Having Ryske as a permanent feature in her apartment meant taking on more than just entertaining and feeding a single patient. It didn’t mean having one roommate, it meant suddenly having four of them.
Every day when Harlow came home from work, Ryske’s crew were dotted around her place. Usually, in her bedroom or living room, making plans or messing around. They filled her fridge with half-eaten takeout, left wet towels in her bathroom, and never cleaned up after themselves.
Odd thing was, it didn’t make her angry. She actually liked the energy of the abode when it was filled with the Floyd’s crew.
Growing up in her starched parents’ house, there was never as much joy and camaraderie as she felt when the crew were lounging around in her apartment. Not even during joyous or festive times when there was more activity.
Having four men around full-time was a steep learning curve. Ryske was Ryske. And she was learning more about each of the others. Maze was the most discerning, and from what she could figure, the one with the most in terms of a formal education. Dover was a jack-of-all-trades, skilled in a variety of practicalities. Responsible and smart, he was aware, yet discreet.
Noon was like the little brother of the group. The one the others liked to pick on, but in a light-hearted way. He often spoke before thinking, which gave the guys plenty of opportunities to josh him.
Entering her apartment after work that Friday, a week after Ryske had arrived, Harlow heard the TV and the murmur of masculine friendship and laughter. The quartet loved to clown around. As serious as they could be, especially if they had an audience, they could be such big kids in private.
Hanging up her things by the door, she slipped her laptop from her bag and crossed to the living room, pausing by the first armchair. “Maze, my computer crashed again,” she said.
Harlow didn’t expect the multi-tasking pro to look at her and he didn’t disappoint. Maze just lifted a hand to take the machine from her without ever moving his attention from the TV. When her hands were free, Noon took one to guide her over his straight legs that were resting on her coffee table. Kissing Dover’s cheek signaled her final greeting.
After that, Harlow dropped to her knees in front of Ryske who was seated at the end of the couch. The other three guys in the room all whooped. Ryske didn’t react to them. With his eyes on the TV, he did as she’d trained him to do every time she got home and slid his hips to the front of the seat to let her lift his shirt and peel back the waistband of his pants.
Checking the dressing was her priority. By now, it was just there to stop the wound being aggravated by his clothes. Bale had told her it was okay to take it off. She might have neglected to tell Ryske that yet.
“You’ve got her trained,” Maze said, though he was half-lost in her computer, while still catching glimpses at the TV. “She goes out to work all day, earning the bacon, and comes straight home to blow you.”
“If that’s what she was doing down there, you guys wouldn’t be here when she came home from work,” Ryske said, stroking her hair. “She does look damn good down there though, right?” Drawing her eyes from the dressing, she let him register her displeasure before going back to her task. “Did you have a good day, dear?”
Tearing off his dressing in one swift move, she enjoyed startling him. “Let’s keep this off tonight.”
“Guess that’s an answer,” Ryske said.
Twisting around, she didn’t bother to get up, just slumped on the floor between Ryske’s feet to stare at the TV. Noon pushed a box of Chinese food down the coffee table and she grabbed it, using the chopsticks that were in it to eat the delicious chicken inside.
Ryske’s fingers tangled in her hair, stroking through it. Her body was tired, but not as exhausted as her mind. With the food box in her hand, she chewed the chicken and let her head fall against the inside of Ryske’s knee.
In her exhausted hand, the food box sank to the floor by her hip. “Still not the best I’ve ever had,” she murmured.
“I’ll keep trying, Nightingale,” Noon said, making her smile.
Noon had promised her the best Chinese food she’d ever tasted. So far, he hadn’t managed it. But he was tenacious, she had to acknowledge that he wasn’t giving up easy.
Harlow sighed. Ryske’s hand stopped in her hair. “You need me and the guys to go kick someone’s ass, baby?” he asked. “You’re not yourself tonight. If someone upset you—”
“I’m tired,” she said and stifled a yawn with the back of her hand.
“Take a nap.”
“There are four men in my apartment and there’s no lock on my bedroom door.”
“Babe, there’s no door,” Dover said and the men snickered.
Harlow’s eyes closed. “Exactly,” she said, thinking this was a nice cozy nook that she could get comfortable in.
“Your virtue’s safe,” Maze muttered.
Noon laughed. “Yeah, we’ve all jerked off today.”
She wasn’t sure how he knew that, but figured it had been part of some odd conversation they must have had while she’d been at work. “Do you think I’m worried about you thugs violating me? Hardly. I won’t sleep for the commotion of you people making a mess, teasing each other over nothing, and apparently conversing about your masturbation habits.”
Ryske’s fingers sank deeper into her hair to curl around the side of her neck. That meant he was leaning forward, but she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes to chastise him. “The guys are clearing out in a minute. Go lay down. I’ll wake you up in a while for that college assignment you were talking about.”
Another sigh. “I’m supposed to be looking after you.”
“There’s less than forty-eight hours left on the clock, Trink,” he said. “You’ve done your duty by me.”
“Not a minute before Bale says I have,” she said. “I had lunch with him today. He was explicit. You don’t get out of here until at least Sunday… He’s coming over to check on you in the afternoon.”
“If you’re going to be spending another two nights with me, you better keep your energy levels up,” Ryske said, strengthening his grip until his tangled fingers were digging into her neck.
The security of his firm grasp stimulated the simmering heat that had become a familiar sensation in her gut whenever he was around. “Tighter,” she groaned before she realized the word had slipped out.
It wasn’t until he complied that Harlow figured out what she’d done. Tightening his grip sent a searing pulse of awareness shimmering from his fingers through her torso to her clit… and he’d done it at her request.
Her eyes snapped open. Though she tried to level out her breathing, Harlow was achingly conscious of the faux pas she’d just made. All week, even in the rare moments they were alone, she’d fought hard against her growing need for him. It wasn’t easy, especially given how obvious he made his want for her, but she’d been strong.
Except what she’d just done revealed too much of herself. It would let Ryske peek beneath the surface and get a glimpse of what he kept telling her, but she kept trying to ignore: they were electric together.
Harlow didn’t know what Ryske had told his crew about their relationship. While she knew they didn’t sleep together and that they hadn’t even kissed, she guessed Ryske had implied there was something going on because his crew always talked as if it was a done deal.
Hoping to maintain her dignity, she straightened up. “I will go and lie down,” she said, pulling his hand away and tossing the Chinese food box to the table while getting to her feet. “Excuse me.”
She’d have preferred to hear the guys jeering Ryske about her instead of the hushed whispers that proceeded the crystals falling back into place after she entered her bedroom. When the crew huddled and whispered, something serious was being discussed.
Harlow did not want to be something serious. If they mocked her or her association with Ryske, it was one big joke. She could handle the humiliation of that. What she couldn’t take was the embarrassment of the truth; her feelings for Ryske were more than sexual.
She cared about him, and his friends.
In a few days, this extraordinary chapter of her life would be closed forever. Coming to terms with that had been playing on her mind, but there was nothing she could do about it. It would be over for her.
When slipping beneath her covers, Harlow had expected to find her scent intermingled with Ryske’s. She’d become accustomed to it. Though it made no sense, it was a comfort. Sharing the bed while not sharing the bed was how their routine had settled.
Each night, she’d go to bed early, but set her alarm for around midnight or one AM. After the alarm went off, she’d wake, kick out whoever of the crew were loitering, and put Ryske to bed before finishing her night’s sleep on the couch.
On that night, she hadn’t set an alarm because Ryske had told her that he’d wake her. The point hadn’t been to sleep for long, but somehow, when she next became aware of reality, Harlow’s internal clock betrayed that she’d been sleeping for a while.
Something moved her head, so her eyes opened a fraction. Being still half in the fog of slumber, all she registered was darkness. There hadn’t been an alarm… what had woken her?
If Ryske was trying to wake her, he wasn’t being direct about it. Rolling her head to the side to blink up into the shadows of the room, it took a few seconds to identify Ryske’s outline next to the bed. His arm was outstretched, taking the pillow she wasn’t using from the other side of the mattress.
The pillow he’d touched was overlapping the one under her head, which must have been the movement she’d felt. He hadn’t intended to wake her.
“Crash,” she murmured on a slow blink.
The back of his fingers drifted down her temple. “Go to sleep, baby,” he whispered.
Catching his hand as it was about to ebb, she unfurled his fingers to press his palm to her cheek. Her eyes closed. “Crash.”
“Mm,” he said like he was figuring something out. “I like tired Trinket.”
In a warm and snuggly mood, she let him go. “Lie down.”
Her eyes didn’t open; the proximity of cozy slumber was too pleasant to resist. The mattress moved and the heat of his body neared hers. Instinct helped her to lift his arm to hook it around her shoulders. Skootching closer to nestle against him, Harlow rested her head on the front of his shoulder.
Under the covers while he was on top of them, she didn’t let the full length of her body make contact with his. But a thrum of satisfaction at the contact they did have helped her to relax.
“I definitely like tired Trinket.”
His wound was on this side of his body and she didn’t want to aggravate it. “Am I hurting you?” she asked, wriggling just a little closer.
“Yep,” he said. “I think you should kiss it better.”
Her lips curled, but it was about ten seconds before she brought herself to speak. “Don’t push your luck.” They lay together for a minute or two. “Are the guys gone?”
“Couple of hours ago,” he said, his fingers trailing up and down her arm. “I didn’t want to disturb you. If I’d known this was waiting for me, I’d have come through sooner.”
Despite promising to wake her, he’d let her sleep. Harlow was too tired to scold him; she could do her college work tomorrow. It would just mean canceling her mani-pedi.
Another minute passed and her thoughts coasted. “In two days you’re going to be gone from my life,” she murmured. “Do you think I’ll ever see you again?”
“If you want to,” he said. “You know how to find me anytime you need me.”
“Need?”
“Or want,” he said with a thread of confusion in his voice. “Trink, baby, do you want something now?”
His hand started to edge aside the covers, apparently intending to slip beneath them.
What she wanted, she couldn’t let herself have. “Tell me about your family.”
His hand stopped. “What?”
Opening her hand on his torso, she felt his heartbeat. “I want to know something about where you come from. I want more than the player, more than the grifter. I want to know something about the man who’s been in my bed all week.” This truth made her eyes open. But she didn’t dare move her head, not when tension was moving through him. This was a make or break moment. “Trust me, Ryske… I don’t even know if that’s your real name.”
A charged minute of silence passed. She held her breath, waiting to see how he’d react to her probing. “It’s my real name.”
“And your parents, what are they like? Do you still see them?”
“No,” he said. “My dad was a drunk, violent fucker. My mom was a whore, not a hooker, a serial cheater. One day she fucked off with some rich cunt, left me with the prick. Only saw her once since then. I didn’t even recognize her.”
Others might be shocked to hear of a mother abandoning her child. For Harlow, who saw it happen almost every day at work, it was no surprise. Didn’t make the idea of a young Ryske handling his aggressive father any more appetizing.
“She didn’t take you with her?”
He scoffed. “No chance. There was some satisfaction in finding out the cunt was playing her. He wasn’t rich, not even close. Least she was smart enough not to come back with her tail between her legs.”
“And your dad?”
“Soon as I was old enough to hit back, he kicked me out… Stayed with Floyd after that.”
Twisting to tip her head back, Harlow risked making eye contact. “Dover’s dad?”
He nodded. “I didn’t mind slinging cards or drinks, not when his roof was safer to be under than anything I’d ever had at home. Turned out I was the best kid in the state with a deck… Even though I’d win every time I played, I could always convince bastards to play and give up their cash. That’s when I learned about the con… that I was good at it. Dover and I had guys from the high school in Floyd’s basement first during school lunchbreaks, then kids started cutting to come over and the place was full dawn to dusk. We sold beer and took the rich kids cash teaching them blackjack. We had a full op running and were making more in daylight than Floyd was making in the dark.”
Propping her fist between his shoulder and her chin, she found herself fascinated. “And Noon? Maze?”
“Noon taught me everything I know about stealing and chopping cars. We built a career in swiping keys and picking pockets. We met when he tried dipping my jacket.” A glance of nostalgia crossed his face. “Not knowing I was as crooked as him, he tried to talk me out of calling the cops when I caught him. I made him a deal, we’d cut the deck, high card got the wallet… there was more than a thousand bucks in there.”
In the pause that followed, her anticipation rose. “What happened? Who won?”
“Both of us. As we were about to cut, the prep school let out. I knew I could take those kids. So I told Noon to watch, he took my lead and we cleaned up in three-card Monte. Ended up doubling my money and splitting the pot with him. Never looked back. On the street, we were a double act. He’d do his thing taking car after car, I’d keep owners distracted, divert the cops, whatever was needed.”
She had no trouble imagining Ryske using his charisma to distract and facilitate Noon’s work. The man could talk his way out of anything. Awe-inspired and humbled, she was incredulous and impressed.
Whether or not someone agreed with Ryske’s tactics, no one could doubt his skill. “You could charm the panties from a queen, couldn’t you?”
“Doesn’t seem to be working with you,” he said, offering a wink. A second went by and his teasing became something more solemn. “Don’t know what it is about you, Trinket. I know what you want to hear, but I… I can’t play my game with you. I always know what people want to hear; that’s the key to grifting. You tell people what they want to hear.”
“What do I want to hear?”
He watched her tongue slide across her lips, curling his fingers around her arm again to pull her closer. “You want promises… Indiscriminate compliments make you feel good, they flatter you, but they don’t seduce you. Reliability seduces you. You want a guy who’ll be there for you every minute. A guy who won’t do stupid things and take crazy risks… I can make you promises and convince you I’m exactly who you want me to be. I could do that. I could talk you into it, make those promises and convince you to give me exactly what I want.”
Digging her elbow into the pillow by his head to pull herself higher, she looked deeper. “Then why don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t mean it,” he said, caressing her cheek. “I wouldn’t be able to keep my promises.”
“And that bothers you?”
His lips curved in a resigned, not joyful, smile. “Not with anyone but you.”
Unsure if Ryske was doing exactly what he was claiming not to be doing, Harlow did feel drawn to him.
Honesty seduced her. If she could be sure this was genuine, that he was telling the truth, and showing her this vulnerability, she might let it work and surrender.
But Ryske had admitted how good he was at what he did, and he had promised to have her. If she gave in, and let him take her all the way, she could be walking into a savvy grifter’s carefully constructed plot, and it wasn’t like she could claim he hadn’t warned her what he was capable of.