He just shrugs, unspeaking, while his eyes say a thousand different things.
“Are you high?” I demand.
He chuckles, and the sound does something strange to my chest. That’s one thing that has never been the same about Jake and Ryan – the way they laugh. I’ve only heard Ryan laugh a handful of times before now, but each time it’s given me this feeling of déjà vu… that sensation you get when something is pulling at a distant memory, but you can’t quite connect the dots.
When Jacob laughed, it always felt forced.
“No. I’m not into drugs these days.”
I raise a brow at him. “These days?”
“I dabbled in my younger years.” He shrugs his shoulders. “But I get the feeling you’re veering away from the questions you really want to ask me, Darcy.”
I feel myself sway a little bit on my feet, and I shake my head to clear my thoughts.
I need a minute to figure out if I’m having some type of out-of-body experience or if this is all really happening.
I hold up one finger, indicating that I want him to give me a minute.
I sink to the ground and cross my legs under myself – no easy task given the five hundred layers of fabric covering my body.
Jacob left me at the altar… fact or fake?
I glance down at my ring finger and find it bare.
Fact.
I’m in the bridal suite with Ryan… fact or fake?
I look back to the bed and find him sitting on the edge, watching me patiently.
Fact.
He just offered to try and knock me up… fact or fake?
I meet his eyes, and it’s all right there.
Fact. Definitely fact.
“Why?” I whisper. “Why would you do that for me? Jacob would never speak to you again.”
He huffs out a humourless laugh. “I couldn’t care less about him; he’d be doing me a favour… but you wouldn’t have to tell a soul, Darce.”
“I think people might have questions about who the father is, Ryan.”
“Then tell them if you want to.”
“But imagine what people will say.”
“What gives you the impression I care about ‘people’?”
I don’t know why I’m even having this discussion with him. The answer is no. It’s the only answer for it. Anything else would be total madness. I cannot let my ex-fiancé’s twin brother father my child. I just can’t. And besides that, I could be the reason Jacob and I couldn’t conceive – this whole conversation is moot.
Then why do I so badly want to say yes?
“Ryan… I…”
“You deserve something good, Darcy. Something for you. Not for anyone but you. If you want to be a mother, if you’re ready right now, then you should be a mother. I can’t imagine anyone better for the job.”
“I don’t know…”
“There’s no pressure. There’s no expiry date. You don’t have to decide anything right now.”
He really wants this for me. I can see it on his face. He wants me to be happy. Not for appearances. Not for personal gain. It’s for me.
Fuck it. It’s time I thought about me.
It’s crazy. It’s reckless... and I’m going to do it anyway, I realise.
“Okay,” I breathe.
He nods. “You just think about it, and let me know when you’ve decided.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not, okay I’ll think about it… I’m saying okay, let’s do it.” My heart is beating so rapidly I’m sure he would be able to hear it from across the room, but it’s not in panic, it’s in excitement.
I don’t know if it’s the tequila talking, but I want this. It’s time I looked after myself, put myself first – no one else is going to – that’s one thing that has been made abundantly clear to me today.
He looks shocked, as though there was no world in which he thought I’d actually agree to this.
I manage a giggle. “It’s not too late to back out if you didn’t mean it,” I say, sincerely.
He shakes his head instantly. “Never.”
I feel nervous all of a sudden. I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking, maybe I’m not thinking at all. Maybe I should sleep on it, decide when my body isn’t pumped full of alcohol and heartbreak, but that approach – living my life with caution is what has led me to this point. Maybe it’s time I tried something new.
I’ve got nothing to lose. Literally nothing. It’s a sad, but honest realisation.
Ryan is watching me with a focus like nothing I’ve ever seen before, it’s as though my every thought is being displayed above my head in neon lettering and he’s simply plucking them out of the sky.
He sees the moment I make my final decision. Yes.
“We need an agreement, with rules,” I think aloud.
He sips his drink, contemplating my suggestion. “Rules are good.”
I nod, even though there is no way I’m going through with this. Except that I am. I really, really am.
“We need a piece of paper.”
“I’ve got my phone?” he suggests.
I shake my head quickly and then regret it for how lightheaded it makes me feel. “We have to sign it. It has to be paper.”
He smirks, he clearly thinks I’m overreacting, but he gets up anyway and starts opening and shutting drawers, searching for something to write on. “Got a pen.” He holds up the pen to show me.
“Paper?” It’s a one-word question, but for some reason it sends my heart into a gallop again.
He rifles through a drawer for a moment longer. “I’m coming up empty here, Darce.”
I guess couples in the honeymoon suite usually aren’t writing notes.
I watch nervously as he goes to the bedside table on the far side of the bed. “This will do.”
He holds up a copy of the bible.
“Ryan,” I hiss at him. “We’re probably already going to hell if we go through with this, we don’t need to seal the deal by defacing a holy book.”
“You’re not religious, are you?”
I shake my head. “No, but –”
“Me neither.” He winks at me. “So I figure it’s just a book in that case.”
My eyes widen as I watch him tear out a page.
“Oh relax. This is a blank page anyway; you can’t send me to hell for a blank page.”
“Tell that to the devil at the front gate,” I grumble to myself.
He slaps the sheet of paper down on the desk and moves around the room to retrieve our empty glasses and the near-empty bottle of tequila.
I watch from my spot on the floor as he pours his to the rim and half fills mine. “Rule number one…” he prompts as he picks up the pen and starts writing.
“No catching feelings,” I provide. I’ve had enough feelings to last me a lifetime, I’m sure as hell not looking to catch any more.
He glances at me over his shoulder, his expression unreadable.
“What?” I shrug at him. “It might not be a problem for you, but I’m a girl. I struggle to separate sex and feelings.”
“That’s the problem though, isn’t it, Darce? You can’t catch something you already have.”
I frown, not understanding. “What?”
“Nothing, just forget it.” An emotion crosses his features, a pained look that is gone again so quickly I decide I must have imagined it. I am pretty drunk after all.
His focus shifts to the sheet of paper in front of him and he scrawls down the words, the only sound in the room the scratching of the pen as he writes.
“Here I was thinking you were going to insist on the turkey baster method,” he says without glancing up.
I feel my cheeks colour. “Shit… I –”
“Relax.” He chuckles. “I was just kidding.”
I can feel the deep red staining my cheeks, and I hope like hell that I still have enough makeup on my face to cover it.
His eyes meet mine. “Rule number two?”
I think
for a moment. “We do this one time, and one time only.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Then it’s probably for the best.
Then you will have got off lucky.
Then you’ll never have to see me again.
“Then it wasn’t meant to happen,” I finally say.
He nods, once, and adds the rule to the list.
“Is that it?” he questions.
I shake my head. “Two rules doesn’t seem like enough. One more.”
He gestures for me to go on.
“Rule number three…” I get to my feet, my head feeling clearer than before, and stroll around in a slow circle. “This is our little secret,” I finally say.
Ryan might not care what people say, but I do. I don’t want to be that girl. This might work, it might not… Hell, for all I know I might leave town and never come back, but either way, this isn’t something we need to share with the world.
I half expect to see hurt or disapproval cross his face, but he gives me no reaction, instead just jotting down the third and final rule.
“Now I guess we both sign it,” he says.
I nod, cross the room and hold my hand out for the pen.
4
Ryan
Her delicate hand signs the sheet of paper, somewhat reluctantly, but without shaking. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so nervous.
She’s close enough I can smell her scent again. It’s so much more intoxicating than any volume of alcohol could ever be.
She hands me back the pen, those captivating eyes of hers holding me in a trance.
“Your turn,” she whispers.
I could be signing my life away here, everything I’ve worked so hard for is at risk right now, but I don’t care. I trust this woman with my life. All of it means nothing in comparison to her. None of it is worth anything without her.
It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made.
She breaks our connection, and I scrawl my signature below hers without giving it another thought.
“Done.”
She steps back as I get to my feet, my height towering over her small frame.
She’s anxious. She’s shifting her weight from foot to foot, unsure what to do with herself.
I reach for our glasses and offer the least full one to her. “Cheers.”
We clink the crystal together and each of us drink until they’re dry.
“What now?” Darcy asks quietly. “I don’t know how you want to do this…”
I hold my finger up to my lips and step closer to her.
She gasps as I pry the empty glass from her hands and set it down, pulling her flush against me in the next second.
I’ve imagined this moment so many times. Pictured it so many different ways, yet none of them were ever quite like this.
It’s nothing like what I wanted, but somehow, it’s still everything. She’s everything. I’m going to savour every second of this.
“I’ve got you,” I breathe.
I cup her face in my hands and tip her head up towards mine.
“You promise?”
“I promise, Darcy. You can trust me. I’ll take care of you.”
She nods, her eyes fluttering shut as I close the distance between us, doing what I’ve wanted to do for years and kissing her. Finally.
I expected her to be timid… reserved, but the second our lips meet, something inside her snaps and she presses herself closer to me, her hands winding up my chest to cling onto my neck.
I press her lips open and sweep my tongue into her mouth, she moans and kisses me back even harder. She sucks my lip ring into her mouth in a way that makes me think it’s not the first time she’s thought about doing it.
“Jesus, Darcy.” I groan as she lets it slip through her plump lips.
“Ryan,” she replies, breathless.
I need to be careful here, remind myself where I am and who I’m with. This isn’t some meaningless one-night stand. This is Darcy. This is the woman I’ve been in love with for years.
It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t feel the same way. It doesn’t matter that my feelings are one-sided; I will make her feel loved. Because she is. It’s that simple and that complicated.
I press my lips gently to her jaw, kissing along her chin and down her throat. She swallows deeply under my touch.
I follow the column of her throat up her neck to her ear, kissing every inch of skin I come into contact with.
She tastes even better than I could have imagined. She’s so fucking sweet.
I know there’s a solid chance I’m only getting one shot at this. One night only with her and I’m going to make sure that I savour every second I get, even if it breaks my own heart in the process.
I wrap my arms around her waist and lift her up, still kissing her endlessly as I walk her towards the huge bed.
I can’t speak for her, but I feel sober as a judge. The buzz of the alcohol is long gone and the only thing consuming me now is her.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Darce?” I whisper against her ear.
She looks up at me, so hurt, so scared, so beautiful and nods her head. “I’m sure.”
I stare at her, letting my gaze travel from her messy blonde hair to her perfect cleavage.
She watches me, watching her. “Ryan,” she whispers again; this time it sounds like begging.
I can’t stay away any longer. I have to have her. I’ve waited so long to hear my name on her lips.
She’s mine now, for this moment. Not his. Mine.
I’m a completely and utterly shit human, because when I turn her around and unzip the wedding dress that she chose to wear to marry my brother, I let myself believe that she’s wearing it for me.
“You’re beautiful.” I repeat the two words I said to her the very first night we met, holding her gaze as I relive the moment I’ve never quite let go of. They might be generic words, nothing words really, but I wish she could feel them, remember them…
I know I’m being stupid, in the world we live in, a woman like Darcy has been called beautiful one million times over at this point.
She’s the kind of woman who turns heads when she walks into a room. She has been beautiful for as long as I’ve known her, and she probably always will be. A simple compliment isn’t something she’d recall.
She shudders as I slip the straps off her shoulders and slide them down her arms.
Her back is facing me, and I press a single kiss to the middle of her bare shoulder blades. She’s braless, and I’m dying to spin her around and take care of her perfect tits, but I remind myself to take my time.
Foreplay isn’t exactly required for this particular arrangement, but hell if I’m not going to make the most of it.
Her dress falls to the floor, and she’s standing before me in nothing but a scrap of white lace, her perky ass cheeks peeking out the bottom.
Fuck.
Nothing has ever been so perfect, nothing.
I crouch down and run my tongue from the base of her spine all the way up to the top of her neck.
She moans, a breathless, sensual moan, and I’m completely fucked from that sound alone.
I’m fully dressed, hard as a rock, desperate to be inside her.
She spins to face me as my arms surround her, and her fingers claw at the buttons on my shirt, forcing them out of their buttonholes and opening the fabric to her. I shrug out of it, and it falls to the floor at our feet.
I growl as her nails skim across my skin, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.
I lie her down on the soft white bedding, trying and failing to be as gentle as I’d like, not that she seems to mind – her eyes are filled with hunger.
She watches me as I unhook my belt and tug it from the loops on my suit pants, and I stare back at her, taking my fill of her sexy-as-hell body and beautiful eyes.
She shifts, wiggling her hips, and that’s when I spot it.
A tiny moon and star tattoo on her hip.
It can’t be.
I swallow, my throat thick.
“You’ve got a tattoo.”
Her eyes dart down to her hip, almost as though she’s checking it’s still there.
“It’s nothing,” she whispers as her fingers gloss over the small, inked lines on her otherwise untouched skin.
It’s not nothing – it’s the furthest thing from nothing, but I can’t say a word. I’ve got a tattoo nearly identical on my body too – not that she’d ever notice it amongst the patchwork of colours and patterns adorning my skin, but it’s there… as a reminder of that night.
As if I’d ever need a visual reminder.
Five years ago:
“What are you looking at?”
She points up at the clear night’s sky, scattered with bright stars.
“Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?”
I nod. I have. I’m looking at something infinitely more beautiful than some yellow dot in a dark sky. I’m looking at her.
“I know it sounds cliché, but looking up at the stars just makes me feel so small. It really puts things into perspective for me, just how tiny my problems really are.”
I reluctantly tear my gaze from her and tilt my head upwards towards the sky, trying to see what she sees.
“There’s a whole other world out there,” I reply.
“One we know virtually nothing about.”
“It is humbling,” I admit.
“I think so... when my parents were alive, they would always tell one another that they loved each other to the moon and all of the stars. It embarrassed me as a kid, but now I think it’s kind of perfect.”
“To the moon and all of the stars,” I repeat.
I know right then, in that very moment, after only an hour of knowing this woman, that I’m going to love her exactly like that, forever.
“No part of you is nothing, Darcy.”
I lower my mouth to her hip and kiss the thin lines marking her.
She shudders beneath me, and I smirk to myself. I love the way her body reacts to me – it’s completely out of her control.
I kneel between her parted legs and tug down my suit pants, taking my boxer briefs with them.
My dick is raging now, sitting up loud and at attention – all for her. She doesn’t miss it either, she’s watching with laser focus.
The First Rule: A Standalone Second Chance Romance Page 3
