“W-what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
Hell if that wasn’t a loaded question. “We could talk.”
“It was just a dance,” she said defensively, referring to the party.
“Like the kiss was just a kiss?”
“Yes.” But her breath caught, and in the glow of the candlelight, he looked into her unsure face.
Snagged by that, and the way she felt in his hands, he shifted closer, and when she let out a little murmur of helpless pleasure at the feel of him, he pressed closer still. “Suzanne.” She thought herself some kind of man destroyer, but the truth as he saw it was,
Instead, he glided his hands up her arms, over her soft throat, to her face, which he cupped, wishing he could see her more clearly. “Suzanne…what’s happening here?”
“I…don’t know what you mean.”
His hips bumped hers, she let out that helpless hum again, and this time he groaned. “You feel it. I know you do.”
“It’s just…” Her breathing quickened, and she put her hands on his shoulders, gripping hard, as if she needed the balance. “It’s just what Taylor said. A healthy need for recreational sex.”
“So if we had sex, right here, right now, you’re saying the need between us would vanish?”
He didn’t need any light to know she stood there with her mouth open, and he let out a groaning laugh, putting his forehead to hers. “Okay, let’s find you a flashlight or more candles so I can get the hell out of here before I take advantage of your unbelievably arousing silence.”
“No one takes advantage of me.” As if to prove that statement, she slid her hands into his hair and fisted them, tugging him closer. Her warm breath brushed his cheek, her long, loose hair slid over his arm.
He nearly inhaled her. God, he could eat her up.
“Come to think of it,” she murmured. “
He went instantly hard, and he opened his mouth to offer himself as a sacrifice when she covered his mouth with hers.
Just like before, instantaneous combustion, and oh man, the feel of her in his hands, against him, letting out that rough little sound in the back of her throat…
Her fingers tightened in his hair, as if she was afraid he’d pull away. Not a chance, he would have told her, if her tongue hadn’t been dancing with his. He wouldn’t have pulled away even if he was suffocating.
Suzanne wasn’t suffocating, she was drowning, in pleasure. She had the cold counter at her back and a hard Ryan at her front, and yet she’d never felt so hot in her life. The lack of light only lent to the intimacy somehow, and that brought her back enough to break away to say on a gasping breath, “This is just what we said, no more, no less.”
“Sex.”
“
“We’re done,” he finished.
Was she imagining things or did he sound sceptical, as though he didn’t believe it?
“Right.” She was practically panting now, and so was he. “Itch scratched,” she added.
“Right.”
“Promise?” She held his head, squinted through the dark to see his gaze.
“Suzanne…”
“No, you have to promise. You have to because…” She hesitated, then said on a shaky breath, “because I’ve never had ‘just sex’ before.”
He looked shocked, Suzanne thought, very shocked.
“Never?”
“Never,” she admitted. “I want to have sex without getting engaged, Ryan.”
He hesitated, damn him. “No,” she said fiercely. “Don’t hesitate.”
“I feel something for you, Suzanne, something I don’t understand yet and I won’t make a promise I can’t be sure I can keep.”
“You have to,” she said, and heard her own desperation.
“What if more than just sex is better?”
“No. Promise, Ryan. Please.”
For the longest moment, he just looked at her, her dark and beautiful tree man.
“Ryan? Promise me.”
Night had fallen around them, so that without the electricity, there was little but candlelight and the faint glow from the building across the street. The sound of the wind outside the window felt rhythmic, hypnotic, and so did the feel of Ryan engulfing her in his embrace.
When he groaned and pulled her even closer, she melted against him. And some of the odd emptiness she’d been feeling faded. They could do this and be done with it. Get on with their lives. And afterwards, this inexplicable need for each other would just go away.
No entanglements.
No broken hearts.
That made this okay, didn’t it? She wouldn’t hurt him, because this was all they’d have.
She wanted to believe that, oh, how she wanted to believe, because his mouth was so firm, and so deliciously demanding, she couldn’t help but sink back into the mindlessness of it, needing the mindlessness of it.
“Suzanne…” Just beneath her ear, he sucked on a patch of skin, and made her knees weak. “I love the way you hold onto me when I touch you.”
She was. She was clinging to him as if he were her entire life, and instead of jerking away at the knowledge, she wrapped her arms around his neck and arched to him.
“Oh yeah, like that,” he said on a low growl. “Yeah, like that.” He kissed her again-longer, wetter, deeper. He had a wonderful mouth, a make-her-forget-everything mouth, and he knew just what to do with it to make her wild.
“Suzanne?”
No. No talking. Trying to tell him, she arched her body to his. Had Tim said she needed a sexual therapist? Was he insane? She needed a hose to put out the fire!
“Stop me now if you’re going to,” Ryan said in a low growl as he ran openmouthed kisses down her throat.
Not a chance. Instead she leaned in and bit his lower lip, making him groan, making him lift her against him so that her feet dangled as he devoured her mouth with his.
While they gobbled each other up, she took her hands on a tour over his amazing arms, his wide shoulders, feeling her insides rev up because he turned her on so much. Thank God his hesitation had pretty much walked. It might return in the light of day but she didn’t want to face that now, she didn’t want to face anything but this. And now that her eyes had adjusted to the dark, she could really see him, the way he was looking at her, and for the first time she understood true lust and the power of it.
He sat her on the counter, then held her head for a long, hungry kiss before making his way down her neck, all the while sliding his hands over her thighs to her knees, urging them open so he could step between them, press up against her.
He was hard, so gloriously hard, her breath caught.
“Mmm, love that sound,” he murmured, making her sigh again, against his throat, a sigh that bubbled up into her throat, changing into a moan when he cupped her breasts. Her sundress had buttons down the front to her belly, four of them. She knew this because, catching her gaze in his hot one, he popped them open. One. At. A. Time.
Then he looked down at her, and slowly pushed the material off her shoulders. With one finger he traced the edging of her bra, from one side to the other. Her nipples had long ago beaded to two tight little tips, but she couldn’t believe how erotic it was to sit there, spread open for him, and watch him watch her while he touched her.
