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“Told Ryker you love him. I know you do. Everyone sees it when you look at him, at least when you aren’t angry,” he laughed. “You never looked at Daddy like that.”
I didn’t ask what look he meant. I didn’t think I needed to. Even I knew there was a difference between how I felt for Ryker and what I had felt for Chad.
Ryker was scary, not just because he was a serial killer and a stalker, but because of the way he turned me inside out and somehow reassembled me to feel more alive than I’d ever been before.
It seemed I wasn’t the only one so deeply affected by him. Ines had been speaking little bits here and there when Chad died. “Love you,” had been one of her favorite phrases.
I couldn’t remember her ever saying it to Chad. Not even once.
Glancing up as Axel moved away, Ines leaned her belly over his arms and happily kicked her legs as he led her around the pool. I tried not to feel that hurt, focusing instead on the result. My daughter was in the pool, smiling and giggling without a care in the world thanks to Ryker.
As I grabbed the floaties for her arms off the ledge of the pool and stepped over with a smile to slide them onto her arms, I decided that was all that mattered.
I wouldn’t change that smile for anything.
???
The feel of weight covering me suddenly jarred me from my sleep with a shriek of terror. When my eyes opened in the unlit room, I could barely see anything. Just a shape looming above me, curling me underneath him. But I knew that body, I'd know it anywhere.
I knew the way he smelled, and I knew the way he felt when his skin touched mine.
"Ryker," I whispered, touching his shoulder gently. He jerked away from my touch, but never stopped cradling me underneath him. "Ryker, what's wrong?" I asked him, feeling his body jerk from side to side as if he was being struck.
But the room was silent except for his panting breaths, except for the deep shudders that shook his body as if he was being torn from the inside out.
"Ryker!" I yelled to no avail. I smacked at his shoulder gently, trying to draw his attention from whatever distressed him, but there was no response.
No sign that he was even alive, aside from his breath on my hair and the way his body moved. His hand grabbed my wrist, pinning it to the bed beside my head and holding me there. The other was pinned next, and I bucked my hips to shift his weight off of me. But he was so fucking heavy that I didn't stand a chance of moving him. Especially not if I didn't want to hurt him.
And I realized with sudden clarity that I didn't. All thoughts I'd had of stabbing him in his sleep had passed, and in reality hadn't even been real. I could never hurt the giant beast of a man who cradled me like he had to protect me from whatever haunted him. When his face shifted a little closer, I realized his eyes were closed, pinched shut as if in pain.
Asleep.
Ryker was dreaming, and the pain on his face meant it was something terrible.
"Ryker," I whispered again, a low sob sticking in my throat. I wanted to help him, wanted to pull him from whatever tormented him, but I also knew that to wake him would risk him hurting me. I knew he would never forgive himself.
"No!" he yelled suddenly, his body shifting to cover mine completely as his entire frame vibrated as if he was being struck. "You can't have her. Not her." I stilled, wondering if he dreamt about someone hurting me.
Or if there was a woman who mattered more than I did.
If I thought it sweet that he might protect me in his dreams, it tore me apart to think he might dream about protecting someone else.
His grip on my wrists tightened, near the point of bruising but never crossing over that threshold. "Not her," he murmured brokenly as his weight collapsed.
With the full force of him on top of me, I couldn't breathe. Couldn't get air into my lungs as he crushed my chest. "Ryker!" I wheezed, pinching the skin of his side so harshly that he finally woke up. He vaulted off me, falling off the foot of the bed and caught himself just before he could hit the ground.
By the time I scrambled to my feet and turned on the light, he was sitting with his head in his hands. I touched his shoulder gently, wincing when he shrugged me off and surged to his feet. His eyes searched me, and I realized quickly that he was inspecting me for injuries. Checking to see if he'd hurt me. "I'm fine," I said to reassure him. "You didn't hurt me."
His eyes landed on the reddened skin of my wrists, grabbing my hand and lifting it to look closer. "This isn't hurting you?" he asked.
"It won't even bruise, Ryker. It's nothing." I stepped into his arms, wrapping mine around his waist as best as I could as my face buried in his chest. "Talk to me."
"Talk to you about what?" he grunted, clearing his throat as he stepped out of my hold. His blue eyes were hard, cold as he looked at me.
Completely closed off. Such a contrast to the way he normally treated me, even when he wasn’t speaking. It made me flinch back as a sharp pain struck my chest.
"Your nightmare. You said not her. Who—?"
