The Three Fates of Ryan Love (7 page)

He slipped his finger inside her, nearly growling at the feel of the tight, wet heat he found. He worked a second in as she bucked and softly cried out. He should have locked the door. Hell, he hadn't even closed it, but the house was silent and he couldn't pull away from her, even for a second. He sealed his lips over her sex and sucked.

Orgasm went through Sabelle like an earthquake. He felt the power of it in the flex of her thighs, the clenching fingers in his hair, the small keening sound she made in her throat. He rode it out with her, so into her that he wanted to do it all over again just to hear the erotic song of her cries, the sensual dance of her body. He made his way up to her mouth, kissing belly and ribs, breasts and chin on the way. He kissed her with her taste on his tongue and her scent in his blood.

Without breaking away, he reached for the nightstand drawer. Two condoms were on the bottom. They'd been in his pocket on the Fourth of July, when they'd closed Love's and held a barbecue in the backyard. Friends and neighbors had joined the celebration, bearing the stifling summer like true native Arizonians. The months before had been lonely and he'd thought maybe he'd get lucky that night. But in the end, he'd gotten drunk instead and passed out in his old room, alone. The condoms had gone into the drawer and had been there ever since.

Sabelle was the first woman he'd been with since . . . April? March? He didn't know and he didn't care.

He stopped kissing her long enough to roll the condom on and take her back in his arms. She locked her ankles at the small of his back and he eased into that silken, wet heat.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

He kept his head down so she wouldn't see his eyes rolling back in his head and buried himself by inches, listening for cues in the sounds she made. All good; nothing that sounded like pain or retreat.

She was holding her breath. It came out in a rush against his ear. He was deep inside her, hard and heavy, wanting to thrust, go deeper.

“You okay?” he asked, forcing himself to pull back and take note.

She nodded, her eyes wide. A little dazed.

“You sure?”

She answered with a kiss that made him forget what he'd asked. He braced himself on arms that framed her head, and she shifted, making their fit more complete. He held still for a moment, eyes locked, chest tight, body roaring with lust. She moved beneath him and he rocked once, twice, and then fell into a rhythm of hard, cutting pleasure that spiraled down to her movements, her sounds, her needs. Sabelle had turned him into a creature of senses, electric nerves, dark hunger. A pulsing shiver went through her, gripping muscles, gripping him.

She came again with a suddenness that clenched him in a hot fist and pushed him beyond the brink. He muffled her scream with a kiss and came hard, climax ripping through his body like a storm. And still the reverberations shuddered through her.

He was breathing heavy, the sound harsh in the silence. Sabelle was, too. His body covered hers and some weak voice of sanity told him he was probably crushing her. He tried to move but she made a sound of protest and held him tighter, arms and legs like ropes binding him to her. At last, he settled for rolling on his side, bringing her with him. He was still aroused, still connected. She was like an addiction, making him crave more even now.

They lay like that, not moving, not speaking until a door closed down the hall and the water was turned on a moment later. Ruby, getting into the shower.

In his arms, Sabelle stiffened, only just realizing the door was open. “Do you think she heard us?” she whispered, like they were high school sweethearts about to be busted by his mom and dad.

“No.”

He got up and closed the door, though. The condom went into the trash. He grabbed an old shirt from the dresser to wipe them both clean before tossing it onto the laundry pile and climbing back in bed. Instantly, Sabelle's arms and legs entwined with his.

“You all right?” he asked, still hard, still wanting more but concerned about the woman whose bare skin was warm against his body.

“I want to do that again,” she said, her voice sleepy, her eyes closed.

He laughed. “That's good to know.”

But her breathing had already slowed, her arms relaxing as sleep stole her from him. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and followed a second later.

B
randy woke Ryan with a soft, apologetic whine. He opened his eyes to find her sitting beside the bed, her nose on the mattress, watching him.

He rubbed his face and instantly, his mind filled. Sabelle. The explosion. The
sex.

She was still wrapped around him like a clinging vine. He held on to her like he was afraid she'd get away. The clock on the nightstand read 4:11 p.m. They'd slept all day.

Carefully, Ryan eased his arm from beneath Sabelle's head, untangled his legs from hers, and withdrew. She made a soft sound of protest, but when he pulled the covers up, she settled again. She was so beautiful that he almost crawled right back in.

He rubbed his face again. God, what the fuck had he been thinking? She was trouble. Capital
T
.
Virgin
trouble at that.

Well, not anymore.

Fuck.

Even women who knew the ropes expected things from a man. They wanted to know who you were. Who you were going to be for them. They were disappointed when you didn't know. When you didn't want
them
to know.

This one was looking for a hero, and she'd cast Ryan as her knight in armor, come to save her from her evil enemies. But he was no fairy-tale prince even if she looked like Sleeping Beauty.

Yet here she was. In his bed. And like it or not, that pretty much changed everything.

Brandy whined once more.

“Shhhh,” he breathed.

He scooped his pants off the floor, grabbed the clean shirt and flannel button-down from his open backpack, and tiptoed toward the door. It was a coward's out, sneaking around with his clothes and his shoes in hand, but she'd want to talk when she opened her pretty eyes.

He glanced back at her. The sheets were white, her hair a rich brown against them. One foot poked from the edge of the covers, pale toes and smooth sole leading to the fine bones of ankle and the soft curve of calf.

He could still taste her. Still hear the soft sounds she'd made in her throat when he'd been buried deep inside her. Still wanted to be inside her now. And there lay the crux of the problem.

He left the door open and padded down the hall. As he passed, family members judged him from framed pictures on the walls. He couldn't look at the smiling faces of his parents, brother, and sisters without thinking of Reece and his blackened remains now buried next to Mom and Dad. He paused in front of the last one—a snapshot from a few years ago of the four kids laughing around the bar at Love's as they toasted St. Patrick. So much had changed.

Dad had done his best raising them alone, but he'd gotten more than any one man could handle. The twins and all of their complications. Ruby, the rebel in the middle, living her own version of the after-school special. Ryan trying to overcompensate and be the child who never needed attention and failing repeatedly. At the end of the day, Ryan and Ruby had put just as many gray hairs on Dad's head as the twins.

Ryan and his old man hadn't seen eye to eye on anything, yet there were days when Ryan looked in the mirror and saw his father staring back. And he missed him. Missed the steady guidance. His unflappable strength. The calm assurance that things would work out.

He stared at his feet, unseeing for a moment until a small movement caught his eye. A scorpion sat less than an inch away from his bare left foot. Ryan jumped back.

It was a tiny one, but he knew from experience that they could be the worst. Scorpions were as much a part of Arizona as the dry heat. Baby scorpions were especially nasty, though, because they hadn't learned to control the flow of venom. The scorpion on the floor was the color of wet sand. It spun to face him, tail curled in the air and ready to sting. It wouldn't kill him if it got him, but it would hurt like a sonofabitch.

Ryan grabbed a picture from the wall and caught the thing with the sharp edge of the frame as it darted forward. He used the corner to grind it down to its flattened, bisected death.

Ryan hated scorpions. He'd take any one of the many spiders or snakes that called Arizona home over the small, stinging scorpion.

When he was seventeen, he'd stumbled over a piece of deadwood hiding a mother and her babies. He'd been stung multiple times and his leg had swollen up like a water­melon. He'd been so sick that his dad had taken him to the ER. And the pain . . . He'd had his nose broken twice, his left arm once, his shoulder dislocated a few times, and torn more ligaments than he could count. Even when they carried him out on a stretcher, he'd gritted his teeth and joked about it. But the pain of the fucking scorpions' poison had made him cry.

Which Reece found hysterical. After that, his brother thought it funny to catch them and leave them in jars by Ryan's bed, in the shower beside the shampoo, on the dash of his car. A very unmanly shudder went through him.

Brandy watched patiently as he flushed the little bastard before following him down the stairs. It was quiet on the first floor, Ruby long gone to Vegas. His sister didn't know how to be quiet . . . or neat. She'd obviously fed Brandy and let her out before she'd gone, or the dog would've woken Ryan long ago. Like a hurricane, Ruby had left the debris of her breakfast and Brandy's behind in the kitchen.

Brandy bolted outside as soon as he opened the front door. Ryan shrugged into his clothes and shoes in the foyer before following more slowly, shivering in the desert cold. It had dipped below freezing every night this week and the days had barely broken the fifties. Rain kept the air damp and chilly, while the watery sunlight and pushy clouds gave the late afternoon a twilight cast. The street was deserted. No kids. No cars. Not even a dog barked in the distance.

With a jaw-popping yawn, Ryan stretched, wincing at the sting from the burn on his back. The pain reminded him that though the past twelve hours might not feel real, it had all happened.

Love's was gone.

And Princess Buttercup was asleep in his bed.

A black bird soared in the sky. Another landed on the spruce tree in the neighbor's yard. It opened its beak and turned its head. Brandy found the perfect spot to do her business, changed her mind, and began sniffing for a better one while Ryan turned his thoughts to what to do next.

He needed to contact the insurance company, start the paperwork, which would be endless, and do about a dozen other things he didn't want to do. Meaningless steps that would lead to the inevitable closing of a chapter in his life. A chapter he'd expected would last forever. A chapter he didn't know how to end.

For all his adult life and some of his adolescence, he'd been the caretaker of his family and business. Now the business was in ruins, the family scattered or dead, and Ryan didn't know what he would do—what he would be—without them.

One sister thought it best just to walk away. The other sister had headed for the hills with the love of her life—someone Ryan couldn't tolerate for more reasons than he cared to face this morning. He couldn't grasp how so much had changed in such a short time.

A dry rustle made him look to the right. Now there were three black birds in the spruce tree, clinging to a vibrating limb, sitting wing to wing. Their ebony heads swiveled when he moved, the beady eyes tracking him.

Their fixed attention felt eerie in the gloomy light. Thoughtful, hateful. He laughed at himself, the sound hollow and just as unnerving. Disquiet sifted like snow inside him. They were only birds, but still . . . they could be birds in someone else's tree. He picked up a handful of gravel from the drive and chucked a few of the bigger stones in their direction to scare them off. The biggest one opened its beak in a silent taunt. None of them moved. Feeling stupid, he threw another stone. It thunked the trunk below them hard enough that it should have scared all three away, but all they did was cock their heads and snap their beaks.

“Hurry up, Brandy,” he told his dog, returning to the porch. “It's cold out here.”

Brandy gave him a curious glance and started sniffing faster. He tossed the last stone from hand to hand while he waited.

He glanced at the tree again. The birds hadn't moved. Worse, it looked like a couple more might be up higher, but they were hidden by the thick needles and deep shadows, so he couldn't be sure. He hefted the rock and hurled it at the lower branches. A couple of the birds flapped their wings and levitated in irritation but settled after a moment.

At last, Brandy bounded to the porch with her big doggy smile, but she stopped on the third step and her head went down. Eyeing something behind Ryan, she gave a low, menacing, growl. Ryan spun around and scanned the porch. Dead leaves had congregated in the corners. A few more skittered across the planked surface. Nothing else moved.

A dark gust of wind buffeted the barren oak in the front yard and ruffled the pine. He looked over his shoulder. The birds were gone. Only now, that pricked at his uneasiness instead of expelling it. Brandy's growl grew louder, deeper.

“What's wrong?” he muttered.

His gaze searched the porch, the yard, the disconcertingly silent street. The stillness struck a chord inside him. Weren't the schools shut down for the holidays? Which meant kids should be out playing . . . but he couldn't remember ever seeing it so quiet.

Brandy's engine revved into a snarl.

She stared at the hanging porch swing. It swayed unevenly and the rusty chain squealed in protest. A big raven perched on its back, wings out and feathers spread. It puffed up and glared.

“Get out of here,” Ryan snapped and stomped his foot at it.

The bird cocked its head derisively and didn't budge.

Brandy crept to Ryan's side with bent legs, her body low to the ground—a sure sign that she didn't think she could take whatever she sensed. It couldn't be the bird that had her freaked out. Granted, it was huge for a bird, but Brandy wouldn't care about that. He'd seen her charge a coyote before.

“What do you see, girl?”

A ridge of fur stood on end at her shoulders, her lips pulled back in threat, teeth bare and shiny with saliva.

Still the bird watched, swaying back and forth as the chair swung. Brandy's growl drew out, warped by a sudden burst of wind that rattled the branches overhead and stirred the deadfall below.

Something brushed against Ryan's neck. Feather-soft, serpent-quick. He ducked and swiped, spinning at the same time.

A man sat on the swing.

“
Fuck
,”
Ryan said on a sharp breath. Brandy let loose one hoarse bark but she didn't charge. “Who the hell are you? Where'd you come from?”

The man calmly stood. He wore a light blue dress shirt with a crisp collar and buttoned wrists. His blue jeans had a smart crease—the kind that meant he'd taken the time to iron them—and ended a little short at the ankles. Black socks and loafers finished the outfit. No jacket. No sign that he was cold either. He was tall and whipcord lean, angular in odd ways. At the broad shoulders that lacked meat, at the hips which seemed wide for a man. He had long arms and square hands. Workingman's hands. His chin was hard, his cheekbones edged.

And his eyes were green, just like Ryan's.

“Hello, Son,” his father said in that deep tenor that reached out of Ryan's memories and solidified in the gloom.

Except his dad had died years ago.

Ryan's breath came in short bursts, like he'd been running. It steamed in the cold.

“It's good to see you, Son,” his dad's imposter went on, tilting his head to the side and giving Ryan an indulgent smile. Ryan had grown up on that smile. He'd spent much of his life pandering to it. Craving it.

In this frosted dusk, it jarred, like the sound of a horn on a tranquil summer day.

Ryan crossed the porch in five angry steps, fists tight. The man who couldn't be his father lifted his hands defensively, but didn't back away. Instead of grabbing the stranger and throwing him off the porch, Ryan just stood there in front of him, numbed by shock, unable to wrench his gaze from the familiar features . . . the salt-and-pepper temples, the tiny white scar that bisected his left brow, the patient look in his green, green eyes.

“I hope I didn't scare you, Son. It wasn't my intention.”

“Quit calling me
son
. And if you didn't want to scare me, why are you lurking on my porch? You almost gave my dog a heart attack.”

Brandy wasn't growling anymore, but she wouldn't be making friends either. Her fur was still up, her eyes watchful and teeth bared. She scanned the porch, past his dad's look-alike, as if he weren't there.

Ryan narrowed his eyes on the man. “Someone with you?”

“Just me.”

Back and forth Brandy's nose went, trying to sniff out what had her scared. Ryan reached down and stroked the shepherd's head. Brandy flinched and then leaned into him with relief. “It's okay,” he said.

Brandy didn't believe it.

“What do you want?” Ryan asked. “Why do you look like my dad?”