It was her greatest kindness. One that I won’t ever forget. She let me live on my own, and in doing so, I was able to live close to Ryke. I could have stayed with Rose, but she was already so worried about Lily and Lo’s addictions. I knew if I lived with her, she’d be consumed by my problems too.
And I wanted her to live her own life. I didn’t want to be the center of attention or cause anyone more grief. Pulling Ryke into my mess was enough of a burden. I couldn’t imagine doing that to more people I love.
Ryke runs his thumb beneath my eye. “Those ten months when you moved back home—they drove me f**king insane.”
“Why?”
“It was ten months I couldn’t placate your anxiety, I couldn’t shield you from anything that came through your doors. I wasn’t a hallway away, not a floor, not a room. I was a half an hour from you, Dais.” He pauses. “And we both f**king know it was those ten months that changed you.”
Something happened that I don’t like to talk about. It’s the one thing that tightens my throat.
It was when my simple fear of nighttime turned into waking up screaming. It was when every horror in my life met me repeatedly in my dreams.
The elevator chimes. I flinch, but the noise cuts into the tension.
We let a family of five on ahead of us, the small children tugging their suitcases through the doors. I eye Ryke’s bruise again and my stomach flips. I slide the gold ring off my finger and put it in his hand. “Here. You can have this back.” I’ve already apologized for hitting him. And he did what he always does when I say I’m sorry for things I can’t control.
He glared.
Ryke appraises the ring, and his features darken. “I gave this to you. I don’t want it back.” He grabs my hand, and instead of just handing it to me, he slides it slowly on my finger.
We’re about to be alone together for the first time since the stairwell.
If the elevator would ever get here, that is.
“You didn’t give it to me,” I rebut. “I won it in a poker game.”
“Same f**king thing.”
I wear the ring a lot. I had it resized to fit my thumb, and the jeweler told me that the design on the front was an Irish coat of arms.
A family crest.
I never brought it up, but now that we’re together, I kind of want to. “You told me it wasn’t an heirloom,” I say while he watches me closely.
“It’s not.”
“It’s an Irish coat of arms, Ryke,” I say. “Your dad is Irish.”
He shrugs. “So it was my father’s. It’s not like it was passed down generations to f**king generations. It was his, and he gave it to me when I was eleven or twelve. I don’t even remember. It means nothing.”
“I know,” I say, “because people don’t put family heirlooms that mean something to them in poker kitties.” He’s so detached from his dad, and this proves it. He’s also so unlike Lo, who has an antique pocket watch from his father that he keeps in a safe. He brought it out once to prove to Connor that he owns something historic.
Ryke ignores his mom and dad like he’s trying to erase them from his life. Maybe it’s easier for him to just forget the past than be consumed by hurt and hate.
Ryke hits the “up” button again. He rubs his lips and then stares down at me with that swirling darkness. “Truth,” he says, “I don’t want you to take off the ring. I’ve f**king loved that you wear something of mine.”
I smile. Loved. I wonder for how long. We played that poker game on a flight back from Cancun.
I was sixteen.
I take a step towards him, despite being in semi-public. I scrutinize his bottom lip, cut from where I slapped him.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
“No,” he says, looking at me with those brooding features, reminding me that of all the guys I’ve dated, no one has been as dangerous and mysterious as him.
The elevator chimes again. I drop my hand and slip inside, Ryke behind me. Thankfully an old couple with luggage waits for the next one.
We stand a few feet apart, and I realize that the fifth floor is just too close. We’ll have time to make out for maybe thirty seconds. He leans forward to press the button, but instead of hitting my floor, he taps the 28.
“Are we going for a ride?” I ask him, my lips pulling higher.
“You are.”
The doors shut, and he turns on me with this masculine power that draws me towards him in curiosity and need.
He’s my wolf.
And instead of biting me, he kisses my lips passionately, our bodies igniting as soon as they connect. I moan the second his tongue meets mine, and his hands possess my ass, lifting me around his waist. The air leaves my lungs. And I grip the back of his hair, yanking hard.
A deep, throaty noise escapes him.
“Ryke,” I cry, my head knocking into the wall as he pins me to the corner of the elevator. His kiss slows, eking out the tension that clenches my core. And I shut up, being consumed by his tongue, his hold, his experience.
His hand dips down between my legs, on the outside of my jean shorts. He cups that spot, and my legs spasm. Ahhh! The smallest nerves react like he drove his dick right into me.
I’m usually told to give hand jobs and go down on guys. I love that I now have choices, able to do whatever my mind wants. So I kiss his neck, lightly at first while his other hand rises underneath my shirt.
And then I suck deeply, clenching his hair with two hands. He stops going towards my breast, and he uses that hand as a support against the wall.
“Fuck,” he breathes.
I cry again.
His favorite word is so overused, but I melt every single time he says it like that. Our lips find each other, as though they can’t be apart for long. If he had more time, I wonder if he would go beneath my shorts.
I think he would.
He pauses so I can control my breathing. “What floor are we on?” he asks me.
I look over his shoulder. “Twenty-four.”
He kisses my cheek, which turns into our lips locking again. As soon as we part, he drops me on my feet, and he hits the fifth floor button. The elevator stops on the twenty-eighth floor, and unfortunately, a hoard of female models slips in, laughing loudly and wearing clothes to go clubbing.
They speak in Russian and barely acknowledge us.
Ryke comes back to my side. “So you like my hair?” he asks with raised brows.
I stand on the tips of my toes and run my fingers through it, knowing he’ll let me now. But even so, the tension winds between us, causing my body to curve towards him like a magnetic pull. We really need to find more time together. “It’s soft, and I love that it’s long enough for me to grab.”
His muscles tighten, and his eyes flicker cautiously to the Russian girls, who’ve begun to whisper even more, their eyes flitting to us. He grabs my hands, forcing them down to my sides. I frown, confused. But he suddenly speaks, not to me though. To them.
In Russian.
I can’t understand a word of it, but he has a lilt that matches theirs.
The tallest girl looks over her shoulder and laughs. “You make cute couple,” she says in chopped English.
Ryke replies back in fluent Russian, his eyes narrowed.
She nods, says something else in the same language, and then leaves with her friends on the twentieth floor.
As soon as the doors close, I punch his arm. “Why didn’t you tell me that you can speak Russian?” I knew he was fluent in Spanish, but Russian isn’t a language commonly taught in schools.