And wasn’t this why he’d struggled so hard to stay away from her? Hadn’t he known, deep down, that fucking this woman was going to be about a hell of a lot more than sex, and take him someplace completely unexpected?
He’d known last night, when he’d gone to lie down on her sofa and found himself dialing Hannah’s cell phone, needing answers to the riddle that she’d become. The intoxicating puzzle that he wanted to unravel, piece by piece, until he could figure out just what made her tick. On one level, it was the investigator in him—but most importantly it was the man. The man wanted to get under her guard, just like she’d crawled under his, and push her farther than anyone ever had before. He wanted to get to the core of Shea Dresden…uncover all her little secrets…and claim her in the most primal, primitive way a man could stake his claim.
And the call with Hannah hadn’t been easy. Not that he’d expected her to break confidence with Shea and spill it all, no matter how close he and Hannah were, but he hadn’t counted on the pangs of conscience she’d invoked. He’d damned near blushed when she’d started reading him the riot act.
“So what are you looking for here, Ry? Because I don’t think you’re going to like what I’ve got to say.”
“Shit, why do women always have to make everything so damn difficult?” he’d muttered, stretching out across Shea’s thankfully long sofa, smelling her subtle scent on the scarlet cushion behind his head and the soft chenille throw he’d tossed over his even longer body. “All I want is to know—to try to understand—ah shit, I don’t know what I called you for. Just forget it.”
“She’s really gotten to you, hasn’t she?”
“And wouldn’t you love it if she had?”
“Don’t sneer at me, Ry. If I didn’t think you two were perfect for each other, I could’ve warned her off you long ago. Trust me, you big jerk, it’s been hell trying to paint you as anything other than an oversexed playboy.”
He snorted. “What the hell? You been keeping tabs on my love life, Hannah?”
“Okay, genius, let’s see if you can figure this one out on your own? Now that you’ve seen her bedroom, and you know where her bed is, why don’t you put two-and-two together in that crime-solving brain of yours and explain to me why she might have that impression of you?”
He’d grunted, cursing women for the twisted riddles they spoke in, when it suddenly dawned on him. Ah shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Her fucking bed was against the same wall as his. The same wall his bed slammed into every damn time he brought home a woman to screw. The same thin wall that probably bled every damn sound right through its cheap-ass drywall. Son-of-a-bitch.
He’d made a low, groaning curse, and Hannah had clucked softly on the other end. “Yeah, you got it, big guy. You’ve been giving her quite the show lately.”
“Shit, I never even thought of that.” He’d cringed, thinking of his desperate attempts lately to screw her out of his system. Hell, he’d probably slept with five different women just in the last month, trying to work his way out of this obsession for Shea.
Hannah’s sigh had been deep and heavy, fully exaggerated. “I swear, Ry, sometimes you can be so damn dense when it comes to women.”
He’d shut his eyes and tried to remember what Shea might have heard, but his mind was a blank. The women had been poor attempts to convince himself that what Shea made him feel wasn’t any different from any other woman, but it hadn’t worked. No amount of raunchy, mindless screwing had done the job.
Hell, he’d been fantasizing about Shea the entire damn time he’d been pounding into them anyway. But fuck, he hated the thought of her hearing him with another woman. It felt like a betrayal, though he knew he didn’t owe her a damn thing at this point. It’s not like he’d made her any promises. He’d spent the last three months doing his best to ignore her, so how could what he’d done have been so bad?
But it felt bad, damn it, and he knew in his gut that it had felt bad to Shea. He couldn’t even imagine what his reaction would’ve been if he’d heard her nailing some guy, her bed banging against the wall, her raw, muffled cries of climax slamming into his brain. Shit, he’d have probably knocked her damn door down and beaten the jerk senseless.
And wasn’t that possessive fire burning in his gut one of the reasons he’d tried so damn hard to stay away from her?
“Look, I didn’t want to say anything because this really isn’t my business, but if I keep leaving you to your own devices, you’re going to dig yourself so far into a hole you won’t ever be able to get back out.”
“Christ, you gonna give me pointers on sex now, Hannah? I thought we’d already covered the fact that I had that covered back when you caught me playing doctor with Susie Jenkins?”
“Oh, you know how to make them happy in bed. I’m not doubting you there, stud boy. I’ve seen the way they drag their tongues around after you. But when it comes to anything beyond sex, you’re pathetic. Geez, you don’t even notice a woman unless you’re planning on nailing her, and once you’ve had her, you never give her the time of day again.”
“Damn it, I never make promises that I—”
“Shut up, Ry. I’m not saying it’s not their own faults, because I know you always make it perfectly clear you’re not interested in getting emotionally involved with any of them. You’re just out to have some fun, blow off some steam, but that doesn’t mean they don’t go in thinking they’ll be the ones to change your mind. You know, rock your world and all that.”
“Is there a point to all this?”
“Yeah,” she’d drawled, “because the sad fact remains that you simply don’t know crappola about dealing with women outside of anything sexual.”
And I’ve got a damn good reason, he’d thought, but only said, “I deal with you just fine.”
She’d sighed over the line. “I don’t count, Ry. We’re practically family. The thought of us boinking probably sounds as gross to you as it does to me.”
“Jesus, woman” he’d groaned, “don’t even talk about that shit. It’d be like doing my sister.”
Hannah had laughed, knowing she’d scored a hit with that one. “See, you get my point. You’ve never even thought about me as a woman, so you haven’t shut yourself off from me…like you’ve done with every other female you’ve known since college.”
She didn’t say since Kelly, so he supposed he should at least be thankful for that, but he was still pissed that she’d scored a direct hit with that one too.
“Just what in the hell is the point of all this? I thought you were trying to play matchmaker, not give me a lecture on my obvious lack of charm.”
“What I’m trying to tell you is that you cannot be a macho idiot with this woman and let her get away. Trust me, if you do, it’ll be the biggest mistake of your entire life.”
The biggest mistake of his life…
Shea swayed forward, the fiercely erotic touch of her wet nipples against his chest pulling him painfully back to the present. His arms instinctively tightened, needing to feel her closeness as the water continued to stream down on them, Hannah’s unsettling words replaying repeatedly, echoing eerily in his head. No…he hadn’t let her get away. At least, not this time.
But just look at what he’d done, damn it.
He should have been taking care of her, keeping his bastard hands to himself, but no. No, he’d just slammed her against her bedroom wall, fucked the hell out of her, and filled her full of cum. No romance. No sweet words. He’d just lifted her up and rammed his cock into her as hard as he could—mindless to everything but gaining the satisfaction he’d known he would find inside of her. The teeth-grinding, heart-pumping, complete overload of sensation that only she could give him.
He felt sick. Not at what had happened, but because he was so damn happy about it. He knew, after the hell she’d just been through with Spalding, that he’d had no right touching her—and sure as hell not today. But instead of leaving her alone, like he should have, he’d ended up taking her right there with t
he finesse of a juggernaut. Damn, he wanted to kick his own ass.
And he wanted to keep holding her close, keep screwing her senseless, keep staking his claim again and again.
For the rest of the damn day.
Every day.
Forever.
Oh, man, he had this so bad. Who the fuck had he been trying to fool? He wasn’t going to run, and he wasn’t going to let her go. He was going to act just like the ruthless bastard he knew he was and dig his claws into her for good.
Everything about Shea twisted him with need, and he was not a man to twist and moan for any woman, no matter how good she looked. Until now. And it wasn’t just her looks, damn it, but the whole package that he wanted—the whole woman. He wanted to pound himself inside of her again and again—not just her body, but her—until he’d affected her in the same ways she was changing him.
Like any sane man, he wanted those changes about as much as he wanted his damn dick cut off. He’d always liked his life just fine the way it was. Hell, he’d learned early on that he didn’t need some woman screwing with it, no matter how badly he wanted to screw around with her. He liked being in control. Liked doing what he wanted, when he wanted. Liked the variety of women who’d always been readily available to him. Liked the fact that he could fuck them and forget them without ever suffering a single second of emotional involvement.
And now he was neck deep in it.
Shea’s hands clutched at his broad shoulders while she struggled against the primal urge to sink her teeth into his warm flesh. She wanted to just swallow him down—just fill herself up on him. She clung to him, mentally lecturing herself for holding him in such a death grip, afraid she was going to end up scaring him away.
But Ryan wasn’t running. He just held her close, as if he never meant to let her go—his hard cock trapped between their stomachs—the silver hoop in her navel digging deliciously into his swollen flesh.
Her sweet lips and soft hands shredded his control, until he finally couldn’t take it anymore. “Shea, please stop, baby. I’m trying not to get too rough with you, but you’re—”
“That…sounds…fine—” she stuttered on an uneven breath, then tried again. “God, that’s sounds more than fine. It sounds fabulous. So will you stop worrying that I’m going to shatter any second now? You’re starting to give me a complex.”
He smiled at her disgruntled tone and stroked his cheek against the silky top of her head, holding her so the warm water fell directly over her sore body. Damn, would he ever understand this woman? He was trying to offer the gentle lovemaking she deserved, and she was all but demanding he fuck her senseless again.
“A complex?” he laughed, running his hands over the slick flesh of her body, loving the feel of her beneath his palms. She fit against him as if she’d been made just for this—just for him. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”
“No,” she moaned, trying to get closer, wanting to just crawl up inside of him. “I never knew it would be so amazing, even after wanting you for so long. Then you said those really incredible things to me and now I can’t help it. I need more,” she added with a small groan, feeling like she’d go crazy if she didn’t get him back inside of her—filling her up—that very instant.
She had the sexiest man ever made naked in her shower, and all she could think about were the wonderfully wicked things she wanted to be doing to his gorgeous body. She needed to be touching him with her hands and mouth—going down on her knees for a taste of that giant, beautiful cock—while she had the chance!
Ryan laughed a low, deep rumble that shook her against his chest, the relief spearing through him as sharp as it was satisfying. “You are an insatiable little thing, aren’t you?” he murmured around a smile, settling her on her feet, keeping her body pressed against his own with one arm behind her back. With his other hand, he lifted her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “And to think for a minute there I was almost worried I might’ve broken you or something,” he teased, blue eyes sparkling, long lashes spiked with water.
She blushed, looking delightfully pink under the warm spray of the shower, but her eyes were dark and hungry. “I’m tougher than I look,” she quipped in a husky murmur, and just like that, Ryan felt himself losing it.
He kissed the tip of her nose, her eyelids, then brushed the softest of kisses across her pink mouth while trying to rein himself in. “God, Shea,” he groaned a little shakily. “Don’t tempt me, honey, or I’m likely to push you up against this shower wall and take you again right now, no matter how sore you are.”
“Yeah? I like the sound of that. I’ve never had slippery, wet sex in the shower before. And who ever said I was too sore? I could never be too sore for you, Ry.”
Hell, she was gonna be the death of him.
Ryan smiled down at her, ridiculously happy just to be with her, finding her every bit as fascinating as he’d claimed. His eyes gleamed with devilish intent while his big hands kneaded her naked backside, loving the way her firm flesh filled his palms. “You’ve hardly ever had sex anywhere before, you little tease, but you need some downtime before I fuck you again.”
The only thing Shea knew she needed was Ryan. Forget about being sore. Who could give a crud about a little discomfort when Ryan McCall was primed and ready? The beauty of his hard-muscled body rivaled the perfection of any Ancient Greek statue she’d ever seen—only he wasn’t made of stone. Well, at least not all of him. With a soft sigh of longing, she pressed against him, rubbing her torso against his wonderfully obvious, enormous erection.
“You’re the only thing I need.” She kissed his jaw, reached up on tiptoe and nipped the side of his neck, loving the warm, salty taste of his skin. “Again. Right here, so I’ll know this isn’t a dream.”
“That’s it,” he grunted with a strained expression, holding her away from him so he could think straight, or at least try to. God knew it wasn’t easy around this woman. “You’re pushing me, Shea, and I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
She smiled wickedly, feeling free and alive with electricity, as if her entire body were humming with light and energy. “Yeah? And what if I told you I wanted you to do me instead?”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed at her boldness. “I’d say you’re asking for more than you can take right now, little one.” His voice went lower as his eyes traveled slowly down her body, his big hands running up and down her sides, molding over her narrow hips. Droplets of water slid down her stomach, over her sexy pierced navel, clinging to the soft, dark curls between her legs. He couldn’t resist tweaking those curls with his fingers, wanting to bury his face right there and eat her alive. “Trust me, Shea. You have no idea what I’ve been fantasizing about doing to you for the past three hell-filled months. And that was before I knew what a hot little fuck you are.”
She quivered before him, giving herself away as her long lashes lowered over the most dangerous pair of bedroom eyes he’d ever seen. It was all he could do to choke back a wolfish smile of cocky satisfaction.
Who would’ve ever thought that shy, intellectual Shea would get turned on by a guy talking dirty to her? Of course, the blatant fact that he intended to be the only man giving her the dirty talk wasn’t lost on him. In fact, he was looking forward to every single second of it.
The sensuous press of her naked breasts against his chest brought his attention back to the problem at hand as she moved against him.
“I want you for as long as I can have you.” She swallowed and licked her lips, her white teeth biting into the pouty flesh of the bottom one. “If that means being sore, I don’t care. It isn’t going to stop me from having you,” she laughed with a sultry smile. “You’d be surprised what types of things I’ve thought about doing to you. Who knows—maybe you’ll be the one who’s shocked?”
Jesus, who was this woman? His rugged features tightened with the effort of holding back, while the knot in his dick tripled in need. “Damn it, I do care.” His tone took on an angry edge as he stroked the
slight bruise on her cheekbone. “You’ve already had a hell of a weekend, babe, and that was before I got my hands on you.”
She shot him a hot look of frustration, then lowered her chin, mumbling something under her breath. Ryan heard the soft grumble of her voice, but couldn’t understand the muttered words over the hot spray of the water. “Why do women always do that?” he drawled—his chest rumbling with soft laughter.
Shea blinked up at him. “Do what?”
The corners of his sexy mouth lifted. “Talk to themselves.”
“Because men never listen?” she offered sweetly, fine black brows rising over sparkling gray eyes.
His big, rough hands trailed possessively up and down the line of her spine, resting against the soft, alluring swell at the top of her ass. “I listen to you.”
“Uh-huh. Which is why you stayed when I told you to leave.”
He leaned down and nipped the full flesh of her bottom lip with his strong teeth, knowing the sharp stab of sensation would shoot straight down to the empty core of her cunt. She trembled in his arms, and he had to bite back another wolfish grin. “Yeah, but you wanted me to stay.”
Her fingers curved around his hips, trying to pull him into her, wanting to feel the press of that magnificent, engorged cock against her fluttering belly. “And right now I want you to fuck me.”
The husky words drilled straight through his brain, and he had to lock his damn knees against the need to do just that. Brushing his mouth across hers, he whispered, “I already told you, sweetheart. Not yet.”
Shea groaned with defeat and pulled out of his arms, quickly making use of the soap, shampoo, and conditioner, knowing he was glued to her every movement and liking the sexy feeling of power that knowledge gave her. Feminists could go on all day and night about the negative aspects of stereotyping women as sex objects, but as an educated female, and a quite brilliant one at that, Shea appreciated the fact that there were times when it felt good to know a man was looking at your body and thinking about nothing other than how badly he wanted it.
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