Chapter 17
C HAPTER 17
I was completely immobilized by his directness.
“Does that word make you blush now, Poppy?”
“Always did,” I said, trying to force the words out through my strangled throat. “It’s just . . . I was so horny the last time you said that to me I didn’t have time to turn into a stuttering wreck.”
“My mistake. But I don’t see the point in beating around the bush.”
“Fair. I . . . yeah. Okay. We won’t pretend.”
“My next request is that we stop pretending altogether.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You don’t?”
“No,” I said.
“You want me. You have. For a long time.”
I closed my eyes. “I’m still sorting through all that.”
“Great. We have time. Here we are, stuck in Queenstown. It’s snowing outside, we’re probably going to have a hell of a time getting a car anywhere. Going to be a lot of walking in the snow.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Well, maybe it would be better if we just started over. With a little bit of honesty.”
“What honesty?”
“I want you,” he said. “I have. For as long as I can remember. I wanted to strangle fucking Josh when you came back from college and started dating him. But, I didn’t have any right to my feelings because you and I weren’t even friends.”
I was completely stunned by that. I didn’t know what to say. I had assumed this whole time that he didn’t like me at all. That he didn’t think of me when I wasn’t there. But he was attracted to me? I knew he was attracted to me, in the sense that we had sex, and he had clearly enjoyed it. I’d had the sense that he wanted me, in a much more specific way than I had realized before, but finding out that he’d wanted me all the way back then . . .
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Of course not. It’s too weird, right? Why do you think he was jealous? He knew. I think on some level he knew.”
“If he knew then why . . .”
I looked at Ryan. Who was so tall and so handsome. Who had that quality about him. That golden boy quality.
I knew that his life had been hard. I understood it, I respected it, because it so closely mirrored the hardship that I had gone through.
But I had to wonder what Josh saw when he looked at Ryan. If he saw him as somebody who got things in life easily.
Because he was the one who had become the hometown hero even though he had only lived there since he was twelve.
The town was proud of him, he was a credit to the people that lived there.
They considered him their favorite son.
He had been adopted into one of the richest families in Pineville.
I knew that I had feelings about how easily he had risen to the top of things in town. But that was because I often felt like a square peg that had been shoved into that particular round hole just like he was, but hadn’t been quite as universally loved.
“He’s jealous of you,” I said.
He nodded. “We’re friends, I don’t want to make it sound like we aren’t. But we have . . . there’s competition there.”
“How can there be competition?”
He lifted a brow.
“I only mean, if it’s sports, you’re going to win. If it’s . . . I really hate this, because when I get into comparing Josh with you, I just feel like I’m being mean. I feel like you beat him at everything. That makes it sound like I wasn’t happy with him when I was with him.”
“He’s not here. Maybe stop trying to be so damned fair.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay. Maybe I will.”
It occurred to me then that maybe one of the real reasons I had enjoyed my time with Josh so much was that I had felt like maybe I was punching below my weight. Maybe that had made me feel secure.
Maybe that was why I had been so blindsided when he had broken up with me.
“You just seem like you’re good at everything,” I said.
He chuckled, and made his way over to the coffee pot. He dug around until he found some coffee, and then he started to make some in the percolator on the stovetop.
“You should understand why,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. My heart sank just slightly.
Because, of course I did. Because of course I knew it wasn’t because he was just so happy; effortlessly happy to do everything and succeed at it.
I understood overachieving that came from a place of desperation. That came from a place of fear.
I understood exactly what he was talking about.
“Because you are afraid if you didn’t do it, they would think that it was a mistake to have adopted you.”
He nodded. “Yeah. And you know, they are relentlessly proud of me. Even when I decided to be a photographer, and not a . . . not a doctor, or whatever I might’ve been. They never made me feel like I had to earn my spot, but I felt like I did anyway. Because when you know what it’s like . . . when you know what it’s like to not be important enough to be kept, you figure you might have to earn your place.”
“I get that,” I said. “You know I do.”
“Josh doesn’t. He doesn’t get why I wanted the top spot in everything. Just like he didn’t understand that you weren’t just the world’s greatest girlfriend who lived to do everything for him. Just like he didn’t understand that he was benefiting from you feeling insecure, and that he did little things to keep you that way.”
“I just don’t like thinking he did that on purpose . . .”
“It sounds like I’m saying he’s a shitty person, and I’m actually not. He just doesn’t get it. And why would he? He has two parents who love him. And he never had to earn it. He doesn’t get it. He never has. And so, there were things that I did that he took as a threat to him. That made him feel like he was competing with me, when I sure as hell wasn’t. I was just trying to . . . survive. So yeah, there was a little bit of a thing. And I think he thought because he got you, he won something.”
“I didn’t know,” I said.
He shook his head. “Of course you didn’t.”
“Why would I? It never occurred to me that you . . . I didn’t think you liked me at all, Ryan. You weren’t nice to me.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t, back when I was in my phase of trying to push people away.”
“But after that, I still didn’t know what to do with you. I still did not talk to you. I had no clue what might . . . what might make you like me. But you know, there was always something kind of nice about it. Because there was a point where I accepted that you just never would. And you were the one person I didn’t have to perform for.”
“I know,” he said.
He took the coffee maker off the stove and poured two cups. “I never hated you,” he said. “You were the first time I was ever faced with . . . liking a girl when I wasn’t going to leave six months later. I handled it badly.”
“I haven’t handled everything perfectly myself. I . . . I know I’ve been attracted to you for a while. I just . . .”
His eyes sharpened. “Since when?”
I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into the floor. “I don’t know.”
He made a short, masculine sound and looked away. “Well. Figure it out. Get back to me.”
“Oh . . . I . . . okay.” I started to turn away from him.
“I wasn’t dismissing you,” he said.
I stopped and turned back to him.
“Are you asking me to stay?”
He moved toward me, and my breath abandoned me. “I told you,” he said. “I’m done pretending.”
“It’s early,” I replied quietly.
“So?”
“I’m not a big fan of morning sex,” I said, pressing my thighs together, trying to do something to deny the rush of need that pounded through me right then.
He didn’t say anything. He just . . . laughed. Deep and sexy, and powerful enough to make an absolute mockery of my previous statement.
Because my body didn’t care what time it was. It just wanted Ryan.
It wasn’t that the tension was gone. It wasn’t that everything was fixed.
But something had changed.
Maybe I had.
I wasn’t sure.
He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me up against his hard body.
Then he dragged his thumb along my lower lip, and I liked it. He tasted like salt and Ryan. I already knew. His unique taste. And what it did to me.
Then his mouth was on mine. I wasn’t worried anymore. About the flight delays or being here with him or what my life would look like back home.
I wasn’t even worried about saying goodbye.
Because right then, we were together. And I didn’t need to know anything else.
It was bright inside the rental house, everything bright white and modern. There was a fireplace with a sheepskin rug in front of it, and beyond that the windows that faced the water.
He kissed me all the way to the rug, laid me down on top of it. He stripped me beneath that glorious natural light. And I did the same to him.
I marveled as I moved my hand over his chest, watched myself touch Ryan.
It was amazing, and so was he. It didn’t feel quite as frantic as last night, though there was still an edge to it. Still an edge to us.
Because this was the culmination of so many years of frenetic energy between us.
Maybe the energy was everything.
Maybe it was dislike. And like we had never known what to do with it. Attraction and reaction and compulsion.
Maybe he had always scared me more than anyone else because of the way he could see me. Because of the way he understood me.
Maybe we both scared each other.
He kissed me, and rolled onto his back, bringing me with him, so that I was on top of him, straddling him, the hard press of his cock against me. I rubbed against him, slick and needy for him. I had never been one to have sex like this. In the full light of day, with no shadows, no secrets. I felt dimly like maybe I should be embarrassed to show how much I wanted him.
It hit me then that maybe I had never enjoyed sex all that much because there was something so exposing if you wanted someone so badly.
So I never really had.
I had enjoyed the closeness, the niceness, and when everything went well, the ripple of release.
But just touching Ryan was better than an orgasm. Anticipating that moment was even better than the moment itself. Or maybe not, because I couldn’t think clearly. Couldn’t remember much of anything.
I only had the moment.
In the moment he was all I wanted.
I leaned down and kissed him, my hair making a curtain surrounding us.
I kept my eyes open. My nose pressed against his, and I looked at his face. I ran my thumb around the outline of his upper lip, and he bit my palm.
My heart jumped hard against my breastbone.
I didn’t feel afraid to want him. Because I could see how much he wanted me back.
Because when he kissed me, he agreed to be as vulnerable as I was.
I arched my hips forward and back, teasing us both, and he grabbed a condom from somewhere to his left. I assumed he had taken it out of his pocket before he had stripped his clothes off, but I hadn’t noticed.
I was just glad that he was thinking clearer than I was.
He applied the protection swiftly, cradled my face and kissed me again as he guided himself inside me.
My breath hissed through my teeth as he filled me, inch by satisfying inch.
And then I began to move, never looking away from him, keeping my eyes fixed on the pleasure on his face.
I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Maybe it was a hideously narcissistic thing to think. But watching that man, that glorious man, wanting me, was indescribably healing. It filled places inside me I hadn’t realized were empty.
He moved his hands up, spanning my waist, cupping my breasts. He looked at me like I was art, and I knew for a fact that he was.
He brought my head down, and kissed me, firm, didn’t release his hold, raised his hips upward and took control, even with me on top. He held me fast, tight, one hand on my hip, bracing me so that each and every thrust went deeper, harder.
A ripple of need expanded inside of me, and my release hit unexpectedly, entirely without me striving for it, or expecting it.
He growled, and came, pulsing inside of me as he did.
And then he held me. Against his chest, as his breathing normalized. I didn’t know if mine ever would.
“I’m not falling asleep,” he said. “Because you might run away.”
I laughed. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Don’t sweet-talk me too much. It might go to my head.”
I rolled off of him and sat up. I was dizzy. I couldn’t believe we had just had sex on a rug in front of an open window. Not that anybody could see up and inside the house, but still.
“You make me act like . . . not myself. You kind of always have,” I said.
“In what way?”
“Normally, I am a lot more cautious than this. And also, normally I’m a lot nicer to people than I am to you. Because I always felt like I had to be nice and accommodating and please everybody else.”
“Maybe you’re more yourself with me,” he said.
I let out a hard breath and pushed my hand through my hair. “I . . . more my evil self.”
“Why is it evil? Do not give everybody what they want all the time. Including me. Also, I am impossible to deal with sometimes.”
I looked at him and I laughed. “Yes. You are. I didn’t know you knew that.”
“I’ve lived with myself for nearly thirty-one years, Poppy. I’m pretty familiar with the ways in which I’m a difficult asshole.”
“Then why are you?”
“Probably for the same reason you’re accommodating?”
“Except I’m not with you.”
I was a little bit annoyed that I acted different with him, and he didn’t act different with me. But for some reason, as he sat there, staring straight ahead, and the light from outside caught his profile, I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t find the words to say anything about that. Because I just knew that it was a lie. I knew that even if I couldn’t quantify it or articulate it, he did treat me differently.
For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to ask him about it.
“Well, what do you want to do today?”
“We should probably try to call the airline.”
“I doubt there’s any point.”
I groaned. Then I stood up, and crossed the room naked, grabbed my purse and took my phone out of it. I checked my email. There were a few from Air New Zealand. One of which promised that when we were rebooked, we would be notified.
“I guess they’re going to get in touch with us. Though, we may not be flying out on the same day,” I said.
“First the weather has to clear.”
It was still windy outside. The lake was choppy, the waves crashing against the shore with all the intensity of an ocean.
“That could be a while.”
I looked at him, and he stared back at me. Tension gathered in my stomach. There was the very real possibility that we would be stuck here for days. And part of me wondered if it would be wrong for us to do nothing but have sex.
“Bad news,” he said.
“What?”
“We’re out of condoms.”
I nearly choked. He had read my mind.
“That is terrible news. Please tell me you didn’t go through a bunch of the ones that you brought with you with random women you met about town in the last couple of weeks.”
“No,” he said. “I just had a handful with me. All used with you.”
“That really shouldn’t make me feel good about myself. I feel like the bar is low.”
He laughed. “You’re here with me. The bar is very low.”
I couldn’t let that pass, though. Not knowing what I did about him.
“The bar is not low. Trust me. This is the best sex I’ve ever had.”
He lifted a brow. “I’ll take that.”
“You like that,” I said.
“Yeah. I do. What man wouldn’t?”
I wanted to say more. I wanted him to tell me that I was the best he’d ever had. But that was probably reaching, given the number of lovers he’d undoubtedly had, compared to my paltry two other dudes.
He stood up and went back into the kitchen, and leaned against the counter, scrolling through his phone. “There are no cars. No taxis, no rideshare. The wait for them is insane.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Grocery delivery, food delivery. All busy.”
“The town is overrun,” I said.
I realized just then how extremely lucky we were to have secured this house.
I walked over to him, and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, stretched up on my toes and kissed his cheek.
For some reason, that felt even more bold than what had just happened down on the rug. “Thank you,” I said.
He looked at me like I was unhinged. “For what?”
“Taking care of me.”