6. Ryan
RYAN
I get her to the cabin and the front door is barely closed behind us before my hands are in her hair again.
Cece makes a sound against my mouth. It’s half laugh, half gasp, and I back her against the wall of the entryway because we are not going to make it to the bedroom in this state. Her mouth is doing something to me that is going to be a problem in about thirty seconds if I don't get a hand on her.
"Ryan—"
"I've got you. We aren’t going to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Ryan, I want to give myself to you.” She laughs into my mouth and it turns into a gasp because my hand has found the hem of her shirt and slid up her ribs. Her warm skin bubbles with heat under my palm and I feel her whole body shiver.
I pull back an inch. Just enough to see her face.
"Tell me this is okay."
"It's okay. It's been okay. Ryan, please.” She's breathing hard. Her hands are fisted in my shirt. "I haven’t been this sure about anything in six years. Touch me."
Something behind my sternum cracks open.
"Good girl."
Her pupils grow wide. I watch it happen. I watch her body respond to being talked to like that and I file it. I am going to be using it again.
I drop the shirt on the floor of my own entryway like it personally offended me. She's in a bra and jeans. Her hair is a mess from my hands already and her cheeks are flushed. She's looking at me like I'm the only thing in the hallway.
"Bedroom," I say and it’s rough. "Now."
I pick her up in one motion. She yelps and wraps her legs around me. Her arms come around my neck and I carry her down the hall past the kitchen past the living room to the bedroom at the back of the cabin. I kick the door open, drop her on the bed, and follow her down.
She lands on her elbows, laughing, and her hair spills everywhere. But the laugh dies in her throat when I come down over her and she sees my face.
I kiss her. I part her lips with my tongue and taste her again. I have her under me and she's not going anywhere. I’ve wanted this since the second she turned around in the general store.
I plant kisses down her neck and along her jawline. The soft place below her ear that makes her arch. Then I pepper her throat. Her pulse beats faster with my every move until she’s moaning my name.
I smile against her skin. "I've got you."
My hand finds the clasp on her bra and I slip it off her.
She drops back on the quilt. I pause to take her in and I commit every curve to memory.
She’s stretched out on my bed in jeans and nothing else.
Her chest is flushed and rising too fast. Her hair is everywhere.
She’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in this cabin.
"God," I say. It comes out rough. "Look at you. You’re listening to this part.
" I bend down. I put my mouth on her collarbone, her sternum, and the soft curve under her breast. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
You need to hear me say that. I'm going to keep saying it until it lands. "
She makes a sound like she has not been told this in a very long time. I’m going to fix that.
I work her jeans open. She lifts her hips so I can get them off.
I take my time coming back up her body. My mouth follows the inside of her thigh, her hip, and the soft part of her stomach that she reflexively covers with one hand.
I gently move it out of the way and kiss anyway, because it is hers and it is part of her.
I am not skipping past it like it is something to apologize for.
She makes a sound that is almost a sob.
"Hey." I lift my head. "Still with me?"
"More than I've been with anyone in years."
"Tell me what you want."
"You. I want you."
"Where."
"Everywhere."
I put my mouth lower.
She arches off the bed and her hand finds my hair and she says my name in a voice that makes my manhood throb.
I learn her the way I learn everything that matters…
slowly, attentively. I note every place she responds and every place she catches her breath.
I don’t stop until her thighs are shaking against my shoulders and she's saying my name like it's the only word she remembers.
I don’t stop until waves of tremors rack her body. She comes apart for me with her hand fisted in my hair. Her release ignites something primitive in me. A satisfied heat uncoils low in my chest.
I come back up. Her hands skim my chest, my stomach, and find the line of me through my jeans.
She unbuckles them in an instant and wraps her hand around my length.
I have to close my eyes for one full second because I have been holding this together since the overlook and she is not making it easy.
I get off the bed long enough to strip my boxers off.
She watches me do it with her lip caught between her teeth and her hand splayed on her own stomach.
I have never in my life been more aware of being looked at.
I settle between her thighs. She pulls me down by the shoulders and wraps her legs around me.
She looks up at me like I'm the only thing in the cabin.
My tip presses against her opening and she’s drenched. I ache, desperate for friction. Desperate for all of her. Then I sink into her in a single thrust.
She gasps and I still for a second because I have to, it takes everything in me to hold on.
She’s warm and tight and perfect. I have to get my jaw to unclench before I move.
She reaches up and puts her hand on my face.
Cece says my name and her eyes stay open and locked on mine.
It’s almost more than I can take. Every muscle I have clenches with anticipation.
"Mine," I say. I don't mean to. It comes out anyway. "Tell me you're mine."
"Yours." She breathes it. "Ryan. Yours."
"That's right."
I start to move. I rock slow at first, because I want to watch her face. She’s doing the thing she did on the overlook where she does not look away, she stays right here, with me, choosing every second of it. Then not slow, because she pulls me closer and says more into my mouth.
I give her more. I give her everything. I thrust all the way inside and she takes all of me.
Her hips thrust up to meet mine. My fingers find her throat.
I give her every quiet thing I have been waiting to offer someone and every part of me that has been keeping a light on for a woman I didn't know was coming.
I pound Cece into the mattress. I claim her with every thrust until everything around us disappears. She comes apart under me again and this time I follow. I fall over the edge with my face in her neck, her hand in my hair, and the word mine repeating in my head like a fact.
Afterward she's tucked against my side with her cheek on my chest and one hand curled at my collarbone and her breathing is going slow and deep and the cabin is warm and still.
I look at the ceiling.
This one, I think. This one.
I have been practicing alone my whole life.
I am done practicing.