Let Me Be the One (The Sullivans #6)(44)

Chapter Seventeen

Vicki’s mouth was a soft press of sweetness against Ryan’s lips as she finally kissed him.

God, she tasted good. He loved the way her tongue found his before pulling back slightly to stroke against his lips and teeth.

Even more, though, he loved the fact that she’d finally reached for him.

Not just with her mouth on his, but the way she’d put her hands on his face and closed her eyes as if she were sculpting him. Sitting in the cab with all of his clothes on and her hands on him, he’d felt naked. And completely transparent. As if Vicki had a direct line to his heart...and soul.

He’d wanted her to know it all, everything he didn’t know how to say but couldn’t stop feeling.

When the taxi driver hit the brakes hard, Ryan was glad for the excuse—for any excuse—to hold her even tighter. He’d never felt anything as good as having her in his arms and when she’d been rocking into him a few minutes ago, he’d been close to losing it fully clothed.

She tried to slip off his lap as he reached for his wallet, but he wouldn’t let her go until the last possible second. Still, he held fast to her hand so that she couldn’t leave the cab until he did, too.

The taxi sped away from them, and in the light of the streetlamp outside his front gate, Vicki’s beautiful face was flushed. Her eyelashes were covering her eyes from him and he wanted to tip her chin up to his, make her look at him and really see who was claiming her before he took her right then and there on the street.

Somehow, a faint glimmer of common sense got through. Once he had her inside his house, however, all bets were off.

There wasn’t going to be any embarrassment tonight.

Or any holding back.

He’d waited too long for her. Had she waited just as long for him? Or was she simply swept up in the moment?

Even though he told himself it didn’t matter, that they’d work it all out in the morning, he wasn’t quite able to push away the twinge in his chest that seemed to say it did, in fact, matter very much whether this was just an impulse for Vicki.

Damn it, he’d never wanted anyone as much as he wanted her. But if she was at all hesitant, he knew what he’d have to—

“Let’s go inside, Ryan.” He was surprised to see Vicki’s eyes darkened with the kind of passion he’d only ever seen her give to her sculptures. “I want to feel more of you beneath my fingertips.” She licked her lips, before whispering, “All of you.”

Ryan throbbed hard behind his zipper and he quickly punched in the security code and led them up the steps to his front door, then inside the house they’d shared for the past few days as friends.

Together, they went to the couch where they’d been watching the movie together just the night before. Even for the five minutes they’d seen of the movie, it had been torture not to reach for her, not to lay her down on the leather and strip her naked so that he could taste every inch of her body.

What a difference forty-eight hours had made.

Thank God.

It was the most natural thing in the world to put his arms around her and pull her right where he wanted her. Her green eyes were big and so damned beautiful as she blinked up at him when he came over her. She was so much smaller than he was that he wanted to be careful, didn’t want to put too much of his weight over her, even though it killed him not to get even closer.

She took advantage of the small distance he’d put between them to push his jacket from his shoulders. He helped her get it off and then she was using those incredibly gifted and clever hands of hers to undo the buttons of his dress shirt.

Ryan’s breath was coming faster and faster, his control slipping more and more with each brush of Vicki’s fingertips over his chest as she worked her way down the front of his shirt.

He needed to rein himself in, enough at least that he wouldn’t scare her with all that he wanted from her.

Everything.

She lifted her eyes to his again just as the word resounded inside his brain.

“You’re so beautiful, Ryan,” she said, and then she laid her hands on the chest she’d bared, palms flat, fingers splayed.

He wanted to see her, too, needed to strip the sexy dress from her gorgeous curves and find out if all of his fantasies about her naked body were, in fact, real. But then her eyes were closing again and she began to move her fingers over his skin.

Her fingernails scraped slowly through the dark hairs that curled over his pecs and he was powerless to control a rumbling groan at the sweetness of her touch. Another smile tipped her lips as she played with him some more.

“I love the way you’re vibrating through my hands,” she whispered as she moved her hands higher, up toward his shoulders.

He’d thought he wanted her hands lower, but the way she traced each line of muscle and sinew over his shoulders, then up onto his neck, was hands-down the sexiest thing any woman had ever done to him.

If she wanted to just keep touching him like this, he would happily let her for as long as she wanted.

But then she moved her hands down from his neck, over his shoulders, to his upper arms. Shoving the fabric of his shirt down so that she could touch his skin, she wrapped her hands over his biceps and triceps, which were bulging from holding himself up over her, and gave a happy sigh.

Her eyes fluttered open, stunning him all over again with their beauty as she said, “You’re so perfect. I love touching you.”