It’s dim and warm inside my apartment. Brylee leaves my side to turn on a corner lamp, and the moment she’s back, I drag her close again.
Can’t bear to let either of them go.
What the fuck’s the matter with me?
“Easy now,” Riddick says in my ear, and I shiver. “You should change. You’ll catch your death.”
My death…
They help me pull off my suit jacket, but I don’t have the energy to do more than that. “I’m not that wet,” I mutter.
Wordlessly, Riddick rips my shirt off, leaving me in my white tank top, which is mostly dry.
“Bed?” he asks.
“Sofa.”
So they drag me back to the living room. Their arms are grounding me, and I realize my legs are still unsteady as we lumber to the couch like a three-headed beast.
Since I won’t let them go, we tumble in a heap on the soft leather cushions, Brylee squealing in my ear.
It makes me laugh.
I haven’t laughed in days. In… longer than that. Not since I last saw her.
“Don’t go,” I whisper to her, to them both, hauling them against me. She’s rain and flowers, he’s a jungle’s dark scent. “Just… don’t.”
I’m cracking wide open, broken down the fucking middle, unable to hide.
“We’re not going,” Brylee says.
Riddick’s strong arm tightens around me, though his reply makes no sense. “We can see the gold.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Banana Cream Pie
Brylee
Riddick can see it, too. How good Ryan is, deep inside.
I knew it. He can see behind Ryan’s tough façade, too.
In fact, the way they look at each other reminds me of my night-time fantasies with the two of them together. Does he feel something for Ryan?
Come to think of it, does Ryan, for either of us?
He came looking for me, and he was terrified something had happened to me. Soaked through with the rain, without a jacket, unsteady on his feet, he’d dropped everything to drive to the hospital.
For me.
And the way he’s holding on to both of us like he’s still afraid. Afraid we might vanish into smoke.
It’s breaking my heart.
Add to that how worried I am for him, with that fainting spell he had, how sad I am for him that his mom’s dead, and I’m gone.
Hooked.