So much for not caring. She was lying through her teeth.
Her head darted up when she heard him. Tears streaked her cheeks. She swiped her hand across her nose. “What are you doing…?”
He grasped her by the shoulders, plucked her off the floor, and pressed her back against the wall. Then he closed his mouth over hers, hot, hungry, his kiss filled with all the anger and frustration and need swirling inside him.
Her hands bunched in his wet shirt, and she tried to wiggle free, but he held her tight, pressed his body into hers. He kissed her hard, demanding a response. She bucked beneath him, but he felt the moment she gave in. The moment she grabbed on and pulled him tighter instead of pushed him away. The moment she opened her mouth and drew his tongue into hers, drawing his heart right along with it.
A strangled moan resonated from her. Desire tightened in his stomach. Blood rushed straight to his groin. Grasping her T-shirt by the hem, he yanked it over her head and dropped it on the floor.
“Tell me I don’t mean anything to you.” He nipped her ear, sucked the lobe deep in his mouth, pressed his lips against that upside down, heart-shaped birthmark near her jaw. The one he’d licked and nibbled a thousand times before. The one that was familiar and new all at the same time.
She shivered. Her head fell back as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer. She arched into him, offered more of her neck to his mouth, ground her hips against his erection. “You don’t. It’s…it’s just sex.”
The hell it is.
With hands he knew were way too rough, he grasped her bra and yanked. The front hook gave with a pop. He shoved the lacy garment aside, closed his hands over her naked breasts, bruising, kneading. He lowered his head to her right nipple, flicked the tip with his tongue, drew it deep in his mouth. She cried out when his teeth scraped the sensitive tip, hardening into a little bud, but she didn’t push him away, and he wasn’t done yet. He repeated the process on the other side, groaning himself when she thrust her hips into his in response.
“Say it again,” he said as he kissed her collarbone, her throat, as he found her mouth again. “Tell me this isn’t real.”
She shook her head, grasped his soaked shirt, and pulled it over his head. “It’s not.”
“You lie.”
He yanked the buttons open on her jeans, had his hands inside pushing them down before she even got the top button of his undone. In one swift move, her jeans and underwear lay in a pile on the floor.
Gasping, she reached for him. He captured her wrists, pinned them to the wall over her head with one hand. “Still nothing?”
She swallowed, shook her head. But he saw the desire in her eyes. Saw the hunger. Saw the need.
For him. Not for anyone else. Just him. Only him.
His mouth closed over hers. She opened for him, tangled her tongue with his. He brushed a hand down her belly, felt her quiver when his fingers slid into her curls. Groaned when he felt the hot, sweet wetness between her thighs.
“You’re dripping. You need to come, don’t you, baby?” She trembled at his words while he kissed her lips, while he circled his finger in her wetness until he found her clit. “Tell me how much you need me.”
She groaned, pushed her hips forward. He slid his finger lower, inside, knew exactly where she liked to be stroked.
“Ryan...”
“Tell me,” he said against her ear. “Tell me you feel what I do. I know you do. I know you can’t fight it anymore than I can.” He added a second finger, stroked her deep, found her clit with his thumb and circled until she cried out and came, her whole body trembling with her release.
“You’re so fucking hot,” he whispered in her ear. “So incredibly sexy. You make me so hard, baby. Tell me.”
His name was a strangled cry from her lips. He captured it with his mouth, continued to drive her mad with his hand.
“Stop,” she mumbled against him.
“No.” He wasn’t satisfied with her body. He wanted her soul too. Wouldn’t settle for anything less. “Go up again. I want to watch. I love watching you come.”
“I can’t,” she muttered, pushing against him. “It’s too much.”
He nibbled at her throat, at her breasts; all the while, he continued to stroke the fire inside her with his fingers. She twisted, her thighs clamped around his hand as he took her to the edge again. “Ryan, please.”
“Tell me, baby. Tell me you don’t feel anything when you’re with me. Tell me I don’t matter. We both know you can’t, because this…you and me…this is all that matters.”
“Dammit,” she groaned. “I do care, you son of a bitch. Too much. I don’t want you to matter this much. I don’t want to feel. I don’t want to hurt. I just want…you.”
Her words shot straight to his heart. He released her arms, tangled his hands in her silky hair, and pulled her mouth to his. His lips softened, his kiss gentled, and when he tasted the salt from her tears, tenderness consumed him.
Her hands scrambled for the waistband of his jeans. Her probing fingers slid into his pants, then wrapped around his cock, causing his whole body to jerk.
He needed to be inside her. Couldn’t wait. He dragged her to the floor. Wrestled with his pants and shoes. A groan tore through him when her mouth closed over his, and she pushed him back into the carpet, then straddled his hips, all her wet, moist heat so close he could barely breath.
She closed her mouth over his, kissed him deep. A shudder ran through him when she eased back, when she wrapped those long fingers around his cock then drew it toward her sex. And he lost all ability to think when she positioned him at the entrance to her body, lowered, and took him in.
His heart clenched so hard he gasped. He reached for her, pulling her mouth back to his, threading his fingers in her luscious hair. Everything else up to this point seemed unimportant. He drank her in with large gulps, reveled in the softness of her skin, the sweetness of her mouth. A low moan ground through him as she flexed her hips, as she lifted and lowered, as he tried to get as close as he possibly could.
He’d never thought he’d be with her like this again. Hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed her, how much he’d needed her, how empty his life had been without her. She enveloped him. She surrounded him. She consumed every single part of him.
Annie.
Her name hovered on his lips, the desire to call out to her stronger than he expected. So many years. So many things he wanted to make up for. He wanted to give her what she needed. Needed to let her know he’d heard her words.
Her names melded into one. “Look at me, Katie.”
Her eyes locked on his. And for a second, the connection he felt arc between them was so intense, so all-consuming, it devoured him. She touched his soul in a way no one before or since her ever had.
He knew she felt it too, could see by the look in her eyes she was as powerless as he against the emotions flowing between them. Tears glinted in her eyes, and he brushed back her hair to focus on her face.
“Only you,” he whispered, pulling her brow against his. “Only this, only us.”
Emotions pulsed through him when her lips slid over his. When she whispered his name. The muscles in his body tensed and he thrust harder, pulling her tight against him.
“Wait for me,” she whispered, kissing him harder, riding faster.
How could he tell her he’d been waiting for her his whole life?
He held back. But when she arched, when she tightened around him and he knew she’d reached the peak, he let go, making sure she went over that edge with him.