Unveiled (Vargas Cartel #2) (13 page)

I leaned my head against the door and closed my eyes. “I’ll be here,” I whispered.

Chapter Twenty

Ryker

I did everything I could think of to avoid going home and facing Hattie. Fuck, I didn’t even know if she’d be there when I went back. I didn’t make much of an argument for her to stay. I practically shoved her out of my life.

I drove in endless loops around the city. I stopped for dinner at my favorite burger joint. I went to a bar around the corner from my condo building and drank too many drinks to drive home safely.

I called Ignacio. He didn’t answer. I didn’t know what I would’ve said to him anyway. We talked on an as-needed basis, which translated into once a month. Granted, we had talked more frequently since Rever became my temporary roommate. Rever didn’t think Ignacio knew where he was, but as usual, Rever underestimated our dad. Ignacio knew everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew about Anna’s pregnancy, or Rever’s freelance drug smuggling.

Around ten o’clock, I called my mom. I hadn’t talked to her in months. When she found out I planned to help Ignacio get Rever out of prison, we had a huge fight. Until tonight, neither of us had tried to mend our relationship. Both of us were too stubborn for our own good.

“Mom, it’s Ryker.”

“I know who it is. You’re the only person who’d call me at this time of the night.”

I chuckled. “It’s not that late.”

“Do you know how old I am? I need at least eight hours of sleep or I’ll have bags under my eyes the size of Rhode Island.”

“You’re exaggerating. You’re the most beautiful fifty-five-year-old woman I’ve ever seen.” It was true. She’d modeled in her late teens and early twenties.

“Your compliment lost some momentum when you qualified it with my age,” she grumbled, but I could hear the smile in her voice. For a former model, she didn’t have a vain bone in her body. Unlike some women who did anything to hang onto their youth, my mom embraced her age. She exercised, she ate healthily, but she didn’t do anything too drastic to remedy the lines around her eyes or erase the gray from her hair.

“You’re right.”

“I’m always right.”

I sighed, knowing what I needed to do. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For fighting with you.”

The silence stretched, and for a second, I didn’t know if she’d accept my apology. “You don’t need to apologize. We can agree to disagree, but it doesn’t change how much I love you. How’s your brother? Did everything go well?”

“I’m still working on it.”

“I read that he was released from jail.”

“He was, but there have been a few complications.”

She snorted. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”

“Mom,” I cautioned.

“I know. I know,” she said wearily. “But you have to realize how this is going to end.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ignacio wants you under his thumb. He’ll have you waist deep in cartel business before you know it, and then you’ll be stuck.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

She sighed. “Then you don’t know Ignacio very well. He thinks the Vargas Cartel is his legacy, his crowning achievement, and now he knows Rever is incapable of leading the cartel into the next generation. That leaves you.”

“No. I’ve already told him I can’t help him.”

She exhaled loudly. “If you don’t sever all contact with him, he will find a way to rope you into his depraved way of life.”

“Mom,” I said, dragging out the word. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

“And this won’t be the last time. I’ll keep saying it until it’s too late, or you’ve kicked your father out of your life for good.” She cleared her throat. “Why are you calling?”

“To talk.”

“Are you sure that’s it?”

I slid my hands up and down my legs. “I’ve met someone. A woman.”

“Do you love her?”

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. “I do.” It felt strange confessing this to my mom before telling Hattie. My mom and I were never close. I loved her. She loved me. She’d been a good mom, but an invisible wall existed between us. For as long as I could remember, my mom and dad communicated through intermediaries. The deep fracture between my mom and dad made me feel constantly divided. Divided between two parents, two lives, two countries, and two cultures. Any love I showed my dad felt like a betrayal of my mom and vice versa, so I existed in limbo, never fully pledging myself to anyone or anything.

“You haven’t told her anything about your family or your job.” It was a statement, not a question.

“She knows everything.”

“Really?” she said, sounding surprised. “How’d she take it?”

I paused, not sure how to answer her question. There wasn’t a simple answer, and I refused to reveal the details of how we met. My mom would never forgive me. She’d lose all faith in me. “She doesn’t like it.”

“Does she still want to be with you?”

Pain knifed through my gut. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach, and I couldn’t catch my breath. “I hope so.”

“You don’t know?”

“It’s complicated,” I countered, reciting the same words Hattie said to me earlier. The irony of my declaration didn’t go unnoticed by me.

“Love always is,” she whispered, sounding tired.

“I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

“Okay, but don’t wait another two months to call me.”

I laughed. “You can call me too, Mom.”

“I know. Goodnight, Ryker.”

“Goodnight, Mom.”

***

Two hours later, my hand rested on the door handle to my bedroom. A cold feeling prickled through my body, and my heart plummeted to my stomach. I didn’t know what I’d do if Hattie had left me. After four glasses of bourbon, I had promised I’d let her go if that was what she wanted. I didn’t want her to be mine by default, or because she felt some perverse attachment to me.

Now, with the moment of truth staring right back at me, my chest burned with the thought of never seeing her, touching her, or kissing her again. Somehow over the last few months, she had become more important to me than anything or anyone else in the world. I ached to pull her into my arms and lose myself in the taste of her lips.

Closing my eyes, I pushed my bedroom door open and sucked in a deep breath before I faced reality. Relief flooded through my veins when I saw her curled in a ball on my bed. She wore my gray collared shirt. Her long, toned legs were twisted in the sheets like she had a hard time falling asleep. She looked like a fallen angel with hair framing her face and the fringe of her dark lashes shadowing her cheeks.

Not wanting to wake her, I moved through the room as silently as possible. I placed a small plastic bag on the nightstand and trailed my fingers down the side of her face. She didn’t move. With my eyes locked on her face, I pulled my shirt over my head, kicked off my shoes, and shoved my pants down my legs.

Sitting down next to her, I traced the curve of her face and the arch of her long neck, committing it to memory for the thousandth time. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Ryker?” she whispered, her voice raspy from sleep. “What time is it?”

“After midnight.”

“I tried to wait up for you. Do you want me to leave? Is that why you didn’t come back for dinner?”

Her words tore at my heart, slashing invisible ribbons across the planes of my chest. “I’m sorry,” I whispered hoarsely, remorse suffocating me. My hands skated up and down her arms. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to go.”

“I’m sorry too.” She rested the palm of her smooth hand on my cheek, and a shudder raced through my body. “I didn’t mean what I said. I know this situation is hard for both of us. I didn’t mean to dismiss my feelings for you.”

“Shh.” I placed a finger over her lips, rubbing it back and forth. “Don’t apologize. I don’t want your apology.”

Two deep grooves marred the smooth skin at the bridge of her nose. “You don’t?”

“No.” I kissed her, lingering on her lips for a beat too long, tasting her and inhaling her familiar scent. “You’re the only one who doesn’t need to apologize for what’s happened. You haven’t done anything wrong. You’ve been pushed and pulled in every direction. You’re doing the best you can. You have every right to be confused and question me. Us. Everything. I won’t push you again. Any time you want out or you feel like this is too hard, you can go.”

Her hands sunk in my hair, and she pulled my mouth back against hers. I parted her lips and groaned as her tongue curled around mine with an unyielding urgency. She turned her head to the side, severing contact. Her golden eyes seared mine. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t look away as my heartbeat reverberated through my body, waiting for her to say something. Anything.

“I love you,” she whispered.

The air whooshed out of my lungs. With those three simple words, she had healed the division in my heart, mending the fractured pieces. I didn’t need to choose one-half of my heart over the other. She owned the whole damn thing.

My loyalties weren’t divided.

My heart wasn’t conflicted.

My soul wasn’t fractured.

She owned every inch of me, whether she wanted it or not.

Chapter Twenty-One

Hattie

Ryker froze. His eyes widened, and his hands tightened on my arms. For a split second, I wished I could rewind time and recall my words. With every passing second of silence, my heart died a little. When I couldn’t take one more second of his silent condemnation, I closed my eyes, drowning in dark tidal waves of self-pity and self-censure.

“Open your eyes, Hattie.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry I said it. I should’ve kept it to myself. We can pretend like it didn’t happen.”

“I can’t do that,” he said, resting his forehead against mine.

I rolled my head to the side. “Please,” I whispered.

He cradled my face, gently forcing me to face him. I didn’t open my eyes, but I felt his nose brush against mine.

“I love you too.”

My eyes popped open as my heart did a victory dance in my chest. “You do?”

He grunted in disbelief and frustration. “Of course I do.”

“I never thought…I didn’t know,” I murmured more to myself than him.

“Now you do.” Our lips fused together in a frenzy of desire like this was the first time we had ever kissed.

Our mouths tangled.

Our hearts united.

Our bodies harmonized.

Our breathing quickened.

I loved him. Every flaw. Every secret. Every smile. Every inch of him. Nothing could change my mind. I could’ve carved out my heart and given it to him right then because he owned it. Every jigsaw piece belonged irrevocably to Ryker Vargas.

My lover.

My captor.

My other half.

My future.

Button by button, he opened my shirt, taking his time like I was the best present he’d ever received. Then, he slid my panties down my legs. His boxer briefs followed. Skin to skin, I ached to feel him inside of me again. I didn’t want to waste one more second. I reached between our bodies to guide him inside of me, but he snagged my wrists one by one and pressed them against the headboard.

Ryker had other ideas. “Not so fast,” he muttered.

He trailed kisses along my jaw, down my neck, and then licked a path to the delicate skin behind my ear. Each flicker of his tongue sent a rush of pleasure through my body. He kneaded my breasts, soft and gentle, and circled my nipples with his thumbs. Then, his mouth followed his talented fingers, and I was lost. Moaning, I arched into him, offering and begging for him to take anything he wanted.

One of his hands slipped down my body to my sex. I spread my legs, intentionally giving him better access. His finger swirled around my entrance, then he stroked in and out of me with two fingers. My hips rotated as he moved with the hands of a man who knew how to play my body, igniting every nerve ending. He always had. He always would.

“Ryker,” I gasped, so close to the edge my vision blurred. The ache inside of me multiplied with startling velocity, becoming hotter and more urgent with each thrust of his fingers.

“What do you want, Hattie?”

“You. Inside. Me. Now.” I wanted to experience the soul-shattering connection when he buried himself deep inside of me, and we moved together like we were meant for each other.

His eyes darkened with promise, and his hand stopped moving. “Now?” he whispered, his lips hovering inches from mine.

“Yes,” I answered, because there was no reason to fight him anymore. No reason to pretend. We were on the same page. We were moving forward together. No secrets. No lies. Only love.

He moved his hand and shifted his body so his hard cock rested against my sex. He flexed his hips, tormenting me with the slow slide of his cock along my entrance until I thought I’d die of emptiness. With his eyes searing mine, he slid inside of me, filling me, stretching me. As he began to move, everything faded but the feel of him inside of me and the warm brush of his lips against mine.

Perfection.

Completion.

Beauty.

Those three words tumbled through my mind as he glided in and out of me with long, languid strokes—each rock, tilt, and flex bringing me closer and closer to completion. I groaned, voicing my need the only way I could at that moment.

“Does that feel good?” I nodded almost too eagerly, and a suggestion of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “I know. We’re perfect together.”

He was right. Maybe that was why I could never refuse him. I circled my legs around his waist and tilted my hips as he moved with the perfect carnal rhythm, igniting a slow burn in every nerve ending. He consumed me with every touch, kiss, and thrust.

In moments like this, only Ryker and I existed. His room could burst into flames, and I wouldn’t care or notice. His hand moved to the apex of my thighs. One masterfully aimed touch and the slow burn exploded into a wildfire. I cried out as an orgasm ripped through my body. He moved faster, harder, wringing every ounce of pleasure from my body and his until he collapsed on top of me, the strong and heavy beat of his heart nudging my breastbone.

With his head buried next to my neck, his thumb traced the edge of my jaw. “I love you,” he whispered. I turned my head and pressed a sideways kiss on the center of his palm.

“I love you too.”

He rolled off me and chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” I stared at his smiling face.

“Nothing. I’m happy.”

“Me too,” I said, and I was. For the first time in months, I believed everything would be fine. Better than fine. Ryker made me believe in us, in him, and our future. Regardless of what happened with my family or Evan’s family, I had Ryker, and at that moment, nothing else mattered. “Having you in my life makes me happy.”

His mouth found mine, kissing me, loving me, and telling me without words everything I needed to know.