Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(40)

I think of my aching feet and how bone tired I am, but when he smiles, I already know that I’ll go.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been on a proper date.”

“You’re crazy.” I laugh and press my lips to his.

“I know.”

He starts to head toward his car, his fingers tangled with mine, and when I don’t walk with him so that our hands stretch between us, he turns back to stare at me.

“What?” he asks.

I take him in—everything about him—and just smile as I warm from head to toe. “Nothing.”

The city may never sleep, but the streets are quieting down as we hum through the concrete jungle in silence. Ryker’s fingers are laced in mine, both our hands resting on my thigh as the gentle purr of the Maserati’s motor hums around us.

“You know, most dates start before everyone is asleep,” I tease as I look down at the bag in my lap. Curiosity has me wondering why he brought me a pair of shoes and a sweatshirt.

“Everything about us is far from normal, so why would we want to ruin it now?” He flashes me a smile before veering to the curb and parking. “Your feet good?”

“I’m beginning to be concerned that you brought me shoes. Please tell me we’re not hiking anywhere.”

“While I very much like the heels, I thought you might like to get out of them. And hiking? In Manhattan?” He rolls his eyes. “Nah. Maybe a little breaking and entering, though.”

“What?” I ask as he climbs out of the car and shuts the door with a thud, leaving me to figure out if he’s serious or not. When he opens the passenger-side door, I ask, “What do you mean, a little breaking and entering?”

He shuts the door behind me and then steps into me so that my back presses against it.

“Ryker?”

“Shh.” He puts a finger to my lips, and I can’t help but press a kiss to it. A ghost of a smile paints his lips in reaction as he takes my hands in his and then looks back up. “You and I . . . we’re far from typical. We’ve had a lot of shit happen between us from the get-go. I’ll never regret how I pushed you to get us here, but I regret many other things I’ve done. I put you, this”—he squeezes my hands—“us, in jeopardy, and I was wrong.”

“Ryk—”

“Please just let me finish.” His eyes are filled with so much honesty that it almost hurts for me to look at them. It’s the kind of honesty where you are opening yourself up to getting hurt. The kind where you’re stripped bare and completely transparent.

I don’t think a man has ever given that much of himself to me before, and I don’t know what to say other than, “Mmm-hmm.”

“I just wanted a night without distractions. One where it’s just you and me and we can pretend like . . . I don’t know. Like I haven’t fucked up a million times.”

“That would be nice.”

There’s something about him—about this moment—a man who has never come off as uncertain, but now he seems to be completely and utterly on shaky ground. My heart falls, in such a good way.

But just as quickly as I get a glimmer of his uncertainty, his expression changes, and a mischievous smile turns up his lips. “Do you trust me?”

I laugh, his playful question just that, but I don’t miss the small pang of hurt that he caused when he breached that trust at the pool house.

I shake it off, shove it down, and smile. “Should that question worry me?”

“C’mon.” He tugs on my hand, and I slide a glance his way when he wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close.

Steam sneaks up from the subway grates on the streets, and trash cans are overflowing, but the soft hue of the streetlights above and the comforting noises of a sleepy city surround us.

“Hungry?” he asks when he veers into a hole-in-the-wall pizza place. My hand flies to my stomach as I suddenly realize I am. Within minutes, we are back on the street with a box of pizza and a bag complete with paper plates and napkins.

“Ryker, what are you—?”

“Shh,” he says and then presses a chaste kiss to my lips. When he steps back, his laughter rings out as he steers me around a column beneath the darkened shadows of the High Line. Running a little over two miles through the West Side of Manhattan, it’s an old train platform that has been repurposed into a park of sorts.

“Here. Hold this.” Ryker pushes the pizza my way when we come to what looks like a gate that’s been rolled down at one of the entrances. I take it from him as he squats down in the darkness and grabs the lock.

Breaking and entering.

“Ryker?”

“Keep your voice down, will you?”

“What are you doing?”

“You mean what are we doing?” I can hear the smile in his tone even though I can’t see his face. “We are picking a lock.”

“Ryker!” My voice is sterner this time, my whisper harsher. “This is illegal. We can’t do this.”

His laugh is a low chuckle as I hear metal on metal with whatever it is that he’s doing. “Stepdad number who-knows-what was a developer who built some of the condos about a quarter mile down the park from here.”

“Okay.” I stretch the word out as I try to figure out what that has to do with anything.