Page 27 of Ripple Effect, Vol. 3

“Who’s jealous now?” I manage to grit out against his assaulting lips.

“You did this on purpose.” He growls, sending jolts of pain across my skull as he tugs my hair. “Knew I couldn’t resist after seeing that asshole’s hands all over you.”

“I was minding my own business!” I scream into his mouth, biting his lip and he presses harder, smashing my hands into the mirror. His movements are rough and when I kick him in the nuts, he groans and squeezes firmer.

I can damn near taste the adrenaline still rolling off him, thick as syrup. “What do you care, huh? Why do you care, Ripley? You told me yourself not to get attached.”

He doesn’t answer, but then his kiss softens, his grip of my arms loosens, and his lips on mine turn calmer.

Gentle.

Just like that, the poison of his words dissipates into a silent apology, and like the addict I am, fiending for his affection, I abandon my anger. I relent.

I snake my arms around his shoulders, shed his jacket to the floor, and I’m eyeing the two of us in the mirror’s reflection. His dark, intimidating form smothering me against the wall, making me look small, shielded by a six foot, six inch wall of muscle.

“Why’d you go out there? I told you to stay put.” He speaks into the crook of my neck and the vibration sends a tickle straight to my core. “This place is filled with shady bastards. Any one of them could’ve swiped you up. And now they’ve seen you with me.”

“What’s the matter? Afraid you’d have to admit to paying for sex?” Anger bubbles up inside of me, and I shove at him again. “You threw me to the wolves, then!”

His lip peels back into a snarl. “They know I almost killed for you,” he hisses.

His response holds me in place, and all I can do is stare up at him because I get it now. He’s not mad at me. He’s mad at what I’ve become to him. It’s his fucked up way of saying that I’m his weakness and now everyone who saw what happened in there knows it too. That he’d have killed another man for me, and in his world, that would make me a pawn. Something that can be used against him.

Like Emily.

“It was a mistake bringing you here.” His voice is cooler now, but still carries a sharp edge. The tension in his jaw and neck pops through with the tightening of his muscles.

I want to soothe it away, to let him know I get where he’s coming from now, because I do. Ripley and I have the most messed up connection there ever was, but even at his most pissed off, he doesn’t mean to hurt me, even when his words make me feel cheap and used. It’s his way of dealing with his need to protect me. I rise up onto my tiptoes and grab either side of his face. “I’m sorry if I put you in a bad position. I wanted to watch, is all.”

As if I’ve just diffused a bomb, his eyes focus on me again, the tension from before softening and he kisses me with the kind of reverence that has me sliding down the wall.

When he pulls away, his eyes track to the side of me, and as he strokes my cheek I flinch at the tenderness. His lips thin to a straight line before planting a gentle kiss there. “I would’ve killed him. For laying a hand on you, I’d have killed him right there. Why didn’t you stay with the girls in the back?”

“I didn’t want to sit and talk with the other strippers about your big dick.”

A second’s worth of a frown slides into a half-cocked grin. “Thought you liked my big dick.”

“You know I do, Ripley.”

“Say it again.”

“What?”

“My name. I like when you say my name.”

“Ripley,” I repeat. “I like your big dick.”

A twitch of his cheek tells me this pleases him and just like him, I’m crazy. Crazy for wanting to please him.

I hate that he has this power over me, but that’s the nature of Ripley and me. We’re fucked up—two wrongs that somehow make a right. I can’t stay mad at him because, as silly as it sounds, one soft touch of this killer’s hand is enough to disarm me. His acrid comments fizzle away into the frantic need to have him inside of me.

“You said you want to watch?” He’s unbuckling his pants before I have a chance to answer and pushing them to the floor. “Watch us.”

The guy has no shame. No sense of embarrassment, as in the mirror beside me, I catch sight of him stroking his dick, completely unabashed by the fact that he’s in a public place. I can’t stop studying the ripples in his muscles as his big, strong hand slips up and down his shaft.

And it’s … fucking hot. So hot I don’t even notice at first that I’m grinding my ass against the glass to the rhythm of his strokes.

Reaching for my hand, he closes my fingers around his shaft and gives a squeeze. “Stroke me,” he demands.