Only With You

by Alexander, Monica

  She sounded so desperate. I’d never heard her like that before, her voice rough and gravelly, her eyes pleading, her hips rising from the bed to press against me.

  “Please,” she said again. “I’ve wanted this for months. Don’t make me wait any longer. I want you.”

  Well, goddamn. How the hell could I ever turn that down?

  I shifted off of her, and she sat up, her long hair tumbling over her shoulders, giving her a wild look that matched the look in her eyes and her mannerisms as she tore the foil packet with her teeth. Her eyes darted up to mine for a moment, and she smiled before she bent her head and sucked me into her mouth.

  I just about shot up off the bed as soon as the warm heat of her mouth engulfed me and she started to suck gently. What the hell was she doing to me? Whatever it was, I never wanted it to stop. But it had to or I was going to lose it.

  “Shit, Syd,” I growled out, doing everything in my power not to let go in her mouth, including gritting my teeth and grabbing clumps of the comforter in my hands and squeezing so tightly I was sure my knuckles were white.

  And as fast as she’d taken me in her mouth, she let me go with a soft pop, and I could breathe again, doing everything in my power to pull back, slow things down and not make a complete ass of myself. She looked up at me, her lips wet and plump, her eyes burning with need. Then she kissed me, assaulting my mouth as little moans escaped her lips.

  “I love how you kiss,” she said against my lips. “I want to kiss you forever.”

  Done.

  When she said that, my mind drifted back to New Year’s Eve. I’d thought the same thing for about three minutes before everything had come crashing down around me. But now I didn’t have to worry about that, because I had Syd in my arms, and she wasn’t pushing me away. She was, in fact, pulling me closer.

  “You’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted to kiss,” I told her, eliciting a smile from her plump, swollen lips.

  She smiled again and sat up, turning her attention to where her mouth had been minutes before as she started to roll the condom over my length. Then she lay down next to me, her body angled toward mine. I tilted my head so I could look at her for a few seconds before turning, cupping her face in my hands and kissing her deeply as I rolled back on top, her legs opening so I could settle between them.

  Never breaking our kiss, with one hand, I poised myself at her entrance and slowly started to push into her. She was tight, and I wondered how long it had been for her. We hadn’t discussed if either of us had been with anyone since we’d kissed on New Year’s Eve, but I suspected she hadn’t. The last guy for her had probably been that asshole actor she’d dated. With that knowledge, I decided to make it my mission that she would never think of him or any of the other guys she’d been with again.

  I moved slowly, not wanting to hurt her in any way, and when I reached the point where I could go no further, she cried out, and I pulled back immediately to look at her.

  “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

  She looked up at me, her brown eyes shining in the light from the candles, as her hands slid down to cup my ass cheeks. Then she pulled me further into her if that was even possible and smiled.

  She bit her lip and looked at me seductively. “Do I look like I’m in pain?”

  I returned her smile and started to move with short thrusts followed longer, deeper ones as I watched the bliss register on Sydney’s face. When I started to move faster I knew I wasn’t going to last nearly as long as I’d hoped. I’d built this moment up in my mind, but nothing could have prepared me for how mind-numbingly incredible it truly was to experience it, and I was in danger of going over the edge at any second.

  “Oh, my God, Ryder!” Sydney cried out, as she tossed her head back, and I bit down hard on my lip.

  I wasn’t going before her, but shit if hearing my name on her lips, cried out while she was in the throes of ecstasy, didn’t about do me in. When she lifted her head, I could see on her face that she was getting close. Her eyes were on me, but she was losing focus, and her soft moans had gotten increasingly louder and more intermittent. Pushing deeper and harder, I built us both toward that point I knew we desperately wanted to reach. And when she couldn’t keep it together any longer, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she arched off the bed for a few seconds before sinking back down into the mattress, her head back and her neck exposed.

  I pressed my lips to her neck, right below her ear as I pushed into her one last time before collapsing on top of her in a spent heap. My breathing was harsh and erratic against her skin, my chest rising and falling against hers as her arms came around my back and held me close, one hand threading into my hair.

  I sighed contentedly, and she laughed nervously, so I pulled back to look at her. She was smiling and shaking her head.

  “What?” I asked, unsure what to make of the look on her face.

  She closed her eyes, shook her head again and tried to roll over and hide from me, pulling her hands back so she could cover her face with them. She mumbled something, and I thought I caught the word embarrassed.

  “Syd?” I questioned, starting to get amused by whatever was going on with her.

  I shifted so I wasn’t smothering her completely and reached up to pry her hands away from her face. When she looked at me again, her face was bright red.

  “What is going on with you?” I asked, not sure what to think.

  She took a deep breath and giggled nervously before she full-on laughed.

  Um, why was she laughing?

  She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me, long and deep. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you.”

  “Well that’s good to know.”

  Laughing during sex probably wasn’t a good thing.

  She shook her head again. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking about sixth grade and when we first started going to the skate park. Do you remember that?”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “Sixth grade?”

  Her face softened and she nodded. “Yeah. Remember how we used to watch everyone on the half pipe, and then one day we decided we’d try it, but you were scared?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

  I didn’t really want to think about being a timid little kid while I was naked with my new, hot girlfriend. I had no idea where she was going with this.

  “I never told you, but was scared too, so I told you we could go up together. You asked me to hold your hand, and you were so adorable and trembling. I tried to be brave and act like it didn’t bother me, but I was terrified.”

  “I know you were,” I said softly. “I could tell, but you were trying to be all tough. It was cute. I might have fallen a little bit in love with you back then.”

  Even in the candle light, I saw her cheeks blush. “I just I wanted to be brave for you.”

  “I don’t think that’s funny. As much as I hate to admit, because it might tarnish my manhood, I think it was really sweet of you.”

  She looked up at me then. “Babe, nothing’s going to tarnish your manhood,” she said, eyes intense. “Trust me, and that wasn’t why I was laughing. I don’t know why I thought about it, but it just popped into my head, and then I thought about the fact that we just had sex – you and me – the same kids who dragged their boards up to the top of that half pipe, who looked down from the top and were terrified at how high it was, but we realized that all the other kids were staring at us, egging us on, and if we didn’t ride down it, we were going to get made fun of. I didn’t care, but you wouldn’t let me climb back down. You took my hand, made me get on my board, and we rode it for the first time together. And it was incredible.”

  “I remember. It was a hell of a ride.”

  It was really high up, but the rush I got from feeling the wood beneath my skateboard and the feel of the wind in my hair as I flew down one side of the ramp and up the other. I’d never forgotten it. What we’d just done had been like that, but it was a thousand times better.

  S
ydney’s face got serious all of a sudden. “What we just did, it was like that, but it felt more like I didn’t make it to the other side of the ramp. It was more like I was soaring and then suddenly I crashed at the bottom and made a fool of myself.”

  “What? Why?” I questioned, not sure I followed, but she had me just the slightest bit concerned.

  She shook her head, realizing I wasn’t understanding where she was going. “Shit, I’m so embarrassed, Ry,” she said, trying to cover her face again, but I wouldn’t let her. I made her look at me.

  “Syd, why?”

  “Because I’ve never let go like that before, and I’m sure I looked so ridiculous. I feel like an idiot,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Just now?” I questioned, and she nodded.

  “Yeah. I’ve, um, never really had an orgasm during sex, and I think I got a little carried away. I’m sorry.”

  My eyebrows rose in shock. She hadn’t? But she did. I saw her. Was I the first guy to get her to that point? Holy shit that was cool. But why was she apologizing?

  I tried to relax my face as I focused my gaze on her. Then I leaned down and kissed her, because I felt like she needed it.

  “Syd, you looked so beautiful,” I said when I pulled back to look at her again, smoothing her hair back from her face. “Don’t ever think differently. I loved seeing you like that. It was incredible.”

  “Yeah? Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “You were beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous.”

  “Well, thank you,” she said, finally wrapping her arms around me again, pulling me close.

  I buried my face in her neck, loving the warmth of her skin against my lips. “I love you for you. Remember that. Don’t ever feel like you have to hide any part of yourself from me.”

  “Do you really mean that?” she asked, and I wondered how many of the jerks she’d dated had messed with her head. Why was she so self-conscious? I’d never seen her like this before.

  “Every word of it. You’re perfect. Trust me. And I want to see you let go like that every time we do this, because it was incredible to watch.”

  Her arms wrapped tighter around me. “I can be kind of aggressive during sex, and I usually hold back, but for some reason, you make me feel things I’ve never felt before. It makes me a little crazy, I guess, and I don’t want to hold back with you. It doesn’t turn you off, does it?”

  “Uh, exactly the opposite.”

  “You’re not going to think less of me, are you?”

  I held her as tight as I could. “Never. Not at all. I think it’s so hot, but because it’s you, it’s ten times hotter. Please feel free to be as aggressive as you want. Shit, what you said in the car earlier, it about did me in. Why are you so self-conscious about this?”

  “I’ve dated a lot of assholes, I guess,” she said, but she didn’t expand on that. I could imagine how they’d treated her, and frankly, I sort of didn’t want to know the details. Those guys were idiots.

  I pulled up to look at her. “Well, I’m not an asshole. I love you – every part of you, no matter how embarrassing you might think it is. I don’t want you to hide from me, ever. Just be yourself. And remember that you’ve seen me cry.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, I have. That’s right. But to your credit, it was a bad fall.”

  By ninth grade, I’d gotten much less afraid of the half pipe and had in fact gotten a little cocky. I’d gone up to do a 360 Flip and fell hard. I broke my left arm in two places and although I hadn’t cried at the time, once we’d gotten into the ambulance, with Sydney holding my hand, I’d burst into tears. I hadn’t cried in front of another girl since then.

  “I love you,” she whispered, and I leaned down to kiss her.

  “I love you too.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sydney

  Never in my life had I experienced anything like what I just had with Ryder, and it was slowly starting to sink in that he was perfect in so many ways. I felt like I didn’t deserve him, but I wanted him so much, and he wanted to be with me, so I wasn’t going to argue with it. And after everything we’d hashed out earlier in the night, I was surer than ever that we were going to be alright. I just needed to talk to Chris and tell him to get things rolling with ending my fake relationship so I could start my real one with Ryder.

  Lying there with him in the dark as the candles I’d lit burned softly around us, my head was on his chest as he stroked my hair and started to lull me to sleep.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “I can order room service if you’re hungry,” he offered.

  “No, I’m okay,” I said sleepily.

  I didn’t want to move. Food wasn’t even something remotely on my radar. All I could think about was how I never wanted to lose what I felt right then at that moment. As he’d made love to me, it was as if everything I’d ever wanted to experience while in the arms of a man had come true in the one moment that told me he was the guy for me. If I’d ever had any doubts that taking our relationship to the next level, they’d been squelched when he’d looked down at me with eyes boring into my soul. I felt like for the first time since I’d started dating that I was with someone who truly saw me when he looked at me.

  Ryder might have been enamored with the girl I was when I performed, but when we were alone, it was just me and him, and he saw me for who I was underneath the stage make-up and the music and the lights. I was just the little girl who’d wanted to play with the boys and do everything they did, and he was the shy little boy who’d latched onto me because I was fearless and because I didn’t make fun of him for not learning tricks as fast as the other boys or for being afraid of the skate ramps. When we were together, no one else in the world existed, and that’s how it had always been with us.

  But he wasn’t that little boy anymore, really. He wasn’t scared. He was strong, confident, and he knew his place in the world. He was smart as hell, but he also had one hell of a rockin’ body with none of the arrogance that most guys who looked like him had.

  Why hadn’t I noticed him sooner? Why hadn’t I asked him if he was gay or questioned why he never talked to me about it? So many things that were clear when I looked back on them, but I was just too blind to see them when they were right in front of me. I guess it didn’t matter now, but what about all that time lost that we could have spent together? What about the past five months of not speaking and being so miserable because I felt like half of myself had been torn away?

  There were so many questions that didn’t really matter now that we were here, because I wasn’t going to let him go. I was going to hold on as tight as I could to what I knew was right and who I was supposed to be with.

  Ryder kissed my forehead and pulled me tighter against him.

  “What time do we have to leave tomorrow?” he asked me.

  “The bus leaves at ten,” I mumbled, so close to drifting off completely.

  As I let the darkness sweep over me, I vaguely registered that Ryder was on the phone asking the front desk for a wake-up call. I didn’t want to tell him that he didn’t need to do that. Someone from my team would have already taken care of it, but it was sweet that he wanted to make sure we were up on time.

  * * *

  The shrill ringing of a phone had me groaning and rolling over in bed.

  “Hello?” I grumbled.

  “Good morning, Ms. Chase. This is the front desk with your eight o’clock wake-up call.”

  “Thank you,” I mumbled, instantly annoyed with whoever on my team had scheduled a call for eight in the morning. They knew I wasn’t a morning person, and sleep, especially after a concert was a must.

  But then I remembered I wasn’t alone and getting some more time with Ryder before we had to pretend to be platonic again wasn’t exactly a bad thing. I hung up the phone and rolled over to wake him up but was met with nothing but an empty bed.

  “Ry?” I called out when I didn’t see him anywhere in the room.


  I heard a noise coming from the kitchen area, a clanking of some sort, and then he was in the doorway wearing only his plaid boxers, leaning sexily against the door frame. In the light streaming in behind him I could just make out the ripples of his stomach muscles and the definition of his broad, tanned chest. He looked incredibly yummy.

  He smiled. “Good morning.”

  “Why are you up?” I asked around a yawn, stretching my arms over my head.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I was up reading the book for the Comparative Politics class I’m taking this summer.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “You’re joking, right?”

  He shook his head. “No, I wanted to get a head start of the reading since the professor put the syllabus online yesterday.”

  He didn’t even know how adorable he was when he got all studious. I loved it. I actually always had loved that about him. He was so smart.

  “You’re such a nerd,” I told him, shaking my head and smiling.

  He started to walk toward the bed. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I said, watching him stalk slowly toward me. “It’s a wonder you ever scored any girls with your nose in a book all the time.”

  He shook his head and smirked before he suddenly leapt forward and landed half on me and half on the bed. I giggled and looked up at his gorgeous face, his hair slightly rumpled from sleep.

  “I’ve scored plenty of girls in my time, thank you very much. Hell, last night I slept with this ridiculously hot pop star and made her call out to God about nine times.”

  “Ooh, you’re so cool. But maybe she was faking,” I teased him.

  He shook his head, his eyes locked with mine. “She wasn’t.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, in fact, I can make her do it again, just to prove to you that I’m right.”

  “Well, in the name of science, I don’t think you have another option outside of proving me wrong. I’d say go for it.”

  His hands smoothed my hair back from my face as he lowered his lips to mine, kissing me deeply for a few minutes. Then his lips drifted down my cheek to my ear where he sucked on my lobe for a few seconds as his hand came up to cup my naked breast. He squeezed and pinched my nipple, setting my nerve endings on high alert. Without conscious thought, I reacted to his touch, curling into him and letting my head fall back as I moaned. I loved that I could let go with Ryder and not feel self-conscious about it.