Ryan (Mallick Brothers 2)

But the fact of the matter was, when every other person I had in the world gave up on me, Bry had been there. And Bry had an idea. He had too much of a record to ever be caught with pills on him, especially at a large enough scale to be considered distribution, so he offered me a 'job' sort of. I held the product, he gave me a little cash to do so, and that was that.

His money paid about half my rent.

The other half, well, I found a way online to make the rest up.

See, the one cool thing that happens when you're locked up all the goddamn time and can't see or talk to or experience anything or anyone new, well... the mind wanders. You create these huge, epic ideas in your mind.

Eventually, I just started writing mine down. And when I figured out how to, I started selling them online. I had a mediocre little following among the young adult paranormal crowd and they kept me off the streets and with food in my pantry. I had to pinch pennies and there seemed no end in sight for holding drugs for Bry, but I got by.

So that was how I became a criminal.

I hadn't gone into it with rose-colored glasses. I didn't think I was untouchable. I always knew that someday it would catch up to me. Though, I thought it would be more along the lines of jail time than a beatdown but it hadn't exactly shocked me that it came to that either.

But Ryan witnessing it? Ryan stepping in? Ryan cleaning up the mess I had been made into?

Yeah, that was not sitting right with me.

His opinion mattered.

And he was never going to look at me the same.

I heard him walk out of his apartment as I took my icepack and made my way down the hall.

I wasn't going to lie; everything hurt. However bad it looked, and it looked bad, it felt about ten times worse.

I saw another, closed, door in the hall and I figured that maybe it was a study or a second bedroom. But not feeling comfortable opening closed doors in someone else's place, I went into the open door to his bedroom and climbed into sheets that smelled like him- a hint of spice from his cologne and a unfeminine laundry detergent. I got in, pulled the covers up, put the icepack over my face in a way that it covered my eye and swollen lip, and started deep breathing.

I should have been freaking out.

I should have been beside myself with anxiety over being out of my apartment, being in his, being in his bed, in his clothes, with none of my comforts around.

But the truth of the matter was, the second those men put their hands on my stuff, they ruined the comfort I attached to them. Somehow, leaving felt less stressful than staying.

I guess it was a form of progress in a way.

I heard the front door open and close and his feet moving around for a long couple of minutes before I slowly drifted off to sleep. But it couldn't have been for long because the next thing I knew, the bed was shifting behind me, a sensation unusual enough to make me jerk awake in time to feel his body sliding in behind mine.

"Just me," Ryan's low, smooth voice said from right behind me as I felt his legs cock up behind mine and his arm slid gently around my belly, pulling me back against him slightly. "How's the pain?"

What pain?

All that my brain could focus on was the fact that he climbed into bed with me, he draped himself around me, he ducked his head into my neck, and asked about my pain.

He didn't shrink away from me. He wasn't repulsed by me now that he knew the truth.

"It's fine," I said, shrugging a little as his arm gave me a squeeze.

"Your cat claimed the TV cabinet as his bed," he offered, making me feel guilty for not checking on him myself.

"I know you're not a cat fan. If you want me to bring him back across the hall so that..."

"It's fine, Dusty. Don't worry about him."

"I don't know how to thank you for tonight," I admitted, hating how weak my voice sounded.

"You have nothing to thank me for. I'd be a pretty shitty man if I saw a woman being attacked and didn't step in."

That was true enough.

"But you let me stay here," I went on, feeling my heart flutter as his fingers started moving absentmindedly across my belly.

"You're always welcome here."

There was a sincerity there that did something awful to me inside- it gave me hope.

"I, ah, didn't know if the other room was a office or guest room. I could move..."