Page 30 of Ryker

Why didn’t I leave before she made her selection?

Why can’t I stop thinking about her?

Last night, instead of catching some much needed shut eye, I stayed up staring at her. Fantasizing about every little depraved thing I wanted to do to her, I jerked off twice into her discarded dress. Then I set up a plan to make her miserable, so she’d quit early and walk away from me.

The sooner the better.

That plan backfired before I even had it set in motion. I want more of Tara. I want to play with her. Pleasure her. Break her and remake her. Mold her into a perfect masterpiece of sexual depravity.

That look in her eyes when I strapped her to the spreader bar has burned into my soul. I’ve never had a woman look at me like that before in my fucking life. I’m not someone’s salvation. I’ve been their toy. Their paid for fuckboy. And then I became their desire and prize they’d never win. Now I’m untouchable.

At sixteen, I learned a hard lesson about how low life can drag you. Now, at thirty-two, I can honestly say that life has a basement, and at least fifteen floors below that.

Hell, maybe even more. I’m still digging.

Wrapping a towel around my waist, I step out of the bathroom and head straight to a closet where I keep spare suits. Dmitri still hasn’t left. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yeah. And instead, I’m doing your job.”

I arch my brow at him while stuffing my legs into a pair of pants. “Vault’s team can monitor the club.”

“I’m talking about watching over your Butterfly.” He leans back in my chair as if he’s the owner of this place. “You shouldn’t be out of that room, Ryker.”

“I shouldn’t be in it.”

“The rule is you don’t leave her side. She’s had to give up her life for a month. So do you. That’s what’s been paid for.”

Paid for.

Bile rises in my throat again, but I swallow it down. “It’s my money that was spent. My rules. My club.”

And I’ll change them as I see fit.

“Don’t do that.” Dmitri stands and makes his way over to me. The man’s got me by two inches and a good fifty pounds. Where I’m all lean muscles, Dmitri is brute strength. I spent my teenage years on my knees, while he spent his swinging his fists. We both have scars that only we know about.

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t weasel out of this somehow.”

“I can’t let the club go to shit for some princess’s cunt.”

“Then negotiate.”

The terms and conditions of the Butterfly’s time here are always negotiable. But I don’t want to give Tara the power to allow or deny me time to do my business.

“She’s not going to be a Sleeping Beauty for thirty solid days.”

I deadpan him. “Then you’ve forgotten how harsh I can be with pleasure.”

“Oh, I’ll never forget it.” Dmitri’s smile is more scary than sexy. “And that’s what I’m worried about. She’s not Natalie, Ryker.”

“Never said she—”

“I heard you puke in the bathroom.”

My gut sinks. “I ate something that didn’t agree with me for breakfast. That’s all.”

He grips my shoulder and squeezes. “The only thing you’ve eaten in the last fifteen hours was Tara’s pussy. Want to try another excuse? Let me guess, you’re nervous? No, maybe it was the pasta from the night before? Bad milk in your latte?”

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