CHAPTER 7
Digger’s eyes snapped open. He glanced around the living room, trying to discern what had brought him out of a sound sleep. The inky shadows still covered the hard wood floor and raced up the bare walls broken only by slashes of pale gray from streetlights coming through the window blinds. He rose up on one elbow and listened. Silence. He was just about to lie back when he heard it again.
“What do you want? Leave me alone!”
Demma’s pained cries had him bolting upright in an instant. He cursed mentally at leaving his weapon in the console of his truck. But then, he hadn’t thought anyone would be stupid enough to break into his home. Moving stealthily through the room, he paused only long enough to pull a six-inch knife from the butcher block on the kitchen counter. It wasn’t his Ka-bar, but it would have to do.
The door to his bedroom was closed. Digger reached out and touched the knob, checking to see if Demma had engaged the lock. She hadn’t. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he slowly let them out. His hesitation ended when he heard her scream, “No! Stop it, don’t touch me!” In an instant, he flung the door open and rushed inside.
There was a faint light coming from the far corner, down low. It cast the room in a slight glow, turning the normally black corners into a muted gray. She must have brought a night light with her from her house. How terrified did an adult woman have to be to sleep with a light?
The first thing he noticed was that Demma hadn’t spread her things about the room but rather kept everything stacked neatly in the corner on her one suitcase. The second thing he saw was Demma writhing on his bed, the covers tangled around her long legs. Her pajama top had pushed up under her breasts exposing the expanse of her flat tummy. The blanket hung half off the bed, and one pillow lay on the floor. She moaned as her hand clenched the sheet and her head whipped from side to side. “No!” she screamed as she kicked and fought against an invisible assailant.
The sound spurred Digger into action. Placing the knife on the dresser, he sat on the side of the bed and tenderly touched her sweaty brow. “Demma,” he whispered.
She groaned. Tears leaked from her eyes as she pulled away. “Zach! Run Zach!”
He dropped his hand to her shoulder and tried again. Shaking her gently, he said, “Demma, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”
This time, she heard him and came awake with a shriek and batted at his hands. “Get away!” she yelled as she crawled back away from him.
He saw the terror on her face as she tried to flee. It damn near broke his heart. “Shhh. It’s me. It’s Ryker. You’re safe. You’re at my house, remember. It’s ok, honey.”
She stilled and blinked at him blearily. “Ryker?”
“Yeah, honey. It’s just me.”
She cried out his name and leapt into his arms, wrapping her own around him tightly. Cupping her slight form against his, he pulled her closer until her bottom sat on his thighs. Digger pressed her head to his shoulder. He felt the hot splash of her tears on his bare skin as she sobbed. Tightening his grip, so she didn’t fall, he gently rocked her while she wept. When her tears finally ceased, she sat up, but he wouldn’t let her pull out of his lap. Instead, he soothingly slipped his fingers through her hair and tucked the strands behind her ear. She looked at him and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “I must look a mess,” she said with a hiccup.
He shook his head. Even with red rimmed eyes, cherry nose and pink splotches on her face, she looked freaking amazing, and he told her so. She guffawed and tried again to slide from his arms. He tightened them instead. “You’re fine,” he told her and pressed his lips to the side of her face.
The action surprised them both. For a brief moment, Digger thought Demma was going to slap his face, but instead, she shocked him to his core.
Demma St. John wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
***
The kiss lasted only a few moments, but the heat of it seared her soul. Demma didn’t know what possessed her to kiss him. One moment Ryker was soothing her with a light peck on her cheek, the next she had grabbed him and pressed her lips to his. His shock only lasted a second before he took charge. His tongue teased the seam of her lips, and she gratefully let him in. He branded her mouth with his as his tongue danced with hers. In the scorching fire of their meeting, the cold fingers of terror receded. When he retreated, she licked her lips and curled against his chest. The welcoming strength of Digger’s arms told her she was safe. She snuggled into his embrace and squeezed her eyes tightly closed. She needed to cleanse the horror of her dream from her mind. It had felt real.
Demma could still smell the stench of the meth lab as she wiggled out of the window. In her nightmare, there was no explosion, no escape. Instead, Slater had caught her and dragged her back inside to be tortured and raped. Zach was restrained, tied to a chair with wire ties and forced to watch as each member took his turn defiling her. When they were through, Slater cut the ties away and told Zach to leave and never come back. As he turned, she saw Ellis raise a gun. She screamed at Zach to run, but it was too late. His body bucked forward and slammed into the wall, smearing crimson across the grimy surface. As her cousin lay there bleeding out, she felt something cold and hard against her throat. “Nobody leaves the Cobras. Blood in, death out,” Slater hissed as he slit her throat.
She drew back as the memory faded and dropped her gaze to Ryker’s chest. There were more scars here, but not as plentiful as the ones on the side of his face. Demma’s fingers traced the map of lines from his shoulder down to his left pec causing him to shiver. Once again, she wondered what had caused these injuries. She knew intimately how excruciatingly painful burns were. The debridement entailed scrubbing the dead skin daily. She shuddered at the memory. The treatment was almost worse than the initial burn.
She touched one puckered ridge next to his collarbone. His fingers clasped her and pulled them down to his chest over his heart. “That’s still extremely sensitive,” he murmured.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered and tried to pull back.
He stopped her. “I didn’t say you had to leave.”
“Alright.”
They sat in silence for several moments. “Ryker?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you... will you tell me how you got hurt?”
She heard the sound of Ryker sucking on his teeth. For a moment, she thought he was going to deny her. But then, he began to talk.
“As you know, I was in the military. I was sort of pushed into service. You see, computers have always come easy for me, and it was just a big game for me to see what I could do with them. By the time I turned thirteen, I was building my own systems. At sixteen, I discovered the dark web and taught myself how to hack. The summer I graduated from high school, I was getting ready to enter college. Imagine my parents’ surprise when a couple of federal agents knocked on our door. I hadn’t taken as much care as I thought in one of my little hacking kicks and left a marker. It was traced back to me. The Feds were more impressed than annoyed. I hadn’t done anything other than seeing if I could get into a secure system. To be honest, it was getting a little boring, and they realized it. I had a choice to make; go into the military or face charges. I chose the Marines.” He shook his head as he recalled the pride on his dad’s face the first time he returned home wearing his dress blues.
“Fast-forward four years. I loved my time in the service. They taught me a lot of stuff, but it wasn’t all glamorous. I got a few cushy assignments and dealt with all levels of data. Ironically, the post that got me kicked out was little more than babysitting.”
Ryker stopped for a minute as the memories of those ‘easy’ days washed over him before he forced himself to continue. “July in Afghanistan is so damn hot and sandy. There was sand everywhere. It was in our clothes, boots, equipment, food - I swear I could taste sand for a year after I was sent back home. I was assigned to a data center at the base. We shuttled information back and forth and provided soldiers with a way to talk to their families back home. There wasn’t anything secret stored there, and as far as assignments overseas go, it wasn’t that bad of a job. Because of the computers, the building was kept cooler than most which was a blessing in the hot desert. However, all of that damned sand got into everything including the equipment. One of my main responsibilities was to vacuum out the units after any storm.”
Ryker shook his head sadly. What happened was not his fault, but he blamed himself for quite some time. ‘Survivor’s guilt’ was what the shrinks at Walter Reed called it. Forcing the memories back, he hurried through the worst of his story.
“The day before it happened, there had been a major sand storm. It had been so thick, we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. We sat inside and waited it out. Even with every crevice sealed, the grit got through and covered everything. I knew the next day was going to consist of me crawling around the data center cleaning sand. However, it had to be done. Sand in sensitive equipment can cause catastrophic failures. Three techs were working that day, and we each took a different section of the building. I was elbows deep in one of the servers, vacuuming out the grit when everything just exploded. We found out later that a bomb had been smuggled into the camp and placed against the side of the building. Apparently, they didn’t realize we didn’t deal with secret information there. Regardless, the bomb went off, and the building fell. I was trapped underneath for hours. The best I can figure, I landed against some hot metal. The doctor said it pretty much cooked the side of my face and blinded my eye. “He rose up and looked at her. “There you have it.”
Demma covered her mouth with her hand. “Jesus, Ryker. That’s horrible.”
He shrugged. “No more so than losing an arm or leg to IED. At least I’m alive and in one piece. I know a lot of buddies who didn’t make it home including one of my fellow techs. The other has PTSD so bad, he can’t function in society. I was messed up too, for a while. But, thanks to my supportive family and a lot of help, I’m doing alright. Because of the vision, I was given a medical discharge.” He waved his hand in front of his left eye. “I can see movement, shadows, and light but nothing definitive. I had perfect vision in the other eye, but because of the loss of depth perception, I need the glasses to help me compensate. They also help prevent massive headaches.”
They sat together on his bed as she thought about all they both had experienced. So much had happened to bring them to this point in time, to being in this room. She was sitting on his lap, half-naked and without any fear. Heat flared to life in her core, and she squirmed. Ryker must have mistaken it as Demma being uncomfortable for he began to lift her from his lap.
“I should get back to bed,” he muttered.
“Stay.”
Ryker froze and looked at her. “You want me to stay?”
Slowly, she nodded. “Please.” She looked into his twin pools of whiskey-brown and saw something there. Compassion, concern and something almost carnal. When he raised his palm and cupped her cheek, she felt the tingles of awareness travel down her body, making her tremble. Being in Ryker’s arms made her painfully conscious of how long it had been since she had last been with a man. Not just a man, but one who made her ache with a hungry need that blinded her to everything around her.
Demma held his gaze as her fingers traveled down his chest, following the planes and valleys to the waist of his boxers. She hesitated when his thick fingers slid around to the back of her neck and held her hostage. Searching his face, she licked her lips nervously and shifted in his lap. He groaned, and she could feel his need pulsing to life.
“I...” she whispered, uncertain how to ask for what she wanted most from him.
Ryker’s face hardened, and he closed his eyes. Snapping them open again, he gave her a feral stare. “Screw it,” he hissed then captured her lips in a hard, hungry kiss.
Demma found herself on her back with Ryker lying on top. His hands traveled over her body, as if memorizing her form much as she had his earlier. When his finger brushed over her breasts, she gasped and arched up toward him.
“So damn responsive,” he muttered. He peppered kisses along her jaw and down to the sensitive spot where her neck and shoulder met. Nipping the flesh there, he chuckled when she hissed at the pain then growled as she ran her nails over the expanse of his back. He tugged at her pajama top, and she lifted up to allow him to pull it off. He tossed it over his shoulder. She saw his eyes widen as he drank in her body. “Beautiful,” he whispered in a reverent sigh.
Demma hungered as he kissed and teased her, moving down until his lips closed on her breast causing her to gasp and arch again. He rid her of her bottoms. He growled again.
“Please,” she whispered breathlessly into the still night air. “Please, Ryker.”
He raised his head from where he had been worshiping her body with his lips and tongue. “Please what, Demma?”
“Please, I need you,” she begged shamelessly.
He smiled wolfishly at her. “You have me.”