Know Thine Enemy (28 page)

"
Feel like
home."

Tears blinked behind her eyes, scaring him witless until he caught the euphoria behind them. Her hands traveled down his back until she had his ass at her mercy, and then she was driving him. Faster. Harder. Her head flew back and a soundless cry rode off her lips.

"Don't leave," she whimpered. "Never leave."

"
Never could," Ryker swore, and God how he meant it. He thrust harder still. Rougher. "I could never leave, Izzie. I love you. Fuck, I love you so much."

"
You what?"

"
I love you."

She stared at him
, then raised herself as far up as she could, their rocking bodies coming to a halt. "This is real, isn't it? You aren't pretending."

He shook his head.
"Not pretending."

"
Really?" The look on her face was somewhere between incredulous and hopeful. "You love me?"

The question startled him but he wasn
't about to break away from a challenge. "Like the sky has stars," he replied, and sealed the words with a kiss as his body began to move again. "That's how I love you."

Izzie
blinked rapidly and kissed him again before falling back to the mattress, her hips again dancing with his.

She only said one word
—"Oh"—her voice was so soft he thought for a second that he'd dreamed it. That was, until her face crumbled and she began crying in earnest. Tears she needed. Tears she gave him as he pumped hotly into her pussy, bathing her face with kisses.

"
Ryker."

Ryker released her leg at last and slipped his hand between their battling bodies in search of her clit.
"I'm here," he promised. "I've got you. I've always got you."

He found her, rubbed her, and watched her dissolve. Her eyes locked with his and held. He felt her tense and tighten around him. Felt her hold on
—and then she was gone. Crying. Trembling. Coming so hard she pulled him right along with her.

Her arms went around his neck again, her lips ravaging his with desperation he recognized. Desperation he
'd never thought anyone could feel for him. But there it was—she consumed his lips and claimed his tongue, cleansing him with her tears.

"
I love you," he told her again. "I do. I do, Izzie."

"
I know."

He let her say it, let her feel it, but he doubted she realized exactly how much power she now held in her small hands. She could unravel him with a word. It was the first time since his human life he
'd given someone the power to destroy him.

But she wouldn
't. Somehow he knew. Somehow, even he felt safe now. It might be fleeting but it was worth anything he had to keep it.

And Ryker knew how to put up a fight.

Chapter Sixteen

His skin felt neither warm nor cold beneath Izzie
's cheek. It was a pleasant place between life and death, and it felt right. Her heart hammered against her chest, skipping every now and then when she remembered where she was, who she was with, and that the moment wasn't fleeting. Ryker was really here. The hand stroking her back was real, as was the other that held hers to his chest.

If it had been like this before, she didn
't remember it. Her time with Wright had been uncomfortable and tense. Her skin hadn't tingled, her heart hadn't jumped, and she hadn't had to constantly reassure herself it was real. She hadn't cuddled next to him afterward, nor had she reveled in the sensation of his flesh against hers. Intimacy with Wright had seemed necessary—an essential human experience she didn't think she'd get anywhere else, at least not on her terms. Ryker changed everything.

Ryker, she wanted. Hell, a part of her needed him, and the rest of her just craved.

Izzie didn't understand it. How a vampire could make her feel alive, even in the wake of what she'd experienced made little sense—except, perhaps, he made sense of something she hadn't really understood. She
was
free. She always had been and she hadn't known it. As much as she owed Wright, as grateful as she felt for all he had done, he had cornered her into an existence she didn't want and hadn't realized she could reject until Ryker entered her life.

For the first time since driving the blade through Harrison
's chest, Izzie's earthly concerns melted away. The reality awaiting return outside this small haven was not forgotten, but even the horror of Dr. Briggs and the cell couldn't curb the taste of freedom.

At last, her actions were her own. She didn
't fear where her next meal came from or dread not having the strength to go on the hunt tonight. She simply was.

"
I don't know what happens next," Izzie murmured.

Ryker raised his head.
"Got a few ideas, though they all involve you and nudity."

Heat tinged her cheeks.
"You've seen all there is to see."

"
Doesn't make you any less spectacular."

"
Even the scar?"

"
On your stomach?" He didn't wait for her to agree. "The scar is like you, sweets. Tragic and beautiful."

"
I don't know what that means."

Ryker chuckled.
"It means I think every inch of you is gorgeous, even the scar." He lifted her hand to his lips. "Though we need to put some weight on you."

Izzie
's nose wrinkled. "You want me fat?"

"
I want you in whatever way I can get you."

She blushed again and hid her eyes against his skin.
"I don't know what to say to that."

"
Yes, please?" he volunteered.

She laughed and rolled onto her back, feeling womanly for perhaps the first time in her life.
"Seriously, what happens now?"

"
You wanting to have The Talk?"

"
What's
the talk?"

"
Fuck if I know. Something I hear on sitcoms." Ryker dropped a kiss onto her shoulder and raised himself onto his elbows. "I don't know what happens now. This is new territory for me."

"
You've never . . . ." Izzie paused and bit her lip, unsure whether or not she should repeat the words he'd whispered while pumping inside her body. At once the confession felt too sweet, too intimate, and too fragile in her untrained hands. She feared him taking it back, and was terrified of what came next should he not.

She didn
't know what being loved entailed, or how she was supposed to react. Did she say it back?
Should
she say it back? Did she feel it? How did Ryker know what he felt for her was love? Hell, how did
anyone
know what they felt was love? What changed between being in love and being out of love? The burning feeling in her chest was new and frightening, and though she was well schooled in identifying anxiety, her current nervousness was unlike anything she'd experienced.

Thankfully, Ryker seemed to understand her hesitation.
"It's been a long time for me."

"
Sex?"

He laughed shortly.
"Ahhh . . . not sure how to answer that."

"
That's a no." For whatever reason, the notion bothered her. She didn't like the image of Ryker's hands on someone else's skin—Ryker's lips caressing another's lips, his body pressed against some faceless woman, cozy and familiar like he was now with her. It made her feel completely ordinary, which was something she had not once felt—and to him she wanted to be memorable.

Izzie shivered and rolled onto her other side, suddenly finding it hard to look at him. Which made no fucking sense, seeing as their relationship had never stood the chance of being conventional. Jealousy was something she simply wasn
't accustomed to, and she didn't like it.

She didn
't like feeling so vulnerable. Was that love? Why would anyone choose it?

"
For what it's worth," Ryker said, inching up behind her. "It was never like this."

"
Like what?"

His arm wound around her belly, pulling her back against his chest, her body curving into his. She felt his erection rubbing along her hip, and while her body shivered and her post-coital fatigue seemed to evaporate, she refused to allow herself to become distracted.

"I've never been with a woman I loved."

Izzie inhaled sharply.
"I find that hard to believe."

Ryker
's fingers danced along her leg. "Hard, huh?"

"
You've been around so long."

"
You calling me old?"

"
You called me skinny."

"
There's a difference between skinny and malnourished."

She frowned.
"Briggs didn't feed me a lot."

"
That's one thing you can't blame on Briggs."

"
I'm not liking you very much right now."

Ryker pressed his knee between her legs, which parted for him without hesitation. It was as though a higher part of her brain had lost functionality.
"Somehow I doubt that."

"
I can't be held accountable for what my body does."

"
Well, it's the truth."

"
My body is the truth?"

"
I've never loved a woman I've been with." He cupped her pussy, his mouth peppering her skin with sweet kisses. "Not once until you."

A long whimper tore through her throat and she shook her head.
"I don't believe it."

Izzie felt him smile against her shoulder before his thumb found her clit and rubbed her gently.
"Only other woman I loved," he murmured, "was my fiancée. And whatever I felt for her was shit compared to what I feel for you."

She did her best to smother her joy at the words, focusing instead at the topic at hand.
"And you never once slept with her."

"
Different time. Men of honor popped a girl's cherry on the wedding night. Never made it that far."

Izzie gasped and arched against him, twisting slightly so that she could hook an arm around his neck, giving him access to her breasts. Ryker
's lips dipped immediately, closing over her nipple.

"
Never?" she asked.

"
Not once," he mumbled around her flesh. He released her with a wet plop. "And I'm glad. Nothing could compare to this."

"
When were—ahhh—when were you engaged?"

"
Before the war." Ryker looked up and caught her eyes. "I went back after Caroline died. Went to see her. Make her like me. It hadn't sunk in, really. All that had changed, how nothing would be as it was. Funny, 'cause it seems so obvious now."

"
What?"

"
Well, dunno if you've gleamed onto this, but most folk view my kind as monsters."

Izzie smirked, but the expression was quickly eradicated by the sensation of prodding fingers at her pussy lips. He spread her wide, and she shuddered as he rubbed along her slick opening.
"I—ahh . . . yeah."

"
She tried to kill me."

"
Your fiancée."

Ryker nodded, inching a finger inside her.
"Told her what I was, what I wanted us to be, and she grabbed her pap's bayonet and shish kabobed me through the stomach. Dunno what would've happened if she'd hit the heart and paralyzed me, but she didn't know the rules. Neither did I. I climbed up, pulled the blade out—"

"
Eww."

"
Eww?" He chuckled. "This from the girl who killed a man with a plastic spoon."

"
I never said it wasn't gross."

"
Fair point. But there you have it."

"
There I have what?"

Ryker slipped another finger inside her
and pumped gently. "You're the first. The first woman I've been with who knew me and didn't care."

"
I know you?"

"
You know enough. The stuff that matters."

Izzie frowned. While the sentiment thrilled her, something didn
't add up. How could she be the only woman who really knew him? Over a century had passed since he was turned, and the world was hardly lacking female demons for company.

"
You've never . . . opened up with other vampires?"

Ryker shook his head, steadily thrusting his fingers in and out of her pussy, which sent hard shocks of pleasure through her body. Anymore and she was certain she
'd detonate on overload. "Not for lack of trying. Never felt real around them."