The Rush (46 page)

             
“Why?” he whispered, his voice coarse and raspy. It coated the sound as it hit my ears and pushed me a step forward, a step into his arms.

             
“It just does,” I explained without explaining anything.

             
“Yeah?” he asked, his voice that same sexy growl.

             
My body heated to a liquid fire. I felt burning hot and tingly and so lost at the moment I didn’t know what to do. My heart hammered in my chest, loud, pounding, furious. My fingertips buzzed with anticipation and my eyesight had narrowed so severely that anything beyond Ryder’s face felt fuzzy and far away.

             
All of a sudden the space between us was filled, brimming over with emotion and tension. There had been some of that before; the space between us had
never
been empty. But now it was completely full, atoms and particles and molecules and whatever else occupied the space between zinged around in a wild frenzy, charged with the growing s
omething
that enveloped everything separating us.

             
“So it matters to you that I’m single,” he dropped his head to just a breath away from mine. I shivered, a quick, jerking motion that propelled me the rest of the distance to Ryder’s body.

             
He caught me, like he was expecting me and in the next moment his mouth was on mine. One hand slipped around my waist pulling me impossibly closer to him, the other sliding up to cradle my neck in his huge hand. His lips pressed against mine so gently, so impossibly careful that I barely felt the soft fullness of them.

             
I was frozen, hypnotized, I couldn’t have moved for anything, not even to intensify the kiss even though that’s all I wanted. And while he seemed to hesitate in indecision, I struggled to step out of my decision. I screamed every argument at myself I could think of, every truth and lie I had been convincing myself of ever since we met. But the most sincere truth, the most base, primal, real truth I could admit to myself was that I
wanted
to kiss him; I wanted this more than
anything
. More than freedom.

             
And in the same instant I admitted that to myself, Ryder seemed to come to a conclusion of his own because his lips moved against mine. Delicately at first, and then demanding, hungry.

             
He
devoured
me.

             
Possessed
me.

             
And I let him own me. There was no fight against him, no will or resolve left to do anything except give myself up to him.

             
I opened my mouth and let his tongue in, let it sweep along mine, so sweet at first, so achingly tantalizing that I felt myself moan into his mouth. A blush heated my neck and began creeping its way up my face, but there was no time to be embarrassed because the sound seemed to flip a switch in him and then all of his inhibitions were gone and he pushed me against the cold metal of the refrigerator and consumed every piece of me.

             
His arms imprisoned me to him, his fingers splayed against my skin, pressing into me as if I would evaporate if he didn’t hold on to me. His mouth was relentless against mine, nipping, licking, sweet then rough, gentle then bruising. I made more sounds, desperate sounds of need that he matched with low groans of satisfaction.

             
The hand on my back tugged at the hem of my shirt and then slipped under so that the heat of his palm scorched the sensitive skin of my spine. I bucked forward, and my arms tightened around his neck.

             
This wasn’t a kiss. This was an epiphany. My moment of clarity.

             
My salvation.

             
Ryder’s hand left my back and reached down to cup the back of my thigh. With one swift movement he lifted me off the ground with that one hand, his bicep straining tightly under my grip. He brought my body up and I instinctively wrapped my legs around him. He sighed his approval and then took a stumbling step forward. We tilted off balance, dizzy and upended with desire. He adjusted my weight with his other hand and I clung to his biceps to keep ahold of him. With another stumbling step, he set me on the edge of the metal counter. My legs stayed around his waist and he pushed into me, keeping no distance between us.

             
His lips left mine to explore my jawline, my neck, my collarbone. I dropped my head back to allow him more room and I closed my eyes so that they wouldn’t roll in the back of my head.

             
“Ryder, I whispered against his teasing kisses.

             
He worked his way back up my neck, his tongue sliding sensually over the sensitive skin of my earlobe and then he started to work back to my lips. His fingers grasped my hips, digging into my flesh and holding me in place. I was thankful for his tight grip, thankful that he was holding me in place because I was positive that without his hands supporting me I would have slipped off the counter, slipped out of reality and just floated away.

             
I tightened my legs around his waist, bringing him as close as possible; hating that anything was separating us, even the clothes we were wearing. His hands jerked my waist forward in response, as if I could get closer, as if I would allow anything between us.

             
Through our haze of lust the front door of the café chimed, alerting us that someone had walked in. The faint, distant sound seemed to affect us both simultaneously and we pulled back immediately. Ryder was three steps away before I could blink my eyes open. But the cold reality that washed over me like a bucket of ice forced me to ignore the heartbreaking feeling of emptiness that accompanied the space between us.

             
We stared at each other for a few moments, neither sure what to say. Ryder’s hair was messier than ever, tussled and wild from our minutes of passion. His lips were swollen and more sensual than ever and even though I refused to acknowledge them his hands were trembling just barely at his sides.

             
“Ivy, I-“ he started but I cut him off with a wave at a hand.

             
He was the first guy friend I had ever had. Maybe the first real friend I ever had. I couldn’t ruin that.

             
I wouldn’t ruin that.

             
“We, that was, um,” I fumbled through some lame excuse, but my brain was still addled from the desire still pounding through me. Damn it. This was frustrating; I just needed to think of something.

             
But Ryder beat me to it, “Do
not
read anything into that,” Ryder raised a firm, authoritative voice at me.

             
“Uh, Ok,” I agreed, my brow wrinkling just a little and the irrational urge to giggle bubbling up into me.

             
He seemed just as desperate as I was to keep things platonic between us.

             
“That was
not
a kiss,” he reiterated and this time I did laugh.

             
“It wasn’t?” I questioned a smile lifting the corners of my mouth.

             
“No, definitely not. It was…. it was a, uh, experiment.” He ran two hands through his already riotously mussed hair. “I just wanted to see if it was as repulsive as I thought it would be.”

             
“And was it?”

             
“Yes. Definitely,” the only tell that he was lying was the way his eyes heated again, as if we were dangerously close to repeating the “experiment” right this second. “Actually it was much worse. You’re a terrible kisser.”

             
The impassioned moment was instantly defused and I burst into laughter. “Thanks for the critique.”

             
“That’s what friends are for,” he smirked at me, casual, lazy and back to normal.

             
That’s what friends do. Exactly. Just friends.

             
I took a big breath and hopped off the counter.

             
“Ok, I should,” he pointed toward the café. “Right.”

             
And then he was through the swinging door and I was alone. I heard his polite tone, muffled but recognizable, ask for the customer’s order. I took the moment to smooth out my rumpled clothes and pull my tangled hair into a low, side ponytail. I pressed my lips together, hoping they weren’t nearly as swollen as Ryder’s had been, but I kind of knew that was asking too much. And then I nonchalantly left the kitchen and passed behind Ryder through the lift-gate counter.

             
“Ivy?” a disturbingly familiar voice asked from in front of the cash register.

             
“Nix?” I turned around and faced him straight on. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

             
“Afternoon pick me up,” he gestured toward where Ryder was swiping his credit card and shooting me a sideways glance. “What are
you
doing here?”

             
What was I doing here, damn it? I hadn’t anticipated this. “Um, Ryder and I have a project we’re working on. I was just going over some of the notes with him.”

             
“Are you finished with him?” Nix asked, his dark eyes impossible to read.

             
“Huh?” My mouth dropped open at his question and the blush was back crawling up my neck and giving me away.

             
“With your project? I want you to have coffee with me,” he commanded and I just nodded my head in response.

             
“Sure,” I finally choked out. “Ryder and I are done.”

             
Nix turned back to Ryder, “She’ll have a caramel-“

             
“Macchiato,” Ryder finished on a snap of possession. I shot him a pleading look that he definitely ignored. And then when Nix held out his card again, Ryder declined him. “She actually already ordered, I just hadn’t made it yet.”

             
Nix took this in with a clipped nod and then walked over to a table. He waited for me to follow and sit down before he joined me. He unbuttoned his gray suit jacket and loosened his tie just a tiny bit for comfort. I recognized all these gestures as him getting ready for serious business.

             
Nix cocked his head in the direction of Ryder and lifted a thick, black eyebrow at me.

             
“Just following orders,” I mumbled.

             
His eyebrow descended back to its resting place and his face smoothed out in acceptance of my lie. “I’m glad I caught you here,” he admitted in a low voice. “I was just coming over to talk to you.”

             
“Yeah?” I asked. My stomach erupted in nerves. Not nerves like the butterflies Ryder gave me, unless these butterflies had strapped razor blades to their wings and were flying about with the sole intention of shredding me from the inside out until I bled to death.

             
“It seems you have a few things to learn, Ivy. I didn’t want to have to do this, but I’m sending you on a job.” His eyes were pure authoritative arrogance. There was nothing there but cold decisiveness. This was a lesson he decided he needed to teach me. And he was right, if he really thought I was going to stay with him. I needed to be broken, bridled. But because I knew that there was no way in hell I would ever stay with him, a shudder convulsed my body and I gripped at the table so tightly my knuckles turned white.

             
Nix, noticing my reaction grunted a short puff of air in disapproval. “You brought this on yourself, Ivy. I would have been happy to have trained you…. personally. But I cannot ignore your disruptive behavior or your disrespectful attitude. So you’re going on a job tomorrow night with Anaxandra and Evaleen. It’s nothing you won’t be capable of, just a friendly dinner with some colleagues of mine.”

             
An escort. I was going to be an escort.

             
“Nix, I am
sixteen
,” I hissed frantically. My nails bit into the underside of the table, any more pressure and I would rip them off.

             
“Ivy, it’s dinner. That’s all. Trust me, I would not ask more of you than that. Do not forget that you are
mine
.” His words were a heavy bark of an order before his eyes flickered to Ryder who was setting our drinks down on the table.

             
“Thank you,” I mumbled, ignoring Ryder as he tried to catch my gaze. I couldn’t acknowledge him in front of Nix, not after this conversation, not after what happened in the kitchen.

             
Ryder disappeared back behind the counter but I could feel his concentrated stare as he watched us.