Chapter Twenty-six: Hell of a Man

Gia

HELL OF A MAN

Performed by Ella Langley

Annoyance rippled through me as Inarrowed my gaze at Ryder, trying to ignore the way his eyes dilated and his warm breath coasted over me. He stood so close that I’d barely need to move to kiss him. Those thoughts only amped up my irritation. “You had her tested? I told you we couldn’t afford for her to be in the system.”

“Maddox’s guy did it for us without entering it anywhere. No names.”

“Yeah, well, what if he’s working for the Lovatos?”

“He doesn’t even know who was being tested. And besides, he isn’t.”

My temper flared. “You can doubt Enrique, but I can’t doubt your guy? I know literally shit about this lab rat. How do you know he isn’t flagged in our system as a known cartel associate? You don’t get to make these kinds of decisions about my case without me.”

“Your case!” His hands went to either side of me on the counter, chest leaning into my space even more. “Your case just happens to center around my daughter. A person. An actual human being, not just some fucking code in a computer, or evidence to log, or a piece of leverage to use.”

“Do you actually believe I’d put her at risk to solve this?” I demanded, hurt cresting deep inside me.

“I think you’re very good at your job, and that means lying and conniving and pushing until you get what you want.”

His face dropped even closer to mine until our lips were almost touching. My skin broke out in goosebumps, gaze dropping to his mouth. It was set in a firm line I knew to be deceptively smooth when pressed against mine.

I swallowed hard, pressing past the attraction to keep my annoyance at the forefront as I tossed back, “I know you mean that as an insult, but screw you. I am good at my job. The fact I know where to push and pull is a good thing. But I also try to be as honest as possible because it’s hard to keep your lies straight otherwise. So don’t take your trust issues out on me—the one person trying to figure this out for you. For all of us. Do I want to chop off the head of the snake and rid our country of one more ugly cartel? Damn straight. I’ll be proud as hell when we do, but I would never jeopardize Addy to get it done.”

I hated that my voice cracked at the end of my little tirade.

His hands moved from the counter, gripped my waist, and tugged me into his chest just as his mouth landed on mine. This kiss was like our first one. Brutal and angry and frustrated. Seeking retribution. I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me or Ravyn or life in general. But it didn’t matter. My body ignited. I wrapped my arms around his neck, angled my mouth to accept the onslaught of his, and got lost in waves of longing.

The intensity of what I felt, locked in this fierce embrace, was nothing I’d ever felt before, and somehow, instinctively, I knew I’d never feel it again. This man, who appeared gruff and callous and severe on the outside, was burning up with love and regrets and sorrow on the inside.

I wanted to take it all away.

I wanted to toss aside the sorrow and heartache until there was none left so this beautiful, gruff man could love and trust again.

Those thoughts scared me, shooting waves of unease through my veins, and yet I didn’t break the kiss. It was Ryder who stepped back, fisting his hands on his hips, staring at my deliciously bruised mouth.

“What are you doing to me?” he asked, as if I was the one bewitching him rather than the other way around.

“You act like I’m the one who kissed you. You act like I’m the one weaving a spell around you when you’re the one tossing all your breathtaking pieces at me, making it impossible to keep my barriers up. To keep my focus.”

He looked startled by my words, and I knew I should stop, knew I should retreat and take back what I’d said or at least prevent myself from digging in further. Instead, the words continued to slip out of me. “I’m entranced by the beauty you craft so carefully for others. The gentleness with which you treat those you love. The fierce way you look after your family.”

My voice sounded breathless and tortured instead of calm and sure, and I still didn’t stop.

“I find myself wanting to be part of the group you shield and protect and care for, and I don’t know what to do with that. I’ve never wanted to belong to anyone…” I finally was able to jam my mouth shut, looking down and away from those blue eyes that hypnotized me. I could see why Ravyn made up fairy tales about this man. He was worthy of fairy tales.

But did I really want to belong to him? To this life? On a ranch in Tennessee?

I shook my head. No. It would mean giving up everything I’d worked too damn hard for. No way I’d just walk away from it all for a man. No way I’d walk away from the life I’d earned at the cost of my own heartbreaks.

I tried to slide past him, but he caught me with one large hand gripping my elbow. It was a light hold. One I could have easily broken but didn’t. Instead, I found my eyes meeting his again. The emotions that swam in them slashed into me, securing the lure he’d thrown out, snagging my heart in a way that would make it nearly impossible to break free.

“She was my soulmate. That was what I thought. But now…” He trailed off, and the intensity of his gaze as it bore into me unraveled me further, leaving me exposed. Raw. Scared. “How could she be the one for me when I didn’t even really know her? When what I feel touching you seems a thousand times more.”

His words dug deeper into me, making it harder to breathe. This man, the epitome of masculinity, talking about soulmates and true love and weaving his own fairy tales, grabbed my heart and wouldn’t let go.

“I’ve never believed in soulmates and one true love,” I whispered.

“Not even when you were a little girl?” he asked as his thumb rubbed along my arm.

“I wanted to play spies with my brother and was bored with the Disney princess movies. And when I did watch them, I loved the battles and mysteries more than the kisses. When I was a teenager, we moved three times while I was in high school. I barely made friends, let alone boyfriends. The closest I got was this guy in college…” I trailed off. I hadn’t talked about Kieran with anyone in more years than I could remember.

“What happened?” he asked. My first instinct was to toss it aside as I always did, but looking into those intense eyes, I knew he’d see through it if I did. He was good at seeing between my half-truths. Not even my parents had known how much Kieran had hurt me.

“I thought we were perfect for each other.” I rarely let myself think of those days and nights in Kieran’s tiny apartment in Philly, surrounded by computers, getting lost in each other’s skin after the high of an exhilarating hack. “We were two computer nerds working our way through college together in the tech repair department of the local box store. What I thought was us having fun, hacking and coding and exploring our limits in multiple ways, was really Kieran embezzling money and setting me up for the fall.”

Ryder’s face turned dark, and he tucked a strand of my hair that had escaped behind my ear. His touch burned, sending chills over my spine in the very best kind of way. “He pointed the finger at you?”

“I caught on to it before he could get that far. Turned him over to the authorities instead.”

“What did Kieran say?”

I swallowed, looking away, not wanting to retreat to those memories. “I didn’t give him the chance to say anything. It wouldn’t have mattered. He’d taken everything I thought we had and tossed it away by using my signature code to steal—the exact opposite of what he knew I wanted for my life. I double majored in law enforcement and computer science. I wanted truth and justice, not virtual robbery.”

I never saw him again after the night I’d stumbled onto what he was doing. He’d been naked and asleep behind me when I’d found the hidden folders on his computer. I thought it was a test. A game. We often devised these little traps for each other. What I’d seen had turned my insides to ice.

Ryder bumped my chin up with a knuckle, forcing me to meet his gaze again, and the compassion and understanding I saw there nearly made me weep. Except, it wasn’t for the woman I was now, but for the college girl who’d thought she’d found someone who wouldn’t disappear just because her family moved.

Ryder’s hand had settled on the curve of my collarbone, gently stroking as he said, “For years, I wished I’d been able to say a few words to Ravyn after she left. But I bet getting revenge must have felt just as good.”

“Instead of destroying me and my reputation as he’d tried to do, he actually helped build it. What I’d done to trace him and turn him in got flagged somewhere in the NSA’s systems, and they came knocking. I’ve spent nearly six years doing what I’d always wanted to do.”

“And protecting your heart against anyone else who has come along,” he said softly.

I shrugged. “Even if I believed in true love, not many people get the fairy tale.”

“That’s where I went wrong with Ravyn,” he said, and it was the first time I’d heard her name from his lips without an echo of pain behind it.

“What do you mean?”

“Believing love was a fairy tale. Just because someone is your soulmate doesn’t mean it’ll magically work if you don’t put in the effort. My parents love each other more than any couple I know, but even they have to work at it. They get angry. The baggage of their childhoods rears its head and strikes. The beauty of their relationship isn’t in the easy times. It’s in the hard ones. In the sacrifices they made to keep each other. It’s in the times they choose to stay when it would be easier to walk out the door. Ravyn may have stayed at the first hurdle we faced—when she got pregnant—but she ran when her past came knocking. She didn’t even give me a chance to go with her. To face it together.”

The fact that he might have gone with her stunned me. That he would have given up his life on the ranch and the love of his family to be at her side was slightly appalling because I couldn’t imagine Ryder anywhere else.

My pulse skittered as the reality of his words rolled through me. I’d thought my family didn’t know how to stay. That we’d drifted like nomads. And we had, but my parents had done that drifting together. My mom could have thrown in the towel, refused to move any of the number of times we’d had to pull up stakes. Instead, she’d followed the person she loved every time. Because she loved my dad. Because she believed in the life they lived together.

My brother had walked away from the Secret Service to be with Leya, trailing her and her band around the globe. He’d chosen to stay…it just wasn’t in a physical location. He’d chosen to stay with her, wherever that was.

As I looked at Ryder, with his dark hair flopping over his brow and his blue gaze whispering of promises I might have in the future if I let us continue down this path, I suddenly understood Ravyn. I understood her with a clarity I would never have gained without the feelings I had for him curling through me. Seeing Ryder with his family and his daughter, seeing the pride with which he managed the ranch, and seeing the home he’d designed and built out of love, there was no way I’d want him to give any of it up. I certainly wouldn’t want him to give it up to chase after me as I followed my career, darting around in the darkness with me playing spy. He may not realize it, but taking him from this place would destroy him. The absence of his family, the absence of a purpose, would eat away at his insides until he was no longer the brilliant, generous man I saw before me.

It would be too great of a sacrifice. One not even love could overcome.

Ravyn had known it and ran.

Originally, I’d thought she was selfish, but maybe it had been her ultimate sacrifice.

As much as I was tempted by him, by the beauty of him, I couldn’t reach out and take it. Not because it would destroy me—that seemed almost worth risking—but because it would destroy him, and that I couldn’t allow.

I swallowed hard, pulled myself away from him, breaking the little thrall he’d surrounded me in. I stepped around the island, determined to put more than physical distance between us. Determined to pretend the intimacy of our conversation had never existed.

I forced my voice to be cold and calm as I said, “I need the guy’s name who’s running the DNA test.”

Then, I walked out of the kitchen before I lost my resolve, dragged him to me, and finished what he’d started.