by HELEN HARDT
Maybe someday…
Instead, I moved down her ass to where her cheeks joined her thighs, and I licked and nibbled across that little crease. I kissed down her thighs to the back of her knees, downward until I got to her feet again. I gave each of them another quick massage.
At the head of the bed she was murmuring unintelligible things.
“What is it, baby?”
“I want… I need…”
“All right.” I smiled. “You’ve been a good sport. Now get on your hands and knees. I want to lick you. I want to lick that pussy. That sweet cunt.”
The C word made her tense. Just for a moment, but I noticed. Still, she obeyed, coming up on her hands and knees, laying her cheek on the pillow.
And her paradise was bared to my view. Deep pink, engorged. Glistening with nectar. As much as I wanted to kiss, suck, bury my tongue between her sweet folds, I took a moment to just look at her. The beauty of her female form. That pussy that was made to attract men.
So fucking beautiful.
Her hips wiggled.
“Baby?”
“You said…”
“Yes?”
“Damn it, Ryan. You said you were going to lick me.”
I couldn’t help a small chuckle. “Yes, I did say that.”
“Then why in hell aren’t you?”
She was adorable. Time to put both of us out of our misery. I dived into her.
Her flavor. That intense female flavor. Her fragrance rose above us, scenting the air around us. Every time I inhaled, my cock grew harder.
Slowly I slid my tongue between her labia. I savored her, resisted the urge to shove my tongue up into her cunt. I wanted to go slowly. I wanted this night to have so many memories for both of us.
She wiggled her hips again, pushing her pussy into my face. God, she turned me on. My cock was throbbing between my legs. But I had to get her ready. Couldn’t rush her. This was new to her. I had to remember that. So I slurped at her pussy, nibbled at her clit, took a deep breath, and then slid upward, over her asshole.
She tensed up.
So I went back down, concentrating on her pussy. I sucked at it, bit it, ate at her like an animal devouring its prey, lapped at her like a cat lapping at cream. Sweet cream—for that’s what she was. Rich and decadent.
“You taste so good,” I said before diving back into her. “Does it feel good to you, baby? You like it?”
“God,” she sighed.
“Answer me, Ruby. Tell me if you like it when I suck your pussy.”
She wiggled her hips again. “Yes. Yes, I like it.”
“Are your nipples hard right now?”
“God, yes.”
“Your pussy is wet. So fucking wet.”
Again I shoved my tongue into her heat, but this time I concentrated on her clit. It was time to let her have an orgasm. If she truly wanted me to put my cock inside her tonight, I needed her relaxed.
I buried my nose in her, finding her clit and nibbling, sucking. When she tensed and her pussy clamped down, I inserted two fingers into her heat.
She pulsed around me, and I licked her further, ate her, lapped at her, couldn’t get enough of her sweet silky pussy.
She cried out, not in words.
“Yeah, baby,” I said against her quivering folds. “Come for me. Show me how much you love me sucking your pussy. I need you. I need to put my cock in you soon, Ruby.”
When her clamping subsided, I took one last lick of her. She was so swollen, so coated in juice. I almost didn’t want to stop. But perhaps it was time.
I moved toward her head and brushed my lips across hers. “Did you like that, baby?”
“God, yes.”
“Do you still want to make love?”
Her eyes shot open, and for a moment, I feared she’d changed her mind.
But then, “Yes, Ryan. I want to feel what it’s like to have you inside me.”
“I can’t wait to be inside you, baby. My cock is so ready for you.”
I gently turned her over so she was lying on her back.
“I’m going to ask you this one more time because I want to know that you’re sure. Do you want me to make love to you?”
Her blue eyes sparkled as she stared into mine. “Yes, please. I’ve waited too long for this.”
“Oh, thank God.” I got off the bed, found my pants on the floor, and retrieved my wallet. This time I had remembered a condom.
I sat down next to her and held out the condom. “I don’t know if you’re on birth control,” I said. “But if you are, I want you to know that I’m clean. You’re safe from diseases with me.”
I feared she might not be on birth control. If she wasn’t sexually active, why would she be?
“I’m on the pill,” she said. “It just always seemed the…responsible thing to do.”
“That’s wonderful, baby. But I want you to be comfortable, so we can still use the condom if you want to.”
She shook her head. “Ryan, I want to experience this. I don’t want any barriers. I want to feel what it’s like to have a man inside me.”
I let out a groan without meaning to. Thank God.
I smoothed my fingers through her pussy lips. “You’re nice and wet. Lots of natural lubricant. It might still hurt, but you’re definitely ready.”
I climbed atop her, hovering over her, my cock dangling, touching the hair on her vulva. I slid the head down over the wetness of her pussy lips. And I groaned. God, it felt so good. What would it feel like to breach the pussy of a virgin?
I was about to find out.
“I’ve never made love to a virgin before,” I said. “I can go slowly or I can go quickly. It’s up to you, although quickly might be less painful.”
“Quickly,” she said. “Come inside me. Please, Ryan.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ruby
He kissed my lips softly, touching his tongue to mine.
“Relax, baby,” he said.
And then he thrust into me.
I cried out against his lips. The pain felt like a knife slicing me in half.
“Shh,” he said. “I’m all the way in. Just get used to it. Get used to the fullness. I won’t move until you tell me to.”
My jaw was clenched and my eyes squeezed shut.
“Relax,” he said again.
“I feel so full,” I said.
“You are full. Full of me. I promise it will be good. We just have to get through this rough part. People all over the world wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t good.”
I smiled at that, and then I forced myself to relax. I had wanted to ease the emptiness, and I couldn’t deny that he had done that.
The sharp pain subsided fairly quickly, and then it was just fullness. Then the walls of my pussy began to tickle. I had liked how his fingers felt sliding in and out of me, and now, would I like the feeling of his dick sliding in and out of me? There was only one way to find out.
I opened my eyes and looked into his dark orbs. “I’m ready.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Yes. I want to experience this. I want to experience it with you.”
He pulled out and groaned as he thrust back into me.
Again the fullness, but no pain this time. Just a welcome feeling within my walls.
“Again,” I said.
He plunged back into me, and this time the force of it aroused the tip of my clit.
A moan escaped my throat.
“Good, baby?”
Good? This was so much more than good. This was filling an emptiness that had been within me for far too long. He wasn’t just filling my pussy. He was filling my heart, my soul. My very being.
How had I gone so long in life without this? Without the joy of this joining?
Sex didn’t have to be a violent thing. It didn’t have to be a horrifying thing. It could be a lovely thing. A very loving thing between two people.
Ryan Steel wasn’t in love with me. I wasn’t in
love with him, either. But my God, I felt something for him. Something I’d never had the urge to feel before.
He slid in and out of me again and again, and my muscles tensed, my blood began to boil, my nerve endings began to tingle. Another orgasm was coming.
“Oh my God, Ryan. Oh my God.”
“Enjoy it, baby. This is what life is about.” He grunted. “Just this.”
His words, though not romantic, not even that sexy, somehow spoke to something deep and primal within me.
And I crashed around him.
He continued pumping into me as my climax took me higher and higher, my skin tingling, my pussy throbbing. Faster and faster, his hips pistoning, until finally—
“Ah!” He plunged deeply into me and stayed there.
As the last waves of my orgasm left me, my pussy walls were so sensitive that I felt the contractions of his cock as he emptied into me.
And I knew my life, as of this moment, had been changed forever.
* * *
“I’d like to see you again,” Ryan said to me. “When we get home.”
“I told you. I don’t expect anything from you.”
“Baby, I understand that. I don’t expect anything from you either. And I know you don’t have any frame of reference, but that was some of the best sex I’ve ever had.”
I smiled. He was right. I had no frame of reference. But I had a hard time imagining that sex with anyone else could ever be this good.
Still, was I ready to have sex with only one man? Was that fair to me? Was it fair to Ryan?
“Let’s just see how things go,” I said. “I’m so involved in my work right now. I’m not sure I have the time to devote to anything else.”
He frowned a little.
Shit. Had I really hurt his feelings? Offended him? Ryan Steel? The most gorgeous man in the universe? Surely I didn’t have that kind of power. Not mousy, inexperienced Ruby Lee.
But I was no longer mousy…and no longer inexperienced.
I’d slid under the radar for so long that I’d become comfortable with being “invisible.” Now? Thanks to Marjorie, suddenly I’d become noticed. And as uncomfortable as it had made me at first, I found now…
I could hardly even imagine the words.
I found now…that I liked it. I liked feeling attractive. I liked the attention I got from Ryan Steel.
Yes, Ryan Steel.
I couldn’t believe some beautiful supermodel type hadn’t snagged him before now. So I turned to him.
“Have you ever had a serious relationship?”
“I’ve been around the block,” he said, “but I’ve really only had one serious relationship.”
“Can you tell me about it? I don’t mean to pry, but as you’ve said, I have no frame of reference. I’m not saying I’m looking for a serious relationship, whatever that may mean. I’m truly just interested.”
He turned on his side and propped his head in his hand, looking down at me with those dark, deep eyes. The Steel brothers all resembled each other, but there was no question that Ryan was the best looking in a model-handsome kind of way. His features were a little bit finer, his jawline slightly more sculpted, his eyelashes just a bit longer, and his irises ever so slightly lighter. Right now, glowing in the moonlight, they were a dark amber, his lashes an onyx curtain.
Women would kill for lashes like that.
“Okay. What would you like to know?”
“Everything.”
He laughed. “That narrows it down.”
“Again, I have no frame of reference. So start at the beginning.”
“All right. Her name was Anna. Anna Shane. Her family owned a small ranch adjacent to ours.”
“How did you meet?”
“Ranch business. She acted as bookkeeper for her family’s business, and when they were slow, we hired their ranch hands so they could have full-time work.”
“So her ranch wasn’t as big as yours?”
“No ranch is as big as ours, baby.”
I couldn’t help a smile. “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”
“Ha! I actually meant it literally. We own the biggest ranch in Colorado.”
“I know that. What I wanted to know was how big hers was in comparison.”
“Not big at all. The Shanes had a small-time operation.”
“So you met her…and…?”
“We hit it off, went out a few times. Had a good time. It blossomed from there.”
“How long were you together?”
“About two years.”
“And when did it end?”
“A couple years ago.”
“What happened?”
“She brought it up, actually. Said she loved me but didn’t feel like it was forever love.”
“Were you upset?”
“No one likes to hear those words, but I actually agreed with her. I loved her too. She was a great woman. Very pretty, very smart. But I didn’t hear bells, if that makes any sense.”
Made perfect sense. And what scared me most of all is that I heard the fucking Bells of St. Mary’s when I was in Ryan’s presence. Could he possibly hear them too?
“Now that I look back,” Ryan continued, “it came on pretty suddenly. We were happy. We never discussed marriage—I guess because neither of us heard bells, as she put it—but I definitely didn’t see a breakup coming.”
“Were you hurt?”
“Yeah. Of course. I cared about her. I loved her. But when push came to shove, I had to agree that I didn’t see it as anything permanent.”
“I wonder what made her bring it up.”
“She didn’t mention it at the time, but about a week later, her family sold the ranch and they all moved to Hawaii.”
“Hawaii? That’s a strange place to move. They must have gotten a great price for the ranch.”
“I have no idea what kind of price they got, but they must have had a lot of money set aside.”
“Doesn’t Hawaii seem strange to you?”
“Not overly. It’s a great place to retire.”
“Never been there.” I’d never been anywhere other than Colorado and Jamaica, but that was neither here nor there.
“You’d love it,” he said. “Maybe we can go someday.”
Big doubts there. But heck, we were in Jamaica together. Why not Hawaii? Maybe we could have a relationship…
“Do you keep in touch with her?”
“I tried to contact her through social media a few times, just to check in, but I never got a reply. So I gave up. She has her own life now in Hawaii with her family. Maybe she met someone. I only wish her the best.”
“Hawaii…” Why was I having such a hard time wrapping my head around this?
“Yup.”
“It just seems so unreal. How long had her family owned the ranch in Colorado?”
“Several generations, same as us.”
“And they just up and leave? Something doesn’t make sense there.”
“Never thought about it.”
“And she doesn’t reply to you on social media? Why wouldn’t she? She’s the one who ended the relationship.”
“Again, never thought about it. Which I guess tells you that we were right to end it.”
“Was there any time during the relationship that you thought maybe she felt more than you did?”
“No, not really.”
I swatted his arm. “You’re no help at all.”
“I don’t mean to sound unfeeling. It just wasn’t a relationship that meant that much to me.”
“But you loved her.”
“Yes. I thought I did. But looking back, I think it was more of a comfortable thing. I did care for her deeply, but I think the love I felt for her was more like that of a big brother or a good friend. It wasn’t her fault at all. She was great.”
“You can’t help what you feel. Something just doesn’t sit right with me.”
“About my relationship with her?”
“No, not th
at. About why they left so abruptly, to Hawaii of all places.”
“I can’t think of a lot of reasons not to go to Hawaii.”
“I guess it’s the detective in me. Something just doesn’t add up.”
“I think we all have enough mysteries to keep us busy without adding one more.”
I couldn’t fault his observation.
Still, I had a feeling the mystery of the Shanes would come up again.
Chapter Twenty
Ryan
A few days later I was back at my office, thinking naughty thoughts about Ruby Lee. We’d sat together on the flight home—I’d talked her into allowing me to upgrade her to first class again—and talked a lot about wine. I’d promised her a tour of our winemaking facility and the vineyards if it was warm enough.
“Warm enough? You’re a rancher,” she’d said. “Any temperature you can take, I can take.”
I didn’t doubt it. She’d been on her own since her teens. She’d probably learned to exist being cold.
I hated thinking of her living like that, but I couldn’t help but admire her fortitude. She was something special, this one. Scared shitless of a relationship with me, but still special. Frankly, I was a little scared myself. I was feeling things that were foreign to me. I truly had loved Anna, but while talking to Ruby the last night at the resort, being put on the spot and having to describe those feelings, I realized I was feeling something for Ruby that was new.
Completely new.
I wasn’t scared so much of the feelings as I was that she might not return them.
What the hell? I had her number. I was going to call her. I picked up my phone to call her, when it buzzed in my hand.
Hmm… I didn’t recognize the number.
“Ryan Steel.”
“Ryan?”
“Yes.”
“Is it really you?”
“Uh…yeah. Who is this, please?”
“Oh, darling. It’s your mother again.”
