ChapterOne
Bailey
My eyes slammed open when I jerked awake, my heart jerking with a rapid beat against my breastbone. The room was dark, courtesy of Ryker’s blackout curtains. His side of the bed was cold, and I vaguely remembered him kissing me goodbye sometime this morning before he left for his first class of the day.
I scrubbed my hands down my face, feeling the wetness there from my tears.
Why was I still crying about it almost a year later?
The flashbacks had gone away for a little while. I didn’t understand why they had suddenly returned. I’d even been mostly normal for the past couple of months.
I closed my eyes but jerked them back open when I just continued seeing my mom’s pale, dead face staring back at me, my father lying right beside her. I’d never forget what they looked like when I’d been called to come down to the morgue to identify them.
My hands trembled as I pushed my hair behind my ears.
I needed Ryker. I needed the relief only he could give me.
I looked around for my phone, thinking I had brought it to bed with me last night, but apparently, I hadn’t. Frowning, I tried to remember the last place I had it as I swiped some more tears from my cheeks.
Ryker and I had gone out to dinner last night, and I couldn’t remember having my phone after being in the car.
Oh, no.
My phone was in his car.
My lips trembled. I was alone, and I had no way of getting in touch with him.
I slid out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, hot tears rushing down my cheeks. But when I looked in the mirror at myself, that was when I fucking shattered.
I looked just like my mom when she was alive.
This shit wasn’t fair!
I screamed in a combination of outrage and pain as I dropped to my knees, sobs wracking my chest so fucking hard, it hurt. Why did I have to feel so much? Why did their deaths have to hurt so many months later? Why couldn’t I just get the fuck better and move the hell on with my life? Who the hell mourned their parents this long?
“Goddammit,” Ryker growled when he suddenly stepped into the bathroom. I didn’t even look up at him. I scrubbed at my face, wishing so much that I didn’t see my mom every time I looked in the mirror.
Suddenly, Ryker pinned me to the floor, his hand latched around my throat. “Get off of me!” I screamed at him, a sob making my words break. I beat at his chest, but he didn’t even flinch. He just straddled my hips and flipped his pocket knife out, holding it to my arm.
When I felt that first cut, I sagged, my body now focusing on the pain he’d just caused rather than the turmoil within my soul.
“There you go,” Ryker soothed, his hand leaving my throat to run over my hair. He set the knife down on the floor and brushed my hair off my wet cheeks. “Easy now, Little Star. I’ve got you. I’m here.”
My face scrunched up, my chest aching. “It hurts,” I whimpered.
He pushed the t-shirt I was wearing up my ribcage, and he tugged my panties down, his fingers finding my clit. He circled it for a moment, his eyes locked on mine. The ache in my chest eased as he started an ache between my legs. I moaned, my eyes fluttering shut for a moment. A slap to my cheek made me look back up at him.
“Eyes on me. You know the rules,” he warned me.
He sank two fingers inside of me, curling them just right. I arched my back, his name ripping from my lips on a gasp. He groaned and molded his lips to mine, kissing me hard and hungrily as he finger-fucked me, his thumb rubbing that tiny bundle of nerves as he did so.
“You need to forget, Little Star?” he rumbled, his nose brushing mine.
I nodded, gasping when he curled his fingers just right again. “Please,” I begged. “Make it stop hurting.”
He sank his teeth into the side of my breast. A surprised shriek ripped from my lungs. My pussy walls fluttered around his fingers as I came, my head spinning from the force of it. He moaned at the taste of my blood as it spilled into his mouth, wetting his tongue.
I reached for his belt buckle as he licked at the now bleeding wound. As soon as his cock was free, he sank inside of me, my legs hooked over his arms. Our tongues and teeth clashed together as he claimed me, making everything stop hurting for a while, just as I knew he would.