CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

She didn't drift off right away, or even get into bed. The night had certainly sapped her energy, and a decent, normal night's sleep was what the doctor ordered. But her eyes stayed wide open as she lay fully dressed, staring at the unfamiliar popcorn ceiling, mind trying to make sense of the ridiculous situation she found herself in.

 

She thought about tomorrow and how she might spend it. The idea that she wouldn’t have anywhere to be was bizarre. Since she was fifteen, she’d never been without a job. She didn't know how to spend her life sitting around doing nothing, like some kind of princess trapped in a tower, threatened by dragons, and protected by a white knight. Of course, her white knight had made it more or less clear how he wouldn't mind spending their time together. She'd asked if he wanted her and he'd made it more than clear that he did. This thrilled her, both because it was exhilarating and because it was dangerous.

 

After all, Joseph Ryan was used to getting whatever woman he wanted, when he wanted. He had to turn down women--turn down girls, even. Yes, he may sometimes play the part of the innocent kid or the unfortunate waif, but there was no reason to think that that wasn't just another tool in his seduction arsenal. He was probably right when he said his education had been crap, but he was smart. Smart enough to spot an opening when one appeared. She was convenient, she was needy, and she was wearing tight leather.

 

Why wouldn't he want her? It made it all the more vital that he not get her. Yes, he was capable of being honest, but he was also capable of lying. At least she could read him. It was the only thing she had to rely on.

 

She stretched her limbs and arched her back, letting the feeling of relaxation wash over her and the tightness subside, though her mind flashed back to the way his hands had felt as they slid underneath her shirt and up her torso.

 

It was hard to get rid of the image of his eyes as they changed in reaction to her touch. How she wanted to know that place he went when he wasn't flirting; wasn't joking; when his eyes were distant and heavy. She ached to know. But she could not make it easy for him. That would be a disaster.

 

But tomorrow, acting natural, acting detached, acting the way she needed to act in front of him, would be torture, especially if she had to spend the day cooped up in the house, watching trashy daytime talk shows. She had to find something else to keep her grounded, to help wrestle her thoughts away from him. A job.

 

A job. That's what she needed. With that settled, she slept.

 

***

 

Joe’s confession that he had never slept well was truer than Ruby knew. Not as a young child, when he had had to wait up nights to see if his mother would stumble home, knowing she’d either be looking for someone on which to take out her drug-fueled rage, or she’d pass out on the couch for the next eight hours while he ate Cheerios for every meal and tried to get himself to school. And if it was possible for any kid to get a good night's sleep in a foster home, he'd never seen the proof.

 

There was always something to stay on guard against—whether it be the unwanted late-night attentions of some perverted foster "uncle," the snoring of the asthmatic kid in the bed next to him, or the knowledge that a social worker could pull up the next morning, hustle him into a state car, and drop him off in a strange house thirty miles away, where the best he could hope for was that it wouldn't be worse than where he already was.

 

In juvie, with a shiv under every mattress, constant vigilance wasn’t even a question. Later, when he'd joined the Jockeys, he thought he'd found some measure of security, especially in knowing that guys like Kyle and Colt had his back. But it still wasn't conducive to beauty sleep when he knew some lowlife Latin King was across town stroking his gun, plotting revenge on them for some real or perceived slight.

 

So what it all boiled down to was that he'd gotten good at running on empty. And yet, having to tear himself away from Ruby, leaving her sleeping peacefully in Colt's house and riding home in the state he was in, was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. He'd started with a lukewarm shower, but even that wasn't enough after the sight of Ruby's hips and ass in that black leather, rippling like some kind of inky star. It was all he could do not to grab her like an animal, not to surrender to his baser impulses.

 

He tried to be better than that, usually. But usually, he didn't need to be better than that. Usually, it wasn't so goddamn hard for him to get a woman to take off her pants, to spread her legs, and yield to him like a broodmare in heat.

 

When he got back to the bar, he'd gone straight upstairs without even pausing to have a drink with Mark Chester or the handful of bikers in from out of town. If he'd paused to explain, they wouldn't understand. They'd deride him for taking no for an answer; for not throwing her down on the bed and convincing her, with his hands and his words, if not with brute force, who was boss.

 

As if anyone would get away with doing that to Ruby Clarke. He had no doubt she'd use teeth, claws, and every ounce of strength she had to fight it. Besides, it would be horrible. It would kill what the two of them had started, which was to build something else together. Something he'd got by painstakingly winning her trust, and by playing the gentleman he sometimes forgot was hiding inside him.

 

His cock still screamed out for her, of course. It was almost unbearable now. But there were other ways. He just wasn't sure any of these other ways were capable of getting him what his body wanted without risking everything else.

 

After all, Kyle's sister had spent most of her adulthood hating and fearing what Joe was, blaming him for the grief she'd suffered, so much so that he worried she would never want anything to do with him. And yet she’d at last let her guard down enough to joke with him, to tease him like a friend. To treat him like a human being, and allow him to treat her the same. That wasn't worth nothing. It should be worth everything. It should be all he could dare to hope for. But it wasn't.

 

Which of course was why he'd gone home. Alone in his cramped room upstairs, out of the unsatisfying shower, his jacket, hoodie, and jeans draped over the post of the worn futon that sadly, was probably the nicest bed he'd ever slept in. He lay staring up at the cracked plaster ceiling, biting hard on his lower lip. Another reason he liked to avoid sleep was that he tended to have a lot of nightmares--about his mother, about his foster parents, and more recently, about Kyle's death.

 

In the meantime, he could touch himself, grab himself, or treat himself roughly--that's probably what he deserved. He certainly didn't deserve Ruby. Didn't deserve her, and would never have her, at least not under any circumstances he could live with. He needed to remind himself of that more often, that she was a good girl and had built her whole life around being a good girl. Because of that, she would always be out of his stratosphere. But when he closed his eyes, he focused on the strange, magic color of Ruby's eyes, of her lips parted like a gasp, begging him to get closer, and hoped he could dream of her, and that it would be enough to bring him through to morning.