IT TOOK HER another hour to clean up the job. Ryan never came back.

By the time she’d packed up and got everything in her car, it was late.

Still, she found herself outside Ryan’s place with her hand raised to knock.

This was stupid. She had no idea what to say to him. Lowering her hand, she turned away, then swore out loud. Then she whipped around again and knocked before she could change her mind.

Ryan answered the door in low-slung sweats and a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses hanging by the earpiece out of the corner of his mouth. He had a book in one hand, a pencil in the other, and seemed less than pleased with the distraction.

Until he saw her. “Suzanne?”

She managed a little smile, though in truth she was so nervous she felt a little sick with it. “Hi.” Stepping close, she pulled the glasses from his mouth, put her hands on his bare chest, leaned in and kissed him.

Shock held him immobile for only the barest of beats before he dropped the book and the pencil to put his hands on her hips. But instead of pulling her close, he held her away, so that she couldn’t arch her hips to his. “Are…you alone?” she asked.

“Yes.”

He was alone, he wasn’t pulling her close, and she didn’t know what to do. Staring at his amazing body, into his deep, deep eyes, her mind racing frantically, she slid her hands over his chest. She simply couldn’t stop herself. Over his hard pecs, his beaded nipples…

“Suzanne…what are you doing?”

She took some comfort in the fact his voice was low and strained. And underneath his sweats, he wasn’t able to hide a thing, including the erection she yearned to rub up against. “Ryan…”

He just looked at her. Not coldly, no there was nothing cold in his gaze as it held hers, but neither was he going to help her.

Please don’t let me be too late. “I want to make love with you,” she whispered, feeling her face heat there in the dark on his porch.

“You mean you want to have sex?”

She’d hurt him, even though she’d looked Angel right in the eye and said she couldn’t. She could, and she had. “Not sex, no.”

He didn’t look convinced, so she ran her hands down his arms to his hands, which she entwined in hers.

He still held himself rigid.

She simply leaned in closer and put a kiss on the corner of his grim mouth, then slowly made her way over his firm lips to the other corner.

His eyes drifted shut, his thick lashes fanned against his cheeks.

“Please, Ryan.” She outlined his lower lip with her tongue, and ripped a deep shudder from his big frame. “Please? Let me love you.”

With a rough groan, he hauled her close. Thank God. Hauled her up and against his big, hot body, whirled around, stepping over the threshold, kicking the door closed behind them.

“No holding back,” he grated out.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, but he held her off another moment, looking into her eyes with a fierce look of intent. “Say it,” he demanded.

“N-n-no holding back.”

“Promise.”

“I promise,” she whispered.

She’d barely gotten the words out of her mouth before he’d planted her up against the front door, his big frame holding her there, which freed up his hands to run them boldly up her body, touching every inch of her.

Heaven. Being touched like this by him was heaven on earth. “Ryan, I’ve been such a fool about this.”

“Yeah. But I love you anyway.” He held her head in his big hands, holding her still while he ravished her mouth, before lifting a fraction of an inch. “Are we clear on that, at least? I love you, fool.”

14

WHEN SUZANNE just stared at him, mouth open, eyes wide, Ryan figured he should be sorry for letting the words slip, but he wasn’t. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth wet from his kisses. The pulse at the base of her neck was frenzied, her breaths were coming in short little pants as she fumbled behind her for the door.

“Let me guess,” he said, not especially kindly, as she’d ripped him right open. “You have to go?”

“I…”

Having her this close again stirred him beyond belief. His heart raced in tune to hers, and he spread his fingers over the small of her back. “All I can say is…don’t.”

“You love me.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t looking for that to happen, believe me. I thought I had all I needed.” He offered a grim smile. “I was wrong, as it turns out. I’ve never felt this way before.” He whispered this, saw her eyes sparkle with unshed tears. Slowly he slid his jaw to hers while his fingers glided up and down her back, very lightly. “I know you think you’ll hurt me, but-”

“Ryan-”

“I’m a big boy, Suzanne.”

“I know. I know. Ryan…”

When he bent his head, she met him halfway, and it took only an instant for their bodies to remember how good it was between them. Their hands fought for purchase-skin, clothing, it didn’t matter. Ryan couldn’t touch her enough.

With his mouth on hers, he lifted her up against him, and though he was insane with wanting her, he managed to get them down the hallway to his bedroom.

He’d actually straightened his bed that morning.

Setting her down beside it, he tore the blankets and sheets free and turned back to her. “Suzanne-”

She’d crawled on the bed and had come up on her knees, making every thought dance right out of his head. He moved to the edge of the mattress until his knees bumped it. They were face-to-face now, and slowly, so slowly, he reached out to run his hands down her sides, her hips, to her thighs, which he gripped the backs of and pulled out from beneath her.

With a gasp she fell to her back. “Ryan.”

“Right here.” He followed her down, meeting her waiting mouth with his, sucking in a harsh breath when she danced her tongue to his. He pressed his hips forward to show her what she did to him, and in response, she dug her fingers into his butt, pulling him harder against her.

Oh yeah, he liked that. But they were too…dressed.

Surging up, he skimmed off her clothes, flinging them over his shoulder one piece at a time to her breathless laughter. By the time he got to his, she was lying there open and gloriously nude, waiting, her hips arching just a little, which drove him right out of his living mind. Finesse flew out the window as well, so that when his legs got tangled in his sweatpants, he simply tore them off. She let out another laugh that backed up in her throat when he bent to her breast.

With a little growl, he sucked hard at a tight nipple, catching it lightly between his teeth, making her clutch at his head, holding him to her as she cried out.

Oh yeah, he liked that, too. By the time he repeated the torment on her other side, she was panting his name with every breath.

Gliding his hands down her body, down her gloriously lush body, he watched as he touched her, as her eyes glazed over, as her head thrashed back and forth on his pillow, and thought this is it for me. She is it for me.

“Love me,” she whispered.

“Always.” He skimmed his fingers down her thighs, then back up, between them now, parting her, exploring her tight, damp center. He found what he sought and gently squeezed.

She let out a strangled gasp and thrust against his hand. “Love me,” she said again, and reached for him. “Please, Ryan, love me.”

“Open your eyes. Watch.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I-”

“Watch,” he repeated a bit shakily now because he was dying, dying, to sink into her. “No holding back, you promised.”

She swallowed hard. “Now, then. Ryan, now.”

“After I taste you,” he whispered, and put his mouth to her.

With the first stroke of his tongue, she bucked right into his waiting mouth. Perfect. With his second stroke, she let out a sobbing breath and gripped his ears so tight it was possible he’d never hear again.

Who needed to hear, he thought, and stroked her. And then again, until she was thrashing beneath him, requiring him to hold her still to keep his mouth on the mark.

“Ryan…please!”

Obliging, he sucked her hard into his mouth, and she came in wild shudders that nearly triggered his own release right there on the sheets. Getting a condom on was tricky, but he managed, then guided himself to her creamy center.

Her eyes, dazed, held his. “Yes. Now. Now!”

His beautiful, passionate, impatient Suzanne. He pushed deeply into her, then deeper still.

“Please, Ryan!”

Oh yeah, he would please. He gripped her hands with his, linking them together as he kissed her again, and then again, making love to her mouth as hard and deep and as urgently as he was making love to her body.

This time when he withdrew, then thrust home, there was nothing gentle or slow about it. “Suzanne.” He couldn’t help but say her name in wonder, and again in awe, as, fingers and mouths and hearts linked, she took him to a place he’d never been before.

When her muscles tightened around him, when she came again, he strained against doing the same. But he couldn’t have held back to save his life.

Burying his face in her hair, he didn’t even try.


HE AWOKE with the sun on his face. For a moment he hovered in a dreamy state, half-awake, half-asleep. He wore only an erection and a dopey grin, both a direct result of the memories of last night.

It was his own little miracle that she’d come to him in the first place, and he still didn’t know why, but he would. After he woke her up properly, by kissing every inch of her body, of course. It was only fair to return the favor, as last night, after finally falling asleep in each other’s arms, he’d awakened with her mouth on him. That wasn’t a memory he’d ever forget. He’d fisted his hands in her wild hair, wondering what he’d done to deserve her in his life. Then all wondering had ceased, and so had thought, when she’d swirled her tongue over the tip of him in tune to her stroking hands. He’d thrown back his head and surrendered as she delivered him the orgasm of his life. He’d still been in the throes of aftershocks when she’d climbed up his body and tangled her tongue with his.