Righting her position on the couch to put her feet flat on the floor, Harlow listened to Dover depart the room and close the door. Now they were alone. Alone. Being by herself with Ryske had not been part of the plan. Nothing ever went to plan where he was concerned.
Go with it. That’s what Noon had said. Though this may not have been exactly what he meant, she went with it, even in spite of her nerves sparking and fizzing with a vengeance.
Ryske began to cross toward her. Spreading her hands on her thighs, Harlow flattened her skirt and kept her eyes on the low coffee table a couple of feet from her knees.
She expected him to go past her, to take a seat on the couch where Dover had been. Instead, he stopped in front of the arm she’d been perched on a few minutes ago and offered a flat hand.
“Come upstairs with me.”
Noon had invited her upstairs; Dover had told her what was up there: beds.
Tipping her head back, Harlow tried to decipher if the beds were what he was suggesting. In bed with Ryske again, she’d never thought… It would never stop at watching movies or fingernails on tattoos.
It may have been a month since she’d seen him, but she straight away recognized the purr of seduction in his voice and the heavy drowsiness in his eyes was unmistakable.
He was thinking about sex. He was always thinking about sex.
“Nothing has changed,” she said, stemming his seduction before it reached full steam.
Resisting his persistence might not be so easy with him at full health. Harlow had to hold on to the reasons she’d refused before. No matter how much she wanted to begin a torrid affair, or how much he claimed to want her, nothing had changed since they’d decided not to be together a month ago.
Like it was enough, he contradicted her. “You’re here, Trink.”
Just sharing the same air wasn’t enough, Harlow had told him that already. “Yeah, I am,” she said and stood up. “I came here to help a kid and you…”
“Gave him a chance,” he said. “The kid is good, we won’t corrupt him.”
“I appreciate that.”
A smug kind of teasing grin rose on his loose lips. “I’m using him to impress you. Grateful enough to lose your panties?”
“Crash,” she exhaled, shaking her head. He didn’t let her retreat or scold; he moved closer, so close that she could feel the beat of his heart. Being strong was easier when there was some illusion of space between them. Any thread of strength left her voice. “Don’t, Crash.”
“I’m teasing, Trink,” he murmured. “I’m teasing you.” Which only lessened her resolve. Vulnerability made her chin dip, but he caught it on a single-digit caress. “I have nothing for you.”
Her heart screamed, caught between desperation and melancholy. Somehow, her hands found their way onto his chest. “I don’t know what that means.”
His arms began to settle around her. “Promises. The future. Plans. All those things that mean something to you… I have nothing to give.”
“I know,” she said, filled with the urge to reassure him. Smiling made it easier to relax. Harlow just couldn’t be near this man without being happy. “You are exactly what you’re supposed to be, exactly who you are. I don’t want that man to change… It would break my heart if you changed.”
Her ease wasn’t contagious. Tension thrummed through him. She read it in the mixture of pain and hunger on his face. “If I don’t, I’ll never taste you.”
Oh, he knew how to provoke her heart and her hormones. A coil of need swirled in her belly like a whirlpool growing in an ever-lengthening string, circling down and down until it anchored itself between her legs.
“I want to be your plaything,” she confessed. “But you’ll only break my heart.”
“I know.”
Another shot of honesty. If it wasn’t enough that just being near to him, feeling him, smelling him, touching him, got her hot and made her lose her senses. He also insisted on giving the most arousing thing a man could give: the truth.
“I don’t want to break you, any part of you, but… I can’t get you out of me. You’re in my blood,” he said and peered deeper into her eyes as his arms fell from around her. “How did you do this to me, Trink?”
His arms bulged, telling her that he was balling frustrated fists at his sides. While she couldn’t take her gaze away from his, she could offer comfort by dropping her hands from his chest to curl them over his fists, urging them to relax so he could lace their fingers together.
“Shh, Crash,” she soothed. “We have this… this way we make each other feel. It’s not going anywhere.”
“That’s the goddamn problem,” he snapped, yanking his hands free of hers. Turning his back on her, he stalked toward the curtain, stopping a couple of feet from it. “Shit, Trink, I knew I wanted you… but when I saw you out there tonight, and that guy, with his hands on you…” His hands fisted again, but that was nothing to the way he grinded his teeth in a show of hatred and rage. “If I’d had a gun, I’d have put a bullet in him.”
“Don’t say things like that!” Marching over, she went around him, making him look at her. “You are not going to commit any crimes for me.” His scowl deepened. “Not for me, Crash.” She shook her head. “No.”
Snatching her arms, he forced her body against his. “You want to know what I learned tonight?”
Licking her lips, she tried to control her anxiety. Controlling her need was harder. The two warred within her. Only the former stopped her from giving into the latter. “What?”
Bowing lower while pulling her higher, he hissed the truth in her face. “There’s no damn thing you couldn’t drive me to.”
Rushing her backwards, he slammed her to the wall and lunged down, aiming for her mouth.
Grabbing for his shoulders, Harlow fought to hold him back. “I’m scared.”
His brow strengthened. “Of me?”
“This won’t end with a kiss,” she panted, frantic and desperate.
“No,” he said, catching her wrists to squeeze them in his possessive grip, urging them to the wall on either side of her head. “But it’s gonna start with one.”
He was a fool if he didn’t know this had started six weeks ago. Even while he’d been bleeding to death, she’d felt the spark between them. Controlling this was on her. Only her. He’d live in abandon if she let him. But she couldn’t let him.
Shaking her head, Harlow turned her face down so he couldn’t reach her mouth. “I can’t, Crash. I just… I can’t…”
In frustration, he let her go and punched the wall above her head, making her jump. The power of his infuriation pulsated through him, heating the air around them.
Shoving away from her, he strode to the couch then spun, opening his arms. “What the fuck do you want, Trink? What the fuck can a guy like me give you? You want a promise? Why the fuck would you want to tie yourself to a guy like me? You should be begging for a promise that I won’t fall for you, a promise that I won’t force you to be with me. You should want the promise of here and now. The promise that we have no future.”
“Why?” she demanded, pushing off the wall.
“Because I’m a crook!”
“That’s one thing about you, Crash, and it was never the thing that meant the most to me.”
“What was it then, huh?” he asked without disguising his skepticism.
“You opened your eyes, you looked at me…” Slowing her breathing, she calmed herself as she tiptoed toward him, finding her control. “You wanted to know if I’d been hurt… You didn’t ask about yourself, didn’t ask if you were going to be okay or what damage had been done to you or even for the doctor… You asked about me.”
No one had ever cared about her like that. Ryske had given her honesty and it had revealed so much of him to her.
“Didn’t I ask if the sex was good first?”
Pressing her lips together, she nudged him. “Crash,” she chastised in a whisper.
Since he’d walked out on her a month ago, she hadn’t been able to make sense of her feelings or her thoughts about him. But staring into him now, Harlow felt grounded, anchored, and suddenly, it all made sense.
Putting aside the teasing, he became more serious. “You think I care,” he muttered.
“I know you care,” she said, looping her arms around his neck. Being near to him, touching him, was a pleasure she wanted to take advantage of, even if she couldn’t go as far as she wanted to. “And, yes, you’re a crook. You’re a conman and a liar.” She smiled. “But you don’t lie to me.”
Though he rested both hands on her waist, he raised his chin to look down his nose at her. “I should. Maybe if I did, I’d have had you naked by now.”
“Maybe,” she said. “If naked was all you wanted from me, you would’ve lied. Just like you said before. You’d have told me what I wanted to hear, and you know what, Crash? I’d have lapped it up because it would’ve given me the excuse I needed to let this happen. But you didn’t, because you don’t only want me naked, you want my respect. You want my heart.”
A quirk of amusement followed. “Sure of yourself, aren’t you, Little Trinket?”
Harlow had to laugh. He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t. He’d told her that he couldn’t lie to her. Maybe he hadn’t realized the reason that he felt that way, but he had figured out that she was different. He’d confessed that he couldn’t make her promises because it bothered him he wouldn’t be able to keep them.
“Do you think that this would be done if we’d had sex already?” she asked. “Would you be over me if I’d just given in?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Want to try it and see?”
Warmed by confidence, she slid her hand from the back of his neck to rest it on his chest. “Be careful,” she purred, pouting up at him. “Don’t forget, I like having your attention. If getting naked with you will take that away, I’ll never do it.”
But Ryske didn’t scare easy. Wearing a smirk, he cupped her breast and squeezed, his gaze measuring hers, judging how she felt about having his hands on her. Harlow didn’t shrink. He felt good. Amazing. But she couldn’t let him know that. Any hint that she wanted more would encourage him to strain her already stretched resolve.
“You want my attention,” he murmured, seduction seeping from his every pore. “You want promises. You are a demanding woman, Trink.”
“Only of you,” she said, leaning in. “I’ll demand and demand and demand… Still want to screw me?”
“Screw you, yes. Make you promises, no.”
Pushing her breast into his caressing hand, his growl of appreciation valued her being bold. It hadn’t taken her long to lose her anxiety.
A month apart might have made her wary at first, but losing herself with him when they were alone had always been simple. Their days away from each other faded to nothing.
“Then I guess we’re at an impasse,” she said and tried to turn away.
Ryske snatched her arm and hauled her back. “You’re not gonna walk away so easy, Trink.”
Pulling her arm from his grip, she was happy to counter his vehemence. “Like you walked away from me? A month, Crash. You left me swinging in the wind for a month… Were you ever coming back?”
“No,” he said. Given his line of work, being so honest probably wasn’t normal procedure for him, especially with women. With her, for some reason, it was automatic. “I thought of you.” He drove his fingers through his hair. “Shit, Trink, you can tease me even from way across town.”
She hadn’t done anything to tease him, and she’d never asked him to leave her forever. Walking away from her had been his choice. If he wanted to blame her, he could. But she wasn’t going to apologize for his insanity… even if she was the cause of it.
“Did you dream of me, Sailor?” she teased, walking her fingers up his chest.
“I dreamed of quieting that smart mouth,” he said, leaning down. “Of tying you to my bed and keeping you locked up for two weeks.”
Harlow hadn’t locked him up, and she hadn’t tied him to anything. Bale’s rules had made him feel like a prisoner, he’d told her as much in the past. “Maybe you should stab me.”
One side of his mouth rose higher than the other; the light in his eye became sinister. “If that’s an invitation, I’m gonna take it.” Seeing her confusion made him grab his groin to explain. “I’ve got something real special I wanna drive deep into you.”
“Oh, Crash,” she muttered. “That’s just crude.”
Again, she tried to turn away. This time when he grabbed her upper arm to haul her back, he cupped the back of her head too. Before she could catch her breath, he wrenched her to the tips of her toes and sealed his mouth over hers.
Harlow had told herself not to kiss him, not to give him any encouragement until he could give her something more than sex in return.
That ideal evaporated when he plunged his tongue into her mouth and bonded them in the way she’d been resisting for weeks. The warmth of his mouth was luxury like she’d never known it. Security circled her, pulling her to him, attaching her essence to his like her sanity depended on him too.
If she’d been able to hold onto a thought beyond the incredible texture of his lips owning hers, she may have regretted being glib about how she tormented him. After this, she’d never be sure of her lucidity without him at her side to keep her grounded.
She’d never given credence to the helplessness of addiction. Harlow was strong-willed and had spent her life arguing with her mother because she wouldn’t conform for the sake of it. If she had an opinion that differed from someone else’s, she had no problem voicing it.
That fortitude served her; it combined with her overwhelming desire to drive her on and encourage her in everything she did… which at that moment seemed to be this man.
Grasping for the hem of his tee-shirt, Harlow wasted no time in pulling it off over his head. While Ryske was still freeing his arm from the fabric, she thrust him back, knocking him off his feet. Ryske landed on the couch. Before he could think about catching his breath, she climbed onto his lap to straddle him and ran her fingertips down the center of his bare torso.
Avoiding his mouth was supposed to prevent this. His breaking of that seal shattered her resolve. They’d crossed the line and he didn’t seem sorry. Driving his hands into her hair, he pulled her mouth back to his and consumed her with his desire.
Habit made her fear for his wound but reminding herself that it had been healing for six weeks, it shouldn’t be painful anymore. His kiss didn’t slow or drift, so she made herself forget about any vulnerability and let herself trust the strength and capability of the man owning her.
“I figured it might be time to—”
The sound of a male voice made her break the kiss. Planting her hands on Ryske’s chest, Harlow pushed away, blinking the daze of desire from her eyes. Looking over the back of the couch, she found that Noon was just inside the room.
“Fuck off, Noon,” Ryske said, without sparing his friend a glance because he was too busy trying to coil his arms around her.
The sight of another person made her remember herself. Looking at Ryske, the reality of what they’d just been doing became all too clear.
There was no solace in being right. Harlow had known that if she let herself kiss him, or be kissed by him, that her body would take over and instinct would make it impossible to resist going all the way.