Let Me Be the One (The Sullivans #6)(62)

They clung to each other for several long moments, working to catch their breath. She loved the way Ryan kept holding onto her as if it didn’t even occur to him to ever let her go.

“I like dating you,” he said into the curve of her shoulder.

She laughed before losing her breath all over again at the aftershocks that her body made jostling over his in laughter. Thirty minutes later, when they’d pulled their clothes back on over their clay-covered bodies and were sitting on the floor devouring the slices of pizza that had just been delivered, with Ryan’s fake-engagement ring lying between her br**sts, she realized it was the craziest second date she’d ever had.

Crazy...and so right.

Chapter Twenty-three

Vicki snuggled in closer to Ryan. He had a bad habit of kicking off the covers while they were sleeping, but as long as he was there to keep her warm, she didn’t mind.

A few minutes later, alarms started to sound from around the room. “Time to wake up, sleepyhead. You have a plane to catch.” She softened her words with a soft flick of her tongue across his earlobe.

He groaned and tried to pull her closer, but as much as she wanted to let him drag her beneath him to make their morning even more perfect, first she needed to wiggle out from beneath his arm to find his various alarms and turn each of them off.

By the time she clicked off the last one, he was sitting up in bed giving her a very appreciative—and smoldering—look.

“You look so good naked, you’ve just given me a new idea.”

She raised an eyebrow even as she moved toward his outstretched arm. “Are you sure it’s a new idea?”

He pulled her over him so that she was straddling him over the covers. “I think we should make this a clothes-free room.”

She laughed and kissed him. “Okay.”

His large, extremely talented hands cupped her br**sts and as he lowered his mouth to them, he said, “If I’d known it was going to be that easy to convince you, I would have said the whole house should be a naked zone.”

Her laughter stopped the second his tongue slicked over her. She threaded her fingers through his hair and held him against her as he feasted on her.

She was panting as she said, “Maybe.”

He lifted her head. “Say that again?”

She gave him a wicked smile. He needed to get on the road soon, but if they worked fast, they could squeeze in a little fun, couldn’t they? “Make me say it.”

Just that fast, her wrists were in his hand, her gentle morning lover turning deliciously dominant in a split-second change-up.

Ryan’s free hand moved between her legs and his mouth covered hers as his fingers played over her aroused flesh.

“You ready to talk yet?”

Talk? She could barely breathe.

“Okay, then. You’ve left me no choice but to get serious with you.” He moved his hand down to the top of her abdomen and stopped right there—such a good tease.

Already overflowing with wanting, Vicki gasped out the word, “One.”

“One what?” His fingers went a little lower, just brushing against her curls, but no matter how she tried to move against his hand, he held firm.

“You can have me naked for one day.”

“Where? Just in the bedroom?” He nipped at her earlobe with a possessive growl. “Or the whole house?”

He moved his hand even lower, but still not low enough.

She all but moaned the words, “The whole house.”

He grinned down at her, but his eyes were dark with desire. “Only once?”

She couldn’t believe what she was about to promise him. But no one had ever made her feel so desired—or safe—that she could even consider agreeing to stay naked for one full day with him.

“At least once.”

“Every month.” His words were a seductive flicker of warm breath and stubble over her br**sts and stomach as he kissed his way down her body until his mouth was hovering right over his teasing hand. “Promise me a naked day every month and I’ll give you what you want.”

If she’d been able to, she would have promised him anything, everything, but all she could manage was, “Please, Ryan.”

She’d stopped trying to quiet her pleas when they were in bed together. Not only because it didn’t feel like she was giving up any of her power to him when she begged...but also because she knew how much he liked knowing he was making her crazy.

His mouth came down on her at the exact moment his fingers slid inside, and Vicki instantly came apart in a flash of brilliant, beautiful color.

Moments later, he moved over her, inside her, and she was wrapped all around him and he was wrapped around her, too, and it was all so beautiful and perfect that she knew it couldn’t possibly get any better.

“I love you.”

They were the three words she’d waited half her life for Ryan to say. Not only to hear him say it…but also to believe it could be true.

She’d been so young when she’d learned not to get too attached to anything since her father would be stationed somewhere new at least every year. But that one year with Ryan had been different. So special that she hadn’t been able to keep herself from losing her heart to him. Just like this week, when she’d given him her heart all over again.

And still, even when he’d told her how he felt about her, and that he wanted their fake relationship to be real, she’d held herself back out of fear that their friends-to-lovers story was too good to be anything but fiction.