Passing His Guard (Against the Cage #2) (22 page)

“Mom, I gotta go.” Without waiting for a response, he ended the call and tossed the cell onto the bed before heading for the bathroom. “Ryann?” he called, rapping his knuckles against the door. She didn’t respond. He knew full well she heard him. When the shower started up he tried the knob—locked. Their conversation wasn’t over, not by a long shot, and he’d be dammed if he was going to let her get away with avoiding him. What had she been about to say before they’d been interrupted? “Ryann, I know you can hear me. Open the door.”

“I’m taking a shower,” she called back. “Why don’t you get ready to go? Your mother’s anxious to get you back, and she isn’t paying me to lounge around here all day.”

He knew from her brittle remark that he’d offended her with his thoughtless comment. Though spoken in haste, it might not have been such a bad thing to say to Madeline. If she so much as suspected there might be something between him and Ryann, his mother wouldn’t hesitate to renege on paying her, and that was a risk Ryann couldn’t afford to take. Getting involved with him was a mistake.

Reluctantly, he moved away from the door and began packing up his few belongings. Perhaps it was better this way, he tried to convince himself. Better to pretend this thing between them wasn’t happening, because come tomorrow they’d be in New York and this little road trip would be over—along with any reason they would have to see each other again. Best not make this any more complicated than it had to be. Piece of cake, right?

Zipping up his newly purchased duffel, he slung the strap over his shoulder and headed outside to load the car before checking out. Feeling solid about his conviction and ignoring the cramp in his heart that told him he was a bullshit liar, he mumbled to himself, “It’s only one more day. What can possibly happen?”

CHAPTER

 23 

R
yann happened. She happened right out into their connecting rooms wearing nothing but a skimpy towel just as he was walking through the doorway to give her a room key. Certain he couldn’t bear the temptation and needing to put some space between them after spending the better part of a day cooped up in an SUV with her, he’d booked them each their own room. At her insistence, he’d gotten ones with a connecting door. The closer they got to New York, the antsier he grew, and he suspected Ryann didn’t completely trust him not to flake on her.

They’d been driving all day. She hadn’t brought up their conversation in the motel room or his mother. It seemed as if they’d both mutually agreed those two issues were off the table for conversation. She spent most of the car ride sitting in stony silence, leaving him alone with his thoughts—a dangerous place to be. Whether her silence was brought on by the lasting effects of a hellacious hangover or her still being miffed over his comment to his mom, he couldn’t know.

True to her promise, she’d answered his questions about her involvement with Vincent Moralli, and he’d needed to bite back a foul curse more than once. Ryann was in danger, for more reasons than she realized. After hearing her story, he had no doubt the man had her father killed and had been banking on the life insurance money to resolve his debt. But knowing Vincent Moralli, it wasn’t that simple.

Seventy-five grand wasn’t anything to him, but it was a way for him to get his hooks into a beautiful young woman. If Aiden were to venture a guess, he’d wager Moralli wanted her for something a hell of a lot more distasteful than paying off her father’s debt. He knew how the bastard thought, he’d been forced to work with him for enough years, seen enough manipulative, underhanded dealings to know he wasn’t going to let Ryann just walk away from this.

She was convinced that after she collected her paycheck from his mother and she paid her father’s debt, that’d be the end of it and fuck him, he hadn’t had the heart to dash her hopes. Time would tell. They’d play it her way and see how it rolled out, but Aiden couldn’t shake the feeling that returning was a mistake, and New York was about to deal them each a life-altering hand.

Aiden hissed a curse and abruptly spun around, giving Ryann his back, but it was too late. He was already hard as a rock, his pulse thundering wildly through his veins, centering in the base of his cock. “I’m sorry, I thought you were still in the shower,” he said to the wall. “I wanted to give you your keycard.”

“Oh . . . umm . . . you can just leave it on the table. Thanks.”

He set the keycard down and had to give his legs a firm command to get their ass moving, all the while his dick pitched a fit like a two-year-old who’d gotten his favorite toy taken from him. “Good night, Ryann.” Shit, he sounded like he’d been eating gravel.

“Good night, Aiden.”

Something in her voice made him pause. Hesitancy? Disappointment? Who the hell knows. All he knew was that this was killing him, being this close to her and wanting to get closer. But he’d done casual enough times to know that with Ryann, he couldn’t pretend it was just sex. Ryann was different. And if he crossed that line, he was going to be entering into uncharted territory. He cared about Ryann—more than he ought to—and if he let himself get closer to her, let himself explore what this was between them, there was a good likelihood he wasn’t going to be able to let her go.

How many times had he stepped into the cage and faced an opponent without giving it a second thought? And now here he was, backing down from a midge half his size, because she made him afraid of his feelings? Fucking embarrassing was what this was. If Easton was here, he would have been demanding Aiden’s man card. With a self-damning curse, he shut the adjoining door with more force than necessary and beelined it to the shower to try and take the edge off.

You’re effing kidding me!
Ryann put a pillow over her head, trying to drown out the moans and sighs coming from the other side of the wall, opposite the room connecting to Aiden’s. The rhythmic banging of the headboard made sleeping in this room absolutely impossible. The screams were unbearable—seriously, was someone killing her in there? If he was, the guy wasn’t doing a very good job of it because he needed to do it “more” and “harder.”

With a frustrated groan, she lifted her pillow and glanced at the alarm clock—three a.m. They’d been going at it for almost two hours. Was that even possible? Who in their right mind could want to do it that long and that many times? Unbidden, an image of Aiden popped into her mind and she answered her own question.

Her pulse quickened at just the thought of him, and the symphony of pleasure playing out in the room next door heated her blood. She couldn’t get comfortable. Her skin felt too tight, the bedsheets too rough. Every one of her nerve endings seemed to tingle with awareness—awareness of the man one adjoining door away. She’d thought he would have tried to come over, but sadly that fighter had a will of steel. In the last two days, something had changed between them. Gone was the arrogant Disco Kruze who seemed to have a mind for one thing and one thing only, and in his place was a complex man who, if she didn’t know better, she’d swear was avoiding her.

This was ridiculous. Here she was, lying here and listening to this while a man who would rock her world, and undoubtedly put those two to shame, was no more than twenty feet away from her. Maybe he thought he was doing the honorable thing by keeping his distance. Maybe she’d scared the ever-loving hell out of him with her drunken confession. It didn’t matter. Tomorrow they’d be going their separate ways, and she was not going to pass up her last chance to be with him. Maybe he’d send her packing, but she’d never know unless she tried—what did she have to lose?

Throwing back the covers, her feet hit the floor just as the woman in the other room agreed with her.

“Yes . . . ! Yes . . . !”

Ryann rolled her eyes and padded across the floor. She didn’t bother knocking before turning the knob. It easily gave to the pressure, and she counted it a good sign he hadn’t locked her out. Silently, she slipped inside and closed it behind her—blessed silence. Her heart beat wildly as she approached his bed, her breath frozen in her lungs as she crept closer. The room was blanketed in darkness, except for the nimbus breaking out through the crack in the bathroom door, lighting the room just enough to see an outline of Aiden’s big body taking up a good portion of the full-sized bed. What should she do? Should she wake him? Take off all her clothes and slip under the covers with him?

She was weighing her options when his voice startled her.

“What are you doing, Ryann?”

“Aiden, you scared me,” she whispered, nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Did I wake you?”

“No. I haven’t been able to sleep.”

“Me neither. The couple next door is keeping me up.”

“You want me to go say something to them?”

“No, they’re umm . . . enjoying themselves. I was wondering if I could, you know, maybe sleep in here? With you?” Her courage started to waver when he didn’t respond right away.

“Ryann, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s killing me to do the right thing here, and if you get into this bed, I’m not going to be able to stop.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you do.”

“If you think you’re going to be able to have sex with me and then just walk away tomorrow like it didn’t happen, you’re either naïve or you’re lying to yourself.”

“Think you’re that good, do you?” she teased, a poor attempt to lighten the mood. It was a fail.

“I know I am, but that’s not the point. Ryann, I’ve done this enough times to know when something doesn’t feel right, or maybe in this case feels too right. You’re going to get hurt.”

“Listen, Aiden, I’ve played it safe my entire life. Doing all the right things, following all the rules. And look where it’s gotten me—the nice guy cheated on me with my best friend a week before my wedding. I’m nearly bankrupt, and one of the most dangerous men in New York is hunting me down. From where I’m standing, safe and responsible doesn’t look quite so good.”

“Fuck, Ryann, you’re killing me.”

The raw honesty in his voice sent a shiver of anticipation up her spine. It was all the encouragement she needed. Ryann pulled her nightshirt over her head and slipped her panties over her hips, letting them fall to the floor. “I’m not under any misconception about what this is, Aiden. I’m a big girl, I know what I’m doing,” she whispered as she lifted the covers and slipped in beside him.

He tensed. A tortured groan rumbled in his chest when her hand made a slow trek down his abdomen. “I’m not so sure you do, Ryann. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to lie here and explain it to you.”

Before her fingers could breach the waistband of his boxers, he caught her wrist in a firm grip and pulled her arm up over her head, pinning it to the mattress as he rolled on top of her. His mouth followed, coming down on hers with zero finesse. A raw, masculine sound rumbled in his throat as his tongue thrust past her lips and commandeered her mouth. He filled her senses and she immediately yielded to him, desperate for more. Either the man was a mind reader, or he really was very good at this, because Aiden anticipated her every want, her every need, before it could take root as thought. He consumed her with ravenous hunger, his lips teasing, his teeth nipping, his mouth devouring . . .

The trail he made down her neck would surely bear the evidence of his touch. He was like a starving man, and she was his last meal. When his head dipped and his mouth covered her breast, sucking hard against the turgid peak, she almost lost it right then and there. His touch was electric, his tongue torturing. Oh, mercy, she was so out of her league with this guy. All she could do was hold on and enjoy the ride.

“You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to be inside of you,” he groaned, his confession a ragged gasp. “How many cold showers I’ve endured . . .” His mouth blazed a path down her stomach. “How many times I came by my own hand, thinking of you and wishing you were there to relieve the agony.”

Oh, Lord, his wicked confession was like injecting lighter fluid into her veins. She burned up with him. The imagery he painted drove her senseless with desire. The tension coiling tight in her core propelled her hips off the mattress. She ceased processing thought beyond the need to be filled by him. The emptiness inside her became an insidious ache bordering on pain.

“Please, Aiden,” she panted, needing . . . needing . . . She didn’t know what she needed right now, only that he could give it to her.

“Shhh . . .” he crooned. “I’m going to take care of you, sweetheart, just trust me.”

His breath brushed over her glossy lips, wringing a desperate moan from her throat. She didn’t even recognize this mindless woman begging him to make her come. Ryann had never behaved so wantonly or with such reckless abandon. She was so close—already hovering on the razor edge of bliss. When Aiden slipped between her parted thighs, forcing them farther apart to accommodate the wide breadth of his shoulders, it opened her to him fully. The vulnerability of lying before him completely exposed, entirely at his mercy, was a heady sensation.