“You said you’d hurt your ankle?” I said, hoping to start up a conversation. Because, for the last little while, we hadn’t been talking with words even though our lips had done plenty of moving. And our tongues. I’d honestly never been kissed so thoroughly in my life, and I might have enjoyed it a bit too much. I was halfway tempted to kiss him again, here and now, instead of waiting until we got to wherever he was leading me.
“In a game.” Riley shifted my hand in his, somehow holding on to me more thoroughly than before. I couldn’t deny that the strength of his grip somehow made me feel steady and secure as we walked along the sand, even though he was injured and I was perfectly fine. “I play for the Portland Storm.” He said it like I was supposed to know what that meant.
I scrunched up my eyes. “What’s that?”
“You don’t follow hockey?”
I shook my head. “Never seen a game. Do you play professionally or something?”
“Yeah, or something,” he said, laughing, but I didn’t get the impression that he was poking fun at me—more that he was amused that I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Anyway, I went into the boards awkwardly. Just a bad sprain. Doc’ll have me go through all sorts of PT and whatnot when we get back to Portland, but he cleared me for this trip since I was supposed to be getting married. And…well, I suppose I still did.” He winked down at me, causing my heart to flutter.
Already, I was feeling better about my decision to marry him. The fact that he made my heart flutter instead of seizing up in terror was an excellent sign. He was miles ahead of Paul in that way.
We’d only been walking for a few minutes when a beachfront house with a fenced-in garden came into view, an enormous mountain range providing the backdrop. Riley opened the gate and started walking up a path toward the house, but I stopped short, in awe of my surroundings.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, turning around and grinning at me in a way that made my knees weak.
“You’re staying here?”
This place was practically paradise. The crashing waves were only a short walk down a quiet, nearly deserted beach. The moon was in the process of setting behind the mountains while the stars twinkled overhead far more brightly than I could ever remember seeing before. Jack and Donna had told me the sky came more alive at night when you got away from the city, but I’d never seen anything like this. I’d only ever lived in cities like Omaha, never out in the country. All sorts of exotic flora and fauna were growing in the fenced-in yard, making it a peaceful, beautiful oasis. Seeing it in the daylight must be something special.
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I’d never been anywhere so beautiful before, at least not without being careful to avoid touching anything, lest I break it.
But Riley just grinned at me. “We are. We’ve got the place for four more nights before I have to fly back to Portland.”
“Portland,” I repeated.
“Portland, Oregon. Where I play hockey, remember?”
Yeah, I kind of remembered. Sort of. “To be honest, everything is swimming in and out of my head right now. I’m just trying to remember which end is up.”
“And you aren’t even the one who’s been drinking,” Riley said, winking at me again.
Good lord, he was way too good-looking for me to believe my eyes, especially when he grinned at me like that. He looked like a movie star. Or a rock star.
But no, he was a hockey player.
And he was my husband.
I’d never seen a hockey game. I didn’t know the first thing about it other than it was a game played on ice. But now I was married to a professional hockey player.
Riley held out a hand for me, urging me to join him. Nerves bouncing through my veins, heart pounding loudly enough he must hear it, I put my hand in his. The heat of his touch was nothing compared to the intensity of his gaze. It rattled through me, zipping and zinging like fireworks going off inside me.
I might have made another gargantuan mistake in marrying him when we didn’t know anything about each other. But something told me it would all be fine, everything would work out just like in all the romance novels I’d read over the years.
Riley headed into the gated garden, and I trailed behind him, the heat of his palm on mine, his strong fingers curled around my hand and wrist, giving me courage.
This was going to work out. It had to. I had no choice but to make it work.
Riley Jezek was going to be my happy-ever-after ending. And I would be his.
Somehow.
WE HAD BARELY made it past the screen door when Riley dropped his grip on me, spun around, took my face between his hands, and kissed me like I’d never been kissed before. Admittedly, I hadn’t been kissed very often over the years, so I didn’t have much to compare this one to, but this kiss…this kiss was everything. The way Riley kissed me was just like all the kisses I’d been reading about in romance novels—hungry and desperate and so very, very hot, as he held my face between his hands, angling my head exactly the way he wanted it.
I was so startled by the change of events that I lost my footing and fell back against the wall. He came along, too, leaning into me as his tongue pressed between my lips and tangled with my own. He tasted like alcohol and the salty ocean air and something that could only be described as man, leaving me feeling a little drunk, myself. Not that I’d ever been drunk before, but this was how I imagined it felt—like the world had gone topsy-turvy and I was floating on a bed of clouds made up entirely of the marshmallow fluff they used to make rice crispy treats.
I stretched onto my toes and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, craving his closeness and heat, needing something to pull me back down to earth. But if anything, getting closer to him only sent me flying higher.
Riley groaned and pressed his hips to mine, grinding against me.
Positioned like this, I could feel every bit of him. Oh my goodness, he was strong and hot all over, and so much bigger than I’d imagined a man could be. Yeah, I knew most men out there were larger than me, and Paul had been huge and paunchy, but this was something entirely different.
Riley was made up completely of muscle, it seemed. He had them everywhere, even in places I didn’t realize a person could build muscle, like the flat of his stomach and along the side of his neck. His shoulders and arms were strong and ripped. The build of his thighs left me weak-kneed. His broad chest made me shiver with the anticipation of resting my cheek against it.
Most of the men I knew weren’t anywhere near as strong and toned as Riley.
And then I had to wonder if the same held true for his…well, his manhood was what they tended to call it in all the romance novels I’d read. Did big muscles equate to big members? And did I want him to be big there?
I wasn’t entirely sure. Probably not, if I was honest with myself. But maybe I was wrong about that. Of course, I didn’t have anything to compare his size with, so…
I blushed just thinking about it. Or maybe it was just the intense chemistry between us that caused my cheeks to flood with heat.
Then his lips and tongue were on my jaw, the underside of my chin, the hollow of my throat, the tops of my shoulders, and I was panting for air that never truly filled my lungs. My eyes closed of their own accord, but I liked it that way because I could focus on all the sensations he was eliciting in me instead of fixating on all the things I could see.
Gently but insistently, he edged a hand down my ribs, his thumb just tickling the side of my breast. I sucked in a sharp breath at the feeling his touch aroused within me—a desperate sort of ache that I had never felt before, coming from somewhere deep inside. Yes, I’d read about it plenty of times, but reading and experiencing were two very, very different things.
“You’re so fucking pretty when you’re turned on,” Riley murmured before kissing me again.
Pretty?
He was watching me?
The thought of it kind of freaked me out. I shot my eyes open and found him staring at me
with frantic intensity. He was kissing me with his eyes open, very much watching me in a way that stole my breath.
So, I watched him, too.
Witnessing the passion in his eyes somehow intensified all the sensations coursing through me, caused my pulse to speed up until I thought my heart would probably explode at any moment from all the warring vibrations taking place at once. A person couldn’t feel all these things at the same time and survive, could they? I supposed I was about to find out, because I couldn’t fathom a way to make it stop even if I wanted it to.
And I definitely did not want it to stop.
“Your cheeks are all flushed,” he murmured, his lips teasing the skin of those very same cheeks. “And your neck. It’s even going down your chest. Makes me wonder where else you’re turning pink.” With every part of me that he mentioned, he lowered his head to kiss me there.
I shuddered with anticipation when he kissed the swell of my breast that was visible over the top of my dress.
“You like that?” he asked, lifting his gaze to meet mine.
I nodded, and his tongue darted out to trace a line where his lips had just been. I couldn’t stop the soft sigh from falling into the charged silence between us.
Kissing my lips again, Riley brought his hand back up to my ribs, where the frantic pounding of my heart made itself known. Then he fitted his palm over my breast and gave me a gentle but insistent squeeze.
I moaned against his mouth, a sound that seemed foreign to my own ear. Foreign and wanton and utterly embarrassing.
But Riley grinned—his lips still pressed tight to mine—and let out a needy groan of his own that made me tense up in areas I hadn’t been aware could be tense until that very moment.
And in the span of a single heartbeat, I felt as if the room had caught fire, as if we were on the surface of the sun. Or standing at the very edge of an active volcano and about to fall into the molten lava. Or maybe as if I were melting from the inside out like one of those molten chocolate cakes they made in fancy restaurants.
Maybe I’d been reading too many romance novels to come up with all those comparisons. Did most women think along these lines when they were in the midst of being thoroughly, wildly kissed? Probably not. That was just one more way I wasn’t normal, I supposed.
But Riley reclaimed my attention before I could overanalyze my response. He moved his hands behind me and started fumbling with the row of hooks and the long zipper keeping my wedding dress in place, the combination of which stretched down almost the full length in the back. “We’ve got too many clothes on, baby doll,” he murmured. “Need to get rid of them.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice, but my fingers went to work on his tie. I didn’t quite finish one thing before moving on to the next, ripping at the buttons of his shirt, too frantic to settle down and take my time. Riley seemed to have things under control much better than I did, thank goodness, quickly undoing the zipper and popping free the line of tiny hooks before I’d done so much as figure out how to get his suit jacket down over his shoulders.
And then he had me in the air as if I didn’t weigh a thing, and he was carrying me into another room. But with his ankle hurt…
“Should you be doing that?” I asked, breathless from the sensation of his powerful arms wrapped solidly around me. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself worse than you already are.”
Instead of answering, he kissed me again, and I quickly forgot all about my question.
Riley didn’t stop until we reached the bedroom. He set me on my feet next to the bed and started ripping away at his clothes. With trembling hands, I finished what he’d started in terms of removing my wedding dress, allowing it to pool on the floor at my feet before stepping out of it and kicking it away.
He tossed his jacket on the floor but picked up my dress, gingerly draping it over an armchair in the corner of the room, treating it entirely differently than he was treating his own clothes—like my dress was precious, something to be cared for and looked after. Maybe it meant I could be precious to him, too—a thought that made my heartbeat come to a complete stop.
Until that moment, I’d never realized just how much I craved that, the thought that I could truly matter to someone.
My tongue felt thick, and a fresh bout of tears stung my eyes, but now wasn’t the time for crying, so I fought them back before Riley turned around again.
I didn’t want him to see me crying. Not again. Not when we’d just gotten married and he was getting ready to make love to me for the first time. Tears had no business here, and they’d only make him think I was going to cry over every little thing.
His back still turned to me, he whipped off his belt and stripped his pants down his legs. Heat rushed to my cheeks when I caught a glimpse of his butt. Even that part of his body was all muscle. And his thighs were massive and powerful, and just about the most amazing things I’d ever seen before in my life. I’d seen a couple of naked males before—I’d accidentally walked in on a foster father when he was getting out of the shower, and I’d gone into the wrong changing room in high school gym once—but Riley’s body was unlike anything I ever could have imagined. His thighs were each about as big around as my waist. The kind of power they must contain…
He turned to face me again, stroking himself with his hand, and my breath caught in my throat. I felt like my entire body would go up in flames just from the sight of him standing there, naked and glorious and mine.
“I don’t think this is going to work out, sweetheart,” he said.
Not going to work out? He must have come to his senses, then, just as I’d been afraid he would.
But he sounded kind of sad, and he had an odd look in his eye—much different from the way he’d been looking at me only moments before.
Disappointment. Frustration. A tinge of something I couldn’t quite...
No, I could put my finger on it.
Anger.
He was angry.
And he could only be angry at me. Maybe it’d been anger I’d heard in his tone, not sadness.
I stepped away out of a defensive reflex, the backs of my knees bumping into the bed and making me lose my balance. I flopped back onto the mattress, crossing my arms over my chest in an effort to hide myself and my nakedness as I frantically racked my brain for what I could have possibly done wrong.
“Hey,” he said, crossing over to me and putting a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right.”
But it wasn’t all right. Not at all. I tried not to flinch away from his touch, but touching wasn’t something I’d ever been comfortable with. I’d rarely let any of my foster parents hug me. I’d almost never held anyone’s hand, not even to cross the street when I was a small child.
Considering that, I certainly couldn’t bear to be touched by a man who was angry with me. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to avoid crying again. What would he think of me if I burst into tears again, so soon after the first time? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried so much.
Usually, I kept my tears tucked away, only letting them out when I was all alone in my bed and no one could see or hear. But I’d only known Riley for the span of an hour or two, and this was already the second time he’d had to suffer through seeing me on the verge of falling apart.
He must be regretting his decision to marry me. Lord knows I would regret it if I were in his shoes.
Could he change his mind at this point? We hadn’t consummated the marriage yet, so…maybe? I didn’t know how those laws worked in the modern world—a huge failing on my part, since I’d nearly walked into a horrifying marriage with Paul. But the fact remained that I didn’t have the first clue. I knew a lot more about marriage laws during the historical time periods in which the books I read had been set, like Regency and Victorian England and during the settling of the American West.
And now I was probably seriously overthinking things and freaking out when maybe there wasn’t anything to freak out about, but it sure felt like a good fr
eak out was called for.
“You’re sorry?” Riley repeated softly. “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who should be sorry.” He took a seat next to me. But he didn’t touch me again. Maybe because I’d jerked myself away from him only moments ago.
“Why should you be sorry?” I sniffled, debating how quickly I could put my clothes back on and get out of there, not that I had the first inkling where I would go. I was probably going to end up on the streets or maybe being forced to sell myself to someone, exactly like Paul had hinted about, if I could bring myself to go through with it.
“I’m sorry because I drank too much,” he said.
I gave him a dubious look. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ve got whiskey dick.” He laugh-snorted, which caused me to shoot up my head so I could get a good look at him. He seemed entirely serious, despite his laughter. “Well, I guess it’s tequila dick since I was pounding tequila shots, not whiskey.”
I shook my head, not following.
Riley cracked a grin, which made him seem downright swoon-worthy, with his dark hair curling slightly over his forehead and his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “You’ve never heard of whiskey dick?”
“Never.” I sniffled, but my tears were beginning to ebb.
“You are so freaking sheltered, aren’t you?” he said—it certainly didn’t feel like a question, at least—and his smile somehow turned even sexier. But whether it was a question or a statement, he didn’t wait for my answer. “When a man has too much to drink, sometimes he can’t get it up.”
“Get it up?” I knew I sounded like an overprotected, innocent child, just like he’d suggested, but I couldn’t help it. The truth was, I had been overly insulated from the world, considering all I’d been through. Everyone had tried to protect me. Maybe they’d done too good a job of it.
“He can’t get hard,” Riley said. Then he shook his head. “Not some random he. I mean I can’t get hard right now. Or at least I can’t stay hard.”
Power Play (Portland Storm Book 16) Page 4
