Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(39)

But I still miss Ryker.

And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

The fresh air hits us when Melissa pushes open the door to the parking lot. She stops momentarily as she steps out into the fluorescent light before humming under her breath. “Mmm-mmm-mmm. I’d take that man even if he had a three-inch dick.”

I laugh with her and then realize she’s actually talking about someone standing before her. For the briefest of moments I pause, afraid that Carter is waiting outside my work. But then the person speaks.

“Good morning.” Ryker’s gravelly baritone hits my ears and makes my stomach flutter.

Even after everything—the emotion, the doubt, the heartache—he still makes my stomach flutter.

When I step out from behind Melissa, Ryker’s standing there under the streetlight. He’s wearing dark jeans and a cream-colored henley with the sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms. He’s holding a bunch of white daisies in his hand that look like he picked them in a field, but c’mon, we’re in Manhattan, so he must have bought them somewhere. But it’s the shy smile on his lips and the sincerity in his eyes when our gazes meet that causes that flutter to intensify.

I said we couldn’t do this. I told myself that the more space I put between us, the easier it would get. I thought I could walk away. But seeing him—wanting him . . . I don’t think I’ll be able to stick to my own words. Ryker Lockhart is just as potent to me as the drugs that lured my sister.

“Hi.” His smile widens as he steps away from the sleek black sports car at his back.

“What are you doing here?” I ask cautiously, looking from him to Melissa and then back.

“You two go and have some fun now,” she says, lifting her eyebrows at me and then waving like a teenage girl to Ryker.

“Let me walk you to your car,” he says to Melissa, and her reaction—startled head, wide eyes, disbelieving smile—says it all.

“It’s just right here.” She points to a white crossover a few cars down. “But, uh—thanks.”

Ryker nods, and we watch in silence as she climbs into her car, starts it, and then pulls away from the curb.

It’s just the two of us now and the rest of the city still awake milling around us.

“Did you have a good shift?” Ryker asks as he takes a step toward me and holds out the flowers as if our last discussion never happened.

Maybe I want to pretend for a little bit that it didn’t happen either. Maybe I just want to enjoy the fact that he’s standing here waiting for me at two in the morning with flowers and a smile that warms me in ways I’m still not used to.

I’ll let myself forget for a bit. I’ll probably be mad at myself later for it—for giving in and seeming so wishy-washy—but for now I just want to feel like I did that night in the Hamptons when there was the taste of chocolate chip cookie dough on his lips and the cool chill of the granite sliding beneath my back. Carefree. In love. Loved.

“Vaughn?” Ryker’s voice pulls me from my thoughts, and I take the flowers from his outstretched hand. Not wanting him to see the flush in my cheeks, I bury my nose in them and breathe in the sweet scent. The flowers are so simple from a man who can afford the world, and I love that they are. “How was your shift?”

“It was long, but good.”

“What made it a good night?” He reaches out and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my cheek for a few seconds more. “Good tips?”

“No.”

“Good customers?”

“No.”

“Then what?” he asks, that smile turning curious and his head angling to the side to emphasize the question.

I give in to the temptation to just accept that he’s here and I’m glad that he is.

“You being here.”

He stares at me for the briefest of seconds, and this time when he reaches out, he cups both of my cheeks and lowers his lips to brush against mine. Every part of me sags at the tenderness in the simple kiss—so brief, but packed with so much emotion.

“That’s a good answer.”

I lean back and look at him. The brandy color of his eyes. The mussed hair. The rough cut of his jaw with a day’s worth of shadow dusting it. “Why are you here?”

“Because I missed you,” he murmurs, and for the first time, I almost feel like we can do this. Like we can face whatever is out there together and make this work.

“So you stayed up late to walk me to my car?”

“If that’s what you want me to do, then yes . . . or”—he lifts his chin over his shoulder—“we can go for a drive.”

“To where? It’s two in the morning.” I laugh.

He runs his thumb over my bottom lip. His smile is lopsided and hopeful. “I know I’m supposed to give you space. I know I told you to take your time . . . but dammit, Vaughn, I missed you and wanted to see you.”

Swoon.

“I missed you too.” Our gazes hold, and all I can do is shake my head ever so subtly to tell him I’m not sure what to do but I’m glad he’s here right now.

“I think we should go out.”

“Right now?” I sputter a laugh.

“We’re in the city that never sleeps for a reason.” He shrugs like a little boy. “Why not?”