by Julie Kriss
“Me neither,” Jace said. “Dex doesn’t want to do it either. But he’s stuck with it.”
I looked at Ryan. “You’re getting satisfaction out of this.”
“Out of watching Dex have to behave like an actual human for Luke’s wedding? Yes, I am.” Ryan grinned. “I’m just waiting for him to burst into flames, like sinners are supposed to do in church.”
Lauren raised her hand. “Excuse me. You’ve forgotten something.” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s the best man’s job to plan the bachelor party.”
Jace and Ryan went quiet.
“I take it that’s a problem,” I said.
“Dex’s parties are a little… infamous in Westlake,” Lauren explained. “High school with the Riggs brothers was an adventure.”
Tara looked at Jace. “I heard a story about a topless party.”
“I was not at the topless party,” Jace said. “Okay, only for a few minutes. Then I bailed.”
“I was definitely at the topless party,” Ryan admitted. He ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, yes. If Dex is throwing the bachelor party, we will have to do damage control. We don’t need the cops to get called after all the heat we’ve been through. We’ll try not to have strippers.”
“Try?” I said. “Either you hire strippers or you don’t.”
Jace shook his head. “You don’t know Dex. He doesn’t have to hire them. The strippers come to him for free.”
I stared at him. “Okay, well, come on. You guys aren’t in high school anymore. You must have calmed down some by now, right?”
Next to me, Tara sighed. Lauren narrowed her eyes. “You know, Casey Simpson’s junkyard was torched a few weeks ago. The last I heard, they never figured out who did it.”
I looked from Ryan to Jace and back again. “You’re kidding me.”
“We had a good reason, I swear,” Ryan said. “I just can’t tell you what it was.”
“It was a very good reason,” Jace agreed. “But hell, this bachelor party is going to be a disaster.”
Seventeen
Ryan
* * *
Technically, I had no reason to run anymore. I wasn’t training for anything; I wasn’t going to compete. I could sleep in every day and no one would know the difference. But my body didn’t know how to do anything else. When I didn’t run, I went crazy.
It was Friday night, Dylan was going to a sleepover at one of his new school friends’, and after I dropped him off I was restless and at loose ends. Kate wasn’t home. Maybe she’d gone to a bar to pick up a stranger after all, like she’d threatened to do. Maybe she was out doing something innocent. She didn’t tell me, and I had no idea.
Which left me alone in the house with my thoughts, the throbbing pain in my shoulder, and a craving for the pills I shouldn’t be taking.
I didn’t have any pills, but I knew where to get them. I had the guy’s number. I could call him, get in my car, meet him somewhere, and be dry-swallowing a couple of pills within ninety minutes. Just thinking about it made me remember what it felt like to float, to not care, to feel the pain fade to a faint memory. To have that weird, groggy sleep where I was half dreaming. To think for a while that everything was fine, just fine.
The pain had eased off since I left Detroit. Since I left baseball. Instead of agony it had become a throbbing ache, sometimes punctuated with stinging zaps, like a reminder: Hey, asshole, don’t forget that you’re still screwed up. Yet even without the pills the pain was much better than it had been in over a year, and I’d done nothing except dump baseball and come back to Westlake.
There had only been one doctor—I forgot which one now—who had gently suggested that what I was feeling might be at least partly psychological. “Stress and anxiety can play a large part in recovery from an injury,” he’d said, tiptoeing around the idea that it was all in my head. “We don’t fully understand the effects of stress on the body, but they can be significant.”
“I don’t need a shrink,” I’d said at the time. “I need to play baseball.”
Now I thought maybe I’d been an idiot. I’d spent most of the last year wound up tighter than a mousetrap, pissed at myself, pissed at the world, and ready to go off. The pain and the anxiety fed each other, both of them digging their claws into me harder and harder. I’d been frustrated and stuck.
Now that I was in Westlake and the league was behind me, the pain had started to give. But it was still there, because I was still frustrated.
I did an evening run, pounding through the neighborhood in the near-dark of fall. The leaves were changing fast now, and they rustled on the sidewalk beneath my feet. Fire it up, my coach said in my head, and in a few minutes I was in the zone, feeling my breath and my body move, my shoulder throbbing with each step. I passed older couples going for evening walks and kids on their bikes.
I’d left Detroit, but a lot of the shit was still inside me, like garbage left on the floor when someone moves out. I was disappointed that I’d failed, even though I hated baseball. I was looking at a future of doing nothing but fixing cars, because it was the only skill I had. To learn another skill I’d have to go back to school, which based on my past record I would probably fail. I was worried about Dylan, because he was at his first sleepover and because I was always worried about Dylan. I was jealous of Luke and Emily. I still had this fucking pain, which made me want the pills. And I wanted Kate.
Here in the privacy of my head I could admit that I wanted her more than anything—more than I’d ever wanted another woman, more than I’d ever wanted to play baseball. Next to Dylan she was the only pure, perfect thing in my life, and I wanted every piece of her. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to own her. I wanted her to own me. I relived the night I’d touched her over and over, the way she’d been so easy beneath my fingers, the way she’d given in.
That first night five years ago had been more than just great sex between strangers. It had been a chance, an opportunity, and I hadn’t taken it. If I’d gotten Kate’s number that night and called her again, my life would be in a different place right now. But I had been full of myself, so sure that more opportunities would fall into my lap. It was easy just to enjoy myself, then go home and go on with my life instead of trying for something. That was how I’d lived my life then—whatever was easiest, I did.
Two years later, when Dylan showed up on my doorstep, I learned: you can’t dodge the hard stuff forever.
I was back at the house now, and I slowed to a walk as I approached the front door. I stopped and stretched, feeling my body protest. I wasn’t even thirty yet, but at nineteen I would have been able to do that run almost without losing my breath. Then I’d shower, go party, and fuck someone new, so I could do it all over again the next day.
Where do you go, I thought, when every choice you’ve ever made has sent you further to the bottom?
I had no fucking idea.
Kate’s car still wasn’t in the driveway. It was still just me and the voices in my head.
I mopped my face and went into the house. Upstairs, I stripped naked and showered, letting the hot water soak all my aches and pains. I got out and dried off, wrapped a towel around my waist.
I walked out of the bathroom, into the bedroom, and Kate was there.
She was standing in the middle of the bedroom, in the light from the bedside lamp, wearing a silky negligee thing. It was navy blue, nothing overdone or trashy, but it was thin and short and sexy. I could see pretty clearly that she wasn’t wearing anything under it. Her hair was down and she didn’t have her glasses on. Her expression was nervous and hopeful at once. There was no mistake, absolutely none, about why she was here.
I went very still.
She shifted her weight and her gaze flicked down, over me. I watched as she got turned on, looking at me, as it pushed out some of the nervousness. But it didn’t entirely go away, and I knew the reason why: She thought I might say no. She thought I might say Kate, you should probably leave, and usher her out the door.
>
And I could. I could choose one or the other.
What do you do when every choice you’ve made has pushed you further to the bottom?
I wasn’t going to make the wrong choice this time. I took a step toward her.
She bit her lip, watching me. “Just tell me one thing,” she said, stopping me in my tracks.
I stopped and waited.
Kate took a breath. “Tell me the first thing you said to me five years ago, at the bar at the benefit,” she said.
I was shocked for a second. Not that she’d ask me that, but that she’d think I had forgotten. And she was right. If I’d forgotten, she should turn and walk out the door.
But I knew. Of course I knew.
“’I like your lip gloss,’” I said, quoting myself.
She smiled. There was relief in that smile, and happiness, and anticipation. And some nervousness, too. I recognized all of it.
She reached down and pulled the negligee up off over her head in one motion. She was naked underneath it.
I pulled off my towel, and I grabbed her.
Eighteen
Kate
* * *
Here’s the thing about having sex with Ryan Riggs: It’s never what you think it’s going to be. When you think you’re going to get a one-night quickie from a stranger, you get a long night of orgasms instead. Then you get hot and dirty in the laundry room, his filthy words in your ear. Then, when you think he’d be cocky and have every reason to get you in bed again, he respectfully keeps his hands off you. And when you finally throw yourself at him, you get a different man yet again.
The fact was, I’d been thinking of different ways to throw myself at him ever since that laundry room encounter. I pictured myself surprising him by getting naked into his bed—the direct approach—or taking a more subtle route by asking him out for a drink or something. I could “bump into” him when he came out of the shower, maybe. All of these things required Ryan to be gullible, me to be outrageous, and Dylan to be gone. Preferably overnight.
I had so many crazy plans in my head that I came home from getting my color done at The Big Do, Lauren and Emily’s salon—I got the discount, as promised—and realized that I’d forgotten that Dylan had a sleepover tonight. Dylan was gone for the night, and I’d actually forgotten. The shower upstairs was running, and my hair looked nice. Ryan and I were alone. I had a few minutes to come up with something. I had to improvise.
So I stripped, pulled out the only piece of lingerie I owned—it wasn’t spectacular, but it was better for seduction than a T-shirt and sleep shorts—and I walked upstairs to his bedroom, waiting for him to get out of the shower. It wasn’t elaborate. It was simple. I just hoped it worked.
It worked.
Ryan Riggs might be complicated, but in some ways he was very, very simple. I pulled off my lingerie and he jumped me.
He yanked off his towel—oh, praise God, he was spectacular—and grabbed me, tossing me onto the bed. Then he climbed on and kissed me, long and deep and hard. I dug my fingers into his hair. It got hot very fast, his damp skin against mine, his taste in my mouth. It wasn’t a sweet kiss—it was slow and dirty, possessive, but at the same time he was reading me. He broke the kiss and nipped my neck as I ran my hands down his bare, taut back.
“Okay?” I asked him, because I could feel something fragile in him.
“Do not change your mind,” he growled into my skin.
I wrapped my legs around him, felt his cock sliding against me, his hard weight on me, and a pulse of pleasure moved through me. “Don’t change your mind,” I said.
I like your lip gloss. He’d remembered. He hadn’t even had to try; he had those silly words branded into his memory, just like I did. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I couldn’t.
But here we were. He was all smooth, sleek muscle, every part of him, his chest and his stomach, his hips and his legs. His back rippled under my palms. I ran my hands up to his shoulders, then down to his ass, which I’d wanted to grab for weeks now. It felt as good as I remembered.
He made a delicious noise in his throat, like I was driving him crazy, and then his hand was on my breast, cupping it expertly like he’d done the other night, my flesh spilling just right over his palm. He bent down and sucked the nipple into his mouth.
I arched my back as arousal cracked through me like a flash of lightning. “Jesus,” I said.
“These,” he said, cupping both breasts, then stroking the nipples with his thumbs, “are so fucking perfect.”
My cheeks went hot. He’d been looking? “Well, I—” He sucked the other nipple into his mouth, and words left me, replaced by a pathetic mewling sound.
He stroked his hands down my ribcage, my waist, my belly, his big palms warm and sure. He followed his hands with kisses down my skin, making me shiver. “Grab the headboard,” he said. “Hold on to it.”
I glanced up. The headboard was metal with spindles. I reached up and pushed my wrists through the gap, holding on. The pose changed the shape of my body, pushed my breasts up and out, arched my back. I felt on display, which was obviously the idea. Even though I was just as naked as I’d been a few seconds ago, I felt like I was spread out for him. The thought made me hot and needy.
I looked down and saw his dark eyes on me. His hair was mussed. He had a five o’clock shadow, which made him look a little like the bad boy he was.
He ran his hands over me again, obviously liking the pose I was in. It felt like I was tied up, except I could let go whenever I wanted to. “Don’t let go,” he said, reading my mind. “I like this.”
“I want to see you,” I said.
He smiled. It was devastating, that smile. He braced himself over me on straight arms, looking down at me, so I could see his chest, his washboard stomach, the V of his hips that led down to his cock. “Like this?” he said, teasing.
I let my gaze crawl him shamelessly as I remembered to breathe. “Not bad,” I managed.
“Not bad,” he agreed. “Open your legs.”
They were already open, but I pushed them wider. Now I was holding the headboard, my legs spread, completely on display for him—and he was braced above me, on display for me. We both watched as he lowered his hips and pressed his cock through my wet folds, rubbing me. I gasped and I watched his muscles bunch, his jaw twitch as he kept control.
He slid over my pussy again, and it was so good, but I wanted more. My hips pulsed up and he made a little sound of pleasure, moving with me.
“Fuck, yes,” he said softly. “This is better than the fantasies.”
I huffed a surprised and turned-on laugh. “You had fantasies?”
“Every fucking day,” he said. “Didn’t you?”
I couldn’t answer, because he was rubbing my clit with the head of his cock, and I couldn’t speak. He moved his hips in little circles, hitting it just right, and my head fell back, my eyes closed. “Oh, God,” I said.
“Keep talking,” Ryan said, still moving.
“Don’t stop. Please.”
“Very nice, Kate,” he said. “I like to hear you say it.”
He was commanding, in control, and at the same time I knew I had him. It was me he wanted—only me. I was turning him on. I was making him crazy. This big, hot, muscled man was all mine.
“Kiss me again,” I told him.
He leaned down, and this time the kiss was slower, almost sweet, his tongue gentle in my mouth. It contrasted with the very, very dirty way he rubbed his cock on me, the slick sound it made, the way I could feel it pulse hotly against my pussy, the way the head hit the nerve center of my clit, sending waves of pleasure through me.
Ryan broke the kiss. “Good?” he asked against my mouth.
I couldn’t form sentences anymore, I wanted him inside me so bad. “Please,” I said. “Please.”
“Ask and you’ll receive,” he said, and then his weight was off me as he rolled to open the drawer of the nightstand. I was on the pill, but of course he
wouldn’t do it without a condom. He’d made that mistake once before.
He came back, ripping open a condom wrapper. “You have condoms in the nightstand?” I managed. “We just moved in.”
“Kate, Kate,” Ryan said, shaking his head as he pulled the condom out. “I’m nothing if not hopeful when it comes to you. Don’t let go of that headboard.”
I didn’t. I held on hard as I watched him roll the condom on, watched him smooth it over his cock. I’m nothing if not hopeful when it comes to you. “I should have jumped you weeks ago,” I said, just realizing it now.
“You should have jumped me the minute I opened the door that first day,” Ryan said, as if this was obvious. “But we’ll make up for it now.” He hooked my knees over his elbows and pushed slowly inside me.
I let my head fall back, my eyes close. “Oh, fuck,” I panted. This wasn’t like last time. Last time there had been lots of kissing, lots of stroking to make sure I was ready. We’d done it under a sheet. Ryan had been almost gentlemanly, considering we’d started with his face between my legs, making me come.
He wasn’t being gentlemanly now. There was no sheet. I was naked and spread for him, and he was on his knees between my legs, fucking me, and we were both losing our minds. I could feel myself clenching, squeezing him, and I could hear the sound of primal pleasure he made as he pushed all the way in. I was wet for him, but there was still intense pressure, which made the pleasure even keener.
“You’re so tight,” he said, his voice a strangled rasp. “Okay?”
“Yes.” I was more than okay. “Yes.”
He unhooked an arm from my knee and used it to brace himself over me, keeping the other arm under my knee, keeping me open. “I’ll go slower next time, but this will be a rough ride. That good with you?”
I opened my eyes and looked at him. “Definitely.”
His pupils darkened, and he leaned down and kissed me. Then he started to move.