“Calm down,” Sam laughed as she exited the room, “I'm gonna go answer the door. This is better anyway. You can make a grand entrance down the staircase.”
“Perfect!” Karina hissed, taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself down.
“Try not to hyperventilate while I'm on my way to the door,” Sam giggled as she skipped down the stairs.
“Hey, Ryan,” Sam greeted as she opened the front door, “Karina will be down in just a...”
She stopped as she noticed Ryan's awestruck gaze focused above and behind her. She turned around, and as she had predicted, Karina was gracefully sweeping down the curving staircase.
“Guess she'll be down now,” Sam said cheerfully, stepping aside.
When Karina reached the front door, Ryan kissed her on the cheek and said, “You look amazing,” the awe he felt clearly showing through in his voice.
Karina beamed, the compliment clearly finding its mark. “Oh, thanks,” she said, a slightly dismissive tone in her voice, as if to indicate that her preparations had been no big deal, “I just threw something on...”
Sam barked out a laugh and Karina shot her a look.
“Sorry,” Sam said, “Anyway, you two kids have fun! Do anything and everything I wouldn't do!”
Ryan held out his hand, palm up. “Shall we?” he said with a smile.
Karina put her hand in his and he led her to his truck, opening her door for her and getting her settled inside before going around to his side and climbing in.
He put the key into the ignition, but before starting the truck, he turned to her, looked her up and down, and shook his head.
“You sure don't plan on making this whole 'going slow' thing easy on me, do you?” he asked wryly to himself.
Karina gave him a wicked half-smile, her eyes glinting mischievously. “What whole 'going slow' thing?” she asked innocently.
--- ~ ---
Ryan pulled up in front of Two Scoops and turned off the truck. He turned toward Karina. Damn, she was stunning!
“Are you OK?” he asked with concern, “You barely said a word the whole ride here.”
She laughed, and shook her head, and then her shoulders, as if trying to rid herself of a dark cloud.
“I'm great!” she said, “I'm just...well, I hate to admit it, but I'm nervous,” she said, looking embarrassed, “I've never actually been on a real date before. You know? I've never had a traditional boyfriend, or a so-called 'normal' relationship. So, this is, like...my first date. And I'm just not sure how to act.”
Ryan smiled, and leaned over to give her a small kiss.
“There's no particular way to act,” he assured her, brushing a few strands of hair back behind her ear, “You just be you, and I'll just be me...we won't even put the pressure onto this of thinking of it as a 'date.' It's just you and me, spending some time, and eating some ice cream. Sound good?”
She smiled back at him, “I like that.”
Ryan jumped out of the truck and came around to Karina's side, opening her door and helping her out of the truck.
“So,” she asked lightly as they strolled hand in hand down the sidewalk toward the ice cream shop, “How does your grandmother feel about the fact that we are having our first let's-not-call-it-a-date at Two Scoops?”
Ryan laughed, “I think we'll be OK as long as we steer clear of the sandwiches.”
They reached the front door of the ice cream shop and Ryan pushed the door open, holding it for Karina, and causing a bell to tinkle as they entered the small establishment.
As they got in line, Ryan leaned down and whispered conspiratorially, “I know Sue Ann would kill me for saying this, but I really like this place. It's really cute in here, and the ice cream is great!”
Karina laughed, “I agree with you!”
When they reached the front of the line, Ryan pulled out his wallet and placed his order, a double scoop of strawberry. He put his hand lightly on the small of Karina's back, indicating that she should place her order, and she said, “I'll have a double scoop, with mint chocolate chip and rocky road, but the rocky road has to be on top.”
The clerk read out the total, but Ryan didn't hear her. He had turned around and was looking at Karina, a shocked expression on his face. He looked stunned as he stared at her with his mouth slightly agape.
The clerk said, “Sir? Sir? That’ll be $4.26,” and Ryan snapped back to reality, pulling several bills from his wallet and paying for the ice cream.
As they stepped aside to wait for their cones to be made and handed to them, Karina started to get irritated.
What was that whole look about, she asked herself, beginning to get more and more agitated.
What, so since I'm a celebrity, I'm supposed to order, like, a half-scoop of fat-free vanilla, no cone? I'm supposed to be freaking anorexic just because I'm a girl, and I'm in the entertainment industry?
Or, no, maybe that's not even it, she continued her mental diatribe. Maybe he thinks I'm a super-diva because I asked for my ice cream a certain way. Well, I'm sorry, but when the mint chocolate chip is on top of the rocky road, the mint bleeds down into the rocky road, and since mint is a more overwhelming flavor than milk chocolate, you can never enjoy the pure flavor of the rocky road! So I ask for my ice cream the way I want it, dammit. So sue me!
Besides, she mentally continued to rant, he doesn't seem to have a problem asking for things exactly the way he wants them in bed, but he's going to give me grief because I ask for things the way I like them in the ice cream parlor?
Was it the skinniness thing or the order of the flavors thing? She shook her head. Doesn’t matter. Either way, he can shove his ice cream straight up his ASS if he expects me to be some supermodel who only eats lettuce. I'm a real person, not a Barbie doll! And if it's about me making one little request about the order of the flavors, well then, I've got news for him!
They sat down at their table, cones in hand, and Karina opened her mouth to unleash her diatribe. As it turned out, she didn't even get one word out, because just as she took a deep breath to start, Ryan smiled at her and ever-so-gently tucked that stray lock behind her ear.
She laughed a little self-consciously, “I'm going to have to make sure I pin that back better next time.”
He smiled and said, “Don't you dare.”
They both licked their ice cream cones in silence for a moment, and then Ryan said, “When I was little, my cousin Callie and I used to ride our bikes to the ice cream parlor every Saturday when she stayed with us during the summer.”
Karina turned, naturally, to look at him as he spoke, but she saw that Ryan was making a very careful study of looking straight ahead, seemingly nonchalantly.
“She would always order the exact same thing that you just did. Double scoop, mint chocolate chip and rocky road, rocky road on the top. She would say it had to go in that order so that the...”
Karina jumped in, and they finished together, their voices in perfect unison, “...mint doesn't pollute the chocolate.”
Ryan looked at her then, smiling wonderingly, “Exactly.”
Karina grinned, “She sounds like my kind of girl. Is she going to be visiting you here soon? I'd love to meet my ice cream soul mate.”
Ryan looked away, as he spoke, and although his voice was a study in forced casualness, she heard the emotion which tightened his throat as he spoke.
“I'd love that,” he said, “I mean, I would have loved that...so much. But she passed away when we were kids.”
Karina reached across the table and put her hand over Ryan's.
“Oh no, I'm so sorry, Ryan.” she whispered.
He shrugged, again trying to aim for casual, but in reality broadcasting his pain with every small move and gesture.
“No, it's no big deal,” he said, “It was a long time ago. She was killed in a car accident, the spring that I was 14. She was 12. That next summer was the summer I came and stayed with Sue Ann. My parents didn't think it was healthy for me to be
knocking around the farm all alone all summer, when the two of us had always spent our summers together. We were inseparable. They thought it would be better for me here.”
“Was it?” Karina asked gently.
Ryan shrugged again, “I guess. I mean, Sue Ann was as sad as I was. Callie was her granddaughter. So it's not like she cheered me up or anything. But, at least we had each other.”
He laughed shakily, “Man, I've never talked about this with anyone before. Do you have some sort of magical power over me, Karina Blackstone?”
She laughed sadly and laid her head on his shoulder. He turned and kissed the top of her head. They sat there for a while like that, eating their ice cream cones in companionable silence, until Karina had a thought that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
She lifted her head and looked at Ryan, “Wait, Ryan...the summer we were 14...that was the summer you came to stay in Hope Falls, and it was the summer I was at music camp...”
He nodded.
“Ryan,” she said slowly, “That was the summer I started eating my ice cream like this. I remember, because it just popped into my head one day in the dessert line at music camp. That exact way of phrasing it, too...that the rocky road needed to be on top because the mint would pollute the chocolate. I remember it specifically, because I started ordering it that way every single night at dinner that summer, and the kids would tease me about it. And I've never eaten my ice cream cones any other way since then, I've never even wanted to try another way, this way just feels so right. Do you think...I mean, I know it sounds crazy...I mean, do you even believe in spirits, or life after death?”
Ryan looked at her, “Do you mean, do I think it's possible that my cousin's spirit found you, years before we would even meet, and left an impression on you that she knew would be meaningful to me one day?”
Karina nodded, almost reluctantly. It was such a crazy theory.
Ryan looked thoughtful as he considered it, and he was silent for so long that Karina almost felt compelled to apologize for having said something so disrespectful. But when he did speak, it was gently, “Callie did always think she knew what was right for me. And she usually did. So, if it was possible that she found you then, and gave you this gift, as a way of telling me years later that YOU are what is right for me. Then yeah, I think that sounds exactly like something she would do.”
Chapter 14
Karina could not help but feel butterflies of anticipation as Ryan helped her out of her side of the truck and walked her up to her front door, his manner reserved and formal.
Ever since their little adventure in his office, she had not been able to stop thinking about a repeat performance. She couldn't believe it herself. It wasn't like her at all. Of course, she wasn't a prude, far from it. But she had always looked at sex kind of like she looked at great food – you enjoy the hell out of it when it's put in front of you, but it's not like you spend a ton of time obsessing about it when it's NOT right in front of you. And, then, sometimes you get a craving. You fill it. It goes away.
That had not been her experience with Ryan. No sirree, Bob. She had been craving him like mad ever since the moment they touched in his office. She was eaten up with desire for him. Her mind would randomly fill with the image of his tongue snaking its way into her mouth, or his hands consuming her breasts, and all of a sudden she would be flushed and breathing hard, her skin tingling, and her center wet and aching. Snap. Just like that. In a flash.
That was the power that this man held over her.
But, you know what? She was done fighting it.
She had spent the time that they had known each other – scratch that, WASTED the time that they had known each other – puzzling over her intense attraction to him, when she realized now that she should have been celebrating it.
So, in a sense, she had been right when she told Sam that what she really needed to do was sleep with him. She had been wrong about the result of that step, of course. He was quite far from being out of her system. She didn't know if he'd ever be out of her system, and she was equally unsure if she ever wanted him out of her system.
But making love to him had opened up her eyes where Ryan was concerned, that part was true enough. She now realized that this crazy roller coaster ride she was on with him was not something that she was going to be able to figure out with logic, it was not something that she was going to be able to talk herself out of, and most of all, it was not something to moan about and be aggrieved over.
No. She was on a runaway horse, and the only thing to do was to grab onto the reigns and hold on as tightly as possible. To try to steer it, control it, was a good way to spook it, and get thrown. No. She needed to just surrender to it, heart and soul, and see where that took her.
Was there a chance that she could get her heart crushed? Good Lord, yes. She couldn't deny that. But, what kind of an artist could she claim to be if she lived life in her secluded little ivory tower, never getting too involved, never letting life get too messy, and keeping herself safe from the more dangerous emotions? That was no way to live a life of passion! That was no way to live a life worth writing about, and worth making art about!
If she got her heart crushed, so be it. She would write songs about it. That was what she did.
She smiled to herself. No matter. The one thing she knew was that the possible heart stomping wouldn't be coming tonight.
No. Tonight was just going to be some good old-fashioned lovin' – some skin-on-skin fun of the variety that she hadn't been able to get out of her mind for 48 solid hours.
With that thought, as her brain had been doing with even the slightest provocation these past two days, she had yet another mental flash of her and Ryan in the office the other night, this one of her lying back on his desk, and of Ryan whispering naughty nothings in her ear.
She caught her breath as her heartbeat quickened, and this happened to be at the exact instance that she and Ryan turned to face each other at her doorway.
His eyes flashed with concern, “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
This didn't assuage the concern she still read in his face, “Are you sure? You look like you've seen a ghost.”
She didn't even bother to answer, in fact she barely heard him. Instead, she slipped her arms around his neck and raised her lips to his, kissing him gently and softly at first, but quickly giving into the rising passion she felt building inside of her.
Ryan slipped his powerful hands around her, sliding them under her shirt so that he was encircling her bare waist. His fingertips almost met in the back, and she loved the way that his big, strong hands and body made her feel so fragile and delicate in his grasp.
Karina felt the desperation in her growing, her arousal was reaching a fever pitch. With a small hop, she jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist, never breaking the connection of the passionate kiss they were sharing.
She felt his hands slide down to her butt to support her, and she used that leverage to begin grinding her hips in rhythm against him.
She felt the vibrations of the groan that tore from his throat before she even heard the sound, and this was the final straw for her, it put her desire over the edge.
As she slid down his body placing her feet back on the ground she trailed kisses down his neck. Between kisses she heard herself pleading, “I want you Ryan. I want to feel you against me. I want you to kiss every inch of me, and I need to kiss every inch of you.”
The heat of Ryan’s labored breaths enveloped her senses. She could feel the pulse in his neck throbbing against her lips and tongue. He held her firmly against him, the delicious pressure of his fingers gripping her hips was causing a perfect storm of pleasure to build inside of her.
She forced herself to pull away from him, “Let me just get the door.”
She turned and fumbled with the front door lock, lightheadedness making her fingers thick and clumsy.
She heard Ryan take a deep breath behind her and sensed him t
ake a step back.
She turned to face him, “Seriously, it'll just take a sec,” she assured him.
But what she saw in his face was neither impatience, nor even desire anymore. What she saw was a very disconcerting combination of regret and determination.
He sighed, “Karina, I can't go inside with you tonight.”
She was flabbergasted, “Wait, what? Why? What do you mean?”
He shook his head, “This isn't on the table for me, not until our relationship is on more solid ground in the commitment department.”
She stepped back, puzzlement drawing her eyebrows together, “What do you mean? Sex? We already had sex. It was already on the table,” she smirked, “Or rather, on the desk.”
He smiled affectionately and tucked her hair behind her ear, “And I don't regret that. It was beautiful, and I'm glad we shared that. But it's not who I am. I want to get to know you now. I already feel very strongly for you, I might even be falling in love with you. I think I probably am.”
The furrow between her brows deepened, “Then why...”
He smiled again, “Because, sweetheart. For me, that's even MORE of an incentive to take it slow, and do things in the right order.”
He placed a slow, gentle kiss on her forehead – an affectionate and sweet token that, to Karina, was all the more erotic for its pure intentions, which mirrored Ryan's own. And with that, he turned and sauntered off down the driveway.
“If you think that making your ass look particularly cute as you walk away is going to torture me, you're wrong!” she called in a teasing tone at his retreating back.
He laughed and raised his hand in a goodbye wave, but did not break stride or turn around. He got into his truck and looked at her. For so long, in fact, that it finally became awkward. Finally, he rolled down his window and called, “I'm not leaving until I see that your cute ass is safely inside the house, Karina!”
She smirked playfully, “Well, maybe I'll just stand out here on my porch all night, then!”
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