The Three Fates of Ryan Love (12 page)

He muttered something she was too far gone to hear or understand and then his hand slipped down the front of her pants. She was tender there; he was oh, so gentle. His lips coaxed sighs, his fingers moans. He made her come in a matter of minutes, capturing the cry that ripped from her throat with that sinful mouth and velvet tongue. Savoring it as she slowly melted into him. Only then did he ease his hold. Her legs felt unsteady when her feet touched the floor again. He'd scrambled what few wits she had left.

The look he gave her was all male, as hard as his body, as hot as his touch.

“No,” he said over his shoulder as he left the kitchen.

She stared at him blankly, trying to weed through the turmoil of her emotion and grasp what that meant. When she did, her disbelief struck her silent. She'd thought the fire burned inside them both, that it had reduced Ryan to the same searing need it had her. Now she realized Ryan had never lost control.

She lifted her chin and tugged down her shirt, shamed and furious at the same time. “Feel better?” she demanded. “Feel like a man now that you're walking away? That's your favorite part, isn't it? Being the one who does the walking.”

He paused and turned. The cool smirk she expected to see was nowhere to be found. Instead, he looked as confused and off balance as Sabelle felt. His face was hard, his expression tense. His erection strained against his jeans. She stared at it pointedly.

“No,” he answered again. “But I'll survive.”

She didn't even know what they were talking about anymore.

“Where are you going?” she demanded as he started up the stairs.

“Why don't you ask your crystal ball?”

“It's temperamental where you're concerned.”

“Then I guess you'll just have to play it the human way. Wait and see.”

R
yan climbed the stairs like he wasn't rock hard and shook up. He entered his old bedroom, where he'd slept with Sabelle just a few hours ago, trying to convince himself that he was in the right. But as he stared at the mussed covers, all he could think of was that Sabelle had looked like an angel when he'd left there and just now she'd looked like sin. His cock throbbed; his body felt like it did just before a fight. Stretched, antsy, ready for excitement and pain.

He yanked his backpack off the floor in the corner and tossed it on the bed with more force than necessary. The money was stuffed at the bottom. He dug down, pulled ten bills from one of the stacks, and stuffed it in his wallet. The rest he zipped back up in the pack. He almost made it out of the room without facing himself in the mirror. Almost. But he couldn't stand the cowardice of avoiding it.

In many ways, it felt like last night had happened to someone else and Ryan had only been a spectator to the explosion, the fires, the destruction of his life. But the last couple of hours? Up front and center, balls deep for the whole show.

He felt like someone had punched through his chest and ripped off all the scabs that covered his heart, scabs he'd mistakenly thought didn't even exist. Now he was bleeding out from a thousand bitter little wounds.

Whoever—whatever—had shown up on his porch today started the torture. The landslide of memories, of unresolved feelings that he'd just as soon forget. Sabelle had brought it all home. She'd lied to him and he hadn't had a clue about it. Sure, he'd thought she had secrets. But the Beyond? Not being human? Those weren't private matters she didn't want to air. Those were lies.

She wasn't an abducted woman who needed him to help her find safety. She was a runaway slave from a fucked-up place that shouldn't even exist. She thought she shaped the fate of the world, for Christ's sake. But fate was nothing more than the excuse people gave when they couldn't own up to their own mistakes. Ryan wasn't that guy. He knew how to man up to his own mistakes. He just hadn't expected her to put a spotlight on how many he'd been making.

From the huge pieces of himself he'd given to keep the family business afloat and the family together, to holding everyone back from their own dreams, even when he'd heard the voice of reason coming from inside, telling him to let it go—he'd lugged the past into a future where it didn't belong, where
he
didn't belong. Afraid that letting go would equal giving up.

Sabelle would probably say that was destiny, trying to change his course. Fate
rebelling when he didn't comply.

He called it being too hardheaded to see reason.

He turned away from the mirror and left the room. On the way downstairs, he remembered to look up and scan the ceiling for the scorpions Sabelle said she'd spotted, but didn't see them. Still, one was too many. Two, an infestation. Aisa might like venomous creatures, but Orkin knew how to kill them. He'd have the exterminator come out as soon as he got back from Sedona.

Where he'd be leaving Sabelle behind. Where he would happily say good-bye to her smart, lying mouth, he corrected himself. The sooner, the better. So why did he fucking hate the idea?

Back in the kitchen, he found Sabelle turned away from the door, sipping her wine and lost in thought. The sun had gone down and she stood in shadow, a pale beam of moonlight with dark hair, winged brows, and lips a dusky rose. She stared into space, probably wondering how she'd been so off about his character. She'd come for a hero. She made him wish he could be one.

Which is the one you're mad about? Is it that you forgot? Or that you forgot with
me
?

Neither. He was mad at himself. Every second he spent with her tied them tighter, and like a dog on a short leash, he'd snapped. Downstairs. In the kitchen. She hadn't deserved it. She was scared, on the run, and he'd turned on her instead of helping. Why? Because of where she came from? That tasted too much like bigotry to swallow.

“Sabelle,” he said softly.

She blinked and looked at him over her shoulder, eyes guarded. He didn't know what he meant to say until the words came out.

“I'm sorry.”

She'd gotten under his skin and he didn't even know how it had happened. In what felt like a handful of moments, she'd turned his life inside out and he no longer understood his own actions and reactions. But he knew right from wrong.

He lifted his shoulders in a lost shrug. “I was wrong. I shouldn't have touched you. Not like that.”

He looked into her eyes, needing to see what she was thinking. She stared back, saying nothing. Giving him no clues.

“I'm an asshole.”

At last, she nodded. “Sometimes.”

The response startled a smile from him. He hadn't expected her to agree. Not out loud, anyway.

“Are you going to keep being one now?” she asked.

The smile vanished. “Not if I can help it.”

“Good.”

He moved closer, holding her gaze. Waiting.

For forgiveness, he realized. It was a startling revelation. She'd lied to him, but it was Ryan who needed absolution. Since when did he care about that kind of thing?

“I'm sorry, too,” Sabelle murmured, and a tight feeling eased in his chest. “I should have told you the truth and let you make your own decisions.”

“I wouldn't have listened. You were right.”

She opened up a little, turning her shoulders, leaning her hip against the counter, but he lost her gaze in the shuffle. She fixed it on her wine. She'd poured more while he'd been upstairs. Now she took a deep drink and spoke again.

“You don't have to worry,” she said in a low voice that shook just a little. “About the condom. I'm not human. Not a woman.”

“I could argue that.”

“You'd lose. I may be female, but you can't make me pregnant. And I don't have diseases.” Her cheeks flushed. “Before you, I was unsullied.”

He tilted his head and bent his knees, bringing his face level with hers so he could see her expression, but she kept her chin down, the stain of her blush his only clue.

“I'm afraid you're not unsullied anymore.” When her eyes came up, he smiled. “I'm pretty sure I sullied every last inch of you, snowflake.”

A small, shy smile answered and relief spread through him like pain. He'd been afraid. That she'd leave. That she wouldn't. That he'd care. That he shouldn't.

“Not quite every inch,” she said, so softly he almost missed it. The tip of her left ear poked out of her hair. It was so red, her skin looked translucent.

“Who said we're finished?” he asked.

Lightning fast, clouded blue, she met his gaze but couldn't hold it.

He smoothed the surface of the counter with both hands and bent to give it an appraising look. “This feels pretty sturdy.”

She laughed at him and suddenly the whole fucked-up mess didn't seem so bad. He moved closer still and touched her brow with his fingertips, slipping them down the silky line of her cheek.

She was the kind of beautiful that brought men to their knees. Swearing he wouldn't be one of them, Ryan leaned in and caught her bottom lips with his, then the upper, and then he covered her mouth and kissed her like he wanted to. He didn't touch her anywhere else, though. Just his mouth against hers. She sighed when he lifted his head and she came up on her toes to keep from letting the kiss go. He stared into her face, the pearl of her skin, the long lashes making lacy shadows against her cheeks. Her eyes opened slowly and she stole his ability to breathe.

“You are very beautiful, Sabelle,” he said in a husky voice. “I don't care where you come from or what you think you are. You're beautiful.”

She smiled into his eyes and Ryan felt another scab ripped off his stupid, bleeding heart.

He cleared his throat and moved away. “Are we good?” he asked, when he shouldn't.

“We're good,” she answered softly.

“Are you ready to go?”

Go
. With her. Take her, with him. So many variances, supports, nuts and bolts required to hold it together. If he did this thing, took her north where she was determined to go, he would only be getting in that much deeper.

It never ends well for the human, Son. She's manipulated you. She's going to keep on doing that.

Sabelle was watching him. Evidently, she had some experience with that. He didn't like knowing she'd seen him unaware. It made him feel like she knew his thoughts now.

He stepped back, covering the sudden withdrawal with action. Earlier he'd tossed the hammer on the counter. Now he picked it up and stuffed it back into the crap drawer where Ruby stuffed everything else. He had to shift things around to get it back in and he caught sight of a shiny corner of blue sky and red rocks peeking from the clutter.

Ryan pinched the edge of the picture between first and middle finger and fished out a postcard of Sedona on a glorious spring day. There was an exit sign in this one, too, this time for Oak Creek Canyon. Two scribbled eyes with the spray-painted words
Wa Chu.

Suddenly Ryan remembered the bus stop across from Love's. That's where he'd seen the graffiti before. He flipped the postcard over. No address or postmark. Just one word in bold black marker:
Boom.

He strode to the counter where the newspaper was spread. He hadn't told Sabelle about the other card he'd found on the doormat. He couldn't say if that had been intentional or if he'd legitimately forgotten. Like the condom.

Sabelle was watching him with a frown. He slid the postcard he held across the counter in front of her and pulled the other one out from under the paper. Silently she scrutinized first one, then the other, her brow puckered as she frowned. Maybe she was seeing signs within the signs. He didn't know.

“I meant to tell you sooner about that one. Someone slipped it under the door while we were asleep. I don't know how long the other one's been in that drawer.”

She nodded woodenly, her face pale and her eyes huge.

“You look a little freaked out, snowflake. You said you'd been seeing signs. Like this?”

She shook her head. Stopped. Nodded. “But I wasn't sure until . . .”

“You weren't sure?” he said, his tone sharper than he'd meant. “You said it was risky coming . . . You did that on a hunch?”

“It was more than that but . . . The mind is a powerful thing, Ryan. It can show you what you want, even if it's not real.”

Intrigued by the wistful tone and evasive eyes, Ryan said, “What did
you
want?”

She looked sad but she smiled through it. The kind of brave, brittle smile that usually meant something hurt. She met his gaze, not saying a word. Yet, those eyes spoke plenty. Ryan really wished he understood what they said.

“Have your changed your mind?” she asked.

“A couple hundred times. About what exactly?”

She tapped the postcards. “About taking me.”

He stared at the blue skies and red rocks, the disturbing graffiti. No, he hadn't changed his mind about that. But everything else? Like he said, a couple hundred times.

“I'll take you,” he said solemnly. Her fingers stilled and her head bent with relief. “But no more lies.”

Her emphatic nod was meant to reassure him, but he wanted words and he wasn't going to budge until he got them.

“Say it, snowflake,” he murmured, and of course in his head, the echoing memory of her hot whisper,
Fuck me
,
unfurled like rolled silk.

“No more lies,” she promised. “Can we still go today?”

Her hair brushed the back of his hands, soft and warm as heated satin.

“We'll leave just as soon as you tell me why we're really going.”

She shook her head, and beneath his fingertips, her pulse pounded an erratic tempo. The caginess was back, too. She stared at his chin as she chose the words she'd share.

“Whoever sent those postcards, whoever's been sending me signs, was powerful enough to communicate with me in the Beyond.” She picked up one of the cards. “ ‘Boom,' ” she read. “They knew about the explosion, before it happened. I have to believe that means they, too, are seers.” She lifted the other card. “ ‘Snow,' ” she read. “That must mean me.”

“I know.”

“Whoever they are, they can
see
, yet the Sisters don't know they exist.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because they'd be dead. The Three are very jealous of their power. They would never tolerate rogue seers here on earth. Either they'd have brought them to the Beyond and enslaved them already or they'd have destroyed them.”

“What do these
earth seers
want with you, snowflake?”

“I don't know. I swear, it's the truth.”

“See, that's what bothers me. Not too many things know you're here, and so far none of them has been good. If something's calling you, I wouldn't be so sure answering is the right decision. They could be worse than what you came from.”