Bearly Hanging On (The Jamesburg Shifters #6)(31)

"This was just supposed to be me coming and seeing if I could find you," she whispered, before he bit at her neck and she gasped in pleasure. "See if I'd done anything... bad... to you."

"Bad?" he asked, a soft laugh reverberating against the hollow of Jamie's throat before he sucked another kiss. "What the hell bad could you do?"

The next thing she knew, her hair was in his hand, his fist closed around the bun, pulling it backward so he could kiss her neck wherever he wanted. Up and down, he warmed her skin, licked and sucked and bit. She shook her head, forcing her hair to fall down her shoulders in a blue-black tumble.

"I do plenty of bad things," she said, scratching at one of Ryan's huge biceps and then squeezing, more to anchor herself than anything else. "Sometimes I can't help it."

She felt him thicken against her softest place, the heat from his body pulsing against her, through her. "So do I," Ryan whispered. The hint of menace in his voice made her burn even hotter than before. She felt herself ache for him in a way she'd not allowed herself to ache in a long, long time.

"Why me?" she asked, running one of her hands through his hair, and trying to kiss back when he stopped for a second. The taste of salty sweat on her lips, the smell of man and work and fir filled her sensitive nose, setting all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck at attention.

"Why me?" he asked her, pointedly, as he slid his hand along the curve of her back, to rest just above the swell of her left hip. "I can play the same game you can."

The next time he pulled her against him, she knew what she felt - he was ready for her, and she was ready for him - but it couldn't happen, not like this, no matter how badly she wanted to give in and let him do whatever the hell he wanted.

With his hands painting a hot track up and down her back, Jamie began to feel a little prickle of heat - not the good kind - at the base of her spine. She put her hand on Ryan's sweaty, delicious, muscled chest, and whispered, "Stop."

Confused, he kissed her again, making her toes curl just a little, but then pulled away, cocking his head to the side and watching her face. "Is everything okay?"

She smiled a bittersweet half-smile and felt a mist in her left eye. She lifted her thumb to dab it away, and it came away red. She sniffled softly and took a step back, patting Ryan on the chest with both of her hands. A red streak marred him where she touched, and he asked the same thing again - was she okay?

The look on his face was so tender and gentle that she couldn't believe this was the same man who was willing to steal cows, break into grocery stores, and apparently, do pretty much anything else.

"I just don't know," she said. "I can't... you're a criminal, Ryan. I was coming here to warn you, to tell you to stop what you're doing, because you're going to be arrested and then where are these people - where are Cora and Marmite going to be when you're in jail for grand theft?"

His eyes narrowed, boring holes into Jamie's skull. "Where will they be if I don't?"

She was shaking her head, cascade of blue-black hair following the back and forth motion. A gentle breeze, a chill one that reminded her of the coming cold, swept through the little clearing. She tried to pull her gaze from Ryan's, but he lifted his hand, catching her chin between thumb and forefinger, and turned her back. "Tell me something," he said, in that gravelly whisper that made her stomach twist.

She waited for him to continue, breathing deeply through her nose.

"Where did you come from? What's your story? No one knows. I asked West and Elena, both of them said you never talked about it. You want through my walls? You want me to let you in?"

Jamie nodded, averting her eyes from the truth she knew he had. "Fair's fair," she said.

"Uh-huh. Fair's fair."

"Thing is though," she said, pulling her head back, snapping it away from Ryan's grip, "I don't actually know anything about you. I've met some of the people you care for, and I know what I've read in the police reports, but as far as you? I don't know the first damn thing."

He reached for her, but she turned her shoulder, shrugging him off. "We can talk without cuddling." She felt herself getting colder, disconnected, the way she always had when it was time to protect her feelings. She didn't know why, but it seemed like as good a time as any to shore up those defenses.

Ryan lifted one eyebrow and half-nodded. "What do you want to know?"

"For starters, where did you get the money for that house?" she tilted her head to indicate the rather large Victorian two-story behind her. "Doesn't make sense. And you don't seem like some sort of organized crime boss, so what gives?"

He took a deep breath through his nose, exhaling slowly. "Well..."

"Don't play any games. You're no mafia don. I've tried to find out about you, but there's nothing. You don't have a past as far as the - admittedly meager - records of the Jamesburg tax office have it."

He let his shoulders slump. When he did, the huge trapezius muscles running up his neck slouched too, and for a second, he looked almost like he had a normal person's musculature. "There's a reason for that," he finally said. "There are things in my past that I'm... well, I won't say I regret, but I won't say that I'm proud of them, either."