14. Gideon #2
He came to check it and told me I’d made her look like she was being booked for murder, taken from six feet up.
I said I was tall, and he told me to bend, then get closer, then not that close—Jesus—until I found whatever angle counted as acceptable.
I got better at it after that. I had to—Ryan checked every shot before he let me move on, which meant I spent most of the next two hours doing exactly what he told me.
Watching him work was the part I hadn’t expected to hold my attention the way it did.
At the rink, Ryan was good at his job, careful and precise, his hands knowing the work from repetition so well he could sharpen a blade without looking down.
This wasn’t that. His whole face changed when he concentrated, lips parting slightly, forehead creasing, head tilting as he studied Claire and reached for a brush, then sometimes changed his mind halfway there and picked up another one instead.
He talked the entire time, not because anyone asked, but because he couldn’t help it: undertones, primer, and why foundation shouldn’t cover everything because skin was supposed to still look like skin.
He showed Claire two colors on the back of his hand and asked which she preferred, then mixed them together anyway.
I didn’t follow half of what he said. I followed him, though.
It was obvious in every movement that he loved this: in the care around Claire’s eyes, in the way he stepped back every few minutes to check his own work, in the small smile that showed up whenever something went right.
I was supposed to be photographing the process.
Ryan had been specific about that: before, during, after, close-ups of the makeup, his hands working, a few of him with whoever was sitting in the chair if they didn’t mind.
He hadn’t said anything about how many of those photos could just be of him, which was probably why I had thirty-seven of them by the time Claire’s session ended.
Him leaning in with one hand steady under her chin.
Him stepping back to study his own work.
The glitter catching at the corner of his eye when he moved into the light.
Him laughing at something Claire said, head tipping back, hair catching the light too.
“Are you actually photographing the makeup?” he said eventually, without looking away from Claire’s face. “Or has that camera been pointed at me for five minutes?”
“You’re doing the makeup. You’re part of the process.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Free creepy photography,” I said, and Claire laughed from the chair. Ryan tried not to smile and mostly failed, and I took the photo anyway. That one might have been my favorite of the night.
Emma was different: different colors, different skin.
Ryan cleaned every brush and swapped products before he even started because her skin ran oilier than Claire’s.
I learned that everyone hates having eyeliner done by someone else, that there are apparently nine million different brushes for reasons I still couldn’t explain, and, mostly, I learned I could stand in my own living room for two hours watching Ryan be happy, and never once get bored by it.
Strangers were in my house, coats thrown over my sofa, coffee mugs on every surface, voices filling rooms that were usually silent, and none of it bothered me the way it should have.
Normally I needed my place quiet, controlled, exactly where I’d left it.
Tonight Ryan was in the middle of the mess he’d made, and I didn’t want any of them to leave, even though I knew they were done.
Claire hugged him on her way out. Emma booked another night, already wanting something more dramatic next time. When the door finally shut behind them, Ryan leaned back against it.
“Holy shit. I did it. Claire offered to pay me next time, but I said no because…” He shrugged. “That’s not right. I’m not even trained yet.”
“I’m so proud of you,” I blurted and hugged him tight.
He laughed as I released him. His gaze drifted past me to the kitchen table, to the brushes and palettes he still had to pack away. “I could actually do this.” Something in his voice changed when he said that.
“Yeah,” I said. “You could.”
He grinned. I lifted the camera, but he caught my wrist before I got the shot off.
“No more.”
“You’re smiling,” I defended.
“I smile all the time.”
“Not like that.” I hadn’t meant to say it that way, or maybe I had. I lowered the camera while he looked at me long enough that I really thought I’d messed up.
“Okay, one more.”
I lifted it again. He didn’t pose, didn’t fix his hair, or straighten his sweater, or angle himself toward the light.
He just stood there, surrounded by the start of something that was entirely his, and smiled at me.
I took the photo, knowing before I even looked at it that I was keeping that one for myself.
Ryan’s fingers caught the hem of my henley, and I set the camera down on the island.
“Can I give you a thank-you kiss?” he asked as his sapphire gaze held mine then dropped to my mouth. I traced his jawline with my thumb and felt a tremor run through him. When his lips parted, I leaned down and covered them with mine.
The kiss started slow. I kept one hand curved along the back of his neck, his hair soft and warm under my fingers.
Ryan made a sound against my mouth. His free hand fisted the front of my shirt.
I deepened the kiss. His lips opened further, and I slid my tongue against his as his breath hitched.
My other hand rested on his hip. I tugged him forward until his chest hit mine.
He wound both arms around my neck, hard, wrists locking behind my head, forearms pressing into my shoulders. I could feel every line of him against me, chest moving with each uneven breath, and lower, the hard length of him against my thigh. He was hard.
I broke the kiss just enough to speak. “Ryan, I haven’t…” My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. “I’ve never wanted…”
“I know,” he whispered. “Slow.”
I hooked my hands under the hem of his shirt and found warm, bare skin.
His stomach jumped under my fingers. I lifted him.
He weighed nothing, or maybe that was just adrenaline.
The same arms that had carried a two-hundred-pound defenseman into the boards found this easy.
His legs came around my waist. I crossed to the island in two steps, setting him down as he tightened his grip and dragged me into more kisses.
I braced both hands on the counter on either side of his hips.
He’d said I could go slow, but there was nothing slow about the fire inside me.
I kissed him deep, and he opened for me with a broken moan I felt in both our chests.
His fingers raked into my hair and pulled.
The sting of it went straight down my spine, a feeling I’d never once chased before and now couldn’t get enough of.
I stepped between his spread thighs. My hips met his, and the contact—my cock hard against my denim, his cock hard against my thigh through his pants—punched the air out of me.
I rolled my hips. Slow. Deliberate. Ryan groaned into my mouth.
“Fuck,” he breathed against my lips.
I did it again, ground down, felt him shift rigid against me, my own cock throbbing so hard it ached.
His head fell back. I ducked down and put my mouth to the tendon running from his jaw to his collarbone, bit down gently, then harder when his hips bucked up to meet mine. The sound he made was high and thin.
“Gideon—” His voice cracked on my name. His nails dug through the henley into my shoulders, and his hips rolled to meet mine.
We found a rhythm, slow and grinding, fabric dragging against fabric, pressure building with every roll.
I could feel the exact shape of him alongside mine, and it wasn’t enough, yet it was too much at the same time.
I pulled back just far enough to look at him. His hair had come loose completely, a curtain of copper around his flushed face, mouth swollen, eyes glassy and fixed on mine. I rolled my hips again, slow, deliberate, watching his eyes flutter shut, and the flush spread down past his collar.
“More.” His voice was wrecked. “Don’t stop.”
Nothing on earth could stop us now as we raced to the finish. He came first, head thrown back as he called my name. I kissed his throat, once more, twice, and then I joined him, coming so hard I couldn’t breathe.
My Ryan.
He was everything.