Page 33 of Not a Strong Enough Word

“What?” I ask when he doesn’t speak.

“Nothing,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I like this.”

I return his smile, a different kind of warmth blooming in my chest. “Me, too.”

Dinner goes off without a hitch. Ava’s girlfriend, Marcie, is a delight. She has us in stitches most of the evening, telling stories about her time as a clown for hire and all the wild things she saw at kids’ birthday parties. She does mostly data entry now, but when she tells stories, Ava watches her with hearts in her eyes. They ask about my book, but not too much, which is nice. I’ve been talking about my book for weeks; I want to talk about other things.

The whole time, Ryan finds excuses to touch me. His hand rests casually on the back of my chair so his thumb can brush against the nape of my neck. His thigh presses up against mine under the table. He brushes my hair off my shoulder and leans to whisper something into my ear. At one point during dessert, his hand lands on my knee.

By the time we leave, I’m desperate for him. The ride back to my condo is excruciating, especially because he strokes a light finger up and down my inner thigh under the cover of darkness as we sit in the back of the cab. When we get to my building, I run ahead of him up the steps and through my hallway—heels be damned—so I can unlock my door for us to tumble inside.

He slams the door shut behind him, then spins me so my back is pressed against it. Wasting no time at all, he presses a hot kiss against my fevered neck. “I missed you.” Another on my collarbone. “I missed this.” Another on top of the swell of my left breast above the scooped neck of my dress. “And this.” Then, my right breast. “And this.”

“Ryan.” I exhale as he drags the hem of my dress upward.

“I missed those little noises you make.” He pulls the fabric up so it pools over my hip, leaving my soaked panties on display for him. His finger meets the cotton material, and he groans, dropping his forehead to my shoulder. “Fuck, Scarlett. Have you been this wet all night?”

“For you,” I say breathlessly. “Always for you.”

He tucks my panties to the side and dips a finger into my waiting heat. I cry out in pleasure, digging my nails into his shoulders, trying to gain purchase through the fabric of his shirt so I can ride his hand. He pushes another finger inside, and the way he stretches me is exquisite, even if it’s not quite enough. As if he can read my mind, his palm meets my clit. His dark eyes meet mine before he swallows my breathy moans with a kiss. Pressure builds in my core, and I claw at his shoulders, begging for more.

“I missed this, too,” he says, pulling away just enough to watch. “I want to see you come, Scarlett. Can you come for me, beautiful?”

“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes.”

He circles his fingers inside me a few more times, and I shatter, clenching and unclenching around his fingers as he tastes my mouth with his tongue.

As soon as I can breathe again, he releases me. We waste no time shedding clothes on our way to the bedroom. I don’t know where anything ends up, and I don’t care. We’re too frantic for each other, too eager. Clothes are tomorrow’s problem. Right now, we’re only skin and heat and need.

I lie on my bed. Ryan takes off his glasses and lays them carefully on the nightstand before crawling over me, dark eyes glinting in the moonlight that filters in from the window. He kisses my hip, then the valley of my waist, my stomach, the underside of my breast. Swiftly, he draws a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, nipping at it with his teeth. I gasp and rub my legs together, trying to relieve some of the pressure already building again between my thighs. My palm meets his hard length, and he lets out a gruff moan into my chest as I pump my hand a few times.

Quickly, without warning, he circles his broad hands around my waist and flips me onto my stomach. I arch my back, which pushes my ass up into the air. He rubs a hand over it and squeezes.

“I’ll never get tired of this view.” His voice is gravelly. He uses both hands to spread me open for him, then notches himself against my entrance.

“I missed you,” I say as I rock backward, taking him inside me. We both let out a noise of relief, and I gasp as he presses even further, filling me. Another thrust, and his hips meet my ass. I sigh, content.

There are no more words as he sets an unhurried pace. All the frenzied need from earlier is gone now, replaced with a tenderness punctuated by our soft sighs and the sound of our skin meeting in the darkness. At one point, he reaches around to place a warm palm on my stomach, then drags it downward to stroke my already-sensitive clit.

“Can you come for me again, beautiful?” he asks, his voice reverent and full of emotion.

“Yes,” I breathe, arching my back even more so he can reach the spot I need. “Can you use a little more pressure?”

He obliges, and I cry out, burying my face in the blanket in front of me. His thrusts start coming harder and more erratic. I feel him stiffen inside me, and with another swirl of his finger, I come again. While waves of pleasure are still crashing into me, he shudders his own release.

After we come down from our high, Ryan goes to the bathroom. He returns with a warm washcloth and starts to clean me up. I can’t explain why, but from the way he concentrates on the task, it feels like this is important to him. When he’s done, he tosses the cloth into my hamper, then lies down and pulls me against him. We slip into a deep sleep together, holding each other close the whole night.

Chapter 17

Ryan

When Scarlett and I met, she was a spitfire. On our first two dates—which were a month apart because she wasn’t sure she wanted to see me again—we spent half the time trying to one-up each other with literary knowledge and the other half making out like teenagers. Over the course of the two years of the rest of our relationship, I think I saw her cry twice, and neither of those times were the waterworks that explode from her when she crumples onto the floor in a literal puddle of bath water and tears in the hallway outside her bathroom.

By the time I walked out of that bathroom, I knew I had crossed a line. The flush of my overheated skin and the hardness between my legs were clear signals, and even though I knew leaving right then and there was probably the best thing for everyone involved, I sat down on the couch to wait for her, as if touching her hair and imagining her curves below those bubbles had caused my body to act on its own.

But the look on Scarlett’s face when she flew out of the bathroom, her threadbare robe clinging to those curves that had only existed in my memory, was thankfully enough to spur me into action.

“Oh, shit.” I jump to my feet as her ass hits the ground. “Scarlett, what happened?”