30. Gemira #2
I can’t hold onto a single thought, not while his fingers are still unraveling me. All that exists is the merciless rhythm of his touch and the ache building so fast I can’t keep up with it. And then the bartender is there, and I have to remember how to be human.
“What can I get you?”
The bar hides everything from the waist down, and Ryewood knows it. His touch doesn’t falter, even with the bartender right in front of us, and instead of panic, all I feel is a need so desperate I arch into his hand.
I open my mouth and Ryewood’s finger presses down, hard against my clit, like he wants to watch me break. My breath stutters, and I silently plead that the bartender can’t see what’s happening behind my eyes.
“Two—” My voice cracks. “Two whiskeys, please.” The please comes out breathy, but the bartender just nods and walks away. And the moment he’s gone, everything changes.
“Good girl,” Ryewood breathes against my neck, and the words sink into my skin like a brand. “Now let’s see how composed you stay when I stop holding back.”
If this is what holding back looks like, what the fuck has he been doing to me?
Before I can process what that means, two thick fingers push inside me, deep, stretching, and perfect.
I choke on air and grip the bar so hard my knuckles go white.
He doesn’t give me time to adjust. His fingers curl, dragging against my front wall in a way that makes sparks explode behind my eyes.
His thumb returns to my aching clit, and the combination nearly breaks me.
There’s nothing left but him and what he’s doing to me.
His fingers work inside me with devastating precision, while his thumb never stops the relentless circles on my clit.
My knees buckle. His other arm wraps around my waist, holding me up and pulling me against him while his hand destroys me from the inside out.
I’ve never felt anything like this. Never needed anything the way I need his fingers inside me right now. I’m ruined. He’s ruined me.
A moan escapes me, raw and desperate.
His mouth is at my ear instantly. “Shh.” The command is soft but absolute. “Unless you want everyone to know what I’m doing to you.”
His fingers don’t stop. If anything, they work faster and harder.
And then I remember where we are. A crowded bar, with music playing, and people laughing just twenty feet away. And I’m about to come right here in this bar with his fingers inside me, and I can’t—I can’t—
“Stop,” I manage. “Rye, you have to stop. I’m going to come.”
“Ryewood.” His thumb presses hard against my clit. “And no, I don’t.”
I can’t help the soft moan it pulls from me.
“You win—” The words tumble out, desperate and broken. “You win. I admit it. I can’t come here—”
“You can.” His voice is steel. “And you will.”
His fingers curl inside me, hitting that spot again and again.
I’m going to shatter. Right here. In front of everyone.
“Rye—”
“Ryewood.” Another hard press to my clit. Pleasure spikes through me, sharp and blinding. “The only way this ends is with you coming on my hand.”
“Rye, please—” I don’t even know what I’m begging for anymore. For him to stop or for him to never stop.
“Say my name,” he growls against my ear. “Say it properly and come for me like a good girl.”
I’m shaking, trembling, the pressure is unbearable. Building and building until I think I might die from it.
“Ryewood—” It tears out of me.
“Good girl.”
His fingers curl inside me, and his thumb presses down on my clit so hard I see stars—and I shatter.
His mouth captures mine before the moan can escape, swallowing the sound, drinking down my release like he’s starving for it. His kiss is consuming and devouring, like he wants to taste every wave of pleasure rolling through me.
The orgasm crashes through me like a tidal wave, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. The kind of pleasure that rewrites everything I thought I knew about my own body.
The orgasm keeps cresting, wave after wave, his fingers still working inside me, drawing it out, making it last. His thumb circles my clit through every aftershock, pulling another tremor from me, then another.
“That’s it,” he whispers against my mouth between kisses. “Give me everything.”
I’m shaking so hard I’d collapse if he wasn’t holding me up. My hands grip his forearm with nails digging in, anchoring myself to him while I come apart in his arms.
I come until I’m boneless. Until the pleasure finally crests and starts to ebb. Until the tremors slow to shivers. Only then do his fingers gentle. His soft circles soothing instead of demanding, bringing me down slowly. His fingers slide out of me, and I whimper at the loss.
He spins me around gently to face him, pressing my back against the bar, still holding me up. His eyes are burning and hungry, fixed on mine as he raises his hand to his mouth. And licks his fingers clean. Fuck.
He groans, low and deep, like I’m the best thing he’s ever tasted. His tongue drags across each finger, savoring every trace of me, and I can’t look away. I can’t breathe, can’t do anything except watch him consume me.
“Fuck, Gemma.” His voice is wrecked and reverent. “The way you felt around my fingers. The way you clenched when you came.” His voice drops lower. “The way you taste.”
His forehead drops to mine. Every word lands like a kiss, like a brand, like a promise. I’m still shaking. Still trying to remember how to form words. And somehow, impossibly, I’m turned on again.
“I’m yours,” he says it simply, like it’s a fact, like it’s always been true.
The words wrap around my heart and squeeze. I open my mouth to respond, to say what, I don’t know, when his gaze shifts. Locks onto something over my shoulder.
His expression changes, just slightly, the heat banking into something more controlled.
“We have company.”
My stomach drops, and I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. I hear Finn’s laugh, Rosie’s giggle, and the low rumble of Grier’s voice.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“I look like you just—”
“You look perfect,” he says, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his eyes soft and tender. “A little flushed. But that could be the whiskey.” The tenderness gives way to that infuriating smirk. “But we both know it was my fingers.”
I smack his chest. He catches my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles, with his eyes dancing.
“There you are!”
Finn’s voice cuts through the moment. I yank my hand back and force my expression into something innocent. Ryewood steps back, not far, but far enough to look casual.
I paste on a smile and try to act like nothing happened. Like my legs aren’t still trembling. Like I can’t still feel his fingers inside me. Like his words didn’t just set me on fire all over again.
“How was the meeting?” Ryewood asks, smooth as ever.
“Productive,” Grier says.
Finn’s eyes narrow, sliding between us. “What have you two been up to?”
“Darts.” I gesture vaguely toward the board in the shadows.
“Who won?” Finn asks.
Ryewood’s eyes find mine, dark and glittering. His mouth curves like we’re sharing a secret no one else will ever know.
“She did. But she cheated.”
This man. This infuriating, devastating man who just wrecked me and is now standing there looking smug about it. I want revenge. Sweet, devastating revenge that brings this man to ruin.
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did,” Ryewood adds, and I have to dig my nails into my palm to keep from reacting.
Finn snorts. “Sounds about right.” He waves down the bartender who’s returning with our whiskeys. “Another round for the table. And stews—I’m starving,” Finn tells him.
We migrate to the corner booth. Ryewood’s hand brushes the small of my back as we walk, innocent to anyone watching, but I feel it everywhere.
We settle in. Finn and Rosie on one side, Grier pulling up a chair at the end, and Ryewood next to me. His thigh presses against mine under the table.
The conversation flows easily, Rosie talking about the cold, Finn cracking jokes, Grier offering dry comments. Except Ryewood’s hand finds my thigh under the table. And every time he laughs, I feel it vibrate through me. And I keep catching him looking at me with that dark, knowing look.
This is far from over, and we both know it.