Some confidences need to be earned, not demanded.
I move to the low couch, and pick up the guitar I left there this morning. Ryland looks over. “Does this mean I get a private performance?” he asks.
I gulp. “Maybe. If you promise not to laugh,” I add, warning.
“Never.” Ryland moves to sit beside me. “But you don’t have to play for me if you’re not ready,” he adds. “I know it’s a big deal to you.”
Somehow, his understanding strengthens my resolve. I set the guitar in my lap, and softly strum a couple of chords. “It’s not finished,” I tell him, still self-conscious. “I haven’t got it figured out.”
As if he can see my nerves, Ryland turns away. He lies down on the couch, facing away from me so his head is resting against my thigh. “I don’t mind what you play,” he says, looking out at the dark ocean beyond the shore. “I just want to hear you.”
Without his attention fixed on me so intently, I find I can breathe again. I start to play the melody that’s been haunting me for weeks now, and slowly, it all fades away, until there’s nothing but the music, and Ryland, and the song slipping from my lips like it was meant to be.
“Summer’s fading/ rearranging/ I fall backwards every time.
To the night you said/ this was forever/ Now forever’s just the empty space you left behind.”
The last chords fade away. I set the guitar down carefully and look to Ryland for some reaction, feeling the flutter of nerves in my chest again. He slowly sits up and turns back to me.
“You wrote that?”
I nod.
“It’s amazing. You’re really talented.”
I flush, embarrassed, but he leans closer. “I mean it,” he insists, gently pushing a lock of hair back from my face. “Even if this contest thing doesn’t work out, you can’t give up. People should know your music, it deserves to be heard.”
“You really think?” I look into his eyes, my heart catching with hope.
“I do.”
Ryland breathes the word, leaning closer, and then it’s just a whisper against my lips as he kisses me, soft and slow. The sweetness washes over me, and I marvel again at how a man so strong and masculine can touch me so gently, making me feel like the most precious thing in the world.But I’m not made of glass. I won’t break. And right now, the desire building in me demands more from him than these whispered kisses. I fist his shirt in my hand and tug him hard against me, capturing his mouth and sliding my tongue deeper, to drink him in with all my senses.
Ryland lets out a groan, and then he’s rolling me under him, pressing my body into the couch and making me arch up against him with the pleasure of his weight against me. I slide my hands over his back, pulling him even closer, dragging my mouth from his devastating lips to kiss along his jaw and down his neck. I fumble with his buttons and tug his shirt off, needing to taste more of his skin.
I lick lower and feel his body clench.
“God…” His voice is ragged, but I keep kissing, down his chest, swirling my tongue over his nipple, teasing him with my mouth as my hands stray even lower. My blood is pounding in my ears, and I revel in every low gasp and flinch of his body beneath my hands.
I want to show him pleasure this time. I want to discover his body, every last inch of him.
I roll out from under him, twisting so that I’m straddling his lap now, arched above him, bearing down on the hardness that presses between my thighs. I grind again, breathless, and Ryland groans. He rises up and kisses me hard, a desperate edge to his touch. He hooks his thumbs under the narrow spaghetti straps of my dress, yanking them loose. My dress slips down, baring my chest, but I barely feel a ripple of air before Ryland’s mouth is on me, licking across my tender breasts in a hot swoop of pleasure. I shudder, pressing closer against his mouth as he toys and kisses his way between them. And just when I think I can’t take the exquisite torment anymore, he closes his mouth around one tight, aching nipple and sucks.
I come undone.
This desire is taking over me, a tidal wave that won’t be denied. I need him, in a way I’ve never needed anyone before. I pull away, dizzy, and crawl back down his body, dropping kisses over the contoured muscles of his stomach and abs as I move lower.
I undo his belt buckle. Ryland’s body tenses. “Tegan?”
I feel the question in his word. I look up and see his face, the lust raging in his eyes, the control in his clenched jaw, holding himself back from the edge.
“I want to touch you,” I whisper, sliding my hands over the waistband of his jeans. I stroke him through the fabric, shivering at the hard outline, the heat and solid flesh. Ryland gasps for air, and I smile, drunk on the power. “It’s my turn now.”
25.
Ryland’s head falls back against the couch as I peel his jeans open and tug them lower. He raises his hips to assist me, and then he’s naked in front of me, gloriously, unashamedly naked. I drink him in, running my hands over his muscles, burnished with the gold of the lamp light and his tan¸ the trail of dark hair snaking lower…
The hard, thick length of him, straining to my touch.
He’s perfection. Raw and powerful and totally at my mercy.
I close my hand around him, and watch his face change; the moment he surrenders to my touch and gives in to the pleasure I want to show him.
His fists clench at his sides. I lower my head, and slowly take him into my mouth.