“Appreciate that.” John extended a hand. “By the way, it’s no secret that I wasn’t thrilled when I found out you were dating my sister. But she’s incredibly happy. And all I ask is that you keep it that way.”
“That’s my goal,” Ryan said, and it was number one on his to-do list.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sophie understood everything now. Why he visited his mom so much. The way the secrets had twisted over the years, like a string running through a labyrinth. Ryan had kept them all inside his head, locked up tight, clutching like a lifeline the wish of his one living parent.
Sophie’s place wasn’t to judge the guilt or innocence of Dora Prince. The state of Nevada had already done that. But her role, the self-appointed role that she embraced, was to be there for her man.
“I’m proud of you for speaking all those hard and terrible truths,” she said, as the town car driver took them to Ryan’s house after the event had ended.
“I barely know what to think anymore,” he muttered, staring out the window as the streetlights and cars streaked by through his neighborhood.
She dropped a hand to his shoulder. “You were brave to tell him.”
“Hardly,” he said, mocking himself as he turned to look at her. “If I were brave I would have said something years ago.”
She stared at him levelly and shook her head. “You didn’t know what you were dealing with. You still don’t entirely know. That’s why it’s brave. You took a chance.”
When they reached his home, Ryan took a moment to thank the driver and wish him a good night. Once they were inside his house, she grabbed his shoulders, then cupped his cheeks. “You said something now. That’s all that matters.”
He swayed closer to her, his eyes floating closed, his hold on gravity seeming precarious.
“Come with me,” she whispered.
She took his hand and led him to his couch, holding him close. Johnny Cash leapt on the cushion and curled up at their feet. Running her hands through Ryan’s hair, she let him rest his head in the crook of her neck, sensing what he needed right now was a safe landing. She wanted to be that for him. She wanted to be everything he needed.
“I just…Soph…if she…I don’t know.” His words beat out a staccato rhythm of what was said and unsaid.
“I know.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “I know.”
He sighed heavily then pressed his lips to her chest. It wasn’t sexual; it wasn’t the start of something dirty. It was a gesture of the familiar, of comfort, and she was glad he found it in her.
“For so long, she’s said one thing to me. She said she was set up. She said she was framed.” His voice was low and sad.
Her heart ached. It cried for him—heavy, mournful tears for what he had borne all those years. “So you go see her and you ask her. You tell her you need to know for your own heart.”
He shook his head. “She won’t tell me. Talking to her is like pulling teeth.”
She brushed a kiss on his forehead. “Then you find the answer in yourself,” she said, and wrapped her arms around him. He held her tight.
They stayed like that, curled together, him in his tux, her in her dress, nestled snug on the couch, a ball of fur by their feet. They talked more, whispered confessions and admissions, hopes and wishes.
“There were days when everything felt so out of hand. So beyond anything I could ever manage,” he said softly, and for a moment she understood that there was something more to his quest for control in the bedroom. With the way his life had spiraled, she suspected some part of his mind needed the solidity of that kind of dominance—sexual dominance. She kept that notion to herself though, not because it was a secret, but because it wasn’t her goal to psychoanalyze him. Whether that was his reason, or whether he simply liked it that way, she was happy to be on the receiving end.
“It was hard to manage because you carried so much. The weight of so many secrets. The pressure of so many things you should never have been asked to keep to yourself. Forget guilt or innocence or who was framed and not framed. You were fourteen. You deserved to be fourteen, not a secret keeper,” she said fiercely.
Then, when the conversation seemed to unwind, and it was time to move to something lighter, she sat up, straightened her hair, patted him on the leg, and said, “How about you teach me how to play pool finally? I believe that was one of the promises you made when I stayed here last weekend, and pretty much the only one you failed to deliver on.”
A sliver of a smile crept across his face. “I failed to deliver on something, did I?”
She nodded. “I’m wretched at pool. Show me how to play.”
He stood up and offered her his hand. “Why do I have the feeling that after one game you’re going to be a pool shark?”
“If that’s the case, then maybe for this first round, we should simply play strip pool?” she said, running a hand between her breasts as if to demonstrate the possibilities.
A groan escaped his throat, and he looped his arms around her waist. He brushed his lips against her neck. She closed her eyes and smiled. All was not perfect. All was not completely right in the universe. There were so many questions left unanswered. But they had moved through something difficult together. Here they were, ready to slide into another moment in their night.
This love between them had ignited one evening at Aria in a flirty, dirty, and naughty way. Over the days, and the nights, that followed, their connection sparked and sizzled, then deepened. Tonight, he had been forced to stretch and twist in unexpected ways. But after all of that, the two of them had somehow managed to return to their core.
Flirty, dirty, and naughty.
They grabbed beers and headed inside his den with the pool table. He took a cue down from the wall and handed it to her, then grasped one for himself.
“Have you played before?”
She nodded. “A few times. All badly. I barely understand how it works. There are stripes, solids and an eight ball, and we hit them in pockets, right?”
He laughed. “Something like that,” he said, taking a sip of his pale ale and setting it down on the table. He removed his tux jacket and his tie, and tossed them on a chair in the corner of the room.
“Wait. You’re already taking off your clothes?”
“Consider it my handicap,” he said, then racked the balls.
He explained the basics to her, and she quickly processed them, since rules and games made fast sense to her. Her challenge lay in the execution. Sophie Winston wasn’t known for her coordination.
Still, she was determined, so she pulled back the stick, stared at the ball, aimed squarely, and missed it by a mile. She laughed and brought her free hand to her mouth. “Oops.”
Then she removed an earring, tossing it on his pile on the chair.
“Want me to show you how it’s done?”
“I do,” she said, and he moved to her side of the table, behind her, then pressed his hand on top of hers, his chest along her back. As he positioned the cue just so, she felt him grow harder. She wriggled her rear as he shot the ball.
And missed, too.
“Hey. Take off your shirt,” she said playfully.
“That wasn’t my shot! I was helping you set up.”
“Fine. Help me again,” she said in a flirty tone, and he lined himself behind her once more. She couldn’t resist. Screw pool. She dropped the stick, shoved all the balls randomly around the table, then turned around in his arms, and laced her hands around his neck. She moved her lips to his ears. “You win. Strip me.”
He wasted no time, unzipping her dress in a flurry and leaving it a silky puddle on the floor. She backed up to the table and perched on it, handing him the stick. “Show me where you’d touch me to land the shot.”
He gripped the back of her head, and whispered roughly in her ear. “Everywhere. Every-fucking-where on your perfect body,” he said, then stepped back to survey her, roaming his eyes up and down.