Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers #1)(33)
Willa and I aren’t even kissing, not on the lips, but we’re moving, rolling against each other, and that I know has to stop. What we’re doing right now only leads to one thing. One thing that absolutely cannot happen right now.
When I pull away, Willa does too, her features tightening. “Why did you stop?”
I tug at my hair. My hand falls and I shake my head. Fatigue from the day makes my thoughts increasingly fuzzy. I don’t even know what I’d try to sign to her, what words I’d write in my notepad.
“You don’t want to anymore?” she asks faintly.
Her eyes are getting heavier, and I think this time, there won’t be any waking her. Before Willa can argue anymore, before she can demand a kiss or ask for one step further, her eyes fall shut and she drops, a dead weight in my arms.
“Sleep,” she says.
Nodding, I scoop her up. For once, Willa Sutter and I agree on something.
10
Willa
Playlist: “Surround Me,” LéON
“Oh, God.” Blinking hurts. Thinking hurts. I shift and bump into something solid and immovable. Whatever it is, it smells like sex in an evergreen forest. Cedar. Pine. Spruce. I’m warm, with one tree limb draped around me, another poking my butt. Wait—
Startling, I spin inside the tree limb that I realize is an arm. It’s so damn heavy, it might as well be timber. Ryder’s out cold, his mouth open softly in sleep. There are smudges under his eyes which I’m sure have everything to do with the fact that he went driving to some ritzy club Rooney and Becks picked, at God knows what hour of the night. That plan backfired a little bit. I know loud environments are nightmarish for his hearing. I didn’t mean to lure Ryder there. Becks was just supposed to send a picture of me being obnoxiously sexy. In the name of retribution, and all.
But instead of rolling his eyes and saying he was worried for the male population of Club Folle, Ryder showed up incensed and swept me away before I passed out and somebody took advantage of that.
Last thing I remember is vomiting in the alley. A few patchy moments of rubbing myself all over Ryder like a cat in heat.
Oh, Lordy. I rubbed all over him. I remember that vividly now.
I mean, his arm’s wrapped around me, we’re spooning in his bed, though there’s his chivalry again: he’s sleeping on top of the blankets that my body is practically swaddled in. He can’t mind that I was treating him like my personal dance pole that much, can he?
Wracking my brain, I try to piece together the night. I remember jumping him like a kitten on catnip. I scaled him and scratched my way through his surprisingly silky hair. I remember kisses that weren’t kisses but decadent tastes of each other’s necks, throats, faces. They felt more sexual and intimate than any kind of physicality I’ve ever experienced.
I remember when that bliss faded from my skin, how his hips stilled against mine, his strong hand tightened around my waist. It didn’t go any further than that. I don’t remember, but I know, because I was a puking, twerking, drunk-as-a-skunk mess and Ryder Bergman might be a surly son of a bitch, but he’s also a gentleman.
Three cheers for that. Because let me tell you, last night, I would have kissed him stupid with my vomit breath and happily jammed on that lumberjack’s log if he’d have let me.
An involuntary groan leaves Ryder. It might have something to do with the fact that I’ve been unconsciously shimmying myself, like a little tree-abiding forest creature, against the piece of wood that extends rather prominently from his sweatpants toward me.
That groan brings another part of the night to my memory. His laugh. I made him laugh and it was beautiful.
Ryder’s hand flexes as it meets my waist. One eye cracks open, greeting me with grass green irises and thick lashes. It’s followed by a slow, sexy smile. I’m hopeful it’s here to stay but I’m not counting on it. He’s dazedly half-awake, in that pliant, relaxed place I was a few weeks ago, in my sexy lumberjack-about-to-fell-a-tree dream.
He gropes overhead, never breaking eye contact with me. On a soft sigh through his nose, he swipes open his phone and types, spinning it so I can read the notebook.
You snore.
I smack his shoulder as embarrassment reddens my cheeks. I’m aware of this, but like hell am I admitting it. “Do not.”
He nods, mouthing, Do.
Our eyes hold, and because I’m a self-sabotaging, punishing hothead, I shove down the blankets and lean closer to him. Ryder’s grip never leaves my waist, and the heat of his palm seeps through my dress. His hand flattens on my back and pulls me even closer, making Ryder hiss under his breath when I press my pelvis to his. I watch his jaw clench, his eyes scrunch shut before they open again.
Gently, he uses his arm underneath my neck to pull me until I’m tucked into him. My head is on his shoulder, in a cloud of cedar and spruce nirvana. I stare up at the notepad as he types furiously.
What’s been going on? The past few weeks you’ve been…different. Why were you dressed like that, out at a club?
I glance up at him, brushing my fingers against his now rather bushy beard. How do I explain what I’ve been doing without laying all my cards on the table? Without telling him I know about the hearing aid, and I wanted to get back at him. That I got carried away in my vengeance—we both did—and now I don’t even recognize where we are anymore. I can’t admit any of that, because that would leave me exposed and insanely vulnerable. So, like the big wuss that I am, I change the subject.