“I could do that too. I haven’t thought it all out yet.”
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
“Baby, you’ve had my cum inside you more times than I can count,” he explains in his usual brutality.
“What?” I gasp.
“Not once have we used protection,” he explains. “You could be carrying my baby in your belly right now.”
“What?” I shout.
“And that wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
“Stop talking,” I order, but he doesn’t listen. Ryan never listens.
“Baby, I was either in the field or overseas while Kristen was raising our kids,” he says gently. “That’s a big part of why our marriage failed, and I have not hidden those truths from you. But I would do it again in a heartbeat for the chance to get to be more involved. If it was with you.”
“What?” I gasp as he steps closer.
“I think we need to get a few things straight,” he says as he carefully pulls me into him and wraps his arms around me.
“Like what?” I whisper.
“I like you, Jules,” he tells me gently. “A lot.”
“Ryan—”
“And I know you’re scared, but we’ll work through that.”
“I… uhh….” But I don’t get the chance to say anything else, because he lightly touches his lips to mine. When he feels me melt into his body, only then does he deepen the kiss.
Ryan ends the kiss and lets me go, but only to take my hand and lead me back to the sofa, where he sits down right smack in the middle with his long legs spread wide. He looks strong and utterly masculine sitting on my prissy sofa, and it’s distracting.
That is until he begins to tenderly rub his hands up and down my arms. The soft motion starts to relax the muscles in my body, and without words I gentle toward him again.
He tucks his fingers in the waistband of my sweatpants and slides them down my legs. I step out of them, and he kicks them aside, leaving me in nothing but a tank and a pair of cotton panties with thick lace trim at the waist.
I watch as his eyes heat when he sees me, but he banks the fire for the time being. He takes my hand again and leads me to lay over his lap on my belly. I wonder what he’s doing when he cradles me with one arm and then begins to massage my back with his free hand. Ryan kneads the tension from my back and shoulders, and I start to purr like a kitten.
He strokes down my back, each pass taking him closer and closer to my backside, but he doesn’t touch it. He grazes the lace trim of my panties, and then his hand moves back up to my shoulders, only to make another teasing pass.
“I like these,” he says, his voice deeper with his arousal as he plays with the edge of the leg of my panties.
“I can tell,” I reply quietly. And I can. His hard length is pressing into my belly. It’s not uncomfortable in the least. And I get a secret thrill that my utterly not sexy comfy clothes turn him on. They’re just cotton panties, nothing fancy, but still, Ryan seems to appreciate them.
He lets go of them and goes back to stroking my lower back. Over and over, only this time, he lets his heavy palm glide down over my ass and then back up again. Each pass he makes takes him farther and farther down my backside.
I gasp when his fingers glide over my pussy. They’re there and then they’re gone. He moves back up to my shoulders again, teasing me with hints as he makes a random pass over my center every so often, and I begin to press my backside high in the air, hoping Ryan will take the hint without words.
He cups me between my legs with his palm. “In case you didn’t get it, I really like these.”
I don’t reply to his words, but I know I smile a cat that got her cream smile, and I tuck my face into his elbow so he won’t see it.
He slides his hand down the back of my panties and brushes over my clit and through my wetness. There’s no denying how turned on I am now. And he knows it too, if his deep groan is anything to go by.
Ryan slides his hand out of my panties and then tugs them down my hips. I spread my legs as wide as my panties still around my thighs will allow, and he does not disappoint when he plunges two fingers deep inside me.
“Yes,” I pant as he fucks me with his fingers.
I grip his thigh in my hands for leverage and push up so I can rock my hips back against his hand. He pushes down the front of my tank so my breasts are exposed, and the cool air of the room stings against my overheated skin, but it only serves to drive me higher and higher.
He catches my breast as it swings while I rock harder and faster against him, and he cups it in his fist. The feel of the calluses on his hand abrades my skin in the best of ways. He slides his hand across my torso and pinches the nipple on my other breast, and I have to dig my nails into his thigh to ground myself, but it’s no use. I’m flying high.
While I’m still coming, Ryan picks me up and plants me on my hands and knees on the sofa, and I drop down so that my face is pressed into the cushions, unable to hold myself up any longer.
And then he’s right behind me. I feel him working at his belt and the fly of his jeans, and then he is right there. He drives into me with one quick thrust. I let out a moan at the full feeling of him inside me, stretching me all at once.
Something in him seems to snap at my reaction, because he grips my hips hard in his hands as he pumps in and out of me, harder and faster. He’s lost his tight grip on his control, and I revel in it.
“Yes!” I chant as I whip my head back and press into him. He grips my hair and pulls me up on my hands so I’m closer to him, and he crushes his mouth to mine. I open immediately under him and let him plunder my mouth while he continues to fuck me on the sofa.
And then it builds and builds. It’s going to roll over me again, and I feel my walls tighten around him.
“Yes,” I gasp as I drop back down to press my chest against the cushions, and the rough knit of the material abrades my already sensitive nipples. It’s too much and not enough, and I cry out my demands. “Harder. Fuck me harder.”
“Yes,” he growls as he plunges faster and faster, driving us both close to the edge. “Fuck.”
“Harder,” I whimper as I dig my nails into the cushions and hold on. “Please. Harder.”
He pounds into me, and then I come.
“Fuck,” he bites out as he drives deep again and again. “Yes, baby.” And then he plants himself deep inside me and follows me into oblivion.
We lie there on the sofa, his front to my back and his body covering mine while our breaths saw in and out of our bodies. Sex with Ryan has always been fantastic, but this was… more. This was raw, and it was real. It was need, and it was frustration. And I have the feeling that it signifies a major change in our standard operating procedure.
Before I have a chance to put too much thought into it, he pushes up onto his knees and pulls out. He stands beside the sofa, and I feel him looking down at me, but I don’t turn my head to confirm it, because even though he’s said over and over that we’re happening, I can’t help but wonder if now that he’s had an orgasm if he’s going to pull up his pants and leave like he usually does. And I know he said he was protecting me, but still, in my heart of hearts, I always wish he’d just stay.
I don’t have to wait too long, because he tenderly places his hands on me and rolls me to my back. And then he scoops me up like a bride and carries me up the stairs to my bedroom, where he places me delicately in the center of the bed and shimmies the covers out from under me.
I watch as he takes off his dog tags, puts them in his pocket, and strips off his clothes. His hard cock still springs free from the parted material of his jeans, which he shoves down his legs and steps out of.
And then he crawls up the bed and covers my body with his. I let my legs open, and he falls between them before rising up on his forearms to take his weight off me. I feel the heat of him at my center, and he looks in my eyes as he slowly slides deep inside.
I wrap my arms and l
egs around him and hold him to me, while he tenderly glides in and out of my body. He gently touches his lips to mine, and we breathe each other in, but we never close our eyes. Instead, we hold that connection while we connect in other ways, in every way imaginable.
This time is different.
Before, it was wild and out of control like a forest fire. Now, the fire is still there, but it’s banked. This is not about need and frustration, instead a deeper emotion, one I’m not ready to put a name to.
He rocks us slowly together, like a boat on calm seas, and then, with our eyes locked, and wrapped up in each other’s arms, he takes us there again, and we both find completion together.
“Be with me,” he whispers against my mouth. Our bodies are still entwined and joined in the most intimate of ways.
“What?” I whisper back.
“Be with me,” he says again, this time stronger. “Be with me in all the ways that matter. I want to be with you during the day and in the light, where we don’t hide it away. I want you to get to know my kids and them you. And then when the time is right, I want to give you those babies you want. My babies.”
“Ryan,” I whimper.
“Say yes.”
“Yes.”
He closes his eyes in relief and then presses his mouth to mine. He pulls out and rolls, taking me with him so I’m curled in his arms, and he pulls the covers over us.
“Ryan,” I say, and I can hear the disappointment in my voice. “You can’t stay. Not now.”
“I’m going to stay as long as I can,” he replies and then kisses me once more. “But first, we have to talk.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” I sigh.
“I think we take the next week for just us but be clear with Jake and Rick what’s going on,” he says.
“I don’t like the idea of having this conversation with my boss.”
“Jake knows it’s me in the video,” Ryan states, rocking my world.
“What?” I gasp.
“Honey, he’s known me for years. He knows why I have that tattoo, because he was on the op when it happened.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “And one day, I’ll tell you about it.”
“Okay,” I say, because I’m not going to pressure him to tell me any of it unless he’s ready to. That’s his story to tell, not mine.
“I think in a week, we go out.”
“Like on a date?” I prompt, and he laughs.
“Yeah, like a date. We should have been dating all along, if I hadn’t been behaving like a horse’s ass.”
“So you want to date me?”
“I want to marry you,” he says, making the oxygen in my lungs seize up. “But I think that’s going to take some time for you to get used to the idea.”
“I think you might be crazy.”
“I think you might be right,” he admits. “You have to be a little crazy to survive the shit I’ve seen and come out of it on the other side.”
“Okay,” I say, changing the subject. “So you want to date.”
“Yes,” he confirms. “I think we also need to get to the bottom of who is trying to blackmail us into forcing the president’s hand.”
“I agree.”
“I also need to know that you’re safe,” he says. “Then we can just… be.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” he asks, sounding a little unsure, and it makes me feel a little guilty for all the trouble I’ve given him over the last few months. If we had only been honest with each other from the get-go, then everything would be better off, but also maybe a little less interesting.
“Okay,” I say again. “We can’t go back. And there’s no sense worrying over what will come yet, because we don’t know what that will be. So let’s just be okay… together.”
“Okay, baby,” he replies gently, his voice rumbly as he pulls me tighter into him. “Sleep now.”
And I do. I fall into a peaceful sleep knowing everything with Ryan is settled and as it should be. Actually, for the first time in a long time, in spite of the fact that my life is kind of a mess, I feel happy.
• • •
Sometime later, in the early hours of the morning, when the first bits of gray peek through the dark night, he rolls me to my back and makes love to me one last time, sliding our bodies together as if they were made for each other.
He holds my hands in his by either side of my head, and his mouth covers mine as we come together, breathing each other in.
He places a tender kiss to my mouth one last time, and then I lose him from my body as he climbs out of the bed. He pulls the covers tight around me before he gathers up his clothes and pulls them on then slips from the room.
I hear the quiet snick of a door, and I know he’s gone, but this time, I know for sure he will be back.
Everything is going to be okay.
Or so I thought.
“Senior Senator Broken Hearted as Fairchild Spotted with President’s Aide-de-Camp”
Chapter 18
Gone public
One week later
“Are you ready?” Ryan asks me as he parks his SUV in the same lot I parked my car in when I met Gil here for dinner and was waylaid by Jefferson Chancellor and the media.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“You’re lucky you’re so cute or else you’d be a real pain in my ass,” he says, smiling at me.
“Well, excuse me,” I huff.
“It’s all right,” he says before leaning across the center console and placing a kiss on my lips. “Apparently, being a pain in the ass turns me on.”
“You are so not funny,” I droll.
“Really? Because I think I’m hilarious.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You ready now?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
And then he climbs down from the driver seat and places his cover on his head. Then he walks around the hood and opens the passenger door for me. He holds a hand out for me, and I take it without hesitation and let him help me down from the giant SUV he drives.
Ryan keeps my hand in his, and we walk into the restaurant’s front door. While normally we would go through the back like usual, this week, we’re baby-step dating for the world to watch. It’s frustrating, because it feels like we were in these beginning stages months ago, and now we’re running as fast as we can to catch up.
Last night, Ryan repeated his words of last week that we’re going to get married in the near future. It still surprises the hell out of me when he says it, and he brings it up as often as he can. I think he’s hoping I get used to the idea so it will happen sooner rather than later.
There are a handful of photographers standing outside the restaurant. Someone must have tipped them off, and I have a funny feeling that someone was Rick. He does excel at such duplicitous actions, after all. Cameras flash, and they call out our names.
“Jules! Jules!” someone shouts.
“Captain Black! Is it true you’re date Ms. Fairchild?”
“I think that’s pretty obvious,” he answers with a happy smile on his face. His southern drawl is enunciated, so he sounds like a friendly, good-time guy.
Ryan pulls open the front door of the restaurant for me as someone shouts another question. “Are you the man in the video?”
I hold my breath and wonder what he’s going to say. I know he said he wasn’t the kind of guy to let his woman take the fall for him, but I also explained I’m not the kind of woman to ruin a man’s career, unintentionally or otherwise. I was pretty sure we had come to an understanding, but the moment of truth is now upon us. Thankfully, he doesn’t keep me waiting long.
“No.” His voice is clear and calm. If I didn’t know better, I would swear he was telling the truth. He’s that damn good.
“Does it bother you that there is a sex tape that’s gone viral of your new girlfriend and another man?” a reporter asks.
“Yeah,” Ryan answers flawlessly. “It d
oes bother me. Jules did not make that tape, as she’s already mentioned in previous statements. So someone made it and released it without her knowledge, and it’s a crying shame that someone would sink that low. Jules is an honorable and kind woman, which is why I’m involved with her. She does not deserve to be treated this way. Now, if you’ll excuse us. We don’t have too much time for lunch today.”
And then he removes his cover and steps inside after me.
He is perfection.
The hostess shows us to our table and offers us menus, but Ryan declines them. Instead, he proves that not only has he been into me, but he’s also paid attention when he orders my favorite meal for me and then his usual for himself. All while I sit surprised.
“What?” he asks with a smile playing about his mouth that is very handsome when the waitress walks away.
“You know me,” I blurt out.
“I pay attention,” he says casually. “I like to take care of what’s mine, and that comes with proper care and attention.”
“Shit,” I mumble. “You’re a good guy.”
“I sure do try,” he replies, and then the waitress brings our glasses of iced tea to the table. I take a sip of what I think is mine, and it’s so sweet I think all my teeth might fall out.
“Yikes,” I mutter, pushing his glass across the table to him as he makes a funny face and pushes my unsweet tea to me.
“I don’t know how you can drink that stuff.” He laughs. “It’s so bitter.”
“This from the guy who takes his coffee black,” I say with a smile.
“Coffee should put hair on your chest, whiskey should burn it back off again, and tea should be sweet just like your mama,” he offers.
“I guess my mama’s not very sweet,” I admit.
“Since I’ve met her once or twice when I was working for Jake, I can agree with you there,” he says, and I feel my cheeks heat. I hate that he knows my parents and that I come from that family. No wonder he didn’t want to want me in the beginning; he knew I was born in a viper’s den.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“What do you have to be sorry for?” he asks, his brows narrowing together.
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