Chapter Five
He gave the women as much time by themselves as he could. But by eight-forty-five, he figured some of them would be getting ready to leave, so he needed to catch them and question them before they headed home.
His belly also rumbled like a starved bear post-hibernation, so after updating all the guys via their group chat on his brief visit to Adrian’s yesterday, he left the guest room to go find food.
Thankfully, all the women were still there.
And there was quite a bit of food left, too.
“Who made the deviled eggs?” he asked, popping another one into his mouth. “I like that bit of spice you added there.”
“That would be me,” said the gray-eyed woman with wavy blonde hair and large breasts. She sat beside Molly on the couch. “I add just a dollop of sriracha. But I definitely think it gives it that necessary heat component that regular deviled eggs lack.” She preened herself by tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and touching her neck, all the while flashing him a flirty smile and raking her eyes up and down his torso.
He made himself a small plate of snacks, grabbed a can of sparkling water from the fridge, and casually made his way over to the living room. There were no seats left, so he brought over one of the stools from the kitchen island.
All eyes stayed on him as he moved, and nobody said a word.
“So, who is who?” he asked, all friendly smiles, but secretly sizing every single one of them up and making a cursory evaluation.
“Susannah,” the deviled-egg-making blonde said with a wave.
He nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
Molly placed a hand on Susannah’s thigh for a second. “Susannah was actually a client of mine at the dental office. We just hit it off and have been friends ever since.”
“Nobody does a gentler but thorough scaling than my girl,” Susannah said, wrapping an arm around Molly and giving her a squeeze. “Never makes me bleed.”
“That’s because you floss regularly,” Molly said with a laugh.
Smiling, Ryker moved his attention to the pretty Indian woman with the sleek black bob and nose ring, sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs by the window to Susannah’s left. She had faded henna tattoos on her hands, and expensive, but tasteful and modest gold jewelry around her neck and on her ears. “I’m Evelyn,” she said with a polite but no-nonsense nod. Everything about her screamed doctor. The short trim of her nails, the way she sat up straight with her shoulders back, her constant awareness of everything around her. Not to mention the fact that she was the only one not drinking wine. She was probably on call.
“Evelyn and I met when Sasha fell at the playground and broke her arm a few years ago,” Molly said. “She was the on-call resident.”
“But now she’s a full-fledged attending,” the redhead said with a smile. “I’m Sienna. Nice to meet you.”
“Sienna and I met at the gym a few years ago,” Molly said. “We became sweaty sisters in spin class together.”
“I enjoyed it so much I became a personal trainer,” Sienna added.
“Then opened up her own gym.” Susannah lifted her wineglass in the air toward Sienna in a toast. “Charge those billionaires a butt-load of money to use your Pilates machines.”
“Gotta pay my mortgage somehow,” Sienna said, returning the wineglass lift.
So far, all the women he’d met seemed genuine and down-to-earth. They were also extremely supportive and uplifting of each other.
The next woman he met was Rosalie, a black woman with long braids and a heart-shaped face. She’d been Sasha’s fourth grade teacher, but she and Molly just connected on a personal level and became friends. She also seemed authentic and didn’t have Ryker seeing any red flags.
“And that leaves Olivia and Kate,” Molly said, pointing to the last two women who shared the loveseat. They had sour expressions on their pretty faces. Both were brunettes with voluminous waves that cascaded down past their shoulders. Olivia had brown eyes and Kate had hazel. “Their daughters—Sailor and Camden—played soccer with Sasha.”
The women smiled tightly at Ryker and nodded, murmuring small greetings.
“A shame Sasha’s not playing anymore, hmm?” Ryker asked, directing his question to the two soccer moms. “Are your daughters still playing?”
“Yes,” Olivia said curtly, before sipping her white wine. “Camden has been moved up to first-string since Sasha left.”
“They haven’t won a game since she left, though,” Kate added. “Sailor is devastated.”
They tried to keep their composure, and for the most part, did a decent job, but Ryker was trained to detect even the slightest shifts in behaviors and the women both slid their gazes to Molly and curled their lips into sneers.
“Why did Sasha quit?” Evelyn asked, glancing at her phone, then back to Molly.
Molly hesitated for a second before shrugging her slender shoulders. “She wants to focus on dance. She was feeling overwhelmed by how much soccer practice was cutting into dance and homework. Kids need some downtime, too.”
Ryker wasn’t looking at Molly, though. He was watching Olivia’s and Kate’s reactions. Their brows lifted, they exchanged looks and shook their heads. It was all so covert, that unless you were paying close attention, you’d miss it. But he caught it.
“That wasn’t the only reason, though, was it?” Kate asked.
“I think I’m ready to call it a night,” Susannah announced, standing up and draining her wine glass. “I think we should all call it a night.” She hit Kate and Olivia with a look that said, “ Drop it, or else .” And the two antagonistic women were smart enough to abide and close their mouths.
“It was nice to meet everyone,” Ryker said, standing up and getting out of their way when the women headed to the kitchen to collect their dishes. “Can I make myself a second plate of all the food before you take it home?”
Everyone—even Olivia and Kate—nodded. He loaded up his plate with deliciousness, then watched as Molly said goodbye to her friends.
She closed the door behind the last to leave—Susannah—and blew out an exhausted breath. “Sorry about that.” Wandering into the kitchen, she drained the rest of the rosé into her glass.
“About what?”
“About … all … that.” She waved her hand toward the living room. “Olivia and Kate are … they’re nice. They really are. I just think they might be a little salty—or their daughters are—about Sasha leaving the team. It’s a lose-lose situation, really. When Sasha was on the team, Camden played less, but at least the team won. Now, with Sasha gone, Camden is obviously playing more, but the team has no hope of winning the upcoming tournament, let alone making the playoffs. I used to hear their griping about how much Adrian favored Sasha and that it was unfair how much more play-time she got than Sailor or Camden. Now, I hear about how, with her gone, the team sucks. Nobody wins here.”
“Do any of them know about Adrian? Because you said that when parents asked him why Sasha quit, that he told them all to ask you.”
“Only Susannah. I don’t really want a lot of people knowing. It’s nobody’s business. Jackson Hole is a small town with a lot of rich women who consume more gossip than they do calories in a day. And yeah, nearly everyone asked me, but I deflected and said the same thing I told the women tonight. That she was feeling overworked and overwhelmed and wants to focus on dancing. Which isn’t a lie.”
He smirked at that. He knew how awful a liar Molly was. Her face went beet-red, and she got nauseous. If the lie was too big, she vomited. It was how Sasha found out there was no Santa Claus when she was four.
“Something tells me Kate and Olivia don’t believe that’s the only reason.”
“Too bad. That’s the only reason they’re going to get. Adrian and I kept our relationship very private—at my request. I wanted to keep it quiet in the event it went south. Which it did.” She took a healthy sip of her rosé, exhaled and planted her hand on the island. “My number one priority is Sasha. Always Sasha. I need to protect her.”
“Of course. That’s all of our main priority.” He moved closer to her, close enough to smell that intoxicating almond and gardenia scent. He hesitated a moment before taking the plunge and tucking a strand of wayward hair behind her ear. That prompted her to lift her gaze up to his.
All he wanted to do at that moment was kiss her.
Take her in his arms and never let her go.
But she was Brendan’s wife and anytime he thought about making a move, Brendan’s face would flash into his mind and he stopped himself. It felt like a betrayal. A betrayal of the heart. A betrayal to his brother. To his best friend.
He’d suffer in silence for the rest of his life before he ever betrayed a friend.
Her bottom lip wobbled. “Am I just …” Her throat bobbed, and she licked her lips. “Am I just a frumpy, damaged, single mom?”
Where the fuck did that come from? His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “What? No. Where the hell—”
“I love you,” she blurted out. Her hand slapped over her mouth and her eyes bugged out. “Oh, my god! That … that came flying out of my face and I didn’t mean for it …” She glanced at her wine glass sitting on the island, her hand still covering her mouth as she looked back at him. “I love you.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “Oh shit! I did it again. The wine …”
“Moll—”
“Fuck it. I love you, Ryker. I have loved you for … so, so long. And I have been trying not to say it. To just push it down, cover it up and hide it, and not say it because you obviously don’t feel the same way. But, I can’t hold it back anymore. I am so in love with you.” She swallowed and removed her hand from her mouth, her chest heaving with labored breaths. “Y-you’re in me.” She paused and scrunched her nose in a ridiculously cute way. “I mean, not like literally in in me. But you’re in my head. In my soul. You’re like a disease. You’re … you’re gingivitis. I’m infected with Ryker McKnight and as much as I floss, and use my electric toothbrush, I can’t seem to get rid of you. When you’re around … and even when you’re not, you’re all I think about. And now that you’re here, I can’t breathe. My heart hurts and all I want to do is touch you. To … feel you. I … I love you like all the time. Every minute of every day and I probably will for the rest of my life. And I’m sorry … I’m sorry if this is wrong and if you don’t feel the same way, but …” A tear slid down the crease of her nose. “But … I love you.”
She released a stuttered breath and blinked watery green eyes at him, a deep frown on her lips as she gauged his reaction.
His stupid heart, torn between the woman he loved and the fallen brother he loved, hammered unforgivingly against his ribcage.
Too many voices crashed around in his brain until it was nothing but an infuriating buzzing sound. But maybe that buzzing sound was what he needed, because it tuned out all the voices telling him it was a bad idea. That loving Molly O’Shea was wrong.
He crowded her until their hips crashed together, and he wrapped his hand around the back of her delicate neck, pushing her ass against the kitchen counter. “Not want you?” he growled. “I have wanted you for … ever.”
Her gaze tipped up to meet his, those sage orbs full of surprise. Her lips parted just a fraction.
“You are … you’re Bren’s girl. I …” He dropped his face into the crook of her neck. “Why is my heart telling me two things at once? That loving you is the most natural feeling I’ve ever felt in my life, but it’s also a betrayal to Bren?”
She gripped him by the face and pulled him free, so he was forced to look at her. Forced to look into the face of the woman he was madly in love with. Into the face of his best friend’s wife. “Because hearts can be really stupid.”
She pressed her forehead to his.
“Molly, I …”
“Kiss me.”
He blinked a few times and pulled his forehead away from hers.
“Kiss me and tell me that it doesn’t feel right. And if it doesn’t, then we’ll pretend it didn’t happen and never bring it up again.”
“But Bren—”
“Is dead. He’s been dead for thirteen years, Ryker. Thirteen years. We have grieved. We have shown him respect. I loved him and only him when he was alive. I never looked at another man. But he is gone.”
A thick, spikey ball formed in Ryker’s throat and the backs of his eyes burned.
“He is gone. But I’m still here.” She grabbed his free hand, the one that rested on her hipbone, and she pulled it between them, placing it over her heart. “I’m alive. You feel that? I. Am. Alive. My heart is still beating, and for a very long time, it has beat for you. And although I will never stop loving Brendan, I also know that he wouldn’t want me to be alone. That he wouldn’t want me to go the rest of my life without love. I think he would be happy to know his best friend loves me. That his best friend is protecting me and our daughter. I don’t think he’d see it as a betrayal. I think he’d see it as you honoring your vow to take care of us. To take care of me.”
Ryker had seen war. He’d been stabbed and shot, tortured and on the brink of death countless times, but nothing had ever been as painful as the battle inside him now.
“Just kiss me so we know,” she said, her blinking causing fresh tears to tumble down her cheeks. “Kiss me, Ryker. Kiss m—”
He didn’t kiss her.
He consumed her.
Tightening his hold on the back of her neck, he crushed his mouth to hers and took everything she offered, then demanded more. He devoured Molly, and she opened her lips wider for him, encouraging him. Welcoming him. He slipped his tongue inside, and she met it with hers.
At first, he thought the groan came from him, but it didn’t. It was all her, and that just spurred him on more. He moved his hand from her chest to cradle her lower back and she melted against him like snow in the rain, her hands making their way to the hem of his shirt.
They broke the kiss only long enough for her to peel the T-shirt over his head and gasp.
Nothing about the kiss felt wrong. It didn’t even feel like the betrayal he anticipated it to be.
All he felt, finally holding Molly in his arms, finally kissing her, was joy. Freedom.
Her mouth was back on his, her hands roaming his bare torso, more moans rumbling up from her throat. He broke their kiss for a moment and held her shoulders. “Moll—we don’t have to.”
“Oh …” She nodded fervently. “Yes, yes, we do.” Peeling her shirt over her head, she went to work on the drawstring of his sweatpants next while pressing warm, wet kisses across his chest.
Lifting her up by her ass, he plunked her on the kitchen counter, but they quickly realized that height wouldn’t work, so he moved her over to the island, which was just a touch lower. He helped her remove her shorts and underwear until she was in just a bra, all the while kissing her neck and shoulders, her jaw and the tops of her breasts.
He slid the straps of her pale purple bra down over her arms and the cups fell forward, revealing the sweetest, tightest, most perfect nipples he’d ever seen. He latched his mouth around one and sucked, pulling a sharp gasp from her mouth as she shoved her fingers into his hair and held him there. He moved over to the other breast to repeat the attention and she released his hair to reach around behind her and unclasp the bra completely, allowing it to fall to the ground.
She was entirely naked now, and the most gorgeous thing he’d ever laid eyes on.
Her hand fell to his erection, and she skimmed the heel of her palm along it over his pants. “Please,” she moaned, scraping her bottom teeth along his jaw. “Please.”
He nodded and stepped back, taking in her beauty as he dropped his sweatpants to his ankles. He hadn’t bothered with boxers.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he murmured, giving himself a couple of leisurely tugs. “Goddammit, Moll, I never thought … I never thought this would ever happen.”
Her eyes roamed his body, but returned to his face after a quick ogle of his cock. “Me either.”
“You’re not a frumpy, damaged, single mom. You are … fuck, Moll, you’re a work of goddamn art.” With just a finger, he traced the line beneath her breasts and watched as her nipples beaded even harder.
Biting her bottom lip, she reached for him, and he went to her. She wrapped her arms around his neck as their mouths collided again, and he cupped her ass and scooted her forward so she would be perfectly aligned with his cock.
When it felt right, because everything with Molly now, at long last, felt right, he made sure she was slick before he notched himself at her center and slid home.
Their collective sigh shot him up into the ether.
The kitchen island was the perfect height for her to sit and take him to the hilt. Her legs banded around his waist and she locked her ankles at the small of his back, her heel firm against his crease as he slowly moved in and out of her with measured, patient thrusts.
He didn’t want to rush this. Not for a fucking second.
This was his dream. His fantasy and it was finally becoming a reality. He wasn’t going to squander such a gift or sprint to the finish line. Losing his virginity when he was fifteen had meant very little to him, but this—he’d never get a first time with Molly again, and he wanted to savor it.
Her skin was so soft beneath his lips as he kissed across her shoulder, her collarbone, up her neck and over her jaw. Her little mewls and whimpers of pleasure had the animal inside of him wanting to pick up speed and go harder. But he resisted.
This woman was gentle.
She was soft.
She was sweetness in every sense of the word and she didn’t deserve for his id to take over right now and have him pound her into the counter until the marble cracked.
But she surprised him for the second time that night. “Harder, Ryker. Please. Harder. I won’t break. I’ve wanted this for so long.” Her nails raked across his upper back as she pushed her chest toward the ceiling, her tits bouncing with each thrust. “Harder. More.”
He hesitated, but when she opened her eyes and locked them on him, driving home just how serious she was that he didn’t treat her like a porcelain doll, he growled, cupped her ass and started to pound harder and faster.
“Yessss,” she hissed, her tits bouncing even more with his force. “God, yes.” Her ass was on the very edge of the counter, and when she unlocked her legs from behind his back and bent her knees, spreading herself wider for him, he could go even deeper. He groaned as she took more of his cock, as she squeezed her hot, tight pussy around him like a vice.
He wasn’t going to last long, and they’d stupidly gone without a condom.
Everyone at the wedding thought he’d hooked up with two of the chicks he was flirting with, and he couldn’t be bothered to correct them. But the truth was, he didn’t sleep with anybody the night of the wedding. He ended up taking a bottle of whiskey to the barn and sitting in the stall with Macklin, the attention-whore horse. Macklin tried sitting in his lap, as Macklin always did, and nearly crushed Ryker’s pelvis, but at least he wasn’t alone. Matter of fact, Ryker hadn’t slept with anyone in nearly six months, and he got checked after that last woman. So he knew he was clean, and he assumed Molly was, but …
“I’m close,” he said on a guttural groan. “Really fucking close.”
“M-me, too.”
“Need to pull out.”
“I’m clean and I have an IUD.”
He stopped hammering into her for a hot minute and opened his eyes, meeting her gaze. “I … I’m clean, too. But … we don’t—”
She tightened the grip of her slick slit on his shaft. “You’re not coming anywhere but inside of me.” Wrapping her arms beneath her hamstrings, she lifted her legs even higher, still bent at the knee. If it was even possible, he was able to go even deeper.
“This hitting your clit?” he asked.
She nodded. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”
He didn’t stop. The pressure in his lower belly grew, along with the most incredibly warm, tingly sensation. His balls cinched up against his taint and he held his breath, waiting for her to pitch over the edge first. A gentleman never came first. That was just sex etiquette 101.
Her sweet little cunt tightened around him, the rhythmic tilting of her hips grew erratic, and then she stilled and a moment later, her body began to convulse. “Oh … Oh god. Oh god, yes,” she cried, pressing her pelvis harder into his to grind her clit against his pubic bone. “Yes. Yes.”
While her pussy still had him in its taut little grasp, he let go of the breath that burned in his lungs, and found his release.
And what a sweet fucking release it was.
Never, in all his life, had he ever rawdogged it with anyone. Never in all his life had sex been sweeter, more special or felt this fucking good.
And something that felt this good couldn’t be bad, could it?