by Shey Stahl
I swallow down tears I won’t let run. Look at him. Take notice in the way his eyebrows gather together with a pained expression, the way his voice loses power at the end of his statement and the way he raises his arms and lets them fall to his sides.
He’s not Austin. He never could be.
With a knotted belly of uncertainty, or insanity—I haven’t quite decided—I ask, “So. . . what is it you want from me?”
There’s a gleam in his eyes. Do you see it? No, shit, wait. Maybe that’s the sun hitting his face. “I think I’ve made that pretty clear.”
Right. Sex.
My face scrunches, my head shakes. I start to walk away, but he doesn’t let me. Not this time. He pulls me back to his chest and then spins me around to face him. “You were mine before you were his,” he reminds me. He swallows heavily, his face hardening. “You know I’m right.”
At three, at ten, at fifteen, I was always his.
There’s certainly truth to it. I struggle to breathe. I’m scared and well, turned the fuck on. So turned on I blow out a breath and it resembles a cat in heat.
You’re spending too much time around those cats, Aly. You’re starting to sound like them.
Ridge growls into my skin, grips my wrists and presses his body firmly into mine. “If you’d have given in to me. . . I would have never treated you that way.”
Suddenly, I’m trapped by him. I glance around. We’re in the tunnel where the ticket booth is. On the left, the track where the boys are with my dad. On the right, the town.
He’s up to something, and I think I know what it is. Seduction.
“What are you doing?”
Keeping that smirk at bay, Ridge watches me. His darkness nips at the sensitive flesh of my neck. He does things to me. Naughty things. “I think you know,” he says slowly, his soft lips parting over the words beautifully. Fuck, he’s pretty.
His gaze returns, but there are no words. Instead, my face is suddenly between his palms.
Oh shit. Panic sets in. No, actually it takes over like adrenaline, and I start shaking. His gaze—oh, those devastatingly beautiful dark eyes—control me.
With unnerving confidence, he towers over me, and I wonder if Tori’s description of his actual size is accurate. Can I handle eight inches? Will my pussy explode?
Oh, honey, that’s laughable. You gave birth to twins.
I pinch my lips together to make sure a moan doesn’t leak from them. Eh, gross. I can’t believe I thought leak.
He takes a step forward, trapping me against the warm wood of the building. Every part of my body begs for his touch, for him to consume me in ways no man ever has, or could.
He wants me, so what? I want him. It’s not like I’m fifteen anymore and protecting my virtue.
But. . . it might end in tears and heartache. Can I handle that again?
Maybe? He’s the first person who’s made me feel alive in a while.
“Ridge,” I whisper, swallowing heavily over the lump of uncertainty in my throat. “Is this a good idea?”
His lips brush mine as he leans down, but he doesn’t kiss me yet. “It’s a really good idea.”
“I mean. . . with the boys and you being their teacher, and my divorce not being final. It’s a small town. I just. . . it seems messy. Really messy.”
He draws me into him, and my body curves to his, warm and safe. “I won’t tell,” he whispers into my neck. Fuck, he smells so goddamn good. “If that’s what you’re worried about. No one has to know.”
No, he definitely won’t tell. He’s too secretive for that.
It’s been years since I kissed Ridge, and I want to again so badly. I want to remember the taste of his lips on mine, remember the feeling that consumed me every time he touched me or looked my way.
I want to remember how it felt to have someone want me that way, and not for any other reason than they couldn’t control themselves. At some point when you’re in a relationship, that disappears, and some never find it again. Austin and I certainly hadn’t.
And Ridge and I. . . we couldn’t forget it.
His mouth inches closer to mine, and then he kisses me. Gentle at first. His tongue traces the seam of my lips, so eager for more. When my breath blows out, his catches.
When I open my slightly parted lips, Ridge groans into my mouth, jerking me against his chest, his lips hungry and searching for more. It’s the hottest fucking kiss I’ve had in years, maybe even ten. What’s hotter? The release of his soft groan sends another shiver through me. With every move he makes with his hands, his muscles flex and fight for control.
This isn’t like any kiss I’ve had before. It’s the most intoxicating kiss I’ve ever had. The very second his mouth covers mine, I know he’s not only kissing me. He’s erasing every other kiss I’ve ever had. Even the ones by him. They don’t matter anymore. This kiss, it’s from a man. One who holds an extraordinary amount of power over me.
I’ll tell you something about Ridge’s kiss though. It’s not the urgency of his hot mouth or the sweet taste of him.
It’s not the way he’s kissing me like he’s trying to prove a point.
It’s not the way his tongue assaults my mouth, or the way he practically owns my body with the way his lips curve to mine.
Nope. It’s none of that.
Can you guess what it is? Okay, Jesus, calm yourself. I’ll tell you.
It’s the way grabs one of my hands and places it on his cock. “Do you feel what you do to me?”
That’s the part the sends my heart thumping wildly with fear. What the fuck and I doing? I’m a mother. I can’t be doing this out in the open with my kids near.
“I. . . uh. . . Ridge,” I mumble against his lips. “The boys. . . .”
“They’re busy and so am I. Stop talking,” he murmurs into my neck, biting my skin with his teeth. He drops his head lower and I yank it back up because I know once he puts his mouth on or near my nipples, it’s over.
Over.
We’ll be fucking against this wall, and that’s not going to happen.
He stares at me, confused that I pushed him back, but breathing heavily. “Why are you stopping me?”
I skim my hands over his chest, fisting cotton. “We can’t do this here.” My voice is meek. With every second his lips are away, I can finally think for myself. Hello, logic. Where were you earlier?
Resting his forehead against mine, his dark eyes don’t let up with intensity. “Why can’t we? I know you want it. . . .” And before I can object, his hand is under my dress and up between my legs, and his fingers prodding at my clit through my panties. Yep. They’re so wet and he knows it’s all for him. Now I know why I chose a dress today. Slut! “You’re imagining all the things I can do to you.”
Goddamn it. He really knows what he’s doing, doesn’t he?
Just as I’m about to agree to letting him do whatever the fuck he wants, his fingers disappear.
No. . . come back!
“But if you don’t want it. . . .” He shrugs, turns around and leaves me standing there.
I’m screwed.
I knew it was going to happen soon, but I finally came face to face with Austin again. Can’t say I’m excited about it one bit. He looks the same, still built like a linebacker with that familiar scowl he sends my way any time were in the same vicinity as one another.
My problems with Austin span a hell of a lot further than loving the same girl and he knows it.
“You lost?” I ask, barely acknowledging his presence at the boys’ football practice Wednesday night.
“No. . . but I think you might be.” Austin glares at me, challenge in his stance, his hat pushed up so I can see his eyes. I want to knock his hat off his head on pure principle for not showing up on Saturday.
Keep your cool, man.
My stomach burns with the thought that Aly is still tied to him legally, and I need to keep my head for her sake, and the boys. They haven’t noticed him on the sidelines yet, and I’m not
sure they will with Henry having them running drills in the far corner of the football field.
Rubbing my hand down the side of my jaw, I lean against the bleachers beside me. “No.” I make eye contact with him, my voice low compared to his. “I’m not lost. I’m right where I belong.”
“So what. . . you think you’re hot shit now? You think you’re the good guy because I fucked up?” He nods to the kids. “I know exactly what you have planned, Ridge. You think getting on her good side, and theirs, you can take over. I fucking know you,” he reiterates like it’s supposed to mean something. Sure, he knew me like a friend would, like a stepbrother, but he destroyed that when he went after what was mine in the first place. Like Cane and Abel. Or maybe not. . . I never read the bible, but I do know Cane killed Abel, and Austin’s fucking lucky I don’t pick up a rock and smash his goddamn head on pure principle. “You can’t. She was mine first, and they’re mine. You’re always going to be the fucking delinquent she can’t trust.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I give him a nod. “She may have your last name, for the time being, but I always had her first, and you know that.”
“Whatever makes you sleep better at night, brother.” He glares at me with cockiness. Smug bastard. “You’re just bent I took her virginity before you could.”
My obsession with Aly had nothing to do with me wanting her virginity. I mean, I did, of course I wanted that, but she wasn’t a piece of property to me. “Who’s to say you did get it?” I taunt, smiling.
I’ll tell you what, look at him, it’s got him questioning whether he knows the entire truth about us. For once it’s nice to turn this around on him, to have him question something. He has no idea how long I questioned everything growing up, knowing I hadn’t been told the truth by Brooks and Madalyn while Austin had.
Rolling his eyes, he twists away. “Get out of my face. I didn’t come here for this shit.”
What a tool. What the fuck did Aly see in this ass?
My lips twist into a smile, his words entertaining to me. Just like every other time we’re around one another, I’m fuckin’ baiting him, and he knows it. “What made you show up tonight?”
He snorts, his left hand reaching up to swipe his thumb over his nose. “Wednesday nights are my nights with my boys.”
Like how he puts emphasis on my boys? I don’t miss the meaning behind it.
And then he’s facing me, because he can’t stand not to ask. “Why are you back? You and I both know you have no business running that track or fucking my wife. Why don’t you just go back to Santa Barbara.”
I want to laugh. I want to burst out fucking laughing in his face. He knows given the first chance, I will fuck his wife. Soon-to-be ex-wife. The thing is, he doesn’t know if it’s happened yet and you better believe that fucking kills him. It doesn’t matter to him that he stepped out first. For a man, if you can call him that, like Austin, it matters that his wife might be. As if something precious was taken from him. In his eyes, I bet it’s seen that way. It’s entertaining he thinks this way, considering she was mine all along.
I can be a real fucking asshole when I want to be. Like now. I glance around, no kids within earshot. Safe to be an asshole. Leaning in, I wink at him. “I came back because your wife’s pussy was lonely.”
His stone-cold expression is controlled, but fading in some ways. His jaw flexes, and he lowers his hat. “I’m not in the mood for your bullshit.”
Not in the mood? He fucking approached me!
“Why’s that, Jacob? Backup quarterback not putting out anymore?”
His head bends forward, and he smiles, knowing I’d bring that up, his hand squeezing the back of his neck. “Fucked my wife lately?”
You know, I admire his bluntness.
“I wouldn’t call it fucking. I’d call it owning her pussy.” I move closer so my breath hits his face, my eyes trained on his, low, mean. “I had her in your bed once. . . .” I smile. Tilting my head, I make sure he’s looking at me. “Your. Bed. She was all over my dick. . . so fucking wet my jeans were soaked.” I leave out which bed and the fact that it was in high school, but he has a visual now, doesn’t he? I do too.
His head spins, contemplating the truth to my words.
If you ask me, I think what pisses him off more is him knowing I can handle a girl like Aly. He can’t. He doesn’t know the first thing about getting her off.
A woman like Aly, she wants to be controlled in bed. She wants you pinning her down, owning her, worshiping her every desire. She wants to know you can handle her wild ways she never lets anyone see. It’s always the good girls who are the freaks in bed. Remember the bible thumper who deep throated me? Exactly.
Austin, he could never handle her, and it fucking kills him to know it.
His chest expands once, hauling in a breath, his jaw clenching with the action. “What is your problem, Lucas? You’ve always had it out for me.”
“I’m not the one with a problem. You are.” I shrug carelessly. “I’m just here to let you know she’s never going back to you. Lost your chance, man.”
“Keep her,” he barks, turning away from me like he’s had enough. And then he stops and turns his head, smugly mumbling, “I don’t want your sloppy seconds.”
“You should be used to sloppy seconds!” I yell after him, and he turns around. Stupid fuck. “Look who you’re with now! Brie fucked half the goddamn football team.”
He flips me off.
By the way, I’m part of the “other” half. Never touched Brie when we were younger.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
I glance up at the whiteboard acting as a menu. “Two hot dogs with ketchup and one order of nachos, extra cheese, and a Coke.”
The kid behind the counter nods, twisting around to the high school girls beside him to fill the order.
When I have my order and I’m trying to think about how to carry it over there, Austin finds me on the other side of the concession stands. I see him coming, and I know what it’s about. I saw him talking to Ridge, and I can only imagine how that conversation went.
Two men filled with testosterone and arrogance. . . yeah, probably went about as well as two silverback gorillas caged in together.
Grabbing the hot dogs and nachos the boys wanted, I have half a mind to smash them in Austin’s face.
He jabs his finger at the field. More importantly, Ridge. “What’s going on with you and him?”
Like it’s any of his business, but I answer with, “Nothing.” And then lick ketchup off my finger seductively like I’m not fazed by him anymore. ’Cause guess what? I’m not. Fuck him. But. . . what I really want to say to Austin is something along the lines of: Ridge kissed me, and if we hadn’t been in the presence of children nearby, I probably would have let him fuck me against a wall the other night, but no, nothing’s going on.
Austin breathes in slowly and deeply, adjusting his hat on his head. “Bullshit. He wants you.”
I laugh, don’t you? It’s amusing to think he’s pulling this card. “And I always thought you would.”
His face grows serious, hardens, and for the first time in months, I see emotion, a flicker in his eyes. He cares. He fucking cares now. “You kicked me out.”
And we’re back to the continuous circle of who did what and you blame me while I blame you. It gets us nowhere, and I’m tired of having this conversation with him constantly. “What do you want? Why are you here?”
“It’s my night with the boys.”
Noticing the sun is no longer in my eyes, I raise my sunglasses. My eyes catch Austin’s. “Are you actually going to take them?”
I think back to Saturday afternoon and the fight the boys witnessed. Grady will go with him but Cash, I’m pretty sure he’d rather endure a chick flick with me than go with his father for a night.
Austin chews on his lip, pulling it in and then letting go. His attention shifts to something behind me, and I follow it, finding Ridge kneeling to talk to Cash and the
n high-fives him.
We’re about fifty feet away, but then Ridge’s dark eyes find mine, eyes that won’t leave me alone, eyes that make my head throb and my heart beat a million miles an hour. I blink heavily, fighting the urge to close my eyes and escape the hold he has on me.
Austin leans in, his chest meeting my back. “Are you going back to his place?”
Look at that, he’s jealous? It takes another man being interested in me for him to finally care? What a bunch of bullshit.
I take my elbow and jab him in the gut with it. “None of your business.”
And then I walk away, leaving him coughing, and it feels so fucking good.
Practice ends and Austin’s keeping his distance, his glare intent on me as I approach Ridge near the bleachers. I hand the hot dogs to the boys who are taking off their helmets.
“I’m starving!” Grady announces, practically inhaling the hot dog as he sits in the grass.
Cash, on the other hand, he takes the hot dog but looks the direction of his dad, and then me. “Do I have to go with him tonight?”
Crap. What do you do when they don’t want to go with their dad? It’s not like I want to force them, but the parenting plan says he has them.
I’m at a loss when Ridge helps me out. “Dude, eat the hot dog before I steal it.”
He pretends to grab it from him and then grins when Cash slaps his hand. “No way. This is mine.”
I laugh, dipping my fingers in the nacho cheese and sucking it off my finger like I did near Austin. Honesty here? I have no idea why I do that. Actually, I’m lying. I do, the cheese is fucking hot, and I accidentally had some on my finger. The licking while looking at Ridge. . . planned.
He watches, too, with rapt attention and lifts his eyes to meet mine. “Are you going to share those nachos or keep them all to yourself?”
“I uh. . . actually got them for you. Thought you’d be hungry.”
It’s the truth. I know he doesn’t eat much these days. Grady had me pack Twinkies for him this week saying something about him never eating.
I hand him the tray.
