Work Me Up

by Julie Kriss

  The fridge was nearly empty, the front of it covered in post-it notes: Buy milk. Lettuce. Cheese. A note in Dylan’s careful scrawl: Dylan hair cut Friday. Another one: Fix bike tire!!!

  Everything—every tiny, inconsequential thing—hit me like a blow. I put my hands on my stomach, like someone was punching me, and I started to cry.

  These were my guys. This was their life. When had this ever been a job to me? I couldn’t remember. I could only remember both of them being my life.

  I mopped my face and pulled out my phone. I wandered back to the staircase leading upstairs and sat on a step, trying to get myself together. At the bottom of the stairs were Dylan’s shoes, Ryan’s trainers. A post-it note on the wall above the hook said Dylan’s backpack goes here!!

  I swiped my phone on and called Ryan.

  He answered right away. “Kate?”

  I thought I could talk, but at the sound of his voice I couldn’t. I sniffed instead.

  Now he was alarmed. “Kate?”

  “I’m at the house.” I sniffed again. “I don’t want to leave.”

  “Jesus,” he said softly, and the word sounded pained.

  “Dylan’s math answers are right,” I said, wiping my cheeks. “The ones I saw, anyway. Did he get a good mark?”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said. “He handed it in today. He’ll get a better mark than I would.”

  “Did you fix his bike tire?”

  “What is this, Kate?”

  It was a fair question. So I took a breath and put it out there. “I want to stay here,” I said. “I don’t want to go back to my hotel room. I needed some space to think about things, and now I have. I want to come back if you’ll have me. But I don’t want to be the nanny anymore.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I don’t want to live downstairs anymore and be the help. I want to live up here with you.” I blinked hard, because the tears were coming again and my vision was blurring. “I want this life with you. I want to be Dylan’s stepmother and sleep with you every night. And it’s… it’s a lot to want. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever wanted. I’ve always tried for small things, things that aren’t very hard. But this is hard, and it matters so much. Our timing is always off and everything is complicated, and you might say no. And that terrifies me.”

  There was a beat of silence. “And that’s why you left?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was going to tell you everything, and then Amber showed up and—”

  Ryan groaned. “For fuck’s sake, Kate. Do not tell me you thought I did something with Amber. Do not.”

  “You were out so late,” I said. “My confidence was low.”

  “I was out late because talking to her messed me up,” Ryan said. “I was pissed and I was terrified. I thought I’d drive around for a while, just to clear my head.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. This is hard for him, Tara had said. Harder than it is for you. I couldn’t blame him for staying out, since I’d left for the same reasons, to get out of the house and clear my thoughts. “Did you?” I asked him. “Clear your head?”

  “In a way,” Ryan said. “I wanted to score pills, so instead I ended up at a late-night AA meeting. Did you know there are AA meetings downtown? I didn’t know it until the other night, when I went to one. I’m not an alcoholic, but no one made me say a fucking thing. I just sat there and listened to those people talk until I didn’t want to take pills anymore. Then I drove around for a while. Then I went home.”

  I sighed. He was so messed up, my Ryan, but at the same time he was so impossibly fucking brave. “I love you,” I said.

  “Don’t mess with me, Kate.” His voice was low and choked. “I mean it. Don’t say these things if you don’t mean them. Because I can’t handle it. I just can’t.”

  “I do love you,” I said. “I’m crazy about you. Amber made a pass at you, didn’t she?”

  “She talked about her yoni,” Ryan said. “It was fucking awful. I wish I could bleach my brain. You’re the only woman I want.”

  I leaned forward and put my forehead on my knees, the phone still to my ear. “Are you sure?”

  “Kate, I’ve been gone for you for months. I can’t remember not being gone for you. You don’t even have to do anything. You just have to be. I was stupid five years ago—I was still a kid. But now I’ve grown up and I’ve figured a few things out. You’re the woman for me. If you come or you go, you’re still her. If you leave, it’s over for me. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved in my life, and I don’t plan to love any others. So I’m done.”

  He was saying yes. Yes to everything I wanted. I took a breath and sat straight again. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying here. So now what do we do?”

  “You hang up the phone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m outside. You didn’t think I was somewhere else, did you?” There was a click, and he hung up.

  The front door opened, and Ryan came in. He was wearing jeans, Timberlands, a long-sleeved dark plaid shirt. His dark hair was mussed and he had scruff on his jaw. His expression was set, his gaze intense. He strode toward me as I stood up.

  I thought he’d kiss me, maybe grab me and sweep me up, but instead he grabbed my hand and moved past me up the stairs, tugging me after him.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To bed,” he said.

  Really, there wasn’t much else to say. And what’s a girl to do? So I followed him.

  Twenty-Seven

  Ryan

  * * *

  I had to have her. I had to. It was crude, but then again that’s what I am. Ryan Riggs, the crude bad boy player. You mess with me, you get dirty.

  And if you’re Kate, you get everything.

  I don’t even remember how we got to my bedroom. Half of my clothes were off by the time we got there, and Kate was pulling her sexy jeans off. I caught her by the waist halfway through the act, tossed her on the bed, and yanked them off myself.

  I knelt at the edge of the bed and pulled her toward me. She made an “Oh” sound as she realized what I was doing, and then I pushed her panties aside and put my mouth on her.

  She cried out, her hips bucking off the bed. I kept going, pausing only long enough to rip her panties down and off of her so I could get full access and kiss her deeper. She tasted insanely good, clean and sweet and perfect, and I knew exactly what she liked. I tongue-kissed her slow and deep, and she went crazy. She grabbed my hair and cursed, but she didn’t stop me.

  I was pushing her hard, and she begged me to go harder. I spread her wide, used my fingers, and felt her body tense. Maybe she felt as desperate as I did, but I didn’t think it was possible. Kate wasn’t mine until I made her mine, and this time I was going to get what I wanted.

  It didn’t take her long. It never did when I did this to her. She came hard against my mouth, letting go, making noise. It was fucking divine. I cupped her with my fingers and moved my mouth over her belly, its soft perfect skin, the hard bone of her hip. As she went limp and panting, I kissed my way up her gorgeous fucking body, the line of her ribs. She pulled her bra off and threw it away as I moved up to her breasts and sucked a nipple into my mouth.

  Kate moaned, and then she put her hands in my hair again. She pulled me up to her mouth and kissed me. I opened her mouth and licked into it and she went molten, sucking on my tongue. She pushed me over and wrapped her legs around me and the next thing I knew I was sitting on the edge of the bed, hard as iron, my shirt off and my jeans and boxer briefs shoved halfway down my thighs, a glorious, perfectly naked Kate in my lap, wrapped around me.

  I cupped her ass, then ran my hands up her bare back. I was fucking nuts for this woman. I buried my face in the side of her neck, feeling her soft red curls brush my skin as I inhaled her and everything went away. My shoulder didn’t hurt. There was just me and Kate and this bedroom and the sky outside the window, graying with cold rain. There was just the feeling of her warm skin under my hands and the k
nowledge that she wasn’t leaving.

  “I love you,” I said against her skin.

  She made a sound that was half sigh, half groan. “Don’t say something like that after what you just did. It’s too much.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “I love you, too.” She squirmed against me, hot and wet against my cock. “We’ll talk more later.”

  I laughed softly, but I stopped laughing when she moved again and every nerve ending jumped from my cock all the way up my body. “I’ll get a condom,” I said.

  “I’m on the pill,” Kate said.

  I pulled back and looked at her. Her hair was mussed, her lips reddened, and there were her big, dark, beautiful eyes, looking right at me with honesty.

  “You want to?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Condoms were a rule. I mean—they were a very strict fucking rule. It didn’t matter who she was, what she said, how hot she was, or what mood I was in. Condoms every time, no exceptions.

  But this was Kate. I could be bare with Kate. The idea made the blood pound in my head, made my body go hard with want.

  At the same time, my heart pounded with fear. Because a mistake, I knew, had far-reaching consequences. Life-altering ones.

  “You didn’t ask if I’m clean,” I said to her.

  She traced a fingertip along my lower lip, as if she was memorizing me. “Okay,” she said. “Are you clean?”

  “Yes.” Of course I was fucking clean.

  “So am I.”

  I put an arm around her waist, moved her down so she rubbed my bare cock. I watched her eyelids drift close and her jaw go slack. “Oh, my God,” she said.

  I lifted my hips and rubbed her, the sensations on my cock almost unbearable. I could feel every hot, slick fold of her.

  This was right, I realized. This was the way we were supposed to be, Kate and me. I was going to marry her and give her as many babies as she wanted anyway. There was no reason to put it off.

  I rubbed her again, and her knees pushed wider over my hips, her hips moving under my arm. And then I was inside her, first the head of my cock and then the rest of it as I eased in. The world stopped moving and there was nothing but that, Kate’s incredible body squeezing me.

  Her eyes closed and her head dropped back, her hair trailing down her back. I moved out and then in again, watching her. “You like that?” I asked her, because I always liked hearing it.

  “Yes. Yes. Oh, God, yes.” She was practically praying, and I knew I was doing it right. I kept it up, trying to please her, trying not to come as the sensations hit me like body blows. I had never felt anything even close to this. There was no woman in the world like this one.

  I moved my hand down between us, brushed her clit, and she said “Oh,” her hips moving harder. We were in sync, both of us moving, my hand rubbing, the bed squeaking softly. It took balance and control, but I had both. My only goals in life were to keep her right where I had her, and to make her come.

  Kate bit her lip and her knees clamped me hard. Then she came, her body bucking, her inner muscles rippling and squeezing me. I pushed her back on the bed, rolling on top of her, and I came too, my hands digging into her skin, my cock deep inside her. It felt hot and dirty and sacred.

  Only her. Only me.

  Ryan Riggs, the player, was officially done. And I didn’t even miss him.

  Twenty-Eight

  Kate

  * * *

  We had time until Dylan needed to be picked up from school, so we lay in bed and talked. Ryan had no problem sprawling naked on his back with his arm crooked behind his head, but I made him pull the sheet up over him because naked Ryan was distracting. There was no way to talk when he looked like that.

  I lay next to him as the cold spits of rain hit the window, curled on my side, my chin on his shoulder. We talked about me moving upstairs and whether to hire another nanny. We talked about the future. I told him my business idea, and he was fully behind it. We talked about Riggs Auto, Riggs Auto Two, and working with Dex. He told me about the conversation with Amber, that it had been a test to see if she could get close to Dylan. Ryan told her to talk to his lawyer, but his lawyer hadn’t received anything yet.

  “So she might sue for custody,” I said.

  He shifted, the muscles in his shoulder flexing under my chin. “Maybe. Or maybe she’ll take off again.”

  “But she’ll be back. Someday.”

  He was quiet for a second. “Yes. Probably she will.”

  “She’s going to hurt Dylan. A mother who comes and goes from your life, without really caring about you, would hurt anyone.”

  “If it happens, we deal with it,” Ryan said. “He has me, and that’s legal. He has us.”

  He has us. This was really happening, Ryan and me. We were all in. And I didn’t feel scared. I felt excited, hopeful for the future. It wasn’t so bad, facing challenges when you had someone you loved at your side.

  “We need to tell Dylan about us,” I said. “Today.”

  “You know, I actually think he’ll be okay with it,” Ryan said. “He’s been miserable without you. I think he loves you.”

  I smiled against his warm skin. “You think so?”

  “You’d have to ask him. But yes, I think so.” He moved under my chin, leaned over and picked up his cell phone, checked the time. “Which reminds me, he gets out of school in twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll go get him,” I said, sitting up and looking for my clothes.

  “I’ll do it.” Ryan scrubbed a hand through his hair. There was nothing more gorgeous on this planet than Ryan Riggs lazing in bed, a sheet barely covering him, showing all those miles of skin and muscle and stubble and tousled hair. “You go back to your hotel and check out.”

  “I’ll trade you,” I said. I picked the hotel key out of my purse and tossed it to him. “You go check me out. I’m going to go see Dylan.”

  He looked so small, carried along in the crowd of kids coming out of the school. I was in the pickup lane in a long line of cars, everyone waiting for their kid. For the first time, I wondered quietly to myself if I would ever be able to start thinking of Dylan as mine. In a way, I already did. But we would take that one day at a time.

  I spotted him almost right away, even though he was wearing a coat with the hood up in the rain. I knew that coat, the set of his shoulders, the way he walked. I recognized his jeans, because they were almost too short—he was growing like a weed. I recognized the tuft of hair that peeked from under his hood.

  I was out of the car and standing on the pavement before I even realized I’d moved. I pushed my own hood back and waved at him.

  Dylan paused when he saw me. I saw now that his face was pale and anxious. This was a hard week for him. The adults in his life were all acting like idiots, and he didn’t know what was going on or what was going to happen next. Well, all of that ended now.

  I waved at him again and smiled. He came toward me, and the look of hope that he so obviously tried to keep down ripped my heart out. When he got close enough, I bent down and scooped him up in a big bear hug, right in front of everyone. I lifted him straight off the ground.

  Dylan hugged me back. He was getting heavy, but he was still a kid.

  “Kate,” he said after a minute, “are you back?”

  I squeezed my boy tighter. “Yes,” I said. “I am.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Ryan

  * * *

  One month later

  * * *

  Since we’d never had a wedding in the Riggs family before, we improvised a lot of things. We held it in the backyard of the Riggs house on a dark, cloudy day on Thanksgiving weekend, with cold wind and snow threatening to fly. The women wore matching dark brown knitted shawls over their shoulders, and those of us in suits just suffered the cold. There were about forty guests, all from Emily’s side: her parents, women who worked at the salon, a couple of cousins, some cops who worked for Emily’s mother and had known her all
her life. Luke had Dex, Jace, and me, and Dex was late.

  Emily’s sister Lauren was late too, because she was the one who had gone to the guest house to make sure Dex got ready. Maybe I was the only one who noticed that it took them a long time, but then again maybe I wasn’t. Emily stared daggers at her sister when she finally showed up to the house, and Kate caught my eye, eloquently lifting an eyebrow.

  She looked gorgeous in her dark green dress. Of course she looked fucking gorgeous—she was Kate. The dress curved over her perfect tits, then tucked in just below them before draping to the ground. It matched her dark red curls, which she wore down over her shoulders. I’d helped her get ready, and I’d behaved like a gentleman, but I wasn’t going to be a gentleman later, when I got that dress off her. No fucking way.

  Dylan was in a suit and tie that we’d carefully picked out for him, waiting for his serious gig as the ring-bearer. He didn’t care about the cold. He was happy just to be here and to be a part of the action.

  Dylan, like I’d predicted, had taken pretty well to Kate becoming my girlfriend. We kept his routine steady: Kate took him to school and back while I worked at Riggs Auto Two, and I took over evenings and weekends while Kate went to class and studied. Amber had gone back to Thailand, thank fucking God. I hoped it was for good, but somehow I doubted it. In the meantime, she was completely gone from my mind.

  Along with school, Kate was in the process of starting her business. It was going to be a tutoring school, aimed especially at helping kids with learning disabilities keep up with their schoolwork. With Lauren’s help, Kate was going to rent the space, hire tutors, and run it while she trained to be a teacher herself. Then she was going to take over a lot of the teaching duties, which was what she really wanted to do. There was nothing exactly like it in Westlake, it was going to be amazing, and Kate was going for it.