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  Jack stalked toward her, mischief flickering in his eyes. “We are the only two here, Molls.”

  Her thin, shaped brows beetled down into a frown. “You know I don’t want to be called, Molls.”

  He curled his arm around her waist and pulled her body into his then traced the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue before whispering, “I want to kiss you, Molly-mine.”

  His stiff manhood pushed into her lower belly. She shivered. “We shouldn’t—”

  Her protest stopped when he pressed his lips to hers and dipped his tongue inside her mouth. He groaned, and, soon, one of his hands secured the back of her neck, fingers twining into her hair at the base of her skull as they kissed.

  The dweedle-deet of her cell phone had Molly pulling back.

  “Forget about the phone,” Jack said, nose skimming along her jaw. “God, you smell good. Maybe I should eat my dinner right here.” He nibbled her earlobe, causing an outcropping of goose bumps to dance across her skin. “What if I spread you out on the desk, and suck duck sauce from your—”

  Dweedle-deet.

  Molly pressed her palms flat on the vest of Jack’s three-piece suit. “It could be important.” Her thoughts shot to her very pregnant, due-at-any-moment older sister. “It might be about Mary.”

  With a defeated-sounding sigh, Jack let loose of her. “Fine,” he said. “Check.”

  Molly turned, snagged her cell from the desk, tapped the screen, and bit back a gasp when she saw the avatar of Darth Vader.

  Ryker.

  He was the one man who’d become an expert at breaking her heart, and, over the years, she’d turned into a woman skilled at letting him. Well, enough was enough. No more. Their crazy roller coaster of a relationship, if you could even call it that, had derailed one too many times. She was tired of waiting for him to get his shit together, and had decided she was done being yanked into his gravitational pull. No more hopeful silliness. No more obsessing.

  I should delete the text without reading it. She bit at the inside of her cheek. She almost followed through. Her finger had been ready to do the deed then, for some insane reason, she gave in, tapped the message, and read.

  What are you doing?

  Seriously? She hadn’t heard from him in months. In fact, the last she knew, he’d been in Singapore, working. When she’d run into his twin a while back, she’d asked after Ryker, only to hear Declan say he didn’t know how his brother was doing. The thing was, she believed him. Ryker’s ability to shut everyone out of his life was just one of the things he was good at. He’d always been good at walking away. It was the sticking around part he didn’t do so well.

  Pissed, Molly closed the text, willed her stomach to stop flip-flopping, took a breath, and twirled back around with a smile she didn’t feel, only to see Jack staring at her in that hawkish way he possessed. Sometimes, when he looked at her in such a way, he reminded her of her dad when he was on one of his I-want-the-truth-missions, and the memory of Banning Monroe, when he was ramping up, wasn’t something she cared to remember.

  “Important?” Jack asked, studying her face with an intense expression.

  “Nope.” Clearing her thoughts, she soldiered to the door of her office, grabbing his hand as she passed. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

  Chapter Two

  Past.

  It was happening again.

  Her heartbeat sped up, until the th-thump reverberated in her throat. Her older sister, by four years, was out, doing God only knew what. And her mom was in the hospital after “falling” down the stairs of their Greenwood Village home for the second time in two months. So, she was home, alone, witnessing her father stomp into the family room, face distorted in disgust. She wanted to run. To hide. Maybe, if she closed her eyes, she would disappear. Evaporate into nothingness. Vanish.

  “Molly!” he bellowed. She jumped, a kneejerk response she had no control over. At once, her stomach sank to her feet, and her mouth went dry and cottony. “Turn off that damn TV.” He threw his suit coat over a chair, loosened the navy-blue tie around his neck, and raked his fingers through his hair, disrupting the red-brown strands. “It’s loud enough to wake the dead.”

  She grabbed the remote and, without delay, turned the television off with a shaky hand.

  Her dad tugged a bottle from the inner pocket of the jacket he’d tossed down and poured a couple of blue pills into the palm of his hand. She hated those pills, although, perhaps she shouldn’t. They would at least bring him down, and, in a little while, he would begin to quiet. Forget about her. Become oblivious. No longer amping up for a rampage. Unlike the white pills, which seemed to energize him, in an hour or so, he’d pass out. It was what would happen between now and when he went down for the count that worried her.

  Molly tried to stop her body from trembling, observing him stare at the drugs he held. Sometimes she wondered what he saw when he looked at them. Could he see what he’d become? Maybe, this time, he’d toss them. Fight those demons that plagued him and win. Yet, hope was the worst kind of devil because the likelihood of her father conquering those demons was slim.

  With a tightening of his jaw, he shoved the container back from where he retrieved it . Hope always withers and dies. Just as it did now, observing him as he lumbered over to the bar and started on his descent into further madness.

  Motionless, too afraid to even attempt running, she saw him pop the tablets into his mouth and then wash them down with booze.

  Her stomach churned.

  “Where’s Mary?” he asked, voice gruff, making himself another drink.

  She didn’t know. Mary hadn’t told her where she was going. Oh God. This wasn’t going to be good.

  “She went out.”

  “Out where?”

  Molly shook her head, her bangs brushing her forehead. “I don’t know.”

  He glared at her, hazel-brown eyes flickering menace, staring at her as if he were trying to search her soul for the truth she hid from him, but she wasn’t hiding anything. “You don’t know?”

  “No, Dad.”

  “Is she with that tattooed hooligan, Van?”

  “I don’t know?”

  “Don’t lie to me, Molly Anne.”

  She whispered with a dry throat, “I’m not.”

  He heaved a sigh.

  Wham!

  He slammed the glass down on the top of the hutch that held the liquor so hard she was surprised the crystal didn’t shatter.

  “I told her she is forbidden to see him,” he grumbled.

  Molly sank into the couch, retreating in the best way she could. However, when he started walking toward her, steps committed, she had no doubt she was going to pay for whatever had set him off, and Mary’s absence, too.

  Yanking her up by the arm, he shook her. “Don’t you dare lie to me, Molly. She’s out with that boy, isn’t she?”

  Maybe he would just go ahead and overdose. Put himself, and everyone else, out of misery. She shouldn’t be having thoughts of death, yet the image floated through her head. A daydream. Part of her thirteen-year-old mind told her she was horrible for wishing her father would die and leave her, her sister, and her mother in peace.

  “I’m not lying,” she said, voice warbling.

  “I took her car away, so who did Mary leave with?”

  “Daddy. You’re hurting me.” He shook her again, hard enough to rattle her teeth. “I don’t—”

  Smack!

  Pain exploded across her face. Her father backhanded her. She went limp and would have hit the floor if he hadn’t kept one of his hands wrapped around the fleshy part of her upper arm in a death grip. She would be bruised. Again.

  Nobody would believe what went on inside this house. Domestic violence didn’t happen in well-to-do, church-going families such as hers. Her father hid his rage and substance abuse from the outside world and did so with his carefully crafted façade. He’d learned to conceal his secret life behind his designer suits and ties, and stock portfolios.
He’d become an expert at veiling the truth and keeping his anger tucked within the walls of this upscale home. Covered his sins with his righteous indignation.

  Tugging her alongside him, he snarled out, “Maybe this will jog your memory.”

  “No,” she pled, tears streaming, tasting the metallic tinge of the blood dribbling into her mouth. He opened the door to a closet only used for punishment. “Please, don’t. I’m not lying to you. I’m not.”

  The man who was supposed to love, cherish, and protect her, threw her inside, hard enough that she wacked against the back wall, causing her breath to whoosh out of her lungs.

  “When you’re ready to stop spouting lies and tell me the truth, I’ll think about letting you out.”

  The door shut with the snap of the lock. Desolation flooded her, pulling her under in a deluge of despair.

  Crying, and in pain, Molly slumped to the floor, curling into herself. She was trapped within the place she’d come to know well—the darkness.

  ***

  Ryker spent the afternoon in bed. Not in his bed. And not sleeping. Nope. He’d been banging the much older, Mrs. Fairchild—a divorcee who lived four houses down from his parents. She’d asked him if he would come help her carry some heavy things down from her attic. He’d gone, realizing within two minutes of his arrival what she wanted had nothing to do with boxes or her attic, and more to do with kink. He’d also found out the woman could contort herself into some wicked positions and was one killer lay.

  Mrs. Fairchild hadn’t been his first, but she had been the first to coax out a side of him he’d considered to be an abnormal flaw in his sexuality, asking him to tell her what to do, pinch her supple thighs, and to pull her hair. The thing was, he enjoyed it. A lot. Not because he hurt her, that wasn’t it. He got off because she reveled in being submissive and pain gave her pleasure. Giving her what she needed gave him what he needed in return.

  Whistling, he made his way upstairs to shower and change his clothes because he, his brother, Declan, and a couple of their friends were going to one of the last summer concerts of the season at Red Rocks. The tickets to see one of his favorite bands had been a B-Day gift from his aunt. And he was pretty stoked to show off the new Jeep his parents had bought him for his sixteenth birthday.

  “Hey, man,” his bro said, when he hit the top landing. “She’s sitting on the roof again.”

  Ryker frowned. He knew who Declan was talking about, and nodded.

  He made tracks until he was inside his room and staring out the blinds of his window. Sure enough, there Molly sat on the roof of her parents’ house, her knees bent to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, head bowed, with the setting sun highlighting her long, strawberry-blonde hair.

  “Shit.”

  Molly only camped out there when something bothered her. Her mother was in the hospital, so perhaps she was worried about Madeline. Keeping his gaze trained on her, he saw the ends of her hair swish across her legs, being taken in the breeze. Her dad was pretty strict with her, and Ryker considered maybe she’d been grounded again and was upset about that.

  Well, whatever was going on, he wouldn’t find out by standing at his window, so Ryker went to the French doors that led out to the connecting balcony, opened them, and stepped outside.

  “Molls?”

  Her head shot up.

  His eyes narrowed. He hadn’t seen her in a few days, and her face looked…bruised? “You okay?”

  She gave a half-shrug.

  He crossed over to the far end of the balcony, stepped up onto the corner of the railing, reached for a tree branch, got a good hold, and climbed.

  Switching branches, making his way over in her direction, he maneuvered onto another branch, and another, then leapt, landing on the portion of the roof where Molly sat.

  “What happened?” he asked, strolling across the shingles then copping a squat beside her. She dropped her head. “Don’t. Look at me.”

  “No.”

  “Molls.”

  She shook her head. He placed his fingers beneath the shelf of her tucked chin and lifted.

  Ashamed eyes looked up at him. Her normally creamy skin displayed a disturbing array of purple and blue bruises marring the perfection of her right cheek, and her beautiful rose-kissed lips were puffy and swollen. Something twisted in his gut, and anger flared to monumental levels. Ryker tried not to display just how pissed off he was and tamped back the need to hurt someone on her behalf.

  Being careful with her, he palmed Molly’s face. “How did this happen?”

  Fat tears fell from those big, gray-green eyes and sprinkled over the back of his hand, bathing him in sadness.

  As though an automatic reaction, Ryker pulled her into his body. Her arms went around his waist—her forehead into his neck.

  “Please, Ryker. Don’t ask me questions.”

  “Molly….”

  The girl was undoing him. He didn’t know what to say. What to do. How to help. Therefore, Ryker did the only thing he could. He held her, absorbing her shakes as the warm breeze wrapped around them.

  Moments passed this way, until Molly pulled back and glanced up at him, tears streaking her cheeks. He didn’t know why, and it was wrong of him because she was only thirteen. Nonetheless, he cupped his hand around the back of her head, tugging her forward, and, with a softness he hadn’t known he possessed, he swiped his lips across hers.

  She made a little, breathy sound but didn’t open for him. Then, it hit him. She didn’t know how to kiss.

  “Relax,” he said. He darted his tongue along the swell of them until the pink glistened. “Does your lip hurt?” She shook her head. “Open for me then, Molls.”

  When she did, he swirled his tongue with hers, feeling the hesitancy. The unsure stutter, start, stop as she kissed him back, set off a spark of possessive ownership, which caught and burned bright until it became a forest fire—consuming him.

  Deepening the kiss, she melted into his embrace and moaned into his mouth. Everything male about him was fast becoming interested and reveled in the feel of her small, feminine body against his.

  Ryker focused on the sweet taste of her. Butterscotch. She must have recently eaten a candy. Damn…she was soft.

  Stop.

  He needed to. He should stop.

  She’s too young.

  He ended the kiss, surprised at himself for doing the right thing.

  “That was….” Molly touched her lips, blushed the prettiest shade of dusty pink, and dropped her gaze, scooting away from him. “Nice.”

  She was just so….

  Ryker wanted to reach out and touch her. Kiss her again. Part of his youthful mind told him to, and the other part reminded him she wasn’t old enough. The devil on his right shoulder whispered, She’ll be fourteen at the end of the month. The lesser-known angel on his left shoulder said, So what. That’s still too young.

  He took a breath. The fact he needed to regain his control only proved one thing to him. When it came to Molly Monroe, he was going to be in huge trouble. Or, maybe, he already was.

  Chapter Three

  Present.

  “Hey, man! I’m home,” Ryker yelled after entering the foyer of the house he and his brother had purchased together a few years ago.

  Not used to the idea of a woman being around, he’d walked in on Declan and Tiffany the other night, in flagrante, so he’d vowed to always shout out a warning of his arrival. He listened, but didn’t hear any grunting, moaning, or “oh-God-fuck-me-harder,” which was a good thing.

  “Deck?”

  No response.

  Turning, he headed for the living room. Both of Declan’s vehicles—his lime-green monster truck and his chopper—were parked in the garage when Ryker pulled his Viper into the last bay, which should mean his bro was here somewhere.

  “Declan?”

  Still nothing.

  He strode through the house and, when he came to Declan’s bedroom door, it was open, which meant he and his fiancée
weren’t doing the horizontal mambo. Well, not in the bedroom anyway. He scrubbed a palm down his face.

  “Fiancée,” he spluttered in disgust. Ryker couldn’t believe his twin was getting married.

  God. He wasn’t going to ponder that right now. A lot could happen before December. Maybe Deck would get over it and come to his senses.

  After checking the kitchen, the game room, and even the home office neither of them ever used, he went outside, strolling across the patio, to see if Deck was doing something with the pool in preparation for the Fourth of July bash they were throwing over the weekend.

  While all the house lights were burning bright, none of the backyard lights were on, and it was getting late.

  “Deck? You out here?”

  Nada.

  Walking over to the BBQ and bar area, he opened the outdoor refrigerator and grabbed a Budweiser, popped the cap, sat down on one of the lounge chairs by the pool, and took a drink. He glanced at the dark water of the swimming pool, which caught the reflection of the velvet black from above and mirrored the twinkling stars. The night reminded him of when he was young, and all the times he’d sat on the roof of Molly’s house, staring up at the stars with her, keeping her company while she hid away in the dark.

  Slipping his cell phone free from his shirt pocket, he looked at the time—10:58 p.m. and still no response from the text he’d sent almost an hour ago.

  Leaning his head back to stare at the night sky, he mumbled, “She fucking hates you,” as he set his beer on the side table by the chair before he glanced at the phone he held in front of his face, tapped the speakerphone icon, then dialed.

  Three rings later an out-of-breath Declan answered, “What’s up?”

  “Hey. Where are you? I saw your truck and bike in the garage, but—”

  “I’m at the grocery store with Tiffany. We took her new Malibu.”

  Ryker snorted. “How very domestic of you.”

  “Bite me, dickhead.”

  Ryker smiled. There was the man he knew and loved; however, before he could get too jazzed about the reemergence of his potty-mouthed brother, the high intonations of Tiffany’s voice rose in the background, only he couldn’t make out what she was saying.