Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(26)

And those three words are almost as powerful as the other three words I feel about him but haven’t yet allowed myself to voice. The ones that were front and center and in neon lights when he stepped off the elevator tonight.

I know he can see the tears welling in my eyes when he leans back and frames my face with his hands. The simple gesture makes me feel so protected in that Cinderella princess way, and for the first time, I don’t care that it’s silly. I’ve never had this feeling before, so who says I can’t enjoy every trite, cliché, ridiculous moment of admitting I’m falling in love?

There’s so much apology in his eyes that one doesn’t need to be given or accepted right now. I can figure that out later. You can love someone without wholly forgiving them.

“God, I missed you.” He groans before kissing me for the first time.

It starts off slow. A touch of our lips. Then another. Each time the kiss a little longer, the need growing a little more urgent, until the dam breaks.

We crash together in a torrent of need right here in the hallway. Our lips and hands and tongues and bodies reconnect as if it’s been years since we’ve been together rather than just weeks. But there’s something about Ryker Lockhart that makes me feel like each time is new. Like each time is more special. Like each time is a hint of so much more to come.

My back hits the wall behind me as his body presses against me. Our hands roam over one another, but it’s our lips that do the talking with each kiss.

And that’s all we do. Kiss. The simplest of intimate actions. But it’s his lips that hurt me to begin with, and so I feel like he’s trying to show me that they don’t always bring pain. No. They can soothe and murmur and caress and cajole and apologize.

Every part of me burns for him. Chills chase over my skin, and the ache is so very sweet at the delta of my thighs.

But every time I try to run my hands along his waistband and cup his cock, he locks his hand around my wrist and prevents me.

“Just this. We need this,” he murmurs against my lips and then dives back in to feast on them again.

The transition into the penthouse happens gradually. A step toward the door when we come up for air. His keycode punched in the lock pad as he presses his hand against the small of my back, pulling me into him. The quiet click of the door behind us as we move down the hallway ungracefully but steadily.

The sound of my zipper when he slides it down the seam of my dress and then the swish as the fabric falls to the floor around my feet.

The startled inhale as I undo his shirt buttons and run my palms up the naked planes of his chest. The groan he makes as his head falls back when my hands cup the hardness of his cock.

The dance continues until we’re both undressed. We don’t take time to look at each other. Our bodies are already known to each other. It’s our hearts we’re still trying to figure out.

I kneel on the bed, our kisses still as intense but a little slower. A lot softer. Each one telling a chapter in a story instead of a line in a paragraph.

Ryker crawls over me as my hand encircles his dick and guides him to where I want him. With one elbow pressed beside me, he wraps his hand over mine, and we both guide him into me.

It happens so effortless this time—him filling me. The ache turns to pleasure. The burn into desire. Short pants of breath and long slides of skin. Moans of rapture and hitches of breath.

The darkness of the room swallows us and at the same time unites us. The loneliness we felt apart fuels us to want more together.

We make love without words. Because even though I won’t accept those three words from him yet, we both know that’s exactly what we’re doing right now. Loving each other.

We’re cementing those emotions that came to light when we were absent from one another’s life. With each push in. With every pull out. With the gentle urgency he uses. With our fingers intertwined and resting beside my hip. With the drag of his lips over my collarbone and the grip of my fingers against the skin of his ribcage.

Our bodies work to reach the high. The climax, a slow surge that begins to build within, is undeniable and so very different than I felt previously.

There’s emotion pushing it now. There are feelings and commitment and things we’ve never really expressed but that can be felt in its tides mixed in.

Ryker buries his face against the underside of my neck as his hips begin to thrust faster and my body begins to tense. His breath is hot against my skin. My mewls are loud against the harsh pants of his breath. The slap of our skin is an underlying beat.

And then it hits with white heat and electric pulses and a bliss that warms me from my core out to my fingertips and back again. My head arches against the pillows as my hips buck and my back bows . . . as I beg for everything from him that I never thought possible for myself.

Unable to let go, I wrap my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck as he chases his own, my body his to use.

It’s less than a minute before his groan vibrates in the back of his throat. Before his muscles tense and shudder with the adrenaline my own body is slowly falling from. Before his body relaxes and he slowly rolls off me with an audible exhale.

No words are exchanged between us as we stare at the ceiling. The penthouse is so high up that the shadows are stagnant. There are no headlights driving by to light up through the windows. There are no streetlights providing ambient light. Just the moon outside this twentieth-story tower.