Wait. What?
Unlatching my legs, I held on until he lowered me to the mattress and suddenly all my sexy, wonderful feelings dissolved. I used a hand on his chest to push him back. “Ryker, wait…” But he kept moving towards me to the point I turned my head to avoid his lips.
“You gotta stop, Ryker!” Okay, so I might’ve been a bit loud with my last delivery but how else was I gonna get his attention?
Moving his lips from my cheek to my neck, he continued his erotic assault, but he needed to listen to me!
“You can’t just come back after a week of silence, give me a quick apology and then hustle me off to bed,” I stated in a flat, unemotional voice. One I hoped would get his attention.
And it did.
He immediately ceased all movement; I couldn’t even feel him breathing. So, I wait a few beats, giving him the time and the opportunity to absorb my words. Because I meant them. By carrying me straight into the bedroom, I felt like he thought the relationship we had was just a physical one when I knew it could be so much more.
Sighing he straightened to his full height and dragged his fingers through his hair. “My apology wasn’t enough? Is that what you’re saying?”
I shook my head and searched for the right way to tell him what was in my heart.
“Or are you one of those high maintenance girls who need flowers and a piece of jewelry to let her guy off the hook when he fucks up?”
Shit! This was going from bad to worse and I could feel my anger rear up at his words. “High maintenance? When it comes to respect and consideration, then you better believe it, honey. I am very high maintenance with high expectations on how I should be treated.”
“Are you saying I don’t treat you well? That you don’t want to be with me anymore because I couldn’t call you while I was gone?” His eyes were narrowed into small slits and his voice was a thunderous growl as he challenged me. “And I couldn’t, Phoebe. It wasn’t a ‘wouldn’t’ kind of deal; it was because I was unable!”
I parted my lips to reply but he beat me to it only this time in a much softer voice.
“I said I was sorry and I meant it. I even told you how I’d prevent it from happening again. That’s all I’ve got, baby. That and to take you bed so I can show you how much you mean to me.”
Shit! When had I become that girl, the one who forced her boyfriend to pay for his misdeeds? Maizie was a fervent practitioner of that art. I’d seen her in action and swore, hand-on-heart avowed and averred I’d never do that to my man (whenever I chose one). Yet, in the most basic of terms, that was what I was doing to my Ryker.
I’d asked him to shut up and show me how much he missed me instead of talking, then told him to quit once he made his move! Which made me either insane or a total tease. “Now it’s my turn to apologize. I’m sorry I asked you to stop. I got some weird thing in my head and went with it before thinking it through.” I sighed and stood up within the small space he’d left me, sliding my hands to the sides of his t-shirt. “Can we do a re-wind? Go back in time by five or ten minutes?”
He didn’t look at me but I saw him holding back a grin so I pressed on.
“Besides, it’s your turn to pick the position. Right? Isn’t that what we agreed to in my oh-so hazy but fun, debauchery-filled night after the Surly Snowman?”
He was full on smiling now and even glanced down at me as his hands cupped my waist. “You were pretty debauched, all right. But cute and sexy as fuck.”
I tried to work that one out in my head. How could someone be cute and sexy at the same time? Putting the thought aside, I rolled up onto my toes and began kissing the underside of his neck in order to get things re-started between us. “So it’s five minutes earlier. Now where were we and what were we doing?”
Aiming my mouth towards his, Ryker met me halfway as our lips and tongue began to dance together, re-igniting the flames of desire between us. When his hands and fingers began to roam, I concluded all was forgiven on either side and joined in the rediscovery of each other’s body, especially as each piece of clothing was removed and dropped to the floor. Once naked, Ryker reached down to find his wallet and soon rolled the condom on with a firm stroke causing a deep throb of pleasure to beat between my legs as I remained standing before him.
“Okay, so. Since it’s my turn to pick how we do this,” he started in a firm, resolved voice. “Then I want you on your stomach, that gorgeous ass in the air, knees at the edge of the mattress.”
“Not on all fours?” I knew about doggie-style and had even seen a couple of pictures when I’d looked up different sex positions on the internet, all done under the heading of ‘research for future sex with Ryker’, of course.
He stood and contemplated my question for a second. “Nope. Just turn over. Chest to bed, ass tilted, knees to edge.”
Without a word, I turned myself and arranged myself into the position he’d described.
All the while wondering why I felt so turned on but vulnerable in that pose.
*.*.*.*.*
Christ! What a fuck up!
Ryker watched as Phoebe assumed the position he’d asked for as he berated himself for carrying her into the bedroom. And the fact she’d shut down and gone all ice queen on him after the fact, more than pissed him off.
He’d been trying to be romantic, a man who swept her off her feet.
Instead he’d ended up looking like an idiota.
Or, even worse, a wet-behind-the-ears pendejo.
Ryker moved to turn out all but the nightlights in the room. But his actions were more to give him a way to work off some of the self-anger bubbling inside him.
Chingowe!
Could he have done anything to look more foolish in her eyes? No wonder she’d stopped him.
Going back to the side of the bed, he kicked his boots and the scattering of clothes out of the way while he eyed her abso-fucking-lutely perfect ass. Generously rounded, and fashioned as an upside heart, it was the stuff of every man’s dreams.
Placing a leg on each side of her feet, he wondered why, if it was so perfect, then motherfucking why did he have the urge to smack it? To slap it so hard it left an imprint of his hand.
And why did the thought of doing it make his dick so fucking hard?
Jesús, he was one fucked up piece of shit.
Even so, the sweetness of her ass called to him and he reached out a hand to caress it, enjoying the quiver of her bountiful flesh as he ran a palm over each check.
Was she still in the mood?
He traced her crack with two fingers and found she was still wet, though probably not as much as she had been earlier. Thanks to his dumb-ass move.
Sliding his finger in further, he found her clit and realized neither it nor the leaves of her sex were swollen like they usually were when he fingered her.
It was time to make amends.
Although he still wanted to spank her ass.
Ryker began rubbing her button of pleasure with two fingers and soon found her responding with tiny circles of her hips. Although her soft moans might’ve given her away.
Yeah, she was getting into it. Her pussy was wetter now and all the pink he was stroking felt hotter and definitely swollen.
Should he make her come first or just slide his cock straight in?
Adjusting the condom into a more comfortable position, Ryker stroked himself lazily as he brought his thumb into the mix, dipping it in and out of her pussy.
Fuck this is hot, he thought, leaning back to watch his fingers as they played. He was still pissed but that feeling was being edged out by what his cock wanted.
And hell yeah, he wanted.
Adjusting his feet and bending his knees, Ryker stopped working her in order to pull the globes of her butt-cheeks apart. But goddamn, he almost lost it at the sight. Wet, pink skin met his eyes and the view shot straight to his balls.
“Ryker, please,” she begged on a fervent whisper.
Oh fuck to the yeah.
Using
his thumb to hold his stiff cock down, he sank in, reveling in her tight, slick, heated (so motherfucking hot) sheathe. Pulling out, he groaned at how her pussy grabbed at him. “Is this what you want?”
“Yesss…” she hissed into the comforter, even as she reared her hips back to meet him. “More, honey.”
He slammed back in, his hips taking on a new rhythm in both intensity and pace. He gripped both sides of her hips tightly almost shoving her onto his stone-hard dick. “Is this what you need, baby?”
“Oh Ryker!”
Uh-huh, he was giving her what they both needed.
And she was getting close, he could tell.
He opened his mouth to tell her so, but what came out wasn’t anywhere near the words he’d thought to say.
“Don’t ever get me hot then give me that cold-assed, ice princess shit again.” As if his words weren’t enough, his hips punctuated the last five of them with a hard, driving thrust of his cock.
And just as the last of it left his mouth, he felt her silken walls flutter then convulse around him, signaling her release.
He wasn’t but two strokes behind, the jets of his orgasm so strong, he had no choice but to plant himself deeply, throw his head back and remain still in order to better savor the glory of it all.
When he came back to himself, he found he’d curled himself over her back, holding a still covered breast in his hands, his face buried in her sweet-smelling hair. He didn’t speak although he thought to say something, to apologize for being so rough. Or to offer up some flowery words about how wonderful she was to put up with him and his lack of romantic skills.
But he didn’t.
Instead, Ryker turned their still connected bodies to the side, their legs dangling off the mattress and simply held his amazing, beautiful woman tightly to his chest as he breathed in the scent of her hair.
Chapter Sixteen
Peripherally, Ryker noticed the long line shift and he took another half-step forward without raising his eyes from his cellphone. Buxby’s was always busy at that hour of the morning, everyone out for their amazing cup of caffeine, willing to brave the lengthy queue in order to secure their morning dose of heaven without complaint about the wait. And like everyone else, Ryker’d learned to take that time, the one of step-and-pause, in order to use his new phone.
And for the last couple of days, he’d used that time wisely in order to text Phoebe even knowing she wouldn’t respond straight away. Their working hours were too dissimilar to expect an immediate response, but somehow him texting every morning around seven-thirty was the perfect start to his day, even knowing she wouldn’t read it until a couple of hours later. Whether it was to set up another date, recap the delight of the previous one or to simply offer ‘good morning’, it didn’t take Ryker long to become addicted to touching base with her as he waited for his turn at Buxby’s busy counter.
He’d been back three weeks.
Enough time to learn all about the girl he couldn’t get out of his mind, of discovering her quick wit, her smarts, and the sweetness of her soul. Of the wonder of her scent, the taste and texture of her mouth. The beauty of her surprised gasping of his name as he helped her find her bliss time and time again. The feel of her naked body, all those fucking curves pressed against him as she innocently moaned down his throat making the steel beneath his zipper pulse in the remembered pleasure of her response.
Oh fuck to the yeah, he was learning about Phoebe Marquette.
And everything he discovered only kept him wanting more; kept him coming back in order to uncover more of her…physically, emotionally and mentally. There wasn’t one thing, not one goddamn thing about her that didn’t intrigue him, arouse him.
Shit.
Captivate him!
To the point he stood in the longest fucking queue in the history of lines, typing a text of nothing more than a ‘Morning, babe’, while trying to hide his lengthening cock, throbbing with the need to touch her.
He glanced up to see if anyone around or on either side of where he stood was watching. Noticing no one, he shifted his hips in an attempt to hide the tent of his trousers with his suit coat.
How could just the remembered feel, smell and taste of her send him into a state of unrestrained lust?
Lookg 4ward 2 2morrow nite, he typed, while willing the monster in his pants to cease and desist. It was a futile effort and he again rued hitting the snooze button on the alarm so many times, using up time he could’ve spent with a soapy hand in the shower to relieve the Phoebe-fueled fantasies he woke up to each and every morning.
Or afternoon, if he wasn’t up to his ass in BI shit.
And evenings, the ones of just him and his mom watching another aimless TV show, filling up the time until he could excuse himself to either meet her after her shift or go to his room.
To the lotion he had hidden in the drawer of his nightstand.
Alone with only the thoughts of him and his girl, naked and writhing as he fantasized about wantonly taking her to the heights of pleasure again and again.
Thoughts that would’ve made his ma send for a priest.
His fingers paused on the keypad as he took another half-step forward while holding the flap of his coat, the one he’d secured with an arm press over the evidence of his raging desire, even tighter.
“Ryker?”
He lifted his head and scanned the noisy, crowded room.
“Yo’, dude,” the voice called again and Ryker finally zeroed in on the man moving toward him.
Black curly hair, cut so much shorter than he remembered was the main clue to the identity of the man calling his name. Because if it wasn’t for that, if the guy had been wearing a hat, he would’ve never recognized Marty.
Back in the day, Keith and Marty had been two of his best friends, boys he met and connected with in the early days of high school. Their love of all things digital, of computing and code, created a bond they swore would last forever. That was, until the three of them did the unthinkable. Getting an utterly stupid, ridiculously naïve wild-hair to show everyone how fucking intelligent they were, how they could control the very government if they chose to. Specifically the welfare system in Colorado. A system all three of their families were sadly on.
But instead of becoming some kind of modern day Robin Hood with his merry band of men, they’d been caught, arrested, and sentenced to different juvenile facilities far from each other and their families.
Their futures forever stained by their own teen-aged arrogance.
“Martin,” Ryker replied slowly, his eyes searching the man in order to find the boy he remembered. There wasn’t much besides the black hair. The Marty of his youth had been a short, curved into himself kind of guy and skinny. Slumped shoulders and a bad case of acne used to be his most distinguishing features, singling him out in their small high school. The man who stood next to him, brandishing the largest of the cups on offer at Buxby’s held a whiff of that boy. But it was only in the pits of his facial scars. “What’s up?”
“You’re out?” Ryker almost didn’t recognize the voice because the last time he’d had any interaction with his friend was just before they were busted and, back then, it was in the tenor range. One that broke and squeaked frequently. It too had changed over the course of seven years, thickening almost as much as Marty’s body had done.
Ryker nodded, his eyes trained on the other guy as he’d learned to do with any of his gender in juvie. His time there taught him to be careful with other males, even those you considered friends, to watch their posture closely in order to gauge their state of mind. Just in case the other guy attacked over whatever he had working in his head.
“Almost six months, now.” Ryker cleared his suddenly dry throat, memories flooding back of him, Keith and Marty as they’d worked their magic way in the secrecy of his bedroom, way back in the day. Back before their young lives were destroyed by their own misguided arrogance.
Something in Marty’s brown-eyed stare shifted at Ry
ker’s response, slithering away quickly before Ryker could claim and name it. But whatever it was, he shut it down quickly and hid it, the only evidence of his emotions being in the firm squeeze of his paper cup. Done so hard and to the point the lid lifted on one side.
“That’s good,” Marty muttered, fiddling to re-secure the lid, his eyes to his hands as color bloomed in his pitted cheeks, his shoulders lifting as he ducked his head, causing Ryker to see more of the boy he remembered instead of the broken man in front of him. “Glad to see you’re good seeing how Keith screwed us both over.”
Shock locked every muscle in Ryker’s body as Marty’s words struck him. His mind struggled to come up with different meanings behind what he’d said, to find a scenario different than what was offered, but couldn’t. “What do you mean?”
In response, Marty’s eyes bored into his before shifting to look at the various people around them. There was something in the depths of the smaller man’s eyes that made Ryker want to press, but the quivering scarred chin and lowered eyebrows warned him against doing so.
“Hate to cut this short, but gotta get to work.” Marty raised his gaze, but only made it to Ryker’s left shoulder before it dropped back to his hands his mouth trying for a grin. “Good to see you, amigo.”
Ryker’s, “Yeah, you too,” was lost in the general noise of the coffeehouse as Marty beat a swift retreat, almost stumbling in his haste to absent himself. And there was something, just a niggle of a thought at the way Marty carried himself that spoke of shame and guilt, although Ryker didn’t know why.
Seven years was a long time and he hadn’t spent much of it thinking about either what Keith or Marty went through as they made their way through the legal system. His was bad enough—what with his ma having a meltdown, his brothers on his ass and his attorney (who’d been only one year younger than God) trying to understand all the nuances of the virtual crime he’d committed.
No, there’d been no room in his head for what the others experienced at the hands of the legal system.
Phoebe: Book One of Broken Girls Series Page 15
