Chapter 16 #3
“You’re brilliant,” he repeats with a gentle laugh in his voice.
“And, not to split hairs, but you do still have a job. She didn’t fire you, and from what I can tell, you’ve been doing your work, trying to find new avenues to keep up the segment’s attention—it’s just not on the topic they’d prefer.
I’m the one with profuse diarrhea, apparently. This is just an empty threat.”
“Profound,” I correct. “Profound diarrhea.”
I can feel him roll his eyes. “Right. Profound. Of course.”
Slowly, like a creepy doll in a horror movie, I swivel my head to look at him. “You think I’m smart?” I whisper, voice a timid husk.
Rylie tilts his head, giving me a teasing smile. “Easily top five smartest people I’ve ever met.”
“Who are the other four?”
Rylie laughs so hard the bed shakes, sending a delicious shiver down my spine.
“Mean you. Sarcastic you. Sweet you. Vulnerable you,” he says, dipping his head to brush his nose against mine. “Sexy you is number six because she’s often rendered speechless by my superb lovemaking.”
“I just threw up in my mouth.”
“Our pillow talk always does wonders for my self-esteem.”
I laugh, pressing my teeth to his shoulder in a shallow love bite. “You think I’m witty?” I ask, feeling silly and shy for needing his compliments, but hungry for them all the same.
Rylie threads his fingers through my hair, then grabs it in a light grip to tilt my face to his.
“I’ll indulge you endlessly but that one is so obvious it feels redundant.
” I look at him, not hiding the glimmer of emotion in my eyes.
Rylie’s smile softens but grows. “Kitten, you’re so quick, I can’t keep up.
I lose my breath trying to go at it with you. ”
A starburst of warmth erupts in my chest, and I press even closer to Rylie, placing a light, lingering kiss at the base of his throat. He hums in satisfaction. I work my way up his neck and across his jaw with intimate kisses, then across his face until I hover over his mouth.
“I’m a bit enamored with you myself,” I whisper against his lips. He parts them for me, and I kiss him deeply, sipping at his lips, my tongue caressing his. Rylie kisses with his full body, his legs twisting with mine, pelvis and stomach pressed close, one hand in my hair, the other at my cheek.
“And I think you’re brilliant too,” I say on the quick gulp of air we part for.
I feel his smile against my temple. “Might try to get a recording of you saying that later.”
“There’s a lot of work you’d need to do to make that happen,” I tease, nudging my hips against his.
“Oh, what a labor,” he deadpans, instantly responding to the spark I’ve created, gently grinding against me.
Tender emotions dig through me as he touches my body, one hand tracing down my spine in a torturously delicious path until he’s cupping my ass and holding me close and I’m panting against his mouth, hips rocking in time with his.
Rylie’s hard again between my legs, and I want him so badly my teeth ache.
I push at his shoulder so he’ll get on his back with me on top of him, but he resists, framing my face with his hands until I look at him.
He stares at me, those gunpowder eyes destroying me all over.
“You’re so fucking lovely, Eva,” he says, before sealing his mouth over mine.
And I feel that word, lovely , through every moment of his deep, sensual kiss.
I feel it in the way he holds me, the way he caresses me, the hungry moan he makes as I grab at him, desperate for whatever pieces I can have.
He unravels me, seam by seam, until I’m nothing but a mess of loose ends and frayed edges and he cherishes me like I’m sacred.
I whimper against his mouth, hips moving harder against his, and Rylie takes mercy.
He hooks his hand under my knee and drags my leg higher over his hip, opening me to him as he works his way into my body with shallow, unhurried strokes.
His steady movements create just the right amount of friction that I find myself biting into his shoulder again, harder this time, silently begging for all that he’ll give me.
My thigh muscles tighten around him, bringing him even closer and he slides all the way in, filling me deeply as he lets out a rough sound of pleasure.
His palm skims up my thigh, curving over the swell of my hip, then traces up my back, before reversing the motion.
He soothes me. Electrifies me. Makes me want to weave myself into him and see what his gentle hands can create of us.
I’m crying as he makes love to me—the gentle possession of his movements, the praise grunted against my skin as our thrusts become frenzied, the way his fingers twine with mine and he looks into my eyes as we both reach that excruciatingly wonderful peak.
We hold each other closely after, sweaty and sated with his body still in mine, our hearts keeping time to the small wonder of being together.
When we can’t avoid it any longer, we finally untangle and use the bathroom.
A dreamy playfulness fizzes through me, and I race Rylie back to bed, pushing him out of the way and launching myself into the nest of sheets and pillows.
Laughing, Rylie pounces on me, tossing me around like a rag doll despite our similar heights.
He pins me down, blowing a raspberry into my chest, dragging his weekend stubble against my throat, making me shriek and giggle like a little kid.
The burst of energy is short-lived, and it isn’t long before we’re cuddling together again—Rylie propped up on the pillows, my head against his chest as he plays with my hair, threading the strands around his fingers—watching a campy horror movie as we smile like infatuated idiots.
Anxiety and worry about work periodically jump out from unguarded corners of my mind, but the warmth of Rylie’s skin, the simple reverence in his touch, keeps me tethered.
“How should I respond to Landry?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even and calm.
I feel Rylie’s deep breath beneath my cheek as he thinks.
Tenderly, he smooths my hair back before kissing the crown of my head.
“I’d be honest with her. I’d tell her how much you do care about your career, but what you actually want it to look like.
I’d tell her you’re doing the work, but you’re so much more than reading mean comments for viewer pleasure. ”
I toy with the hair on his chest, mulling that over as he sinks back into the lull of the movie.
It’s a nice sentiment but I’m not sure I’m brave enough to be that honest with Landry, too afraid of ruffling any more feathers.
I lock up the worry for good for the rest of the day.
It’s not going to disrupt the peace I have in Rylie’s arms.
I can’t stop noticing things about him, cataloging every minute detail—how the hair on his legs is a shade lighter than the chestnut waves on his head, the cluster of six freckles near the crook of his left elbow, the tiny white scar on his chin that disappears with the stretch of his dazzling grin.
I feel like I could spend a lifetime looking at him and still not discover every wonderful facet.
Rylie yawns then snuggles me closer, his breathing turning deep and steady as another movie starts streaming.
“Aww,” I say, disrupting his drowsy quietness. I want to keep him with me, make him laugh, coax him into teasing me in that special way of his.
Rylie tilts his head to look at me. “This slasher film tickling your tenderhearted side?” he asks, eyes flicking to a particularly gory scene playing out on the TV.
I laugh. “No. Not that.”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing…” I say wistfully, giving him a coy smile.
“Tell me,” he says, ducking his head and nibbling at my throat. When I hum in approval, he drags his stubble against the area, tearing a gasp from me. My nipples harden at the next rasp.
“They’re just cute,” I say, squirming against him. I can’t decide if I want more of the rough friction or to run away from it.
Rylie pulls back with a confused look but his mouth is still curled with amusement. “What’s cute?”
“Your feet,” I reply matter-of-factly.
Rylie’s smile slowly falls, his face scrunched up like I just asked him to solve a calculus problem. “My… feet?”
“They’re so small and dainty. They’re precious,” I coo, leaning into him and pressing my smile against his frown, letting my feet drag against his. He sits up straighter, and I slide down his torso, my head landing in his lap as I silently start to laugh.
“Precious?” he squawks. “ Precious! My feet aren’t…”
“Precious?” I supply.
Rylie catches the giggle in my voice. He growls, gripping my hips in a tight hold. With a fluid movement, he shifts us so my back is pressed to the mattress, his hips cradled between my spread thighs as his weight pins me down. “You are such a little shit, Eva.”
“What’s wrong with calling you precious?” I say through a cackle as he glares down at me, the corner of his mouth twitching up despite his efforts to frown. “What happened to all that detoxification of masculinity?”
“Stop it,” he growls. “My smile is precious, maybe.” He shows off a wolfish version of it, dimple and all. “My personality? Definitely precious. Hell, I have ears that are literally perfectly shaped and you’ve never noticed and even that would be okay to call precious. But my feet ?”
I laugh even harder. “Let me get this straight, Barbie-foot, you’re mad that I complimented the wrong part of you?”
“Of all the things I work on to get a compliment from you, my feet are not on the list,” he says primly.
Rylie slides one hand under my knee, hitching my leg up higher so my ankle is near his hip, my thigh pressed against my stomach.
Butterflies erupt through me, each beat of their wings fanning the sudden fire in my belly.
His eyes skim up my body and hold at my smile.
He leans closer until his lips hover over mine, one hand still pinning my hips to the bed, the other tracing the curve of my calf…
And then he starts tickling my foot. I scream and flail as I try to twist away, but he holds me tight.
“I’m sorry to have to resort to brute force,” Rylie says, not sounding sorry at all as he continues the onslaught. “But reasoning with you has done me no good.”
I start screaming and cursing and flopping about like a fish on land, and Rylie’s deep laugh echoes mine.
I finally manage to unhook my leg from his grip, and “accidentally” clip his shoulder in a swinging kick.
Rylie takes the blow with as much drama as possible, latching me to him as he rolls us off the side of the bed into the fallen pillows and sheets.
Giddiness floods through me, and I scramble for the upper hand, returning the torture tenfold as my fingers dance down his chin, in his armpits, across his stomach.
Then one of Rylie’s hands is cradling the back of my skull, pulling me toward him, the other at my heartbeat, and he’s kissing me in a way that makes all laughter stop and I’m no longer tickling him but gripping him closer, palms skimming across the warm expanse of skin at his chest.
“You’re the one who’s precious, Eva,” Rylie says, voice rough and quick as a matchstick against a striker. His hands tangle in my hair, my vision blurring as a sharp, aching want builds in me.
“You didn’t answer my question from earlier,” he whispers in my ear before biting the lobe. I give him a dopey series of blinks. He clears his throat, pink creeping across his cheeks. “Will you go to the fundraiser with me? As my, um, date?”
The question makes me pause, the blatant vulnerability in his voice over such an unserious question cinching like a lasso around my rapidly beating heart. He asked me like he needs me to say yes. I don’t think anyone’s ever acted like they needed me before.
“If you say yes, I’ll make it worth your while in the morning,” he coaxes, mistaking my shock for hesitation. I catch the thread of insecurity in his voice.
“How’s that?” I burrow against his neck, trying to keep from floating away from all the feelings bubbling through me.
“I call it bottomless brunch, but it’s actually where we lie in bed naked all morning and sip champagne straight from the bottle.”
I laugh, then release a weary sigh. “I suppose I can pencil it in.”
I feel Rylie’s heart skip against my cheek, and he hugs me tightly. “I appreciate the sacrifice.”
Anything for you , I whisper imperceptibly against his skin, not quite brave enough to let him know how deeply I mean it.