pumpkin than apples this time. Before I could stop myself, I looked over at the wall behind the couch. Out of all the framed photos, I saw Jayden immediately. It was a Christmas photo, possibly from last year. He stood in front of a festively lit tree, smiling broadly at the camera while he held a Puerto Rican flag in front of his chest.
My chest grew tight, squeezing until I thought my heart would just stop. I couldn’t believe he was gone.
My gaze crawled across the wall of photos, and I saw them—pictures of Rider mixed in with Hector and Jayden’s, like he was family.
Because he was family.
I hadn’t noticed them before, but Rider lived here. How could he not see that?
Rider didn’t head for the kitchen. He made his way upstairs and I followed him up, into the bedroom he barely spent time in.
He flipped on the light. The first thing I saw was the copy of The Velveteen Rabbit. It was on his nightstand. I dropped my bag on the floor.
Rider sat at the chair in front of his neat, probably never-used desk. “My phone died sometime Saturday night,” he began, and I slowly faced him. “Do you remember us talking about that earlier? It was down to ten percent before...before everything happened.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
“I wasn’t ignoring your calls and I kept meaning to get someone else’s phone to call you, but things were crazy. Some of the guys were trying to get everyone to go after Braden and Jerome, and I was trying— I was keeping Hector home, because I couldn’t...” He cleared his throat. “I can’t lose him, too.”
“I knew you were busy. I didn’t freak out over you not returning my calls. I...I came over because I wanted to be there for you. I needed...to be there for you. That’s why I came over.”
“I didn’t know Paige was going to be here.” His eyes met mine and he didn’t look away. “I had no idea. I swear to you, I had no idea she was going to be here.” He paused, his shoulders rising. “She was really upset. Paige has known Jayden and Hector for years. She and Jayden got on each other’s nerves, but they cared a lot about each other.”
I closed my eyes. I got that. I really did. I imagined brothers and sisters argued like they did. Jayden and Paige were a lot closer than Jayden and I had been, and despite everything, I felt bad for her. But none of that changed how I felt when I saw her and Rider.
“She must’ve fallen asleep after I did,” he explained. “We didn’t start out that way.”
“I... She was curled up against you. Like you all have done it before,” I said, voice low. “That freaked me out and I just left. I couldn’t be there.”
“It hurt you,” he stated.
Lowering my gaze, I nodded. “I wasn’t expecting it. I just wanted to be there for you.”
“I wanted you there. I did,” he said, and then rose. My gaze followed. He shoved his hand through his hair. “I wanted you there, but I also didn’t want you around what was going down—what could’ve gone down. You already saw what happened to Jayden.”
“You saw what happened to Jayden, too.”
“Yeah, but I...”
“There’s no but. That wasn’t... It wasn’t easy for anyone to see. Especially not the person who was like a brother to him.” I brushed my hair back from my face as Rider stopped a few feet in front of me. Having this conversation right now seemed wrong. “I don’t want you focusing on us right now. Jayden—”
“Would understand that we need to straighten this out,” he interrupted. “You mean everything to me, and when Hector woke me up and told me you’d been there? Fuck. My heart stopped. I’m sorry. Dammit, Mallory, I’m so sorry. We were talking about Jayden when I fell asleep. I hadn’t slept all day and when I dozed off, not a lot of time could’ve passed before you showed up. It wasn’t planned. And I swear to you, nothing happened between us. I wouldn’t do that to you, and Paige knows better.” He walked over and sat on the bed, his body angled toward me. “She knows how I feel about you. She might not be sending congratulations cards to us anytime soon.” The half grin appeared and then disappeared. “But she knows.”
My heart rate sped up. “How...how do you feel about me?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious.”
“Let’s just say I need a detailed account.”
His lashes lifted and his eyes met mine. “I can do that for you.”
“Okay.” I leaned toward him.
“I never once stopped thinking about you when you were taken away. Four years. All I could hope was that you were in a good place. Never expected you to walk into school. Didn’t even allow myself to dream about that. And then you did, and seeing you blew me away. You were just like I remembered, but different. The hints of the girl I saw in you when we were younger were now right in front of me. The moment you said my name—the moment you hugged me I knew.” Rider reached between us, folding his hand around mine. “I knew I’d fall in love with you and I did. I love you, Mallory.”
My lips parted on an inhale. “What?”
“I love you, and not the kind of love we had for each other when we were younger, you know? Paige knows that. So does Hector. So did Jayden. I love you.”
Oh my God.
I stilled as his words sank in, absorbed them as they traveled far, through my muddled thoughts, down into my skin and muscle, and all the way to the bone.
Rider Stark loved me.
I reacted without thinking.
Springing toward him, I wrapped my arms around him. Somehow, and I didn’t even know how, I ended up on his lap, my knees on either side of his thighs. At first, I just held on to him, and he held me back. I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to do a million different things.
I wanted to kiss him.
That was what I went with.
When I lifted my head and leaned in, he knew what I wanted and he gave it to me. His lips touched mine, and once again I was lost in him, in us. Our breaths mingled. Our hands moved.
And I wanted this. I wanted more of this.
The rightness seized me. Saturday I hadn’t been ready but now I was. I didn’t know what made me so sure, so fearless, when I’d been so hesitant two days before, but those days felt like an eternity. Maybe it was the events of this weekend, seeing what happened to Jayden. Seeing life just snuffed out. Something about that made me want to live, to experience everything. It could’ve been what happened afterward. Arguing with Carl and Rosa and realizing that I would make mistakes and that I wasn’t perfect—that I couldn’t be. There was something freeing about it. Finding Rider with Paige had forced me to face how deeply I felt about him instead of avoiding it. Talking to him now and being open about everything. Hearing him say that he loved me.
Whatever the reason, I knew in every part of me that this right now, right here, was what I wanted.
I kissed him back, and I wasn’t thinking about whether I was doing it right or not. I tasted his lips, touched his tongue as I slid my hands down his chest. I felt his heart pounding. My body moved over him, and the crazy, swirling sensations rippled over my skin. I slipped my hand under his shirt, awed when his entire body jerked as my palm glided over his bare stomach. I wanted to feel him, feel more.
Leaning back, I reached down and gripped the hem of my sweater. His hooded gaze followed my hands, and his lips parted as I lifted the material up over my head and dropped it.
“Hell...” His voice was thick, rough. “Mallory, you’re...”
“What?” I whispered, feeling my body burn for two very different reasons.
“You’re beautiful.” His gaze dipped, tracking the lacy edges of the bra. “Never thought I’d see you like this. So freaking glad I have. You’re so beautiful, Mallory.”
My heart swelled so fast I thought it would lift me to the ceiling.
“But I think we...” His grip tightened on my hips. “We...we should stop.”
Stopping was the last thing I wanted to do. Courage was buzzing through my veins. I pressed my hips down, and his groan shot a shiver
of acute awareness through me. “I don’t want to.”
“Mallory.” My name sounded like a prayer and a curse as his slid his hands up my sides. “We’ve both been through a lot. I don’t want you to regret this.”
“I won’t.” I rested my forehead against his. “I’m ready for this—for this with you.” My fingers curled into his thermal. “I want this—I love you. I’m in love with you.”
I don’t know what it was exactly that I said that did it, but his hands tightened on my waist and then I was on my back, under him, and his mouth was on me. The kisses were hard and drugging and I knew what his kiss was saying.
Rider was ready, too.
Chapter 34
Everything sped up and then slowed down.
His thermal came off, and even though I’d seen him shirtless before, it didn’t prepare me for seeing him like that again. He was all smooth, hard skin under my fingertips. His body was so different than mine. I was soft under his hands, but he appeared to be just as awestruck as I was. He explored. I explored. There were few words as first his jeans came off and then mine. The bra slipped down my arms.
I was nervous. My hands trembled. No one had ever seen so much of me, almost everything. The urge to cover myself was hard to ignore, but when his chest touched mine, and there was nothing between us, I wasn’t thinking.
Everything was about feeling, and unlike before, there wasn’t a bitter tinge of panic edging out the wonderful heat and curious tension. I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect, but it didn’t drown the passion or make me want to run away. I rode it out as my hands moved lower, as his hands followed. Our bodies were moving against one another, restless and seeking. His hand slipped over my hip, his fingers following the band of my underwear. I shivered as my back arched. The sound he made curled my toes.
Using his elbows, he braced his body over mine. Rider kissed me deeply, thoroughly, as he pushed down. My leg curled over his. My fingers tangled in his hair. His mouth left mine as his lips coasted over my chin and then down my throat. My senses spun as he went lower, blazing a path.
“Shit,” he groaned, lifting his head.
My eyes fluttered open, lips feeling wonderfully swollen. “What?”
“We...we have to stop.” He moved up, cradling my face. Stop? I didn’t want to stop. He made a rough sound, obviously thinking the same. “I don’t have protection.”
“You don’t?” Surprise flooded me.
He rested his forehead against mine. “I’m guessing you don’t, either.”
I almost laughed. “Don’t...all guys have condoms in, like, their wallets?” My face burned as I asked the question.
Rider chuckled. “God. I wish that was the case. I just haven’t... Well, you know. I’ve never gone this far.”
“I know.” I slid my hand over his chest as I tried to get control of my breathing. “You didn’t buy them when you...when you were with Paige?”
His gaze met mine. “I did. Once. Didn’t use them.” He turned his head, kissing the center of my palm. “Didn’t really plan on this happening today.”
“Me, neither.” I bit down on my lip. Part of me wanted to forget about the fact that we didn’t have protection, but that would be incredibly, well, reckless. Sort of dumb, too. Being responsible sucked, but if we couldn’t do that... “There...there are things we can do.”
His lips quirked. “Oh yeah, there are definitely other things we can do.”
And we did some of those things. Things that we’d started Saturday. And this time, when his hand slipped over my thighs, between them, I didn’t panic. As the unfamiliar and nearly overwhelming feelings built inside me, I welcomed them, the unknown of it all. I touched him without fear of not knowing what to do, and I quickly learned, there wasn’t much that I could do wrong with him. The only thing in the room that could be heard over my pounding heart was the breathy moans and deeper, rougher groans.
When it was over, I was shattered in a blissful, amazing way I could never have imagined. I could barely describe how it felt. It was like being pulled too tight, but in a very good way, and when all that strange, heady tension broke, it hit me in waves. It seemed to be the same for Rider, because when he collapsed next to me, he was breathing just as fast and heavy. Forever passed before I could speak.
“That was...” I rolled onto my side, facing him as I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Perfect?” he murmured, curling his hand around the nape of my neck. “It was perfect.”
“Yes.” I wiggled closer, fitting my head under his chin, and his hand slipped from my neck as he wrapped his arm around me. I couldn’t even imagine what actual sex would feel like if what we’d just done felt that good. Then again, I figured sex, at least the first time, would probably hurt a little. And I was kind of glad that the first time I experienced something like this wasn’t marred by even a moment of pain.
“Thank you,” he said after a moment.
I lifted my head. “For what?”
He grinned a little. “For trusting me with this. For everything?”
My smile raced across my face. I snuggled in, closing my eyes. Every part of my body was relaxed, and I knew I could fall asleep until I heard Rider chuckle. I tipped my chin up and looked at him. “What?”
“I was just thinking.” His cheeks pinked. “Man, this is going to sound cheesy, but I was thinking that this is the first time this room has felt like...mine.”
“No,” I whispered. “That’s not cheesy at all.”
Rider brushed his lips across my cheek as he rose onto his elbow. “What are we going to do?”
“Now?”
“Yeah. You should head back to school. It’ll be around lunchtime.”
“What about you?”
“I think I’m going to head to their aunt’s house. I want to be there today. I know they’re going to start the whole funeral process.”
The weight of grief returned. It wasn’t like we’d forgotten about Jayden, but the pain had lessened during those brief moments. Feeling like I’d woken from a dream, I nodded. “If I’m lucky, the school hasn’t called home yet. Carl and Rosa are already ticked off enough at me.”
His brows lowered. “Why?”
It was hard keeping my gaze fixed on his face when he was sort of, kind of naked. I’d looked my fill, but I wanted to look more.
“Mallory?” He chuckled.
I was looking and I needed to focus. My cheeks heated. “They got pretty mad after I told them what happened Saturday.”
The grin slowly slipped off his face. “That’s understandable.”
“Not really,” I told him. “They...want me to stop seeing you.”
His brows lifted as he sat up and swung his legs over the bed. He looked at the door, jaw hard. “Really?”
“Yeah, I got into a fight with Carl and Rosa,” I explained as he rose, pulling up his boxers, and for a moment I got distracted by the stiff muscles along his spine. “What happened to Jayden wasn’t your fault.”
“But you saw that go down because I brought you to that house.” He swiped his jeans off the floor and then pulled them on. “That much is true.”
I disagreed. “You didn’t know that was going to happen.”
Rider faced me, and I realized he held my bra. I flushed as he handed it over. “That doesn’t change what happened.” He looked away as I put it on. “How bad did the fight get?”
“I left the house. That’s when I went looking for you.” Scooting to the edge of the bed, I found my sweater and pulled it on over my head. When I stood, it fell to my thighs. “They were...just overreacting.”
His gaze swung back to me and then did a slow slide, causing my toes to curl against the thin carpet. He didn’t say anything as I found my jeans and pulled them on. I sat on the edge of the bed, worrying my lower lip as he finished dressing. “They just don’t understand. It’s like they expect me to make all these choices—choices they would make, choices Marquette would make, and I’m not them. I??
?m not her.”
“They know you’re not her.” Rider walked toward the bed, stopping. I grinned when I saw his bare feet peeking out from the hem of his jeans. “They just want what’s best for you.”
“I know.” I looked up at him. “Carl... He did say something that I really never thought he’d say. He said to Rosa that this—the whole fighting thing—was something he didn’t have to worry about with Marquette.”
“Shit,” Rider muttered, running his hands through his hair. “He didn’t mean that, Mouse.”