Page 90 of No Good Fight

“You like it.”

“I love it.” He kisses me before pulling back so fast that I try and follow him. “I love everything about you, Allycat.”

The word should scare me. It does. It also makes me want everything.

I let him shift back and watch as he lifts my sweater over my head in one move, gasping at the way his expression shifts to reverence when he notices I’m not wearing a bra.

Ryder’s mouth moves from mine to my jaw, then down my throat, taking his time in a way that feels deliberate without feeling cautious. He’s paying attention to every movement my body makes, but he’s not managing me or trying to control my reaction. There’s a difference. I feel it in the way he follows the tilt of my head, the catch in my breath, the fingers I tighten in his shirt when his teeth scrape lightly beneath my ear.

When his hand moves to the button of my jeans, he pauses.

I look down at him, breathing hard. “Ryder.”

Dear god, please don’t let him stop.

His eyes meet mine. “Do you want this?”

The simplicity of it almost wrecks me.

“Yes.”

He opens my jeans and kisses the strip of skin above my waistband before pulling them down my hips with patience that makes my thighs press together. He notices that too, but this time he smiles like he enjoys what he sees instead of punishing himself for seeing it.

“That is a dangerous face,” I say, my voice unsteady.

“This one?”

“Yes, that one.”

He presses a kiss to the inside of my knee. “Good.”

My complaint disappears somewhere around the time his mouth reaches the apex of my thighs.

The storm keeps moving around the house, rain ticking hard against the windows and thunder rolling close enough to vibrate through the floor. In the split second that lightning flashes, Ryder’s tongue flicks over my clit before his lips seal around the tiny bud.

My scream is drowned out by thunder, and I’m pretty sure I’m hallucinating Ryder’s chuckle against my pussy. But I’m too lost to the pleasure to do anything or say anything.

I should be thinking about the cameras, the locks, or even the spread of articles across the dining room table. I should be thinking about Preston and gas cans and the fact that safety keeps turning temporary no matter how many deadbolts stand between me and the world.

But Ryder has his fingers join his mouth, and every thought I don’t want fades immediately. It’s only us. Here. In this moment.

He doesn’t rush, doesn’t push, and the sounds he’s making…they’re the first thing that breaks me. He holds my hips with a steady hand, not pinning me in place, just keeping me there while he learns what makes my breath stutter and what makes my fingers twist into his hair. When I try to hide my face against my arm, he kisses the inside of my thigh and waits until I look at him.

“Stay with me,” he says.

There is no demand in his words. No order for me to follow. Just the request of a man who sounds like he’s starving.

That makes it easier to obey.

I keep my eyes open as long as I can, watching his head between my thighs, the flex of his shoulders, the way his hands soothe over my skin when my body starts to shake. Pleasure builds slowly at first, then too fast when his fingers hit a sensitive spot, turning my breath into broken little sounds I would be embarrassed by if Ryder did not seem to love every single one.

His name comes out of me like a warning.

He doesn’t stop.

One hand slides up my stomach, warm and solid, giving me something to hold on to when the pleasure gets sharp enough to scare me. I cover his hand with mine, and he turns his palm so our fingers lock over my ribs.

The orgasm hits so hard my back bows off the rug.