Hothouse Flower (Calloway Sisters 2)

“It’s an Irish coat of arms, Ryke,” I say. “Your dad is Irish.”

He shrugs. “So it was my father’s. It’s not like it was passed down generations to fucking generations. It was his, and he gave it to me when I was eleven or twelve. I don’t even remember. It means nothing.”

“I know,” I say, “because people don’t put family heirlooms that mean something to them in poker kitties.” He’s so detached from his dad, and this proves it. He’s also so unlike Lo, who has an antique pocket watch from his father that he keeps in a safe. He brought it out once to prove to Connor that he owns something historic.

Ryke ignores his mom and dad like he’s trying to erase them from his life. Maybe it’s easier for him to just forget the past than be consumed by hurt and hate.

Ryke hits the “up” button again. He rubs his lips and then stares down at me with that swirling darkness. “Truth,” he says, “I don’t want you to take off the ring. I’ve fucking loved that you wear something of mine.”

I smile. Loved. I wonder for how long. We played that poker game on a flight back from Cancun.

I was sixteen.

I take a step towards him, despite being in semi-public. I scrutinize his bottom lip, cut from where I slapped him.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.

“No,” he says, looking at me with those brooding features, reminding me that of all the guys I’ve dated, no one has been as dangerous and mysterious as him.

The elevator chimes again. I drop my hand and slip inside, Ryke behind me. Thankfully an old couple with luggage waits for the next one.

We stand a few feet apart, and I realize that the fifth floor is just too close. We’ll have time to make out for maybe thirty seconds. He leans forward to press the button, but instead of hitting my floor, he taps the 28.

“Are we going for a ride?” I ask him, my lips pulling higher.

“You are.”

The doors shut, and he turns on me with this masculine power that draws me towards him in curiosity and need.

He’s my wolf.

And instead of biting me, he kisses my lips passionately, our bodies igniting as soon as they connect. I moan the second his tongue meets mine, and his hands possess my ass, lifting me around his waist. The air leaves my lungs. And I grip the back of his hair, yanking hard.

A deep, throaty noise escapes him.

“Ryke,” I cry, my head knocking into the wall as he pins me to the corner of the elevator. His kiss slows, eking out the tension that clenches my core. And I shut up, being consumed by his tongue, his hold, his experience.

His hand dips down between my legs, on the outside of my jean shorts. He cups that spot, and my legs spasm. Ahhh! The smallest nerves react like he drove his dick right into me.

I’m usually told to give hand jobs and go down on guys. I love that I now have choices, able to do whatever my mind wants. So I kiss his neck, lightly at first while his other hand rises underneath my shirt.

And then I suck deeply, clenching his hair with two hands. He stops going towards my breast, and he uses that hand as a support against the wall.

“Fuck,” he breathes.

I cry again.

His favorite word is so overused, but I melt every single time he says it like that. Our lips find each other, as though they can’t be apart for long. If he had more time, I wonder if he would go beneath my shorts.

I think he would.

He pauses so I can control my breathing. “What floor are we on?” he asks me.

I look over his shoulder. “Twenty-four.”

He kisses my cheek, which turns into our lips locking again. As soon as we part, he drops me on my feet, and he hits the fifth floor button. The elevator stops on the twenty-eighth floor, and unfortunately, a hoard of female models slips in, laughing loudly and wearing clothes to go clubbing.

They speak in Russian and barely acknowledge us.

Ryke comes back to my side. “So you like my hair?” he asks with raised brows.

I stand on the tips of my toes and run my fingers through it, knowing he’ll let me now. But even so, the tension winds between us, causing my body to curve towards him like a magnetic pull. We really need to find more time together. “It’s soft, and I love that it’s long enough for me to grab.”

His muscles tighten, and his eyes flicker cautiously to the Russian girls, who’ve begun to whisper even more, their eyes flitting to us. He grabs my hands, forcing them down to my sides. I frown, confused. But he suddenly speaks, not to me though. To them.

In Russian.

I can’t understand a word of it, but he has a lilt that matches theirs.

The tallest girl looks over her shoulder and laughs. “You make cute couple,” she says in chopped English.

Ryke replies back in fluent Russian, his eyes narrowed.

She nods, says something else in the same language, and then leaves with her friends on the twentieth floor.

As soon as the doors close, I punch his arm. “Why didn’t you tell me that you can speak Russian?” I knew he was fluent in Spanish, but Russian isn’t a language commonly taught in schools.

He leans his arm on the wall. “Shouldn’t your first fucking question be: what were those girls saying?”

I shake my head. He glared at the girls after we started talking in English, so I figured they must have been eavesdropping and whispering about us. “You accused them of listening to our conversation, didn’t you? And then she said something snarky back.” I smile wide and wag my brows. “Am I right?”

He tilts my chin up. “When did you get so fucking smart?”

“Didn’t you hear? It was my second wish when I fell upon a magical lamp. Be smarter than Connor Cobalt. He doesn’t know it yet.”

“Don’t pad his fucking ego,” he tells me. Connor’s ego is practically its own life force.

I run my hand up his arm, and then I keep it on the back of his neck. “Tell me,” I say with a playful smile. “Did you learn Russian in prep school or are you like a secret badass CIA agent?”

He draws back, any talk of his past like a repellent. But I’m curious. He can’t just speak Russian and act like it’s no big deal. “Yeah, I learned some at Maybelwood.” He shrugs. “I had an easy time picking up languages.”

That’s definitely not the whole story. “And?” I prod.

He struggles to open up, but after a long moment he says, “And when I was six or seven, my mom hired tutors. They were the ones that taught me.” He stares at the ceiling and then shakes his head. “I curse so fucking much that people assume I’m just an idiot, a good athlete, but a fucking idiot. And I don’t really care to prove anyone differently. There’s no point.”

I think it takes a really strong person to be that way, to not care what people think, even when you’re better than they say. I have no idea why he’d be satisfied with doing that. “Why Russian?

”

“Because she wanted me to learn it,” he says. “I also know Spanish, Italian and French.”

I gawk. “Wait, what?” I punch his arm again. “You know French?!” Rose and Connor speak French, and he’s kept this knowledge to himself. “Oh my God.” I smile deviously. “You know what my sister and Connor have been saying this whole time?”

“Most of it is stupid.”

“Do they speak dirty to each other?” I’ve always been curious.

“Sometimes,” he says. “But when they do, I try not to fucking listen. Trust me.”

The elevator numbers blink from 10 to 9 to 8 in such a short period of time.

Ryke harbors so much inside his head, and he’s kept so much to himself through the years. He’s more solitary, more alone than I thought. Maybe he prefers it that way.

“Does Lo know?” I ask.

He frowns. “About what?”

“Russian, French, all of that.”

He shakes his head. “No. It doesn’t matter.”

“But…it makes you, you,” I say. “It’s a part of who you are, isn’t it?”

His jaw hardens. “It’s not a part I like to fucking remember, Daisy.”

Being controlled by his mom, he means. I think he chooses to forget so much from his childhood that it’s made him into some shadowy figure that’s just as tormented as his brother. I stand on the tips of my toes and kiss his cheek. “Thanks for telling me the truth.”

The elevator doors open, and I head out of them. He catches my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine as we enter the hallway. It was a quick, impulsive gesture, one that has my heart on fire.

RYKE MEADOWS

I press the phone harder to my ear, thinking I’ve heard Connor wrong. “Excuse me?”

“I stepped out for maybe ten minutes to talk to Rose. I didn’t think he would order anything but a Fizz and some fries.”

“You’re telling me you turned your back for ten fucking minutes and my brother downed what?”

“I don’t know. But I can tell he’s had something. He won’t look at me, so I think he’s drinking a Fizz and rum.”

“Take the fucking glass from him.” I pace across the hotel room, running my hand quickly through my hair.