake of her breath, I don’t think there is a single thing in this universe that could have stopped me from going after what I want in this moment. I lean closer and feel her breath on my lips. My eyes match the heat in hers as I watch them turn a darker shade of blue.
“Ryder..” The plea on her lips is all it takes to have me franticly diving in with my tongue. She moans at the invasion like she’s been craving this as much as I have. Lifting her up, I sit her on the desk and settle between her legs where I belong.
A growl escapes me as her legs wrap around me, molding me to her. I suck her bottom lip between my teeth as my hands grab the side of her face wanting to dive further into her and lose myself in the feel of her.
She grips my shirt tightly as my hands find her bare thighs, roughly pushing her skirt up further as I press harder into her. All my senses are on fire as her presence consumes me. The unhinged part of me is still battling a war inside as I try to reign in the urge to fuck her so thoroughly against this desk that she won’t think twice about who she belongs to.
A knock on the door has me slammed back into reality. “Fuck,” I say under my breath and immediately step away. “Just a minute,” I call out. Sighing, I run my hand furiously through my hair and try to compose myself. Any longer, and I would have been tearing those lace panties that I got a glimpse at when her skirt rode up.
She’s breathing hard on the desk, and my dick throbs painfully at the sight of her swollen lips and disheveled hair. My jaw clenches as I force myself to keep it together. She slides off the desk and fixes her skirt before running a hand through her hair.
Thankfully, I don’t see anyone in the lobby as I glance up at the windows lining my office wall. I’m always professional and in control at work, but with her, I lose every damn bit of self-control.
“It’s probably Bobby. I told him to swing by for the meeting.” I have a hard time keeping the irritation out of my voice from being interrupted.
I walk over to the door and crack it open to Bobby standing there. “Give me a minute. I’ll come find you when we are done here.”
“No problem,” he grins at me. I have a feeling I’ll be hearing all about this from the boys later. Closing the door, I turn to face her.
Her ocean blues are still brimming with desire, and I realize I don’t want to wait another minute to settle this between us. I want her in my bed tonight, but first, I need to get her somewhere where we can be alone. There are a few things I need to say to her, and she’s not going to like some of it. There are also a few things I want to do to her, and if I know my Eve, she’s not going to be quiet about it.
“How long does Travis have Ryland today?”
“They took her and Max to the waterpark for the day. Why?”
“Perfect. Let’s go.” I grab her hand and my keys off the desk and pull her toward the office door.
“Where are we going?” She turns and barely gets her purse off the hook in my office as I haul her away.
“We are going home,” I say, backing her up against the door. “It’s about time we lay all our cards on the table. I want everything out in the open. We both have guilt, and I know we are both damn angry that we were cheated out of those three years.” I run my fingers down her neck and brush my thumb across her nipple. I watch it harden through her blouse and grin. “It’s time to face our demons, Eve. We’ve been in hell, and it’s about time we claw our way out of it.”