Chapter Eight #2
The apartment is very quiet. Just the muted flicker of the TV and the distant hum of the city, and Ryleigh looking at me with wine-flushed cheeks and an expression that’s half embarrassed and half something else entirely.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I mean it to.
She nods, her gaze snagging on my mouth before bouncing back up.
“I only had one complaint,” she says.
“What’s that?”
“I wished they’d shown more of you.”
I laugh—the tension breaking just enough to let me breathe. “I’m a linebacker, not the quarterback. They get all the coverage.”
“Well, I preferred watching you.” She says it simply, looking right at me, and it lands like something heavier than the words should weigh.
I move to her other foot. Give my hands something to do. She settles back against the cushions, but the energy in the room has shifted—this low, humming current between us, like the air before a storm.
“Can I be honest about something?” I ask.
“Always.”
I set her foot down. Shift closer on the couch. Close enough now that I can see the flecks of darker blue in her irises, the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“I missed you,” I say. “Both of you, but . . . you. That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.”
She holds my gaze. “I missed you too.” A beat. “And I tried really hard not to, for the record. I told myself it was just about having help with Ella. That I missed the extra pair of hands.”
“And?”
“And I’m a terrible liar.” Her voice drops. “I missed you, too. Your voice. The way you hum in the kitchen when you think no one’s listening. The way you always make sure Ella’s blanket is tucked in just right.” She looks down at her wine glass, then sets it on the coffee table.
I reach out and brush my knuckles along the curve of her jaw. Slow. Barely a touch. She leans into it, her eyes falling closed for a second, and when they open again they’re darker somehow—almost deep navy.
“Come here,” I murmur.
She doesn’t hesitate. She shifts toward me on the couch, and I slide my hand to the back of her neck, fingers in her hair, and tilt her face up.
The first kiss is slow. Deliberate. Her lips part against mine, soft and warm and tasting like white wine, heat rolls down my spine in a wave so strong I feel it in my groin.
I pull back. Look at her. Make sure.
She blinks at me—eyes hazy, lips barely apart—and then she grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me back in.
The second kiss is different. Deeper. Her tongue brushes mine and I groan, can’t help it, the sound rumbling up from my chest, and I feel her smile against my mouth.
One kiss bleeds into the next, and the next, and I lose track of where one ends and another begins because her fingers are in my hair and she tastes incredible and I’ve been thinking about this since the night I met her.
My hands find her waist. Her hips. She shifts, and then she’s in my lap—knees on either side of my thighs, her body pressed against mine, and when she settles, we both go still for a beat.
“Hi,” she whispers, lips swollen, eyes bright.
“Hi.”
She puts both palms flat against my chest, and I feel them through the cotton of my shirt—warm, steady. Her fingers slide up to my shoulders, my neck, the base of my skull, and she kisses me again. Slower this time. Rolling. Her hips shift against me and a groan pulls from my throat.
“You’re trying to kill me,” I tell her.
“Maybe.” She grins against my mouth. “Is it working?”
I answer by tugging the hem of her shirt up. She lifts her arms and lets me pull it off, and when I drop it on the floor and look at her, my breath leaves me.
She’s beautiful. Beautiful in the way that makes your hands shake—real, warm, close enough to touch, and actually wanting to be here.
“You’re staring,” she says softly, a flush spreading across her chest.
“Yeah, I am.”
I lean forward and press my lips to her collarbone. The curve of her throat. The soft skin below her ear, where her pulse is hammering. She exhales, shaky, her fingers threading through my hair, and when my mouth traces lower, she arches against me with a sound I want to hear on repeat.
I take my time. Her breathing changes—gets ragged, gets caught—and she’s moving in my lap now, this slow, unconscious rhythm, and I’m holding on by a thread.
“Baby,” I say against her throat. “Tell me what you want. I don’t want to push—”
“More,” she says. “I want more.”
I stand, lifting her with me. She gasps—a surprised, delighted sound—and wraps her legs around my waist, arms around my neck. I carry her down the hall, and she’s kissing my jaw, my ear, the side of my neck, and I almost walk into the doorframe because I can’t think straight.
I lay her on my bed, and for a second I just look at her—hair fanned across my pillows, eyes dark, cheeks flushed, watching me with an expression that’s half want and half disbelief, like she can’t quite believe this is happening.
“Wait,” she says, just as I’m settling beside her.
My heart stops. “What is it?”
Her nose scrunches—the worried version. “You didn’t, um . . . while you were away. You didn’t—”
“No.” I smooth my thumb over the furrow between her brows. “I haven’t been with anyone in months, Ryleigh.”
Her face relaxes into a slow smile. “Good.”
“What about you?” I tease, trailing my fingers down her arm. “Any secret visitors while I was gone?”
She swats my chest. “I haven’t been with anyone in almost a year.”
“A year?” I lean in, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “Then you deserve something special.” I kiss her collarbone. Her sternum. The curve of her ribs. I work my way down slowly—her stomach, her hip, the sensitive skin inside her thigh—and I feel her breath catch with each new spot.
“Alexei . . .” Her voice is breathy, uncertain, like she’s not used to this—someone taking their time with her, making it about her.
“Lie back,” I murmur against her skin. “Let me take care of you.”
She does. I peel her leggings and panties off, and when I finally press my mouth to the center of her, she makes a sound that rewires something in my brain permanently.
Her fingers find my hair, and I take my time—listening to her, learning what makes her gasp, what makes her hips lift off the bed, what makes her say my name like it’s a word she just discovered.
She comes apart slowly and then all at once, her body tightening and then releasing, my name on her lips, her hand gripping my shoulder hard enough that I’ll feel it tomorrow. Which I love.
I kiss my way back up her body—her hip, her stomach, between her breasts, her throat—until I’m lying beside her and she’s blinking at the ceiling with this dazed, half-smile.
“So,” she says eventually, her voice wrecked. “That’s what that’s supposed to feel like.”
Something about the way she says it—like nobody’s ever bothered to do this right for her—makes my chest tighten. I push her hair back from her face and kiss her forehead.
“Did it feel good?” I murmur low.
She nods shyly.
“Then that’s exactly what it’s supposed to feel like.”
She rolls toward me, her hand sliding down my chest, my stomach, tracing the lines of my abs. “My turn.”
“Ryleigh, you don’t have to—”
“Alexei.” She meets my eyes. “Shut up.”
I shut up.
Her mouth follows the path her hand traced—down my chest, across my stomach, lower—pushing my T-shirt out of the way. I unbutton my jeans and Ryleigh’s eager hands shove them down.
When she reaches me, my breath leaves in a rush. She’s careful at first, almost tentative, and then she’s not, and my hand finds her hair and my head falls back against the pillow and I forget my own name.
She’s incredible. Attentive and responsive and devastatingly good at reading every sound I make, and I’m trying to hold on, trying to make this last, but she’s relentless.
“Ryleigh.” Her name comes out strained. “Baby, I’m close.”
She doesn’t stop. Doesn’t pull away. She stays with me through all of it, and when my body finally lets go, it’s the most intense release I’ve felt in years.
Afterward, she crawls up my body and tucks herself against my side—her head on my chest, her leg thrown over mine, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my skin.
I wrap my arm around her and press my lips to the top of her head, and we lie there in the quiet, breathing together, neither of us in any hurry to be anywhere else.
“That was life-altering,” I say.
She lifts her head. “Life-altering?”
“Too much?”
“Little bit.” She lays her head back down. “But I’ll allow it.”
I run my fingers through her hair, slow and steady, and the silence settles around us. Warm. Easy. Like we’ve been doing this forever—falling into bed together, curling up afterward, her breathing evening out against my chest while I stare at the ceiling feeling like the luckiest person alive.
As if on cue, a cry from the next room.
Ryleigh tenses, already starting to sit up.
“I’ve got her.” I press a kiss to her temple and swing my legs off the bed. Pull up my boxers and jeans.
“There’s a bottle in the fridge. Already made.”
I look back at her from the doorway. She’s lying in my bed, hair everywhere, wrapped in my sheets, watching me with an expression so unguarded it almost knocks me sideways—soft and amazed and a little scared, like she wasn’t expecting this and doesn’t know what to do with it.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
“Stay right there.”
She smiles. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I pad down the hall to Ella’s room, scoop her up, warm the bottle, and settle into the chair by the window. She latches on and stares up at me with those big eyes, one tiny hand gripping my finger, and the city glitters through the glass behind her.
“I’m home, princess,” I whisper.
She blinks at me, sucking steadily, and I think about the woman down the hall in my bed and the baby in my arms and how absolutely none of this was part of my plan.
Plans are overrated.