Sweet Rivalry (1001 Dark Nights)(26)
“Oh, please. Me? I was a mess. I didn’t do my hair. I wore those yoga pants and hid my boobs behind that baggy sweatshirt.”
“Now that? That was a travesty,” he murmurs, smile lighting up his face as he reaches out and cups my breast and just leaves his hand there with his thumb rubbing back and forth over its sensitized tip.
I close my eyes and absorb the sensation and when I open them back up, his eyes are locked on mine, intense and unrelenting.
“I went to your place the next day after asking around to find out where you lived but you’d left already. You were already moving on to your new life in New York and I was about to start mine…so I let it go.”
“Why’d you try to find me?” I ask the question I’m not sure of the answer to, the confident woman I am now wanting to know, the shy girl I used to be needing to know.
“There was always something about you, Harper. Sure you were horribly shy and in a constant state of fluster, but there was something about it that was intriguing. You were pretty but didn’t know it. And hell, when you went head to head with me in class, you were a different person. You were confident and demanding and I respected that. I hated you for it…maybe even resented you for it…but I damn well respected you for it. Even when you beat me time and again.”
My grin is quick but my hand is quicker as I reach beneath the sheet and grab his dick in my hand. It’s already thick and heavy against his abdomen and makes my own body surge to life. His gasp when I stroke my hand over it is all I need to hear to know that he feels like I do right now. “I’ll beat you again, too,” I murmur. “But this time, it will be with my own two hands.” I shift from my position, pulling the sheet off us as I do, and his laugh rings out in the room.
“The lady has mad skills in the joke department.”
“I’ve got mad skills, all right.” I lick my lips as I look down at him in all his glory. At his impressive cock, up and over his incredible chiseled abs, to the start of his tattoos on his right ribcage that go up in a dizzying array of lines and graphics, to where his beard rests on the top part of his chest. Damn. I meet the amusement in his eyes again as I shift over his thighs and rest my ass there. “I intend to show you just how mad they are right now.”
I dip my head down and lick my tongue over the head of his cock. His sharp inhale of breath is audible, and when I look up I see he’s arched his head back, his hands fisted in the sheets, and all I can think of is how is it possible that I want more of him already?
Right up until I see the flashing light of the clock on the nightstand to the left of his pillow.
“Oh my God!” I cry out, causing him to snap his head up as I scramble off of him in a frenzied panic.
“What? What is it?”
I’m already off the bed, my mind a cluster of thoughts, and I can’t pinpoint which one I want to tackle first.
“It’s six-thirty. I need to finish the details on my proposal.” I hit the far end of the wall and head back the other way to get my robe. “What if we missed something last night when we left? What if you dropped the condom wrapper and didn’t see it? I’m the only woman in that room and so–– What if we didn’t put the stuff on Alan’s desk back right and he questions it? What if––”
Ryder’s hands catch my shoulders and pull me against him, my back to his front. “Calm down,” he murmurs against my shoulder, beard tickling and dick tempting me from where it’s pressed against my backside. “Calm down.”
“Ryder, I––”
“You have plenty of time. You said yourself you were done last night. You just needed to tweak a few things. Right?” I nod my head despite the worry still rifling through me. “Damn, and I thought I’d sex you up so good you’d forget your numbers.”
“Funny. Don’t you know that while sex makes men fall asleep, it reinvigorates women? Makes them sharper. So thanks for making me razor-edge sharp this morning.”
He starts to say something, stops himself, and then barks out a laugh. “Fucking great.”
I shrug and swat his hands off my waist. No more touching or else I’m going to do what I really want to do—turn around and finish what we were just starting. “Shoo. Go so I can get ready.”
“Nothing like being shown the door while your dick is still hard.” That laugh again. This time it’s followed by a slow and steady scrape of his beard up the line of my shoulder, leading to an open-mouthed kiss at the base of my neck. “Take your time. I’ll head back to my room, get dressed, and head in. I’ll make sure everything is kosher there while you take a shower and finish your proposal here. Everything is fine, Harper. The bid will be fine. We will be fine regardless of the outcome. And we’ll figure things out from there because this. Here”—he motions a hand to the bed and then back to me—“will be happening again.”
“Well, one of us is bound to get reward sex tonight,” I chuckle.
“May the best man win.” He presses a kiss to my shoulder that makes my stomach flip-flop from the butterfly wings starting to flutter.
“May the best woman win. It’s sexist to assume it’s going to be a man.” My smile is automatic. Winning would be the absolute icing on this cake. Let’s see if he takes the bait.