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It wasn’t fun and games, it was intense. Maybe it was because we’d technically known each other since we were kids, and he knew my history, or maybe it was something else entirely.
Ryan stepped out of the bathroom, and my heart skipped a beat. He was so heartbreakingly handsome. He was tall and lean but still muscular. He was strong and proud and so damn hot.
There was a heat in his eyes that told me he still wanted me despite what we’d just done. He knelt on the bed, then moved over me, dropping kisses as he went.
A rush of affection poured through me. It wasn’t love, but it was something more than like.
When his face hovered over mine, I rested my palm on his cheek. “Hey, sexy.”
He smiled down at me. “Hey, yourself.”
“No regrets?” I couldn’t stop the hope that soared through my body. Could we do this?
“Fuck no.” He braced himself so that his weight wasn’t resting on my body and kissed me deeply, erasing any fear or doubt.
I was going to ask if he wanted to stay, but he seemed to have already made up his mind. When he finally came up for air and settled on one elbow to study me, I asked, “Do you need to get Corey?”
I hated to burst the bubble we’d erected around us, but his son came first.
“He’s staying overnight at a friend’s house.” He settled on his back, one arm stretched out on the pillow behind me, and the other reached for something on the nightstand. “I should check my phone just in case he needs me, though.”
“Of course.”
Ryan got up and grabbed his phone from his jeans pocket. “Nothing. He’s probably good.”
“If you have to go—”
“Not unless he wants me to pick him up, and now that he’s a little older, I don’t usually get calls like that anymore.”
“You like this new friend?” I asked as he settled against the headboard.
“He seems like a good kid.”
I moved to sit next to him, and Ryan curled a strand of my hair around his finger. “Being here in your bed seems surreal.”
“Does it?” My heart was pounding under my ribs. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
He looked at me like he was afraid I was going to disappear at any second. “I can’t explain it.”
“Is it because of my brother?” I didn’t want to say his name in my bed after what we’d just shared.
“You were so young when I left.”
I was twelve when he got Tiffany pregnant. I was just starting to get crushes on boys, and he was my first. The pregnancy killed it pretty quickly. As impossible as we were, I knew enough at that age to know he had bigger things on his mind than childhood crushes and his best friend’s little sister.
“When I returned, it was like seeing you as this whole new person. A beautiful woman.”
“Beautiful?” I wasn’t fishing for compliments, but none of the guys I’d been with had called me that. It wasn’t because I didn’t think it was true, they were just that oblivious.
He smiled. “Did I say that? I meant smoking hot.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re a flirt.”
He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me into his chest. “It’s true.”
I felt this energy coming off him, almost like he was in awe of me or my presence in his life. I wasn’t sure if that was good or not. Did he think I was too good for him? Or did he assume we couldn’t happen and already saw the end date?
After a few minutes, when I’d almost drifted off to sleep, Ryan asked, “I’m hungry. Can I whip something up?”
