Ryan licked his lips and seemed to realize he was still kneeling at my feet. He didn’t get up, but he rose a little higher, then glanced at the bed behind me. I didn’t think twice about it until his eyes widened, and then I realized why.
I’d been playing with myself. And the evidence was still on the pillow, the dildo bright purple against the starched, bleached white.
“Um…” I bit my lip. “At least it didn’t get stuck?”
He stared, then burst into laughter. The sound of it was nervous—high and tight, full of anxiety, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off me, even with a fat dildo sitting three feet away from where I was sitting.
“So, uh…do you want me to get your phone so you can call your partner?”
I frowned. “My what?”
“Your—ah. Well.” He cleared his throat and finally climbed to his feet, taking a step back, which was a shame. I didn’t like the distance he put between us, as confused as I was. “I heard—I mean, I wasn’t eavesdropping. You were kind of loud.” His ears were bright red. “I assumed you were with someone…” He gestured weakly at the toy behind me.
It took me a moment, still heavy in shock, to catch on. “Oh. Oh my god. No, I—I’m here alone. I was just, ah…” Now my own face felt molten hot. “Yeah. You know, trying to relax?”
He laughed again. It was clearly a nervous habit. “Right. Cool. Uh…fuck, I’m making this so weird. I blame the fact that I haven’t eaten in two days, and?—”
Two days? The gaunt look of his cheeks told me he was being serious, and I went into panic mode. “Let me call room service,” I said quickly, leaning over for my phone. “I’ll get you whatever you want, and you can?—”
His hand curled around my wrist, sending sparks shooting up toward my shoulder. I sucked in a breath as he held fast, then bit his lip before saying, “I already ordered food. That’s what I was grabbing when I heard you fall.”
Right. Of fucking course the one man I had been searching for for an entire year came back into my life the moment I did something like this. I’d fantasized a thousand times about running into him. About wearing my tightest jeans and walking in a perfectly straight line and showing off that I was okay.
Instead, the fuck-ass powers that be decided that I’d see him again when I was naked, just off a sorry excuse for an orgasm that made my legs give out on me.
Thanks a fucking lot.
Ryan slowly dragged his fingers away, and my hand flopped down into my robe-covered lap. “How can I help?”
I frowned, trying to catch up with wherever his mind had gone. Right. He was still doing the hero thing. I liked it—but I didn’t want our reunion to be about that. “I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, little hero,” I said, and he blushed. Hard. “I still have a lot of damage to my spine, so my legs do this sometimes. I’m good now. You can go back to your dinner.”
Oh, he looked hurt. I’d said that all wrong, and clearly, he thought I was dismissing him because he took several steps backward.
“Of course. God, I’m…yeah. I should go eat so I start making sense.”
“I have room,” I blurted when he was halfway to the door.
He froze and turned back toward me. “Room?”
“Um. Here.” I shifted back and gestured at the bed, way too large for one man. My fingers grazed the dildo, and I groaned when he chuckled. “I can clean up if you want to, uh…to stay for a bit. Catch up. I mean, unless you have someone waiting for you—” Because if he didn’t, he should have. He deserved to have a person who loved him. “Family or whatever…”
Bowing his head, Ryan smiled and shook it. “No. It’s just me.”
“Isn’t this your family vacation?” I remembered that much.
He met my gaze, and oh fuck, he looked sad. Like really, truly, properly sad. “Not this year.”
“Then I have room. Give me two minutes to put on pants and, um…put some stuff away.”
His ears were rosy. “Do you want to share some of my burger?”
I grinned. That sounded like a yes. “I ate way too much at the restaurant, but I might steal a fry.”
His smile matched mine. “I’ll give you a second.” Before I could say anything else, like make him swear he was coming back, he was out of the room. I heard the adjoining door click shut, but this time, there was no twist of the dead bolt.
