In disbelief, Harlow sagged against Ryske who was still holding her shoulders. Although she might be new to that specific department, she had worked social work for years. Runaways were common, bereavement happened all the time. Harlow was no rookie and had supported kids and parents through all kinds of fraught and tragic circumstances.
The man at her back squeezed her shoulders, maybe sensing how Clyde’s statement hurt her. “Shows no one in that department has a fucking clue who you are, Trink,” Ryske said, pulling her back to kiss her head. “My girl’s a fucking rock in any situation, Sap.”
Even the most dire of situations as Ryske knew firsthand. Much as she appreciated his support, Ryske was biased, she had saved his life.
“I didn’t think you’d folded,” Clyde said, quick to assert his faith in her.
To further prove it, he reached for her, probably to offer some kind of physical comfort too. Just attempting it was enough to make Ryske pull her back against his chest. Being possessive was just ridiculous. Clyde was nowhere near touching her, but apparently he was too near for Ryske’s liking.
“You know, Crash,” she said over her shoulder, sharing her observation. “Your boys kiss me and touch me all the time. I’ve never seen you even blink about that.”
“My boys wouldn’t compromise you,” Ryske said with a growl of impatient irritation. “That fucker would.”
She rolled her eyes and mouthed an apology to Clyde who smiled in response. “I was naked when Noon walked in on us this morning.”
“He’s already erased whatever he saw from his memory,” Ryske said, making her laugh even though he wasn’t joking.
In the field of her peripheral vision, Noon passed on his journey to Maze and saluted in agreement. The pair did their familiar huddle thing, exchanging murmurs, blocking out the rest of them.
“You have some warped rules, baby,” she said, taking Ryske’s hand from her shoulder to pull it around her collarbone so she could dip to kiss his forearm.
“You really are with him?” Clyde asked, his eyes narrowed like he couldn’t quite believe it.
“You got a problem with that, Sap?” Ryske snarled.
Harlow dug her nails into his wrist to quiet him. “I don’t know what I am with Ryske,” she said to Clyde. “But I do know it wouldn’t be smart to cross him.”
The second part didn’t register to Ryske because he was stuck on the first. “You don’t know what you are with me,” he said with a tone of incredulity.
Maze raised his forearm to tap an imaginary watch. “We’ve got a reservation, Night. Gotta hustle.”
No one had clued Harlow in on the plan. If she’d guessed on it, she’d have said Floyd’s was her next destination. A date with Maze wouldn’t have crossed her mind. “We… we have a reservation?”
“Yeah, Maze is going to take you for food,” Ryske said, guiding her around to face him while Maze and Noon headed into her bedroom.
“Noon and me got a place to be,” Ryske said. “Stick with Maze, he’ll bring you home after.” Searching him, she got a flashback of the night he’d left her here alone. “I’ll see you later.”
It was like he could read her mind. Those last four words were deliberate. They weren’t a casual “see you later” they were giving her the message, “I can hear what you’re thinking and I’m thinking it too.”
“Why is now different?” she asked, fingering the hem of his tee-shirt.
“Because of this,” he said and bowed to kiss her.
Harlow let her head fall back to better experience the texture of his mouth and the insistence of his tongue.
His kiss was so good it kicked her off-balance. “Oh, Crash,” she whispered, her eyes still closed, her mind swimming.
“I’ll stay if you want me to,” he murmured on her mouth, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You have the one thing it takes to stop me walking out that door.”
Her lips curled up. “I thought it wasn’t safe here.”
“I’d take the risk for that.”
Laughing, she slid her arms up around him and pulled him down for another kiss. There had been a time when she’d told him to keep his lips away from her, that they would never be together. It was a vague, distant memory and one that she didn’t like to dwell on.
Harlow had been falling for this guy since the moment he’d fallen on her. Fighting it would’ve been smart, distancing herself would’ve been safer. Except, she’d been ensnared by the allure of him, and probably wouldn’t have been able to free herself from his web if she’d wanted to.
Mumbling his approval, Ryske wrapped both arms around her torso and raised her off her feet, kissing her. One of his arms kept its grip but angled so he could cup her ass, squeezing her hard and letting her feel just how happy he was to be kissing her.
“No time for that,” Noon said from beside them.
Breaking the kiss, both she and Ryske turned to him. “You seriously want me to kick your ass today, don’t you?” Ryske said to his friend.
Noon just smirked, making her wonder if his interruptions weren’t some kind of prank arranged by his supposedly supportive crew.
“You’ve got your own appointment to keep,” Maze said.
Ryske lowered her onto her feet, but kept one arm tight around her while he raised the other to check his watch. The timepiece was above the double-wrapped leather band on his wrist. Touching the edge of the engraved metal that circled one strand of the wristband, Harlow thought about the night Bale had read its words to her.
“Carpe noctem,” she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.
His focus lowered to her. “We sure will, Trinket… We are gonna own the world.”
There was so much meaning and innuendo behind his tone that it became profound. She might have said something in response, but when her attention ascended, she noticed Maze and Noon were nearby with her luggage.
Harlow had been told to hustle. Instead, she’d stood basking in the man holding her. Time to get with it. “Oh,” she said. Pushing away from Ryske, she hurried to the desk to scoop up her books. “I need these too.”
Maze put her suitcase down. She crouched to open it up and put her books inside, using Maze’s legs as a stand for the back of the case. “She just kneels in front of any guy, doesn’t she?” he asked.
“I’m gonna start a list,” Ryske said. Harlow glanced over his shoulder to see him run a ragged hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t let you punks get in my head.”
“Yeah, you should really know better than that,” Maze said, leaning over to sock his buddy’s shoulder. After enjoying the frazzled Ryske for another few seconds, Maze’s focus dropped to her. “You done yet, Princess?”
“Where are we going to eat?” she asked, zipping up her case.
“Sushi,” Maze said.
The answer made her grin up at him.
“Yeah, he’s the only one of us who’ll eat that posh shit,” Noon said. “You want cheap Chinese or greasy burgers, call me.”
“I could take you to lunch, Harlow,” Clyde said, drawing everyone’s attention. “We could catch up with—”
“Ha, Flaxman’s funny, who knew,” Ryske said on a fake laugh, which his crew joined. Three seconds later, the sound died, giving way to an abrupt cold silence and a trio of glares. “Think about trying to get her alone and she won’t be the only one missing from your department.”
Surging to her feet, Harlow smacked his chest. “What did I tell you about scaring him?”
In response to her scolding, Ryske’s hand shot up to her throat, squeezing her tight. “I don’t have time to play this game with you now,” he growled. “But I’m thinking you might want to be punished later.”
Maze picked up the case and Noon handed him the sports bag too. Harlow didn’t see it, her eyes were trained to Ryske’s, but she heard the movement.
“Time to go, Flaxman,” Noon said.
“Wait, you can’t just leave her there with him like that,” Clyde said.
She’d guess they were going toward the door because the sound seemed to be receding. “He can handle her,” Noon said. “She always leaves him in one piece and a few bruises never hurt any guy.”
That suggested she was going to be the aggressor putting Ryske in his place. Though, that might make sense because technically Harlow had hit Ryske first. But if anything was going to end up bruised, it was going to be her throat in the force of that grip.
She relished every second.
Damnit, her man knew what his forceful actions did to her hormones. It was intoxicating to be held under his strength, overpowered, yet still in complete control. Control. Even with his superior ability, Harlow was confident in her influence over him.
The front door closed. The room fell into silence. The air crackled with a desire thicker and more potent than the need they hadn’t sated.
Ryske looked angry, but he wasn’t. He was turning her on and he knew it. Harlow couldn’t deny it, she was weak in the face of his strength, but only because it proved to her what this man was capable of. Her capability was in holding sway over him. She had her own power because he gave it to her.
Without so much as blinking, she angled her body closer, reaching for him. Unbuckling his belt, she did her best not to smile when she read his subtle flicker of surprise.
Ryske did a good job of not reacting when she opened his jeans and slid her hand inside to rub the reaction that had persisted since he’d been kissing her. The change in his breathing betrayed that her actions were having an effect. His lips got narrower. He pressed them tighter together as she curled the fingers of her free hand around his strong wrist.
Guiding his curved hand away from her throat, Harlow didn’t want it to leave her body, she just wanted to reposition it. Ryske didn’t argue when she directed it around to the crown of her head.
Rising to her tiptoes, he lowered his chin to accept her kiss. “Tighter,” she whispered when his mouth was a few millimeters from hers.
Tensing his fingers in her hair, they tangled in her locks, tugging on the strands, sending a sting through her scalp that made her hiss in satisfaction. His nostrils flared a little when he smiled, showing her that he was enjoying this as much as her.
Harlow winked at him and unlocked her knees, sinking down in front of him to breathe his dick into her mouth. Ryske hissed, a loud, almost pained noise, but she took it as a positive sign because his fingers clamped even tighter in her hair.
Her experience giving head was limited to a small number of men. Ryske was larger than Rupert, who’d been the only man she’d pleasured with her mouth for a long time. Harlow’s drive to please the man in her mouth now made her work harder.
Until Ryske, giving head had never given her pleasure. Something about this was arousing her though. Maybe it was the sensation of his fingers matting her hair or him hitting the back of her throat every time she sucked him into her. Harlow felt powerful and strong and alive, more than she remembered feeling before.
Ryske took risks, he was a danger to society and, in a lot of ways, to himself, because of the risks he took. But he was no danger to her.
Pulling his jeans further down, she kissed his thighs, up to his scar that she brushed her lips across, making quick eye contact with him before descending to his groin. Kissing him there, she kissed his shaft, licked him, and sucked him once, working him with her hands while she gave his balls a little love.
There was no way for her to know how many other women had done this for him. Dozens, maybe, hundreds, perhaps more. Ryske probably couldn’t even tell her the number. But there, with him in that second, she knew he belonged to her.
They couldn’t make promises or define what this was, but in these times they were together, alone together, there was nothing more powerful than their connection.
He swore and began to take more control of her advance and withdraw. His other hand joined the first and he pushed forward, coming hard against the back of her tongue with a hiss that made her hold her breath.
Swallowing until his seed was all gone, Harlow took her time about letting him leave her mouth. She didn’t move away, just rested her head on his thigh.
“We should say goodbye like that every time,” Ryske said. His breathing was still shaky, but she could hear that he was smiling, which made her smile too. “You’re incredible, Trinket.”
The front door opened. “What the hell is—oh, fuck!”
Noon’s exclamation made her smile grow.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Ryske snapped.
“Least you got to finish,” she said, taking his hand so he could help her to her feet.
“You guys have a lot of sex,” Noon said.
That was ironic given that they hadn’t done anything but oral. She and Ryske shared a private smile as she moved in close to tuck him away and fasten his jeans again.
“You got a problem with that?” Ryske asked Noon, stroking a hand down the side of her face.
“No, I’m saying, you act like I’m doing this shit on purpose. But, the truth is, if you guys are alone, you’re gonna be doing… something. So it’s hard to avoid.”
And Noon was the one usually sent to deliver messages. If anyone was going to be interrupting, it was going to be him.
“It’s okay, honey,” she said, turning her back on Ryske to address Noon. “We were just saying goodbye.”
“Wish someone would say goodbye to me like that,” Noon muttered.
She felt a little bad for him, but doubted any of the crew had to worry about a lack of female companionship. Each of them was hot and dangerous in their own way. Though, while this mess with Hagan was going on, they probably didn’t have a lot of time to socialize. If they weren’t allowed women upstairs in Floyd’s, they’d have to go back to the woman’s home and that meant separating from the group, from the pack, something else that wasn’t smart.
“I’ll call someone to say goodbye to you tonight, how’s that?” Ryske asked, bowing to kiss her shoulder before taking her hand to lead her toward the door.
Ryske had been the one to unlock her apartment and still had her key. Something Harlow only remembered when he took it out of his pocket.
“Cindy?” Noon asked, opening the front door.
“Cindy’s in Sydney,” Ryske said.
“Whitney?”
“Married,” Ryske said, holding the door open for her. Harlow stepped into the hallway and Ryske closed the door to lock it up. “So that’s a maybe… I’ll call her.” He tucked the key into his pocket and put an arm around her. The three of them started for the stairway. “You know who is in town?”
“Who?” Noon asked.
“Svetlana,” Ryske said.
Noon paused at the top of the stairs. Harlow read Ryske’s smirk. He kept it trained on the stairs, pretending not to notice his friend’s reaction, though she didn’t doubt that he had.
They descended and were all the way down the first flight before Noon came thundering after them. “Is—”
“Lyudmila with her? Yes, she is,” Ryske said.
“How the hell do you know that?” Noon asked. “Why haven’t they been over to party?”
“She called me last week, that’s how I know,” Ryske said, opening the alleyway door for her. Maze was out there alone, sitting shotgun in the car with his window rolled down and his elbow on the sill. “And I told them not to come over.”
“What?” Noon said with such horror Maze looked up.
“What’s going on?” Maze asked.
Noon went around to get in the driver’s seat while Ryske tucked her into the back of the car. Noon started driving, but threw his passenger a look of shock. “Ryske told the twins not to come party.”
“I know, he told me,” Maze said, less horrified than Noon.
Ryske was laughing when he pulled her close to tuck her under his arm. “I’ll call and find out where they’re staying. You can go hang with them, have them both to yourself.”
“Won’t Zance…”
“What?” Ryske asked. “Not like they were exclusive.”
“No, ‘cause she was fucking you every chance she got,” Maze said.
“We’ve shared women before,” Ryske said. “Never bothered him. Never bothered me.”
“I don’t think there’s a damn woman on the planet you haven’t shared with one guy or another,” Maze said and there was a moment of silence. “You never did the threesome thing… did you?”
“Svet and Zance? No,” Ryske said. “Svet and Lyud…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. Having a threesome was something she’d expect from him, but finding out he’d had one with sisters was both horrifying and impressive in about equal measure.
“Their numbers are in the lockbox in the desk,” Maze said. “The key’s hanging on the back of the closet door, it’s not like he makes a secret of it. You can raid Ryske’s catalog any time. There are thousands of women in there. Just drop his name, they’ll come a’runnin’.”
“They’re more likely to show if he calls,” Noon grumbled.
“I’m not a pimp,” Ryske said in a kind of sing-song voice though there was humor in his tone. “You want it, you work for it. The rest of us have to.”
Noon snorted and even Maze laughed. “You’ve never had to work for sex in your life.”
It was a good thing that the guys were in the front, because Harlow’s lips began to rise. Ryske tightened his hold on her and buried his mouth in her hair. “Not a word, Trink.”
Still smiling, she dug her nails into him in a kind of teasing response.
“Bet Dover doesn’t know the twins are in town,” Noon muttered, checking a junction before pulling out. “We always make a mint when we have the girls in on a Friday.”
Friday was the main event in Floyd’s, the night they made the most amount of money in their basement casino. Harlow had thought it was just gambling that went on down there. Though, she hadn’t been down to check the place out and hadn’t thought to ask too many questions.
“They’re dancers?” she asked, tipping her head back.
Ryske kissed her forehead and kept his eyes ahead. “Hookers, baby.”
They had hookers in Floyd’s? She’d had no idea. “So you are a pimp?”
Maze made a sound of amusement, and Ryske pulled her closer, nuzzling her hair. “Svet is a madam, Lyud backs her up… Whatever they make is theirs. We just give them a place to operate.”
“A safe place to operate,” Maze said and twisted to look at them. “How did we get to talking about the twins anyway?”
“Noon is lonely,” Ryske said, tilting his head toward the driver.
Maze gave Ryske a look she couldn’t interpret, but she felt the man holding her nod.
Turning back to the front, Maze slouched in his seat. “You like sushi, Nightingale?”
“Uh, yeah, I do.”
And just like that the conversation moved on. Harlow still had questions, but when did she not? These men had complicated lives and histories more intricate than she’d be able to follow. She’d been naïve not to consider her life simple, as it had been before anyway.
Growing up in a semi-affluent family, she’d had an excellent education, always been safe, and for the most part, she’d been happy, even if she’d never quite fitted in.
College and Rupert were just extensions of that typical existence. She had lived a simple life and even in spite of her work, she’d never fully understood what doing anything to survive really meant, not until she met Ryske and his crew.
Twisting around, she angled until she could look up at Ryske who was saying something to Maze about Dover’s issue with a liquor supplier and how they might have to pay the guy a visit later.
Ryske would do anything to survive. Noon and Dover were the same. Maze was more of an enigma. Having lunch with him would give her a chance to learn more about the man she hadn’t spent much alone time with.
Pushing up, she cut Ryske off in the middle of the sentence by kissing him. At first, he was too stunned to respond, but it didn’t take him long to catch up. He smoothed a hand over her cheek, and when he lost his hand in her hair, she leaned back.
The question of why was in his eyes, but she didn’t answer it, she just turned again and rested her head against him, closing her eyes. They’d probably get to the restaurant in a couple of minutes and Maze would keep her occupied while Ryske went to whatever appointment he had to keep with Noon.
Harlow didn’t know where the pair were going. Wherever it was, they’d keep each other safe. Unless she became more embedded in the group that was probably all she could ever hope to understand.