Wish I May (New Hope)

by Lexi Ryan

  I yank her robe open and crush my mouth down on hers. I mean it to be a warning—because I’m not letting her go without a fight this time. But she doesn’t withdraw. She moans and rocks her hips. She meets my brutal desire with her own, tugging at my hair, biting my lip.

  I kick the door closed and back her against it, as if a solid surface might contain this wild and dangerous hunger pumping through me. When I move to her neck and suck that tender skin, she gasps and presses harder into me.

  Another wave of lust slams through me, and suddenly I need to see her eyes, to see the pleasure on her face as I touch her.

  When I pull back, she’s watching me. Her lips are red and swollen, her lids heavy with desire.

  I move my hand up her torso. As I brush the underside of her breasts, her eyes float closed and she arches into my hand.

  “God, you’re beautiful.” My words are thick with arousal, gritty with the desperation I’ve felt since she watched me stroke myself in the shower. Fuck. I’m lost.

  I dip my head to her breast, wetting it with my tongue. Cupping her in my hand, I draw her nipple into my mouth. She cries out against my neck and digs her nails into my shoulder blades as I suck and bite, rough and soft by turns. Maybe too rough, but I can’t help it because she’s moaning and I am desperate to claim her, to brand her.

  She rocks into my thigh. I run my hands down her legs and draw her knees up, lifting her between me and the door until my cock is nestled right between her legs, only the thin fabric of my boxers between us. She wraps her legs around me and squeezes me tight.

  “Goddammit, Cally.” My eyes close, and I have to grit my teeth. “You’re so wet I can feel it, and I haven’t even taken off my shorts yet.”

  “What are you waiting for?” She slides her fingers into my hair and tugs my mouth down to hers.

  I growl against her and curl my fingers into her hips. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve thought about this sweet body of yours? Do you have any idea how crazy it made me to have you sleeping upstairs, so fucking close but off limits?”

  I peel the robe from her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. “You are so insanely beautiful.” I drop my head to open my mouth against her breasts. One at a time, I draw the taut peaks into my mouth, between my teeth, until she cries out and arches closer.

  “William,” she whimpers. “Please.”

  I lift my head, my fingers picking up where my mouth left off and rolling a perfect pink nipple between my fingers. “What, baby? Please what?”

  She shudders and presses her breast further into my hand. “Please, can you?”

  I need to hear her say it, to hear the words from her lips, but I can’t resist another taste and have to lower my head to her breasts again and roll a nipple against my tongue.

  “God, you taste good.”

  Her hands thread through my hair and tug, and when I close my mouth over her and suck, the cry that rips through her is almost enough to make me go off in my shorts.

  “William,” she whimpers, and I love the way she says my full name. “Inside me. Please.”

  My breath leaves me in a rush. There they are. The words I’ve been waiting for. But I’m not ready.

  Sliding my hands under her ass to support her, I swing around and take four long strides to the bed. I slowly slide her down my body until she’s sitting on the bed. Grabbing her hips, I tug her forward until she’s leaning back on her elbows and her hips are at the edge of the bed. Then I kiss my way down her body—across her collarbone, between her breasts, down her belly.

  I scrape my teeth over one hip then trail my mouth across her stomach. Stopping at her navel, I circle the little jeweled piercing with my tongue before opening my mouth against the soft flesh and sucking.

  She bucks her hips, and I cup her, hot and wet, between her legs.

  “God, you’re amazing,” I murmur. She gasps at the touch of my hand.

  I position her feet back on the bed so her knees are bent and she’s open to me. Then I sink to my haunches and look at her.

  She reaches for me. “What are you doing?”

  A smile curls my lips, and I press lightly against her inner thighs until her legs fall open and she’s completely exposed to my gaze.

  “William,” she whimpers as I trace my finger down her swollen, sensitive sex.

  Her legs come together, and I press them open again and lower my head and taste her. She arches against me, crying out again until the sound of her moans, the feel of her fingers tangling in my hair, and the taste of her against my tongue has my cock aching impatiently in my shorts.

  But I won’t be rushed. I circle her clit with my tongue, and she trembles under me.

  Lifting my head, I lock my eyes with hers. “Don’t hold back, Cally. Let me make you come.”

  I sink two fingers inside her. She pulses around me. So damn close. Taking her clit between my lips, I suck the same moment I cover her mouth with my free hand. She trembles under my mouth, until she’s pulsing around my fingers and her cry is muffled against my hand.

  “GOD, YOU’RE beautiful when you come.” His eyes are hot on mine as he works his way back up my body, one hand still cupping me between my legs. My limbs are limp, my body relaxed, but just the heat in his eyes reignites something in me.

  Just like that, I need more.

  William climbs on top of me, and I wrap my legs around his hips. I’m greeted with the long, thick shaft of his cock pressing against my clit through his cotton shorts. Just that contact and I’m whimpering—with that dangerous cocktail of pleasure, need, and nostalgia.

  “I made so many damn mistakes when you were out of my life. When I you left, I lost more than my girlfriend. I lost myself.” He traces my lips with his thumb, and the tenderness in his eyes nearly undoes me. “Be with me, Cally. You’re my compass. My north star.”

  My throat is thick, and his words have tears pushing at the back of my eyes.

  “I love you,” he murmurs. He kisses the corner of my mouth, my ear, then my cheeks, where his lips press the wet heat of my tears into my skin. “I’ve always loved you.”

  I shake my head, needing him to understand. “You don’t love me. You love the girl I used to be.”

  “Do you have any idea how amazing you are now?” His eyes lock with mine as he whispers the words. “Everything you’ve done for the girls and your father…the way you just picked up and left your old life? Not many people your age would do that. You work nonstop, and you’re always doing for them. I don’t need my memories to be head over heels in love with you, Cally. All I have to do is know you.”

  My heart is full and broken all at once, and I can’t allow myself to return his words. I’ve said I love you so many times since leaving William, and every time it was a lie. I won’t let the words be tainted by my lips. “Make love to me, William.”

  Something flashes over his face. My choice of words doesn’t escape his notice. But that’s what this is. That’s what it will be between Will and me. Some people have sex or intercourse. Some people fuck. But with Will, no matter how fast or slow, tender or rough, after all these years of waiting, I know it will be making love. And that’s what I need now. More than anything.

  In seconds, he’s off me, standing beside the bed and shucking his shorts. He slides on a condom from his end table, and I swallow hard at the sight of him—long and thick, and a little intimidating.

  He lies back on the bed, his head propped against a pillow, and crooks his finger at me.

  Placing a knee on either side of his hips, I straddle him. He guides me until he’s pressing against my entrance.

  My eyes close in anticipation of the pain-laced pleasure I know his size will bring.

  “Look at me,” he commands, fingers digging into my hips.

  I open my eyes and lock them on his as he slowly slides inside me. My body has to stretch to accommodate his size, but he’s patient and lets me adjust to him. Just having him inside me brings me close again. He stretches me and pr
esses deep, and his eyes don’t leave my face until I start moving over him, creating a rhythm for our bodies as he slides deep again and again. Pressure building, my body tightening.

  He pulls me forward and cradles my ass in his hands. When his mouth latches onto one of my nipples and draws it tight, I come apart again, and he tightens his hold on my hips and rocks into me with three hard strokes before coming with me.

  “Why did you keep resisting this?” We’re lying in bed nude, our sweaty skin drying under the soft breeze of the ceiling fan. He took care of the condom in the bathroom and then came back to bed and drew my body against his.

  “Maybe I wanted you to beg,” I tease.

  He grunts. “If I thought that would do it, I would have.”

  The humor leaves me suddenly. He deserves a real answer. “Because I’m not staying. Leaving you once almost killed me. I don’t know if I can survive leaving you a second time.”

  He hooks his foot behind my knee and rolls us over so he’s above me, his hands framing my face. “So don’t leave. You have a job here. A place to live. What are you so anxious to get back to?”

  My heart squeezes in my chest. Because I want what he’s offering. I want to be the girl who believes in happily-ever-after again. I want to trust that everything happens for a reason.

  But I’m not that girl I used to be, and Will deserves more than for me to pretend I am.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It can be.” He presses a kiss to my collarbone. “Are you really so desperate to get back to something there, or are you running away from something here?”

  My throat grows thick. I can hardly speak because I can’t swallow my own lies when he’s looking at me with so much love.

  “Stay.” He presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “There’s nothing you need to run from. I’ve got you. No matter what.” He kisses me again, this time right between my breasts. Right over my heart.

  He settles next to me and pulls my body against his to sleep. “Hello, Cally,” he whispers, and seconds later, I feel his breathing change against my neck as he relaxes in his sleep.

  I lie there, wide awake, wishing it were all as simple as he believes it to be.

  Sleeping Beauty is in my bed.

  The morning sun slants in my bedroom window and across Cally’s face, and I can’t bring myself to leave her, though I have to open the gallery in fifteen minutes. There’s something about being with this woman that washes away all the ugliness of the past two years. My mistake of an engagement to Maggie, my bigger mistake of an engagement to Krystal. I hate to think of myself as some easily analyzed psyche. A cliché case of a guy who lost his family when he was young and has spent his life since trying to build a new one.

  But with Maggie and Krystal, I was always caught up in what would be. Securing that future—the family, the children—it was all this elusive high I couldn’t stop chasing.

  It was never like that with Cally. Not when I was eighteen. And not now. Cally grounds me in the moment, roots me in the here and now. She makes simply existing so damn perfect I forget all my anxieties about tomorrow.

  Her dark lashes flutter against her cheek and she moans softly, rolling to her side and curling into me. After I made love to her the second time last night, she fell asleep in my arms. I watched her for awhile, reminding myself she was real, and here, that it wasn’t a dream. I was almost back to sleep myself when she started talking in her sleep. “I’m sorry.” That was all I could make out her long stream of murmurs. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  She was dreaming, but I felt like the words were for me, and it shook me to think she’s carrying around so much guilt. But sorry for what? For standing me up that weekend? For dropping me with a text message and just as quickly making herself unreachable? For falling into another guy’s arms before a month was out? Or maybe she’s sorry for all that and more. Maybe she’s sorry for something I don’t even know about. Something I wouldn’t want to know.

  Whatever it is, it doesn’t change how I feel. Here, in my bed, the morning sun warming our skin, I’m surer than ever that only Cally matters.

  “Mmm,” she murmurs against my chest. “I need to get out of bed and get the girls to school.”

  I stroke her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Already taken care of.”

  She jerks upright and looks at the clock. “Shit. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. They wanted to let you sleep.” I tug her hips until she slips down in bed next to me again. “And I wanted to keep you in bed as long as possible.”

  She rolls over and curls into my chest. “I haven’t slept that well in ages.”

  “Sounds like you should sleep in my bed more often.”

  “So you’re going to use my insomnia as an excuse to have your way with me?”

  “When it comes to getting your naked body next to me as often as possible, I have no shame.”

  “You smell good.” She presses her lips against my chest and licks up my sternum. “Taste good too.”

  I grab her hands and roll us so she’s under me, her hands over her head, trapped at the wrists by mine. Her eyes flash hot as they meet mine.

  I nuzzle her neck, relishing the knowledge that I’m branding her with my unshaven face.

  “When are you moving back to Vegas?” I have to ask. I need to remind myself that she isn’t going to be in my life forever. That she doesn’t want to be.

  “I don’t know.” She lifts her eyes to mine, her insecurities written all over her face. “I’m not a fan of long-distance relationships.”

  “Me either. But I think they can be done. If it’s really necessary.”

  She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. “Maybe it’s not necessary.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I’m afraid to hope.

  “I mean I was going back to Vegas because it was the default, the obvious next move, and—” She watches me. Hesitant. Careful. “—I’m saying I’m going to consider other options.”

  Something floods my chest, threating to overwhelm me. I bury my face in her neck and squeeze her tight.

  Kissing a path up her neck, I draw her earlobe between my teeth, sucking until she cries out. She’s like a dream in my arms. There’s no way I can go into the gallery today. I need the whole day with Cally in my bed.

  “I have to make a phone call,” I whisper. Releasing one of her hands, I snatch my phone from the bedside table and lift my head enough to dial Maggie.

  It rings four times before she picks up. “Hello?” She sounds like I woke her up. Too fucking bad.

  “I need you to open the gallery for me today.”

  Cally’s moved her free hand to my back, and she’s smiling at me as she traces her fingers down my spine.

  “I have plans with Asher,” Maggie says.

  Cally slips her hand between our bodies and skims the head of my dick with her fingertips. I growl. “Cancel them.” I hang up the phone and toss it across the room.

  Cally giggles beneath me. “Bossy.”

  I recapture her straying hand and replace it above her head. “I am the boss.”

  “You’re good at it,” she murmurs.

  “You like being told what to do?”

  “Not particularly, but when you do it, it’s pretty hot.” Her lips quirk and she rubs her bare, slick heat against my cock. She doesn’t even need use of her hands to make me lose my fucking mind.

  “Dammit, Cally. You’re going to kill me.”

  She repeats the motion, tucking her hips. I’m all but inside her. “Don’t make me wait.”

  “I need to get a condom.” I grit my teeth as I shift so my cock isn’t so irresistibly close to her wet heat. I’ve never wanted to be inside a woman without a condom as much as I want to be inside her. I’m already thinking about what it would be like to slide inside of her, skin to skin.

  “I have a clean bill of health,” she whispers. “Before you, I hadn’t had sex for four years. And as for
the rest, that’s what birth control pills are for.”

  I still and study her. I’m not worried about pregnancy. Unfortunately, that’s not something I ever need to worry about. “Are you sure?”

  She sinks her teeth into her lip and nods.

  Just as I move to slide into her, she stops me with her hands on my shoulders.

  “What is it?” I ask. The idea of being inside her without that barrier is so damn appealing, but I’ll stop if she’s changed her mind.

  “I wanted you to be my first. I wish you had been.”

  Aw, hell. “That doesn’t matter anymore.”

  She runs her fingertips down my cheek and nods. “What’s done is done. I know. But this? I’ve never had sex with a man without a condom before. I’ve been diligent. So, this is…a first.”

  I cup her face in my hands and crush my mouth to hers, hoping she feels every painful and beautiful ounce of my love for her in this moment. “That’s amazing,” I whisper. Then I slowly sink into her, our eyes locked as our bodies join so intimately. Skin to skin.

  “Stay. There’s nothing you need to run from. I’ve got you. No matter what.” William’s words haven’t left my head since he whispered them in my ear yesterday morning. I’m considering. Maybe I could stay. Maybe this could be my life. My days working across the hall from this man who makes my heart race, my nights in his bed, his hands on my body. Could I really be that lucky? Will he want all that with me once he finds out the truth?

  Sickness eats at my stomach at the thought. I should have told him the truth before sleeping with him. I owed him that. But I’m terrified that he won’t look at me the same once he knows, and I’m not ready for the end.

  “Lots of water,” I tell my client. I force myself out of my reverie and offer her a bottle of water. “And no more workouts today. Let your muscles rest.”

  The woman takes the bottle and slips me a twenty—that tip in addition to the seventy she paid for her massage makes this a great start to the day.

  “I’ll be back,” she promises. “Don’t you leave town yet, or I’ll have to come to Vegas for my massages.”