“I’m saying I’m still in love with him. He’s the love of my life, and I think he’s still in love with me, too.”
I felt nauseous. “Have you told him all this?”
“We only saw each other for the first time in a long time earlier today. I told him my engagement was over, but I didn’t tell him how I feel. He knows nothing about my feelings.”
“Why are you telling me all of this right now?”
“Because I think you should know I do plan to tell him. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not during this difficult time. That wouldn’t be appropriate. He needs time to heal. But I’m going to tell him soon.”
When someone walked in, her head turned toward the door. “Please don’t mention we had this conversation. It will stress him out, and I don’t want that right now.”
A woman came between us to wash her hands. After she left, Mallory said, “Did you know Ryder’s dad?”
“No.”
“His father was his entire world. It’s going to be a long time before Ryder can deal with anything else. So again, please don’t mention we had this conversation.”
Before I could respond, she walked out. It took me a few minutes to regain my bearings enough to return to the main room where Ryder was waiting.
“I was starting to worry you weren’t coming back,” he said. “I thought maybe I’d hallucinated you coming in the first place.”
“Sorry. There was a wait.”
“No worries. I still can’t believe you’re here.”
Mallory had given us space, choosing to sit with the others who’d already made it through the line and given their condolences.
My feelings were very revealing. I’d always told myself I was going to lose Ryder, that our lives were too different for things to work out. Yet at this moment, I felt completely sideswiped, devastated, like all of the hope had been sucked out of me—hope I didn’t even realize I’d been hanging on to. So maybe I had thought things might work out with us.
Until now. Now I was terrified of losing him, and my hands were tied. Bringing it up with him would have been an asshole move, given the circumstances.
“Have I told you how happy I am you’re here?” Ryder whispered in my ear before greeting yet another person in line.
I stood by his side for a while. At one point, Mallory approached us and hugged Ryder goodbye. Every second of that hug was painful for me.
Then she left, and I felt like I could breathe—for the time being.
The funeral director came by and told Ryder he’d closed the door to stop anyone else from coming in.
A half-hour later, the line finally came to an end.
Ryder grabbed me by the hand and led me out a side entrance, where a driver was waiting for us. It felt like we were jumping into a getaway car.
The second the car door closed, Ryder buried his face in my chest and started sobbing. It was the first time I’d seen him cry all night. He’d apparently been holding it in and waiting for this moment—when people were no longer watching him—to let it all out. My own tears fell as I held him, his shoulders shaking in my arms.
His crying eventually wound down into heavy breaths. He whispered over my skin, “Nothing and no one can make me feel better, but when you walked in, it was the first time I felt alive again.” Ryder softly kissed my neck. “How long can you stay?”
“I’ll be here for the funeral tomorrow. My flight is the next day.”
“So, who exactly is taking care of Ollie? You said a friend?”
“My friend Camille. She offered. She works with me at Ellerby’s.”
“Is she responsible?”
I smiled at his concern. “Yes. She watched him once before.”
“Whoever she is, remind me to give her a big kiss for allowing you to come to L.A. I could never repay her for letting me have you right now.”
“I’m so glad you wanted me here.”
He once again brought me closer to him. “How could I not want you here?”
“I just wasn’t sure if it would be…too much.”
“There’s only one thing I need tonight, Eden.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to take a hot shower with you, bury myself inside of you, and forget about everything else. You’re all I need.”
For the time being, hearing that was all I needed.
“We can do that.” I held him tighter. “Are you okay?”
Seemed like a dumb question, considering the circumstances, but it escaped my lips before I thought better of it.
“No,” he answered. “It’s gonna be a while before I am. It still hasn’t sunk in.”
“I know.”
“But I’m the best I could possibly be right now with you here.” He straightened up to look at me. “I know you’re probably wondering why Mallory was with me when you arrived.”
You don’t know the half of it.
“You don’t have to explain.”
“Fuck yes, I owe you an explanation.” His tone was insistent. “She showed up at my house out of the blue this afternoon before the wake. She was close to my dad. I hadn’t even told her about his death. I figured she’d find out because it was all over the media. She said she wanted to support me tonight. Honestly, I didn’t have the energy to question anything.” He paused. “She also told me she broke off her engagement, but we didn’t have any time to talk about it. To be honest, having her here was really stressing me out. Then you showed up, and I stopped thinking about it.”
I was happy he was being honest. And I was tempted to confess what she’d told me in the bathroom, but opted not to. I’d be damned if I spent the short time I had with him talking about his ex-girlfriend, who apparently wanted him back. If he knew she still loved him, would he feel differently about her? That question would silently haunt me. My stomach was in knots pondering that, but I’d come all this way to be with him. I wasn’t going to let anyone take this time away from us.
The driver interrupted my thoughts. “Here we are.”
We exited the car, and I looked up at the massive structure that was apparently Ryder’s house.
All I could think was: holy shit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
EDEN
It was a place like I’d only seen in the movies.
Surrounded by lush, landscaped grounds and a large, wrought-iron gate, Ryder’s house was breathtaking.
After we entered the tall, dramatic front doors, my shoes echoed as I walked along the marble floors in the entryway.
I’m not in Utah anymore.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said sarcastically.
“Ryder, I never imagined…”
“I know you didn’t, because you’re not materialistic. How I live is not something you think about. I know that.” He grabbed a remote control and flicked on the fireplace in the living room. “You know what, though?”
“What?”
“I’d take your cozy little house in St. George any day over this cold, empty place. I sit here at night and think about how much more comfortable I am there.”
“That’s a little crazy.”
“Alright.” He cracked a slight smile. “We can agree to disagree.”
Ryder showed me around a bit. Just outside of a set of French doors was a gorgeous in-ground pool and patio area, illuminated in blue lights. There was a state-of-the-art theater with plush, velvet seats, a wine cellar, and a home gym.
In the grand kitchen, huge bouquets of flowers covered the granite island. Ryder stared as if the sight of them had once again slapped him back to reality.
He turned to me and whispered, “I just want to forget.”
I reached out my hand. “Let’s go forget then.”
Ryder took it and led me down a hallway, then up a spiral staircase.
The smell of his cologne saturated the air in his bedroom. With dark wood and lots of black accents, Ryder’s room was sexy and masculine. A padded, slate gray headboard I knew I
’d seen before took up most of the wall behind his bed. He pressed a button, and his shades began to close.
“So this is where you’d watch me from, huh? I recognize the headboard.”
“This is it. Scene of the crime.”
He undid his belt before turning me around and unzipping my dress. It fell to the floor, and I stepped out of it. Ryder continued to undress me until I was stark naked. He stood behind me as he showered my back with slow but firm kisses, sending chills through my core. I loved how eager and desperate he seemed for me. His erection pressed against my ass, so hot and hard through the fabric of his suit pants.
He kissed the back of my neck. “My beautiful Eden. I’ll never forget that you came to be with me.” He turned me around and took me in for several seconds.
So many emotions ran through me as I unbuttoned his shirt. The most striking was fear. I didn’t want to lose him. I knew that more clearly than ever tonight, and yet I’d never been more scared of it.
He stepped out of his pants. Wearing only his boxer briefs, he pulled me into his rock-hard chest and wrapped me in his arms as he rested his mouth in my hair.
He rocked me gently back and forth. Closing my eyes, I relished the feeling. He’d never told me he loved me, but if this wasn’t what love felt like, I would never know. It hit me that no one had ever held me like this in my entire life—certainly no man. I liked to consider myself a pretty tough person, someone who didn’t need to be cradled or coddled. But damn, it felt good to be held like this. He’d been through so much today, yet here he was rocking me.
I wanted to scream, “Please don’t leave me. She’s going to come back for you. You might be confused and not know what to do. But I love you, Ryder. Please trust in that.”
But of course, I remained silent, vowing to bring my mind back to the present and not dwell on the uncertain future, which had always plagued our relationship.
Ryder led me into a humungous bathroom just off the master suite.
Holy mother of all showers—it was like a room in and of itself with the most beautiful glass tile.
We stepped into it, and then he slipped out of his boxers and turned a handle. We were both completely naked now. I’d never seen him like this before, and I realized how perfect he was as the water cascaded down his body like a waterfall over carved stone. The V at the base of his abs aligned with a thin trail of hair leading down to his cock—his beautiful, thick cock that was so perfectly intimidating, but that I knew I could take.
Ryder pulled me close as the water sprayed out of three gargantuan showerheads. He placed his forehead against mine as the water rained down over us.
Once he started kissing me, that was it. We were in our own world under this water. Nothing else mattered, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let all my scary thoughts ruin this sacred moment. All I wanted to do was make love to him, comfort him, and have him feel nothing but me for a while.
I placed my hands around his face and drew him closer as he kissed me, his tongue exploring my mouth as if he needed my breaths to survive, as if he couldn’t kiss me hard enough. This moment felt different from any other I’d experienced with him.
He leaned his weight into me, then lifted me up over him as if I weighed nothing. I wrapped my legs around him as he held me against the tile wall.
I immediately felt his crown at my opening.
He started to enter me without warning. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it,” he muttered.
“Don’t stop. It’s okay.”
It didn’t take any more convincing. In a second flat, Ryder had pushed all the way inside of me. His eyes rolled back as his body rocked against mine while he fucked me. His hand gripped the back of my neck, and the sound of our wet skin slapping together resonated throughout the bathroom, along with the echoes of our pleasure. It was wild and primal, and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t worried about my own choreography during sex. He was in the driver’s seat, and he was doing a damn good job driving. I just let go, closing my eyes and feeling the sheer force of his body pummeling through me.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had the liberty to moan as loudly as I wanted. And there was nothing hotter than the guttural sounds Ryder made as he fucked me.
His arms wrapped around me tightly as he continued to pound into me, his frantic breaths in sync with his thrusts. Everything else in the universe faded away.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked, breaking me out of my trance. He slowed down for a moment, and that small break felt like torture.
I shook my head no, then arched by back and bucked my hips, grinding harder against his body to show him. When I tightened my muscles around his cock, his breaths became even more ragged. He gently bit my neck as he continued to fuck me into oblivion.
“So fucking good,” he rasped. “I feel like a fucking animal with you…can’t get enough.”
Despite how rough this was, I felt one-hundred-percent safe. I had fully surrendered, and that had most definitely never happened to me before.
My eyelids were heavy as I bent my head back. He placed his hand around my chin and stuck his thumb in my mouth. I sucked on it as he watched intently.
My orgasm suddenly rolled through me. As I cried out, his body began to shake. He groaned in ecstasy, and I felt a rush of heat as he came hard, balls-deep inside of me.
Ryder moved in and out of me slowly long after we’d both climaxed. I could feel myself revving up all over again, wanting more.
After a few minutes of holding me against the wall while his breathing calmed, he finally pulled out and put me down. “That was…wow.”
Still breathing heavily, I nodded, unable to find words.
Ryder grabbed a sponge and squirted some shower gel into it. He began to wash me gently. As he placed it between my legs, I could feel his semen spilling out of me, gathering between my thighs.
Teasing me with the sponge, he whispered in my ear, “I love seeing my cum drip out of you.”
His words made my nipples stiffen. I was most definitely ready for a second round.
He squeezed out the sponge a few times before reapplying the soap and handing it to me. “Will you wash me?”
“I would love to.”
From top to bottom, I ran the sponge over his gorgeous body, appreciating every muscle, every groove on this beautiful man. I pumped some shampoo into my palm and rubbed my hands into his head. He closed his eyes to enjoy the feeling. When I’d finished, he opened them and put shampoo on his own hand to return the favor.
Ryder massaged the suds over my scalp with his large hands. I could have let him do that all night; it felt so good. After he rinsed all of the soap from my hair, he held me under the water again, kissing my head over and over. I’d never felt so cherished in my entire life, and I found myself in tears.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m just really emotional right now.”
“Can I tell you something?” he asked, taking my face in his hands.
“Yes.”
“My mind has been going in circles the past couple of days, thinking about a lot of shit—things I’d do differently with my father, other random thoughts. As I found myself lamenting my loss, I thought about you—how your father was never in your life, how we’re both in the same position now, not having either of our parents around. I was fortunate to have my father as long as I did. But you live with the loss of a man who’s still walking the Earth. And even though you don’t talk about it, I know that hurts you. The moment I realized the meaning behind your stage name, I figured that out. You’re just strong and don’t show your vulnerable side.”
He caressed my cheek. “Anyway, I do have a point to all this.” He kissed me softly. “My point is, wherever he is, your father has no idea what a beautiful, kind, precious human he created. And that’s a damn shame for him. Because you are undoubtedly his biggest accomplishment, and he doesn’t even realize it.”
The water rained down on us, washing a
way my tears as he continued.
“You’ve brought me so much happiness, and you coming here to L.A. is literally what’s keeping me sane right now. You’re precious to me, Eden. I hope you know that.”
He’d rendered me speechless. He was right. As much as I’d never let my father’s abandonment define my self-worth, there was a shadow of hurt that never really went away.
The urge to tell Ryder I loved him was strong, but I wasn’t going to be the first to say it, even though I wanted to.
I settled on, “You’re precious to me, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
EDEN
The funeral was even harder than I’d anticipated. The strength Ryder had shown the day before seemed nonexistent now. The finality of it all seemed to hit him today.
He bawled when they lowered the casket into the ground, and that was really hard to watch. All I could do was rub his back, but no words would comfort him.
After the burial, Ryder had organized a lunch at a fancy restaurant in downtown L.A. for family, friends, and the closest business associates. He didn’t have a lot of relatives because his father was also an only child. Some cousins from his mother’s side were there, along with some of his good friends, including Mallory, who’d stuck around for the meal, much to my dismay. Aside from whispering a couple of things to Ryder here and there, she’d kept her distance. But her eyes were always firmly planted on him. I could tell it was killing her not to be the woman by his side.
The thought of having to leave him tomorrow while so many things were up in the air was painful.
The restaurant was super high end—the type of place where the waiter pours a little bit of wine and swirls it around before discarding it to clean any residual taste from the glass. I’d chosen braised medallions of pork on a bed of mushroom risotto. But as delicious as it was, I had no appetite.
As Ryder walked around talking to people, I stayed seated at the table, moving my uneaten food around my plate. Tossing back a second glass of wine, I definitely appreciated the alcohol—particularly when Ryder’s friend Benny made his way toward me.
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