I’m not even trying to win anymore, but competitiveness is ingrained in me. Working at Peretti’s Pizza has given me a good base for card games. My dad taught me poker at a young age. When deliveries were slow, we’d need something to pass the time, and my dad was ruthless.
I’ve gone home many a night with no tips, but eventually I learned, and now my dad never asks to play anymore. He mostly likes to win.
Unlike my dad, the hockey guys aren’t poor sports. They’re good sports, which makes the game all the more fun.
“Babe, we should get you in bed. You have a meeting in the morning.” Lawrence leans over and plants a kiss on Lilia’s cheek. “And if we don’t leave right now, I won’t have enough money to pay our mortgage next month, since Andi here is sweeping the table.”
I laugh then push a stack of chips in Lawrence’s direction. “Here, I wouldn’t want you to be homeless.”
“Oh, he’s being a baby.” Lilia grins, pushing the chips back. “But I am ready for bed. Goodnight y’all. Behave.”
I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye—it’s Lilia, Lawrence, and Ryan all exchanging some look I can’t quite interpret.
“I’ll lock up,” Ryan says. “Good night.”
Mo stands up, too, waving to the table. “Pleasure playing with you all—except for you, Andi. It was a disaster playing with you. I should be heading out before I lose my cab fare.”
I push chips toward him, but he extends a hand and shakes mine.
“You won, fair and square,” he says. “But you’re not invited back, sorry.”
“Andi’s got until one thirty this morning,” Lilia says as she leaves, the rest of the group trailing after her and Lawrence. “Best get her back on time, Ryan, so her dad doesn’t ban us from Peretti’s Pizza. Those are damn good pizzas.”
With that, she’s gone.
Ryan and I look at each other over the stack of chips and cards.
“So, we’ve got an hour?” Ryan eventually says, his eyes twinkling in the now empty room.
I blink. “Guess so.”
“What on earth could we do with an hour?”
I glance around the cozy room, taking in the comfortable ambiance, the sparkle in Ryan’s eyes. “How about you tell me what you were going to say in the kitchen before Lilia interrupted.”
Footsteps sound as Lilia and Lawrence make their way to the second floor. He waits until they pass, and then gives me a piercing gaze that does things to my heart. “You don’t have to go through with this wedding thing,” he says. “I’ve had some time to think about it, and…it’s stupid. It’s too much to ask of you.”
“Oh,” I say, not having expected that. I should have expected he’d realize this was all a horrible idea—bringing me, delivery girl extraordinaire—to a Pierce wedding. “Well, I don’t have to come, it’s no big—”
“That’s not what I meant.” His face scrunches up as if all the words have come out wrong. “What I meant is that I don’t want you to feel pressured into going with me. I’d feel pretty shitty if that were the case.”
“It’s a little favor. I feel shitty for bumping your car.”
“It’s just a few bucks,” he says. “That was nothing. I’m taking you to a whole new state.”
A few bucks means two very different things to Ryan and myself. A few bucks to fix Ryan’s car was nothing to him, but if he’d made me pay, I’d have been working overtime for a month to pay it off.
“Do you want to come to the wedding with me, Andi?” he asks then. “Forget favors, forget any of it. I like you. I think it’d be fun to go together, and I’ll pay for everything. If you want to come as my date, I’d love to have you.”
“As your date?”
“Andi.” This time, his voice comes out low, husky.
I lean toward him, listening, waiting with bated breath for whatever will follow, and as it turns out, it isn’t words. His lips ease toward mine, slowly, gently, until they touch.
Once our lips meet, gentle flies out the window, and it’s a tangle of heat, of pent-up desire and passion radiating through my veins.
“I don’t want to be your friend, Andi.”
I can’t think, can’t speak. All I know is that I want him just as much as he wants me. My fingers wind through his hair and pull tight. I’m loving the feel of his soft locks beneath my fingers.
He groans at the motion then pulls me onto him. It’s commanding and fast, and when he positions me on his lap, I can feel him beneath me. He is packing quite the hockey stick. I might be the delivery girl, but he’s the one with the package.
His fingernails dig into my hips, and I can’t think anymore. I just feel. He grinds against me and as we kiss, grope, my thoughts going black, my desire growing, I let myself be taken completely away—until suddenly, I pull back. I can’t do this.
I’m about to orgasm from dry humping. This hasn’t happened since high school, and I gasp, moving to a half-standing position over him. I can’t do this. It’s embarrassing. I mean, it’s fun, but—no, not the first time, not with Ryan Pierce.
“What’s wrong?” His voice is a gravelly road leading me all sorts of places I want to go. “Come to bed with me.”
“I have to get going home,” I say, cringing as I say it. “Curfew.”
The sound he makes is almost animalistic, pained at the idea of stopping.
“I know,” I say, and then because it’s the only thing I can logically think to do, I sit back down, straddle his lap, and begin the rocking motion again. Screw curfew. I’m twenty-three-years old—if I want to wiggle around on Ryan Pierce, I’m going to do it. “Don’t stop.”
“Andi, no, I’ve got to get you…”
I imagine he wanted to say the word home, but it doesn’t make it out because I run a hand on the front of his pants, and he loses all track of what he’s saying.
His tongue returns to my mouth with a vengeance, licking, sucking, biting—he’s a god with that thing. I swear, that man is about to finish me off while we’re both still clothed, thanks to some good old-fashioned making out and a tongue that’s MVP in the tonsil-hockey league.
Then his hand comes up to my jeans, groping, caressing through the thick denim there. Even that sends lightning shooting through every one of my atoms, but it’s not enough for either of us.
“Get these fuckers off,” he says, and I’m pretty sure he’s talking about my pants because his hands move to fiddle with the buttons. “Now.”
I raise my hands and help him with the buttons. We don’t take the time to pull my pants down farther than my thighs. He’s got his hand inside them, and that’s all that matters. He’s about to send me into space like a rocket, and all he’s doing is running a hand over the thin, lacy fabric guarding my no-longer dusty vagina.
“You are so wet,” he says. “Shit. Damn. Hell.”
“Colorful,” I say of his vocabulary. “Don’t you dare stop, Pierce.”
He muffles a half laugh into my neck as he bites at my skin there. If I don’t have a hickey, I’ll be surprised. Then I surprise myself further because I wind my fingers through the back of his shaggy hair and pull his mouth to my neck.
He creates a light suction, running his tongue along the sensitive skin while his fingers run along the edge of my panties. I squirm with pleasure, with need. His fingers toy with the edge of the lace until one of them dips underneath and I suck in a breath sharp enough to crack a rib.
The moan coming out of my mouth sounds like a bobcat, or a horse, or…something—I can’t think. His finger strokes me, toying, teasing, not giving me exactly what I need. His eyes are lit with playful lights.
“Stop teasing me, Pierce,” I warn, and then I slide my hips downward.
He laughs, softly. “Say my name.”
“Pierce.”
“Ryan.” He withdraws his finger as punishment, and I’m ready to cry. He meets my eyes, those chocolate chip irises making my insides turn to lava. “Say it,” he instructs. “And mean it.”
I last as long as I can, but even my stubbornness—which is legendary in the Peretti family—breaks. “Please, Ryan,” I whisper. “I need you.”