Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(45)

He pauses for the briefest of moments as its tip slips just between my cleavage when he tries once again to pull the shirt over my head. This time I push my arms together so my breasts squeeze against him.

“Stop,” he part groans, part laughs, with eyes that totally beg me not to listen.

“Or what?” I’m winded and can’t stop laughing.

“You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”

I still and lift an eyebrow and wink. “It’s much better when it’s hard.” I squeeze my arms together again.

“Vaughn.” This time my name sounds like a swear word.

“Oopsie.”

After a playful struggle where more tickling is involved, he manages to grab my arms and pin them to either side of my head.

“How are you going to get the shirt over my head now? Huh?” I ask.

He realizes his mistake and that his hands are full, so he tries another tactic. “I have Red Sox sweatpants and a sweatshirt somewhere I can force you into if need be. Hell, I’d welcome another barrier between me and your skin, so I suggest you stop struggling and put the shirt on.” He smiles smugly at me, and I do the only thing I can do—laugh.

And God, does it feel good to laugh with him. Over something stupid and silly and without a care in the world other than how I’m going to make him put his hands on me, all the while swooning over the reasons behind why he doesn’t want to.

This time when he tries to pull the shirt over my head, I let him.

“Why? Why are you torturing us?” I ask as I obediently let him put my arms through the sleeves.

He leans over and presses the softest of kisses to my lips. “Because you matter.” Another kiss of lips. “Because this matters.” And one more to top it off. “Because tonight was perfect.”

Every single sarcastic comeback I can think of dies on my lips as I run a hand over his jawline and lift my head up so I can find his lips just one more time.

The kiss is a languorous one. Soft and slow and detailed in its attention. When it ends—when we’re both equal parts sexually frustrated but intimately sated—Ryker rolls off me, pulling me with him, and just holds on tight.

“Well . . . ,” I say to add some kind of levity to the torrent of emotion this whole evening has brought to me, but it ends up sounding like drugged satisfaction. “For a man who doesn’t want anything else from me—”

“Oh, I want all right.” He chuckles and presses a kiss to the crown of my head.

“You sure are holding on like you’re afraid I’m going to bolt.”

“Maybe that’s because every time you’ve been in my bed before, you’ve left.”

“Maybe I’m afraid your mom and dad will come home, and when they tell my parents what happened, I’ll be sent off to reform school for sleeping in a bed with a boy.”

“It wouldn’t matter. We’d still figure out a way to see each other.” He tightens his arm around me and lowers his voice. “We’ve managed to find our way back to each other so far.” He nuzzles his nose against the back of my neck. “I want you to be here when I wake up, Vaughn.”

I love you, Ryker Lockhart.

I don’t voice the words, but every single part of me feels them as the sky outside turns that dull gray that happens in the hours before the sun begins to brighten the sky.

While I don’t say the words, as I fall asleep cocooned in his arms and with the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek, every part of my being feels them.

If I thought him making me need him was bad, now he’s made me want him too.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Vaughn

What was that?

I jolt awake in my bed. Lungs heaving. Mind fuzzy. Adrenaline coursing.

Samantha. Where’s Samantha?

Patting the bed beside me as if I’ve missed her when through the moonlit room I can clearly see she’s not there.

My throat is dry, and for some reason my hands tremble with fear.

Toot. Toot.

I jump at the sound and emit a startled yelp.

The train. It’s just the train is all. A nightmare and the whistle have me freaking out.

But the thump outside my closed door only adds to it.

That and the cry I give when Samantha flings it open and turns on the light.

“Let’s go.” Her voice is on the edge of hysteria yet has a calm urgency to it as I blink to let my eyes adjust to the light. She’s already halfway across our room to the closet before I can really see.

“What do you mean—”

“C’mon, Vaughn. You need to get up right now. We’re leaving.” She yanks open a dresser drawer and takes the first things she comes to—a faded pair of jeans and then a T-shirt—and throws them at me.

“Sam. What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“You need to trust me.” She drops a bag on the carpet with a thud and then proceeds to go to the back of our closet so I can’t see her.

Pushing myself off the bed with my clothes clutched in one hand, worry begins to course through me. “Sam? Are you okay? What’s—”

“Get dressed!” she yells at me without any care that she’ll wake up Uncle James. But it’s when she all but runs out of the closet and I see her face that I freeze.