Elbows dipping the mattress beside her head, he lowered gently on top of her, bracing most of his weight onto his shoulders. Lips brushed hers. Soft. Tender. Like the delicate kiss of a butterfly’s wings. Once, twice, and then the tip of his tongue lightly parted her lips, giving her the tiniest taste of her on him. And then he dove in, still slowly, still unhurried, but much, much more penetrating. Without breaking the kiss, he fit his hand between them and found his cock, guided it to her center. He gave it a tiny nudge just barely entering her.
Slow wasn’t typically Ryan’s style, so what was his deal? Why was he taking his sweet time with her instead of pinning her to a wall? Did it really matter? He felt so good.
So, so good.
Shifting her hips, she took in a little more of him, and then very slowly—so that she could feel every searing sensation shiver through her body—he slid inside her. She gasped, her harsh intake of breath morphing into a moan as he began to slide his cock in and out, deliberate and steady. Her body knew just how to move with his—how to make the most of every thrust—and by the groans growling against the crook of her neck, this pleasure was as exotic and torturous for him as it was for her. She thrust her hips forward, trying to force him deeper, kissing him harder.
…
He didn’t want it to end. Ever. He wanted this, wanted her, over and over again, in his bed every goddamn day. The realization made him lightheaded, even as it made his cock throb, and when he reached down and strummed his fingers across her clit, he whispered into her ear, “Come with me,” and kissed her again.
Seconds later, she did, his name a breathless cry on her lips.
Music to his fucking ears.
He buried himself to the hilt as her tight little body constricted around him, and then he let go, spilling himself deep inside her. Her body trembled and quivered and a deep shuddering moan moved through his chest.
“You are so goddamn sexy, Sailor.”
She tightened her legs around his waist, holding for a long moment, then slowly let her legs give away. “You’re not half bad, either, hot shot.”
Pressing a kiss to her shoulder, he closed his eyes and reluctantly broke their intimate connection, sinking back against the bed, an arm above his head while he caught his breath. She turned and nuzzled close, and the gentle weight of her leg gliding against his, her foot sliding along the inside of his calf, had the unsteadiness seeping in all over again.
The soft press of her lips against his chest had his eyes snapping open, stupefaction seeping into his soul. How could this woman make him feel so many different things at once? Excitement, fear, adoration… The walls he’d had up had already fallen, and even if he wanted to, there was no way he could reconstruct them. Not when nothing in the world felt as good as being wrapped up close to her like this.
She balled herself even closer to him and rested her face right over his heart, her hands light and feathery against his stomach. “You hungry?”
He gathered her tighter against his chest and kissed her temple. “I assume by the way you keep bringing it up, you want that stir-fry.”
With a scrunched-up nose and adorable smile, she nodded. “Skipping all meals of the day to work on my friend’s—” She cut her words short and wrinkles crept across her brow. “Wait. Are we friends?”
Ryan shrugged. “Who says we need a title?”
She didn’t seem the type to play the title game, and truthfully, it wasn’t one he typically enjoyed playing—especially with the women from the bar he used to go home with. But Sailor was different. And charismatic. And someone he actually liked—a lot.
“I do. What if someone walked in here and I had to introduce you? What would I call you? ‘Boss’ would be a little awkward since we’re lying here naked. Or slutty. Gosh, would that make me slutty?”
“Who would be walking in on us naked?” He tried to keep his voice teasing, but something about the idea of another man walking into her place ground his bones together. His jaw tightened. He hadn’t known her for very long, but what he did know was that he didn’t want anyone else’s hands on her.
By the tip of her chin and assessing gaze, she’d caught his uneasiness. “No one but Marissa has a key to my apartment.” With the tip of her finger, she softly traced a line over his temple and down the side of his face. Biting her lip and tilting her head, she asked again, “Are we? Friends?”
He didn’t know why it mattered so much to her what they were, but the hopeful glint in her eyes did something funny to his chest. As if a full keg of beer was sitting on it. Pressing and stealing a little more air with each breath. He didn’t like the feeling, but more than that, he despised the idea of hurting Sailor.
Leaning in, he nipped at her lip, savoring the sweet smell of her. “Do friends cook each other stir-fry at ten o’clock at night?” he asked. She smiled, and he slapped her bare ass. “I guess that makes us friends then. C’mon, let’s go eat.”
In the kitchen, Sailor turned on a little radio nestled on the counter next to a glass fruit bowl that was spider-webbed with cracks and dotted with what looked like dried glue. Her first day working at the Alibi, she’d mentioned an incident with her dog and a fruit bowl, and now seeing this… His lips twitched with a smile. She’d been telling the truth.
Soft music drifted out from the radio as Sailor turned to the fridge to pull out a package of chopped vegetables, another smaller pack of noodles, and a jar of teriyaki sauce. She handed them to Ryan and bent to retrieve a bowl-like pan from a lower shelf.
He set them by the stovetop. “I haven’t seen your dog since we first came in,” he said, leaning to get a better view of her impeccably round ass. The black leggings she’d slipped into didn’t leave much to the imagination, which was perfectly fine with him. He could stare at that ass all day and night and never tire of it. “Is he usually pretty independent?”
Her head popped up, hair a mess, eyes wide. “Oh, no. Drex.” She stood.
“Oh, no?” Ryan questioned.
“You know that saying about when kids are quiet they are probably getting into something they’re not supposed to?” Ryan shook his head. Other than Micah’s daughter, Shae, he hadn’t been around many kids, and she was an angel. Sailor started for the living room. “We have to find him.”
“Maybe he’s taking a nap,” Ryan suggested, following her.
“Maybe.” After peeking behind the couch and then the squat chair in the corner beside the window, she turned for the room off to the side that held a washer and dryer. “But this is Drexel we’re talking about, and he likes to get into everythi—” A wailing gasp cut off the rest of her words, and her body slammed to a halt, arms out as if to stop everything around her.
Ryan cautiously approached her from behind, eyes squinting into the darkness of the laundry room, and caught sight of a little four-legged figure propped atop the washing machine. “How’d he get up there?”
“Shhhhh.” Sailor reached behind her and flopped her hand against his mouth. “It’s the mouse,” she whisper-shouted. “If he lets go, that thing is going to be loose in my apartment again.” On second look, Ryan could see a fist-sized ball of fur clamped in the furry dog’s mouth.
“It’s not moving,” he whispered back. “Maybe it’s already dead.”
She shook her head and faced her dog, but said quietly over her shoulder, “He tricked me like that last time.” Guardedly, she crept toward Drex, bent at the waist, arms in front of her. Ryan stifled a laugh. What was she going to do? Lunge at the dog, hoping he didn’t let go of the mouse?
“Drexie, baby,” she cooed, taking another careful step. “Do you want to take your little friend outside?”
On her last word, the dog’s ears perked up and he tilted his head to the side.
“Yes, outside. Do you want to go outside?” She pointed to the glass slider to her left where Ryan assumed was some sort of patio. The dog’s gaze followed, his tail wagging. “We just need to get you down from there.” Sailor flicked her atten
tion to Ryan for only a split second. “Maybe a chair from the table?”
“I’ll grab it.” He backed away slowly, and when he returned with the chair, he placed it in front of the washer. It still looked like too big a distance for the little dog, but based on the way the washer was twice as high with nothing to use as a boost in sight, the dog apparently wasn’t afraid of heights. Step by step, they both eased closer to the door. Sailor was right. If they could get the dog outside, he could release the mouse out there.
When they were halfway to the door, the dog descended to the chair, landing with the mouse still in his grip. He watched the two of them, and once they reached the door and Sailor flicked the lock, the dog started wagging his tail vigorously.
“That’s right,” Sailor said to him. “Outside. Let’s go outside.” She yanked the door open, and as soon as a burst of cold night air blasted into the room, Drex leaped to the floor. He started running for them—for the door—and just when they thought their plan had worked and the dog was going to take the mouse outside, the mouse fell from Drex’s mouth. The dog flew outside, and Sailor froze.
“Oh, no!”
The little gray mouse lay on its back, feet in the air, unmoving. “It’s okay,” Ryan told her. “I think it’s dead. Let me grab something to scoop it up with.” He started for the kitchen.
“A bag maybe? They’re in the bottom drawer.”
Quickly, he found the bags, and just as he was nearing to dispose of the rodent, the mouse’s leg twitched.
“Uh-oh,” Sailor said under her breath. Without any sudden movement, she reached down and dumped out a wicker basket.
Ryan slowed his steps. “It was just one twitch. Bodies do that when they die,” he told her but immediately doubted his words. The closer he got to the mouse, the more he could see it was lacking any sort of bloody wound that could’ve killed it.
Slipping the bag over his hand, Ryan closed the distance between him and the mouse, and just as he was reaching for it, the thing’s eyes popped open, it flipped onto its feet, and stared at him.
Ryan froze. Sailor screamed. And then they both lunged for it—Ryan with his plastic-covered hand and Sailor with the basket. They landed with a thump and the crackly sound of wood splintering.
“Did we get it?”
Quickly, Ryan assessed his position. Flat on his stomach. Arms outstretched. No mouse in sight. He shook his head and brushed Sailor’s hair out of her face. “Not unless it’s under that mess of broken wicker.”
Eyes bugging out, she held completely still. The idea—or fear, rather—of a mouse trapped started to twist her features, and Ryan laughed harder. “I’m kidding,” he said. “I saw it run beneath the washer.
She whacked him on the chest and rolled off the broken basket toward him with a scrunched nose. “I can’t believe we both missed.”
Ryan could. Who caught mice with their bare hands? He rolled onto his back and opened his arm for her to nuzzle into him. She did, and the ease of her body next to his had his eyes growing heavier by the moment. “I’ll set some traps in here tomorrow.”
For a while they lay still and silent, as echoes of music filled the room. When the beats of a new song started up, Sailor propped up on her elbow and looked down at him, a whimsical smile on her lips. “I’ve never been a fan of lovey-dovey songs, but I really like this one.”
Ryan listened to the string of soft guitar notes and the man’s voice that followed. “I don’t know it.”
Sailor screwed up her face in an I-can’t-believe-you’ve-never-heard-this-song-before way. “Ed Sheeran is huge.”
He poked her side. “And based on this song, not someone I would ever play in the bar. People would fall asleep if I did.” Lyrics about settling down and cuddling played into the room, and he pointed to the air with his brow raised, as if to prove his point.
“Or they’d just start making love. The song’s called ‘Kiss Me.’” More lines floated through the air, twisting and swirling above them. Lines about falling in love and holding someone close and kissing. The song itself wasn’t bad, aside from the gushiness of the words, and he was about to tell Sailor so when one line caught his attention. Something about falling for her eyes…even though they didn’t know him yet.
If he could put into words the connection that was growing between them, that line might start to touch on it. His chest ached with the need for more every time he looked at her—more of her kisses, more of her giggles, more of her hands on him. But there was also something holding him back—the feeling like he didn’t really know her yet. The feeling like this—what they had now—was just a mirage leading to a big pool of disappointment. That one of these days, she’d turn back into the girl she used to be and leave.
Alone. He’d lived the majority of his life on his own, but the thought of going back to the life he’d lived before Sailor—a variety of women from the bar, no attachment to any one person, other than Micah, of course—soured his stomach.
From his elbow up to his biceps, Sailor padded her fingertips across his skin, beneath the sleeve of his shirt and back down. Sailor leaned down and peppered a line of kisses up his jaw. The song was over, and he was still staring at her, and at that very moment, looking deep into her brown eyes, he knew he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He didn’t have a name for what they were, but whatever it was…it was much more than friends.
Chapter Seven
Truth #27: The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.
A cloud of sticky, warm air blasted Ryan’s cheek, coating his skin like a tropical ocean breeze. It took him a moment to realize he was nowhere near the equator, or on a beach, and then another to remember he’d fallen asleep in Sailor’s bed with her tight little body tucked into him.
Best night of his life.
Another puff of air hit his face, and he rolled onto his side, reaching his arm across the mattress for Sailor, his fingers suddenly tingling at the thought of running up and down her body again. Last night, they’d taken it slow. And fast. And then slow again, and he was hard just remembering the way her body had melded so perfectly to his no matter which way they’d turned and twisted.
He swept his hand up the other half of the bed, ready to tease Sailor for breathing all over his face like that, but instead bumped a tiny round ball of fluff. The hot breath intensified, smelling suspiciously like death. Jesus, what kind of fucked-up living thing could create such a god-awful stench?
Opening his eyes, Ryan backed away immediately from the furry face. Pink tongue hanging out. Gasps rasping in and out of his mouth. A goddamn smile on the mutt’s face. Gently, he nudged the dog back, taking in the empty room—and more specifically the empty bed.
“Drexel,” he muttered, “your mommy needs to brush your teeth.”
Beyond the ball of fur, a white piece of paper folded in half with his name scrawled on the front caught his eye. A note from Sailor, obviously, but what did it mean?
He swallowed hard, reaching for the paper, clenching his teeth against the sudden fear that his MO had just been used against him by someone who knew nothing about his MO.
Had he completely misread her? Their connection?
He poked the corner of the paper into the tip of his finger. No. He couldn’t have. Stop being a pussy and open the fucking note.
In one neat line, each letter perfectly spaced from the other, her words stared up at him.
Had to run out, but I won’t be long. Make yourself at home. Please?
-Sail
For someone as unpredictable as Sailor, the elegance of her penmanship surprised him. And so did her request. Wanting him to stick around meant she wasn’t bailing on him. Probably picking up some traps. He took a deep breath and scrubbed a hand over his face, fully aware that two black eyes were still staring at him.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, taking a quick assessment of the room—bed, dresser with a large mirror, and a small bookcase in the corner that held only a han
dful of books. Pretty minimal for a girl, especially in terms of decorations. There weren’t any. Walls and carpet were tan, the single window covered with white blinds, and not one painting or picture hung on the wall.
He found his jeans, slipped them on, and padded out to the front of the apartment, wondering if the kitchen and living room were just as bare and he’d been too distracted with Sailor to notice.
The sandy color of the walls and floor flowed through to the front door and dipped into linoleum of a similar tone that accented the cream-colored kitchen cabinets in a very generic sort of way. Like in the bedroom, very little decorated the space—the only picture being one of Marty holding Sailor as a baby surrounded with a wooden frame. It sat in the center of the coffee table, facing the small couch, right where a slight dent dipped into the middle cushion. How many nights had Sailor spent staring at the picture? Wishing to undo the damage she’d done? Sure, she’d made mistakes, but that didn’t mean she needed to suffer for them for the rest of her life.
Something light and airy bloomed in his chest, the feeling of freedom and relief all rolled into one. He may have held a grudge against her before, but that black cloud was long gone, replaced with the need to have her in his arms. The need to breathe in her scent. The need to never let her go.
Cool air brushed along his bare torso as he made his way into the kitchen and located the Mr. Coffee. He discarded the old coffee, rinsed the pot and added water. No filters or grounds sat by the machine, so he searched the nearest cupboard, and when that held only a small stack of dishes, he tried the one to the right of it. No luck there, either. Three cupboards down, he found the coffee, sitting right beside something small and plastic and looking very much like what a druggie would use. He pulled out the bag of syringes, feeling that lightness in his chest sink away—hard and fast. She’d said she was clean—almost a year clean. So what the fuck was she still doing with these?
Just then, the front door opened, and he spun to face a grinning Sailor, a pink donut box cradled under one arm and a carton of chocolate milk in the other. She dropped a set of keys on the table near the door. The syringes weighted his hand like a full crate of liquor bottles, growing heavier and heavier with every second Sailor stared at them.
A Moment of Madness (Boston Alibi) Page 15
