Opening his eyes, he met her gaze. Then, slowly, he held out his hand.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He had Brianna Sharpe naked in the shower with him.
She gripped a condom in her left hand and drops of water beaded along her breasts, rolling down the slopes to her belly, hips and thighs. He wanted to lick each one away.
He was dying of thirst and she was his only cure.
When he nuzzled the curls between her thighs, she gasped out his name and flung out a hand, gripping his shoulders. “Not in here,” she said, voice shaking. “I’ll fall.”
“If you do, I’ll catch you.” He cupped her hips and slid his tongue between her folds, shuddering as the taste of her hit him.
“I…Riley…I…” Broken sounds escaped her.
He treasured each one and used every bit of skill he had to draw those moans out, to make each shudder last a little longer, to hear her voice break again and again as she moved closer and closer to climax.
She was sobbing by the time he nudged her over and her legs wobbled. She almost collapsed against him and the condom fell from her hand.
“I told you I’d fall,” she whispered.
“And I said I’d catch you.” He steadied her with his hands on her hips, the taste of her burning inside him like the sweetest drug. He needed, craved, more. Scooping the condom up, he stood slowly, the water pounding down on them from three different jets. “Want me to make you fall again?”
“No. I want you to make love to me.”
The words, so simply stated, wrapped a fist around his heart and now he felt a little weak in the knees. He wouldn’t let her see that, though. He didn’t know what was going on, not really, but he wasn’t going to let himself believe this meant anything.
At least anything beyond the physical.
Reaching up, he pushed the condom into her hand. “Why don’t you do the honors?”
Bree blushed hotly red and he nuzzled her neck. “The woman who stood in the middle of my living room just a few minutes ago can’t be too shy to put that on me,” he said teasingly.
“You’re a jerk,” she muttered, but there was a smile flirting around her lips.
He braced his hands on the tiled wall by her head, looking down at her as she tore the foil open, then fumbled the latex condom out.
“I haven’t done this since…” Her voice hitched and she looked up at him for the briefest second, then looked away.
“I think it’s like riding a bike,” he said. He didn’t need her to finish the sentence. They’d lost their virginity together, and more than once she’d been the one to put the condom on him, blushing just as she was now, but smiling down at him and enjoying the way they’d always driven each other crazy.
The fact that she hadn’t done that with anybody else made his heart ache and he didn’t know if it was a good ache or a bad one.
He didn’t have time to analyze it, either, because he’d been right—it was very much like riding a bike and Bree already had the condom unrolled over his length. As he started to pick her up, she wrapped her hand around him, dragging her fist up, then down. “You keep that up, I’m going to lose it a second time tonight, Bree. You make me feel like a teenager all over again.”
“You make me wish we both still were,” she said, leaning in and pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to his lips.
He growled low in his throat, fisting a hand in her hair and yanking. “Don’t want to wait anymore,” he muttered, catching her wrist and tugging her hand away.
“Me, neither.”
He boosted her up, staring into her eyes as he slowly slid inside.
Her lashes fluttered down.
“Don’t. I want to look at you. See me, Bree. Let me see you.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, nipped her lip.
“I-I can’t…” She moaned and twisted against him.
She was slick and wet, but so tight, and the tension radiating off her was starting to churn inside him like a storm. “You can.” He settled into a slow, shallow rhythm that worked him deeper each time, one that had her arching up to meet him almost before she realized she was doing it. He saw the dazed pleasure enter her eyes and even as that delighted him, it infuriated him.
She shouldn’t be surprised to feel good.
“Riley…” She whimpered and he dipped his head, kissing her—quick and hard.
She sucked in a breath and he’d swear that he could feel that single inhalation fusing them together, locking out everything else.
Mine…
The thought circled through his head but he kept it locked inside him, refusing to give it voice. My Bree.
If she’d really been his, she never would have let him go.
But he couldn’t let that matter right now.
She cried out against his lips, her fingers digging into his arms, hard and demanding. “Please…please…”
He twisted his hips, moved a little higher on her body—and she came.
Hard, fast and brutal, she came, her cunt tightening around him so hard, he almost saw stars.
With a shout, he climaxed, still driving into her as she continued to moan and writhe against him.
It tripped off another orgasm for them both.
And then, as the water started to cool, he slumped down in the shower stall, Bree sprawled across his lap.
“Wow,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in her hair.
Her arms tightened around him and she shivered before murmuring again, “Wow.”
* * * * *
“I need another bedroom.”
Riley lay on the couch with Bree sprawled over his chest and his eyes on the clock. It was edging up on four and he needed to sleep, but he didn’t want to give in and let his body shut down.
Bree slid one leg up, then used the sole of her foot to rub down his calf as she stretched and yawned. “I need to go in there with Toby before I fall asleep.”
“I know. That’s why I need another bedroom. So we could…” the words faded away because she’d gone stiff.
“Guess that’s a bad idea,” he said neutrally.
“Don’t. Please don’t.” She pushed up onto her elbow, looking at him in the weak light. “He’s got to learn to trust you—trust me—before I throw something else at him.”
“You can’t live your life dictated by what a five-year-old wants,” he said quietly. Reaching up, he cupped her cheek.
“No. But I have to live it dictated by what he needs, and I should have been doing that all along.”
“And being with me somehow goes against that.” He let his hand fall, curling it into a fist. The feel of her skin was emblazoned on his, on his memory, on his soul. Just as she was.
He really was an idiot.
“Riley, I…”
He shook his head. “No, it’s good. You should go on to bed, Bree. I’m beat. Busy day yesterday, another tomorrow—today. Whatever.”
“Riley, look…”
He did. He looked at her. And she was looking through him, past him, anywhere but at him. Finally, she just sighed. “I’m trying, okay?”
He wanted to believe that. He really did.
But he just wasn’t sure if he could hold on to that.
“Go on to bed, Bree.”
* * * * *
Riley was, he suspected, proof that a man could have the best thing and the worst thing in the world happen, and both could be the very same thing.
He’d wanted Bree back in his life. Sometimes he felt as if she was right there, as if they were right there, perched on the edge of some unknown precipice.
Other times, he felt as though he was even farther from her now than ever.
It was that thought that haunted him two days after they’d slept together, two days after he’d tasted her mouth again, felt her moving against him.
He woke every morning convinced he’d dreamed it, and went to bed only to wake and find her tugging the sheet off him.
&nbs
p; For a few minutes, they’d be hot and horizontal again, her mouth to his, her hands gripping his muscles.
Then she’d kiss him…and slip away, as ephemeral as a dream. She was still cautious around him when Toby was there and he knew she was doing everything she could to make sure the two of them didn’t have much chance to be around each other.
It pissed him off but he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t make her trust him again. He couldn’t make Toby trust him. He couldn’t do anything but…wait.
“Man, you look like shit.”
Gritty eyed and in a mood as sour as month-old milk, Riley met the eyes of the cop sitting at the bar.
He was definitely not in the mood to be dealing with cops, even ones who’d been friends of his at one point.
“Hey, Kyle.” He braced his hands on the bar, eying the clock on the wall. “Kind of early for a cop to be in here drinking.”
“Day off,” Kyle said easily. One elbow resting on the counter, he leaned forward. “Haven’t seen Lee around in a while. The two of you have it out after that…fiasco?”
“What fiasco?” He gave the man a blank look, while mentally, he swore up and down a wall. “Oh, shit. That. Nah. We had it out because he wasn’t doing his job the way I wanted him to.”
“That a fact?”
“That’s a fact.” Riley crossed his arms over his chest. “Lee had a problem with the ladies— Actually, that’s not right. He had a problem with the men who come into my place. As in, the men didn’t exist for him. He’d spend his whole shift flirting with a table of women, while the next one over might have to flag him down just to get a couple of napkins. That shit doesn’t fly here, Kyle.” He shrugged, doing his best to look exasperated. Nothing he’d said was false. Lee had gotten told those very facts in his ninety-day review, and again at the six-month mark, with a warning that he wouldn’t be asked to work on the issue again, he’d just be shown the door.
But Lee hadn’t been fired so much as he just…hadn’t come back.
That didn’t concern Riley. Truth be told, he was glad Lee was out of his hair.
Although, now he was wondering if maybe Lee was going to cause him problems—again.
“Sounds like that schmuck,” Kyle said, unaware of Riley’s line of thought. “I had to practically throw a bowl of peanuts at him to get him to stop and take my order when I was in his section once. Went out of my way to avoid his section after that, too, let me tell you.”
“You weren’t the only one. Are you eating anything today?”
“Sure.”
Riley dumped a menu in front of him. “Beer?”
“Whatever’s on tap.”
A few minutes later, he’d moved on down the bar under the pretense of stocking and polishing, anything to keep him from having to carry on a conversation.
His skin prickled, giving him a minute’s warning. Looking up, he saw Bree lingering in the doorway to the stairs.
He smiled at her despite the tug in his heart and tossed the towel he’d been using onto the counter behind the bar. “Cady,” he called out.
The server he’d been training to help out behind the bar came to take his place and he moved to go meet Bree.
Her gaze slid down to his mouth and it was an exercise in patience to keep from reaching out to touch her. To taste. To take.
“Hey. Long time, no see.”
“You saw me this morning,” she said, smiling at him. A dimple showed in her cheek.
“Well, it was dark.” He squinted, pretending to think about it. “I didn’t see much. It’s almost like you’ve gone and turned into a vampire. I never see you during the day.”
He waited to see how she’d respond, half expecting her to brush it off.
She pressed her lips together, into a tight line, her gaze drifting past his shoulder only to come back a second later. “So I’m a chicken. I’m taking the easy way.”
She hesitated, then stepped up to touch his arm. “Are you mad at me?”
“No.” He slid a hand around her neck and tugged her closer, pressing his brow to hers. “You’d have to do a hell of a lot to make me mad, Bree. But it sure as hell is frustrating me.”
“I…well, maybe this will help. I’ve got dinner upstairs. Con said today’s one of the slower days and he was going to come in—”
A whoop behind him had him looking back and he saw Con at the same time his brother saw him—and Bree.
Con, never the shy one, pointed at them. “You two crazy kids, get. I got this place handled.”
Frowning, Riley looked back at Bree.
She lifted a shoulder. “I was… I’ve got dinner,” she said again, looking embarrassed. “I thought maybe you and Toby could…” Her words trailed off and she looked past his shoulder.
He felt as if he’d been hit across the head.
“You…dinner?”
But Bree wasn’t looking at him.
In the few seconds it had taken him to realize she was practically asking him out, the blood had drained from her face. She was staring at something—or somebody—with an expression of dazed dismay.
“Bree?”
He looked behind him, half expecting to see Donnie.
He didn’t. Looking back, he saw her inching closer to the door behind her. “Dinner then?” she said, her voice soft. She was staring at the center of his chest.
“Bree, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She gave him a tight smile. “I just… I thought I saw somebody. Hurry upstairs. It’s lasagna.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Riley, because such things were ingrained in him, didn’t immediately follow Bree upstairs. Instead, he did a circuit around B&B, looking for Donnie, or somebody who looked enough like him to freak Bree out.
He didn’t see anyone and ended up stopping by the pub to greet his brother.
Con, unsurprisingly, was flirting with Cady.
Cady, unsurprisingly, was ignoring him.
She saw Riley and nodded at him. “Hey, boss. Want me back on the floor?”
“No. You can hang back here and keep Con in line. We’ve got enough servers on the floor. I’m going to…head out.” He worked a schedule as regularly as any of the employees, but if she thought anything odd about his comment, she made no reply.
Or at least, nothing directed at him.
She gave Con a look from the corner of her eye. “So I’m stuck working with the peacock. Delightful.”
Con, unperturbed, grinned at her. “We’ll have fun, Cady.”
Riley took another look around the room before heading toward the door.
Bree was at the stove when he went inside, while Toby was sitting in the middle of the floor, a big book open on his lap. The boy looked up at him, then, with cool derision, focused back on his book.
Riley had to give it to the boy, he had the cold-shoulder thing down pat.
“Hi, Toby.”
Silence echoed through the room and Bree turned around, clutching a wooden spoon in her hand. “Toby,” she said tightly.
Toby looked up and heaved out a sigh. “Hi,” he said in a lackluster voice.
She opened her mouth, but Riley looked at her and shook his head.
She sighed and the expression in her eyes completely and utterly ripped him open.
Feeling like he was approaching a wounded animal, he moved slowly toward her. “You said you were doing lasagna. I happen to know somebody with an excellent wine selection. I stole a bottle.”
“Stealing is wrong,” Toby said loftily.
Riley rolled his eyes. “I’m joking, kid. It’s from downstairs.”
“Did you steal it?”
“Toby, he owns the bar!” Bree snapped.
Toby jumped, wide-eyed, his surprised gaze flying to his mother, but she had already shifted her attention away.
“Damn it.”
The words escaped her, so low and quiet, Riley barely heard her.
Deciding to give her a minute, he stepped around her and moved to
the drawer where he kept the corkscrew. He opened the bottle and poured two glasses. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had homemade lasagna, Bree. I hope it’s ready soon. I might break open the oven to get to it if it isn’t.”
At her shaking sigh, he turned around.
She was staring at her son’s bowed head with a frown.
“Here.” Riley offered the glass of wine.
With a wan smile, she accepted it, lifting it to her lips and taking a small sip.
“It’s good,” she murmured.
“Yep. I know my wine.” Leaning against the counter, he watched as she took another sip, then closed her eyes, blowing out a slow breath.
“Toby, can you set the table?”
Toby lifted his head, a mutinous look in his eyes.
Bree’s face took on an expression that Riley had to appreciate—it was a mom look, the kind that most kids instinctively recognize. Toby sure as hell did because the mutiny faded from his eyes and he got up. Reluctance underscored his every movement, but he trudged into the kitchen and pulled a stepstool over to the counter. Riley had brought it up for Bree at her request, but he hadn’t realized the reason behind it until now.
“I don’t know why I have to do girl work,” Toby muttered.
Bree ground her teeth together.
“You know, my mom made sure both Con and I knew how to help out around the house.”
Toby gave him a sullen look. “Con did girl work?”
“No. Con helped out around the house.” Riley bent over and stared Toby in the eye. “I suppose you got the idea from Donnie that helping your mom out was girl work.” He waited a beat. “I don’t know about you, but I’d think twice before thinking anything he said was smart. He didn’t treat you or your mama very good, now did he?”
Toby heaved out a sigh and climbed onto the stool.
Bree, still standing by the stove, met Riley’s gaze over her son’s averted head.
Riley moved closer and picked up the glass of wine she’d put down, then put it in her hand. “Have a drink, Miss Bree.”
Her jaw was tight but she took a slow breath, as if she had to make herself relax. Finally, she lifted the wine glass to her lips and sipped. “It really is good wine, Ry.”
F*ck Club: Riley Page 11