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“Do you have to get right back? There’s a car expo over at the convention center. Want to go?” Bryce asked, and the way her eyebrows arched in that delighted expression, she could’ve asked to attend a detailed lecture on cooking in the Middle Ages and he would’ve said yes.
As it was, she was speaking his love language.
“Spend the day looking at cars with a beautiful woman at my side? Sign me up.” He leaned in for another kiss. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of tasting her; sampling her kisses was like being given only one taste of some amazing culinary delight—it was incredible, but not enough at the same time.
The auto show was busy and well attended. Vendors lined the edges of the floor, and Bryce delighted in tugging him into each booth. She made him pose with her next to all her favorite cars. By the time the show ended at eight, her phone was full of pictures of the two of them, and as she scrolled through, showing the best ones to him on the drive home from the expo, he was struck by how different he looked. It took a while to realize that the difference was due to one simple fact: in every picture, he’d been smiling.
The trip back to Wellsville flew by, and as they passed the sign welcoming them to the village, he hated that the night was ending. It had been the best date he’d ever had—no contest.
“Thanks for coming with me.”
“This day has been so…” She paused, as if searching for the right word. Then she grinned at him, reaching over to place her hand on his forearm, the fingers cool against his skin. “…so absolutely perfect.”
It was as if he’d been given the gold medal in dating. Ryker’s chest puffed out like a balloon filled with happiness and pride. “For me, too.”
“That’s how I know you’re trouble for me,” she said.
And just like that, the balloon of happiness popped.
But she hadn’t removed her hand from his arm. In fact, her fingers had gone from resting there to softly tracing the veins in his forearm, her eyes glued to the work, as if she were memorizing a topographical map, following the blue line of his vein from the hand on the steering wheel all the way to the crease at his elbow.
He cleared his throat. “In what way?”
She didn’t answer for a minute. Her face was thoughtful, focused, as she traced his veins with one cool finger up and down his arm. Her touch was maddening, but any desire he might have felt was tamped down by her words and the cautious expression on her face.
He’d seen that look before in women. It was the look they gave right before they uttered the words he dreaded.
She looked like she was going to break up with him.
Then she spoke. “I really like you.”
The words were the opposite of what he was expecting and exactly what he wanted to hear…yet her face wasn’t wearing the delighted expression. It was frowny and pensive. He searched his mind for what Drake’s romance hero might say in this situation but had nothing other than the obvious.
“Good. Because I really like you, too.”
“No. I mean, I really,reallylike you. A lot. But more than that, being with you makes me feel sexy, and strong, and more like…myself. Like the me I was before Bentley died. Before I came up here to try and fill two massively big pairs of shoes. I look forward to every second with you. Like every single second.” Bryce’s face was mostly in shadow in the dark cabin of his truck, and he couldn’t read her expression as she looked at him.
“I feel like there is a ‘but’ coming in this conversation,” Ryker finally muttered in the silence of the truck. “Why is looking forward to spending time with me—a problem?”
“Because my life is currently a dumpster fire, and I don’t know who I am anymore, let alone what I’m doing. Your mom is very wise, and she told me to pick my head up and make a map for myself, but I’m scared that if I stop looking where my feet are in the forest, I’m going to face-plant into a tree.” Her words spilled out, tripping over themselves in a rush. “That’s why liking you as much as I do spells only trouble. Being with me right now is a heavy lift.”
Ryker felt his brain struggling, like an engine running on gloppy expired oil. There was so much to unpack in that sentence. He ignored the part about his mom and her career advice—he’d heard the same lecture once or twice. However, the rest of Bryce’s words sounded like the preface to a breakup…yet her fingers tracing up and down his arm generated the best sort of sexual tension and gave the opposite impression.
He waited until he pulled next to her BMW in the small parking lot outside of his garage before he broke the silence between them, wanting to look into her eyes when he spoke. He unhooked his seat belt and took her hands, holding them within his own until he found the right words.
“I’ve only known you about a month, but I’ve seen enough to sayyouare not a dumpster fire. Is your life complicated? Affirmative. Whose isn’t?” He squeezed her palms, her skin smooth against his callused hands. Her face looked skeptical and he grimaced, knowing he had to dig deeper, unearth things he tried hardest to bury: his feelings. “Look, I don’t casually date. I suck at the whole…courtship dance. But this, whatever we’re doing, is not a heavy lift. It’s pretty amazing, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to take the next step with you.”
“The inside of my head is a mess, like a clean room after unleashing my nieces for an hour. Parts are strewn everywhere,” she said.
He reached out, carefully tracing his thumb along her jawline. “I happen to be excellent in a room filled with spare parts, and as for the mess…well, I have plenty of Lava soap.”
Her lips quirked, like she wanted to smile. Wanted to believe.
He was quiet, waiting for her to speak, but she stayed silent, her fingers pressing his vein as if testing a piece of meat on her grill top for doneness. Or maybe she was testing to see if he was a puppet or a real boy?
Suddenly, she unhooked her seat belt and scooted to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with feral intensity. The impact of her enjoyment, her desire, took his breath away. Her mouth tasted sweet, like the chocolate bar they’d split before leaving the car show, and as he stroked her face and neck, deepening the kiss, the scent of her lemony shampoo tickled his nose.
Next, she was crawling onto his lap, her mouth never leaving his, and then she was straddling him, her palms skating down his chest, and then over to his hands, dragging them to her chest. When he cupped her breasts, her groan was so raw, so unfiltered, soBryce, it lit him up inside. He pushed up her shirt, replacing his hands with his lips, leaning her back against his steering wheel as he kissed his way around the lace of her bra, finally pulling the fabric down to take first one nipple into his mouth, then the other, repeating the same flick of his tongue, the same scrape of his whiskers against her flesh that elicited gasps and those sexy moans.
