I hold onto the back of his neck while he zips my shorts, his body so close to mine again. He fishes the button through the hole, tension constricting his muscles. My breath is ragged. How is this possible? I just orgasmed.
I look up at him as he finishes. “I guess that answers my question.”
“What question?”
“Before, I was going to ask you if this was it for us.”
He frowns. “What are you fucking talking about?”
I don’t back down to the darkness in his features. I cling to every dangerous quality he possesses. “I just thought you’d want to go back to being just friends after what happened with my face.”
His confusion turns into a hard glare. “I’m not with you because you’re a fucking model.”
“I know.”
“Clearly you didn’t.”
“I do now.”
He’s not happy with that answer. “I didn’t think I was going to have to spell it out for you, Calloway.”
“Now I’m confused.”
He shakes his head. “I’ve never met a fucking girl that I wanted to stick around for longer than a month, and then I became friends with you—”
I cut him off, “And I thought that you could go back to being my friend.”
“No, you thought that I’d want to. You think I’m with you just because you’re fucking gorgeous? Daisy, I could have been with you the moment you turned eighteen. Having sex with a hot fucking girl that gets me hard isn’t worth risking the relationship I have with my brother.”
I breathe heavily. “What’s worth the risk then?”
“What we fucking have,” he says. “I love you beyond physical attraction.” He cups my smooth cheek, looking deep into my eyes. “I love you, Dais, because you’re the wildest fucking girl with the biggest fucking heart. And without you in my life”—he shakes his head like it’s an inconceivable picture—“I’d be the unhappiest fucking guy.”
His words flood me with so much emotion. For however ineloquent they are, they sound perfect off his lips—because they’re one-hundred percent Ryke Meadows. I focus on the three most important ones of the bunch.
“You love me,” I breathe.
He lets out a short laugh. “You’re such a fucking girl.”
“Say it again.”
He smiles, a full blown one that tingles my body all over. “I fucking love you, sweetheart.”
I lean in to kiss him, forgetting I’m hurt, but he holds my jaw, controlling the touch of our lips that desperately wants to be something more. Before it turns wild, he kisses my forehead and murmurs, “I’m not going anywhere.”
I never knew that a relationship could be so mental, so emotional before all the physical. I wonder if we’re doing this backwards or if this has been the right way all along.
Right. I’ve found the one person who makes me the happiest, but I just wonder how long I’ll be able to keep him. I wonder if there are too many outside forces pulling us apart for this to last.
I’ll take each day as they come.
Live in the moment with Ryke Meadows.
If I ever die, I want that across my headstone.
< 29 >
DAISY CALLOWAY
Janet hands me a plastic bag with all my valuables and the bloodied maroon turtleneck I was wearing that night. I slip the gold ring on my thumb while Ryke heads down the hall, talking on the phone and waiting for me to leave.
“You need to go over to that cashier’s window and they’ll give you the hospital bill.”
I nod. “Will the ambulance fee be added with that?” I don’t know how the French medical system works.
Janet frowns. “There is no ambulance fee. Didn’t you know that?”
I shake my head. “No, but I…” I blink as I wrack my brain.
The pub isn’t even close to this hospital, so how…
“He carried you,” Janet says, a hand to her chest, like that night was emotional, even for her. “You were in his arms when he reached the hospital doors. He arrived about ten minutes before anyone else from the riot.”
Tears well, and I suppress them as best I can. My voice trembles. “He ran here?”
She nods and reaches out to touch my wrist in comfort. I glance down the hallway at Ryke who speaks with force into the phone, like he wants the person on the other end to fully listen to him. He’s the hero of my story, but he refuses to claim any of those moments, as if they don’t matter.
They do matter. Everyone sees partial sides to Ryke, and he lets them think he’s just an athlete with no brains, an aggressive asshole. It’s like he’s been alone for so long that he’s lost any interest in showing off his worth.