Let Me Be the One (The Sullivans #6)(61)

Her studio light flicked on and she was momentarily blinded. A few seconds later, she realized Ryan was walking toward her. Before she could even register what was happening, he pulled her to her feet and gave her a hard, hungry, possessive kiss. She could taste his need. And, strangely, his relief as well.

“Jesus, Vicki, you need to answer your phone.”

Her pupils were still trying to adjust to the bright lights at the same time as she worked to keep her balance after Ryan’s brain-sizzling kiss.

“My phone?” was the best she could do by way of a response when she was at the perfect level to stare straight at his gorgeous mouth. She couldn’t resist taking her own tiny little taste of him this time.

“You weren’t at home, and I’ve been calling you for an hour.” He pulled back, his dark eyes flashing dangerously. “No one was answering out front.”

She wished her hands weren’t covered in wet clay. Otherwise she could have stroked the worry from his face. “I lost track of time. You shouldn’t have worried.”

He abruptly let go of her and walked back to her door to kick it shut. Maybe it would have scared her if some other man had acted like this, but she didn’t feel even the slightest bit of fear with Ryan.

Only the fast sizzle of arousal...and anticipation of just how he would take her this time.

Plus, she couldn’t help but think she knew why he was acting this way. Until she gave him the commitment he said he wanted, how could he do anything but doubt her? One way or another.

He locked her door before moving to yank down the blinds on one of the big windows. “All goddamned day long I thought about you.” He yanked down another blind, so hard it rattled against the glass. “Every second at the stadium, every second of my meetings, I was waiting for it all to end so that I could get home and spend my last night before leaving for the playoffs with you.” Frustration fairly rolled off him. “But you weren’t there.”

She stood in the middle of her workroom, paralyzed by the desire—and possessiveness—in her normally calm and easygoing friend’s eyes as he quickly covered the distance between them.

“We agreed to go slow,” she reminded him, and herself, even though slow was the exact opposite of what she wanted right now. Fast and hard and breathless was all she could think about even as she told him, “We’ve spent the past six nights together. I wanted to give you space to go out with the guys.”

“I’ve had a lifetime of space,” he growled. “I don’t need space. I need you, Vicki. You.”

She was shellshocked by his intensity.

And honesty.

“Then take me, Ryan, because I need you, too.”

He yanked off his shirt and then hers, stopping only long enough to run his fingers over the engagement ring hanging on the chain between her br**sts. Her leggings were gone a second later and then he snapped open the clasp at the back of her bra and it fell, too. All that remained was for him to push his thumbs into the sides of her panties and shove them down over her hips and thighs.

Her hands were wet and covered with clay, but Ryan clearly didn’t care as he threaded his fingers into hers and backed them up against the nearest wall. He lifted her hands up over her head and lowered his mouth to her br**sts, roughly rubbing the stubble on his chin over her, making her flesh even more sensitive by the time he laved first one and then the other with his tongue.

Even lost in the sweet shock of arousal, Vicki realized she was surrounded by all of her favorite things.

Clay. Sculptures. Ryan.

Full to bursting with a joy she hadn’t ever let herself believe could be real, the next thing she knew, Ryan was kissing her again and letting her hands go to press his now clay-covered palms over her br**sts.

Every inch of skin he touched came alive beneath his fingers, marking her with clay, claiming her as his even more with every caress.

Wanting to mark him, too, desperate to feel his heat and strength beneath her fingertips, she laid her hands over his shoulders and slowly slid a path of clay down over his chest and then his abdomen.

He pushed himself between her naked thighs so that the zipper of his jeans—and the huge bulge behind it—was a deliciously hard press of heat into the vee between her legs, making her gasp as he hit just the right spot. Always incredibly in tune with her body, he reached for one thigh and slid his hand down to grasp her beneath her knee and pull her leg up and around his waist.

Vicki was entirely sensation now, a bundle of nerves ready to spring apart at any moment. But she didn’t want to go there alone.

Suddenly clumsy with desire, her hands shook, fumbling at the button and zipper on his jeans. He moved his hands from her br**sts just long enough to pull a condom out before his jeans fell to the ground. She was the one yanking off his underwear now and thank God his hands were clean enough from brushing over her skin again and again to slide on the condom.

So strong, he lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist just as he lowered her down onto him. Both of them breathed out hard at the sweet moment of connection, her body a perfect fit around his, and then he was cupping her hips hard in his hands and riding her against the wall while she kissed him with more than just her mouth. Her entire heart and soul were there in every slick of her tongue against his, in every gasp of ecstasy...and especially in the explosion of pleasure that soon took them both over in the middle of her studio.