In one smooth motion, he bends and picks me up in his arms. He heads toward the glassed-in shower on the opposite side of the room.
“Is this going to be a thing?” I ask, my arms wound around his broad shoulders. “You carrying me around like a sack of potatoes?”
“It makes me feel macho bein’ able to lift all this weight—ow!”
“Serves you right,” I grumble, releasing his earlobe from my front teeth. Then I feel guilty and kiss the spot I’ve just bitten, making him chuckle again.
“So she has a conscience after all,” he muses. “Who knew?”
“Shut up.”
“Put somethin’ in my mouth and make me.”
I roll my eyes at his suggestive wink. “It’s like you’re twelve.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”
He’s not insulted, just matter-of-fact. We arrive at the shower door. He sets me on my feet and, with no further ado, pulls my T-shirt over my head.
“Matching bra and panties,” he says, hungrily eying my underwear. “Lacy. Nice. Take ’em off.”
“You’re an incredibly pushy man, you know that?” I’m grousing but obeying at the same time, reaching around to unsnap my bra. When the straps fall down my arms and my breasts spring free, Ryan bites his lower lip.
“Yes,” he says, his voice husky. “Now get those fuckin’ panties off and let me look at you.”
I let my bra dangle from my fingertips for a moment because I love the way the delay makes his eyes burn. Then I let the bra drop to the floor, and slip my thumbs under the top of my panties, just over my hips.
“These panties?” I say, teasing. I do a little shimmy. He narrows his eyes.
“Tyrant,” I say, and edge the panties down an inch.
His gaze flashes up to mine. It’s a look that could ignite a forest fire.
I slide the panties down another inch. “You’re not the boss of me, you know that, right?”
“As soon as you get those goddamn panties off,” he growls, “I’m gonna prove you wrong, darlin’.”
How I’m beginning to adore that sleepy, slow Southern drawl. I never guessed a dropped g at the end of a word could be so sexy.
I push the panties past my hips. They slither down my legs and pool around my ankles. Ryan takes one long, silent look at me—head to toe, his gaze blistering—then drops to his knees, grabs my ass, pulls me into his face, and bites me right between my legs.
It’s not a hard bite. It’s just like…mine. This is mine, and I’m gonna bite it because I can, and I want to.
My entire body shudders. I’ve never been this aroused—this quickly—in my life.
Then he slips his tongue between my folds, and my arousal sprouts wings and launches into outer space. I dig my fingers into his hair and rock against his hot, wet mouth. My nipples tighten and tingle with every swipe of his tongue.
“That feels so good,” I whisper.
He opens his eyes and looks up at me. It’s almost painfully intimate, watching him suckle me on his knees as I struggle to remain standing. The sound of my ragged gasps echoes off the bathroom walls. When his teeth scrape over my clit, I moan.
He reaches down between his legs, yanks open his fly, grabs his erection in his fist and starts to stroke it as he eats me, looking up at me the entire time with hooded, heated eyes.
I love it that he likes to taste me. That the first thing he wants to do is put his mouth between my legs. It’s carnal, a little animal, and makes me feel sexy and dirty and gloriously desired.
I flex my hips in time to the strokes of his tongue and am rewarded by a low, guttural groan of approval deep from within his chest.
I arch back. My shoulders hit the glass shower wall with a hollow noise. Bracing my weight against the wall, I cant my hips forward and spread my thighs open wider. Ryan takes advantage of the new angle and plunges his tongue deep inside me.
My moan is loud and broken. My nipples are so hard, they ache. I’m panting, no longer simply flexing my hips but riding his face like a rodeo bull as he pumps his cock in his fist.
I gasp as a wave of heat blasts through me. Deep inside my pelvis, there’s a throb and a hard, abrupt clench. “Oh fuck,” I whisper. “Ryan. Ryan.”
He knows I’m there. He slides two fingers inside me, reaches up with his other hand and pinches my nipple, and gently bites down on my engorged clit.
I come, screaming his name with my head thrown back, my eyes closed, and my whole body jerking. Wave after wave of pleasure pulses through me. It’s violent, and soul-searing hot.
He’s on his feet before it’s over, slinging one of my legs over his bent arm so I’m wide open for him. He plunges inside me with a groan. Then he starts to fuck me, his strokes short and fast, thrusting into me as my body clenches around him, holding us up against the shower door.
I scream and come and cling to his shoulders, lost to all of it. To him. Us.
This earthquake of emotion that’s splitting me open and shattering all my walls.
He laughs a dark, satisfied laugh. “What were you sayin’ about me not bein’ the boss of you?” he says gruffly into my ear. When I sob brokenly, he whispers softly. “Yeah, baby. Who’s your daddy now?”
He’s so hot and so hard and so fucking male, I’m absolutely wild for him. But oh shit, this is a complete disaster. What the hell am I doing?
I must make another noise, because Ryan stills. “Easy,” he says, breathing heavily. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
“I’ve got you.” Still trembling with aftershocks, I groan and bury my face in his neck.
“Hush, Angel,” he whispers. “C’mon now. Shh.”
“I can’t—I can’t—”
“You can. You will. We will. I promise.”
I start to cry, and can’t stop. I’m making ugly, raw noises, like an animal in pain. Hot tears stream down my face and drip onto his chest. I’m horrified at myself, at this awful show of weakness, but he takes it all in stride, as if dealing with emotional females is par for the course.
“It’s okay. Get it out. Get it out, baby, you’ll feel better.”
His arms are a cage, or a refuge, I don’t know which. I only know that suddenly I’m scared shitless. All I want to do is run and hide from the enormity of this thing unfurling between us—this dangerous, addictive, overpowering thing.
He’s still inside me.
After a while, when my sobs turn into muffled hiccups, he exhales a long breath and kisses my hair. “Well. I knew I was amazing in bed, but tears are unprecedented.”
I sniffle and blow out a hard breath. “It’s just that I like you,” I grudgingly admit. “Like…a lot.”
His laugh starts deep in his belly, a silent clenching and unclenching of his abs that leads to a chuckle burbling up into his chest and breaking free. He throws his head back and laughs, shaking us both. It goes on forever.
I wipe my nose on the back of my hand. “You’re going to be insufferable now, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he says, full of enthusiasm. “Oh my God, I’m gonna be such a giant, chest-beatin’ pain in the ass, you have no idea!”
I glance up at him. His smile could cause blindness. “I have a pretty good idea,” I mutter.
He takes my face in his hands and gives me a deep, heartfelt kiss. I wonder if he’s getting covered in snot, but the kiss is too nice to spend much time worrying about that.
“Whew! You’re a handful, darlin’,” he says when he finally breaks the kiss. “Lucky for you, I dig difficult women. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to fuck you in the shower. Try not to fall apart again until after I come. Blue balls make me ornery.”
He opens the shower door, lifts me up with both hands under my bottom, and walks in.
Still wearing his jeans.
Still inside me.
Eighteen
Ryan
“Take off your pants, you idiot!” Mariana says, laughing softly.
Her laugh somewhat eases the big knot under my breastbone formed by her tears, but I’m still worried. Beneath that tough exterior, she’s as fragile as glass.
All I want to do is make her feel safe. Make her smile. Banish forever those scared little whimpers she makes in her sleep.
I’ve never felt more protective of anything. Or more sure of what I want.
The only problem with what I want is that it comes with so much baggage, it could sink a Navy destroyer.
But I’ve got a plan to fix that.
“If it means puttin’ you down, the answer’s no.” I turn on the water, holding her up with one arm, and adjust the knobs until it’s nice and warm.
She looks appreciatively at the muscles flexing in my biceps. “Now you’re just showing off.”
They’re pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.
I set her against the tile wall, brace my legs apart, and go in for another kiss. Her arms and legs are wrapped around me, and she’s holding on tight. The moment my tongue touches hers, she moans softly into my mouth.
It makes my heart take off like a rocket, that sweet little sound. I love it the way I love football and barbecues and fireworks on the Fourth of July. The way I love Thanksgiving and Buzz Lightyear and guns with high-capacity magazines.
I love it like it’s a religion.