Chapter 61: Old Habits Die Hard

Apartment 274, Terrow Heights Apartment Complex, Baltiney, New York...

 The echoing sound of Valencia Ramos's moans and Ken Ryker's nearly feral grunts filled her bedroom as their unseemly act continued. Valencia's fingernails found their way into the flesh of Ken's back which only made him pummel her sodden sex all the more as the pleasant memories of their previous encounters flooded his mind and added to the euphoric sensation of the drugs that were still coursing through his system. Ken had known that their arrangement had been well over but he couldn't stay away and she had known it all too well.

He briefly recalled the night he'd possibly gotten her pregnant, the strange look behind her eyes, and how easily she coated his cock after a few thrusts, the ghost of a woman that plagued his dreams and waking hours respectively despite his insistence that she meant nothing to him. 

The way Malcolm had explained it, Ken had been in pursuit of the feisty young woman ever since he'd awakened from his coma which had not been at all true. The two of them had been in close circles, more often than not due to Ryker's association with the family and hero status, but Ken had only taken an interest in Valencia Ramos when she'd come of age and had been there with him at his lowest. She found him drunk and high off his ass in a dark alley recently mugged from flashing a good deal of cash in the wrong neighborhood. 

The concerned young woman had ushered the groggy Ken into the back of the restaurant and managed to get him back to her apartment. She had a modest place back then and affordable on her waitress salary and tips. She cleaned him up despite his protests to the contrary about not needing her assistance and numerous attempts to run her off. 

She allowed him to spend the night on her sofa monitoring him like a mother hen for much of the night. She didn't take into account that he'd been more or less interested in climbing into her bed later that night and hadn't been out of it for very long ever since. 

Ken in the present had been busy kissing Valencia's soft lips unable to help how much he had grown accustomed to spending time with her as her hands moved along his back in the wake of his deep thrusts. Her soft body continued to clench around his sizeable cock as her moans echoed about the bedroom. Valencia's eyes closed as she began to lose herself in the sensations running through her body due to Ken's efforts. 

"Papi...." she moaned getting Ken's attention. 

He kissed her lips finding himself more and more driven to get her off as much as himself in the wake of their act. 

"Fuck....I love it when you call me that," he growled as his pace increased as well as his frequency. "You always were a hot a little bitch..."

Valencia moaned beneath him loving the feel of his deep thrusts as their act continued with time passing them by at the same time memories of the first time he had climbed into her bed came flooding back adding to the sensation and her need for him. 

He'd been just as drunk and high but his injuries had given her cause for concern before going to bed but his efforts later that night had put her mind at ease. For the past five years, it had only been him in her bed, and before that, she'd been seeing a young man from school but it never progressed beyond intimate kisses. Valencia found over time that Ken had been a much better kisser and opted for spending more time with him. 

Ken groaned as his dark giddy eyes met Valencia's. She'd truly been in love with him and he couldn't rightly ignore that there was something magnetic about her and her body that made it all the more difficult to stay away from her. Malcolm had insinuated that the reason had been more so to do with Ken's dead wife than Valencia herself but Ken had not been so sure. The lovely lass had fire in her veins and a feisty spark that made it impossible for him to deny her much of anything. 

More of Valencia's soft moans filled Ken's ears as he continued to give her all he had been worth in the wake of his series of deep thrusts while she clung to him eager to be near him and starving for his brand of affection even if it had only been during times like this when he'd been so under the influence that it didn't even seem real. 

The older man couldn't ignore how good she felt clenching around him as he stared into her deep brown eyes it felt like falling into an abyss that he had wished all too badly to get lost in. She'd always been there, from the moment he opened his eyes following the coma, her hand in his and tears streaming down her supple cheeks as she hovered near his bedside. 

He gathered that she wasn't a family member given her nervousness whenever a nurse or doctor managed to pop their head in but her soft sweet sorrow-filled voice had been something of an anchor for him when he'd been merely floating in darkness bordering on life and death. 

She encouraged him to return, although he did not know why he had even cared or why she had either. There had been something about her and her sweet voice that he couldn't stay away from. Even when she'd gone and broken their arrangement he found it difficult to steer clear of her. His less-than-pleasant demeanor on his bad days seemed to intensify all the more whenever he had been forced to seek her out for an unstated sense of comfort and familiarity. 

Valencia had only loved him. The rest of the world and their opinions about it be damned and it had been that kind of devotion that unnerved him to no end. He wasn't the type to reciprocate it in any fashion, not any more not after the accident but that didn't seem to bother her. 

Ken once more captured the beautiful young woman's lips in a heated kiss as she continued to cling to him. Her lovely naked body moved along the messy bedding in the wake of the older man's powerful and desperate thrusts. There was an intoxicating bliss that filled him whenever he'd been with Valencia and it terrified him more than she or anyone else would ever know. 

She'd been pregnant with his child, the glow of her skin and the onset of her wayward emotions in the wake of their reunion of sorts had been none too subtle when he attempted to navigate his own instinct to offer her comfort and protection. He supposed it was inevitable that he'd return to her, his arrangement of sorts with Dean had nothing to do with the pull that all too often brought him back to Valencia. 

The two of them seemed to love him for different reasons, Valencia was always loyal and patient with what remained of Ryker Kennison, and Dean was needy and dependent upon the train wreck that had been Ken Ryker the byproduct of a broken man with a broken mind. Two halves of the same whole and as a result, it was inevitable that he'd become unofficially attached to both of them. 

Ken felt the onset of his release as Valencia continued to clench around him making him weak, as she pressed her lips into his their rapid heartbeats and ragged breaths in unison as their act had slowly come to an end. He had not been as aggressive with her this time around given her pregnancy but it was well documented that when the two of them had been together it was like fire and gasoline. 

Both were stubborn and set in their ways. Even if those ways had dictated their clashing and tendency to fall into bed together. Ken growled as he felt his thick cock pulse inside the tightness of the pregnant Valencia her dark eyes still filled with a good deal of love and admiration as she looked upon him. Ken had never been a fan of her admiration for him, no matter how much he attempted to keep his distance, she always seemed to cling to him all the more. 

"Fuck..." he said at last breaking the silence that had fallen between them, his body weak and limp as he slowly pulled out of Valencia and rolled onto his favored side of the bed. 

She sighed as she attempted to catch her breath knowing all too well that he'd been planning on leaving now that he'd gotten what he wanted. Her dark eyes had been filled with tears as she looked up at the ceiling expecting the worst when it came to Ken's attitude toward her. Still, she loved him and their unborn child no matter how callous he'd been toward them. 

Ken simply lied on his back and did some staring up at the ceiling himself. He took a few moments to compose himself, the euphoria from his high and the rather gratifying sex with Valencia had been truly stimulating. The beautiful young woman had captivated him in ways he never thought possible as he rolled onto his side after noticing her burst into tears despite her best efforts to appear otherwise. 

"You might as well leave, we both know you're going to anyway," she said not at all hiding the bitterness in her tone. 

Ken sighed as looked over the sorrowful young woman pregnant with his child and as beautiful as she was on the day he opened his eyes to find her standing in his hospital room her brown eyes so full of sorrow and concern for him. 

"We both know what you want from me and I believed it was understood that I can't give that to you," said Ken finally speaking. "Now with the baby on the way you expect me to randomly change to suit your purpose?"

"That's not....just go Ken," said Valencia rolling onto her side and having her back toward him. More tears streamed down her cheeks as she faced the far wall. 

"You and your damn expectations," growled Ken trying his hardest to keep a lid on his boiling temper. He had known Valencia had been hormonal due to pregnancy but some of her words had been a deep-rooted longing. 

Ken shifted some in bed scooting close to her as he pulled her into his embrace and began kissing her neck and shoulder.

"Look we'll work something out, make a new arrangement whatever you need but don't expect me to be something I'm not." Ken continued. "You know that I'll see to you and the kid but...I am who I am Val and not even you can change that."

"I'm not asking you to change Ken," replied Valencia turning to face him and meeting his gaze. "I'm just asking you to try."

Ken had not known if it had been her words specifically or the drugs coursing through him but they hit their mark in more ways than one as the image of Sera had taken her place and startled the already ailing man to no end. Despite what his conscious mind had said about his lack of knowledge of his dead wife, his subconscious had been plagued with the fractured memories of her and how much he had indeed loved her. 

{"I'm just asking you to try."} She had said those very same words to him a long time ago and the fractured subconscious of Ryker Kennison had known them all too well. 

"I'm sorry," said Ken visibly shaken by the image of his dead wife. "I fucked up it's my fault."

Valencia slowly began to notice the terror and sorrow behind Ken's dark eyes and moved to support him. Involuntary tears cascaded down the older man's cheeks and she wiped them away and wrapped her arms around him. 

"It's okay Ken," she said softly understanding immediately what happened. 

"What the hell happened?" he asked confused. "What the hell am I doing here?"

Valencia tried her best to get him to calm down but it was to no avail. He'd been green around the gills and dizzy all of a sudden. She had not known how to help him and the confusion only seemed to grow as he stared at her with a blank expression. 

Despite her best efforts to assist him, Valencia had been even more concerned when Ken froze for a few moments attempting to blink away the confusion before collapsing onto the bed.