Trusting Ryan

“Fine.”

The Reds game might have to wait. His dad would understand.

SHE’D HAD BETTER steak. Apparently Ryan liked them very well-done. But Audrey couldn’t remember anyone whose company she’d enjoyed more.

“I like how you think,” she told him, trying not to overreact as he sat next to her on the darkened patio, handing her the half-glass of wine she’d requested.

His eyes, as they stared at her, glistened with two white spots, a double reflection of the moon shining overhead. “You like how I think? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” She should go. Before she did something she’d regret. “I like the way your mind works, your take on things. You’ve got all these theories that are just a bit outside the norm, and yet I agree with them, you know? I like listening to you talk.”

And if she didn’t shut up she was going to ruin a friendship before it had the chance to exist.

Because her next sentence wasn’t going to be about liking his conversation.

“I like how you think, too.” The words were offered slowly, softly. A declaration of admiration. At least.

Or so her heart seemed to think. It flip-flopped, sending a sharp blade of desire down through her most feminine places.

Without removing her gaze from his, she took a sip of wine. Moistened a throat that was suddenly far too dry. Inexplicably dry. What was she doing?

Ryan didn’t seem to want his wine. Setting down the glass he’d barely touched, he stared at her for a second longer, then leaned forward. Slowly. Deliberating. Coming closer.

She watched, glanced down to his lips, frozen as she waited. There was no thought of action, of shoulds and shouldn’ts, of wants or not wants. No thought of any moment that came before, or any that might come after.

And when those full, masculine lips touched hers, the shiver that went through her wiped away any last conscious thought.

She’d been kissed before. Many times. But never like this.

Ryan’s mouth controlled hers, even as it asked permission. He invaded and invited at the same time, taking her on a sensual journey that consumed her entire being with the mere touch of his lips. He was tender. And confident.

And when he pulled back, Audrey couldn’t let him go. Her mouth followed his the couple of inches he retreated, until her lips were once again attached to his.

He opened his mouth then, demanding more from her, his tongue finding hers, not just tip to tip, but fully engaging with her in a give-and-take that made them far more intimate than friends.

“I want to make love with you.”

She wasn’t sure she heard the words at first. Thought maybe she’d imagined them. And even then, her body responded, igniting every nuance of sensual feeling inside of her.

“Please.”

There was no mistaking the pleading in his voice.

Or the answering desire inside of her.

Pulling back, Audrey studied those glistening green eyes. “I…”

How did she say no without turning him off? Without losing his interest? What words did she use?

“I want that, too.”

She didn’t just say that. Didn’t just lick her lips. Her nipples weren’t hard, sensitive, against her bra.

She couldn’t…

Ryan’s lips covered hers again, his hands coming up behind her to rest beneath her shoulder blades, pressing her against him, and as she melted into his embrace, Audrey knew that she was going to break her own rules.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN nervous, for many reasons. Any time he’d thought about this moment in his life—and he’d thought of it plenty over the past ten or so years—Ryan had envisioned shaky hands. Some fumbling. Uncertainty born solely of ignorance.

Hesitation, at the very least, as he risked the isolation he’d so carefully concocted and guarded vigilantly.

Audrey’s hands on his shoulders, her moans consuming the air around them, the light flowery scent of her perfume enveloping him, allowed no room for hesitation. Her soft, feminine skin, waiting there for him to find, to expose, to caress, created fire within him, not quivering.

He kissed her, opening her mouth wider with his, exploring her with his tongue in ways that happened naturally, as if of their own accord. With no learned or practiced moves to draw on, he lifted her body gently against him, breaking contact with her lips only briefly, as he carried her to his bed.

He’d be Detective Ryan Mercedes tomorrow. And all of the tomorrows after that.

Tonight he was a man.

He’d made the trek upstairs many times—exhausted and coming off thirty-five hours without sleep, wide awake, early, late, angry, frustrated, enervated, flying up the steps two or three at a time. He’d made it hurt, content, and even drunk once. He’d traversed them alone with a hand truck and solid pine chest of drawers, a bed, his second large-screen television. Tonight he climbed them with no thought of the journey, only of the woman with her arms wrapped around his neck, of getting her to the soft mattress that awaited them so that he could love her properly.

Reverently.

Laying her gently crossways in the middle of the bed, Ryan slid down next to her, covering one of her legs with one of his as he half lay on top of her. He was on fire, needing everything, everywhere, and was compelled to stare at her, instead, to connect, first, through the eyes of her soul, the eyes of her heart and mind, those chocolate-brown windows that gazed back at him with an intensity that matched his own.

“I’ve wanted this since the first moment I saw you.” He confessed what he’d sworn to himself he’d never admit to anyone.

She was his match on a level much deeper than anyone ever had been. But she was independent, too. Surely there was safety in that.

“Have you?” she asked, her voice huskier than usual. The little grin turning up the edges of her mouth made him hard.

Harder.

The bulge in his pants wasn’t a new thing. Its control of him was.

“I have,” he told her, bending to kiss her again, opening his mouth over hers, needing to get as far inside her as he could, to join as much of him to her as was humanly possible.

And beyond.

Audrey’s moan lit another flame in his groin and Ryan rubbed his aching penis against her denim-clad thigh. He felt like a damned animal, rutting against her.

She didn’t seem to mind. Lifting up, Audrey moved back and forth against his chest, pressing her upper body against him until he could clearly distinguish two hard nipples caressing him.

“I like that.” He’d had no idea.

“Me, too.”