“I was going to say incredible.”
“It’s both. It’s definitely both.”
“Maya, I’m not asking you to be perfect. I’m not asking you to be healed. I’m just asking if you maybe want to try this. Try us.” He asks, but I also know in the back of his head he’s thinking Carter is going to kill him.
“I don’t know how to be someone’s girlfriend when I can barely be my own person.”
“Then we figure it out together. Two disasters trying to be slightly less disastrous.”
“That’s a terrible sales pitch.”
“Best I’ve got.”
I lean into him and kiss him, letting my mouth linger against his until the hesitation bleeds out of both of us. His lips part undermine, warm and sure, and when his tongue slides againstmine it’s like a match struck in the dark. Heat flares low in my belly, sharp and immediate.
Ryder makes a rough sound in the back of his throat, the kind that vibrates through me. His good hand slides up my spine, fingers splaying wide between my shoulder blades, pressing me closer until my breasts flatten against his chest. I can feel the hard thump of his heart or maybe it’s mine, racing like we’ve both been running for miles.
I shift, straddling his
lap on the couch without breaking the kiss. He groans into my mouth when my
thighs bracket his hips, when the heat of me settles right over the thick ridge
already straining against his sweatpants. His bad arm stays carefully at his
side, but his good one moves sliding under my shirt, rough palm skating up my
bare back, tracing the line of my spine like he’s memorizing every vertebra.
“Tell me to stop,” he
murmurs against my lips, voice gravel-rough. “If this is too much, if you’re
not sure.”
I answer by rocking my
hips down, slow and deliberate, grinding against him until his breath catches
hard. “Don’t you dare stop.”
That’s all it takes.
He surges up, mouth
claiming mine again, hungrier now. Teeth graze my bottom lip, then soothe with
his tongue. His hand slips higher under my shirt, cupping my breast through my
bra, thumb circling the already-tight peak until I arch into his touch with a
broken whimper. The sound seems to unravel him. He drags his mouth down my jaw,
my throat, sucking lightly at the pulse point there while his fingers tug the
cup of my bra down. Cool air hits my skin, then his hot mouth wet, open kisses
trailing lower until he closes his lips around my nipple and sucks.
