A donut Lucy bought for him.
He shoved the last piece in his mouth, hoping it would put his focus back on the food he was eating and not the sweetness that he knew was right next door. But his mind started to wander, wondering what it would be like if he could've licked the icing off of Lucy's fingers yesterday after she finished that sprinkled donut of hers.
Ryan wasn't sure why this was happening to him now. He hadn't been with a woman since the playoffs started. He once read about soccer stars abstaining from sex before big games and he did what he did to win in the playoffs. But his drought had lasted after the team was eliminated. He went home to Canada and wasn't about to bring some woman back to his parents' place. Besides, he was too depressed to do that. Hell, he was in too much of a funk to do much of anything with any woman.
But now? Now he was thinking of Lucy for some reason and her box of donuts. The thought had crept into his head and it was spreading quickly and taking over. That "ping" off the goalpost that had been rattling around in his mind was now replaced by the "pop" of a button on one of those blouses he would see Lucy wearing in the stands after coming to a game right after work. The "snap" of that ponytail holder she would use to pile up her long black hair before reaching for a bottle of wine on the counter at Sydney's place.
Dammit.Why was he thinking about this now? Why was he thinking about her now? Why was his body responding to this idea of Lucy taking his finger into her mouth, sucking the icing and sprinkles off of it?
He couldn't take it anymore. The tension was too much, his boxers too tight, his drought too long. He pulled the waistband down and began stroking himself, slowly at first. But the idea of Lucy in front of him, her hair down covering her bare breasts, her blue eyes staring back at him in anticipation, it was all too much. He picked up his pace, his mind racing with images of her. Sitting on the couch in his apartment, her feet tucked under her. Sitting behind the glass at a game, eating those stupid nachos, her luscious mouth licking off that extra cheese from her fingers.
He groaned audibly, his hand speeding up. This was Lucy, not some random woman. He never thought of her like this before. But as he pushed himself closer and closer to the edge, he wondered why he hadn't. Because right now, he was trying to hold back in a way he never had before. Except he couldn't anymore. His loud groan was even a surprise to him as he finally let himself go.
Ryan's head flopped onto the back of the couch, his breathing finally starting to come back to normal. He felt spent and satisfied and wanted. For that brief moment, he felt something that made him happy again.
But that happiness came from thinking about Lucy. His current next door neighbor. The woman he just realized he had been crushing on.Crushing?That word sucked. It made it sound like he was some teenager who liked a girl at school. And sure, he wasn't much older than a teenager, but he didn't have a "crush" on Lucy Evans.
Or did he?
No. Nope. He had spent weeks over analyzing his professional life. He didn't need to start over analyzing his personal life too.
Ryan finally looked down at the mess he left on himself. He pulled his boxer briefs back up and headed to the kitchen sink to wash his hands and his body. That didn't seem to be enough.
"What the hell am I supposed to do now?" he asked out loud.
That question was way too complicated to answer just yet. He wandered back into the bedroom and checked the time on his phone again. Six in the morning. He needed to clear his head and clean himself off.
He had been up this early a few days before and remembered how quiet it was on the lake. No one swimming, no boats out on the water. So what the hell? He grabbed a towel from the linen closet outside his bedroom, pulled off his boxers, and wrapped the towel around him. A dip in the lake as the sun began to rise would be a good thing for him this morning.
It was already warm outside as he walked down to the edge of the lake, the sun poking over the trees as it rose over the east end of Harbor Lake. He stuck his toe in the water to find it was as cold as a lake in northern Michigan in summer, which wasn't a bad thing necessarily.
Looking around, Ryan didn't see anyone else out there. It was calm and quiet, just him and some birds. So he quickly dropped his towel and jumped in.
