We had years and years of catching up to do, the thought of wasting a single second more was too much.
Ryder made an unhappy noise when I did finally break off to breathe, looking up at me with dark eyes and flushed lips, softly parted as he panted for breath too.
“Do you, uh.” He stopped to clear his throat. “Do you wanna, umm. Go inside? Because I’ve had enough close encounters with wildlife for one day.”
I laughed, flying high on excitement and happiness and the thought of Ryder, wanting me to want him. “You’re the one with the key.”
15
Ryder
I’d already lostmy coat and sweater by the time we made it up the stairs, jeans hanging open from when Ward had pinned me to the wall just inside the door and kissed me like he needed it to live, hands all over me.
I couldn’t get enough of that. Ward’s hands were broad and warm and covered in nicks and calluses and scars, rough and gentle at once as he slid his fingers under the hem of my t-shirt and laid the flat of his palm on my stomach, tickling the sensitive skin there.
“Am I going too fast?” Ward asked, pulling back just enough to look me in the eyes, his other hand curled around my hip.
“I’ve wanted this since I was seventeen,” I said. “So if anything you’re going a little slow.”
“Seventeen?” Ward asked. He was so hot like this, with his cheeks flushed and his eyes dark, lips kiss-swollen and his whole body heaving as he panted for breath.
I could barely believe it was happening.
“That was when I knew I wanted you to be my first,” I said. “The night I turned seventeen. I thought you were going to kiss me when you dragged me away to give me my birthday gift in private.”
“I was,” Ward confessed, looking me in the eyes. “I wanted to. Chickened out.”
If I was supposed to do anything other than kiss him again for admitting that, I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t get enough ofthat, either, of the way he opened up for me like he really had been waiting as long as I had for this.
I’d kissed a lot of people—I’d made a career out of it—but it’d never been like kissing Ward.
The bedsprings creaked under his weight as I pushed him down onto it and straddled his lap, too eager to be delicate about this. I’d wanted Ward for as long as I’d understood whatwantwas, and now I finally had him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and my stomach lurched at the thought that he’d changed his mind, that I couldn’t have this after all, that maybeIwas going too fast and I’d scared him.
“For?” I asked cautiously, sitting back.
“Not kissing you,” Ward said. “Back then. I should’ve been braver for you.”
Oh, that. That was fine.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, nudging the tip of his nose with my own. “You’re here now.”
We kissed again until my phone buzzed in my pocket.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said as I took it out.
“It’s okay,” Ward murmured, both hands on my hips, thumb brushing against bare skin. “You’ve got things going on.”
“Mmhmm,” I agreed, switching the phone off and then turning the screen to show him. “But none of them are more important than you.”
My phone tumbled to the rug under the bed with a dull thud, and I couldn’t have cared less about it.
Not when Ward was giving me that moon-and-stars look again. What could possibly matter more than that?
I laughed as he pulled me closer, biting at my lip and shoving his hands into my open jeans to squeeze my butt, grinding up against me in a long, slow stroke that sent a shiver of lust rolling down my spine.
He really was all grown up now.
