Echo (Bleeding Hearts #1)(43)

On the bedside table was a picture frame, and it was tilted just enough that it was out of my line of sight. I mentally debated whether I’d be able to reach through the door and turn it without alerting Ryland, but I chickened out at the last second.

He made a noise in his throat and I clapped a hand over my mouth. He closed up the box of contents he’d been looking at, and I was sure he was about to get up.

But instead, he slumped forward and braced his head in his hands.

It was this moment that something broke inside of me. What I witnessed was pure, undiluted pain. I hadn’t seen it before. He’d used his anger to hide it, the same way I’d seen Brayden often do. But this was so much worse. This told me something horrible happened to Ryland Bennett. And that’s how I knew I was royally f*cked. Because I cared, and I shouldn’t have.

It became obvious I was no longer playing a game to save my brother. I was falling for the very man who’d coerced me into it.



***



The weight of the bed dipped when he laid down beside me. I quieted my breathing as I debated what I should do. I could pretend I was asleep. That I hadn’t witnessed what I just had. It was the smart thing to do. The thing my self-preservation was screaming at me to do. But it wasn’t what my heart wanted.

I rolled towards him and pressed my palm against his chest. It was bare, and even now I could feel the scars that marred it. They were thick and jagged, spanning the length of his rib cage up to his chest. I wondered what could have hurt him so badly and I hoped that someday, he would finally tell me.

“Did I wake you?” he asked softly.

I didn’t answer. I clutched his face in my hands and pulled his lips to mine. I needed him inside me. Why, I couldn’t explain. But I did.

Ryland didn’t protest when I climbed on top of him and unceremoniously pulled down his waistband until his cock sprang free. My fever quickly spread to him as his hands tugged at the silk camisole I was wearing, trying to free it from my body.

He ended up settling for pushing it around my waist as I sank down onto his erection, thrusting my entire body forward for his pleasure. His hands pawed at my breasts while I rocked against him, making him groan with every movement.

When his mouth wrapped around my nipple, I cried out his name. We both went wild with need, using each other for our own desperate pleasure… sucking and nipping, gripping and pulling. My tongue, my breasts, my hair… they all became objects of his desire while I clutched at his arms and kissed along his neck. It was the strangest combination of sex we’d ever had. Raw, animal f*cking interspersed with sweet passion.

He would bite me and pull my hair, then soothe it with a gentle caress while he kissed me until I couldn’t breathe. When I finally hit the crescendo, he threaded his fingers through mine before allowing his own release a moment later.

Once it was all over, silence engulfed the room around us. I had no words, and apparently neither did he. He moved to pull out, but I couldn’t let him. Not yet. I needed him there, inside of me, connected to me… where he belonged.

Ryland groaned as he flipped me onto my back and began to pulse inside of me with the smallest of movements while he kissed every inch of my face. The room was still dark, save for the light of the moon that spilled in through the curtain. And in that darkness, I felt safe with him. Safe to let myself be vulnerable in his arms.

He spent the rest of the night inside of me, savoring every moment as if it were a gift. When he finally collapsed and pulled me into his arms, I asked him again the question that haunted me.

“Why me, Ryland?”

He kissed me on the forehead and gave me the same answer he had before as he pulled me closer. “It could only ever be you.”

The sun was coming up, but I wasn’t tired, and by the pattern of his breathing he wasn’t going to sleep either. Still, I hadn’t expected him to speak, so when he did, it surprised me.

“Sometimes I ask myself the same thing,” he admitted. “It was logical for me to choose you, but I didn’t think I wanted to. Everything changed when I saw you that day. When I learned everything there was to know about you.”

“You couldn’t possibly know everything about me,” I replied. “Only what you’ve seen on paper.”

“Try me,” he suggested.

“Okay…” I mulled this over for a moment before asking him the dumbest question I could think of. “How do I take my pancakes?”

“With peanut butter and powdered sugar. A disgusting combination by the way.”

I stared at him with my mouth gaping as I processed his words. “How could you possibly know that?”

“I told you.” He shrugged. “I know everything there is to know about you, Brighton.”

“That isn’t true,” I argued, desperate to prove my point. “You can’t know my thoughts. My feelings.”

He was quiet for a moment before he conceded. “I suppose there is one thing I don’t know.”

“What?”

“Whether you still think I’m a monster or not.”

His voice was distant again, but I didn’t let it affect me or my response. I’d been vulnerable enough with him already tonight, and this little game he was playing was a very real reminder of our circumstances.

“Does it matter what I think?” I turned the words back around on him.