The Blind Date

by Delaney Diamond

  “Fine. But only one,” she insisted, taking the box from him and opening it. Six freshly glazed doughnuts nestled against each other in the container.

  Ryan chuckled. “Yeah, right.” He took one and shoved most of it into his mouth.

  “Slow down. You’ll choke,” she chastised him.

  He shrugged. When he could speak, he said, “I’ve been hooked on them ever since that day we had them in Chicago. I swear they lace these things with crack. That’s how they get you.”

  Shawna giggled. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  He reached for another one and they ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes while the truck rolled slowly along the long road. When she finished the first one, Shawna sheepishly pulled another from the box. “I don’t want them to go to waste,” she explained.

  “You’re a martyr,” Ryan said with amusement.

  They smiled at each other and Shawna felt warmth in her chest. She didn’t want that feeling. It meant she was getting comfortable with him. It meant she was enjoying spending time with him.

  The white glaze covered the tips of her thumb and finger. The doughnuts were good but messy. She placed her thumb in her mouth, absentmindedly sucking off the icing.

  “Now why’d you go and do that?” Ryan asked softly.

  She turned to him. “Do what?”

  “That,” he replied, inclining his head toward her hand. “Now you have me wishing I was that finger.”

  An unbearable sensation crawled across her skin and awareness crackled between them.

  Shawna cleared her throat. “I’ll use a napkin,” she muttered. “Please keep your eyes on the road.” On edge, she continued talking to keep her mind off of being in such close quarters with him. “How’s your mother?” Six years ago, his mother had been recovering from breast cancer.

  “I told you about her?” he asked.

  She nodded. “One time you mentioned her fight with cancer. You said you didn’t know what your father would do if anything happened to her.”

  Ryan remained quiet for a moment before he answered. “She had a relapse a couple of years ago but beat it again. My dad fell apart, and the medical bills piling up made things worse.”

  “Did your brother have to step in to help again?”

  “We both did this time. It surprised my father that I could actually contribute. He finally admitted that my decision to leave college wasn’t a completely crazy idea.”

  “You can’t live your life for other people. You made the right decision for you.”

  He looked over at her, a grateful smile on his face. “Thanks.”

  They said very few words the rest of the way to her house. Aside from her giving him the occasional instruction on where to turn to get there, the only sound in the truck was the soothing soft rock music coming through the speakers. She handed him her keycard so he could swipe it and let them into the small community—ten buildings with two townhouses in each. When they pulled up in front of her home, she hopped out of the vehicle.

  Ryan turned off the engine. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Acutely aware of his soft footfalls behind her on the walkway, Shawna couldn’t shake a feeling of déjà vu. At the front door, she rummaged in her purse for the keys. The sound of her searching fingers magnified in the quiet neighborhood. The darkness of the porch enveloped them. She would have to put replacing the burned out light bulb on her list of things to do because she kept forgetting. She finally pulled the key ring from her purse.

  Shawna hesitated before placing the key in the door. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful. She looked up at Ryan, feeling jittery and uneasy. He seemed bigger in the dark, with the moon and the night sky as a backdrop. “Thank you for bringing me home.”

  He leaned in close and she stopped breathing. His voice was soft, caressingly low when he spoke. “I’d do anything for you.”

  Ryan felt his body harden. The intimacy of the porch wreaked havoc on his senses, and so did knowing he stood outside her home. He’d told himself to back off, but he was right at it again.

  She didn’t respond, choosing to insert the key into the lock. The light from a pole in the parking lot cast a faint glow across her neck, and he wished he could press his lips against her tender flesh and listen to her soft little moans as she became aroused. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that a few seconds passed before he registered her struggle with the dead bolt.

  “Is it stuck?” he asked.

  “Yes. Sometimes it gets like that.” She pushed and turned the key at the same time.

  “You should get that fixed. Let me try.”

  Instead of allowing her to move aside so he could work on the door, he reached around her, enclosing her in his arms. Any excuse to be close to her. He heard her soft intake of breath. He stood as close to her as he possibly could without pressing his entire body into hers and letting her feel how much he wanted her. She stiffened as he placed his hand over the batch of keys, twisted, and pushed. The door gave.

  “There,” he said.

  Neither of them moved and the temptation to press his face against the inviting crook of her neck and immerse himself in her smell overtook him.

  Shawna felt his breath on her ear. Did he want to touch her as much as she wanted to be touched by him? Because right now she wanted to be made love to, the same way he’d made love to her before. The trembling fingers of one hand reached out to grasp the doorframe.

  “Good night, Ryan.”

  She felt compelled to say that because she worried that if she didn’t, she would invite him in. Part of her wanted him to come inside and remind her of what it was like to be blindingly out of control. Thoughts of him had lessened over the years, but she’d never truly forgotten him and what they’d shared.

  His knuckles brushed the base of her spine and her skin prickled under his touch.

  “I’m not leaving, Shawna,” he said.

  “What are you going to do? Stand out here?”

  “No.” His hand covered hers and stilled the trembling of her fingers.

  “I’m not letting you in. You have to leave.” A last-ditch effort to save face, but spending the night together had been inevitable from the minute she’d climbed into the truck with him.

  “You don’t want me to, and I don’t want to.” He rested his head against hers and whispered the next words. “I’m coming in.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  They barely made it inside before Ryan was on her, the hard steel of his arousal straining against her backside in a restless grind. He was surprised it didn’t tear through his suddenly too-snug jeans.

  Grasping her from behind in the dark, he removed the sweater she had wrapped around her and tugged the ponytail holder from her hair to bury his fingers in the silky layers.

  “I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he said in hoarse tones.

  Shawna tilted back her head and his mouth landed on her luscious lips. Succulent. Tasty.

  When she moaned, her sweet breath vibrated in his mouth. He gathered the hem of her dress in one fist, dragging it up past her thighs and causing her to shiver when his other hand glided in a firm caress over her hips to her stomach.

  He loved her body—soft to the touch, womanly, and made for sex. He couldn’t wait to get her naked so he would no longer have to suffer from a painful erection so swollen he didn’t think he’d last long once he entered inside of her.

  She turned in his arms, hot and desperate. Mouths still fused together, they stumbled into the wall. His tongue forged farther into her mouth and her fingertips drifted through his dark hair. Their tongues circled each other—stroking, teasing, and fanning the flames of desire.

  Nibbling his lips, Shawna kissed him without restraint, blindly, eagerly. Sucking on his lower lip, licking his teeth, she relished the taste of him.

  His hands kept busy. They were everywhere, like an octopus. A sexy, bl
ue-eyed octopus who had her up against the wall and whose kisses created a painful ache deep in her abdomen. Ryan lowered his mouth to the skin of her neck, tormenting the arch of her throat down to the frantic pulse in the middle of her collarbone. He moved with a type of desperation, as if unable to resist kissing everywhere he saw exposed skin.

  She tugged his shirt from the waistband of his jeans to touch him. The muscles of his back and chest jerked under her palms.

  His hard thigh nudged her legs open. Shaking, she spread them wider so he could palm the damp silk of her panties. She made a sound of womanly approval as desire flooded between her thighs. Already spinning out of control, she burned up with a fever-like need.

  A shaky gasp broke from her throat when one of his fingers penetrated the slick opening of her sex. Then another.

  Ryan whispered in her ear, but she gasped and pumped so feverishly into his hand she didn’t hear what he said. Arms wrapped around his neck, her breasts flattened against his chest, Shawna whispered his name over and over as her need raged on.

  “Ryan . . . Ryan . . .”

  As his fingers pumped inside of her, his thumb found the distended nub and massaged it. She came suddenly, violently, her feminine walls clutching at his fingers. An indecent amount of moisture flooded between her legs, and a thin trail of it slid along the inside of her thigh. It was that easy to get her off, as if her libido had simply been lying in wait for him to bring it back to full life.

  He swore softly and she shut her eyes, tremors racing through her as her knees became as wobbly as gelatin, and she had to cling to him or collapse at his feet. Spearing his fingers into her loose hair, he held her against him. The tips of her breasts, enlarged and aching, tightened painfully in the close embrace.

  “You only think about this every now and again?” he asked, reminding her of the answer she’d given when he asked if she ever thought about their time together. “How?”

  This was the proof that she’d lied. The way she’d fallen into his arms, as if time and space hadn’t separated them.

  He dragged her into the living room toward the sofa, but they missed it and tumbled onto the floor. He took the brunt of the fall and she landed on top of him.

  “You’re so damn beautiful,” he whispered, rolling her onto her back.

  He found her mouth again and kissed her hungrily, then her cheeks, showering her with affection—alternating between soft and sweet, and hard and demanding. His mouth moved lower to her neck where he lingered for a moment, trailing hot kisses and nipping her skin just shy of too hard.

  Quickly, he undid the buttons of her dress and popped the clasp at the front of her bra. Her freed breasts stood at attention, swollen and waiting for his next move. Caressing his neck, she guided him lower, aching for the heat of his breath, the flat of his tongue on her nipples. Finally, he kissed them, torturing the tips with the edge of his teeth.

  “Yes, yes.” She whispered encouragement as he moved from one to the other.

  The sound of him unsnapping his pants sharpened the ache in her loins. She couldn’t resist helping him push his boxers past his hips. And she couldn’t resist touching him.

  He sucked in a sharp breath when she reached for his heavy hardness, shaping the length and girth, recalling what it was like to have him inside of her. How he would make her senses reel and her breath catch with the strength of his thrusts. She stroked the veined exterior until he let loose a groan through clenched teeth.

  “You have to stop, love . . . I can’t . . .” He made a sound at the back of his throat and pushed away her hand. Within seconds, he sheathed his erection in a condom.

  His hands went under her dress again, dragging aside the silky material of her panties. He trailed his fingers over the thatch of dark hair between her thighs, the feathered touch on the plump, wet folds almost making her come again.

  He moved between her legs and his body claimed hers—the only appropriate word to describe the act. Claim. Like the planting of a flag on unchartered territory. That’s how she felt with him. Like untouched, virgin land.

  Her inner muscles adjusted to accommodate him, conforming to fit around his wide shaft. The pleasure of it was incomparable.

  Ryan stretched her arms above her head, intertwining their fingers together. As he lowered his head to her chest, she arched off the floor, letting loose a gasping cry when his mouth fastened around a nipple. He sucked the dark bud, so sensitized now after becoming reacquainted with his mouth, sending a flash of need straight to her center. Every time he sucked, a throb echoed in her core, creating a rush of wetness between her thighs.

  He showed no signs of easing up even as she trembled beneath him. Each thrust of his hips filled her, and she lifted upward in time to his movements, pulling him deeper into the silken heat of her sex. But she could sense him holding back, leashing the need to plunder her body with the passion she craved.

  Ryan lifted his head, the set of his jaw hard as he suffered behind a wall of restraint. “You’re so wet for me,” he said. “I want to go slow, but . . .”

  Shawna shook her head wildly. That’s not what she wanted right now. Not when she felt so frantic, could feel the pulse of his hard flesh deep inside of her. “Don’t go slow. Go fast. Go hard. Go . . . just . . . go . . .”

  He needed to hear that. He let loose a series of thrusts that pushed her along the floor. Wherever bare skin met the carpet, it burned, bruising her flesh. But she didn’t want him to stop because it was unbearably good. Her body reawakened and accepted the fiery sensations—the type of sensations that blurred the lines between pain and pleasure.

  He’d ruined her for any other man. She’d hoped that her mind had created a false memory of how amazing it had been between them, but tonight’s reality surpassed the recollection.

  Legs spread wide, she was pinned beneath him and filled to capacity. Unable to move, unable to escape as he drilled into her. He controlled her with each thrust, damn near stamping his name on her privates—in all caps, bolded, so she’d never forget who it belonged to. Sex had never been this good, this untamed with anyone else. She screamed from the intensity of it, begging him to stop and not stop, all in the same breath.

  Lying there, panting and groaning, they were the perfect example of lusty impatience. Both still wearing all their clothes, right down to their underwear—rutting around on the carpet in heat.

  The need for him filled her with pain and Shawna longed for relief. Gripping his hips between her thighs, her body rocked back and forth in search of it. Desire twisted inside of her and her toes curled at the base of his spine. A sound of pure bliss surfaced in her throat and emerged as a wild moan.

  The room spun when a series of earth-shattering orgasms rattled through her. The whole house seemed to rock with the impact of the tremors.

  Mere moments later, Ryan surged within her. He began thrusting harder, his path eased by the wetness only he could inspire—once, twice—and then he uttered a deep groan, bowing his head to her shoulder as the same seismic vibrations overtook him.

  When it was over, their heavy, breathless panting could be heard in the dark room. Ryan continued to hold onto her hands, still stretched above her head.

  The short session had only whetted Shawna’s appetite. She looked at him with renewed desire.

  “I never forgot you,” she whispered.

  Their gazes locked. “I never forgot you, either, love. You’re my everything. Everything.”

  With their faces so close together, she could clearly see his expression. Fierce hunger darkened his eyes.

  “Take me upstairs,” she said.

  He pulled up his pants and lifted her from the floor. They spent the rest of the night getting reacquainted.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ryan awoke with a start and sat up, his subconscious alerting him that he wasn’t in his own bed. He looked around the small space and gradually his memory came back.

  Shawna’s bedroom.

  He rubbed the sleep fr
om his eyes and swung his legs off the bed, squinting at the sun coming in through the window. She must be downstairs already because he didn’t hear her in the adjoining bathroom.

  Smiling to himself, he stood up, thinking about the night before.

  Shawna.

  He was behaving like a man experiencing his first love, but it might be an accurate description. He’d never felt this way about anyone.

  The experience with Shawna in Chicago had become the benchmark by which he measured every other woman. It didn’t make sense when he considered they’d only had those two days, but no other woman had ever made him feel such an intense attraction. Not a single one, and it wasn’t for lack of trying to recapture the feeling.

  One by one, he lifted his clothes from the floor and put them on. He went downstairs and found her in the kitchen wearing a white silk robe, looking out the window over the sink. He walked toward her.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Morning,” she greeted over her shoulder. He knew what she was doing. Overthinking, overanalyzing.

  Shawna sipped her coffee, reliving what had happened and hiding from her feelings and what she’d done. She’d been so caught up, not bothering to think about what it all meant. This morning she’d woken up and tried to figure out if this meant they were a couple, or was this one of those odd reconnects with no real definition. And if so, could she handle it?

  She considered her life as near to perfect as it could be. She owned her own place in an exclusive part of town, she had a successful business and a clique of close girlfriends she could call on any time she needed companionship. But Ryan added a dimension she hadn’t anticipated, and it threatened to disrupt her peaceful life.

  She wanted to do the modern thing and act as if sleeping with him had been no big deal, but it was a big deal to her.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “No.” She heard him come closer. “Can I tell you what I really want this morning?”

  “Sure. Would you prefer tea or juice?”