I can feel my blood boil just from seeing his hands all over her. He finally looks up, gives me one of those signature Gage grins, and strolls out of the room, but not before he slaps her right on the ass.
She walks over to the fridge and yanks the door open. She grabs a bottle of water and drains half of it before finally looking me in the eye. “We need to talk,” she declares before walking out of the room toward the back of the house.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I know that look. She’s about to tear me a new asshole. I slide off my stool and follow the way she went like the whipped fucking lap dog everyone thinks I am. I find her sitting on the back patio beside the pool, her feet swinging back and forth in the water.
I sit down beside her and slide my feet in. She doesn’t look at me when I sit down, and I hate that I might have fucked this up with her.
“Why now?” she asks finally.
“Why not now?”
She finally looks at me. “Don’t do that. Don’t give me some flippant response instead of the truth.”
I scrub a hand down my face. This is where I need to be carefulabout what I say. I don’t want to lie to her, but I can’t come out and tell her I fucking love her. “I thought I lost my chance when you started seeing Leo. I felt the pull, so I fucking went with it.”
“Twenty-five years, Ryder. Twenty-five fucking years, you’ve had your chance, and you choose the moment after someone I care about hurts me to take it.”
“You didn’t seem to mind it,” I remind her, which is the wrong thing to say.
“Are you kidding me?” She jabs a finger at me. “You surprised me.”
“Come on, Les. You didn’t feel anything?” I say, looking her in the eyes, trying to get a read on her emotions, but she has that infamous mask in place, her face carefully blank.
She throws her hands up. “I don’t know what I felt, okay? One minute I’m talking to my best friend, and the next, he has his tongue down my throat.”
God, I want to kiss her, kiss that confusion off her face, until she can’t think about anything but me. But I feel if I try this time, she will kick my ass.
I lean back on my hands. “It was bad timing, but I won’t apologize for doing it. I’ve wanted to kiss you for far too long to take it back now.”
“Why is everyone suddenly going crazy?” she asks, but it’s more like she’s talking to herself.
“What do you mean?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing. Just something Gage said.”
“What did he say?” I ask.
“Doesn’t matter,” she snorts.
She’s up and walking toward the door before I even register she's moved, too lost trying to figure out what she’s talking about.
I jump up, and two long strides has me grabbing her arm and spinning her toward me. She launches herself at me, and at first, I think I will have to defend myself, but then her lips are on mine.
Holy fuck.
My surprise lasts less than a second before I hook my hands under her thighs, wrapping them around my waist. I wrap my armaround her waist and use the other to find the side of the house. The moment I feel it, I press her against it, molding our bodies together. I use the wall to steady her so I can have my hands. I run one up into her hair, tangling the strands around my fingers. I pull slightly to tilt her head the way I want it so I can control the kiss. She moans into my mouth, and I almost fucking lose it. I run my other hand under the back of her shirt at her waist to feel her soft skin.
Finally.
I could yell it from the rooftops. Finally, Les is mine. I can feel it in this kiss, her hands roaming all over my back, her hips rocking on my cock. She. Is.Mine.
I don’t know how long we kiss before we both pull back breathless. I lay my forehead against hers, untangling my hand from her black hair. I run my knuckles down her cheek, getting lost in those blue eyes.
“You felt it,” I whisper, afraid to talk louder and break the moment.
She grips my cheeks, legs still wrapped around my waist. “Yes,” she whispers back. “But it’s not that simple.”
How is it not simple?
