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“Fine.”
The Reds game might have to wait. His dad would understand.
SHE’D HAD BETTER steak. Apparently Ryan liked them very well-done. But Audrey couldn’t remember anyone whose company she’d enjoyed more.
“I like how you think,” she told him, trying not to overreact as he sat next to her on the darkened patio, handing her the half-glass of wine she’d requested.
His eyes, as they stared at her, glistened with two white spots, a double reflection of the moon shining overhead. “You like how I think? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” She should go. Before she did something she’d regret. “I like the way your mind works, your take on things. You’ve got all these theories that are just a bit outside the norm, and yet I agree with them, you know? I like listening to you talk.”
And if she didn’t shut up she was going to ruin a friendship before it had the chance to exist.
Because her next sentence wasn’t going to be about liking his conversation.
“I like how you think, too.” The words were offered slowly, softly. A declaration of admiration. At least.
Or so her heart seemed to think. It flip-flopped, sending a sharp blade of desire down through her most feminine places.
Without removing her gaze from his, she took a sip of wine. Moistened a throat that was suddenly far too dry. Inexplicably dry. What was she doing?
Ryan didn’t seem to want his wine. Setting down the glass he’d barely touched, he stared at her for a second longer, then leaned forward. Slowly. Deliberating. Coming closer.
She watched, glanced down to his lips, frozen as she waited. There was no thought of action, of shoulds and shouldn’ts, of wants or not wants. No thought of any moment that came before, or any that might come after.
And when those full, masculine lips touched hers, the shiver that went through her wiped away any last conscious thought.
She’d been kissed before. Many times. But never like this.
Ryan’s mouth controlled hers, even as it asked permission. He invaded and invited at the same time, taking her on a sensual journey that consumed her entire being with the mere touch of his lips. He was tender. And confident.
And when he pulled back, Audrey couldn’t let him go. Her mouth followed his the couple of inches he retreated, until her lips were once again attached to his.
He opened his mouth then, demanding more from her, his tongue finding hers, not just tip to tip, but fully engaging with her in a give-and-take that made them far more intimate than friends.
“I want to make love with you.”
She wasn’t sure she heard the words at first. Thought maybe she’d imagined them. And even then, her body responded, igniting every nuance of sensual feeling inside of her.
“Please.”
There was no mistaking the pleading in his voice.
Or the answering desire inside of her.
Pulling back, Audrey studied those glistening green eyes. “I…”
How did she say no without turning him off? Without losing his interest? What words did she use?
“I want that, too.”
She didn’t just say that. Didn’t just lick her lips. Her nipples weren’t hard, sensitive, against her bra.
She couldn’t…
Ryan’s lips covered hers again, his hands coming up behind her to rest beneath her shoulder blades, pressing her against him, and as she melted into his embrace, Audrey knew that she was going to break her own rules.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN nervous, for many reasons. Any time he’d thought about this moment in his life—and he’d thought of it plenty over the past ten or so years—Ryan had envisioned shaky hands. Some fumbling. Uncertainty born solely of ignorance.
Hesitation, at the very least, as he risked the isolation he’d so carefully concocted and guarded vigilantly.
Audrey’s hands on his shoulders, her moans consuming the air around them, the light flowery scent of her perfume enveloping him, allowed no room for hesitation. Her soft, feminine skin, waiting there for him to find, to expose, to caress, created fire within him, not quivering.
He kissed her, opening her mouth wider with his, exploring her with his tongue in ways that happened naturally, as if of their own accord. With no learned or practiced moves to draw on, he lifted her body gently against him, breaking contact with her lips only briefly, as he carried her to his bed.
He’d be Detective Ryan Mercedes tomorrow. And all of the tomorrows after that.
Tonight he was a man.
He’d made the trek upstairs many times—exhausted and coming off thirty-five hours without sleep, wide awake, early, late, angry, frustrated, enervated, flying up the steps two or three at a time. He’d made it hurt, content, and even drunk once. He’d traversed them alone with a hand truck and solid pine chest of drawers, a bed, his second large-screen television. Tonight he climbed them with no thought of the journey, only of the woman with her arms wrapped around his neck, of getting her to the soft mattress that awaited them so that he could love her properly.
Reverently.
Laying her gently crossways in the middle of the bed, Ryan slid down next to her, covering one of her legs with one of his as he half lay on top of her. He was on fire, needing everything, everywhere, and was compelled to stare at her, instead, to connect, first, through the eyes of her soul, the eyes of her heart and mind, those chocolate-brown windows that gazed back at him with an intensity that matched his own.
“I’ve wanted this since the first moment I saw you.” He confessed what he’d sworn to himself he’d never admit to anyone.
She was his match on a level much deeper than anyone ever had been. But she was independent, too. Surely there was safety in that.
“Have you?” she asked, her voice huskier than usual. The little grin turning up the edges of her mouth made him hard.
Harder.
The bulge in his pants wasn’t a new thing. Its control of him was.
“I have,” he told her, bending to kiss her again, opening his mouth over hers, needing to get as far inside her as he could, to join as much of him to her as was humanly possible.
And beyond.
Audrey’s moan lit another flame in his groin and Ryan rubbed his aching penis against her denim-clad thigh. He felt like a damned animal, rutting against her.
She didn’t seem to mind. Lifting up, Audrey moved back and forth against his chest, pressing her upper body against him until he could clearly distinguish two hard nipples caressing him.
“I like that.” He’d had no idea.
“Me, too.”
“I’d like to see them.” He could only give her honesty.
“Okay.”
Her gaze was open, and shadowed with desire, as she studied him. The rest of her didn’t move.
Which left him one choice. Glancing down at the rounded mounds of her breasts, he lifted her shirt as though he’d had a lot of experience with such things. With one hand and a smooth glide, the white cotton was bunched up beneath her armpits and the lacy, low-cut bra he’d seen only in outline was fully exposed. The soft skin of her breasts spilled over the edges of the flimsy material.
Heart racing, Ryan took his time, savoring the view. His hands itched to cover those breasts, but he couldn’t deny himself the beautiful sight.
“I’ve never seen anything so perfectly gorgeous.” His voice was mostly a whisper. It was all the breath he had to spare.
“You’re pretty gorgeous yourself,” she said. She’d lifted his T-shirt, as well, was staring at his chest.
She touched him, running slim fingers over the muscles in his chest, stroking her thumbs against his nipples. Flickers of sensation moved through him, straight down to his erection.
His nipples had that kind of power? He’d taken one hell of a lot of showers, rubbed them with hundreds of bars of soap, to have missed that one.
Mary Ellen Rowe had spent the six weeks they’d dated rubbing his chest. He’d been pleasantly comforted by the touch.
Nothing more.
“That feels good,” he told the awesome woman lying in his bed. “Really good.”
Her smile was a sweet mixture of knowing and modesty. A woman who was, perhaps, just becoming aware of the depths of her own sexual power, as well?
What the hell was the matter with him? Analyzing, even now. He had breasts waiting before him.
Loving to do.
And still, Ryan couldn’t lose his distinct awareness of every single movement, every touch.
These moments were going to be embedded deeply within his memory, his heart, for the rest of his life.
Over the next hour Ryan discovered much about himself. And about Audrey Lincoln. As much focus as she gave to her young clients, she gave to making love with him. Every aspect of her was intent on him. Her gaze. Her touch. Her responses and attention. He’d never felt so consumed—and so alive. She knew him better in an hour than anyone had ever known him.
With fingers skimming the edge of his jeans, she almost drove him over the edge.
He had to release the zipper on his fly. Get his pants off. He had to set his penis free to love a woman. This woman.
Where before he’d moved slowly, savoring, Ryan now pulled at the button of Audrey’s pants with more strength than finesse. It came free with one tug. On his knees above her, he bent to her hips, grasping the jeans in both hands to tug them down over slim hips and long legs that seemed to go on and on.
Just when he’d thought it couldn’t get any better.
He stared at her thighs. At the scrap of white lace panty that didn’t quite cover the dark hair curling there. The thin strap of thong disappearing into her backside.
And something occurred to him.
She’d dressed for this. For him.
Looking up at her, he sought silent confirmation in the gaze that was fully on him.
“You’re okay with this.” It was more statement than question.
Her lips were trembling as she nodded.
With fingers that were oversensitized, he touched her, the soft skin of her legs, her inner thighs, the brush of hair at the top of her panties. He had to go slowly now, or explode before he ever got where he was going.
“I want yours off, too.”
Slow down, Mercedes, he told his raging body as he stood. Unbuttoned his own jeans, stepped out of them—taking his briefs off at the same time.
And then he stood before her, his penis full and weighted down, while she looked at him.
“Okay?” he asked when her gaze finally met his.
Licking her lips, she nodded again.
Ryan was beginning to love that silent affirmation, recognizing that she gave it when she most wanted something.
He meant to take another hour with her, to put his fingers every place he wanted his penis to go, to explore her so thoroughly there would be no part of her unknown to him.
He took a moment to sheath himself with a condom from the box in his bedside drawer—a supply that he used to replace the one in his wallet each month—and turned back to her.
Taking off her panties as he rejoined her on the bed, he made it only so long as it took him to spread her legs and settle himself between them. He didn’t have to wonder what to do. His body knew. He found her opening and gave a slow nudge, his gaze glued to hers.
And he watched her eyes open wider as his penis first penetrated and then, moving gently in and out, filled her more fully.
Nothing had prepared him for the way that felt. Ecstasy was too bland a word. Perfection not good enough to describe the sensation that filled him from head to toe. Heaven couldn’t be this good.
Ryan hadn’t known how he’d make certain that Audrey had an orgasm, wasn’t sure he’d recognize it when it happened. He only knew that he was not going to take his own pleasure without ensuring hers.
As it turned out, there was no issue. Fully inside her, he pulled out and thrust in again, and again, more quickly, feeling the pressure building in his erection, getting ready to explode, and knowing he was going to have to stop or go before she did when her moans changed, became more frantic, and then surprised-sounding as the inner folds of her body clasped him, pulsing around him. Over and over.
“Oh, my…” Her words were more cry than statement, released breathlessly before she sucked in air.
And with that breath, Ryan joined her, his body erupting with huge throbs as he came inside a woman for the first time in his life.
Highly praised and swiftly rising detective, Ryan Mercedes, had just lost his virginity.
YOU’RE IN TROUBLE, girl. Big trouble.
With Ryan’s “Oh, yes,” still ringing in her ears, the aftermath of his lovemaking leaving her lethargic and absolutely joyful at the same time, she tried her darnedest to rein herself in. To find reality.
She’d had sex before. Way before. And more recently than that, too. But she’d never made love.
Never felt that liquid heat devour every vein in her body, or known herself to give up control to the wild and free ecstasy he’d built inside her.
It had to be the wine. Or the fact that no one had ever taken more than an hour to have sex with her before.
