Chapter Twenty-Five

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

She was too stunned to say much more, but the softness in his voice, and the vulnerable look in his beautiful, dark blue eyes, settled her nerves.

Ryan turned to Holden standing next to her. “You must be Holden. I’ve heard a lot about you. Pleasure to meet you,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Ryan.”

Holden took it. “Likewise. Nice to meet you, too.”

“Sophie tells me you’re a talented piano player, and that I’ll get to hear you next week at the benefit,” he continued, and Sophie’s jaw nearly crashed to the floor. She’d never expected possessive, jealous, dominant Ryan to talk so easily to her ex. Sexuality aside, most men wouldn’t do so well talking to a prior lover, let alone a woman’s former husband.

“Thank you. I hope you enjoy the Beethoven.”

“I have no doubt I will. That is,” he said, returning his focus to her, “if Sophie will still have me.”

Holden smiled broadly and dropped a quick kiss on her cheek. “I believe that’s my cue to go,” he said, then exited the store, threading through the Saturday afternoon shoppers at the Grand Canal Shops.

She was left in the middle of the Louboutin store with the man she’d kicked out of her house last night. “How did you find me here?”

“Don’t forget, I was Army Intelligence,” he said with a grin.

“And they taught you how to locate women who are shopping?”

He shook his head. “No. But you told me you were going to be here today, and since you’re a classy woman, I picked the classiest shoe store as your possible location. That is, after I tried a few other shops.” She loved that she was the object of his treasure hunt. “So,” he began, rocking lightly back and forth on his feet. “I’m not terribly good at this whole talk-about-feelings-and-stuff thing, as you’ve probably gathered by now. So I’m just going to be blunt and lay it out.”

He took a beat, drawing a breath. Her heart raced as she waited for his next words. “I want to try with you. And I want to take you to the benefit, and introduce you to my brothers and sister, and I’m pretty sure Johnny Cash is eager to meet you.”

Her heart tripped over itself. “I want all that, too.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist, and she melted, just melted from the simple touch. “I need you to know, I was never using you. I won’t lie and tell you it didn’t cross my mind that you were the detective’s sister, and I won’t insult your intelligence by saying I didn’t wonder if you knew anything about the case. I did wonder,” he said, and she nodded, listening intently to his serious tone. “But that literally lasted for a minute, maybe two. And it ended as soon as I set eyes on you at Aria. Because once I saw you again, none of the other things mattered. I wanted you with an intensity I haven’t felt before. And the more time I spent with you, the greater that desire became.” His fingertips traced soft lines on her waist. “I know we haven’t even seen each other that much in the grand scheme of things, but I already feel something for you, Sophie. Something deep and powerful,” he said, and those words weaved through her, humming in her body, buoying her heart and her spirit.

“I feel the same,” she whispered. “I barely understand how it’s possible that I met you a little over a week ago.”

“I know.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “It makes no sense to me, either. It was pure, one hundred percent lust at first sight, and then it somehow became more. I can’t risk losing you by being so damn stubborn.” He pulled back to look her in the eyes again. His dark blue gaze made her stomach pirouette, and the way he brushed his fingertips along her arm had her skin sizzling. Chemistry—they had a surplus of it, so much they could sell it on street corners, or bottle it and make a mint. Only, she didn’t want to sell it. She wanted to hoard it, because this kind of reaction—like and lust, passion and possibility—didn’t come around often. She needed to grab it, explore it, and see where its magic took them.

“You didn’t lose me. I promise.”

“I know I messed up by not telling you more about my family, and I can’t promise I won’t mess up again. And I don’t really know that I’m able or ready to just sit down and tell you every single sordid detail of my life—”

She pressed her hand to his chest, thrilling at the feel of his firm body beneath the light cotton of the T-shirt. “You don’t need to tell me everything. You don’t have to deliver your biography on a silver platter, Ryan. I already want to see you more. I just want to know more about you. Bit by bit, day by day, as you’re ready to share.”

He nodded and clasped his hand over hers. “I meant what I said at the diner. I don’t ever get beyond three dates because I don’t like to share. So you need to know you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to get closer to. You do something to me that drives me wild and makes it impossible for me to think about anything but you.”

She couldn’t contain her grin if she tried. “You’re pretty much ever-present in my mind, too.”

“Now listen, I’d really like to get you naked, but I also want to get to know you. So what would you say if we did something totally Vegas and took a gondola ride and talked?”

“I would love to get to know you better, Ryan Sloan,” she said. He held out his elbow, and she hooked hers through it, walking with him to the gondolier, excitement ping-ponging through her because they were starting something.

Starting over, and starting anew, and starting fresh.

They were going to make a go of this for real, stripped down and bare, hearts and minds.

And—probably pretty damn soon—bodies, too.

But for now, there was a boat, and there was water, and there was a fake skyline that looked like a bright blue summer day, so she settled into his arms and bobbed along the canals inside The Venetian.

“Why don’t you tell me more about hockey?” she asked.

* * *

Whew.

That was not easy.

That was like…scaling a mountain.

Lifting a car.

Leaping over a tall building.

But to have Sophie in his arms again, her lush, ripe body snuggled next to him as they floated down the manmade canal? Yeah. Worth it.

Giving voice to emotional truths was exhausting. But she was happy, so damn happy, to listen to him talk about hockey. And he was relieved, so damn relieved, not to have to dig any deeper right now. Fine, he’d probably have to later. But for the moment he explained the basics of a line change, the different penalties, and the puck-before-skates rule.

“So the puck has to cross the blue line before the skates when you move to the opposing team’s zone?” she asked.

“Exactly.”

“And if the attacker has both his skates across the line before that happens, it’s an offside and there’s a face-off,” she said, as she processed the rules he’d explained while the gondolier crooned a love song in Italian.

“You could be a ref now,” he said, clasping his hand more firmly around her shoulder. She wriggled closer, and the boat passed under a brick bridge.

“That’s my next calling, I’m sure,” she said resting her head against him. He stroked her hair, and this moment was one of the most surreal of all—living in the present on its own terms. “And why do you like hockey?”

He shrugged and smiled. “It’s just fun.”

“Fun is good.”

“Were you looking for some deeper reason? Like it was my dad’s sport?”

“No. But was it?”

“Nah. He wasn’t a sporty guy. He was all about cards, and cars, and poker, and pool. He loved this town because he loved the little bets. He had a regular card game going with his buddy Sanders and his other friend Donald. They played poker every third Thursday of the month. Never more than fifty bucks,” he said. He was tempted to add that his mom used to give his dad a hard time about playing, saying they didn’t have the money to spare. He’d respond by telling her that fifty dollars wasn’t going to make or break their month. He was probably right on that count. Besides, he was good at cards, and used some of his winnings over the years to pay for night school classes the last year of his life. But while Ryan might be able to share little details of his dad with Sophie, he wasn’t ready to delve into the fights his mom and dad had. Letting Sophie into his life didn’t mean baring every single tiny detail. It meant not hiding the things that mattered. Like his memories of his father. “He was a good guy. A good man. He wasn’t perfect, but he took care of us, and he taught us manners and respect, and he never missed a chance to go to the park.”

She slinked out from his hold and turned to face him. “He sounds like a great guy. I’m sure you miss him.”

“I do,” he said with a nod. “I really do.”

He sighed heavily, and Sophie must have decided hockey and this admission were enough for now, because she cupped his cheeks and brushed her lips to his. It was a soft kiss at first, and she explored his lips as if she were kissing him for the first time. Soon enough she pressed harder, nipping with her teeth, nibbling and sucking, and making him groan in the middle of the canal, with the stripe-shirted gondolier mere feet from them.

The kiss was a new beginning. A promise of more to share. A hint of what they might become.

And it blurred the rest of the world. Because all he knew, felt, and wanted had been reduced to the soft and sweet feel of her lips, the smell of her skin, and the scent of her hair.

Then she picked up speed, veering out of poetic and into ravaging. He’d never let her lead in a kiss before, but he did now, and she sure knew what to do to him. She knew how to play rough, how to kiss like a tiger, hard and hungry. She’d turned him on well past the point of propriety in a gondola.

He broke the kiss, clasped his hands on her shoulders, and looked her in the eyes. “Spend the rest of the weekend with me. Come to my house. Swim with me. Meet my dog. Play a round of pool. Besides, I have a change of clothes for you if you need one,” he said, holding up the bag with the peach dress in it.

She made grabby hands, and he yanked back the bag. “You can have it if you say yes.”

Her eyes lit up. She tapped her chin, pretending to think about it. “I feel like you left one very important thing off the to-do list.”

He lowered his hand to her ass and squeezed hard. “No, beautiful. That’s a given. Fucking you will be the main agenda item.”