Chapter Seventeen
chapter seventeen
RYDER
“Holy shit.”
When I suggested I drop the girls off at Julian and Ana’s, I did it so that I could pick up flowers and come to the door like a gentleman. And I’m so glad I did because as I stand in the doorway, staring at Kira—with her hair straight, makeup done, and dressed in a stunning little black dress—I’m glad the girls aren’t around right now.
“You like?” Kira asks, twirling around in place.
The top of the dress goes up to her neck and is long-sleeved, but it’s sheer with a polka-dot design, so I’m able to make out her black bra. The bottom half of the dress is solid black with a layer of the same sheer material on top, showing off her tanned thighs. And the tall heels she’s wearing wrap around her ankles and make her legs look a mile long.
“Like?” I choke out. “More like love . In fact, I love it so much that it’s taking everything in me not to lift you into my arms, wrap those sexy legs around me, and fuck you up against the wall while your heels dig into my back.”
When Kira’s eyes widen, I curse myself for being too forward. This is our first date, for fuck’s sake, and the last thing she wants is me acting like a damn perv.
But then her cheeks tinge a light pink, and her eyes darken to a midnight blue, as if she’s imagining what I just said happening.
Setting the flowers I bought for her on the entryway table, I eat up the area between us, snagging her around the waist and turning us so her back is pressed up against the wall.
“Is that what you want, gorgeous?”
I palm the side of her face, careful not to mess up her makeup, and she swallows thickly, then runs the tip of her tongue along the seam of her lips before drawing her bottom lip into her mouth.
“You want me to fuck you against this wall and make you come on my cock?”
Her mesmerizing eyes lock with mine, and then she nods slowly. And I swear to God, I’m so damn hard that it could be used as a fucking weapon.
Needing to taste her, I run my thumb along her lip to pull it out from the confines of her teeth, and then I lean in and kiss her. She tastes like the sweetest addiction, and with every swipe of her tongue and brush of her lips, I crave more of her. It would be so easy to lift her dress and yank off her underwear and fuck her right here in my foyer. But instead, I pull back, wipe the corner of her mouth where her lip gloss smeared a bit, and take a step back.
“You … you don’t want to …” she asks, letting the rest of her question trail off since I know exactly what she’s asking.
“Of course I do,” I tell her. “But I’m not going to because, for one, we have a date I want to take you on, and two, when the time comes for us to be together, while it’s going to be quick since I haven’t had sex in two years, it won’t be in my damn foyer.”
She chokes out a laugh, and I shrug.
“It’ll be rough,” I admit. “I’ll probably come in, like, two seconds flat, but I promise to make it up to you with multiple orgasms,” I say with a wink, making her cheeks and neck flush. “But right now, I want to take you on a date and get to know you without our little girls distracting us.”
I walk over to the table and pick up the vase of orchids I bought and then hand them to her. “For you.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“I looked them up, and they have a few meanings behind them, but one that caught my eye was strength.” I rest my hand on the curve of her hip. “You’re one of the strongest people I know.”
“Thank you,” she murmurs, her eyes turning glossy.
She steps out of my touch and walks over to the dining table, setting them down since the vase already has water in it. Then, she grabs her purse and comes back over to me.
I kiss her on her cheek and then take her hand in mine.
“C’mon, beautiful. Let’s get this date started.”
“Oh my God, this filet is delicious,” Kira moans. “Wanna try it?”
Before I can respond, she stabs a piece with her fork and brings it up to my mouth so I can take a bite. She’s right. The steak is good, but the only thing I can focus on is how close she is. When we were seated, I was a little annoyed that we were given some weird U-shaped booth, but then Kira slid in and patted the seat next to her, and my complaint was completely forgotten.
She ordered a glass of wine, and I ordered a scotch, neat—Kingston Gold since I’m loyal to the company I work for. Then, we started talking. Until the food arrived, the conversation has flowed from one topic to the next, just deep enough to learn about each other but on the surface enough to keep it light.
“It’s good,” I tell her once I’ve chewed and swallowed. “You want to try my salmon?”
She shakes her head, adorably scrunching her nose up. “Salmon is too fishy.”
“I would hope so.” I laugh. “It’s fish.”
“I love most fish—mahi-mahi, tilapia, cod—but salmon tastes too fishy. But I will have a bite of your potatoes.” She nods toward my plate and waggles her brows.
I feed her a bite, and she moans in pleasure.
“So good.”
The last date I was on was with my ex, and the vibe is like day and night. She ordered a bottle of the most expensive wine on the menu and a salad—requesting the bread be removed from the table because it was too tempting—and then barely ate it.
Unfortunately, in the circles I run in because of my family name, that’s the norm for most women, and because of that, I’ve never experienced a woman like Kira.
She ordered her glass of wine based on the waiter’s recommendation after she asked what was “light and fruity,” ate half the bread in the basket, and then ordered the filet because she said she loved steak and hadn’t had it in forever.
Every day I spend with Kira, getting to know her, has me falling harder. She’s sweet and funny and warm. She listens when I speak, and she genuinely cares about what I have to say.
“You’re going to have to grill us some steaks,” she says, taking another bite of her food. “The girls can have hot dogs,” she adds with a laugh.
“You got it.”
Her phone goes off, and she puts her fork down. “It’s Ana,” she says. “Hey, is everything okay?”
She was worried about being away from Violet, but when she asked her daughter if she was okay with going, she was completely fine with it. And when I dropped the girls off, they didn’t even say bye when I was leaving.
She speaks to Ana for a few minutes, and since I can only hear her end of the conversation, I have no clue what’s going on.
Finally, she says, “Okay, thank you. If anything changes, just let us know.” She covers the phone and says to me, “She’s getting Violet. She wanted to say good night to me.”
She talks to her daughter for a couple of minutes—who, from the sounds of it, is having a good time—and then says, “Okay, hold on.” She extends her hand with the phone. “She wants to talk to you.”
“Hey, Violet. How’s it going?” I ask once I’ve taken the phone from Kira, having no clue why she wants to speak to me.
“Good,” she says. “Addie was crying for you earlier ’cause she misses you, but I laid with her and sang her the sunshine song my mommy sings to me, and she’s asleep.”
Her words wrap around my heart and squeeze.
“Thank you,” I choke out. “That was very nice of you. We’ll see you guys soon.”
“Mommy said we can sleep here.”
“She did?” I glance at Kira. “Okay, well, then we’ll see you in the morning.”
“Night!”
She hangs up, and I hand the phone back to Kira.
“You are raising one sweet little girl. Addie was crying for me, and she sang to her until she fell asleep.” I place my hand on Kira’s thigh and squeeze. “Thank you. If half of your and your daughter’s sweetness rubs off on my little girl, she’s going to be so blessed.”
“She’s already blessed,” she says, cupping my cheek. “She has you.” She leans over and kisses me tenderly. “Now, eat before your fishy fish gets cold.”
I chuckle and then remember …
“You agreed for the girls to spend the night?”
“I hope that’s okay,” she says. “Ana mentioned you would be fine with it since Addie has spent the night there plenty of times, and Violet is okay with it. I guess she and Ana are going to watch the new princess movie that just came out.”
“That’s completely okay,” I tell her, trying not to think about the fact that instead of having to get the girls after our date, we’ll have the entire house to ourselves. All. Fucking. Night.
We eat the rest of our meal, and instead of ordering dessert, I tell Kira that we’re going to have it somewhere else.
“There’s more to our date?” she asks, raising a questioning brow.
“That was only dinner,” I scoff. “There’s plenty more to come.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
Kira glances at me with what looks like a mixture of shock and awe on her features, and I know I made the right decision.
I debated which way to take the date. As a man with an unlimited amount of funds, I could’ve planned damn near anything for our date. At first, I considered doing a helicopter ride to the city and taking her to an expensive restaurant. But when I thought about it, I felt like it was too cliché for her. Sure, she’d have a good time, but that wasn’t her style. So, I came up with something different.
When we first got home, I told her to change into something more comfortable, and she was confused since I told her there was more to the date. And for a second, I worried that maybe I should have gone with something more extravagant, like the helicopter ride. But seeing the look in her eyes now, it confirms that Kira isn’t like the other women I’ve wasted my time with.
“Is that a blowup screen?”
“It is. We’re watching a movie on it.”
“This is”—she shakes her head, looking around at the backyard that I’ve had transformed into an outdoor movie theater, complete with popcorn and slushy machines, a candy counter, and inflatable lounge chairs—“amazing,” she finishes.
“Are more people joining us?” she asks, pointing to the chairs.
“I rented it all for the week so the girls could enjoy it too.”
“They’re going to love it! What movie are we watching?” she asks, walking over to the food and drink area.
“I pulled a few strings and was able to get an early copy of the new Mila Kunis movie.”
Kira mentioned she was her favorite actress, and since one of my best friends from college happened to produce the movie, he was able to hook me up.
Kira’s eyes lock with mine. “You know, I wasn’t planning to put out on the first date, but now, I’m seriously rethinking it.”
It takes me a second to wrap my head around her words, but once I do, I throw my head back in laughter. Fuck, this woman is something else.
After selecting all our favorites, I hit play on the movie, and then we have a seat in the double lounger I picked out so I could sit with her.
We spend the first half of the movie eating candy, drinking our slushies, and laughing at the movie. I’m not one for romantic comedies, but I must admit, the movie is hilarious.
The second half, Kira snuggles into my side, and I wrap my arm around her, inhaling her coconut scent that I’ve become addicted to, and run my fingers along her smooth flesh—across her collarbone and down her shoulder and arm. I can’t help but touch her in some way. I’ve never been attracted to a woman the way I am to Kira.
At some point, Kira takes my hand in hers and threads our fingers together. She places them on the top of her thigh, and I glance down at our entwined hands, loving the way they look together. I’ve never been the kind of guy who notices shit like that, but with Kira, I notice everything.
After several minutes, she unthreads our fingers and glides my hand onto the top of her creamy thigh, and my attention diverts from the movie to her. Since it’s warm outside, she’s sporting tiny cotton shorts and a tank top that show off her gorgeous curves.
With her eyes trained on the movie, she parts her legs slightly and places her hand on top of mine, sliding our hands around to the inside of her thigh.
“You want something?” I murmur into her ear.
She glances up at me and nods. “Yeah, you.”
And that’s all it takes for my mouth to descend on hers.
I tried to be a gentleman, but who am I to stop her from having what she wants?