Because of you (17 page)

“
I’m sorry, I’m not ready for …umm…anything more. I’m sorry.” I quickly reach for my shirt and wrap it around myself.

“
Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he holds my cheeks in his hands and looks me in the eyes. “Don’t be sorry.”

“
Not that I don’t want to, it’s just that…umm...” How can I tell him this? I think it’s best if I just blurt it out, there’s no other option. “Umm… I’ve never slept with anybody.” He looks at me with surprise.

“
Seriously? Wow, okay.” I look at him with uncertainty.

“
Does this bother you?” He shakes his head.

“
No, on the contrary, I’m glad nobody has touched you before me. I want, no, I wish to be your first.” I blush as I imagine how it would be like to make love to him.

“
I’m not going to do anything you don’t want, I promise, I just want to touch and kiss you. Is
that
okay?” I nod and he throws the shirt on the floor. He carries me to
bed, gently puts me down on my back and climbs on top of me, his knees on either side of my waist. “Just touches and kisses, I promise,” he says, his lips on my neck. I am consumed by desire and I dig my hands into his hair. His tongue expertly caresses my naked skin, causing goosebumps. His nose skims over my nipple, both of us moaning in pleasure as he sucks my nipple in his mouth.
We're
so absorbed in each other I don’t even notice he’s shirtless. I press my hand to his stomach as he moves on top of me, watching me intensely, and begins to kiss a wet trail down to the center of my body. We groan in pleasure. I run my hands on his chest, down his stomach, until I reach the rim of his pants. “Shit, we better stop, otherwise I won’t be able to stop,” he says, breathless and with a sexy smile, kissing me loudly on my lips as he lies beside me. He turns to his side, bends his arm at the elbow and leans his head on his hand. He traces the tattoo on my collarbone with his fingers. “Hope,” he whispers. Not long ago I got a tattoo of my sister’s name in her memory. At the very top of my collarbone it says ‘Hope’, and behind her name dandelion seeds, little fluffy parachutes, are floating in the wind, from the biggest to the smallest.

“
In memory of my sister,” I tell him. “Even though she was a grown woman, she always
had
that child’s sparkly look in her eyes when we were blowing
dandelions
.” I shrug and pull my hair to the side.

“
I think Hope would’ve loved your tattoo. It’s beautiful.” He kisses my collarbone and covers us with a blanket.

Caden

I have to make sure she didn’t make a copy, that’s my only hope, my only way to keep me out of jail. I already destroyed the footage, and I feel a huge weight removed from my chest. I still can’t believe I didn’t notice the camera filming me as I got rid of Hope. It wasn’t my intention to kill her, but when she started threatening me with prison, I lost it completely. I also can’t believe I was so reckless when I sold those kids the drugs and she caught me on tape… Well, I took care of it. I can tell Aaliyah is becoming more and more nervous when she sees me, so I need to pay her a few more surprise visits, so she’ll break and I’ll be able to easily destroy her. I know her well—she won’t go to the police, because she’s afraid no one is going to believe her, not without the footage. My influence is far-reaching and my colleagues would sweep everything under the rug. Unfortunately, I can’t let her live, she knows too much. I just have to find the right way to get rid of her. Too bad someone is always with her, I can never get her alone to do what I have to. “Patience, Caden, patience,” I say encouragingly to myself.

Chapter 14

Aaliyah

It’s been a week since I told Ryder I’ve never slept with anyone. He’s very patient and attentive, and our relationship is getting stronger by the minute, as well as my desire for him. This week, I’ve seen Caden watching me twice, but he didn’t approach me. I don’t know what he’s up to, and I don’t like it one bit. Addison and I are standing in the middle of the room, she’s helping me pick what to wear for my date with Ryder. He asked me out, but doesn’t want to tell me where he’s taking me. He just said I need to wear warm clothes. So now I’m standing in front of a mirror, dressed in low rise washed jeans, pulling a brown sweater over my head.

“Should I wear my hair up or down?” I ask Addison as I’m holding my hair in different hairstyles to see which one fits best.

“
Definitely up—it’ll be better for where you’re going.” I turn around, looking at her.

“
Ugh, why are you so secretive? This only makes me more nervous. Can you at least give me a hint?” I pout, giving her a puppy
-
dog face.

“
Nope, no way, you’ll have fun. I still can’t believe you’re dating my brother. I’m so happy he found a normal girl for once.” I give her an honest smile.

“
Thank you.” Gentle knocking comes from the door. Addison and I look at each other, grasping each other’s hands in excitement.

“
Let me open the door,” she says as I
look at
myself in the mirror for the last time, checking if I look okay.

“
Hey,” I hear Ryder’s strong voice as he enters. I turn to him, full of excitement and nervousness.

“
Hi,” I manage to say when he pulls me in for a deep kiss.

“
Umm, even though I love you two to death, I don’t have a particular desire to watch you make out in the middle of the room. Come on, come on, just go. You’re in for an interesting night.” Addison says. We link out fingers together and are already on our way.

“Why do I need to keep my eyes closed?” I ask, upset. “I’d rather look at your gorgeous eyes.”

“
Gorgeous, huh? Just a little while longer. Be patient.” He puts his hand on my knee, caressing the length of my thigh with his thumb and index finger.

“
You always know what to do to avert my attention to something else, huh?”

“
Anything for you, baby, anything for you.” He holds my hand and I feel his soft lips press a hot kiss on my hand.

“
How much longer?” He doesn’t respond, and I can feel the car stopping.

“
We’re here.” I clap my hands in excitement. I am impatient and want to see where we are. The door on my side opens and Ryder gently pulls me out.

“
You may look now,” he says, standing behind me with his hands wrapped around my shoulders.

“
You remembered…” I exclaim in surprise, turn around and hug him. We’re standing in front of a big amusement park. A couple of days ago, I told him Hope and I often went to an amusement park to forget about the things waiting for us at home, at least for a moment.  He nods, kissing down my neck.

“
Yes, I want you to forget about bad things in your life for a few hours and just have fun.” I know he’s talking about Caden but doesn’t want to speak his name. “Come
!
” he says. We are holding hands, stopping at the game booth where you have to knock down cans with a little ball. “Want to try?” he asks as he gives some money to the man who just put the cans back in their place. I nod and throw the first ball out of three. I hit the center but don’t manage to knock down all the cans. I take the second one, but now I throw the ball
completely off target,
so I don’t hit any of the cans. Shaking my head, I look at Ryder. “You’re doing well, there’s still one ball left.” I throw this one hard, and a few cans loudly fall on the floor. Happy for knocking down so many, I turn to Ryder, who nods. “Now, it’s my turn,” he says as the man passes him the balls. He doesn’t get all the cans either, so we try our luck elsewhere. Ryder stops by the booth with a basketball hoop, excited. “I have to score all the baskets here or I may as well just stop playing basketball.” He throws the first ball and scores, and
scores again
with the second ball.

“
Show-off,” I laugh, and stick my tongue out at him.

“
This one’s for you, babe,” he says, and the ball lands in the basket. I wrap my hands around him in delight, awarding him with a kiss.

“
Well done, what toy are you going to choose?” asks the man as he picks up the ball.

“
She should choose, it’s for her,” Ryder winks at me. I look around the booth and point
to
a big plush panda.

“
I want this one.”

With cotton candy in our hands we stroll around the amusement park and stop by a bench. Ryder tears off a fluffy piece of cotton candy and puts it in my mouth, so I purposely lick his finger seductively and close my eyes, moaning.

“
Damn it, don’t do that, otherwise we’re going home this instant.” He wraps an arm around my shoulder and we talk,
relaxed.

“You know, I never did thank her for all that she has done for me.” Ryder gives me a questioning look. “Hope. I never thanked her.”

“
She knew how grateful you were for having her in your life, believe me.” I close my eyes, determined to tell him the whole story.

“
The memory card Caden was talking about…” He nods encouragingly, waiting for me to continue. “This card held the only proof that could put him in prison. The day he broke into my room, he found it and destroyed it.” I close my eyes and grit my teeth, angry with myself. “On it was footage of him selling drugs, and killing Hope.” He squeezes my hand comfortingly, and I tell him everything that I saw on the footage.

“
How come you didn’t take it to the police? Despite him being a policeman, this is strong evidence and they would believe you.” I nod, agreeing.

“
You’re right. But I didn’t even know about the card, well, not until recently. He found it before I could take it to the police. And now I have nothing left. He got away without consequences again.” I shake my head, tears starting to well in my eyes. “And my mother, it was as if she didn’t care when I told her what happened. She just shrugged and went into her room. I could tell by her eyes that she was high—she must have just gotten her hands on some drugs earlier that day. Caden kept supplying her with dope ever since he moved in with us. Before that she was locking us in our room whenever she needed to earn some money for a fix. I was always so afraid one of her customers was going to come to our room and try something with us. We often hid in a closet, pretending we were invisible.” A weird sound erupts from my throat, and a faint smile appears on my face, remembering Hope. Ryder wipes a tear, running down my cheek. “If I earned some money, I always had to hide it from them, otherwise they took it from me. Caden used to beat us, so I had to find excuses for the bruises in school. It’s a good thing they believed me. I had some broken bones because of the beatings Caden gave me. I was so scared I never told anyone he was hitting me, I said I was just clumsy. No one would’ve believed me anyway—in our town Caden is one of the most respected people. Everybody likes him, but they don’t know what a monster he truly is.” Ryder’s lips form a straight line and I notice his hands are clenched into fists. “We never knew our fathers, they were probably
her customers, but she never wanted to talk about them. Hope was my half-sister, but she took such good care of me, she was like a mother to me. Gail, that’s our mom’s name, always knew what Caden was like, but she kept quiet and turned a blind eye to things. All she cared about was her own ass. It benefited her that Caden was living with us—she didn’t have to prostitute herself anymore.” My cheeks are completely dry, I’m no longer crying. I don’t feel anything for that woman other than disgust and disappointment. “I hate her,” I tell him, “I hate her so much, and I don’t want to see her ever again.” Ryder hugs me tightly, caressing my hair, but doesn’t say anything, only rage radiates from his face.

“
Come, let’s get out of here,” he says, holding my hand, and we walk to the car.

~ * ~

“Do you want to come over to my place? I don’t want this evening to end yet.” Ryder looks at me, waiting for my answer. I nod. We spend the rest of the drive in silence, park the car and go to his room. When we get there, Ryder turns around to turn on the radio, and I slowly start
to undress
. Jeans follow the sweater on the floor and I’m standing in front of him only in my red satin underwear.

“
What are you doing?” His lustful gaze rakes my body, caressing me from head to toe and back up again.

“
I want you.”

“
What did you say?” he swallows, not completely sure if he heard me correctly.

“
I want you. I don’t want to feel this emptiness in myself, I don’t want to feel numb. I want you, your touches, your kisses, you, the whole you, and I don’t want to wait anymore.” He licks his lips.

“
Are you sure?” I bite my lip, nodding in response. “I want you, too, from the first time I saw you in the café. I couldn’t take my eyes off you, you were so beautiful. You and your silky skin are all I can think about. You are the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing on my mind before I fall asleep at night.” My heart is pounding, but not in fear. I step closer to him, filling the space between us. I pull his shirt over his head and slide my fingers across his toned stomach. For a moment we stop and just look at each other. “Are you sure? I would never force you.”