23. Ryan #3
I settled between her thighs and took my time there too, reading her the way I had learned to over the last several months.
I used my mouth on her, taking in how delicious she smelled, reading every sound she made, every shift of her hips, the way her breath caught when I found the spot that made her go tight and quiet.
I worked her with my tongue and then with my fingers, two of them, curling into her while I kept my mouth on her clit, unhurried, drawing it out because we had the time and I wanted to feel her come apart against my mouth.
When she did, it was quiet, the way everything was tonight—her whole body arching up off the bed, one hand pressing the back of my head and holding me there, the other fisting in the sheets, her thighs trembling around me.
I stayed with her through all of it, gentled her down, and didn’t stop until she was pulling me up the length of her body to her mouth where I kissed her with all the feelings I’d been holding back. The ones she deserved to hear.
I settled over her and met her eyes. Steady and open and dark, full of the thing neither of us had said yet. I could feel it between us like a held breath but I didn’t let it out.
Then I moved slowly. Her legs open for me, she wrapped around me and met me the same way.
I entered her and she gasped, pulling me closer and as I rocked into her, we found a rhythm equally unhurried, feeling each other fully.
No pace to chase, no edge to find. Just the warmth of her, the softness of her skin against mine, her hands moving over my back like she was trying to memorize me.
My forehead dropped to hers. Her legs pulled me deeper.
I said her name once, low and quiet, not as a command, just because it was all I could think of.
She turned her face into my jaw. “Don’t stop,” she breathed. “Don’t stop, don’t stop—”
I held her tighter, one hand sliding up to fist in her hair, and she went pliant the second I did it, her whole body giving itself over the moment I took hold of her, breath going shallow, like it was a relief to stop being in charge of anything.
I used it. Pulled her head back just enough to get at her throat, set my teeth against the spot under her jaw that made her gasp, and drove into her slow and deep and deliberate until she was shaking with it.
“You’re so wet, baby,” I growled in her ear. “You take me so good.” Her pussy clenched as I praised her, and I kept my pace, slow, deep, driving into her. “You like it when I pull your hair and fuck your tight pussy, don’t you?” She loved when I said filthy things to her and it spurred us both on
“Yes,” she rasped out. “Please don’t stop. Fuck me, Ryan.” She was panting and her ragged breaths urged me on.
“I won’t stop, baby. I’m going to give you everything.
You feel so fucking good, Maren. Fuck. I’m going to come inside you, baby.
You want me to fill you with my cum?” The words fell from my mouth, and even though I knew Maren liked me to talk dirty to her, I wasn’t sure if I’d gone too far, when she started to pulse around my cock.
“Oh fuck, Ryan! Yes! I’m going to come! Baby, fuck!” Her breaths were short pants, and her words made me thrust harder, a little faster, right on the edge. “Come inside me!”
I had her hip in one hand, holding her exactly where I wanted her so I could fuck her the way she was asking me to it.
She was so close, and I was too. When she came apart the second time it was deep and wrenching, her whole body clenching around me, her arms pulling me close like she was trying to keep something from slipping away.
I felt every pulse of her climax grip me, felt her go tight and shuddering, and I held her through it and didn’t let up, thrusting into her, so close to exploding inside her.
Then I let go of everything. I followed her with my face buried in her neck, groaning, the salt of her skin against my mouth, her pulse slamming under my lips, and I was saying something in Swedish I wasn’t thinking about, just feeling.
The words came up from somewhere below language, below thought, from the part of me that was done pretending anything.
“Fuck!” I groaned as my release took over and my vision went.
Afterward, we cleaned up, got back in bed, and I rolled us so she was tucked against my side, my arm around her, her head on my chest. She traced the scar through my eyebrow like she always did, and I lay still and let her, staring at the ceiling while my heartbeat slowed.
Neither of us spoke for a long time.
“Ryan.” Quietly. Just that.
I turned my face into her hair. “Me too,” I said. Low, certain, the truest thing I’d said all night. “All of it.”
She let out a long breath. Slow and full, the last of the evening going out of her, and pressed closer.
I stayed awake long after she slept. Listened to her breathe. I thought about Griffin’s face in the doorway and about the conversation I owed him and about the weeks ahead that were going to be harder before they got easier.
Then I thought about this. Her weight against my ribs, her hand still on my chest, The Ashby Letters keychain on her ring of keys sitting on my nightstand next to my own.
I was going to fix what I’d broken. I was going to stand in front of Griffin and say the true thing and take whatever came back at me. And when it was done, when I’d handled it right, I was going to make sure Maren Callahan never felt less than again.
I pressed my lips to her hair. I’d never let her go. She was mine.
I was sure of that the way I was sure of very few things.