Page 91 of No Good Fight

Ryder holds me through it, mouth still working over my clit, hand firm in mine while the storm drowns out the sound I make. My whole body pulls tight, then goes loose, and when I finally drag in a breath, he is kissing his way up my stomach like he has nowhere else in the world he would rather be.

By the time he reaches my mouth, I’m soft, shaking, and furious that he looks as smug as he does.

“Do not look so proud of yourself,” I whisper.

He kisses the corner of my mouth. “I’m extremely proud of myself.”

“That’s unattractive.”

“No, it isn’t.” He kisses the same spot. “You think it’s hot as fuck, and you’d love it if I stayed between your legs all night.” `

I hate that he’s right, but I laugh, breathless and helpless, while he settles beside me on the rug and pulls the edge of the throw blanket from the couch over my bare legs. His hand stays on my hip, warm through the blanket, and for a few minutes, the house feels like it belongs to us instead of the storm.

“You’re perfect, Allycat. Every sinful inch of you. Your taste is everything I ever dreamt possible.”

Then the exterior lights flare white through the living room windows.

Ryder is on his feet before I fully understand what changed and why it’s a big deal that the lights flashed.

The loss of his body heat snaps me awake faster than the lights. “Ryder?”

He grabs the remote from the couch and turns on the monitors. Front porch. Driveway. Garage. Back door. Side yard. The feeds glow blue-white across the room while I sit up, pulling the blanket tight around myself and trying to get my jeans back over my hips with shaking hands. I grab his hoodie instead of my sweater, and even through my panic I love the fact that I’m drowning in it.

“Stay here,” he says, already moving toward the back door. “Watch the monitors.”

“No.”

He stops with one hand on the doorframe.

I shove my foot into the wrong pant leg, swear, and fix it while he stands there fighting himself. “Do not tell me to stay here after what just happened between us.”

His eyes flick over me, not with heat now but assessment of my current state. Scared. Dressed enough. Shaking. Angry. He does not like any of it. He also doesn’t argue.

“Behind me,” he says.

“That I can live with.”

We move through the mudroom and out onto the back porch. Rain hits cold and immediate, soaking through my sweater in seconds. Ryder keeps one hand slightly behind him, not holding me back, just making sure he knows where I am while the floodlights bleach the yard making it a mix of silver and water.

At first, all I see is rain, grass, and the dark line of trees beyond the fence.

Then Ryder goes still and I follow his line of sight.

The message stretches across the back fence in black paint, letters tall and uneven and fresh enough that rain cuts thin trails through them.

HE CAN’T KEEP YOU

For a second, I can’t hear anything except the storm.

Ryder steps in front of me, blocking part of the fence with his body, but I’ve already seen it. The words are inside me now, cold and ugly, trying to turn the last hour into proof that safety was a joke and there’s nothing that will keep me out of Preston’s greedy little hands.

Ryder looks up toward the corner of the house where one of the cameras should have caught the fence. His face goes flat in the floodlight.

“It’s out of range,” I say unhelpfully.

He doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t have to.