by Zoe York
“Will you?” he asked, and the tent quieted again.
I stared up at him, everything in my body already screaming yes. “Will I …?”
“Will you let me stay? Will you let me show you every day how perfect we can be together, how perfect our lives will be?”
“I don’t want perfect,” I said, not really thinking about the words first. His face fell, and I quickly added, “I want real.”
He nodded, understanding lighting his eyes. “Can I stay?”
I smiled up at him. “Please,” I managed. “Please stay.” It was a whisper, but the tent heard it and everyone jumped to their feet, applauding. Ryan put the microphone on the table and slid his arms around me, pulling me into his warm firm body and pressing the softest, sweetest kiss to my lips. It was a kiss that whispered promises and futures. It was a kiss that showed me cozy nights and snuggly sexy mornings. It was the kiss I’d dreamed of my whole life.
Chapter 25
Ryan
Tess wanted me to stay.
As she said the words, her eyes shining and fixed on mine, her arms reaching for me, my heart filled and something like warm chocolate flowed through my veins, comfort and hope and excitement all mixing to produce a feeling of happiness like nothing I’d ever known.
And when I kissed her in that tent, in front of the crowd, when I revealed the truth that had been in my heart since the day I’d seen Tess Manchester, my world snapped into alignment. Tess was everything I wanted. I knew she was right for me.
But it was more existential than that. It wasn’t my mind, or my body—though they were both involved—it was deeper. It wasn’t even my heart, I didn’t think. It sounded completely batty, but I was pretty sure it was my soul that identified a partner in Tess the second I saw her.
I’d been with women, I’d dated plenty. And I’d never before felt that instant of revision. I’d never before experienced the sensation that because this person, this singular individual, had stepped into my path, nothing in my life would ever be the same. But I knew it was possible, because I’d felt it happen with Tess.
“I love you, Tess.”
They were the easiest, truest words I’d ever spoken, and I didn’t care if everyone else thought I was nuts.
When I held her in my arms after that perfect, amazing, soul-clenching kiss, as the crowd erupted around us, she’d whispered, “I love you, too.” And I worried I might combust from the perfection of it all.
“Ryan?” A voice interrupted the perfect moment, and I looked over my shoulder to find Alison and the camera crew crowded between the tables, practically drooling. “A couple questions?”
Even with everything I wanted in my arms, my heart fell as I realized what the next few minutes would mean for Juliet. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s step outside.”
Tess squeezed my hand and I led the magazine crew out to the back porch as the party picked back up and the DJ started playing 90s rap, evidently Gran’s favorite, because I heard her thin voice start in with “This here’s a tale for all the fellas…”
Later, I sat with the Manchester girls on the back porch of the huge old plantation house, the tent dark and silent and the guests and cameras finally gone home. A warm calm surrounded us as I held Tess’s hand and we stared out into the twinkling lights still sparkling in the trees.
“It was a good party, girls,” Gran said. “Plenty of drama, good food, and that cake was amazing, Tess.”
Tess’s beautiful face glowed with the praise. “Thanks, Gran. I’m glad you had a good time.”
“I guess I have to be ninety now.” Gran sounded peeved.
“How exactly will that change anything?” Juliet asked.
“Meh,” Gran said lightly. “I might have to start taking fiber supplements or something. Maybe get one of those buttons in case I fall and I can’t get up.”
Juliet and Tess exchanged a look over Gran’s head as I chuckled.
“I think you’re doing fine,” Juliet said, laying her hand on the old woman’s.
The river beyond the banks was sparkling with moonlight, the cicadas buzzing low and constant around us. Summer here felt alive in a way it never had out west, definitely not in Los Angeles. I loved it.
“Tired?” Tess asked me after a few moments of contented silence.
I faked a yawn. “I am, actually.”
“Oh for God’s sake, you don’t have to pretend,” Gran said. “Go on upstairs, you two.” I should have been embarrassed that everyone here knew exactly why Tess and I were both eager to get upstairs, to be alone. But I wasn’t. My heart, my mind…my soul were too full for any other emotion to weasel its way in. I was happy—maybe for the first time in my life.
“Don’t be loud,” Juliet said, her voice a pleading whine.
I took Tess’s hand in mine and said goodnight quickly to Gran and Juliet before practically pulling Tess up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs I hesitated, not sure which room we should head into, and part of me still suffered some disbelief that she was mine to take anywhere. Instead of manhandling her into a bedroom and then pinning her beneath me against a wall, I pulled her to my chest and looked down into her eyes, shining in the darkness.
“I can’t believe I get to hold you,” I said, wishing my words were more eloquent, more right.
“I can’t believe you said all those things in the tent and I didn’t get to say a word,” she said.
A tiny trickle of panic tried to work its way through me. She was right—I’d done all the talking. I’d said ‘I love you’ and we’d barely gotten to speak after that. I’d gone to talk to the magazine and she’d joined me after a few minutes, but we hadn’t had a moment alone since then. “You can say whatever you want to now,” I said.
I could barely see her in the darkness, but the sliver of reflected light shining off the hardwood floor of the hall reflected onto her face enough for me to know her pretty face transformed into a wicked grin, and she pulled me into her bedroom and shut the door behind us.
“Sit down,” she commanded, turning on a lamp next to the bed that cast the room in a warm pink glow that reminded me of her, of pure femininity, of softness and home. “Take off your shirt.”
My skin tingled, my body began to buzz and my cock jumped to attention immediately. I liked where this was going. But I hoped to hear her repeat my words again, if only because I’d never said them to anyone before and there was a sliver of childish doubt trying to work its way into my newfound happiness.
When my shirt was in a pile next to the bed, Tess knelt between my legs and reached for my belt as I watched her hands, my body flooding with want.
I inhaled sharply as her slim white fingers grazed my abdomen and she worked on my belt buckle. I watched, unable to tear my eyes away from her hands, so close to me. She pulled the belt out, loop by loop and held it in her hands as she stood back up. There was something mischievous in her smile, and for a second I wondered if she planned to smack me with the belt. A tiny jolt of excitement spiked inside me, but then she turned and let the belt slip from her hands.
“Now that you’ve got me here, what do you plan to do with me?”
“You’ll see,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me, her hair falling down her back just above that perfect round ass. My body was thrumming and all I wanted was to pull her down on me, to feel every inch of her with my hands, my mouth … my … everything.
She went around the room, tidying things up as my body screamed for action, or for words at least. “Tess, I—“
“I’m thinking,” she said suddenly, turning back to face me. “It’s just … I … Ryan, this all happened so fast. And I’m trying to work out how much of it I can trust.”
“I had to take my shirt off for that?”
“It helps me think,” she said, grinning as she turned to face me.
“I can take my pants off too,” I offered.
She rolled her eyes.
“You can trust all of it, Tess.” I stood,
but something about her posture, her straight back, her crossed arms, made me stand still. “I meant all of it.”
“And I believe you. Or I want to. I just … I don’t trust me, my own heart, I guess.”
“Why?” I asked, taking a slow step forward. If she still had doubts, I had every intention of holding her close, of proving my love to her with every inch of myself until they’d been banished. “What is it saying?”
A half-smile lifted one side of her mouth and her eyes widened. God, I wanted to hold her. But I held back, approaching slowly, trying not to spook her.
“It’s telling me to run into your arms, to bury my head in your chest, to hold onto you as tightly as I can and to stay there as long as you’ll let me.” She dropped my gaze immediately after saying these words. “It’s saying I love you, and it scares the shit out of me.”
“I love you,” I said simply, my heart pounding so loudly I thought they could probably hear it downstairs.
She shook her head and laughed. “This just … It doesn’t happen like this, right? In three days?”
I shrugged. “It did for me.”
The hazel eyes flickered across mine and then dropped again. “For me too.”
“Tess,” I said softly, and she looked up then, meeting me fully in the eye. “Come here.”
She hesitated, lingering a minute more by the soft pink chair in the corner, and then I watched the hesitation fall from her face like a mask, and she rushed into my arms, her hands sliding up my back and pressing hard against me as my skin caught fire again.
Her body was perfect against mine, hot and supple and soft, and I found the zipper holding her inside the rust-colored sheath, dropping it to the ground around her ankles without letting her go. A tiny whimper escaped her as the dress fell, and I swept her up into my arms, carrying her to the bed, where I laid her before me in her purple lace panties and strapless bra. “Perfect,” I might have said aloud.
She smiled then, a happy look that telegraphed her acceptance of this crazy truth, her belief that three days could be enough, that they could be the beginning of forever. I straddled her hips and her hands found the button of my pants, unfastening it and pushing them down over my hips. I stood again to rid myself of them, and my boxer briefs, and then slid back on top of her.
I leaned forward, taking her mouth with mine as her hands searched my body, leaving little lines of fire everywhere they touched me. Her tongue was sweet and eager, sliding against mine hungrily, and I had to break off the kiss as she arched beneath me, worried I might ruin it all much too fast. She was too perfect, too… everything.
I moved to drop kisses along the column of her throat below her ear instead, trailing them down to her collarbone, to the plump swell of her chest. She reached behind herself, arching as she took off her bra, and tossed it aside. Her hands moved to the sides of her chest, pressing her breasts up toward my seeking tongue, and the sight of her hands on her own body nearly sent me over the edge. I covered her hands with mine and took one nipple in my mouth, my body singing as she rewarded me with a breathy moan. My thumb flicked the tight peak of the other breast as I sucked and swirled the one in my mouth, and then I switched. Tess moaned, sending another flare of excitement through me.
My hands slipped along her body, tracing lines and curves, learning every inch of her, and I slid down the bed, pulling off the lacy panties as I went. Every inch of me throbbed at the promise of her sweetness, and I slid back up her body, meeting her glazed eyes.
I leaned down, searching the floor for my pants, for the condom I kept in my wallet, and sighed with relief when I located it, Tess’s wide eyes on me the whole time, and her hands playing tantalizing rhythms across my skin.
I rolled on the condom and Tess watched, her eyes taking in every detail, and then her hands reached for me. Her tight hot hand fisted around me and she pulled me near, guiding me with my own dick like a pet she had tamed. I sucked in a sharp breath at her touch—I loved it.
She slid her hand softly over my length, a teasing touch through the latex skin of the condom, and then she dropped her other hand into her own folds, and a shot of sheer need ricocheted through me.
In a breathy voice filled with promise and vulnerability, she said, “I love you, Ryan.” And then, as she slid me into her depths, her eyes closing as I pressed home, she added, “I just can’t believe I’m in bed with Ryan fucking McDonnell.”
The laugh that came from my chest was genuine and happy, and I pulled out a bit and drove back to the hilt to make her point. I was Ryan fucking McDonnell, and I was currently fucking the woman of my dreams.
“I’m yours, Ryan fucking McDonnell,” she said, her eyes on mine, and a smile on her beautiful face. Less certainly, she said, “Keep me forever.”
In that moment, it was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard. “I will,” I promised, knowing I’d never let her go.
Epilogue
Tess
“Tess?” Gran called from her lair, which had been reestablished in the sunny parlor at the front of the house.
I stepped in, wiping my hands on my apron. “You paged me?”
She shook her head, laughing. “I’m out of Rye. Can you ask that nice boy to pick some up today?”
“God forbid you can’t make a Manhattan at exactly five o’clock,” I chided playfully. “But yes, I’ll ask the nice boy. And his name is Ryan, Gran.”
“I know that.”
Once the party had ended and life had gone back to a semblance of normal, Gran had become grumpier than usual, and it had taken me a week or so to figure out why.
In some ways, it had been the best week of my life. Ryan fucking McDonnell really did move here. He’d bought a house by the water, and had arranged to have his things sent and he was going back soon to get his father and bring him here.
His dad wasn’t doing well, and the nurse Ryan had hired had helped him vet the community Gran had pointed him to, agreeing that it was a good fit. Mr. McDonnell would be living nearby, and Ryan had made peace with the idea of him living apart, in a place where he had round the clock care. And unlike the extremely costly community in Santa Monica that Ryan had been considering, this one was affordable.
In the meantime, he’d furnished part of the house from the local shops, and had a wonderful bedroom and a functioning kitchen set up in the new place. We’d spent long evenings on his huge deck and even longer mornings in his big bed. But Gran had seemed frailer suddenly, and we spent most of our time at the plantation house with her.
Finally, I’d sat down with her, worried. “Gran, what’s going on?”
She had shaken her head like a child, refusing to look me in the eye.
I began to guess. “You’re sad because you’re ninety and now you actually feel like you’re aging?”
A head shake.
“You’re bummed because the party’s over and Jules went home?”
Another shake.
“Is it Chessy? You miss Chessy?” Jack had called a week after he’d gotten home, and confided that he really missed his chicken friend. He’d asked if there was any chance he might drive out and adopt her, and Gran had agreed. Chessy had been moping since he’d left anyway.
“It isn’t the damned chicken,” Gran said.
“You’re acting like a child.”
An angry glare.
Ryan walked by the window outside, shirtless after a run. I stared at him, still shocked that he kept coming back, that it hadn’t all turned out to be just a really amazing, really lucid dream.
We both watched until he was out of sight, and something occurred to me.
“Wait, Gran,” I said softly. “Are you upset that Ryan stayed here?”
She lifted a shoulder, still not giving in.
“You’re not happy for me?” This seemed hard to believe. She’d told me forever to find someone to make me happy. “You’re—?” I was about to try again, but she finally opened her mouth.
“I don’t want you to leave me, okay?
I just … I’m too old to live by myself.” She stared down at her lap as she said it, and I thought my strong old Gran looked closer to tears than I could ever remember seeing her. “Everyone in my life has left me, Tess. Everyone but you. My son—your handsome father—is gone. My husband has been gone for more years than I can even believe. All my friends have died.” She looked up at me then, and I saw the years on her face, saw how lonely it was to be ninety and feel alone.
“No,” I said softly. “I’ll never leave you, Gran. Never.” I pulled her into my arms, leaning forward and wrapping myself around her. We weren’t very affectionate normally, but I held her thin body close and tried to push all my love for her through that hug. “I’m not going anywhere,” I whispered.
Gran pulled back and shook herself slightly, like a cat throwing off irritating drops of water. “But that’s silly to promise, isn’t it? You’re young. You’re in love. It’s selfish of me to make you feel guilty about it.” She looked up at me then, all the sadness pushed down inside her, replaced by the ninety years of experience she’d gathered.
“Of course not. You’re my family. You’re all I’ve got besides Jules. We’re sticking together.”
“But Ryan bought that house for you.”
“He bought a house,” I confirmed. “But this is my home.”
“Maybe I’ll go live in the place Ryan’s dad is going to go.” She pushed out her lip as she said it, and I realized that maybe the situation with Ryan’s dad had made her consider her own mortality in a more real way.
“Gran,” I whispered, forcing her to look me in the eye. “You can live wherever you want. If you want to move there, to one of those cute little cottages we showed Ryan’s dad, you can. But his challenges are very different from yours, and you know that.”
“If I moved there’d be other old people around. Maybe I’d make some friends.”
