Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Ryder carried the cooler up the stairs and Nell unlocked her apartment door.
Inside, Nell slipped off her shoes at the entrance.
After hours of creek water, birds, and trail noise, the apartment felt unusually quiet.
Ryder set down the daypack and took the cooler into the kitchen to put the remaining food in the refrigerator.
He then sat down to untie his hiking shoes.
Nell pulled the scrunchy from her hair and loosened the damp strands with her fingers. “I need a shower,” she said.
“So do I.”
Nell held out her hand. “Come with me.”
She took his hand and led him down the hallway to the bathroom.
Nell started the water and then unbuttoned her jeans.
Last night, he’d seen Nell naked for the first time, but he still wasn’t used to it.
He watched her, appreciating the lean strength in her legs, the soft curve of her stomach, and the direct intent in her eyes when she smiled up at him.
Nell stepped into the tub and held the curtain open. “Are you coming?”
Ryder stripped and joined her in the shower. The tub-shower gave them enough room, though Ryder’s size made staying close unavoidable. He pulled the curtain and turned beneath the spray.
“You’re taking all the hot water,” Nell teased.
Ryder moved aside. She stepped beneath the spray and tipped her head back. Water ran through her dark hair and down the length of her body. Five miles of trail dust went down the drain between their feet.
He handed her the shampoo and moved under the spray while she washed her hair. Nell worked it through to her scalp, fingers catching in the knot the scrunchy had left at the back of her head. She pulled it loose carefully, then tipped her head back and rinsed the soap out.
Ryder washed beside her, scrubbing trail dust from his shoulders and arms while Nell worked soap over her legs. Mud ran off both of them in thin brown streams and circled the drain. There was grit around her ankles and caught along the scrape on her shin.
Ryder ducked his head beneath the spray and shampooed his hair. Nell shifted aside to give him room, then rinsed the last soap from her skin while he worked his fingers through his hair and bent forward under the water.
She then ran her soap-slicked hands across his chest. She watched what she was doing, following her own palms down over his stomach with her eyebrows drawn together. Then her hand went lower and closed around his hardening cock.
Ryder braced one arm against the tile. “That isn’t helping us finish the shower.”
“I changed my mind about the goal.”
He kissed her.
Nell rose onto her toes and opened beneath his mouth. Ryder slid his hand into her wet hair and drew her closer. She tightened her fist around him and stroked, slow and slick with soap, and the last trace of laughter went out of the kiss.
His wolf pushed up under his skin. It had been doing that all day.
Now it wanted her. Now. Ryder kissed her throat while she stroked him.
Water ran over his shoulders and between their bodies, carrying the soap away.
He cupped one breast and drew his thumb across her nipple.
Her breath caught. He did it again and watched her nipple draw tight under his thumb.
“Yes,” Nell said.
He moved his other hand between her thighs.
She shifted her feet to give him room, one hand staying on his shoulder for balance.
Ryder cupped her pussy, then slid two fingers through her folds and found her sopping wet.
The first pass over her clit made her press up into his hand.
Her head tipped back against the tile and her eyes closed.
Her mouth opened. Her hand tightened on his shoulder until her nails dug into his flesh.
“Don’t stop.”
He kept his fingers moving exactly the way she wanted, and when she started to shake he pushed two fingers into her and worked her clit with his thumb. Nell came with her forehead against his sternum and his name breaking from between her lips.
Ryder got his hands under her thighs and lifted.
She came up off the tub floor, and her legs went around his waist. He walked her back into the tile with his hands spread under her thighs.
Ryder shifted his grip, found his footing on the wet enamel, and reached down between them to notch the head of his cock against her pussy.
“Yes,” she groaned.
He slid her down over him an inch at a time.
Her pussy opened and took him, tight and hot and slick, her breath coming out against his neck in a long unsteady stream.
Her head went back into the tile. The sound she made when he was fully seated inside her was music to his ears.
Ryder held her tiny form in his hands, his cock buried in her to the hilt, her heels locked at the small of his back.
“Fuck me,” she moaned.
He lifted her and let her drop. Her sounds started coming on every stroke and echoing off the tile. He did it again, and again, her own weight doing half the work.
He got one hand flat on the tile beside her head and used the other to hold her hip and pull her down onto him harder. Nell’s arms tightened around his neck. She was tightening around his cock too, in fast irregular pulls.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop?—”
His wolf had ahold of him now. Ryder kept going, harder, grinding up into her so her clit dragged against him every time he brought her down.
Her legs locked around him and her forehead dropped against his.
Then she came apart in his hands with her whole body arching off the tile and her nails dragging down the back of his neck.
He felt her pussy clenching around his cock in hard waves. Ryder pushed up into her twice more and came so hard his vision went white at the edges and his knees nearly folded. He ended up with his face in her wet hair, pinning her to the wall with his hips.
After a few breaths, Ryder eased her down until her feet found the tub. He kept hold of her waist until she had her balance. Nell lifted her face and kissed him. Her cheeks were flushed and water ran from the ends of her hair.
“Definitely my new favorite hobby,” she said, breathless.
“Agreed.”
Ryder shut off the water, and cool air reached them when he opened the curtain. He handed her a towel before wrapping the other around his waist.
After dressing, Ryder edited the day’s photographs while Nell read aloud from the accountant-detective novel she had bought at Powell’s, pausing whenever a passage was too clever or ridiculous not to share. They stayed together on the sofa until the light began to fade.
“I’m ready for dinner,” Nell said, opening a delivery app on her phone. “Thai sound good?”
“Yeah.”
“Khao Moo Dang is close.”
“Have you tried it?”
“Not yet.” She opened the menu. “I’m getting the House Curry Noodles and Thai iced tea.”
“Let me see.”
Nell handed him the phone. Ryder scrolled until he found the Khao Moo Dang Pi-Set. It was pork loin, crispy pork belly, sausage, egg, dumplings, greens, and broth.
“I’ll have this,” he said, pointing to the dish. “And a Thai iced tea.”
“Good choices.” She took the phone back and added both to the order.
The delivery arrived after they had cleared space on the coffee table and chosen a romantic comedy neither of them had seen. Ryder brought the bag in from the unit door. Coconut curry and five-spice pork scented the living room as Nell opened the containers.
Her curry noodles came tangled beneath pork belly, sliced loin, egg, and green yu choy.
Ryder’s rice was hidden under everything the restaurant had managed to fit around it.
They ate while the movie introduced a woman with a new job, a disastrous first meeting, and two men who were clearly going to become a problem.
Midway through the film, the heroine hid an important letter in a desk drawer rather than tell the man standing five feet away from her.
“She could end the entire problem with one sentence,” Nell said, slurping her noodles.
“Then the movie would be over.”
“They could find a different problem.”
“There are two men. I’m confident another problem is available.”
Nell rested her feet on Ryder’s lap. “The other one is terrible.”
“He has good hair.”
“Still terrible.”
After they finished eating, they put their containers on the coffee table.
He stretched out and stroked the backs of Nell’s bare feet in his lap.
Usually, his time with Nell had a predictable ending.
Back in Fate Mountain, an evening at her apartment or the diner ended with him driving home or sleeping on her couch.
Ryder had come to Portland because Nell was scared.
He’d told Dom he’d be staying with her as long as she needed him.
Since he’d informed the pack that they were mates as soon as the match happened, Dom hadn’t objected.
Sometime in the last twenty-four hours, staying in her apartment stopped feeling like protection and started feeling more like a choice he was making.
He wanted to wake up beside her again. He wanted to stay with her even after she felt safe.
The heroine on screen found the letter she’d hidden now missing. The a-hole with the good hair had taken it. Nell made a disgusted sound and took her last sip of Thai iced tea at the other end of the couch.
When the right couple finally got their happily ever after, it was fully dark outside.
Credits rolled over bright music. The two of them gathered the takeout containers.
Ryder put the leftovers in the refrigerator while Nell threw away the empty cartons.
She turned off the television, and he turned off the living room lights.
After they both washed up, they climbed into bed. Nell rolled into him, tucked her face beneath his chin, and laid one hand over his chest. Ryder pulled her closer, breathing in the scent of her hair. In that moment, everything he ever wanted was in his arms.