WE HAD BARELY made it past the screen door when Riley dropped his grip on me, spun around, took my face between his hands, and kissed me like I’d never been kissed before. Admittedly, I hadn’t been kissed very often over the years, so I didn’t have much to compare this one to, but this kiss…this kiss was everything. The way Riley kissed me was just like all the kisses I’d been reading about in romance novels—hungry and desperate and so very, very hot, as he held my face between his hands, angling my head exactly the way he wanted it.
I was so startled by the change of events that I lost my footing and fell back against the wall. He came along, too, leaning into me as his tongue pressed between my lips and tangled with my own. He tasted like alcohol and the salty ocean air and something that could only be described as man, leaving me feeling a little drunk, myself. Not that I’d ever been drunk before, but this was how I imagined it felt—like the world had gone topsy-turvy and I was floating on a bed of clouds made up entirely of the marshmallow fluff they used to make rice crispy treats.
I stretched onto my toes and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, craving his closeness and heat, needing something to pull me back down to earth. But if anything, getting closer to him only sent me flying higher.
Riley groaned and pressed his hips to mine, grinding against me.
Positioned like this, I could feel every bit of him. Oh my goodness, he was strong and hot all over, and so much bigger than I’d imagined a man could be. Yeah, I knew most men out there were larger than me, and Paul had been huge and paunchy, but this was something entirely different.
Riley was made up completely of muscle, it seemed. He had them everywhere, even in places I didn’t realize a person could build muscle, like the flat of his stomach and along the side of his neck. His shoulders and arms were strong and ripped. The build of his thighs left me weak-kneed. His broad chest made me shiver with the anticipation of resting my cheek against it.
Most of the men I knew weren’t anywhere near as strong and toned as Riley.
And then I had to wonder if the same held true for his…well, his manhood was what they tended to call it in all the romance novels I’d read. Did big muscles equate to big members? And did I want him to be big there?
I wasn’t entirely sure. Probably not, if I was honest with myself. But maybe I was wrong about that. Of course, I didn’t have anything to compare his size with, so…
I blushed just thinking about it. Or maybe it was just the intense chemistry between us that caused my cheeks to flood with heat.
Then his lips and tongue were on my jaw, the underside of my chin, the hollow of my throat, the tops of my shoulders, and I was panting for air that never truly filled my lungs. My eyes closed of their own accord, but I liked it that way because I could focus on all the sensations he was eliciting in me instead of fixating on all the things I could see.
Gently but insistently, he edged a hand down my ribs, his thumb just tickling the side of my breast. I sucked in a sharp breath at the feeling his touch aroused within me—a desperate sort of ache that I had never felt before, coming from somewhere deep inside. Yes, I’d read about it plenty of times, but reading and experiencing were two very, very different things.
“You’re so fucking pretty when you’re turned on,” Riley murmured before kissing me again.
Pretty?
He was watching me?
The thought of it kind of freaked me out. I shot my eyes open and found him staring at me with frantic intensity. He was kissing me with his eyes open, very much watching me in a way that stole my breath.
So, I watched him, too.
Witnessing the passion in his eyes somehow intensified all the sensations coursing through me, caused my pulse to speed up until I thought my heart would probably explode at any moment from all the warring vibrations taking place at once. A person couldn’t feel all these things at the same time and survive, could they? I supposed I was about to find out, because I couldn’t fathom a way to make it stop even if I wanted it to.
And I definitely did not want it to stop.
“Your cheeks are all flushed,” he murmured, his lips teasing the skin of those very same cheeks. “And your neck. It’s even going down your chest. Makes me wonder where else you’re turning pink.” With every part of me that he mentioned, he lowered his head to kiss me there.
I shuddered with anticipation when he kissed the swell of my breast that was visible over the top of my dress.
“You like that?” he asked, lifting his gaze to meet mine.
I nodded, and his tongue darted out to trace a line where his lips had just been. I couldn’t stop the soft sigh from falling into the charged silence between us.
Kissing my lips again, Riley brought his hand back up to my ribs, where the frantic pounding of my heart made itself known. Then he fitted his palm over my breast and gave me a gentle but insistent squeeze.
I moaned against his mouth, a sound that seemed foreign to my own ear. Foreign and wanton and utterly embarrassing.
But Riley grinned—his lips still pressed tight to mine—and let out a needy groan of his own that made me tense up in areas I hadn’t been aware could be tense until that very moment.
And in the span of a single heartbeat, I felt as if the room had caught fire, as if we were on the surface of the sun. Or standing at the very edge of an active volcano and about to fall into the molten lava. Or maybe as if I were melting from the inside out like one of those molten chocolate cakes they made in fancy restaurants.
Maybe I’d been reading too many romance novels to come up with all those comparisons. Did most women think along these lines when they were in the midst of being thoroughly, wildly kissed? Probably not. That was just one more way I wasn’t normal, I supposed.
But Riley reclaimed my attention before I could overanalyze my response. He moved his hands behind me and started fumbling with the row of hooks and the long zipper keeping my wedding dress in place, the combination of which stretched down almost the full length in the back. “We’ve got too many clothes on, baby doll,” he murmured. “Need to get rid of them.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice, but my fingers went to work on his tie. I didn’t quite finish one thing before moving on to the next, ripping at the buttons of his shirt, too frantic to settle down and take my time. Riley seemed to have things under control much better than I did, thank goodness, quickly undoing the zipper and popping free the line of tiny hooks before I’d done so much as figure out how to get his suit jacket down over his shoulders.
And then he had me in the air as if I didn’t weigh a thing, and he was carrying me into another room. But with his ankle hurt…
“Should you be doing that?” I asked, breathless from the sensation of his powerful arms wrapped solidly around me. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself worse than you already are.”
Instead of answering, he kissed me again, and I quickly forgot all about my question.
Riley didn’t stop until we reached the bedroom. He set me on my feet next to the bed and started ripping away at his clothes. With trembling hands, I finished what he’d started in terms of removing my wedding dress, allowing it to pool on the floor at my feet before stepping out of it and kicking it away.
He tossed his jacket on the floor but picked up my dress, gingerly draping it over an armchair in the corner of the room, treating it entirely differently than he was treating his own clothes—like my dress was precious, something to be cared for and looked after. Maybe it meant I could be precious to him, too—a thought that made my heartbeat come to a complete stop.
Until that moment, I’d never realized just how much I craved that, the thought that I could truly matter to someone.
My tongue felt thick, and a fresh bout of tears stung my eyes, but now wasn’t the time for crying, so I fought them back before Riley turned around again.
I didn’t want him to see me crying. Not again. Not when we’d just gotten married and he was getting ready to make love to me for the first time. Tears had no business here, and they’d only make him think I was going to cry over every little thing.
His back still turned to me, he whipped off his belt and stripped his pants down his legs. Heat rushed to my cheeks when I caught a glimpse of his butt. Even that part of his body was all muscle. And his thighs were massive and powerful, and just about the most amazing things I’d ever seen before in my life. I’d seen a couple of naked males before—I’d accidentally walked in on a foster father when he was getting out of the shower, and I’d gone into the wrong changing room in high school gym once—but Riley’s body was unlike anything I ever could have imagined. His thighs were each about as big around as my waist. The kind of power they must contain…
He turned to face me again, stroking himself with his hand, and my breath caught in my throat. I felt like my entire body would go up in flames just from the sight of him standing there, naked and glorious and mine.
“I don’t think this is going to work out, sweetheart,” he said.
Not going to work out? He must have come to his senses, then, just as I’d been afraid he would.
But he sounded kind of sad, and he had an odd look in his eye—much different from the way he’d been looking at me only moments before.
Disappointment. Frustration. A tinge of something I couldn’t quite...
No, I could put my finger on it.
Anger.
He was angry.
And he could only be angry at me. Maybe it’d been anger I’d heard in his tone, not sadness.
I stepped away out of a defensive reflex, the backs of my knees bumping into the bed and making me lose my balance. I flopped back onto the mattress, crossing my arms over my chest in an effort to hide myself and my nakedness as I frantically racked my brain for what I could have possibly done wrong.
“Hey,” he said, crossing over to me and putting a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right.”
But it wasn’t all right. Not at all. I tried not to flinch away from his touch, but touching wasn’t something I’d ever been comfortable with. I’d rarely let any of my foster parents hug me. I’d almost never held anyone’s hand, not even to cross the street when I was a small child.
Considering that, I certainly couldn’t bear to be touched by a man who was angry with me. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to avoid crying again. What would he think of me if I burst into tears again, so soon after the first time? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried so much.
Usually, I kept my tears tucked away, only letting them out when I was all alone in my bed and no one could see or hear. But I’d only known Riley for the span of an hour or two, and this was already the second time he’d had to suffer through seeing me on the verge of falling apart.
He must be regretting his decision to marry me. Lord knows I would regret it if I were in his shoes.
Could he change his mind at this point? We hadn’t consummated the marriage yet, so…maybe? I didn’t know how those laws worked in the modern world—a huge failing on my part, since I’d nearly walked into a horrifying marriage with Paul. But the fact remained that I didn’t have the first clue. I knew a lot more about marriage laws during the historical time periods in which the books I read had been set, like Regency and Victorian England and during the settling of the American West.
And now I was probably seriously overthinking things and freaking out when maybe there wasn’t anything to freak out about, but it sure felt like a good freak out was called for.
“You’re sorry?” Riley repeated softly. “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who should be sorry.” He took a seat next to me. But he didn’t touch me again. Maybe because I’d jerked myself away from him only moments ago.
“Why should you be sorry?” I sniffled, debating how quickly I could put my clothes back on and get out of there, not that I had the first inkling where I would go. I was probably going to end up on the streets or maybe being forced to sell myself to someone, exactly like Paul had hinted about, if I could bring myself to go through with it.
“I’m sorry because I drank too much,” he said.
I gave him a dubious look. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ve got whiskey dick.” He laugh-snorted, which caused me to shoot up my head so I could get a good look at him. He seemed entirely serious, despite his laughter. “Well, I guess it’s tequila dick since I was pounding tequila shots, not whiskey.”
I shook my head, not following.
Riley cracked a grin, which made him seem downright swoon-worthy, with his dark hair curling slightly over his forehead and his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “You’ve never heard of whiskey dick?”
“Never.” I sniffled, but my tears were beginning to ebb.
“You are so freaking sheltered, aren’t you?” he said—it certainly didn’t feel like a question, at least—and his smile somehow turned even sexier. But whether it was a question or a statement, he didn’t wait for my answer. “When a man has too much to drink, sometimes he can’t get it up.”
“Get it up?” I knew I sounded like an overprotected, innocent child, just like he’d suggested, but I couldn’t help it. The truth was, I had been overly insulated from the world, considering all I’d been through. Everyone had tried to protect me. Maybe they’d done too good a job of it.
“He can’t get hard,” Riley said. Then he shook his head. “Not some random he. I mean I can’t get hard right now. Or at least I can’t stay hard.”
“Oh.” I felt a massive blush staining my cheeks.
“It has nothing to do you or me not wanting you, baby doll. I can promise, I want to be with you.”
The way he said it made me believe him, too. Or at least it made me want to believe him, which might as well be the same thing.
He smiled in a way that made me tingle all over despite the stinging behind my eyes. “It’s just too much alcohol, sweetheart,” he said. “Once I sleep it off, everything’ll be just fine.”
I nodded, because it felt as if he was waiting for some sort of response from me, and that was all I was capable of without running the risk of starting a fresh flood of tears. Because there were still so many niggling doubts running through my head.
What if he was just saying these things to appease me and I really didn’t turn him on?
What if, once he was sober, he realized he’d made a huge mistake in marrying me?
What if he wanted to undo it before we’d gone too far?
He reached up a hand and brushed my tears away with the pad of his thumb—such a sweet thing to do that I wanted to lean in for more of his touch. For whatever reason, I held myself back.
But he didn’t.
He cupped my cheeks in his palms, using both thumbs to wipe up the mess I was making of myself, and he kissed me again. “Shh, sweetheart. I can still take care of you.”
Take care of me? So now he thought I needed to be taken care of. But then, why shouldn’t he think that? I’d come to a foreign country to marry a man I hadn’t ever met before, with no backup plan in place and no way to get out of it when things headed south. Only a simpleminded fool would do something like that. Of course, he thought I needed someone to look after me.
“I’m sorry I’m being so much trouble for you,” I mumbled.
Riley cocked up a brow and gave me a sexy grin. “Going down on you isn’t going to cause me any trouble, sugar,” he said. “Promise.”
Going down on me? I’d read enough romance novels in my day to know what that meant, but now I couldn’t decide how to react. Reading about it in a book was one thing; experiencing it in real life was something else entirely.
But then, before I could get embarrassed about the implications, he was kissing me again, and all thought fled straight out of my head. He leaned over me as he pressed me back against the mattress, one of his hands fisting in my hair as he fused his lips to mine.
In no time, I forgot all about my nerves, focusing instead on sensation: the rough texture of his fingers as he gently brushed over the most sensitive bits of my skin; the clean, masculine scent of his body mixed with the ocean air that filtered through the open windows; the gratifying weight of him pressing down on me when he climbed over me; the firm pressure of his hands on my thighs when he settled himself between them.
By the time he’d kissed a path down my chest and stomach and was lowering his head between my thighs, I was so caught up in experiencing all these new sensations that I forgot I was supposed to be nervous. In fact, I forgot about absolutely everything other than feeling and experiencing. His lips pressed against me. Then his tongue darted out and stroked me. With a determined finger, Riley caressed my most private place, and I shivered.
I melted back against the sheets, my muscles giving out entirely and my bones turning to mush. At the same time, a sigh made up of relief and hunger in equal measure fell from my lips: relief because this was so much closer to what happened in the books I’d always read than it was to what I’d feared; hunger because no one had ever created such a sensation within me before.
And now, I was waxing poetic, just like all of those romance novels. I was well and truly a goner.
I pressed my head back against the mattress, fisting my hands in the sheets while I tried to give in to the experience. But I couldn’t get out of my head. No matter how good Riley was making me feel, my brain kept churning, a thousand thoughts racing through my head in every moment.
Was he enjoying this?
He couldn’t be, could he? Surely not.
But the sounds he was making certainly made it seem as if he was having a good time. And he had said it wouldn’t be a problem for him.
But not being a problem wasn’t the same thing as enjoying what he was doing.
And—goodness—maybe I should have taken a shower first.
Out of instinct, I shifted, trying to get myself away from Riley’s attentions. Then I wished I hadn’t, because it seemed really ungrateful of me, and that was the last thing I wanted him to think.
He propped himself up on his elbows and lifted his head, raising a brow. “Not working for you tonight, baby doll?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, once again feeling a surge of tears stinging my eyes and threatening release. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Hey,” he said, sliding up the mattress until he was lounging beside me, propped up on an elbow. With his other hand, he brushed my hair away from my eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing. You’ve been through a lot tonight, that’s all.”
If he really thought that, it served as further proof that he didn’t know me in the slightest. Everything was wrong with me. That was the problem. Always had been. It was why I’d never been able to stay with a foster family for longer than a year, why I’d never held down a job for very long…
How could it be anything but me?
I shrugged, slinking away from his touch.
“Come on, baby doll. Look at me,” Riley said, nudging my chin until I finally gave up the fight and met his eyes. His expression was so dark and serious and filled with concern.
I hated the thought that my failure was the cause of his worry. Riley had more than enough to worry about without adding me to the mix. I never should have agreed to any of this, even if he was trying to be my knight in shining armor.
The truth was, fairy tales were only stories told to children. In the real world, there was no such thing as a knight rushing in to save the day. And maybe romance novels weren’t very realistic, either, come to think of it. After all, my first foray into seeking my happy ever after was more of a nightmare than anything else, so why should I hope for anything better with my second effort? Especially considering the fact that Riley and I didn’t know each other at all.
“I think maybe we’ve made a huge mistake,” I mumbled.
He cocked a grin at me that made my knees weak. Good thing I was lying down.
“Maybe we did,” he said. “It’s too soon to tell for sure, though, isn’t it? And I’ve never been one to give up too early. Dogged determination is kind of my hallmark. That’s how I ended up in the NHL, even when my family did everything they could to hold me back. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t just give up before things get too serious?” Not that I had any idea what I’d do if he realized he’d made the biggest mistake of his life in marrying me. I was still all alone in a foreign country with no way to get home—wherever home might be now.
But Riley leaned over me again and kissed me, fisting his hands in my hair and sliding his tongue between my lips. Now there was a new taste mixed with the tequila, which could only be my own musk. He smiled down at me when he broke away, and a tiny piece of my heart chipped off and melted.
“Too late for that,” he said. “It’s already too serious.”
I feared he might be right about that.
Before I could fall prey to my own worries once again, Riley shifted around on the bed, tugging me up with him and settling me next to his side under the sheet.
“Let’s get some shut-eye,” he said, sounding like he was halfway asleep already. “Tomorrow’s a new day. We can figure it all out then.”
Despite all my reservations, somehow I found myself curling up next to him. He kept one arm around me, holding me close in a way I couldn’t remember ever experiencing with anyone else.
I couldn’t relax, though. I was naked, in bed with a very large, very naked man—one I didn’t really know at all—but he was my husband. I doubted I would ever get to sleep.
Riley shifted us both around a bit until my head rested on his chest, rising and falling with each breath he took. “Relax, baby doll,” he murmured. He kneaded my shoulder with a strong hand. “Get some sleep.”
Relax. Right.
Within a few short minutes, he started to snore ever so lightly.
If only I could shut off my brain. Maybe then I’d be able to fall asleep.
Too bad that wasn’t a skill I’d ever mastered. I was much better at keeping myself awake for hours on end, worrying over every little thing and reliving all the tiny mistakes I’d made in my life while trying to dream up what would have been a better path to take.
But at least one of us could sleep.