Fight for Me (12 page)

He continued to thrust his tongue into my mouth, probing its depths for a deeper connection. When he sucked on my tongue, it rippled through my sex as if he were stroking me there. The pressure was so incredible I’d do anything if he’d only unchain me from the desire I was drowning in. I needed him to pound it out of me until I was screaming his name with tears of completion in my eyes. He slipped his fingers into my pants. He flirted with the edge of my panties. I pushed farther into him, encouraging him to touch me where I needed it the most. Somewhere in my mind, I registered a door opening, but I was too absorbed in the taste of Ryder’s kiss to pull away.

“Now I get it.” The words cut into our erotic moment. I broke the kiss and looked up into Jacob’s frowning face. Ryder ignored his presence, biting and sucking on my neck. Maybe he wanted Jacob see him laying down his claim on me, because he didn’t back off even after I tried to push him away.

“Fucking your stepsister, huh?” Jacob shook his head as he walked closer. He leaned on the wall next to us, then said, “What would my sister think of this?”

Ryder finally eased up and glared at Jacob. “Leah knows where we stand.”

Leah
is Jacob’s sister?

“Is that so?” Jacob laughed. “She seems to think you two are close to being an item again. She said you guys
reconnected
a couple nights ago. Look, she’s my sister and I know she’s done some fucked-up shit, but so have you. This isn’t the first time you needed
space,
but you two always end up back together.”

“We didn’t reconnect. I put her in a cab. Nothing happened.” Ryder was looking at Jacob, but I knew the explanation was for me.

“He’s using you, you know?” he said directly to me, then looked back at Ryder. “When you’re done with this one, let me know. I was never into your leftovers, but for her…” He shrugged with a cocky smile on his face.

The muscles in Ryder’s shoulders tensed under my fingertips. He clenched his teeth, and a muscle in his jaw jumped. A new storm was brewing in his eyes, entirely different from the one that was brewing between us seconds before.

“If you ever touch her, I’ll finish what I started the other night.” Ryder’s tone was cold and angry. Jacob looked a little surprised Ryder stood up for me.

He shook his head and said, “Wow, Ryder, Leah will be interested in how protective you are of her.” He grabbed his bag off the floor, leaving us alone in the hallway.

Ryder leaned his forehead against mine and sighed. I ran a soothing hand at the back of his neck and into his hair. The tension began to melt off him as he gazed into my eyes. He kissed me again, softly and sensually.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said when he finally pulled away.

“It’s fine. It’s probably more my fault than yours. I should’ve never led him on.”

He clasped my head between his hands. A deep frown etched into his face. “I don’t want to pull you into my shit. I should stay away, but I don’t know how.”

“Don’t.”

He smiled, shook his head, and kissed the top of my head. “You have no idea what you’re asking. You’ll never be able to get out from under me.”

I never wanted to.

~*~*~

I left the gym and went back up to Ryder’s place, feeling heavily aroused and deeply agitated. Aroused from Ryder’s kisses and agitated by Jacob’s words. All my questions about Leah were answered, and I didn’t like what I’d heard.

Obviously, Leah was a fixture in Ryder’s life. The last thing I needed was to fall for another man who would hurt me. There was no reason I couldn’t have Ryder physically if I could keep all the emotional stuff at bay. What happened with Logan nearly destroyed me. With Ryder it would be worse. I picked up my phone and sent Shelby a text message.

Do
you think it will happen again?

Shelby was always prompt to answer, so her reply came in under a minute.

What???

Lose myself so deep in someone it costs me everything.

You
haven’t lost everything.

Lost my other half. Most days it feels like everything.

I waited for her to respond, but she called me instead. I picked up on the second ring. “I know I always do this, but it’s different this time.”

“Different? Because of Ryder and what he’s making you feel?”

“I don’t want to be like I was with Logan. I don’t want anyone to be able to hurt me like that again.”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about. I want you to be happy, but you won’t allow yourself to be. Do you think this is how Alec wanted you to turn out?” At the mention of his name, my heart stuttered and a sharp pain echoed within me.

“Alec is not here to care about what I do.”

“You put up this strong act. Like you control your destiny and you don’t need love anymore, but that’s bullshit. You’re pretending. Pretending to be happy with the life you’ve created, but I know you, Lexi. You’re not happy.”

When I wasn’t pretending, everyone hovered over me. Once I’d figured out how to get everyone off my back, there was no way I’d go back to just being me. There wasn’t enough of me left, anyway. I hadn’t known who I was since I lost Alec.

“I want to be happy, Shelby, but I’m scared.”

“I know, sweetheart, but we both need to overcome our fears.”

“I know you’re right. I miss you, Shells.” We usually talked every day and saw each other three times a week.

“Let’s get together Friday night. I’ll meet you at The Lounge.”

“Ehh… I don’t know. The last time I was there someone bashed in the windows on my car.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, but Mom’s going to kill me when she gets the bill.”

“Lexi, please, your dad left over ten million dollars in a trust. With Alec gone, all that money goes to you.”

“You don’t know my mom. She doesn’t want me to turn entitled like her parents were. She hates when I waste money.”

“But the car incident wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was. I left my car overnight. I was irresponsible. She never wanted to buy me the car in the first place. She trusted me to take care of it, and I didn’t.”

“Okay, since it’s such a sore spot, we can go somewhere else.”

I thought about going to the bar down the street from Ryder’s gym, but the place was filled with college kids. I really liked our bar, and I wasn’t going to let anyone chase me away.

“No, let’s meet at The Lounge Friday night at ten.”

“Great, I’ll be there.”

Chapter
Sixteen

Alexis

I jerked awake. My heart was pounding, and I was breathing heavily.

“Are you okay?” Ryder asked, but I stared at him blankly, not fully aware of where I was and what he was doing there.

“Lexi?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” I ran a hand through my hair and fell back to the pillow. I wasn’t even sure when Ryder got into bed, but my nerves were too frayed for me to care.

“You want to talk about it?” His hand caressed my arm. He pulled me over until we were facing each other.

“It’s just a nightmare.”

I looked up into his eyes, and I could tell he was trying to figure out if he should push the subject, but he decided not to. He nodded slowly. His presence in the bed usually eased my anxiety and allowed me to sleep. Tonight, I didn’t think I’d be getting much more rest. It was silent for a long while, but I felt his thoughts filling the room.

“Just ask,” I said. I hated when people thought by asking me what was on their mind, I’d break. If Ryder really wanted to talk, I didn’t want him to be afraid to ask me questions.

“Do you ever think about that night?”

Finally.
No one ever talks about that night.

“Almost every day,” I answered immediately because I knew it was what he’d been thinking. “I think about how blinded I was by the pain. I think about what would’ve happened if you weren’t there. Would I have seen Alec again, or would I have drifted off into nothingness? Either way, at the time, I would’ve rather been nothing than to be without him.”

“We would’ve missed you, Lexi.” Ryder closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You’ll always mean something to everyone who knows you.”

I smiled at him, and he stared at me, his eyes brimming with concern. I reached out and ran my hand over the stubble beginning to grow on his face.

“More than anything, I think about you calling out to me and the relieved look on your face when I woke up. You saved me in more ways than you’ll ever realize.”

He pulled me against his chest with a large arm around my waist and nuzzled his head into my neck and inhaled me. I was amazed by how natural it felt to be in his arms, and I was even more surprised when I began to drift off into a dreamless sleep moments later.

~*~*~

Ryder woke up the next morning in an oddly jubilant mood.

“Let me take you out?” he asked with a sexy little smile. We’d just finished eating the breakfast he made us, and he didn’t have to train that day. This was a very rare occasion, according to him.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.” He pulled me into his arms and hugged me. It seemed like we’d reached a turning point, and he was no longer denying his feelings for me. His flirting and touching were amped up, and I wasn’t complaining.

“What should I wear?”

“You’re fine like that.” I took a step back and looked down at my ripped jeans and crop top and shook my head. I didn’t know if we’d be out all night and knew I’d get cold.

“It gets too chilly at night for this shirt.”

He glanced down at my shirt with a mischievous look. “Is this because you’re cold?” He reached out and skimmed a finger over my beaded nipple, and it knotted up even tighter. The heat of his touch on my sensitive flesh caused fire to shoot to my core. He slowly moved his fingers down until he was touching the little jewel hanging from my navel.

“This is sexy.” He dropped down to his knees and rolled his tongue over the jewel, then into my navel. The satiny feel of his mouth against my skin as he licked me sent flames of desire through every pore. I latched onto his hair to balance myself as the strength of my arousal caused my legs to tremble, my body to quake, and my sex to grow moist. He kissed the skin right at the edge of my jeans, then backed away.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

No, let’s stay here.
That’s what my body said, but he forced me toward the door. I grabbed a sweatshirt and followed him out of the apartment.

Ryder

We pulled into a large parking lot, and I glanced over at Alexis. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind and asked, “A carnival?”

“Yeah, don’t you like them?”

“I used to like them. I mean, I feel a little excited when I see one, but there’s also a bit of nostalgia mixed in. I’ve never been to one of these without Alec.”

“We can go somewhere else.”

After the night she had, I wanted to do something to make her smile, not bring back memories that would depress her. I began to turn the key in the ignition, but she put her hand over mine to still my motions.

She looked quietly out the windshield at the carnival. I could tell by the look on her face she was visiting a time in the past. I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed quiet and let her have a moment to remember Alec. Then she smiled to herself and started talking.

“When we were eight…” She began, with her eyes still locked on the carnival in the distance. It was like she was reliving it as she was telling me. “Alec decided we were going to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl ten times in a row. And I always went along with anything he said.”

That, I remembered. When she was younger, she’d do anything Alec and I told her to. She trusted us unconditionally, and I always wanted to protect her from her naivety. I knew she’d had a different reason for doing all the things I told her. Her crush on me was cute back then, but I thought I was too old for her. She had always been amazingly beautiful. At thirteen, she’d already developed the kind of body a fifteen-year-old could only admire when she wore her bikini on the beach. So when any of the other boys even looked her way, I made sure they knew she wasn’t available.

She looked over at me with a sad smile. “To me, Alec’s ideas were always brilliant.”

I smiled at her. “They were pretty brilliant. Remember the day Alec decided we should hike two miles down the beach, over the hill, and down to the lake? That was great idea.”

She looked at me and shook her head. “No, that was a bad one.”

“What? We had a great time at the lake. All the older kids hung out there.”

“No, you had fun with Melanie. I had a horrible time because I had to watch you drool all over her.”

“First of all, I wasn’t drooling. And secondly, were you jealous?”

She rolled her eyes at me and crossed her arms. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know I had a crush on you.”

I narrowed my eyes and feigned surprise. “How would I have known that?”

“Ryder?” She stared at me with one eyebrow raised.

“Okay, I knew, but you were too young for me.”

“No, I wasn’t, and Melanie was
too old
for you. What was she, like, twenty?”

“She was eighteen. And in her defense, she thought I was eighteen, also. You have to admit I was tall for sixteen.”

“She was disgusting.” She looked at me with a grimace.

“That’s not how I remember her.”

“That’s because you were too busy staring at her boobs.”

“She had great boobs.” I smiled at how irritated and jealous she was getting.

“I had boobs.” She pouted.

“Yeah, and they were great. Not as great as they are now, but I noticed.”

“So you were watching me?” Her face brightened, and she leaned toward me.

“Of course I watched you, but I would’ve never touched you.”

“Why not? You had no problems touching Melanie in the lake.”

“God,” I groaned, shutting my eyes. “You really were watching me.”