Authors: Talyn Scott
Instead of answering, Ryan countered with another question, “What are you going to do?”
“Besides hope that little sweetheart isn’t the main course of the next underground Species feeding frenzy?” He cocked a brow. “Keep my mouth shut for now. Above all, I have my Bride to think about, and I won’t risk Renee for anyone.”
“Understood.” Ryan closed the door behind him and headed to pick up Blythe.
A
n hour later, Blythe and Ryan were grocery shopping. “Are you sure you should be walking around like this?” he asked for the hundredth time.
“I told you I’m fine.” She picked up a bag of chips and tossed it in the cart.
“I don’t think so.” He pitched it out.
She kept her aggravation under wraps and tried a tactic most men fell for. “You see all these women who keep following us while washing the floor in their drool?”
He glanced around as if he just now noticed. “Alongside the men who can’t walk straight because you sauntered by?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m thinking that one over there” – she discreetly tilted her chin to the left – “looks exactly like the woman you need today.” He peeked over, and she took the opportunity to grab a carton of
Twinkies
and stash them under her mammoth-sized box of tampons.
He turned back, reached under her tampons, pulled out the Twinkies, and set them on the shelf. “Tell me what kind of woman you’re speaking of.”
“Easy.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Contrary to the daily challenges I face with you? I’ll have to admit that I’m tempted.” He looked more than peeved, but added very quietly, “By now, you know I’m a man who doesn’t like to be told what to do.”
She looked at him as though he were a Grade A Idiot. “What man does?”
“Dakota called when you were at the hospital.” He shifted gears to avoid a childish fight. “I told her you would probably be in tomorrow after you rest some.”
“And you shamelessly flirted with her, I’m sure.”
“Jealous?”
“Honestly, I’m sorry to say that I’m not.” She pursed her lips in thought before she added, “Don’t mess with Dakota’s head if you can’t give her your
all
, Ryan. Seriously. She’s my friend, too, and I don’t want her hurt.” She pushed a black curl away from her eyes. “She’s not a random lay.”
“I would never use her,” he whispered gruffly while steering her toward the steaks.
“I don’t eat red meat.”
“But you’ll eat chemicals wrapped in sugar?” he challenged.
“It’s un-American not to enjoy a
Twinkie
. Everybody knows that.” She gripped the cart with both hands and tried to push forward, but he held it back with a mere index finger.
“You’ve spent the last several years in Italy so that type of logic doesn’t work for you.”
“I’m a citizen here.”
He gave her a shrewd smile just as a package of steaks came out of nowhere and flattened the cheese curls she thought were well hidden under two loaves of whole-wheat bread.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she growled. “They’re gonna make me buy those anyway, and I’ll have to lick my finger and drag it through tiny orange crumbs just to get a taste.”
“Such domesticated bliss,” a distantly familiar voice spoke from behind.
Oh, Jesus, help me
. She could walk away, but knowing
him
, he’d find her alone much later. And this wasn’t the kind of confrontation she needed without a big, strong friend present. She nervously pressed her hands down the front of her too-tight, pale-pink jeans and slowly turned.
Knees don’t buckle now.
Ryan already faced him. “Six.” A one-word greeting that said everything, but mostly: fuck off. Funny how they didn’t seemed surprised to see one another. But Sixten wasn’t looking at Ryan at all.
She stood in a dream. More like an exhausting nightmare in which there was no escape. Although the store was brightly lit, everything seemed to dim except Sixten. As if a halo of righteous light surrounded his perfect body - tempting her not to walk away or she’d be sucked into everlasting darkness.
Curious onlookers stopped and stared at his unequaled magnificence. Carts slammed into one another, but not even a baby cried out. They, like Blythe, were in too much shock. All astonished by his masculine splendor. Blythe astonished by his presence. And with a face personally touched by the hands of God, he drew his sculptured lips into a gloriously intense smile and murmured a sexy, “Hello, beautiful.”
Ryan squeezed her shoulder, and she took a gulp of air. No doubt, Sixten noticed her sudden inability to breathe, and if she wasn’t mistaken, her mouth was gaping. Yes, she had to close it. As stunned as she was, when her bottom teeth met her top ones, she couldn’t form any words.
Smoldering, ice-green eyes continually raked her from head to toe, taking in her shimmery-gray, strappy wedges, her second-skin jeans, and her sheer white blouse that layered a simple ribbed tank worn underneath. Sixten casually leaned against the refrigerated display case and anchored his hands on either side of his trim hips. “Leave us, Ryan.”
Ryan responded with a nearly inaudible ‘you wish’.
Sixten kept his eyes on Blythe the entire time, but with a deadly tone directed at Ryan, he asked, “You want to do this here? In public?”
“It seems you do, or you wouldn’t have picked this inopportune moment.”
“What are you two talking about?” Her voice sounded strange, almost panicked.
There was absolute silence for several long seconds before Sixten swung his flaxen, platinum streaked hair from his forehead. A low oath left his mouth the minute he zeroed in on her throat. “Ryan, what’s the big deal? Can’t you finish your shopping while Blythe and I catch up? She’ll wait for you there.” He nodded in the direction of the deli.
For the first time, Ryan looked uncomfortably nervous. Not to mention a crowd was gathering as though someone threw down the gauntlet on an illegal cockfight. “Honestly, Six, I don’t have anything to say to you.” She threw her hands up in a helpless gesture. “But I’ll listen while Ryan finishes up. Okay?”
He walked ahead of her, giving Blythe a moment to speak to Ryan privately. Before she turned towards the deli, she eyed her best friend intensely and rubbed the deep crease that formed between his eyebrows with her index finger. “I’ll be fine,” she murmured. “By the way, don’t get rid of that candy bar I have hidden underneath those cucumbers, or you’re dead.”
With an obstinate gleam in his eye, he threw a family-sized package of ground beef in her cart for good measure. “I’ll be finished in ten minutes, and then we’re leaving.”
B
lythe slowly closed the distance between her and her former fiancé, wondering where she would be without all the high-handed men who periodically graced her life.
Oh, I’d eat Twinkies for sure.
Ryan was ruling her with an iron fist. She understood that he was worried about her, and she’d be the same way if he were sick, probably worse. Nevertheless, whoever heard of a man stupid enough to come between a premenstrual woman and her chocolate? She shook her head sadly. That’s how people get killed, she thought. Then, Blythe had to admit that she was distracting herself from the matter at hand. Problems like those didn’t make her lose a wink of sleep. What stood before her did. “Six, um, it’s good to see you again.”
“Are you hungry?”
Something told her that was a double entrende, but she pretended not to notice. “No, but thanks for asking,” she replied as they settled into a too intimate bistro set. She looked down at her watch.
“Is he timing you?”
“No.” She refused to bite. “He’s helped me take care of a lot of things today, and I don’t want to keep him away from work for too long.” Brightly colored mosaic tile covered the small tabletop. She kept her head down and picked at a chipped corner. Fried veal cutlets caught her attention, aromatherapy for her Italian nature. In her peripheral vision, she watched a sweaty man with a wide belly sandwich them between a split French roll. On cue, her stomach howled.
“You
are
hungry.”
He rose to order and she made the mistake of touching his hand to stop him. “I’m fine.”
“Ah, that’s right.” He eased back in his seat with a mulish expression. “You have Ryan to take care of you now.” He cocked his head. “Maybe he doesn’t understand that you need to be waited on instead of cooking the side of beef weighing down your shopping cart.”
That just made her mad. “I’m not going to defend him to you,” she said as if she didn’t care. “Over the years, it has never gotten me anywhere but angry. Say what you need to say and be done with it.” He stared pointedly at her hand until she realized she’d mistakenly kept it on his. When Blythe pulled it away, he curled his fingers around hers and held firm. After that, he started feeling up her ring finger. “I’m not married to him.” She jerked her hand away.
“Just living in sin, then?”
“What?”
“The little shack over his dump of a night club…a love nest for two?”
“You’ve been spying on me?”
He blew out a tentative breath. “You can have so much more than what he’s giving you.”
“Wait just a minute.” She dared to meet his incredible eyes, and, as she thought, all those horrid memories came crashing back ten-fold. A machete would have done less damage to her heart than Sixten had. “I deserved more than walking in on you screwing my matron of honor
in our future marriage bed
.”
“This isn’t going the way I’d planned.” He said sourly.
“At our engagement party,” she had the courage to ignore him and go on. “That’s pretty heavy for an eighteen year old, you know? Now, I would’ve beaten the crap out of you two and turned myself into the cops. That’s what you deserved. But
then
, I ran out crying.” She sucked in a breath. “And you had the audacity to go downstairs and tell everyone I loved, family and longtime friends gathered for our celebration, that I was drunk.”
“I don’t think it went exactly that way.”
“And the next day,” she said, sensing white ash float above her inner volcano, “you didn’t apologize. In fact, you’ve
never
apologized.”
“I’m sure I did.”
“You made me feel like a stupid a child.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“And I
was
a stupid child,” she snapped, hating that her bottom lip quivered over something that happened a lifetime ago. However, with him sitting so close to her, it didn’t feel like a long time ago. The day she left him ingrained itself in her heart. She remembered the horrific scene vividly as if it happened hours past instead of years gone by on Captiva Island…
Packing and cramming, all her stuff would have to fit in one trip. She couldn’t afford movers, and miraculously, she had one extra set of strong hands alongside a borrowed truck.
“You’re a fool. Walking away is not your style,” Six taunted. “You’ll have nothing without me, but you’ll want for everything if you leave. Everything I can give you, which no one else can. Don’t be stupid.” He slid his designer, space-age glasses down his nose; no doubt, they cost more than her borrowed, dilapidated truck was worth. His self-absorbed look said it all: He held the world in one casual palm. He could crush it, toy with it, or leave it alone. Blythe voted for the latter.
“Could you snag that last box, Ryan?” Blythe wiped her sweaty palms on her comfortable, ratty jeans. After crying all night and perspiring all morning, she felt dehydrated, though it was a good thing. If a single tear fell in front of Sixten, she’d never be able to look in the mirror again.
Cheap sunglasses hid her puffy eyes, and creamy, taupe lipstick replaced the smile she couldn’t give the general population. The one that said life was great, and she didn’t give a flying fig what Sixten did anymore. At least, that was the lie she told herself.
“Oh, please, Ryan.” Sixten mocked. “Snag that last box, would you? What other tricks does he do for you, Blythe? He hasn’t said a word since he’s been here.”
“He’s not in the middle of this, and he’s smart enough to stay out of our discussions.”
“Is that what this is?” He stepped forward. One menacing and strategic step had him staring down from an inflated height roughly a foot above her head. She realized then that Sixten was always indefinable, even to her. Sixten defied the laws of …anything. “This,” he gestured at the half-filled truck bed, “is your idea of a discussion?”
“You slept with my best friend, and I had the privilege to walk in on it.” The only indication of emotion he displayed, if one could call it that, was a knot that quickly formed in his jaw. “What an engagement present,” she drew out the words, thoroughly disgusted with him. “That little visual saved me from the worst mistake of my life.”
“Drama, Blythe, your naivety is only endearing for a couple of good fucks, and then it wears off. Where’s my real lover?”
Her hand rose on its own volition, but, just in time, she stopped before she slapped him. Never had she been a violent person, and even though he most certainly deserved it, she wasn’t starting today. “I don’t want to hate you.” She turned, eyeing Ryan as he placed her remaining box inside the rust-filled, truck bed. It landed with a finalizing thud, just as her heart had last night.
“See you tomorrow,” Sixten continued to taunt her while sliding his glasses back in place with a cool fingertip, “when you come to your senses.”
That did it. Words formed from something so painful she nearly couldn’t bear it. They seethed, swelling with hatred until they choked everything she thought she was. “Never.” Reigning back as much as possible, just so she could have some pretense of dignity, she somehow maintained her smokescreen of composure, “One day, someone will crack that icy soul of yours. And when she does, that cocky, self-important delusion you depend on every day will abandon you, leaving you to grovel on your knees begging for mercy.” She dragged in a cleansing breath. “But I hope you grow up before that happens. Have a good life, Six. I truly wish you well, at least, as much as I can at the moment.” She refused to lie, but she had too much class to utter the ‘fuck you’ teasing her tongue, daring her to toss it out. “I can’t hold on to
nothing
, and that’s what you’re offering me,” she whispered, placing a boulder that he called an engagement ring on the concrete edge of a nearby planter. “The trappings of wealth can’t replace fidelity.”