I crossed to the island, grabbed a bag from his hands and tossed it aside. I reached for him, a hand on the back of his neck, the other cupping his granite jaw. Pushing up on my toes, I touched my lips to his. It wasn’t really a kiss, it was a gentle brush andHi. I’m here.
He sucked in a sudden breath and he lifted the arms that’d been frozen at his sides to my waist, holding me tight against him. His teeth grazed my bottom lip and it felt likeGood. I’ve been waiting.
We stared at each other for a moment, the silence tight around us until I said, “Stay. I want you here.”
His jaw softened under my palm. I pressed one kiss to his lips before he picked me up and deposited me on the countertop. He stepped between my legs, saying, “Did you really think I’d leave?”
I shrugged. He slipped a hand under my sweater and stroked small circles low on my back. “You would though. If I said it was what I wanted.”
“But you don’t want that.”
I shook my head. He left a line of kisses from my jaw to the tender spot where my neck met my shoulder. “Who would yell at me about jam farming if you left?”
He dropped his head to my shoulder with a sigh. “Jam doesn’t grow on trees, Muggsy.”
“But peaches do and they make really nice preserves.”
We stayed there for a minute, his palm warm on my back and my fingers raking up his nape, and I didn’t trouble myself with questions about what this was or what it meant or where it would go. I didn’t have to spend my time worrying about how this would end or what we’d be like when we were friends who’d been married.
Trouble would come and find me when it was time. It always did.
Eventually, Ryan said, “I wasn’t expecting you to stay in my room. There’s another suite upstairs.”
I glanced around. I didn’t see a staircase anywhere. “There’s an upstairs?”
“Yeah, on the other side of the gym. It’s bigger and more private. It has a sauna and a cold plunge. Oh, and another deck, some storage, and a family room.”
“I’m going to need a map to get around this place.”
“I’ll draw you one after I make some calls,” he said. “I mean it though. Stay wherever you want. Take my room. Kick me out for all I care.”
“I’m not kicking you out of your bedroom, you incorrigible man.”
“I’m on the road most of this week anyway and I do have the better bathtub.”
With a breath, I put some space between us. “Where are you going?”
“Minnesota.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m meeting with a group of strength and conditioning coaches. Trying to get my arm in shape.”
“Oh, that’s a relief,” I murmured. “I thought I was the only one who’d noticed your pass completion rate had dipped.”
He dropped his hands on either side of me and stared straight into my eyes. “I love how hard you ride me.” His tongue peeked out, just a bit, and ran along the line of his teeth. “About my stats.”
My loud gulp seemed to bounce off the walls in this wide, spacious room. My cheeks were rosy red and it would’ve been safer to take this in a different direction but I said, “Someone has to.”
We went on watching each other, leaning in by inches as the moments passed. We could’ve stayed there until we closed the distance and crashed into each other again but a brutal stab of pain shot through my back, between my hips, and down my legs. The only way to withstand this was to curl in on myself and breathe like I could exhale the hellcat currently possessing my uterus.
I couldn’t, but it was better than screaming or accidentally tearing a towel bar off the wall. The towel bar thing only happened once and it was when I was sixteen. It was the one time my stepdad had been notably impressed with me.
Ryan pulled me into him and stroked a hand down my back. “I’m going to get the bath started,” he said, his lips on my temple. “I’ll bring your things in there so you can change. You can keep everything there—if you want.”
A breath shuddered out of me and I nodded. “Give me some time to think about it.”
“Can I watch while you think?”
“In the bath? No.” I brought my hand to his solid chest, experimented with touching him this way simply because I liked it. “Good try but no. I don’t have a spare minute for anything like that. I’m positively overbooked at bath time. I need to cry, panic about what I’m going to teach this week, and then zone out while obsessing about pointless things. I couldn’t squeeze you in even if I wanted to.”
“And you don’t want to?”
