Page 226 of Ryan

He smiles, biting his lip, and my body goes up in flames, tingling with anticipation for the moment he comes home, ready for one of those red-hot nights that only he can give me.

“Can you just chill?” Nick says. “Everyone knows me here.”

“You’re so boring.”

“Me, boring? No one’s ever said that to me before.”

“Well, maybe that’s why you’re single. Don’t you reckon?”

“I think you and Ryan are a disaster of epic proportions together.”

I laugh, punching him lightly in the arm.

“He’s a bad influence on you. You’re starting to speak like him, act like him – you’re even starting to wind me up just like he does.”

“Do you need someone to stick up for you, Nick? You can ask Evan if you like.”

“Yep. You’re just like him. Same crap jokes that no one finds funny.”

“I find them funny,” Evan chimes in.

“Whose side are you on here?”

Evan shrugs arrogantly.

The starting whistle shuts us up. I turn suddenly to the field, where Ryan is sprinting, throwing himself to the ground, leaping over the opposing team, and sliding across the grass with the ball in his hands. He wipes the sweat from his brow with his shirt, tugs at his shorts, pats his arse and gets back to it.

And I sit there, spellbound, with my heart beating like crazy and my body frozen in place. Because that mountain of muscles, that Greek God, that hard marble sculpture, ismine.

And when he comes home, I’m going to show him just how much he belongs to me, and just how much I love him, with everything that I have.

Ryan O’Connor, you’re the devil disguised as an angel.

But you’re mine.

My number three.

My man.

My today, and my tomorrow.

My forever.