Ryan's Rules

by Alison Kelly

  He thought of a hundred reasons why he should release her and step away, but they crumbled a score at a time when challenged by her quick, short breaths and the feel of her womanly curves brushing against him. Over the years he’d experienced her attempts to play the innocent, the rebel, the wild child and, more lately, the independent career woman, but never before the seductress.

  ‘Am I wrong, Ryan?’

  He closed his eyes, feeling he was battling a thousand demons as she continued to press him, physically and verbally. Yes! he wanted to scream. Yes, dammit, you’re wrong! But before he could verbalise the blatant lie her hand moved to seal his mouth and he found himself drowning in imploring light green eyes.

  ‘You’ve never lied to me before, Ryan. Don’t start now.’

  Kirrily heard only his quick intake of breath before her body was bombarded from all directions with sensations of erotic bliss as her fingers were sucked between his lips and his hands cupped her buttocks to lift her against him. Instinctively her arms went around his neck and her legs embraced his hips.

  ‘Tighter,’ he muttered, his mouth suckling on the column of her throat. ‘Hold me tighter.’

  She obliged, nestling the dampening area between her thighs deeper into his hardness, the resulting male groan of approval filling her with feminine satisfaction. The movement of his mouth against her throat was hypnotic, but she was desperate for the taste of him, needing to feel again his tongue entwined with hers. Trusting her leg muscles and Ryan’s strong, muscular arms to keep her from falling, she clutched at his head, forcing it back until his face was only centimetres from her own. Her heart lurched as his eyes, swimming with passion, fastened on hers; it was like viewing the intensity of her own desire, like looking at a mirror image of her own hunger.

  ‘Ryan…kiss me…’

  She was uncertain if the words were a command or a plea, but when her mouth was claimed with more brutality than she’d expected she viewed Ryan’s aggression as a victory. He was responding to her as one highly aroused adult to another, without a shadow of protectiveness, and, drunk with the sensual power the notion unleashed, Kirrily matched her response to his. She grasped his hair as hard and as roughly as his fingers bit into her buttocks, she parried and duelled as greedily with his tongue as he did with hers and she nipped and laved his lips with the wanton abandon his identical actions provoked.

  Ryan’s mind was a kaleidoscope of emotions and sensations, all revolving around the woman in his arms—a woman more responsive than any he’d known, a woman whose passion was more infectious and potent than he’d ever imagined. The feel of her wrapped around him was both the sweetest and cruellest experience of his life. The flavour of her hot, honeyed mouth simultaneously fed his need yet left him hungering for more. He wanted this woman as he had no other.

  Envisioning her naked and writhing beneath him as he buried himself deep inside her only intensified the ache in his groin. But the hungry male lust urging him to take her hard and fast was counteracted by a wave of tenderness.

  This was K.C.! Even if it killed him he was going to take this slowly; she deserved better than wham bam thank you, ma’am! This was going to be the best damn sex she’d ever had and she was going to remember it for the rest of her life. But, all but scorched by the heat emanating from the woman in his arms, Ryan’s good intentions went the way of water in hell the moment her hips started mimicking the suggestive thrusts of his tongue.

  Kirrily didn’t know how they managed to get from the dining room, but as Ryan tumbled them onto the mattress she didn’t care.

  ‘Condoms?’

  The one word query was whispered between hot, wet kisses that effectively retarded Kirrily’s comprehension skills. Trying to think while his hot male tongue was doing delicious things to her ear wasn’t easy. ‘Huh?’ she mumbled as a shiver of desire shook her.

  ‘Protection…have you got some?’

  ‘Uh…um. My cosmetic bag…In my…suitcase.’

  Long moments later she glimpsed a grateful smile as Ryan rolled off the bed, but being deprived of his body, even for the few seconds it took him to locate what he was after, had Kirrily’s stomach tightening in dread; what if he had second thoughts, changed his mind…?

  He didn’t. Flipping the foil packets onto the nightstant, he resumed his position beside her and she moved into his arms with heartfelt relief, responding to his ardent mouth with all the warmth and wonder he alone created within her.

  The touch of his hands against her skin as they lifted the hem of her sweatshirt sent the flames that his kisses had ignited raging out of control and the urgent need to feel those hands against her tight, throbbing nipples had her quickly taking over the task of disposing of her top. With want and need blurring into one, she started to lower her sweatpants, but stronger male hands stopped her.

  Puzzled, she lifted her eyes to Ryan. ‘What’s…?’

  His expression as he stared at her bared breasts was one of such complete reverence that it took her breath away. For Kirrily time was suspended as he tentatively moved forward to kiss each erect peak; when it started again she was nude and pinned beneath the glorious weight of an equally naked male whose hands were as eagerly inquisitive as her own.

  Go slow. Go slow. Go slow. Ryan’s mental chant was futile against the searing heat and velvet softness of the woman entwined with him. His mouth and hands couldn’t get enough of her delicate feminine softness and her exploring fingers were driving him to the point of madness as they travelled the ridges and contours of his body. Fearing he’d explode before he brought her to fulfilment, he snagged her wrists, stretching her arms above her head. Startled, she let out a breathy little gasp, her taut, firm breasts lifting provocatively as she struggled for air.

  When Ryan rose to his knees and straddled her, Kirrily’s already manic heart pumped faster as she choked on a dozen different emotions. ‘Ry-an…I want—’

  ‘Shh, don’t talk, just feel.’

  ‘I…can’t. You’ve…you’ve got my hands…’

  A purely male smirk lit his face. ‘Trust me, you aren’t going to need them. Besides, either I take control now, honey, or we both get short-changed.’

  He transferred his grip so that he had one hand free which he used to draw a seductive line down her throat, between her breasts and onward to the dark curls atop her thighs, causing her hips to jerk.

  ‘You like that, huh?’ His fingers travelled to her damp centre and teased her until she reproduced the action, in unison with a sucked-in gasp. Almost drowning in her responsiveness, he watched her face as his thumb skimmed the nub of her desire and one finger slipped into her. ‘And it gets…better,’ he vowed, his voice breaking at the feel of her wet readiness. ‘Ah, Kirrily, we know it gets a hell of a lot better!’

  Kirrily was unable to garner sufficient control over either her mind or vocal cords to make comment as his sensual and intimate caress continued. Her arousal intensified with each slow, taunting stroke, until it became almost a pleasurable pain that had her hips arching from the bed in pursuit of his hand at the slightest hint of its withdrawal.

  Watching her lithe young body buck and squirm in response to his touch had Ryan gritting his teeth in an effort to hold himself in check. ‘Easy, honey,’ he whispered as she started tossing her head from side to side and struggling to free her hands. ‘Relax…let it happen.’

  His voice sounded as if it came from another dimension as it drifted through the rainbow of lights exploding in Kirrily’s mind, body and soul. She tried to tell him what she was seeing and hearing, but suddenly she was engulfed by sensation so radiant that it was all she could manage to cry out his name…

  Though Ryan released her hands when the orgasmic quakes electrifying her body threatened his own, having her melt in his hand equated with witnessing an atomic explosion; he was a victim before the fallout had even reached him, and opening the condom became the slowest, most complex task he’d ever undertaken. Holding his breath, he fumbled to sheath hi
mself with trembling fingers.

  ‘Ry-Ryan.’ Her voice was as soft as an angel’s. ‘Let me.’

  The awed expression on her face combined with the tentative hand on his wrist almost made him fall apart. The emotion erupting within him was a strange cocktail of tenderness, desire and an anticipation that bordered on fear. If he hadn’t waited all his life for this moment, then it felt as if he had and he wasn’t going to blow it prematurely. He shook his head, more at his appalling pun than a response to her offer, but by then the task was completed.

  Bracing himself on his arms above her, he closed his eyes in the hope of slowing himself down, but it was a losing battle the second her hands moved over his buttocks and she arched her hips into his.

  ‘Show me “better”, Ryan,’ she said. ‘Now.’

  Her eagerness sent his lust into overdrive and his last thought as he drove into her slick warmth was that at least he’d brought her to completion first…

  Aware of the mattress moving beneath her, Kirrily opened her eyes. There was sufficient light streaming from the dining area for her to follow Ryan’s naked progress to the bathroom, but she cursed the dimness of the room for robbing her of the chance to study the movement of his taut-to-the-touch butt in more detail. A tiny moan escaped from her at the recollection of the contrast between the soft skin of his buttocks and the hair-roughened toughness of his chest, yet she’d loved touching every millimetre of his male flesh. Nor did she have any complaints about the way he’d touched hers! Kirrily knew she was grinning like a half-dazed idiot but didn’t care! Nothing had ever felt so right, so wonderful!

  Nothing could have prepared her for the unimaginable pleasures that Ryan had shown her or the ethereal bliss now cocooning her. It was as if she’d had a spell cast upon her—for half a heartbeat she worried that she might only have dreamt the most spectacular event of her life; then Ryan reappeared at the door of the bathroom and she knew that reality had its own magic.

  With nothing but a towel draped around his hips and his hair tousled from their passion, he looked so blatantly male and sexy that it took Kirrily’s hormone-drugged brain a moment to register that for some reason he also looked-’You…you…!’ Fury coloured his face as he strode to the foot of the bed keeping a white-knuckled grip on the towel. ‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?’

  ‘I…I—’

  ‘What?’ he sneered, with a venom that made her flinch. ‘Wanted to see if your seductress act worked as well in real life as it does on television?’ In one motion he picked up her sweatshirt and threw it, hitting her in the chest. ‘Well, guess what—it does! Congratulations!’

  Stunned, Kirrily could only clutch the clothing to her bareness. ‘Ryan…’ she started, only to find her voice barely audible. ‘Ryan…I don’t know why you’re so upset. It’s no—’

  His cold, mirthless laugh cracked the air, vaporising her good feelings and replacing them with confusion and shame. She gave up trying to read the emotion behind his eyes because her own were beginning to fill with tears.

  ‘Upset?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not upset, K.C., I’m way beyond that. Do you have any idea how disgusted I’m feeling right now?’

  That soft but obvious insult belatedly activated what vestige of pride Kirrily still possessed. ‘You’re disgusted?’ she snapped, praying she was a good enough actress to portray anger when pain was crippling her. ‘Well, if this is typical of post-coital bliss, sex is gonna be a one-off experience for this little black duck! Get out of my room, Ryan Talbot!’

  When he didn’t move, she hurled a pillow at him.

  He deflected it with ease. ‘K.C., hang on—’

  ‘Get out and stay out!’ she screeched, launching a second pillow. ‘Outta my room and my life!’

  For a moment it looked as if he was going to ignore her command, but as her hand closed around the bedside radio he changed his mind.

  Ryan emerged from his room at seven the next morning to find Kirrily on the phone. In an abstract way he noted her jeans and bomber jacket, though his mind was picturing her as she’d been in his arms last night; her hair flowing in a smooth curtain down her back made his fingers twitch with the temptation to feel its silkiness again.

  ‘And I’d appreciate it if you could order me a cab…Yes. Thank you, forty minutes will be fine.’

  ‘Fine for what?’ he asked as she disconnected the call.

  She pivoted towards him, her face revealing surprise and the dark smudges of a sleepless night, yet a second later her chin lifted to a defiant angle.

  ‘I’m leaving this morning.’

  ‘I know.’ He moved to the courtesy beverage counter. ‘We’re booked on a flight back to Sydney at ten-fifteen.’

  ‘Uh-uh. You can go to hell for all I care, but you’ll go on your own, Ryan Talbot I’m staying in Melbourne. I’d sooner die than suffer your company ever again.’

  ‘Be careful what you wish for, K.C.,’ he warned, and saw instant regret for her choice of words dim her features.

  ‘If wishes counted for anything I’d have woken up this morning and discovered everything that’s happened in the past two days has been nothing more than a nightmare.’ Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him and Ryan knew she wasn’t talking about the fire. ‘The sooner you’re out of my face and hundreds of miles away, the happier I’ll be. Stalker or no stalker.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of letting you stay here alone. You can hate me as much as you like, but don’t be so immature as to think I’ll allow you to put yourself in jeopardy for the sake of your pride.’

  ‘Right! Like you’d give a damn about my pride after the demolition job you did on it last night.’

  ‘K.C., I—’

  ‘No!’ She held her hand up like a policeman stopping traffic. ‘The last thing I want from you is an apology.’

  ‘Really? Well, that’s good,’ he replied. ‘Because I’m not giving you one; the way I see it, if anyone deserves an apology for last night it’s me.’

  Shock made her gasp. ‘You? For what?’

  ‘For having the responsibility of taking your virginity foisted onto me, that’s what! You set me up, K.C..’

  ‘Foisted? Taking my virginity?’ A disbelieving laugh broke from her. ‘How did I set you up, for God’s sake?’

  ‘You deliberately came on to me and responded like you were an old hand at seduction. Hell! Taking advantage of you after I’d spent years trying to protect you from hormone-driven scumbags would’ve been enough to face, but discovering I’m the only scumbag who’s ever touched you…Sheesh! That’s—’

  ‘The greatest load of rubbish I’ve ever heard!’ she burst out. ‘For a start you didn’t take my virginity—I gave it to you—’

  ‘Great, rub it right in—’

  ‘In the second place, the only reason I was still a virgin is because when I was a teenager and practically breaking my neck to rid myself of the stigma of virginity you, Ryan Talbot, scared away every candidate I lined up! You even gave me a brotherly lecture on how losing one’s virginity was something that should simply happen, without conscious decision, when the time was right.

  ‘Well, guess what?’ she went on, hands on her hips. ‘Last night without any conscious decision to set you up the timing was right. If I came across as experienced maybe it’s because I’ve had professional direction in love scenes. Maybe it’s because reading articles like “What Makes Sex Great” or “Being Brilliant Between the Sheets” and so forth in women’s magazines provided me with enough theory on the subject to stop me from coming across as a sexual klutz! Or maybe…and I suspect this is what really scares the stuffing out of you,’ she said, sending him a smug look, ‘it’s because the chemistry between us was so strong my instincts just kicked into overdrive all by themselves.’

  He simply stood and stared at her, his face tense, his stance rigid.

  ‘Well, like it or not, that’s what happened,’ she said, when he volunteered no response. ‘Call it chemistry, p
hysical attraction or just plain old lust, but the fact is I didn’t consider my virginity one way or the other. You, on the other hand, obviously assumed it was long gone, otherwise you wouldn’t be so ticked off at finding it wasn’t! Your mistake, not mine. So don’t try and haul me along on your guilt trip. And, furthermore, it’s about time you put your promise to Steve to take care of me into perspective.’

  A twitch of a muscle near the side of his mouth was Kirrily’s only hint that she’d finally managed to penetrate his statue-like indifference. Feeling satisfied, she snatched a much needed breath before continuing.

  ‘Take credit for protecting me from “hormone-driven scumbags” in the past if you want, but don’t make the mistake of thinking you can be responsible for my hormones or any other part of my life now. I’m twenty-four years old, Ryan, three years older than my brother was when he died and three years older than you were when you assumed responsibility for me. So, as of now, I’m absolving you of your role as guardian angel over me.’

  Though emotionally drained, Kirrily forced herself not to bolt from the room—not only because she knew Ryan would expect her to make a dramatic exit, but because she felt their entire future relationship depended on her facing whatever rebuttals he fired. Still, the weight of the lengthening silence, his inscrutable expression and penetrating gaze made her feel almost claustrophobic.

  ‘What,’ he said finally, ‘if I don’t want to be absolved of it?’

  ‘As you’ve told me more than once, “What we want and what we get isn’t always within our control.”’

  His mouth twisted wryly. ‘Is that another reference to last night?’

  ‘No…no,’ she said, genuinely puzzled, but not willing to let herself be sidetracked. ‘Look, I know you’ve only ever had my best interests at heart, Ryan—’ she ignored his sardonic laugh ‘—but I’m an adult now. I don’t need a keeper.’