Chapter 17 #4
I’m blowing past the boundaries of what’s permissible between us, but I no longer care.
I’ve kept my baser instincts in check this whole week, and I cannot deny myself another second.
I’m only capable of so much restraint, and Ryder’s declaration has shredded the last remaining fibers of my willpower.
I will fondle his face like it’s my God-given right.
I tweak his chin. I palm the side of his neck, walking my fingertips upward until I reach the hinge of his jaw and stroke it reverently.
I rake my nails through his thatch of thick scruff like a scratching post. I brazenly violate his personal space in every conceivable way, but he just sits there and takes it, his smoldering, hunger-darkened eyes and balled fists flexing on his thighs the only signs of his fraying restraint.
I complete my exploration by cradling his cheek in my palm, and when I press my thumb into the dimple hiding beneath all that stubble, his eyes fall closed.
“Scarlett,” he breathes.
I’m not sure if it’s an invitation or a submission—maybe neither—but the desperate way he rasps my name unlocks something deep inside me, a craving, one that’s gone unsatisfied for so long I’d somehow managed to convince myself I wasn’t even hungry.
Now, with my lust roaring back, I can’t pretend I don’t want to devour him whole, that what I’ve needed this whole time isn’t sitting right in front of me.
I realize with sudden clarity that fighting to resist Ryder was a battle I was always destined to lose.
I’ve been lying to myself for ten years, trying to outrun my feelings, bury them, anything to convince myself I’d moved on, but I can no longer deny the truth that’s coursing through my veins: I’m still in love with Ryder. I’ve never stopped.
So what are you going to do about it?
There’s nothing left to hide behind, no lies left to tell myself. There’s only Ryder and me, and a decade’s worth of desire left unsated. The last of my resistance scatters to the wind as I lean forward, close the distance between us, and press my lips to his.
Like a fairy tale, the kiss breaks whatever spell Ryder’s been under and he instantly reanimates, seizing my face with both hands and kissing me with such intensity that we topple backward, landing flat against the swim platform in a tangle of limbs.
A giddy laugh starts to bubble out of me, but he bites it off my lips before it can escape, swallowing the sound with a growl against my mouth.
This kissing isn’t a soft, gentle reintroduction to each other.
It’s frantic and wild, a frenzied, tear-at-your-clothes eruption of passion that’s been bottled and shaken and left on a pressure cooker ten years too long.
I can feel the urgency in it, like he thinks if he stops for even a second that it could all end, that I might come to my senses or slip through his fingers like sand.
I’ve never related to a feeling more. It’s like we’re trying to pour all our emotions, all our regrets and unspoken confessions and private hopes into each other through the press of our lips, the blend of our breath.
As his hands move over my skin, I marvel at how familiar he feels, how well my body remembers him, like the last time I felt his touch was yesterday and not a lifetime ago.
He grips my leg, his palm sliding up the back of my thigh and squeezing so hard it’s almost painful.
He’s holding on to me for dear life. In return, I wrap my legs tight around his body, tethering him to me in case he gets any ideas about letting me go.
I taste him and he tastes me back, our mouths, lips, and tongues colliding wildly, with absolutely no rhythm or finesse.
There’s no slow submission, no languid caresses, only unbridled lust driven by desperation.
Kissing him feels the same but different, better than I remember, more than I remember.
I must have forgotten how amazing his lips felt on my skin, but it’s coming back to me in flashes of vivid memory: soft, ripe, insistent.
His hands, greedy and possessive. His scent heady, his skin scorching.
He’s ignited every nerve ending lying dormant beneath my skin.
We’re insatiable, ravenous. Grasping at skin and gasping for air. All around us trees are spewing oxygen, and yet I can’t seem to drag in a single breath, so I steal his air instead.
“This is madness,” I manage to pant, overcome. I’m going to wake up with a wicked case of beard burn in the morning. Worth it.
“Not doing this is madness,” he says, recapturing my mouth, letting me know this is not a time for words.
We’ve done enough talking—now is the time for touching, tasting, taking.
The way his hand cradles my jaw says I’m not letting you go this time.
My hand on his stomach says I haven’t forgotten what makes you tremble.
His grunt says I’ve never stopped wanting you.
Succumbing to passion should theoretically relieve the pent-up tension lashing between us, but each kiss only seems to wind us tighter, the pressure coiling with every touch. I feel like I’m incinerating from the inside out.
He rolls us to the side, shifting his weight from on top of me, and when his hardness presses against my belly, a moan slips out.
He rolls his hips again reflexively, feeding off my reaction.
I writhe beneath him, chasing the delicious friction, and now he’s the one releasing a guttural groan.
I could have an orgasm right here, fully clothed, with Ryder grinding against me and the wooden slats of the swim platform biting into my back.
He could slip inside me so easily, just like before, like he never even left.
“Ry,” I plead, my voice ragged. I think he knows I’m coming apart, because he eases up, slowing his pace and taking my shuddering breaths into his mouth with deep, soul-stealing kisses.
What I want to say is I’ve missed you, I still love you, but I can’t make my lips form the words.
Even now, as exposed and vulnerable as I’ve ever been, I’m still terrified of the power he wields over me.
I’m scared of so many things when it comes to Ryder, but surrendering my heart to him again is my biggest fear of all.
Everything’s happening so fast, and yet it feels like we’re inside a moment of stopped time.
Our past is bleeding into our present, my memories fusing with reality in a surreal, otherworldly blur.
It’s ten years ago and it’s today. I’m grabbing his hand, dancing drunk, thrown over his shoulder, locked in his arms. I’m on this boat and in that barn and in his bed.
The Seafolly surrounding us has taken a beating, but the Seafolly in my mind is intact, unspoiled, magical.
It’s like we’ve slipped into an alternate universe where we were never parted, our bodies twined together alongside Holden and Melody, suspended in some shimmering wrinkle of time.
Memories pelt me from all sides, and I feel each one like sharp, tiny pinpricks—or at least, I do until I belatedly realize it’s raining. A summer shower. And just as quickly as that thought registers, the sky opens up, turning the gentle drizzle into a drenching downpour.
Ryder breaks our kiss, rainwater cascading between our bodies in warm rivulets, and peers up at the sky in bewilderment. “I didn’t actually mean I could make it rain out here.”
I absolutely lose it, both of us dissolving into helpless laughter, real, proper belly laughs that crack us wide open. He keeps his arms banded around me as we shake, his breath warm against my ear while I giggle and gasp into his neck.
“What is it with us and the rain?” I ask him through wheezing breaths.
His husky laughter hums through me like a struck tuning fork. “At least it’s not a firehose this time.”
He hovers his body over mine, attempting to shield me from the worst of the deluge, caging me inside the shelter of his muscular biceps.
His laughter fades away, and then he’s just staring down at me in such an intense, penetrating way that my heart lodges in my throat.
Raindrops spill from his hair over his temples, running down the bridge of his nose and dripping onto my cheeks in a steady stream.
Droplets cling to his lashes like tiny sparkling jewels.
He smooths my hair back from my face, the wet strands matted and tangled, then brushes his thumb along my cheek, wiping away moisture that’s instantly replaced by more.
He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t have to.
The way he feels about me is written across his face, and I know the same longing is reflected in my eyes.
His love for me is as tangible as this rain.
He licks the beads of water off my cheeks, my forehead, my jaw in little nips and pecks, like he’s going to catch every single drop.
When he’s done, he dips his head and places a soft, tender kiss on my lips, achingly slow, so gentle I could cry.
It’s an oath, a vow, like he’s kissing every broken piece of me back together—and it’s this one, out of all the rest, that pulverizes my heart.
A physical ache unfurls in my chest, blooming outward, spreading from my ribs to my lungs and up into my throat until tears sting at my eyes.
This second chance feels like a miracle, too precious to be real and too fragile to last. I’m terrified of what comes next, afraid I’ll lose him all over again if he ever learns the truth.
We’ve only just found our way back to each other, and already I’m bracing for the end.
I can barely meet his eyes as he rolls off me and rises to his feet, offering me his hand with a contented smile.
The rain is sheeting down harder and heavier than before, a steady, relentless curtain of water obscuring the space between us.
But as he navigates us back to the marina, a towel wrapped around my shoulders, I’m grateful for it.
It means he can’t see my tears.