Rebekah’s breath caught.
Up close like this, under the warm kitchen light, she could see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his throat worked when he swallowed.
She’d wanted him since she was seventeen and stupid enough to think he might want her back.
He’d shut that down fast—one hard look and the words “You’re Tank’s kid” like a wall between them.
She was not Tank’s kid anymore.
She was a woman who’d spent the last six years trying to forget the way his voice sounded when he said her name like a warning.
Ryker pulled his hand back like she’d scalded him.
“Drink that.
You’re still shaking.”
She took a long swallow, the cold beer doing nothing to cool the heat crawling up her neck.
“Thank you.
For tonight.”
He grunted, eyes on the bottle in his hand.
“Just doing what your old man asked.”
The silence stretched.
Rebekah set the beer down and leaned against the counter, arms crossed under her breasts.
She knew the move made her tank top pull tight; she told herself it was just to get comfortable.
“You’ve been avoiding me for years, Ryker.
Club barbecues, Christmas runs, even my twenty-first birthday.
You barely look at me.”
His jaw flexed.
“Not avoiding.
Respecting boundaries.”
”Boundaries.” She laughed, soft and bitter.
“That what you call it when you stare at my mouth for three full seconds then walk away like I’m contagious?”
A muscle jumped in his cheek.
He took one step closer, then stopped himself, knuckles white around the bottle.
“You’re twenty-four, Rebekah.
I’m forty-five.
I’ve known you since you had pigtails and a lisp.
Your father would put a bullet in me before I even finished the thought.”
She lifted her chin.
“I’m not a little girl anymore.”
”No shit.” The words came out rough, almost angry.
His gaze dropped to the curve of her throat, the swell of her breasts, then snapped back up like he’d been burned.
“Doesn’t change what this is.
You’re under my roof because someone wants you dead. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
I’m not adding ‘fucked the president’s daughter’ to my list of sins tonight.”
Heat pooled low in her belly at the crude words.
She stepped forward until only the counter separated them.
“Then why is your heart racing?
I can see it in your neck.”
Ryker’s eyes darkened to something dangerous.
For one electric second she thought he might vault the counter and put his hands on her.
Instead he exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, and backed up until his shoulders hit the fridge.
“Bedroom.
Now.
Before I do something we’ll both regret.”
Rebekah’s pulse thundered.
She wanted to push him.
Wanted to climb him right there in the kitchen and finally taste the mouth that had starred in every filthy fantasy she’d ever had.
But the fear in his eyes—the real, bone-deep fear that he might actually cross that line—stopped her.
She picked up her beer, turned on her heel, and walked down the hall.
At the room door she paused, looking back over her shoulder.
“Sweet dreams, Ryker.”
She shut the door before he could answer, heart hammering so hard she felt dizzy.
On the other side of the wood she heard him curse once, low and vicious, then the clink of his bottle hitting the counter.
Rebekah leaned her forehead against the door and smiled in the dark.
This was going to be a very long night.
Rebekah closed the bedroom door with a soft click that sounded far too loud in the quiet house.
She leaned against it for a long moment, eyes shut, trying to slow her breathing.
Her body still hummed from the adrenaline of the attack, from the ride pressed against Ryker’s back, from the raw hunger she’d seen flash in his eyes when he told her to go to bed.
She needed a shower.
Needed to wash off the street grit, the blood, the fear.
The room had its own tiny attached bathroom—thank God.
She stripped quickly, wincing at the bruise blooming purple along her ribs and the scrapes on her palms.
The hot water stung at first, then soothed.
Her mind refused to quiet.
Every time she closed her eyes she saw Ryker: the way his big hands had gripped the handlebars, the flex of muscle in his shoulders when he lifted her onto the bike, the dark promise in his stare when he’d backed away from her in the kitchen like she was temptation incarnate.
By the time she stepped out and dried off, her nipples were tight and sensitive from more than just the cool air.
She pulled on an old tank top and soft sleep shorts—nothing sexy, just what she’d grabbed in her rush—and crawled into the unfamiliar bed.
The sheets smelled faintly of laundry detergent and something unmistakably masculine.
Ryker’s linens, probably washed in the same detergent he used.
She turned off the lamp.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Sleep would not come.
Rebekah tossed and turned for what felt like hours.
The house was silent except for the occasional creak of settling wood and the low hum of the fridge in the kitchen.
Every nerve ending felt raw.
Her skin prickled with awareness.
She kept replaying the moment in the kitchen: the way Ryker’s gaze had dropped to her breasts, the rough edge in his voice when he’d said “fucked the president’s daughter,” the way he’d looked at her mouth like he wanted to devour it.
Her thighs pressed together under the sheet.
Heat coiled low in her belly, slick and insistent.
She bit her lip hard, trying to fight it.
She was in his house.
Under his protection.
Her father had trusted him specifically because Ryker was supposed to be the one man who wouldn’t touch her.
And here she was, aching for exactly that.
Rebekah rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling she couldn’t see.
Her hand drifted down before she could stop herself, slipping beneath the waistband of her sleep shorts.
She was already wet—embarrassingly so.
Her fingers slid through slick folds and found her clit, swollen and throbbing.
The first light circle made her hips jerk.