Page 29 of Direct Action

I thought my star rating would at least draw a smile out of him. But it didn’t. Not that he didn’t look amused—he did—but there was a touch of tenderness to it. And when he brought his hand to my face and brushed the back of his knuckles along my jaw, his touch was featherlight.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he repeated and pulled out.

I was preparing to slide off the table when Ryan scooped me up and carried me fireman-style through the living room, around a corner, down a short hall, and finally into his room. I didn’t take in his furnishings while he carried me through his house. I couldn’t tell you the color of his couch or the walls in the hallway or if he had a coffee table or manly-style knickknacks.

I was too busy soaking up the once-in-a-lifetime moment of being in Ryan’s arms.

If I had this one moment in time to gorge myself on Ryan Strong and live out my wildest dreams, I would take it and wasn’t wasting a single second with the minutia.

Ryan set me on the bed with a gruff command to stay. I quickly kicked off my shoes, sat crisscross, and yanked the hem of my work tee down as far as it would go to cover myself. He disappeared into the bathroom and moments later came out with a washcloth.

“Lie back and spread for me.”

I cocked my head to the side and stared at the cloth.

Okay, so, maybe I wasn’t going to overindulge. Maybe I talked a big game, but when the rubber met the road or the mat or whatever the hell it met, I wasn’t prepared for what indulgence looked like with a man like Ryan.

He read my hesitation and said, “Keeping it real, Chloe. In about two minutes my mouth’s gonna be between your legs and my tongue’s gonna be inside your—”

Ryan abruptly stopped speaking. His head turned to his bedroom door, and suddenly he was moving that direction when I heard a loud “Yo! Where you at?”

“Be out in a minute,” Ryan yelled back, shut his door, and turned back to look at me. “Chloe—”

“That’s Gavin,” I hissed.

“Chloe—”

I flew off the bed in an attempt to escape. How I was going to do this I did not know. I’d climb out Ryan’s bedroom window if I had to. But I didn’t get more than a few steps before Ryan’s arm hooked me around the waist.

If I wasn’t gearing up to have a meltdown, I would’ve appreciated the way it felt to be pinned to Ryan—his hand on my stomach, the way his chin rested on my shoulder—because he was so much taller than me, his hard chest pressed to my back. Regrettably, a chest I didn’t get to touch while he did me against the wall or when he was banging me on the table. I hadn’t touched him at all, I was too busy holding on for dear life. That was going to be round two, when I got to explore all that was Ryan. Now that would never happen.

“Baby, chill.”

Chill?

Chill.

Was he crazy?

“Ryan! My boss is in your living room.”

I couldn’t see him, but the way his body was shaking against mine was a pretty good indication he was laughing, albeit silently.

“I don’t see what’s funny.”

Then I did.

Well, it wasn’t funny in the ha-ha-hilarious sense. It was funny in the you’re-a-dummy ironic way.

Yes, there I stood pantyless, pressed up against Ryan, after he’d given me the two best orgasms of my life, and he’d given me those while he’d fucked me silly, during which time my participation had been zilch. I hadn’t even touched him.

My meltdown turned multifaceted—not only had I banged my boss, but I was also a horrible lay.

Chapter Ten

I’d never done the walk of shame in my own home.

Not that I was ashamed of anything that had happened—far fucking from it. But walking out into the kitchen, coming from where I was, was going to blow the lid off something I wanted to keep private until Chloe and I had time to talk about what had changed and exactly how it had changed.