16. Alex #2
I smile. “Dare.”
“I’m already concerned.” But he doesn’t look concerned.
“I dare you to stop checking the monitors for ten minutes.”
He gives the screens one last look before turning them off with the remote and then setting it on the cushion. “Done.”
“That was alarmingly brave.”
“I’m a hero.” He shrugs. “And you dared me.”
“Don’t ruin it.”
The storm cracks hard enough to rattle the windows. I flinch before I can stop myself, and Ryder’s hand comes down to the edge of the cushion near my shoulder. Not touching. Close enough that I can take him if I want.
I do.
I reach up and hook two fingers around his. He lets me pull his hand onto my shoulder, where the weight of it warms through my sweater and steadies more than I want to admit.
“My turn,” I say, because staying light is easier than thanking him or putting a name to our connection.
I flip the top card. Queen of hearts.
“Truth,” Ryder says.
“That feels suspiciously on-brand for right now.”
“You made the rules.”
I tap the card against my knee, watching his hand on my shoulder instead of his face.
“I’ll spare you.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Do you want to sleep with me tonight again?” The honest need in his voice is intense. “I want you to, but I don’t want to pressure you.”
“Yes.” I give him the truth, and I’m glad he asked so that I don’t have to feel like I’m pushing him later.
Before I can say anything else, Ryder flips the next card. Three of diamonds.
“Truth.” His voice is low.
There are safer questions. Easier ones. Favorite meal. Worst call. Whether he saved the picture I sent him yesterday, even though I already know the answer because I’m just as obsessed with him right now as he seems to be of me, but I’m not going to tell him that…not yet.
Thunder moves closer. The lights flicker, dimming just long enough for Ryder’s fingers to flex against me again. He stops himself from reaching for the remote.
I stop pretending I don’t see every effort he makes.
“How long?” I ask.
His hand goes still. “How long what?”
I look up at him then. “How long have you really loved me?”
The room changes without either of us moving. Rain lashes against the glass. The cards sit scattered across the rug between my knees, ridiculous and bright, while Ryder looks at me like I just opened a door he has spent years standing outside waiting for an opportunity to walk through.
He leans forward, forearms on his thighs, his hand sliding from my shoulder only because the angle forces it. “Alex.”
“Truth,” I remind him, quieter now.
He looks toward the window, not away from me exactly, but enough to gather the answer before it escapes him. “A long time.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only clean one I can give you. The only one that saves what’s left of our friendship.”
“I didn’t ask for clean, Ryder. I asked for the truth. You’ve already admitted to the obsession, and I can see it goes deeper. Just…tell me.”
His eyes come back to mine, and I wish I hadn’t left the safety of teasing so quickly. I also know I would ask again.
If he decides not to tell me, I’m not sure how I’ll handle it. But I know…this moment is important.
Ryder reaches for one of the cards on the rug and turns it between his fingers.
“High school,” he says finally. “Not the way it is now. Not as intense. Not at first. You were Josh’s little sister, and you were too young for me, and I knew where the line was.
But I noticed you before I knew what to do with noticing or how to stop it.
Then you got older, and I kept telling myself it would pass if I stayed away from it.
From you. If I could just do that, it would be enough. ”
His thumb bends the card slightly before he smooths it flat against his knee.
“It didn’t?” I ask.
“No.”
The simplicity hurts more than a speech would have.
He sets the card down and looks at me fully.
“By the time I understood what it was, it had already become part of how I moved through the world. I checked for you at cookouts before I checked for anyone else. I listened for your laugh. I knew when you stopped showing up as much. I knew when you smiled differently around him.” His voice roughens on the last word, but he does not let it turn into rage.
“I loved you before I had any right to say it, and then after Preston showed up in your world, I didn’t know how to say it without making your life heavier. ”
My chest feels too tight.
“So you just kept it a secret.”
“I tried to stop.” Ryder gives me a small, humorless smile. “That sounds better than it was. Mostly I learned how to be quiet with it.”
“And now?”
His gaze drops to my mouth, then comes back. He doesn’t hide it fast enough, or maybe he doesn’t really try.
“Now I don’t know how to stop,” he admits. “I’m not sure I want to.”
I rise onto my knees before I talk myself out of it.
Ryder stays where he is, seated on the couch, watching me come to him. The choice matters, more than just to me. I can feel that it matters to him by the way his hands grip the edge of the cushion instead of reaching.
He lets me move between his knees and put one hand on his shoulder and the other against the side of his neck. He lets me be the one who closes the last of the distance.
The kiss starts slower than last night.
Not gentler, exactly. There is too much under tension and chemistry and need for anything to be gentle.
But Ryder waits for me to set the pace, and when my fingers slide into his hair, he makes a rough sound that breaks against my mouth before his control shifts and he takes control.
His hands come to my waist, careful for only a second before I lean into them and take the care away from him.
“I want you,” I whisper.
His forehead rests against mine. “I know.”
“No.” I pull back enough to make him look at me. “You hear me say it. I need you to believe me when I say that I am very aware. I choose this. You.”
His hands tighten at my waist. “I believe you.”
“Then stop hesitating to take what we both need and want..”
The words sit between us, blunt and terrifying. Ryder looks at me for a long moment, then nods. Not dramatic. Not perfect. Just a man listening to me before his fear gets the final vote.
“Okay,” he says.
He kisses me again, and this time when he moves, there’s no stopping at the first sign of heat.
He shifts off the couch and takes me with him, lowering us to the rug among the scattered cards and the low light from the storm-dark windows.
His body covers mine without trapping me, one forearm braced beside my head while his other hand slides beneath the hem of my sweater and stops against bare skin.
I arch into him, impatient enough to make him laugh against my mouth.
“Bossy,” he murmurs. “Even without words.”
“You like it.”
“I love it.” He kisses me before pulling back so fast that I try and follow him. “I love everything about you, Allycat.”
The word should scare me. It does. It also makes me want everything.
I let him shift back and watch as he lifts my sweater over my head in one move, gasping at the way his expression shifts to reverence when he notices I’m not wearing a bra.
Ryder’s mouth moves from mine to my jaw, then down my throat, taking his time in a way that feels deliberate without feeling cautious.
He’s paying attention to every movement my body makes, but he’s not managing me or trying to control my reaction.
There’s a difference. I feel it in the way he follows the tilt of my head, the catch in my breath, the fingers I tighten in his shirt when his teeth scrape lightly beneath my ear.
When his hand moves to the button of my jeans, he pauses.
I look down at him, breathing hard. “Ryder.”
Dear god, please don’t let him stop.
His eyes meet mine. “Do you want this?”
The simplicity of it almost wrecks me.
“Yes.”
He opens my jeans and kisses the strip of skin above my waistband before pulling them down my hips with patience that makes my thighs press together. He notices that too, but this time he smiles like he enjoys what he sees instead of punishing himself for seeing it.
“That is a dangerous face,” I say, my voice unsteady.
“This one?”
“Yes, that one.”
He presses a kiss to the inside of my knee. “Good.”
My complaint disappears somewhere around the time his mouth reaches the apex of my thighs.
The storm keeps moving around the house, rain ticking hard against the windows and thunder rolling close enough to vibrate through the floor. In the split second that lightning flashes, Ryder’s tongue flicks over my clit before his lips seal around the tiny bud.
My scream is drowned out by thunder, and I’m pretty sure I’m hallucinating Ryder’s chuckle against my pussy. But I’m too lost to the pleasure to do anything or say anything.