Desperate not to lose the friction, I hold the pages up with a shaky hand, finding my place. I blink as I attempt to decode the illegible words. “‘“Don’t,” Charlotte moaned, practically drowning in the pleasure of it all. “Don’t stop...”’”
I’m not sure who’s talking anymore, Charlotte or me. I honestly don’t care. Ryan’s mouth is back on my skin, nipping at the base of my throat as I shift down against his knee, trying to ease the ache that’s steadily climbing. I twist my free hand into his hair and pull. He attacks my neck with renewed hunger. I’m beyond intoxicated, and it has nothing at all to do with drinking.
“‘Robert groaned against Charlotte’s neck as he ran his fingertips up her thighs. With his kisses and hands, he urged Charlotte’s trembling limbs around his...waist!’”
The exclamation point is all me as Ryan’s hand slips under my dress and along my leg, pulling it up to wrap around his hip. His breath is as strained as mine now as his hand drifts from my leg to my face. He angles my chin up to kiss the underside of my jaw and keeps the delicious path moving from my throat to my shoulders to the top of my chest. His mouth moves lower as he tugs the neckline of my dress down until it’s taut, almost ripping. I’m dizzy and burning but I force myself to keep reading.
“‘“I have loved you since the first moment I saw you rolling around on that library floor,” he whispered into Charlotte’s ear. “Don’t ask me to go. Stay with me. Tell me you want me, always.”’”
“Enough,” Ryan says, his voice breaking. The manuscript is torn from my hand and is sent flying across the room. He grabs the hem of my dress and bunches it at my waist, pulling it up even farther until it’s off my body completely.
His mouth is everywhere and so are his hands, possessive but feather-soft. I’m nowhere near as graceful, clawing at his back and shifting all over like I’m delirious, which I am. My bra is gone and he’s there instead, kissing and licking. I grip the back of his hair with no intention of letting go. Ever.
He asks if I have protection and I remember the box I keep in my bedside table drawer. I reach for the handle but end up pointing, and Ryan opens it himself. He sits back on his heels and pulls out a foil packet, almost ripping the box in two. He’s red-faced with wild eyes. I made him like that. It’s a heady feeling.
He’s soon pulling down my plain white panties and throwing them across the room with my other clothes. He kisses me hard and he pushes me down farther into the mattress. His pants and boxers join the pile on the floor. The feel of his weight, the heat of his skin—I’m never leaving this bed.
He eases in, inch by blissful inch, until there’s nowhere else to go. My eyes close and my head tilts back. I’m savoring every second. He rocks into me with an unhurried rhythm, his body reminding mine that he was there first, that no one else fits me like he does. I urge him on and he gives me what I want, moving faster and telling me to look at him, to keep looking at him or he’ll stop. A slow-burning tension flares and stretches inside me, building and surging until I break and a sharp groan that sounds nothing like me tears from my throat. Ryan follows, pitching his hips forward and calling my name as his back arches and his muscles shake.
He goes slack a few seconds later and his cheek rubs mine. Our eyes find each other’s and we both see the same thing even if we don’t say it.
Everything has changed.
13
The room is quiet and calm as my eyes flutter open. I watch the steady rise and fall of Ryan’s chest beside me, feeling the soft trail of his fingertips as he skates his hand across my arm. A maelstrom of questions scratches at the walls of my content state but I push them back. Nothing can touch me in this moment except for Ryan.
Despite feeling cozy and sated, I decide to go to the bathroom to freshen up. I shift and squeeze the hand that he’s now resting on my waist before I slip out from under the sheet to sit up. My feet touch the ground and as they do, something occurs to me.
I’m naked!
I’m perched on the edge of my bed, stark naked, two feet away from Ryan, who now has a clear-as-day view of my bottom.
I immediately stand up and walk calmly but briskly into the bathroom, even though I really want to hurtle myself across the room while covering my butt with a pillow.
Safely out of view, I close the door and turn the faucet on full blast. I rinse my face with cool water and remind myself that the heroines in my novels never feel uncomfortable after they’ve given in to their lustful desires. They revel in their newly discovered glory—their feminine power. They celebrate their freedom with complete abandon.
Me, not so much.
I exit the bathroom five minutes later with a towel wrapped around me, doing my best to avoid Ryan’s gaze as I sneak back into bed.
I lie down and pull the sheet up, almost tucking it under my chin. Now fully covered, I unwrap the towel from around my body and toss it to the floor.
Ryan rolls over onto his side, pushing himself up on his elbow to look down at me. “Are you cold?”
“No,” I answer.
“Sullivan?”
“Yes?”
“You do know that I have seen you naked many times before, right?”
I close my eyes and scrunch my face. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Unfortunately?” Ryan moves again so he’s now lying on top of me. “Trust me, it’s anythingbutunfortunate.”
I cover my face with my hands and groan. “I can’t have this conversation with you.”
