Chapter 14
Emily rolled to her right side and scrunched her eyes.
Sleep. She needed sleep. Bucketloads of it. She was so tired. So why was she lying here, completely awake, at whatever ridiculous hour it was?
She sat up because it was no use. Her knee hurt from the walk to Ryan’s house, she couldn’t stop thinking about the person who rang the doorbell…and she was too damn aware of Ryan sleeping downstairs.
Oh, and everything smelled of him. The sheets. His shirt. She glanced down at the gray tee. Just like the sweatshirt, she liked the feel of it against her skin far too much.
Clearly, she needed help.
Warm milk. That would help, right? She had to try something.
She kicked off the sheets and climbed out of bed.
Heck, maybe she’d raid the freezer and eat the rest of the rocky road ice cream while she was down there.
The stuff had been her comfort food after the breakup.
Because it had reminded her of Ryan. Of the way he’d always made sure there was a tub in the freezer of his California apartment, even though he hated it.
Or frequently took her for scoops at the ice cream shop near her place.
Quietly, she padded down the stairs.
She was so deep in her own head that she almost missed him, halfway across the living room. Then she noticed the outline of his shoulders by the window.
She stopped. The room was dark, but the curtains were open, allowing faint light from the street to seep into the room.
What was he doing? He just stood there, bare chested in shorts, watching the street for…an intruder? Or was he not really watching at all? Was he just as in his head as she’d been all night?
She moved beside him and gently touched his shoulder. “Hey.”
There was a small twitch of muscles beneath her fingertips. He turned, his gaze raking over her body, his brows tugged together. “I didn’t hear you get up. Are you okay?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” She glanced out the window. “Remember those first nights after you’d get home from ops? You’d either drop dead and not wake up for three days, or you just wouldn’t sleep at all. You were too wired.”
“You insisted on staying awake with me.”
“I didn’t want you to be alone.” She swallowed. “What are you looking at?”
“I told myself I was watching the street in case the person came back.”
“But…”
“But I couldn’t sleep either. And I haven’t had anyone to stay awake with me for a long time.”
Her heart did that crash-against-her-ribs thing. “Ryan—”
“Shit, I didn’t say that to make you feel bad or to play the victim. I made my decision. Now I live with it.”
She watched the streetlight flicker, its flashes almost creating a rhythm. “If you had a do-over, would you do it differently?”
“You would have—”
“No. Don’t do that.” She turned to face him. “I don’t want you to think about me or what I would have lost. Just think about you. If you had a do-over, would you do it differently for you?”
“If I only had to think about me, and my needs and my wants, then I wouldn’t have let you go. Ever.”
Something deep in her chest cracked, a fracture in the armor she’d spent years building.
She stepped closer, taking his arm and turning him toward her. And the way he looked at her…he was the only person who’d ever looked at her like that.
She lifted a hand and ran her fingertip beside his eye.
“You know, strangers look at me like I hang the stars when they don’t even know me.
My mother looks at me like I’m a pawn she can bend to her will.
Producers look at me like I’m a tool to win them awards.
But you… You’re the only person who seems to actually see me… the person behind the actress.”
He touched her hip with one hand, the other cupping her waist. Then he turned his head and kissed the inside of her wrist. “You’re worth seeing, Emi. Fully. Deeply. Every part of you.”
A gentle gasp cut from her throat, barely more than a whisper.
She curved her hand around his neck and pulled him down. His warm breath teased her lips.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
His eyes darkened, his forehead touching hers. He looked tormented.
One second passed, then another. She was certain he was going to move away…when finally, he lowered his head that final bit of distance. A quiet whisper of a kiss. A graze of his lips.
One swipe. Two. On the third, his lips stayed, moving over her mouth in an achingly familiar way.
Her lips parted and he slipped inside, tangling his tongue with hers. And then she was floating. It was him and her and the kiss and everything else just ceased to exist. The last five years of heartache. The loneliness in a world filled with people.
There was nothing left but them.
With fingers that didn’t feel steady, she caressed his bare chest, letting the muscled ridges, the warmth, sink beneath her skin.
His mouth shifted from hers, moving down her cheek. She sighed, her eyes shuttering, head turning to give him better access.
It was like her heart finally beat for the right reason for the first time in years. It beat for him. For them. For the only love that had ever felt real.
“Lift me,” she barely whispered. She wasn’t sure her words even crossed the scant distance. But he heard. He shifted his hands and pulled her up, her legs immediately twining around his waist, holding her in place.
She cupped his cheeks and brought his mouth back to hers. Then she was kissing him again. Tasting him.
“Where are we going with this?” Ryan asked between desperate kisses.
“Upstairs. Definitely upstairs.”
A growl from his throat, followed by another kiss. Then he was moving.
She kissed down his neck and shoulder as he jogged up the stairs, carrying her like she weighed nothing. When he reached the bedroom, she pulled off the shirt and dropped it to the floor. Then his hands were on her neck and back. Kissing. Loving.
He laid her in the center of the bed but was slow to join her. Removing his shorts before crawling over her body, every second bringing him that much closer. Until he covered her. Caged her.
She met his eyes. Eyes she’d mourned the loss of. Eyes she’d never stopped dreaming about.
“I missed you.” Her words felt so inadequate. She hadn’t simply missed him. She’d felt his absence like a hollow ache carved into her chest.
“No, Emi. I missed you. Every minute of every day.”
Then he was kissing her again, his hand slipping up to cup her breast. She gasped into his mouth as he palmed her. As he found the hard bud of her nipple and rolled it with his thumb.
She arched and moaned, her skin burning at his touch.
He lowered his head and took her pebbled nipple between his lips. The sound that escaped her throat was somewhere between a moan and a whimper. He rolled his tongue over the bud. Sucked her in a way that made a pulse throb in her lower belly.
His mouth was still on her skin when his hand slipped down. Past her hip bone. Her belly. And into her panties.
She held her breath. Then he stroked her clit and it was a whole-body reaction. An entire-self convulsion. An every-muscle jump.
He did it again.
She gripped his shoulders, squeezing, trying to remain still though she wasn’t really sure how.
He rolled her clit in a circle, driving her right to the edge.
“Ryan, please!”
Two fingers barely touched her entrance. And it felt like a thousand seconds passed before, finally, he slid inside.
Her cry was loud and strangled, her world narrowing.
He slipped out of her, then back in. He did it again and again, his thick knuckles widening her. It was torture and heaven and everything in between.
She was close. Too close.
Emily reached down and eased a hand inside his briefs. When her fingers wrapped around his cock, he froze, as if he suddenly forgot what he’d been doing.
She moved her hand, slow, deliberate strokes, squeezing tight and sliding in a rhythm she hadn’t forgotten. She knew exactly what he liked.
A low sound escaped Ryan—maybe a growl, maybe a warning.
“Emi…” He thickened in her palm, his composure unraveling. “You’re killing me.”
Three more strokes and his hand suddenly gripped her wrist. Then in one swift move, he rolled off the bed and pushed his briefs down. Her mouth dried at the sight of him. He was all power and strength.
He opened the drawer beside the bed and pulled out a condom. The second he’d rolled it over himself, he returned to her, settling between her thighs, his weight covering her.
She cupped his cheek. “Ryan…you feel like something I was always meant to return to.” It was crazy. So was the fact they’d found each other again. That out of every location in the world she could film at, this job required her to come to him. That never should have happened.
“I didn’t think I’d get so lucky.” He lowered his head and kissed her again.
His tongue slipped inside her mouth as he lowered himself. Filling her. Completing her.
Ryan stilled inside Emily. Not because he meant to. His body simply stopped. Some automatic response, like a held breath. Like standing at the edge of something so big he was almost hesitant to move forward.
Her hands were on his shoulders, her fingernails softly scraping against his skin as her head tilted back.
Beautiful. All of her.
How had he forgotten this feeling? This completeness?
Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’d spent the last five years pushing it to some dark corner of his mind as a way to protect himself.
Her eyes opened. Only halfway, but it was enough to see the shimmer.
“Hey.” He lowered his forehead to hers.
She cupped his cheek and made a soft sound. A quiet breath mixed with a whimper.
“I’ve never known anything this good.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. He should probably be trying to remain just a bit detached to protect his heart.
He didn’t care.
Her breath caught. Then her arms came around him, tugging his body closer. “I know exactly what you mean, Ryan.”
The familiar cadence of his name in her voice propelled him to move. Slowly lifting and lowering, refamiliarizing himself with her.
Her fingers threaded through his hair, and he breathed her in.
Sweet. So fucking sweet.
They’d spent over five long years apart, but right now, he couldn’t convince himself a single one of them had passed.
Her leg hooked around his waist. And she began to lift. To match him thrust for thrust.
Neither of them had forgotten this rhythm.
As he moved, he kissed her. Tasted her. Got lost in that fruity flavor. But even when he lifted slightly to look at her, the spell didn’t break. Her head tilted back, hair spread over the pillow, lips parted…and when she opened her eyes, they were bright and unguarded.
She pulled his head back down and her mouth found his again. The kiss felt deeper this time. Her tongue slipped straight inside to brush against his.
He sped up his rhythm. Her breathing changed. Little catches. Tiny wisps of air escaping.
Those sounds. They were as familiar as the rest of her. She was close.
He shifted his weight, adjusting the angle before cupping her breast and rolling that perfect, tight nipple with his thumb and forefinger.
She gasped louder, her nails drawing down his back.
“Ryan,” she breathed.
There it was again. His name on her lips, like it belonged to her. And it did. He belonged to her. He had since the moment they met.
He buried his face in her neck, feeling the pulse against his lips, fast, unsteady.
Her thrusts became urgent, the tenderness shifting to something more demanding. More desperate. Needy.
He met those thrusts. Matching them.
Her body tightened in a way that made coherent thought impossible. Made anything outside of this room, this bed, dissolve entirely.
She tugged his mouth back to hers again. And that’s when her breath broke. Her back arched and she groaned into his mouth.
Her fall pushed him over the edge, and he broke with her, shuddering waves rolling through his body as he held her closer. Tighter. Her name somewhere in his throat.
The silence that followed was one he could sit in for hours. It was familiar and comfortable and safe.
For a few long beats, he didn’t move. He remained where he was, half his weight on Emily, half on the mattress, as her fingertips rolled up and down his spine.
Slowly, their breathing returned to normal, and he finally slid onto the mattress. She eased into his side, fitting just as perfectly as he remembered.
He should say something. Do something. But he couldn’t. Not yet. So instead, he pressed a gentle kiss to her shoulder and let the feel of her cheek that lay over his heart wreck him.