Dex was wrong.
Yes, I’d dated women until I got bored in the past.
But I had never felt about any of them the way I felt about Ryan Baillie.
Before I could stop myself, my feet were taking me to her.
Chapter 5
RYAN
* * *
I was shaking as I hurried into the bedroom I’d slept in last night. If I was so cool about being alone, about not needing anyone, then why did it feel as if Joe had just ripped out my guts?
It was stupid of me to feel this way.
Of course I was not as important to him as his son.
Dex should come first.
His devotion to his son was one of the reasons I loved Joe so much.
My breath caught.
Loved?
No.
I didn’t love Joe.
I shook my head, searching the room for my jeans.
I couldn’t love Joe.
No way.
Trembling even harder, I spotted my jeans in the corner, folded on top of a chest of drawers. Hurrying over to them, I pushed down my pajama shorts and was just reaching for the jeans when Joe suddenly marched into the room.
My heart lurched in my throat as he drew to an abrupt halt.
His cheeks flushed at the sight of me standing in nothing but my Henley and plain cotton underwear.
Joe’s gaze dipped to between my legs and the area throbbed in response.
“Joe?” I whispered hoarsely.
His hot dark gaze drifted down my legs and back up my body, drinking every inch of me in. “One,” he rasped, voice hoarse, “Not my type?”
I shivered. “Small, petite brunettes ring a bell?”
“Apparently they don’t make my dick as hard as a tall redhead with legs that go on forever and the most beautiful fucking green eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.”
I gasped, my gaze falling to see his jeans straining with his erection. Oh my God. My skin flushed hot from head to toe, and my breasts suddenly felt heavy with need.
“Two,” Joe continued in that thick voice, “I don’t have a thing for women who need to be taken care of. Do I like to take care of my woman? Yes. But the woman I care about has an independent streak a mile wide, and I like it a fuck of a lot. Three: This isn’t just a ‘little attraction’.” He took a step toward me, determination and need dark on his face. “This is a code red situation.”
“Code red?” I could barely breathe.
“Code red: I can’t live my fucking life because all I can think about is you.”
Oh my God.
“Joe—”
His eyes flashed. “I want to hear you say my name just like that as I move inside you.”
Oh. My. God.
“Joe—”
Then he rushed me. Our bodies collided seconds before our mouths did.
Joe’s kiss was ravaging. It was a man’s kiss. Dark, deep and sexual. His stubble rasping against my skin.
His hand fisted in my hair as he held me to him, and I grasped onto him as he plundered my mouth. It was as if Joe couldn’t kiss me deep or hard enough.
I whimpered against his tongue as his other hand gripped my ass hard to pull me against the hard-on straining against the zipper of his jeans. The whimper turned to a moan, reverberating into his mouth. Joe ground his hips harder into me, squeezing my ass. I slid my hands under his tee in answer, shivering at the delicious feel of his smooth, hot skin beneath my fingertips.
He groaned as I touched his nipples. The sound rumbled in my mouth as we kissed harder, bruising each other’s lips.
I needed him inside me. I wanted to be overwhelmed by Joe. To have all my senses captured by him. To feel and taste and smell and hear nothing but him, all around me, over me.
Inside me.
Fumbling for the button on his jeans, I made that very clear.
Then suddenly I was in his arms for a few seconds before finding myself on the bed, Joe covering my body as we pawed at each other’s clothing. Or what little I wore. Joe broke our kiss to whip off my Henley, and I reached around my back to unclip my bra. He took hold of it and ripped it away from me, throwing it over his shoulder. His fiery eyes devoured my naked breasts.
“You were over one Saturday,” he suddenly said, even as his hips undulated against me with a mind of their own. “Nicole was there too. You were both in your bikinis. But I couldn’t stop looking at you. Every time you laughed, I wanted to kiss the sound into my mouth. I wanted to press you up against the pool, rip off your bikini and suck on your nipples.”
Wet slickened between my legs. “Joe.”
“I broke up with Nicole after that.” He reached for my breasts, caressing them, plucking at my nipples as they tightened into hard points. “I couldn’t be with one woman when all I could think about was another. And all the nasty, dirty, grown-up things I wanted to do to her.”
“Do them,” I begged, my mind a haze of lust. “Joe, please. I want you so badly.”
“God, baby, you have no idea how badly I want you back.” He kissed me again.
I frantically pulled his shirt off, breaking the kiss to do it, wanting to explore his beautiful body… but then he bent his head to my breasts, sucking a nipple deep into his mouth and I forgot about everything but what he was doing to me.
I cried out, arching against him.
His long fingers curled around my underwear, and he tugged so wildly I heard them tear.
Neither of us cared as he yanked my underwear down my thighs. They got caught around my ankles and I kicked to get them off. My patience was obliterated. “Come inside me. Please, Joe, now.”
“Fuck,” he murmured, his eyes wild with need. “You kill me.” He kissed me again. Prolonging my need. Toying with me.
In answer, I fumbled for the zipper on his jeans. As I slid my hand inside his boxers to feel his throbbing hard heat, he slipped his hand between my legs, sliding his fingers into me. The wet he found there made him grunt into my mouth. He tore his lips from mine and my chest rose and fell in frenzied breaths as he stared into my eyes with a passion that blew my mind.
“You’re soaked.” His face hardened with need and he gently captured the hand I had wrapped around him and removed it. He pinned my hand to the bed.
Anticipation made me squirm beneath him. Joe never broke eye contact as he shoved down his jeans and boxers just far enough to release himself.
The fingers of my free hand curled into the bedcovers until Joe captured it too and held me down. My panting filled the room and I let my legs fall open wide as he nudged against me. I moaned into his mouth.
He pushed into me. Hard.
My desire eased his way considerably but he was big, thick, and that overwhelming fullness I’d been desperate for caused a pleasure pain to zing down my spine.
“More, Joe,” I begged.
“Fuck, Ryan,” he growled, his head bowing into my neck as he pumped into me.
If everything was out of control before, it turned wilder than I could have imagined. I’d never been so consumed like that. Everything was about the hot drive of him inside of me. My hips rose to meet his hard thrusts, my cries and his groans filling the entire cabin.
I couldn’t touch him, could only take what he had to give, and it was so goddamn exciting I knew I was going to come quickly. The tension inside me tightened, tightened, tightened every time he pulled out and slammed back in.
“I’m close,” I gasped.
He released one of my hands to grab my thigh and he pulled it up against his hip, changing the angle of his thrust. I reached for him blindly as the tension inside of me shattered. I think I even screamed.
My orgasm rolled through me, my inner muscles rippling and squeezing around Joe. His hips pounded faster against me and then momentarily stilled before he cried out my name, his grip on my thigh bruising as his hips jerked with the swell and throb of his release.
I felt his wet heat fill me.
As his climax shuddered through
him, he let go of my thigh and slumped over me. Joe’s warm, heavy weight surrounded me and I slid my hands across his back. He was solid and real.
Our labored breathing rasped in my ears.
My heart pounded.
Finally, reality intruded.
I was sprawled on a bed with Joe between my legs, inside me. He was still wearing his jeans because we’d been so frantic to have each other he didn’t even undress fully.
It was the best sex I’d ever had.
But we hadn’t used a condom.
Joe had come inside of me.
Chapter 6
JOE
* * *
“You didn’t use a condom,” Ryan whispered, sounding panicked.
The words cut through my post-sex bliss haze.
Shit.
I raised my head from her neck to stare into Ry’s wide eyes. “You on the pill?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the point.”
Realizing what she meant, I cursed under my breath. “I’m clean. I have never forgotten to use a condom before. Not since I got a girl pregnant at sixteen.”
She raised an eyebrow like she didn’t know whether to believe me.
“Ry…” I cupped her face in my hand, my fingers brushing the slight swelling around her eye where the fading bruises were. It killed me I hadn’t been there to protect her. “Do you still not get it? When it comes to relationships, I have been in control my whole life. I’ve never been so fucking desperate to have someone that I forgot to put on a condom. Not after I acted like a stupid kid with Renee and knocked her up. Not… Until now. I have no control over how I feel about you. If I did, this wouldn’t have happened at all.”
To my shock, hurt saturated her features. “I know that probably sounds romantic to you… but to me there is nothing romantic about not being someone’s choice.” She tried to push me off her and I took hold of her wrists to pin her back in place. Ry growled up at me in frustration and fuck if I didn’t get hard inside her again. That definitely hadn’t happened to me since I was a teenager.
She sucked in a breath, feeling me.
“This is a choice. I made a choice as soon as I followed you into this room. I love my son,” my voice grew gruff with emotion, “But I can’t bear the idea of you thinking I don’t want you or need you enough to fight for this. Because I do. I have tried not to for nearly two years because I didn’t want to complicate everything for everyone. Dex thinks I’ll just get what I want from you and move on… But he doesn’t know I’m in love with you. It took me years to find you and I’m a selfish bastard for wanting to keep you, but if you feel even half of what I feel, I’m willing to fight for this.”
I felt her relax beneath me; her features softening with wonder. “You love me?”
“Don’t you love me?” my heart pounded now, waiting for her to crush it or not.
“I… I…” Tears filled her eyes, and she began straining against my hold. “Get off me, Joe. Please, get off me!”
I instantly let go of her, gently pulling out and rolling off her. An ache I’d never felt before gripped tight to my chest as Ryan scrambled off the bed to get away from me. Jesus, was I just a foolish asshole thinking a young, vibrant woman like her would want something serious with me, a man sixteen years her senior? Had I read the situation so wrong?
As she hurried to dress, I felt paralyzed.
Until her soft sobs cut through my hurt. “Ry…” I pushed up off the bed, but she turned her head toward me as she pulled up her jeans. Tears streamed down her face.
“Don’t,” she choked out. “Please. Don’t. I’m going to get in my car and leave and we’re not going to speak of this again.”
Fuck me. I looked away because looking at her hurt too much. “We can never talk about this if that’s what you want. But I’m not letting you drive back to Sacramento alone. You’ve barely slept all week and you haven’t eaten in God knows how long.”
“You think I can stay here? After that?”
I glared at her as I got off the bed. She averted her gaze as I pulled my boxers and jeans up. “Yeah, but don’t worry. I’ll stay out of your way.” I stormed out of the room, shaking. Jesus Christ. I’d been crushed by a fucking twenty-four-year-old woman.
I should never have followed her into that room.
RYAN
* * *
It was hunger pangs that forced me out of the bedroom a few hours later. Joe, thankfully, was nowhere in sight. His truck was still here, so I guessed he’d just gone for a walk.
Guilt suffused me.
And cowardice.
While I’d felt euphoric at Joe’s confession of love, I’d also felt absolutely terrified by it.
I’d never expected to feel for any man the way I felt about Joe.
But the truth was he was older than me… and one day he wouldn’t be here anymore, and I was so scared of that. Wasn’t it easier to just walk away now than to fall deeper and deeper in love with him, only to inevitably lose him?
I could kill my sister.
After shoveling down some cereal I found in the pantry, I grabbed my phone out of my purse. It needed charged, but there was just enough battery to call Shaw.
She answered on the third ring. “If you’re calling to berate me, please don’t.”
I slumped down on the corner sofa near the fire that was crackling. Joe had obviously gotten it started before he escaped the cabin. My heart ached with renewed guilt. “Why did you do this?”
“Because she’s nuts!” I heard Dex yell in the background.
It made me smile sadly. “I take it Dex found out.”
“Yeah, and he’s not happy with me, but I told him if my little plan works out he can’t give you or his dad a hard time.”
“Shaw…” tears filled my voice.
“Oh, Ry, shit… I’m sorry. Did I read it wrong? You don’t love Joe back?”
There was that word again.
“What made you think Joe and I are in love?”
“Because her head is in the clouds!” Dex called out. Shaw obviously had me on speakerphone.
“No, it isn’t. Anyone with eyes can see it. Even Renee can see it. You just don’t want to because Joe’s your dad,” Shaw replied. “Please tell me I’m right, Ry?”
“I can’t talk about this in front of Dex.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Dex grumbled, much louder in my ear this time suggesting he’d taken the phone off Shaw, “Look, Dad isn’t answering his phone, so I texted him. I told him that if this is what you really want, then I won’t stand in your way. I just hope you’ve really thought it through. There’s an age difference here, Ry. And I don’t want my dad to fuck you around. I told him I will kill him if he does.”
I closed my eyes, my self-recrimination at boiling point. “Dex … it’s your dad you need to worry about. Not me.”
“What does that mean?”
“I … just know that he would never hurt me or mess me around. What’s happening or not happening, however, is between me and him. I appreciate you’re okay about everything but I can’t discuss this with you.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
Then, “Ry … okay. Fine. But try not to hurt my old man. He’s the best fucking guy there is and if Shaw’s right about how he feels about you … yeah … shit, just let him down easy.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks as a reply got choked up in my throat.
Shaw’s voice was gentle in my ears now. “I love you, Ry, whatever you do, I’m here. I know whatever is holding you back isn’t about what other people think because you’ve never cared what other people think. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
“Shaw,” I whispered brokenly. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of losing him.”
“Oh, Ry,” understanding filled her voice. “It is scary to love someone that much. We know that better than anyone. But you know what’s scarier … regret. Looking back on your life, safe bu
t lonely, and wishing you hadn’t let fear win.”
Chapter 7
RYAN
* * *
After returning to my bedroom in the cabin, I’d heard Joe’s arrival. I’d heard him pottering about in the kitchen and at one point heard his voice murmuring, so knew he had to be talking to someone on the phone.
I wondered if it was Dex.
The hours passed like days as I watched the clock on my phone tick toward midnight.
Toward the new year.
Every time I looked at the bed, images of Joe straining above me filled my head.
I kept hearing him telling me he loved me.
It seemed like a miracle that Joe Colchester was in love with me.
It was my wildest fantasy come true and I’d spit all over it.
Shaw’s wise words haunted me throughout the day.
The fact that my sister had guessed I was in love with Joe before I even realized I was would have been funny if the whole situation didn’t feel so tragic.
“But it doesn’t have to be tragic,” I whispered to myself.
If I let go of my fear, or at least tried to overcome it, I could make me and Joe so happy.
And Shaw was right. I didn’t care what people would say or think about us. Not as long as we loved each other.
But what about when you lose him?
The thought filled me with agony.
Yet… wasn’t I already in pain? Was losing him any worse than pushing him away?
No.
The thought of never touching Joe again or tasting his kiss or feeling him move inside me made me feel like the world was ending.
“You have to try,” I whispered.
I had to try.
And I couldn’t let Joe go on thinking I didn’t love him just to protect myself.
Decision made, I pushed up out of the chair in the room just as the clock was nearing twenty minutes to midnight. My belly grumbled with hunger as my heart pounded in my chest.
New Year's Eve: a Novella Page 4