"You can stay at mine if it is too much for you to be alone," Ryan suggests, mistaking my tensed frame for a result of what happened this night.
It is just a tiny part of the reason why I am tensed like a hunter's bow drawn to shoot.
His words irritate me because I feel he has an ulterior motive for his suggestion. What a fool I am. Thinking that he is acting because he cares, when his actions are probably engineered to keep an eye on me.
My head snaps in his direction, and I glare at him. "Why?" I demand sharply, hands folded across my chest, my mannerism confrontational. "Scared I would talk?"
"To whom?"
He genuinely looks puzzled, like the possibility of my revealing what I saw never occurred to him. Who does he think he is fooling with that dumb shit act?
Since we met, Ryan has often proven what a smart person he is, so it is highly improbable that he hasn't considered that I might talk to the police or someone about what I saw.
"The police!" I snap, annoyed that he is treating me like I am a kid and talking out of my ass. Anyone in his shoes would seriously be concerned about a stranger witnessing what I did tonight, unless they plan to get rid of me.
Keep it together, Lyra. I tell myself as soon as my heart surges with fear.
"And say what?"
I stared at him in disbelief. He didn't look at all worried. "What I saw tonight," I say emphatically, trying to jog his memory. Maybe he has forgotten.
His calm expression doesn't change, and on top of that is the patient look in his eyes, like I am a kid throwing a tantrum and he is calmly waiting me out.
Urg!
"With what evidence?" He is not gloating or smirking; he is just stating facts. And it is so freaking frustrating and annoying that he is right.
I don't have any evidence except what I saw. "I could tell them I was there," I retort. Now I am just trying to prove a point, to ruffle his firm stance, to prove that I could be a threat.
"It would be your words against ours," he says again with that annoying calmness that is beginning to rub my nerves raw.
The arrogance, the impetus. He is so certain that his family would get away with this that he is not even worried about witnesses, and the most infuriating part is that he is once again right.
I couldn't stay in the car with him for one more second because I was scared I would snap and say something I didn't want to.
I opened the car, and before I could leave, he asked. "What are you doing?" I ignored him and got out of the car.
With how furious I am, I don't care about the fucking rain or how soaked I am getting. I stormed off into the night, with the sound of the car opening and closing echoing behind me.
I hear him following me and hastening my footsteps. It started with fast walking, then I found myself jogging, yet he kept pace with me.
I am trying to escape the rage inside me, the turmoil, the confusion, how one man can make me want to hug him one moment and kill him the next.
I wanted to escape it all, so the jog turned into a run, and before I knew it, we were both racing down the street under the rain.
I have just run a short distance when he catches up with me. He runs into my path, forcing me to stop, and catches me before I can run into him.
"What the fuck do you think you are doing running off like that in the middle of the night?" He demands, shaking me, with a furious expression. This is the first time I've seen him mad, and even though it is terrifying to behold, I don't care.
"Let go of me, you psychopath!" I scream, hitting his chest while my tears stream down my face. His callous disregard for the dead man and his calm arrogance that no one would hold them accountable hit a sore nerve.
That is exactly what he told me after he assaulted me a few years ago. Wearing such an ugly smirk on his face, he dares me to go to the police, taunting me that no one would believe me. That it would be his words against mine.
His words had scared me so bad that I never told a soul about that night. Not even my family and close friends.
"Let me go!" I screamed, pounding his chest and trying to get out of his arms. His embrace is the last place I want to be, no matter how warm it feels against the chill, rainy night.
"Lyra, calm down!" He commands, his tone authoritative, while he tries to gather my flying limbs.
If he thinks barking orders like he is in the military is going to calm me, then he doesn't know the crazy woman he is dealing with.
I continued to scream like I was being molested while demanding that he let me go. Words I mixed with 'I hate you.'
As if he understands that only a drastic move would calm the situation down, he leans down and kisses me.
First thing I feel is shock. My eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. My flying arms go still in whatever position they were last in, and my breath gets locked in my chest.
What the hell!
Panic surges briefly through my chest, and then something incredible and very stupid happens.
My body started to react to the kiss. First, my brain registers how soft his lips taste, how sweet. Next, it takes into account how gently his lips move against mine.
Not forcefully, not demanding, but coercing, as if asking me to come and play.
And then the shiver. The light dance of pleasure along my nerve endings as his lips continue to move against mine, his strong hand holding me by my lower and upper back, gently pressing my body against his hard frame.
The warmth of his body oozes like a furnace, shielding me from the cold. I should be pushing him away, slapping him for kissing me when he earlier promised never to kiss me without my permission, but my brain is too weak under his spell to utter the command.
A moan spills out of my lips as he pushes me further against him, as he deepens the kiss, and my body presses firmly against the hard dent in his pants.
The soft, loud echo of my pleasure wakes us up, pulling us back to reality. He stops but doesn't let go. His eyes look like an inferno as he stares down at me.
I was breathless and could feel the erratic fall and rise of my chest. He doesn't look unaffected. Actually, his eyes are molten lava of lust that fans the embers of my desire.
I wanted to kiss him again.
He reads my desire in my eyes and responds immediately without a word. He pulls me harshly against him and gives me what my eyes were begging for from him.
This time, the kiss is anything but gentle. Passionate, deep, aggressive, like he is trying to consume me.
Every part of me feels like it is on fire, burning from his touch, his action. My body longs for more, moans for more, and he obliges.
He kissed his way down to my neck, grazing the long column of my neck with his teeth, leaving me quivering with desire and the hunger for more.
I clutched at his wet chest to anchor myself, my fingers digging into the hard flesh of his back.
He growls at the feel of my fingers nails into his back and moves back to my lips for more hard, demanding kisses that leave me breathless and begging for more.
He rips my shirt apart, the buttons flying everywhere to expose my bra-clad breast. He pushes the bra out of the way to expose my breast and hardened nipple to his lust-filled gaze.
"Beautiful," he utters like a prayer before leaning down to take one of my hard, dark nipples into his mouth.
The sucking sensation of his mouth against my nipple nearly drives me crazy with pleasure. I throw my head back, releasing my moans into the blanket of night, while my fingers grab his head, pushing him harder against my breast, my chest thrust forward to push more flesh into his talented mouth.
"Oh, God! That feels so good," I moan, caressing his hair. He bites down on my nipple, and I scream, nearly cumming with my release, and then I hear the zipper of my pants go down.