I smiled. “I think it’s actually really cute and sexy that you’re so focused on your education. It’s fine. I totally understand. We can pick up where we left off when your finals are done.”
“Really?”
Damn, why did he look so apprehensive? I really wasn’t upset with him. But then I got it. He didn’t trust that I felt the same way as him. But then again, he’d basically said he loved me, and I hadn’t said it back. I was pretty sure I felt it, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to say it out loud. Everything had happened so fast with us, and I was still trying to process it all. But I also knew I wasn’t going to push him away. I wanted this.
I sat up straighter and cupped his face in my hands. “Ryder, just so you know, this isn’t something causal between us, okay?”
“It’s not?”
God, he really didn’t get it.
I shook my head. “No, I want to be with you. I told you that.”
“Yeah, but for how long? I mean, is it really possible? I have school, and you have this amazing career where you travel the world. Everyone knows who you are. Everyone here tonight may have been too drunk or too oblivious to notice you, but I guarantee if I were to parade you around the house tomorrow you wouldn’t want to stick around. And I can’t offer you what other guys can. I’m a sophomore in college, and I’m pretty much broke. In fact, I slept in the backseat of Jake’s car in the parking garage of your hotel last night, because I couldn’t afford a room, and I was too drunk to drive.”
My mouth had opened somewhere in the middle of his diatribe, because I wanted to refute all of it – especially the point he’d made about not being able to offer me anything. He was so wrong, but aside from that I couldn’t believe he’d slept in his car the night before, in a parking garage no less, when he could have slept next to me.
“Ry, you slept in your car?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I did.” I saw his cheeks color again, so I knew he was embarrassed. “I didn’t have enough money to get a room.”
I smacked his chest. “I’m so mad at you. You could have stayed with me.”
“I thought you had a boyfriend,” he defended.
“I know, and again, I’m sorry about that. I should have told you the truth. But don’t think for a second that you’re not good enough for me. It’s not true.”
He shrugged. “Sure it is. You’re Sydney Chase. You’re beautiful and talented, and a million guys would kill to call you their girlfriend. You’ve only ever dated celebrities. Why would you want to date a nobody like me?”
I felt like smacking him. Seriously. He had no idea what I saw when I looked at him.
“Because you’re Ryder Thompson,” I said firmly, and he rolled his eyes. “No, seriously, Ry. I meant what I said earlier. I like you so much. I don’t care if you’re broke. I don’t need money. I am so proud of you for going after your dream of stopping global warming and saving the earth.” He laughed, and I shushed him, knowing I’d gone a little too far, but I wanted him to see himself how I saw him. “I want to be with you because you’re the kindest, most honest, stable, caring and considerate man I know. Not to mention the fact that you’re so ridiculously hot. I mean, were you always this good looking?”
He smiled a smirky little smile, and I knew I had him. “I don’t know. I think so.”
I leaned in and kissed him again. “You’re so cute and adorable. Just by being you, you’re offering me more than any guy ever has, and because of that, I want to call you mine.”
“Like I’m going to argue with that,” he said, the smile still plastered to his face.
“You’d better not, but you know this isn’t going to be easy. My schedule is nuts, and aside from a few days off here and there, I’m pretty much on tour until October.”
“I know. You finish up in North America in September and then go to Australia and a few places in Europe in the fall. I get it, and it doesn’t matter.”
I smiled. “Did you memorize my tour schedule or something?”
He shrugged. “Kind of.”
“That is so adorable,” I told him, and then he was kissing me again, pulling me down, so we were lying on his mattress.
Ryder’s body half covered mine as he kissed me into oblivion. He laced our hands together and held them on either side of my head, his lips moving from my mouth to my jaw to my neck.
“How much do you wish Jake would have gotten lost on the way back here?” he murmured against my neck, and I giggled, his warm breath tickling my skin.
“I think I’d give up half of the money I’m earning on this tour for that to have happened.”
Ryder groaned and pulled back, rolling off of me and scrubbing his face with his hands.
“Where did you go?” I asked, looking over at him. He looked like he might be in physical pain.
“Can’t do it,” he muttered. “I want to, but I can’t, because if we keep doing that, it’s gonna lead to more, and nope. I won’t do it.”
He was a little nonsensical, but I understood the gist of what he was saying.
“Do you want to just go to sleep?” I offered.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “No, but yeah.”
“Do you have to study tomorrow?” I asked him, already guessing the answer.
“Yeah, I do. I’ve got my Calc III final on Monday morning at like seven.”
I was pouting on the inside, but I wouldn’t let him know that.
“Then let’s go to sleep so you can get rested to study for your brainiac math test.”
I reached up to turn the light off, then scooted over to him and threw my arm over his bare stomach, tucking my head under his arm that he lifted to let me in. It settled around me and hugged me to him. I decided then and there that it was my favorite place in the world to be. Inside his darkened cave it was like we were shutting out the rest of the world.
“Hey Syd?”
“Yeah?” I said sleepily.
“I hate that you’re leaving tomorrow.”
Aww, that was sweet.
“Me too,” I said, looking up at him. “You said you’re done with finals on Friday, right?”
“Yeah, my last test is at seven on Friday morning,” he said, his eyes shifting to look at me.
“What are you doing on Friday night?”
He shook his head. “Nothing really. I have a week break between classes. I was going to go home, but I didn’t book my ticket in time, and when I went to book it, it was like fifteen hundred dollars, so my mom said no. I was just going to hang out here. The house usually empties out over the summer. I think only fifteen of us are staying here.”
“How do you feel about Philadelphia?”
“As a city? I don’t know. I’ve never been there before.”
I smiled. For a smart guy, he was so clueless sometimes. “How about as the first stop on the ‘I’m going to visit my girlfriend while she’s on tour’ tour?”
“Girlfriend?” he questioned, and I could tell he was trying to hold back his smile.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, your girlfriend. Me.”
“I’ve never had a girlfriend before,” he said playfully.
“Well, you do now.”
“Sweet. My girlfriend is so hot.”
I giggled. He was too cute.
“But what about Dillon?” he asked then, and I could have kicked him. I thought we’d established who Dillon was to me. “I mean, he’s your ‘boyfriend’ as far as the world is concerned. How can you date me when you’re supposed to be dating him?”
Crap. I hadn’t even thought of that.
“I’ll talk to Chris and Laurie and see what our options are. Worst case, we might have to be friends in public for a while until they can orchestrate an official, yet friendly break-up between Dillon and me. His girlfriend will probably be thrilled.”
I knew it wasn’t ideal, but maybe by Friday I could get everything worked out. That way Ryder and I wouldn’t have to pretend. I didn’t like that idea one bit.
Ryder leaned for
ward and kissed my cheeks in several places, making me giggle.
“What are you doing?”
“Kissing your freckles. I love them.” Then he kissed my nose. “I also love your nose.”
“Ugh, I hate my freckles. I should just get them lasered off.”
Ryder froze next to me and lowered his head to my ear. “Don’t you dare,” he growled. “I love your freckles. I also love the little lines around your eyes when you laugh. They’re perfect. Don’t get rid of them either, even though I know you hate them because you’ve complained about them before.”
I laughed. “You know that’s a One Direction song, right?”
“Who?”
He had no idea who I was talking about. Although he tolerated my music, I knew Ryder was rock ‘n roll all the way.
“One Direction. Really awesome British boy band? They were on the UK X Factor, and Simon Cowell discovered them? They’re ridiculously huge all over the world right now.”
He was still looking at me with a blank expression on his face, so I sang the first few lines of Little Things, so at least he would know what song I was talking about. He laced his fingers through mine and smiled at me through the darkness. I smiled too, because my hand did fit perfectly in his.
“I like that song, but maybe it’s because you’re singing it. I like anything you sing,” he said and kissed me again.
My lips almost hurt from kissing so much, but that wasn’t stopping me from doing it again and again.
“They actually sound way better, because they have these sexy British accents that you can hear in their songs, but I’ll take the compliment.”
He shook his head. “No one sings better than you, but just so we’re clear, should I be jealous? You don’t have some sort of crush on those British guys and their sexy accented voices do you?”
I laughed. “No way. Not when I can have you.”
“Damn, Syd. You’re gonna give me a big head. You want me over five cute British boy band dudes. I’m flattered,” he said as his fingers teased mine on the hand he was holding. “I think I’m pretty much the luckiest guy in the world right now.”
Jeez. Make a girl blush why don’t you?
“Were you always this sweet?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Only with you. No one else ever gets this side of me.”
I smiled. “Are you quoting me back to me?” I asked, as he recited part of the chorus to one of my songs.
I loved hearing my lyrics on his lips, especially when it was that song.
“Maybe,” he said, smirking at me. “But it’s true. You’ve always gotten this part of me that nobody else ever has.”
“Not even Jake,” I teased.
He shook his head. “Not even Jake.”
“Then I feel privileged.”
He laughed. “No, I feel privileged. Trust me. There are fifty-one other guys asleep in this house who wish they were in my place right now. They just don’t know it.”
“I wouldn’t want any of them,” I said softly.
“Good, because they can’t have you,” he said, as he pulled me closer.
I really liked the sound of that.
I closed my eyes and drifted off with my head resting on his chest, his heart beating gently, his warm body better than any pillow I’d ever slept on. I knew I had a smile on my face as I thought about the fact that I was with Ryder, and finally everything felt right in the world, even if in a few short hours I’d have to leave him again.
Chapter Twelve
Ryder
Being away from Sydney for a week after I’d had her in my arms, had kissed her until my lips hurt and touched her like I’d always dreamed about was making me a little crazy. She’d ended up going down to Key West for her week off with some of the people from her tour. They’d rented a house on one of the lesser known islands so they could have privacy, and even though we talked each night and she sent me pictures, I wished more than anything that I was there with her.
It was like some big, fucking, messed up twist of fate that I finally got the girl of my dreams right before I had to basically hibernate for five days straight. My finals induced isolation period began the morning Sydney left. We’d laid in my cozy little bed and kissed and talked until I had to get ready to meet my study group. Then I’d given her my pair of Wayfarers to wear, just in case we ran into anyone outside, and had walked her out to her car. Thankfully not many people were out and about, so I got to take my time saying goodbye to her.
I lifted my sunglasses off of her face so I could see her eyes. The beanie she’d been wearing the night before was back on her head, so I tugged it off and let her hair spill over her shoulders.
She smiled. “You just completely ruined my disguise,” she teased as she looked up at me, her hands resting on my hips.
I loved the feel of them there. We’d always been touchy feely with each other, but it had been more playful. It was nothing like this. What we were doing now was intimate and real. But having fantasized about doing exactly this and looking at her like I now could since I didn’t have to mask my feelings, I felt like I needed to pinch myself. The night before, kissing for hours and falling asleep with her head on my chest felt like a dream – the best dream in the world actually – but a dream nonetheless. It was a dream I never wanted to wake up from.
“Last night really happened, didn’t it?” I said as I leaned down to kiss her, feeling the slightest tug of apprehension that she wouldn’t let me.
When I’d woken up that morning, I’d never been more relieved to open my eyes to see her still in my arms and smiling at me sleepily as she woke up. Then she’d kissed me, and I was so glad she wasn’t freaking out and pulling away. It was everything I’d ever wanted. But that had been when we’d been ensconced in my safe little world upstairs where no one knew what we were doing. Simply the fact I had one of the world’s biggest pop stars in my crappy fraternity house room made it seem surreal. A part of me feared reality and what it would mean for us when she left. Sure, we could say how we felt and that we wanted to be together, but would it really work?
Sydney lived in a fairytale world of glitz and glamour and paparazzi, and I lived in a world that smelled like stale beer, piss and sex most of the time. And I spent most of my days either in class or with my nose in a book. But I loved her, and I would do everything in my power to get to do that for as long as I could. I wasn’t about to let the semantics of who we were keep me from the girl I’d wanted my whole life. I mean, what kind of sick, twisted world would that be if I could only ever love one girl, because let’s face it, I’d never wanted anyone else, and I didn’t see that changing, and I couldn’t even have her because we wanted different things in life. That would be messed up to say the least.
I knew I’d fight for her, for us, for as long as she wanted me.
Sydney let me kiss her and didn’t protest when I pushed her back against the SUV and pressed against her just a little bit. I was horny as hell for her, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Jake had still been asleep when we’d left the room. Five days. I’d see her in five days, and I’d finally get to have her in all the ways I’d always dreamed about. The small taste I’d gotten last night had been enough for me to know I definitely wanted more, and I knew she did too.
I continued to kiss her tenderly, my hands holding either side of her face. I couldn’t get too carried away just in case someone recognized us and took a picture. I wasn’t a big fan of having the first time I grazed the gossip rags as Sydney Chase’s boyfriend to be while I had a partial hard-on and was grinding her against a car. That would be embarrassing.
I didn’t really want to be in any gossip magazines period, but I also knew that if Syd and I decided we were going to be together and went public, I might have my picture taken from time to time. Okay, I’d probably have it taken a lot, since Sydney usually got photographed anywhere she went, but it was a small price to pay to be with her.
There were already a handful of pictures of u
s online from the past few years, but they were few and far between since we didn’t see each other as often as we’d have liked, and when we did, we mostly kept what we did low key. Still, the paparazzi had managed to capture us a few times. But that was before, when things were one hundred percent platonic. Now it seemed that we’d entered into a gray area that I was sure they’d love to showcase in a multitude of media forums if given the opportunity.
“Okay, I have to go,” I said, forcing myself to pull away.
She pouted. “I hate that idea.”
I smiled. I actually loved that she hated that idea. It made me feel a little more hopeful about what might be waiting for me at the end of the week.
“Do you really have to study?” she asked, and it was probably the tenth time she’d asked that since I’d told her my plans for the week. “You’re already so smart. Don’t you already know everything you need to know for your tests?”
I smiled as I ran my thumb over her bottom lip. “Yes, I have to study. But I do get breaks, and I’ll call you on every single one of them.”
She smiled. “It’ll be the best part of my day.”
I grabbed my sunglasses from where I’d set them on the hood of her SUV and slid them back onto her face before I took her hands in mine and stepped back from the car, pulling her with me. Then I opened her door and helped her climb in before lingering there for a few seconds, my stomach feeling hollow at the thought of her leaving.
She reached out and ran her fingers through my messy hair. I hadn’t bothered combing it before we walked downstairs.
“I’ll see you on Friday in Philadelphia, okay?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” I told her, already counting the minutes until I’d see her again.
Then she leaned forward and kissed me. “Yes, it was,” she said when she pulled back, and I looked at her quizzically. She smiled softly. “I was answering your question from earlier about last night being real. It most definitely was.”
The smile that lit up my face could have cracked it if it got any wider. “Please drive safe,” I told her, and she nodded.
Only With You Page 12
