by T. S. Joyce
“Yours?” she asked.
Ryder rested his arm under his head and ran his other fingers through her hair again. “Orange, but for a silly reason.”
“Tell me.”
“In the Boarlanders, I have a crew member who is kind of like an uncle to me.”
“What’s his name?” She wanted to know every single thing about Ryder.
“Bash. He’s real simple in how he talks and thinks, but he’s a beast at handling crew finances. He just has a head for numbers, you know? They make sense to him. Anyway, he’s a good man, completely devoted to his mate, has three daughters who think he hung the moon because he was just so damn good and natural at taking care of his girls. I looked up to him a lot when I was growing up, and his favorite color was orange. Not bright orange, but like sunset orange. I like orange because Bash was so excited about the color when I was growing up.”
She rolled her head on his stomach and couldn’t help her mushy smile. Sweet, loyal man.
“My turn,” he said in that deep, rich voice of his. “You ever been arrested?”
“No! Wait, maybe once.”
“Maybe? Criminal.”
“My friends and I got caught spray-painting maroon devils down the middle of Main Street after a big playoff game. We got busted at three in the morning and had to sit in a cop car while the officer called our parents. I didn’t go to jail, though, so does it count?”
“Counts. Did you wear handcuffs?” Ryder asked, arching his eyebrows suggestively.
“No, perv, now you go. Have you ever been arrested?”
“Uuuh, yes.”
“Oh God, why am I not surprised?” she said with a laugh.
“After the shifter rights vote, the police cracked down on us hard. I got taken in a few times for public indecency.”
“You were streaking?”
“No, my Changes aren’t magic. They’re scientific, so my clothes don’t just magically appear when I Change back to my human form.”
“Oooh, now I get it. You would be seen after a Change?”
“Yup. And then there was that whole painting a giant penis on the water tower incident that definitely got me taken in. I saw the police lights and made like an owl and got the fuck out of there, but I’d left my clothes behind and my wallet was in the back pocket of my jeans. They came and picked me up in the middle of the night and, oh, my dad was pissed. He laughs hard about it now, tells that story every damn holiday, but when the police told him what I’d done, his face turned red like a tomato and his veins popped out of his forehead. I almost wanted them to keep me in jail so I didn’t have to go back and face his wrath. I had to hand paint the entire tower to cover up the dick, and I was grounded all senior year.”
Lexi’s stomach shook with her laughter, and she rolled over on her side to better see him. “I bet you were a little monster to raise.”
“I was for sure. My mom always said she hoped I had a kid who is just like me so I can see how much her and Mason went through raising me. The woman’s tryin’ to curse me, I swear. She loves it, though. She can’t stop laughing when her and Mason get to swapping stories about me. My sisters were super easy for them to raise. Straight A students, good girls, and they were both born piglets so no flight feathers for them. They like to give me hell for how bad I was, but really, I just made it to where they could get away with anything. My parents were always saying, ‘Well, at least it’s not as bad as when Ryder did this.”’
Lexi climbed over him, laid down on his stomach, and rested her forearms under her chin. His heartbeat picked up as she smiled at him. “Your social media accounts scare me.”
“Why?” he asked, a slight frown marring his red eyebrows.
“Because you have hundreds of thousands of followers on each of your accounts. So many women who would just throw themselves at you. And your posts are all funny and engaging. And you post all the half-naked pictures and you look so good, but also really out of my league.”
Ryder drew his arm farther under his head, propping up his neck. He stroked his other fingertips down her spine. “The accounts are just for attention.” Well, at least he was honest. “I started them between girlfriends when I was just feeling like shit and wanted an outlet. People responded online, and at first it was fulfilling, you know? All this positive attention from strangers. It got me out of my funk. But after a while, it just felt like…I dunno. Like the fans were pretend, and the things they said didn’t really touch me anymore. They weren’t real. None of it was. When I was a kid, Weston’s dad said that someday everyone would know my name as Air Ryder.” He frowned thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t think I would get famous for nudie pics and dirty jokes though.”
That sounded like a heavy burden—knowing from childhood that his fate was to be well-known. Lexi would’ve rebelled against a destiny like that and gone into hiding, but Ryder had embraced it and shouldered the pressure. He was even stronger than she’d realized.
“I like you,” she blurted out.
Ryder brushed her hair over to the side and began stroking down her spine again, his eyes averted. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean I like the real you. The social media accounts? I read through your posts for two hours and didn’t feel like I knew you any better. I already thought you were funny and that your body was incredible, but I adore you when you’re like this even more. I like the serious parts, the humble parts, and the way you don’t really take yourself seriously like you try to convince the world you do. I like all the extra stuff beyond the one-liners and the muscles.”
In the middle of her heartfelt admission, Ryder’s eyes had drifted to her cleavage and glazed over.
Lexi swatted his shoulder. “Are you listening? I’m bearing my soul here!”
“Yes, I’m listening! But your tits are all mashed against me, and they’re soft as fuck. I have a boner, obviously, and if you could just say that all again while you’re rubbing your pelvis against mine, that would be great.”
“Ridiculous man,” she complained, trying to hide her grin. “I just told you something hard, so now it’s your turn.”
“I’m an open book. Nothing is hard.”
The smile dipped from her lips as she remembered the way he’d looked mid-panic-attack when she’d pulled up. “What was wrong with you earlier? What were you thinking about?”
Ryder’s eyes dimmed, and slowly he shook his head, denying her an answer.
She shouldn’t feel so slapped by his rejection, but he’d just shut her out of something big. Desperate to be let in behind the walls he’d so obviously built up, she whispered, “Please.”
Ryder let off a low, humming sound in his throat that sounded animalistic and pissed off all at once. His eyes sparked like gold flames in the second before he ripped his gaze away from her and gave his attention to the woods. The air felt heavier now, harder to breathe somehow, and chills blasted up her skin. Her instincts screamed to move away from him, but she felt like she was close to something. Close to peeking into his soul, perhaps, so she froze on top of him instead, careful not to move a single muscle.
Ryder dragged in a quick breath, as though his chest was constricting his lungs. “My real dad was an asshole, and sometimes I still let him in my head. I’m thirty years old, haven’t seen or heard from him since I was five, and I was raised by the best step-dad my mom could’ve found for me. So it’s super fucked up that I still think about my real dad because it’s disrespectful to Mason.”
“Why did he leave?”
Ryder sat up suddenly and positioned her over his lap, hugged her against him so hard it was even more difficult to breathe. He hid his face from her, buried it against her neck. “Lexi, I don’t want to talk about this. Please just drop this.”
“Okay,” she whispered, because this conversation wasn’t helping Ryder. It was hurting him. She could tell from the way his arms shook around her ribcage. Nothing in her wanted to ruin this perfect day. If he wasn’t ready to share th
is part with her, it was okay.
So she admitted something she hated thinking about as a reward for him giving her that much. “You know when I told you about my ex?”
“Yeah.” His voice sounded too low, too rough.
“And about how he cheated on me?”
“Yeah.”
“He told me the day before we were supposed to get married, right before our rehearsal dinner.”
Ryder’s limbs stopped shaking, and he hugged her hard. Lexi gasped at how strong he was, and he released her in a rush. Leaning back on locked arms, he cast his brightly-colored gaze off to the side and said carefully, “Tell me.”
“I had my wedding gown all steam cleaned and ready, hanging from the top of my closet door. The bridal luncheon was done, I had all the favors, flower arrangements, caterers, the venue, everything already paid for. My mom and I didn’t really get along, but she came around for the wedding planning and supported me one hundred percent. Everything was just as I had dreamed of as a little girl. It was perfect.” Her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed, so she blinked hard and continued. “Everything was perfect except the person I’d chosen to spend the rest of my life with. Blake had gotten his secret girlfriend pregnant, and he was starting a family with her instead of me. I. Was. Devastated. And instead of helping me deal with the mess he’d made, he took her on our honeymoon—the one I’d paid for—while I had to cancel everything, send the gifts back, and tell everyone the wedding was off. That’s the thing I hate talking about. Hate it. My family doesn’t even mention Blake or what happened anymore because I shut down for a year afterward. I hated everything and everyone, and I felt like I couldn’t trust people anymore. I’m coming out of it and finding myself again, but thinking about what happened makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff and the wind has kicked up. It makes me feel like I could so easily fall back into the hole Blake created.” She cupped Ryder’s cheeks and dragged his glowing gold gaze back to hers. “So, you see, I’ve loved someone more than they loved me before, too, and I understand you don’t want to talk about ghosts. I still like you the same.”
Ryder winced in the instant before his lips crashed onto hers. His hands gripped her waist desperately, and she got it. Emotion was burning her up, too. This kiss banished thoughts of Blake, and she hoped with her whole heart it banished thoughts of Ryder’s asshole biological father, too. She didn’t know what his father had done to the man she loved, but she hated his real dad for putting darkness inside a creature of the light. Ryder was a man who could make a person feel incredible with a joke or a smile, but the man who was supposed to love him the most had hurt him as a kid. He’d hurt him so badly Ryder still wrestled with the demons conjured by that rejection.
She wanted to make him feel better, and to make herself feel better, too, so she eased out of their kiss just enough to pull her tank top over her head. Without a moment of hesitation, Ryder pulled his shirt off and unsnapped her bra with a competent snap of his fingers. He yanked the loose bra from her arms. She thought he would stare, drink her in, but he did something better. Ryder pulled her immediately against his chest and exhaled a shaky breath. He rocked them, as if the feeling of her bare skin against his was a feeling he’d waited for his whole life.
He was shattering her heart with his tenderness. She’d imagined intimacy with the dirty-mouthed, sexually-charged Air Ryder would be quick and hard, but he was lips melding onto hers, soft strokes against her skin, racing heartbeats, and a soft sound in his throat that was nothing shy of content.
This felt huge—like her first time.
She rolled her hips against his, and he cupped the back of her head, fingers intertwined in her long hair as he pressed his tongue past her lips and tasted her gently. His other arm was strong and steady on her back, drawing her close, keeping her sensitive breasts pressed against his rock hard chest.
God, she loved this. Loved being this close to him. His hard erection was pressed just right against the seam of her jeans, and as he rolled his hips for the first time, she gasped at how perfect the friction was between her legs. Heat pulsed into her chest, and she let off a tiny pained sound at the shock of it. Ryder flinched away, as though he’d felt it, too, and suddenly, the wind picked up, lifting her tresses from her shoulders. He stared at her as if he was really seeing her for the first time.
A baffled smile stretched his lips. In a barely audible whisper, he said, “You felt that…right?”
Lexi pressed her hand over her chest to see if her skin was hotter there. “Yeah,” she murmured.
And now Ryder’s mouth was on her neck as he squeezed her. He sucked hard, drawing a sharp gasp from her lips at the erotic combination of pain and pleasure. His teeth grazed her, and she rocked onto him helplessly. Fingers fumbling, she unsnapped his jeans and made a pathetic attempt to shove his pants down his hips. Ryder chuckled against her throat and helped her out by unsheathing himself. He pushed his jeans down his legs until they were in the grass beside the blanket. “Your turn,” he murmured, then sucked hard again.
“You’re going to give me hickeys,” she accused as she stood and unbuttoned her jean shorts.
“Mmm,” he grunted, swatting away her hands. “Owls don’t do claiming marks. Don’t mean I want to leave you completely unmarked, though.” He slid her shorts down her legs slowly. She’d already taken off her shoes when they’d laid out the blanket, so there was nothing to trip him up from removing them completely and tossing them with his on the forest floor.
“Mmm hmm, yep,” she murmured as she stared down at his huge dick, jutting out like a damn tree branch between his legs. The head of his cock was swollen and capped by a drop of moisture. “Mark me. Yep. Hickey,” she said, trying to convince him she’d been listening, but whoa fuck, she couldn’t remember how to use her words.
Ryder’s eyes were gold and stunning as the sunlight hit them just right. They raked down her body, hitting all the hot spots as a feral smile took his face. She’d never seen a man look this hungry in her life, and he was giving that look to her. Normally, she would’ve been embarrassed about being laid bare and vulnerable in front of a man like this, but it was impossible not to feel like a complete goddess when Ryder was looking at her like this.
She moved to straddle his hips and get this show on the road, but he stopped her with an iron grip on her waist, and before she knew what was happening, he buried his face between her legs and ran his tongue up her wet slit.
Her legs went—just boom—knees gave out, but Ryder was holding her in place, supporting her completely now as he sucked gently on her clit.
God, this should be mortifying. She was out in the woods, in broad daylight, and when she looked down, both of her nipples were drawn up to tight little buds, and Ryder’s red hair was shining gold between her legs. But it was pretty damn hard to focus on how embarrassed she should be when he was laving his tongue against her and easing her toward release with every gentle suck on her sensitive nub.
Legs shaking, Lexi let off a helpless noise as the pressure built in her middle. Running her hands through his hair, she closed her eyes against the saturated sunlight and relaxed into his affection. Three more licks, and she was desperate for his tongue to be inside of her because orgasm was coming in hard and fast.
“Ryder,” she pleaded.
She swore she could feel him smile against her, the tease. She gripped his hair harder, pulled him closer, couldn’t help herself because she was gone now. And right before she lost it completely, Ryder adjusted his angle and plunged his tongue deep into her. The first pulse of ecstasy exploded around his tongue, but he wasn’t done. As she threw her head back and cried out, Ryder stroked into her over and over, drawing out every single aftershock until her legs were numb and she was a jumble of incoherent thoughts.
Ryder eased her down with his strong hands on her waist, kissing her stomach, her belly button, the line between her ribs. Each breast got a hard suck before he allowed her to finally settle on
his lap. And then he was kissing her lips, and she could taste herself. With anyone else, that would’ve been strange, but with Ryder, it was just natural. And he didn’t seem to care at all. In fact, he kept smiling against her lips, and once, he chuckled.
She pressed herself against his erection and glared. “You aren’t supposed to laugh during sex.”
“False. If you aren’t having fun, you’re doing somethin’ wrong.”
She giggled and rested her forehead against his shoulder and rolled her head back and forth slowly. “As long as you aren’t laughing at me.”
Ryder leaned forward, bit her neck, and then tickled her ribs until she was squirming and laughing. “Stop, stop, stop,” she crowed. “You’re turning me off.”
“First off, I can hear lies, and second”—he dragged his fingertips up her wet folds, his lips smiling against hers—“you sure as fuck don’t feel turned off.”
She let off a low, gleeful laugh and nipped his bottom lip. Cheeky man, but maybe he had a point. She’d never had this much fun with a man during intimacy. It had always been wham, bam, thank ya ma’am, but Ryder had just made sure she came before he even took his own pleasure. And he was making laughter a natural part of sex with him. Fuck yes to all of this.
Feeling bold, Lexi kissed down his chest, bit his nipples gently, then went lower and lower. With a grin, she bit his hip, and then his other, and reveled in the fact that every time her teeth grazed his skin, he rolled his hips and relaxed his legs a little more. And when she gripped him at the base of his dick and looked up to tease him, she was stunned at how striking her man was. Gold eyes locked on her like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, the corners of his lips lifted in an adoring smile, his freckles stark against his fair skin, his muscles on his shoulders, pecs, and abs flexed to perfection. How had she gotten lucky enough to land in this moment with him?
