Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PENNY
Over the next few weeks, Ryder came over almost every night, and all of us—me, Grandma, Wyatt, and Ryder—put in time on the renovation.
And as it turned out, I wasn’t the only Rose family member who had a crush on our contractor. My brother and Grandma seemed to share my sentiment, though I doubted they wanted to press him up against the wall and have their merry way with him.
And I did. I wanted that. I wanted that badly. Do not ask me why I yearned and burned and fantasized about just that, and yet the idea of going out on a date paralyzed me.
It was dumb.
I was dumb.
Ryder had reminded me I was in the driver’s seat.
Which wasn’t to say he’d stopped with the heated looks, the occasional touch that revved me up as we worked, as we talked about anything and everything…
all of it telling me he was in when and if I got there.
And if not, the friendship would remain on solid footing.
He was unlike any man I’d ever met.
It was late, just past midnight. After painting the kitchen, Grandma and Wyatt had gone to bed several hours ago now, and I’d finished cleaning paintbrushes and was sitting on the closed washing machine in the laundry room watching Ryder work on one of the four electrical panels scattered haphazardly around the house.
In a pair of faded, ripped jeans and a t-shirt advertising a local brewery, he had his eyes narrowed, concentrating on his task, his posture relaxed and easy, like what he was doing was second nature to him and even something he enjoyed.
And I did something I enjoyed—watching him, just your average successful, enigmatic CEO, a little rough and tumble, more than a little badass, who also happened to be far more confident than I was.
He squatted low, rifling through a toolbox, then stretched for a screwdriver, the leather of his tool belt crinkling, his shirt riding up… Did guys know how to move to purposely look jumpable? And why was his hind view just as good as the front? Why didn’t he have a bad side?
“Something on your mind?” he asked.
Yep. Like what did he look like without those clothes. And what might he do with that body…to mine.
“You do realize,” he said, hands still working, voice smoking hot, eyes flashing laughter, “that you’re staring at my ass again.”
Eep. Caught once more.
Ryder rose, and I couldn’t look away from him—the breadth of his shoulders, the strong, capable, work-roughened hands that I wanted all over me.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, ambling closer, “I can’t keep my eyes off you either.” And then he was there, right there, bumping into my knees, ducking his head enough to see into my eyes. Mine drifted shut, thinking, hoping, he was going to kiss me… But when nothing happened, I opened up again.
Only a breath away, he slowly tilted his head. A silent question. Did I want this kind of attention from him?
And God help me, I did. “Is this a cliché?” I asked, staring at his mouth. “The hot contractor and the lonely homeowner making out in the laundry room?”
“Yes, but don’t let it stop you.” He held my gaze locked in his. “Are you lonely, Penny?”
“Not when you’re around.”
His gaze dipped to my mouth, and then slowly down the rest of me, making me shiver in the best of ways.
“Are there…other women?” I asked softly.
“No.” His smile was self-deprecating. “It’s been a while since I’ve…put myself out.”
“Did you get hurt?” I asked.
Something came and went in his eyes. “Not like you.”
Heat flooded my face, and I started to climb down from the washer, but he gently caught me.
“I’m okay, you know,” I said quietly. “I’m stronger than I look.”
“I know. I’ve seen you lift more than some men.
” His hands slid to my hips, squeezing gently.
“You’re one of the strongest women I know, Penny.
Inside and out.” He drew a deep breath. “I’ve had relationships.
I was with someone when Auggie died. She stuck for a bit, but I was…
overwhelmed, and it got to be too much for her.
Since then…” He shrugged. “I’ve only want ed casual. ”
“And now?” I whispered.
“And now.…” He ran a finger along my temple, then the rim of my ear as he tucked a loose strand back. “Now I’m…changing my mind on that.”
He knew my stance there, and I could tell he wanted to hear more about my past but didn’t want to push, which made it easier to talk about it. “I was with someone in college for a while, but life kinda got in the way. And then, my next relationship, I—” I drew a breath. “I left him.”
His gaze slipped to the scar on my jaw and his own tightened. “Strongest woman I know,” he repeated softly.
In that moment, I wished I’d gone through with our date. It’d been a hump I needed to get over, and I knew it. But now I’d made it a mountain. A part of me wished Ryder would make it easy for me, nudge and goad me into it.
But I knew he wouldn’t. He wanted me to prove to myself just how okay I was. I just needed to find my brave.
“Can you do me a favor?” I asked softly.
“Anything.”
“Move your ladder in front of the door?”
Without taking his eyes from mine, he reached out and first nudged the laundry door quietly closed, then slid the ladder in front of it so it couldn’t be opened.
“Thanks.” I laughed nervously. “I, um, realized that there’s something I want to do.”
“What’s that, Penny?”
“I want to kiss you again. I mean, if you want?—”
“Fuck, yes I want.” His mouth was smiling, but his eyes filled with hunger and desire. Erotic desire. “Where do you want to kiss me?”
I laughed. “I’m trying to be serious here.”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
We were both breathing a little hard for two people who hadn’t exerted ourselves in any way. Slowly, I spread my legs so he could step between them. When he didn’t budge, I yanked him in.
Letting out a very sexy male sound of approval, he snugged up against me, big hands on my thighs, mouth so close to mine that it was no effort at all to lean in and plant one on him.
It started out as a sort of “hello, so lovely to see you again” kiss…unhurried, leisurely, a slow exploration of mutual fascination. My hands glided up his chest to find his heart thumping steady as a rock, if not a little fast.
When I pulled back, he slowly opened his eyes, looking at me like I was the most beautiful woman in the world.
“More,” I whispered, curling my legs around him, causing that thumping beneath my palm to pick up the pace.
He nodded, but for as turned on as he was—I mean, I had the extremely hard proof pressed quite insistently in the vee of my legs—he remained unhurried as he cupped my face.
“You have the sexiest mouth,” he murmured. “Love the way you kiss me.”
I rocked into him as he danced his mouth along my jaw, making me gasp when his stubble scraped against a sensitive area just beneath my ear.
“Love the way you taste,” he said against my skin, his hands skimming my hips, my waist, up my arms, the pads of his thumbs grazing the sides of my breasts.
I shivered and he smiled against me. “When I kiss you here…” Again his lips brushed at that spot he’d fo und beneath my ear, the one that made me writhe into him. “I can tell you’re feeling my mouth in other places.” An indulgent lick had me arching into him.
A pleased rumble came from Ryder and another stroke of his tongue as goose bumps erupted over my entire body. “Do you, Penny? Feel my mouth in other places?”
Was he kidding? I’d melted so thoroughly he had to tighten his grip on me, an arm wrapped around my back to hold me to him. As for my “other places,” they’d woken up and were doing the happy dance.
“You talk a lot,” I managed.
His soft laugh had me clutching at him, grinding into him, and oh, he most definitely wanted me.
Wanted me in a way that emptied my mind of any other thoughts as he moved with me into a rhythm that had me panting.
By the time his mouth found mine again, his teeth tugging at my lower lip, I was nothing but a puddle of hunger and pulsing need, desperate to lose our clothes right here, right now?—
“Penny?”
“Hmm?”
“Still okay?”
“I would be, if you’d stop stopping.”
He’d been nibbling on my throat, working his way south, but he lifted his head, eyes twin pools of erotic invitation and a shockingly endearing hope, like he hadn’t really believed this might happen.
“You said ‘anything,’” I reminded him. “Anything I want. I want this.”
“Here?” he asked, his voice so low as to be nearly inaudible. “Now?”
“Here. Now .”
“Your family?—”
“Grandma can sleep through a zombie apocalypse, and even if Wyatt were to wake up, he’d stay in bed playing a video game.”
“You’ve thought this through.”
“You have no idea.”
He smiled, a very dirty, naughty smile that made me glad I wasn’t standing because my legs were jelly.
“We’ll have to be quiet.” His hands moved with slow purpose over me. They had been this whole time, gliding, teasing, never staying in one spot for long, drawing my pleasure out in ways I didn’t know what to do with.
“Can you be very quiet, Penny?”
Truth? I had no idea. But I was going to have an orgasm or die. “I can if you can.” I was all talk, of course, and for a beat, he just looked down at me in that quiet, all-seeing way of his.
“Please,” I whispered, rocking up into him for enticement, which I could feel that he didn’t need, holy cow.
“No begging required,” he murmured, nipping my lower lip. “Anything you want. What do you want, Penny?”
“More, faster.”
He snorted. “Wonder Woman in a hurry, imagine that.” He smiled a wickedly dirty smile. “Take off your clothes.”
I eagerly went to tug my sweatshirt over my head, but it got bunched and caught in the clip I’d used to hold up my hair, leaving me all tangled up, arms included, so that I couldn’t move.
“Help.”
I heard a low laugh, then a pair of big, warm hands slid to my breasts, thumbs teasing my hard nipples before flicking open the front clasp of my bra.