“And you’ve tried to kiss me,” she counters softly.
I drop my gaze but not my head. “Are you expecting an apology?”
She shakes her head.
“Good.” A flash of lightning illuminates the sky, and suddenly the beauty of her face is crystal clear. It’s disarming, and my thoughts are suddenly pouring from my mouth. “God, Hannah, I think you’re the most stunning woman I’ve ever met.”
A small, embarrassed smile tweaks the corner of her mouth, her arms pulling the blanket in as she looks away from me. “Beauty is a curse.”
I don’t like her counter, and I especially hate the idea that that’s all she thinks I care about. But actually, I wasn’t referring to her looks, though she really is beautiful. Naturally so.
“I was talking about your soul,” I say, ready to put it all out there. “Your quirkiness. Your carefree nature. Your passion for all things paint and messy, and your absolute indifference for anything materialistic. Your simplistic lifestyle. Your fucking dungarees and those scarves you tie in your hair. Your makeup-free face and natural raspberry scent.” Hannah Bright defies the composition of a woman in every way. She’s unique. Beautiful without trying. Sexy without trying. Tempting without trying. I can’t shake off the notion that she’s not only not trying, but doing everything in her power not to be those things at all. To be a wallflower. To blend into the crowd. To live her life under the radar. She’s failed. She’s on my radar—a huge, bright, flashing blip. But as if her wildness isn’t enough of a draw to me, the secrets I sense she’s keeping are only amplifying my curiosity.
She looks at me, and I see with perfect clarity that she loves what I love about her. I reach forward and slip my hand into hers, squeezing. “So what do you like about me?”
Her lips twist, a smile threatening as her gaze drags over my face. “Your smile is crooked.”
“Hazard of my past job.”
“And your nose is crooked.” Her own nose wrinkles as she speaks.
“I had a fight with an axe.” I shrug, remembering teaching Alex how to swing. I didn’t anticipate her strength. Or the speed at which she would bring the blade down, cracking me on the nose with the handle as I was moving out of her way. My eyes fall onto the bridge of Hannah’s nose and the small bump there. “And you’re hardly Miss Straight Nose yourself,” I say gently.
Her finger immediately goes to it, feeling. “I was going to have it fixed.”
“Don’t. It’s perfect.” I shift the hold of my hand in hers and lace our fingers together. “We’re really wet.”
She looks up to the sky, closes her eyes, and smiles. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Good. She’s as oblivious to the world happening as I am when we’re together. “Come to bed with me?” I ask gently, and her head drops fast. I stare at her deeply, mentally begging for her to agree. The tiniest of nods is all I need, and I get it. So I walk us back to the cabin and into the warmth, and I lead her all the way to my bedroom. I pull the heavy blanket from her shoulders and let it drop to the floor in a wet heap, then wait for her to face me again before I push my sweatpants down my thighs. She keeps her gaze on my eyes.
I have her. And it’s a revelation to me, but I’m silently wondering how I can keep her. I don’t like the pang of pain that stabs at my heart.
Because once again, something deep and unshakable is telling me she isn’t available.
Chapter Eleven
HANNAH
Ryan won’t make the first move, I know that, so I look at him, taking in the scar on his lip before reaching up and tracing the length of it. I feel his hand slip onto my lower back and apply a light pressure, just enough to tug me in. I breathe out, the feeling of our skin touching taking my breath away. He feels so warm. So firm. So strong. I look into his eyes. They’re lazy. Shining with want.
There’s nothing left to do. I push my mouth to his and swallow his broken groan, linking my arms around his neck and pulling us close together. And I’m lost in him.
All our resistance in recent days pings like an overstretched elastic band, and suddenly we’re mad and clumsy, rushed and frenzied. He kisses me with a hard passion, our heads tilting, our hands fumbling in each other’s hair, our feet clumsy as we stumble toward his bed. We crash down in a heap, and he’s quickly rolling us so he’s beneath me, giving me full control. Not that I know what to do with it.
Reaching for my legs, he guides them over his waist so I’m straddling him, and I get the first dash of contact from his erection on the inside of my thigh. I whimper into his mouth, lifting my hips and lowering my upper body onto his chest. My arms frame his head. My boobs squish into his pecs. My wet hair falls onto the pillow. His hands on my back. The feel of his arousal resting between my thighs.
It’s sensation overload. I rip my mouth from his, leaving him panting, and find myself frantically kissing every part of his face—his chin, his cheeks, his nose, his brow. This hunger in me is new. It’s out of control.
It’s him.
“Hannah,” Ryan wheezes, taking his hands into my hair and trying to pull me back. My hair is pulled as a result, but the sharp pain doesn’t stop me, my crazed appetite for Ryan getting the better of me. “Hey.”
I’m suddenly flipped to my back and pinned to the mattress by his body blanketing mine, and I blink, getting him in focus. The vision of him breathing down at me, his wide shoulders and thick biceps caging me in, doesn’t help my cause. He’s built well, muscled and tall, yet he’s gentle. He’s rough but soft. He’s just wonderful, and now he’s gazing down at me knowingly with that small crooked smile. I force my hands over my head, scared to touch him again, scared to lose my mind.
“Let’s slow this down, shall we?” He drops his lips to the corner of my mouth and kisses me tenderly. “There’s no rush.”
My starvation disagrees. I don’t want these feelings to end. “You shouldn’t be so irresistible.”
Ryan laughs lightly as he shifts his legs and uses them to spread mine. “I love how frank you’re being with me this evening.” Settling between my thighs, he lays his arms over mine above my head and pecks the end of my nose. My perfect nose. “I don’t want our first time together to be a desperate rush. Though, to be clear, I’m pretty fucking desperate for you.” He’s in better control of himself than me. I don’t know why that stings a little. It’s not because I’m easier to resist for him than he is for me. I know that’s not the case. Is it because he’s used to these feelings of ecstasy? Does he have them frequently, whereas I have never had them? I flinch, hating where my thoughts are taking me. “What’s wrong?” he asks, not missing my inner unrest.
“Nothing.” I force a smile.
It doesn’t wash, and his eyebrows are suddenly high. “Hannah, you can tell me anything.”
He’s wrong, but rather than refute him, I give him just a tiny scrap of me to appease him. And to get him off my case. “It’s been a long time for me,” I admit, cringing at the sound of my confession. God, how pathetic does he think I am? “Five years and two months, to be precise.”
“That’s pretty precise.”
I look away, utterly embarrassed. What if he thinks I’m terrible in bed? What if this is the one and only time I get to have all these feelings? What the hell am I thinking? Urghhh, I’m no good at this. “I’m just sayin—”
His lips are suddenly on mine, effectively silencing me with another kiss. “Just take a breath. Can’t you tell already that this is going to be amazing?” Biting my lip, he tugs playfully. “Do we need protection?”
I shake my head.
“And I’m assuming since it’s been a while, you’re—”
“Clean, yes.”
“Me too.” He smiles at my urgency and immediately shifts his hips, falling to my entrance. I breathe in quickly, tensing. “I said, take a breath, Hannah. Relax.”
Relax, relax, relax. Take a breath? Then he should stop stealing it. I use everything I have to talk myself down, and my body softens as his mo
uth opens and invites me in again. I go with ease, humming around the swirl of our tongues as Ryan inches forward a tiny bit, pushing into me. I flex my hands, and he moves his, lacing our fingers together and squeezing until they’re fists. I know his plan, and it’s fine by me. He’s bombarding my senses again, making it impossible to focus on just one thing. Like the fact that he’s pushing forward again.
His kiss becomes firmer, his hands tighter around mine. I can feel every single pulse on his shaft as he slips deeper. My back bows when he thrusts that final bit, my face falling into his neck as I cry out.
And he stills, allowing us both to settle into the feeling. “Are you okay?” he asks quietly, and I nod, unable to speak through my pleasure. Pulling away so I lose my hiding place in his neck, he looks down at my sweaty cheeks. His stubble is glistening, his top lip wet. He’s a vision, his wet hair dark and messy. God, he’s so handsome, ruggedly so.
Slowly, he withdraws, sliding free, and then he carefully and precisely rocks back in. His breathing is instantly ragged, his eyelids heavy. “Amazing, right?”
Oh my goodness, yes, completely. But I want to feel him, so I flex my hands, and he releases, allowing me to bring them to his shoulders. “Kiss me and it’ll be even better.” I fist his hair and tug him down to my mouth, and my pleasure goes off the charts. I’m teetering back on the edge of lost control, my movements becoming a little crazed again, though hampered by his body on me.
I throw my legs up, circling his back tightly. His momentum doesn’t falter, his drives smooth and exact, each plunge better than the last. My blood starts to burn, my hearing starts to buzz, and the pressure in my lower belly builds and builds. My swallow is lumpy, a ball of emotion lodging in my throat. I’m overwhelmed. Amazed by how incredible this feels. How wonderful he is.
He’s watching me with fascination as he drives me wild with his measured lovemaking. Then his fists sink into the mattress and he pushes his torso up, never once faltering in his pace. Now he’s splitting his attention between my breasts and my face, and the sweat is beginning to pour from his brow as he rolls his hips carefully. He has more leverage, more room to send me even crazier, and he does, the expression on his face cut with pleasure.
I throw my arms back and grab the wooden headboard as I watch him, his face twisting, and he falls to a forearm, taking his spare hand to one of my breasts and covering it, massaging. I brace myself for the feel of his mouth there, seeing the intention in his eyes as he dips slowly and latches onto my nipple, sucking firmly on a moan of bliss. I close my eyes and I’m gone, a slave to Ryan, his mouth, and his hips thrusting at a mind-bending pace.
The pressure continues to build until I’m panting to keep myself from exploding. He must sense my waning control, because he moves back to my face and cages me in again, nudging my cheek with his nose in silent demand. I open my eyes, and the vision of him pushes me past the point of return. My muscles lock, claiming the pleasure, and I get sucked into a vortex of peace as I’m captured by my orgasm.
Ryan never takes his gaze away, and though desperate to close my eyes, I don’t. I do, however, have to brace my arms into his shoulders to deal with the onslaught of pleasure, going to unthinkable heights.
He jerks on a grunt, and his drives become grinds that accompany a long, drawn-out moan, his jaw tight as he comes. And he blinks, appearing dazed, before he falls onto me on an exhausted puff of air, crowding me, still rolling those gorgeous hips, milking every last drop of pleasure from me.
I’m wiped out.
Yet bursting at the seams with a new kind of energy as we lie in a sweaty, breathless tangle.
In my daze, I notice that the storm has died. At least, it has outside. Inside me, it’s very much alive, and I’m worried it could be damaging. My dormant heartache has gone as if it was never there. Could Ryan be my cure? It’s a tempting thought—for so long I’ve had to be unrelentingly strong—but it’s also dangerous. This distraction, as lovely as it is, could make me weak again.
I wrap my arms around Ryan’s broad back, my nose buried in his clammy shoulder. He smells as good as he looks and tastes. Manly and tough. I inhale through my nose and let out the breath on a broken sigh, storing every second of the last half hour to memory. I wait for regret to creep up on me as our breathing gradually evens out. It’s peaceful, but that storm inside rages on.
Eventually, Ryan finds the energy to peel himself away from me, shuffling down the bed and laying his arms across my stomach, his chin resting on top. He looks up at me with that crooked smile, and I find myself reaching down and drawing a line across the scar at the corner. “How did you get this?” I ask.
“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”
I grin at him, half expecting him to start laughing and tell me he’s kidding. A few moments pass before I realize he’s not joking at all. I bring the pad of my finger to my lips and kiss it, then place it back on his scar. He turns his head, eyes on me, and kisses my finger, too. I smile and drag my touch to his nose, circling the bridge where it bends slightly. He crosses his eyes to watch my finger, and I laugh beneath him, jerking him on my tummy. “And this?”
“My daughter cracked me with the handle of an axe when I was teaching her to chop wood.”
My finger pauses. “Ouch.”
“Blood everywhere. Cabbage thought I was going to die.”
I smile, wide and amused. “Why’d you call her Cabbage?”
“Because her mother hates it,” he says easily, and with no remorse. “And because she stank when she was a baby.”
A small laugh escapes me, and I lie here, naked, with a naked man sprawled across me, imagining Ryan with a baby girl. There’s something very endearing about it. And very sexy. He’s a good father. That’s a great measure of any man. I remember everything Molly told me about Ryan and how Cabbage came into his life. “You’re a good man,” I say, and he smiles, his eyes falling to my boobs, a wolfish smirk forming before he takes a cheeky bite.
I yelp on a laugh as he crawls off me and tugs me onto my side to mirror him, his hand on my hip holding me in place. “She wasn’t planned, but everything happens for a reason.”
“I hate that saying,” I blurt before I can think twice. But I do hate it. It’s bollocks. Anger rises in me, hot and unstoppable. “What’s the reason for the bump on my nose?” I ask Ryan quietly, my mouth running away with me. “What’s the reason for me living a life under the ra—” I cut myself short, withdrawing a fraction.
“Radar,” Ryan finishes for me, and I look away, kicking myself. “Hey.” He grabs my face and tugs me back to where he wants me. “The reason for the bump on your nose is because I love it.” Leaning in, he kisses it, and I press my lips together, my hand coming to my face to cover my crazy smile. Ryan soon pulls it away. “And the reason for you living life under the radar is because you were destined to be found by me.”
I’m not smiling now, and I don’t think I’m breathing, either. “Ryan…” Ryan, what?
“Simple as that.” Grabbing me, he rolls to his back and arranges me on his front, pushing me up to sit astride him. “Now, what are you cooking me for breakfast?”
My smile is back, brighter than before. That’s it. End of discussion. He could press me. Ask questions. Demand answers. Yet he won’t. He’ll never know how thankful I am. “So I’m staying?” I ask, wanting nothing more than to spend the entire night with him, cuddled up close.
“Yes.” Taking my hands, he threads our fingers. “Because I need breakfast.”
I gasp, though Ryan, miraculously, keeps a deadpan expression. “You should make me breakfast. Whatever happened to chivalry?”
“Whatever happened to looking after your man?” he counters cheekily, his face still poker-straight.
“My man?” I ask, interested, though loving the sound of it.
“Well, I don’t belong to anyone else.” His big shoulders shrug against the pillow. “Just putting that out there.”
If electricity was run on smile
s, the world would be short-circuiting right about now, because mine is epic. “I don’t belong to anyone, either.” I bite my lip, my finger circling his belly button. “Just putting that out there.”
He nods agreeably on a little pout. “Then I’d better stake my claim before someone else does.”
“Me too.” Our grins collide, and Ryan shoots up, tackling me to the other end of the bed. I yelp, disoriented when I come to rest. I don’t get the chance to gather my bearings. His lips are on mine, staking his claim.
Chapter Twelve
RYAN
My bed. God, I love my bed. I know the smell, where to find the cool patches, every dip and lump and how many times I can roll before I reach the edge. Three. That’s from the middle. I sleep in the middle. Two pillows—goose feather, of course. One leg out of the covers, too.
I feel myself coming around, slowly waking, and I quickly register the absence of everything familiar about my bed. It smells different. I inhale the scent of raspberries as I shift my leg. No cool patch. I slide my hand out from beneath the pillow, feeling that the edge of the bed is close. No way I’m rolling three times this morning. My neck is sore because I only have one pillow. And there are no covers on me at all.
Opening my eyes, I turn my head on my one pillow and forget the absence of everything familiar. She’s on her back, the duvet entwined around her legs and finishing at her waist, one arm over her head, her face turned in to it. She looks dreamy. Gorgeous. So fucking peaceful.
I gingerly turn my body onto my side to face her, propping myself up on a bent arm. Her chest rises and falls steadily, calmly, her lips parted a fraction. Naturally, I make the most of my opportunity, studying her, every tiny piece, from the hair on her head all the way down to the tips of her toes. Every inch of her, inside and out, is beautiful.
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