Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers #1)(95)

“No, you’re not.” His hands smooth my hair off my face. “You’re beautiful, always, and I love you endlessly, Willa Rose Sutter. I can’t help it. I wish I could. I know this makes your life messier. I know I’ve tortured you. I know we piss each other off as much as we make each other happy. I know I want a quiet life and yours will be nothing but wildly exciting, as you deserve it to be.

“But I want your life to be my life, Sunshine. I’ll do whatever it takes for your world to be mine.”

“Ryder.” I press my forehead to his chest. My ear rests over his heart. It’s pounding, fast. It’s this tiny reminder that the man holding me is just as fragile. He’s just as easily wounded and broken. He’s taking a risk, loving me.

Rain pelts down on us as we sway. Until one rough hand grasps my jaw and tips my face up.

Ryder’s eyes search mine, a quiet, beautiful smile painting his face. “I love you, Willa Rose.”

My smile is ridiculous. It’s a comical, clown-at-the-circus, child-at-Christmas smile. “I love you, too, Ryder.”

His kiss is soft and tender. It’s a quiet press of his mouth, gently opening, unfurling into something warm and bone-deep satisfying. I flick my tongue and find his. I taste him, savor him, as our bodies lock tight. Hands find hair and fabric and skin, and tug, begging for more.

“More,” I whisper. “I want it all.”

His smile is soft against my lips, his sigh of contentment as warm as the breeze that surrounds us. “Me too, Sunshine.”





29





Willa





Playlist: “All Night,” Beyoncé





I stand in a puddle of water at my feet. The rain picked up on our walk back. We’re warm and soaked. Ryder stares at me, chest rising and falling like he’s trying to quiet the storm inside himself. Thunderclouds darken the sky, casting the bedroom in sleepy shades of gray and taupe, rainwater blue.

Ryder steps closer and runs his hands down my arms. His lips press to my temple. Soft, warm kisses as his fingers curl around the hem of my shirt. It peels up my torso and catches on my wet hair before he tugs it resolutely off. Ryder sucks in a breath, the most beautiful expression on his face. Pained wonder. It’s not even the first time he’s seen me naked, but he looks undone.

Two shaking hands grip the zipper of my sports bra, the unfurling sound echoing in the room before he pushes it off my shoulders.

“God, Willa.” He blinks rapidly and quickly wipes his eyes.

“Are you crying, Brawny?”

“Stop it,” he mutters, kissing me quickly. “Say my name.”

“Ryder,” I whisper. His hands slide along my waist, to my shorts and panties, fingers hooking into the material and dragging them down. He kneels as he goes.

“Hold on,” he orders quietly.

I grasp his shoulders as I step out of my clothes, but Ryder doesn’t stand. His hands drift up my thighs, across my pelvis, then down—

“Willa.” Ryder stares up at me, his fingers slowly teasing along impossibly sensitive skin.

A hum of pleasure slips out. “Yes?”

He smiles as he presses a kiss low on my hip. My eyes flutter shut. “I knew things felt smooth last night…but I did not see you being a waxer.”

“Rooney said I should. Said if I didn’t like your beard, I shouldn’t make you deal with mine.”

Ryder laughs against my skin.

Good grief, I need a filter. A hot flush surges to my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to say all of that out loud.”

His lips kiss their way down from my hip, along the tender skin inside my legs, before traveling upward again. “I would have been happy no matter what. Nothing would stop me from doing this.”

“Ryder, I don’t…historically, that is, this doesn’t normally make me—ohhh.”

“Hush,” he mutters against my skin. “We’ve already established that’s not on you.”

My grip tightens on his shoulders as Ryder gently splays me open. Air rushes over everywhere that’s warm and wet and aching. I’m flushed, hot, and shivering. When his tongue sweeps over me again, teasingly slow, I buck into his mouth instinctively.

“Ryder,” I whisper.

He grins against my skin. “Goddamn, you taste good, Willa. So, so good.”

I blush spectacularly. “Really?”

“Hell, yes,” he growls. His hands cup my ass and tug me closer.

Something he does with his tongue this time tickles and I giggle reflexively. Embarrassment heats my cheeks. What if I offended him? Have I ruined the mood? Ryder pulls back and smiles up at me. Just smiles.

“Too soft?” he asks.

“I think so. It tickled.”

He glances down at everything before him. He looks incredibly analytical for a second, just how he did when he was talking yesterday about troubleshooting the roof for a leak. Then a grin tugs at his mouth. “So beautiful. I get to see this, taste this, forever.”

“Forever, huh?” I ask breathily, trying to sound flippant. Even though my heart’s tripping at the weight and promise of his words. Ryder wants me. Forever.

“Yup,” he says quietly in between kisses that tease and torture me, so close to where I’m dying for touch. “I’m like a…barn owl. One and done.”