I hustled to my dresser, grabbing a pair of clingy sleep shorts and my favorite, worn t-shirt. It was black, had a frayed hem and pink letters that read Boss Ass Woman. Another mantra that had gotten me through the stickiest of awkward situations. I’d need it if I was going to work up the nerve to kick Ransom out of my apartment.
He didn’t try to sneak a peek, just stood legs apart as always, hands resting in his pockets as he popped his neck once. My fingers shook and I gave up on my bra when the hook would not fasten, rushing to slip on my tee and shorts. Still, I didn’t move from my dresser, stupidly thinking that the small distance between me and where Ransom stood next to that tiny sofa would keep me safe from him. Or him from me.
“Okay, so you wanna explain why you’re here? I thought we’d said everything that needed saying downstairs.”
“No.” Head turned, Ransom looked at me again, and a small, barely there grin pushed up one corner of his mouth as he saw the logo on my shirt. “Not hardly.”
“I can’t go back to your folks’ place.” The thread from my loosened hem scratched against my bare leg and I fisted it, nervous when Ransom stepped away from the sofa. “I mean, I miss them, but there are too many reminders and I…” I felt stupid, like a mumbling idiot with nothing remotely sensible to say. Ransom hadn’t looked away from my face. I kept on stammering. “Sarah, the girl from the diner, she’s good. Help…helped raise her four brothers. Koa will like…”
“Over a year?” he asked moving so close to me that the fabric from his bunched up sleeve brushed against my waist. “You were the girl with the asshole father.” I flicked my eyes to his, a little annoyed that he’d finally figured that out, embarrassed that he’d remembered. “You should have reminded me, Aly.”
A small wave of heat ran up my neck, almost suffocating in its intensity. I couldn’t tell if the irritation I felt was at myself for managing to only move my gaze to his mouth, or at Ransom for stepping so close, for using what he now remembered to intimidate me.
“It…it doesn’t really matter,” I said, deciding to direct my annoyance at him. Chin tilting up, I raised an eyebrow, ready to challenge him with one gesture, but failed miserably when Ransom lifted his hand to my face.
“It matters to me.” I tried like hell not to close my eyes, but Ransom’s thumb was large and he moved it against my mouth, the pressure a tiny enticement, a challenge to take that thumb between my lips. He didn’t let me step back like I wanted, followed me as soon as I moved and kept his hand on my face. “You should have told me.”
“I couldn’t.”
Ransom’s gaze lowered, trained on the small shake of my chin, then he moved his head, squinting at me like he was trying to figure me out. “You scared of me?”
There are moments—the moments that define us, that settle our paths with just a word or a look. This was one of those moments. I could have backed away, asked Ransom to stop touching me. I could have pretended that every look he’d ever given me, every taste of his tongue on mine hadn’t been something I’d dreamt of, something I’d craved.
But I wasn’t a coward. Intimidated by him, sure. Completely overwhelmed by the sight and smell of him so close to me, yes, but I wasn’t a coward who’d shy away from what I wanted. Not anymore. I stopped looking at his mouth, at his cheeks. I stopped avoiding his eyes and answered his question.
“No. I’m scared of what you do to me.”
I wasn’t surprised when he came even closer, stepping between my legs as he backed me into the dresser. “What do I do to you, sweetheart?”
“I…I…” Clearing my throat, I shook my head, reminding myself I wouldn’t hide anymore. “I’m scared of what you do to my body.”
That low groan, the way he bit his lip as though just the thought of my body’s reaction to him was the single most erotic moment of his life was haunting, had the shake that had only been in my fingers rushing up into my arms.
His expression was a little desperate, but wary and it fascinated me to see that constant cool of his fracturing just a little. Ransom’s top teeth dug into his bottom lip as he suddenly lifted me onto the dresser and then pulled me to its edge. “No one has done this to me in a long time,” he said, using his free hand to snake around my lower back and push me toward the fierce bulge of his hard dick. “No one but you.”
Glancing down, feeling the pulse of what I wanted so close, so warm, I swallowed, my throat making a small noise as my gaze jumped back to his eyes, realization a brutal truth that I equally loved and hated. “Ransom, that can’t be…”
“It is, baby,” he said, twisting my heart with one word. “I’ve tried before, trust me. I haven’t…Aly, my head is so fucked up, but you, what you do to me…” Ransom kissed my neck as though he couldn’t admit how exactly he’d survived everything that had happened to him. He rested his forehead against my shoulder and wrapped my leg around his waist, holding it in place. “What you do to my body, to the noise in my head, it makes me feel again. I can’t not feel what you do to me.”
I didn’t know what to make of the look he gave me. I only knew that I craved that look like an addict, wanting just that fierce gaze to eat up my features, devour me.
“I didn’t want to feel, not ever again.” Ransom’s hand against my face was warm and I leaned into that touch, wanting more.
“And now?” I asked, half expecting him to walk away, still.
I liked the way he moved his gaze over my face, like he needed to examine every feature, like what he saw didn’t seem real. “Now I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to.”
Maybe I’d expected trumpets and choirs and for the sky to erupt in bright, blazing lights from fireworks. That’s what I saw in my head. The reality was better. I had watched him, wanted him, maybe even loved him for so long that I was almost frightened of what would happen next. Still, that didn’t stop me from leaning into his mouth when he kissed me. That didn’t slow me down when Ransom picked me up, his hands on my back under my shirt, mine tossed in his hair as our tongues brushed together.
“God, you taste good. You taste too damn good, baby.” He took me down onto the bed and we were frenzied with every grope and grab, every lick and taste—a thousand daydreams came to life, a thousand wishes I’d made, right there under my lips, squeezing against my thighs. I had wanted him to fill me up, dreamt of what it might feel to have his wide, wondrous body on top of mine. But this was better, so much better than anything my boring imagination could have ever invented.
Real-life Ransom was better than a dream. He was fantasy made real and right then with the sweet hint of coffee and peppermint on his breath, warming my neck, hardening my nipples, he was all mine.
I relinquished control, my hands gripping the headboard when he cupped my ass, lifting my hips to rake his teeth, his tongue along my ribs. What could I do? He made me drunk with sensation, with the hope that I was not dreaming, so I didn’t stop Ransom or his eager mouth when he reached my side, when he left kiss after kiss along my hip as he pulled down my shorts. He moved his tongue, his fingers along my stomach, his lips and mouth following like he didn’t want the sensation to stop, none of it. My grip on the metal headboard tightened and shook when Ransom’s tongue dipped into the crevice where my leg and torso met.
“I could eat every inch of this skin,” he said, looking up at me with that ravenous glint in his eyes again. “Every single…” Ransom growled against my hip when he flicked his tongue over my clit, “inch.”
He was everywhere then—inside my head, filling it with sensation, with need; on my stomach with his free hand sliding up to cup my breast and his mouth licking around my hips, then back down, teasing my clit again and again until I could not take it. I needed to touch him.
It was only meant to be a graze of my fingers against that beautiful face. Something sweet, something that would keep me tethered to that bed, to him so that my heart would not burst from my chest. But that single touch, Ransom deflected, a quick grip of his fingers to brush away my touch and when I tried again, moving one hand from his hair to rake my fingers over his neck, his back, he took hold of my wrist, working some considerable skill to keep his mouth and tongue moving and my hand away from him.