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His hand finds my hair and tangles itself in it, picking the strands off the couch and fisting it as he grunts above me. I love that sound. I love that feral sound echoing in the room before his heat floods me deep inside and his powerful body spasms above mine.
He waits, going still after, his cock still throbbing inside me, but not like before. He rests his forehead against mine, our clammy skin sticking together before he kisses me tenderly, then uses the last bit of his strength to pull out, sit up, and haul me up beside him and into his arms. He traces his finger down my arm, circling the skin at the back of my hand lazily. I reach up and set my hand on his chest, feeling for his leaping heartbeat. When he rests his chin on my hair, I sigh in contentment.
I wait for a long time until my muscles are sore in a good way and until the sweat is cool on my skin, making it feel slightly pinched, before I say anything. “Should I go?”
“No,” he says immediately, and that word sends waves of heat crashing through me. A different kind of heat entirely. “No. Stay.” He hauls me onto his lap, shifting me so he can hold me, my legs out to the side, my arms around his neck. “Stay if you want to.” His hand caresses my hair, smoothing out the tangles and knots. “I’d really like it if you did.”
I’ve never spent the night with someone before. Ever. I don’t want my dad to find out about this or any of the guys from the club to report back on me, but I was sure I wasn’t followed here, and as long as I send my nightly text to check in with Dad, it should be fine. Tomorrow, I’m going to meet him for lunch and tell him as much as I can. I have no idea how that’s going to go, so before the storm, I want to just have a night of peace—my first night shared with someone else. Someone who I care about.
“Okay,” I whisper into his neck. “I’ll stay.”
CHAPTER 8
Ransom
I rarely sleep deeply. Sleep is a luxury afforded to few, and generally, it’s the few that have their worries taken care of.
It didn’t come naturally to me because I learned from the time I was a baby that sleep and safety didn’t mesh together. Anything could happen at night, and it often did. It took me years to finally be able to even halfway relax after Granny adopted me. Even now, my brothers joke that I sleep with alternating eyes open, first one, then the other, and the side that is open stays alert while the other side gets some rest.
It doesn’t take much. Just a single noise out of place in the condo. When I realize what pulled me out of my half-state of neither sleep nor wakefulness, I smile softly. Ayana is wrapped in my arms. Her raven hair is slicked across the pillow and halfway over my chest and shoulder, and her body is languid with sleep, warm and relaxed. I love the sound of her soft breaths. I love that under those sheets, she’s naked, and the heat of her pressed up against me feels like it’s scalding. I also love that, in sleep, she’s perfectly relaxed, this girl who is so much younger than me, so wise, and so unexpected.
It’s always the men who think they’re going to be the world’s most horrible dads who end up being the world’s best because they know what the alternative is like. They’ve known pain and hurt, and they don’t ever want their child to have to go through that. They try so hard, they work tirelessly, and they love boundlessly.
That was the last thing Ayana said to me before she snuggled in against me and fell asleep in my arms.
I stayed awake for hours after, caressing her hair, savoring her breaths, her smooth skin, her heavy limbs, and her slight weight draped across my chest and arms.
She must have said something before to wake me. She mumbles now, in the thick of sleep, but the words are absolutely discernable. “My arm.”
I smooth my fingers over Ayana’s cheekbone, but she doesn’t stir. “What’s wrong with your arm?” I whisper right near her ear. The adorable swirl of her lovely ear. I’d like to take it between my teeth and tease it with my tongue, but I don’t want to wake her.
“It’s ripped off,” she mumbles. “It’s gone.”
Holy fuck, what kind of a dream is she having? I’m a little alarmed, but she’s not struggling or thrashing around. “Who stole your arm?”
“The puppets stole it.”
“Ummm, okay, what? Puppets?”
“It smells like horrific death.”
I want to ask her more about this wild dream she’s having, but a creak in the condo silences me. It’s a noise that’s not right. It’s not the regular shift of the building or the bumps that come from outside as people go about their waking and sleeping. A cold prickle washes over me, a shiver crawling up the base of my spine. I’m more than prepared for this. Granny and my brothers—we all trained physically because we knew that one day, we might have to fight to save our lives.
