Chapter 19 #2
I took a breath. “ He changed, but we didn’t. So it’s been an adjustment, and not an easy one. Like I said, we drew straws, and I got the first shift.”
Her smile had faded and I waited for her to nudge me away, hop down, and walk right out the door. To brace myself, I picked up a cookie, but then couldn’t manage to take a bite past a tight throat.
But she didn’t walk out the door. Instead, she slid her hands up and down my arms, gentle now, tender. “All that. He put you through all that for your formative years and beyond, and you still took him in.”
I stared at her, and then exhaled in an odd sense of relief.
“I’m no hero, Penny. Yes, I take care of him, and I try like hell to be the buffer between him and my siblings, even though he’s not that same man anymore, even though at this point none of us has anything to fear from him, but old habits are hard to break. ”
“You protect them.”
I shrugged. “You do the same thing for your family.”
She smiled. “So we’re two of a kind then.”
I found a low laugh. “We are.”
Her fingers tightened in my hair as she slid her lips lightly over mine. “You thought telling me all that was going to send me running into the night.”
“I can’t live up to Wonder Woman.”
“Neither can I…” She gave me a sweet kiss, then smiled. “Let’s just be you. And me.” Leaning forward, she took a bite of the cookie still in my hand, getting chocolate on the side of her mouth. She caught it on her tongue, smiled innocently at me, and then did it again.
I groaned. “You’re teasing me.”
“Little bit.” She slowly tightened her thighs around me. “Ryder? I want?—”
“ Anything ,” I breathed, only dimly realizing how reckless I felt.
It was madness, really, giving in to this when I was feeling way too much.
But then she tightened her legs again, until all I could feel was her, so warm and sweet.
When she captured my lips in a kiss that swept through my soul, I groaned again.
“Tell me what you want, Penny.”
“You. I want you ,” she breathed, sinking her teeth into my earlobe and giving a little tug.
I whipped us around so fast that she laughed breathlessly as I strode back through the living room, bypassing the hall that led to the room Hank was in for the stairs. My bedroom was at the back of the house.
The room was illuminated only by the glow of the full moon slanting in through my shades, casting my bed in a pale blue light.
Penny inhaled deeply. “Smells like you.” Pressing her face to the crook of my neck, she took another deep breath. “I can’t see much, but I love this room already. Why do you always smell so good?”
I had no idea but was glad she thought so. With my arms full of warm, sexy, hungry woman, I turned back to the door and gestured with my chin. “Lock it.”
She reached down and turned the lock. “What if we make too much noise?”
“We?” I murmured, making her blush because we both knew who’d had trouble keeping quiet the other night in Nell’s laundry room.
She nipped my ear again, then laughed when I tossed her to the bed. Planning my retribution, I crawled up her body. “I bite back, you know.”
“Wait!” she gasped, still laughing as she tried to escape. “I didn’t bite you that hard, you big baby!”
“Then you won’t mind when I return the favor.” I had her hands in mine now, our fingers entwined above her head as I stared into her face with wonder, taking in the desire on her face, her breathless anticipation, and something new— affection .
Undone, I lowered my forehead to hers. “Penny.”
“If this is going to be a speech about how you’ve changed your mind, I swear, I’ll?—”
“Not changing my mind.” Hell, I was beginning to think I never would. “But now I’m curious. You’ll what?”
She blew a strand of hair out of her face, giving up the struggle to free herself. “Beg. Kill you. Beg some more.”
At the smile in her eyes and her voice, I lowered my head and took a very, very gentle nibble at her throat, then kissed the spot. Repeated the gesture at her collarbone. Her shoulder?—
“Ryder,” she whispered, writhing beneath me. “Let go.”
I immediately released her hands, which she then used to pop open my jeans, slipping warm fingers inside, touching me exactly where and how I wanted. I decided I lived here now, right between her thighs.
“ Ry …”
I smiled down at her, loving the erotic hunger and desperate need on her face, wanting never to close my eyes again if she kept looking at me just like that.
“Here’s what I’m going to do.” I kissed my way to the hollow of her throat, where her pulse fluttered wildly, and gave a slow exhale, smiling when she shivered and clutched at me. “I’m going to show you what I can really do with five minutes…”
“I don’t want to discourage you,” she murmured throatily, “but you should know, five minutes has never been enough time for me.”
Challenge accepted. I made a show of setting my watch for five minutes. “Hold this,” I murmured, rucking the hem of her dress to her waist.
She fisted her hands in the material.
I smiled down at the scrap of black lace masquerading as panties. “Pretty…” Sliding my hands up her arms, I tugged on her spaghetti straps until they fell to her elbows, exposing her perfect bare breasts.
“Oh, Penny…” I breathed, watching her nipples pebble. “You’re gorgeous.”
“I—”
The rest of her sentence never made it out of her mouth as I lowered my head, kissing, nibbling, teasing until she was clutching me to her, writhing beneath me in a rhythm that had me losing my mind.
“You’re…on…the…clock,” she reminded me, breathing heavily.
Chuckling against her skin, I worked my way south, planting hot, wet kisses along her ribs, her quivering belly. Thwarted by that sheer black lace, I hooked my thumbs in the sides and slowly slid them down, groaning at what I uncovered for myself.
“Don’t worry.” My voice was low, rough. I could barely think, much less find words. “I keep my promises.”
“I think you’re all talk—” She gasped, then slapped her own hands over her mouth when I got to the spot that I now knew drove her wild.
“Don’t stop, please don’t stop…” she chanted.
I didn’t.
She was still shuddering and making the sexiest little panting whimpers on the planet when her timer went off. I lifted my head to find her hair wild, cheeks flushed, body language set to I don’t know where my bones went , and I smiled.
Penny
“Show off,” I managed, trying to suck air into my lungs.
He laughed, dark and quiet, and lowered his head again, knowing now exactly what to do to make me fall apart.
“Ryder—”
“One more, Pen.” His hair brushed against my inner thigh and I moaned as he unraveled me again.
I was still trembling with aftershocks when one hundred and eighty pounds of motivated, aroused male crawled up my body, forearms braced on either side of my head, his hard, muscular form blocking out the world.
I slid my hands up and down his sinewy back, managing to meet his eyes. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He kissed me, short but not sweet, then smiled at me.
I returned it, tracing his bottom lip with a fingertip.
Sucking it into his mouth, he made himself at home between my thighs, grinding his hard length against me. “And now, Penny? What do you need now?”
“You.”
With a heartfelt groan of pleasure, he pressed into me. It was a tight fit, but he took his time, leaving me a panting, desperate wreck. His breath shuddered out as he held himself still, letting me adjust.
“More,” I demanded with my last working brain cell, then gasped in stunned pleasure as he began to move, kissing me deeper, demanding more, demanding everything as I moved with him, trembling as we rocked together in sync, hovering on the edge, panting his name in a plea, in praise, in utter desperation.
“I’ve got you, Penny.” His voice alone could’ve sent me spiraling, but the hand at my hip stretched, reaching between us. And then the rough pad of his thumb stroked a slow circle against my center.
And then again.
I loved the feel of him around me, how he smelled, the way he touched me so hungrily, so demanding, and I let it all unwind me until I felt it barreling down on me with an intensity I couldn’t control as he finally, finally unleashed himself, wild and untamed, finding a rhythm that drove us both mad, and this time when I convulsed around him, he followed me right over the edge.
I had no idea how much time passed when he lowered his mouth to mine, sweet now, a thorough exploration of my lips, over and over, until there was nobody and nothing in the world except this, us, until I melted boneless against the sheets.
When he shifted off me, he ran a finger along my temple, smiling, all sated, lazy posture and decadently tousled hair.
Dropping low for a light, sweet kiss, he stood from the bed and walked into the bathroom…
giving me a view of the ten nail indentions across that world-class ass.
He was back in seconds, gallantly cleaning me up with a hand towel, then pulling me into him, wrapping me up in him. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been held like this, cuddled close enough to sync up heartbeats, and I knew I’d lost another little piece of myself to him.
“You okay?” he murmured, face pressed against my hair.
I felt my mouth curve. “I think you know just how very okay I am.”
He chuckled as he ran his hands over me. Not with intent, just a calming touch to connect us.
Although, I already felt pretty damn connected. So much so that I had to force myself to disentangle. “It’s pretty late. I should go.”
“Or you could stay.”
I could, and then I’d lose the rest of me. Because I knew myself, knew that too much of this with him and I’d fall. Hard.
We dressed in silence. I stood in the center of his bedroom awkwardly, trying to figure out the process for escaping without discussing what we’d just done.
He took one look at my face and came close, nudging my chin up to meet his eyes, his other hand at my waist, his touch gentle. “Feeling skittish?”
“No.” Yes . My inner smart-ass was thrilled about the orgasms. But my inner chickenshit was shaking in my boots because I’d promised myself no more men for a really good reason.
Hell if I could remember it at the moment.
As if I’d telegraphed my loss of focus, he released me, his darkened eyes studying me with a gentle thoughtfulness and care that made me want to throw all caution to the wind. Again .
Gah. My emotions were giving me serious whiplash. “Well, that was…” I waved my hand vaguely, not having the words.
He smiled. “Yeah. It was.”
I smiled back. And that smile remained on my face when, twenty minutes later, I slid into my own bed, still smelling like him.