CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN IT CAME to sex with Ryder, plenty went right. Not caring if she got the grammar correct, Allie figured it was righter than she could have ever imagined.
Who knew that there’d be that kind of amazing heat between them? She certainly did—now. And it had only gotten better when they’d had a second and third round, in her bed those times.
Even though she’d known Ryder most of her life and had cared deeply about him for a good chunk of that time, Allie had learned a lot about him tonight. Not just sex related, either. She now knew he was a snuggler, a cover hog and that he could fall asleep minutes after an orgasm. He hadn’t overanalyzed things. Hadn’t gotten a panicked “we screwed up” look in his eyes. He had simply snuggled, fallen asleep.
And then stolen the covers.
After she’d pulled and tugged most of the night, she’d finally given up and used Ryder for any body heat she needed. All in all, it was an excellent solution because she was touching enough naked parts of him to make her recall in perfect detail what he could do with that nakedness.
She glanced at the clock on her dresser. Already nine a.m. She rarely slept this late, but then she’d never spent the night with Ryder.
While still nestled in the crook of his arm, she looked up at him and couldn’t help herself. She had to brush a kiss on his chin, and Allie wanted to kick her own butt when he stirred. The feeling didn’t last, though, when he looked down at her and smiled. Just smiled. And she released the breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding because those blue eyes still showed no trace of regret.
With their gazes locked, the smile still on his incredible mouth, she waited for him to say something. She also steeled herself in case the “something” included a long talk about the complications this would cause in their lives.
“I’m starving,” he said. “Let me grab a shower, and then I can whip us up some coffee and breakfast.”
Allie was certain she looked shocked because she was. He kissed her, smiled and got off the bed—giving her yet another full view of his body. She figured those doubts and second thoughts would come to him when he was grabbing that shower, but she was wrong about that, too. After he’d been in the bathroom only a few minutes, he came back out and took her hand, leading her back into the bathroom with him. And then into the shower, where he already had the hot water going.
He chuckled. “You should see your face.”
She hoped he wasn’t talking about smeared makeup or something. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked.
“Nothing’s wrong. You just look as if you’ve never showered with a man before.”
She hadn’t, but she winked. “I’ve never showered with you.”
Allie meant to make that sound flirty, but it came out sounding as if she’d attached herself to him and wouldn’t let go. Of course, maybe she was overreacting and confused that this hadn’t led to the conversation she was certain they would have already had. She might have gone ahead and launched right into the talk, too, but Ryder distracted her with a kiss. Then another. Then another. Until Allie no longer cared if they ever spoke to each other again.
With the water sliding over their bodies, Ryder did some sliding of his own. His mouth still on hers. His hands moving over her. He kept up the touching and kissing. Ryder added some lifting, too. He hooked her legs around him and took her there with her back bracketed against the shower wall.
The climax roared through her, just as the others had, but if she had to rate them, this was the best. Definitely her new preferred way to wake up in the morning.
“You’re better than a triple-espresso-shot latte,” she whispered, causing him to give her a dreamy post-sex smile and a kiss.
Allie would have probably stayed there, with Ryder still inside her, while the kisses continued. Heck, she would have stayed until their skin pruned. But then she heard the doorbell. Not just one ring but a whole bunch in a row.
Ryder set her on her feet and turned off the water just as the ringing turned to heavy knocks. He cursed, got out and handed her a towel. Allie was cursing, too, when she heard the front door open. There were only three other people with keys to her house. Curt, who was in Abilene. Ryder, who was naked next to her.
And Bree.
“Allie?” Bree called out. “Ryder? What the hell happened?”
From the moment Ryder had kissed Allie in the tack room, he’d known that he would have to tell Bree what was going on. He just hadn’t expected the telling to come so soon. This was not the kind of interruption he wanted mere seconds after a very satisfying orgasm.
Allie groaned, huffed and generally looked as if she dreaded this situation as much as he did. Still, she opened the bathroom door a notch.
“I’ll be right there,” she called out to Bree.
She put on a bathrobe that she took from the adjoining dressing room and looked at him. “Your truck is out front so she knows you’re in here. But if you want to keep this just between us, I can tell Bree that you’d had too much to drink and that you caught a ride home.”
Ryder appreciated that she was giving him an out, but in that moment, he realized it wasn’t an out he wanted. Bree needed to learn the truth.
So did Allie.
He was thinking both of them were going to be surprised with what he had to say.
“We’ll talk to Bree together,” he insisted.
She nodded, and when they were dressed, she brushed a kiss on his cheek. She seemed uncertain. He sure as heck hoped that uncertainty didn’t apply to what was about to happen.
Allie and he went out together, into the living room, where Bree was waiting. She didn’t give them the shocked look that Ryder had expected, though. Instead, Bree tipped her head to the two Easy Cheesy cans on the foyer table.
“If you were going to have a pity party, you should have invited me,” Bree said. It wasn’t sarcastic, either. In fact, there was no clue that she’d come to the conclusion that the pity party had actually turned into a sex romp. And more.
Much more.
Bree sighed and made a beeline for the kitchen. “Sheez. No coffee,” she grumbled. “I’ll get some started while I tell you all about my dud of an evening. Just as Roman and I were getting ready to head out, he had a family emergency and had to go home. Something to do with his son, so he lit out of there fast. I ended up heading back to my place to watch a documentary on the mating habits of frogs.”
Maybe it was his and Allie’s silence, but Bree finally seemed to pick up on the clues. Of course, a huge clue was that Ryder had missed a couple of buttons on his shirt, he was only partly zipped and the biggest kicker of all—Allie had a love bite on her neck.
Hell.
He didn’t remember marking her up like that, but then he’d spent a lot of time getting familiar with her neck. Along with the rest of her. It was possible there was a hickey or two around her inner thigh region.
Bree had already grabbed the coffeepot to fill at the sink, but she stopped and eased the pot back onto the counter. Her attention was nailed to them.
“You two had sex,” Bree finally concluded. She repeated it three times, groaned and sank down onto the floor while she pressed her hands to the sides of her head.
“It wasn’t planned,” Allie said. “Okay, that’s a lie. It was. I invited Ryder over, and he came after your failed kidnapping attempt. But I hadn’t planned anything before a week ago.”
Bree volleyed glances between them, maybe hoping this was a prank. Then her shoulders dropped when she likely realized that it wasn’t.
Ryder didn’t say anything, not yet. He just gave Bree some time for things to sink in. It didn’t sink in especially well. His twin got up, went back into the living room for the cheese cans and sprayed some from both into her mouth.
“Start explaining,” Bree snapped. At least that was what Ryder thought she said. It was hard to tell through all the cheese. She swallowed before she continued. “We’re best friends. The Bra Posse. What the hell were you thinking when you climbed into bed with Allie?”
“I was thinking I wanted to have sex with her,” Ryder readily admitted.
Allie made a sound of agreement, causing Bree to take another double squirt of Easy Cheesy. “I’ve wanted Ryder for a long time now,” Allie said. “I’ve had a lot of fantasies about him, and last night a few of those fantasies came true.”
That made him want to smile. He didn’t. Ryder figured a smile of any kind wouldn’t go well with all that cheese Bree was guzzling.
“We’ll still be the Bra Posse,” Allie went on. “Crab Posse,” she amended. “But I want to keep on living out some of those fantasies with Ryder. If that’s what he wants, that is.”
Oh, it was exactly what he wanted, and if they’d been alone, he would have asked for some details about those fantasies. Maybe even some show-and-tell. But first he had to soothe things over with Bree.
“This changes things,” Bree said. “Again.” He thought that was the right interpretation anyway. The words were a little garbled through the cheese hits.
“Yes,” Ryder had to admit. “I hope it does anyway. Let me explain,” he added when Bree went stiff. “I love you. You’re not just my sister, you’re my friend, and even I’m smart enough to realize that’s a good thing.”
Now here was the hard part. Not hard for him but it could come as a big-assed surprise to Bree. Maybe to Allie, too, if she hadn’t figured out how things really were between them.
“My feelings for Allie aren’t all of the friend variety,” he said, “and they run deep.”
He waited for Bree’s reaction. But there wasn’t one. Not a verbal one anyway. Bree headed straight for the front door and stormed out, leaving Allie and him standing there. Ryder started to go after her, but he knew Bree well enough to know this wasn’t a situation where talking things out would help.
Hell.
Allie grumbled something similar and sank down onto the sofa. “I should have handled this better. You know, eased Bree into this.” She looked up at him. “Maybe we should just cool things between us for a while to give her time to adjust.”
Ryder mentally repeated that hell, and he added a lot more profanity to go with it. Twenty-four hours ago, he’d never thought he’d be in this position. After all, he had been trying to keep this attraction at bay. But if he’d actually wanted to do that, he would have never shown up at Allie’s house. He’d known what was going to happen when he’d walked in the door.
“Is that what you want?” he snapped. But he didn’t want her answering that in case she said yes. “Because it’s not what I want.”
She kept staring at him, then gave an uncertain nod. “But Bree... If you lose her friendship, you might lose her as a sister, too.”
Allie was right, and that put a huge knot in his stomach. Still, there was a bigger problem here. “If I quit seeing you, then I’ll resent it. I’m talking big-time resentment. That’s going to play into how I feel about Bree.”
Man, he had the idea of their friendships all going down the drain. They’d all been such a big part of each other’s lives, and now that might be over.
“Just how deep is deep?” Allie asked.
It took him a moment to realize she was responding to the comment he’d made about his feelings for her. “Deep,” he assured her. And to prove it, Ryder pulled her to him and kissed her. It wasn’t one of those scorchers that would lead to sex, but it was plenty hot enough to let her know just what she meant to him. Just in case, though, he spelled it out for her.
“I care for you. A lot. And I’d like for that lot to be a whole lot more.” He frowned a little, wishing he’d practiced that or used a thesaurus for a better variety of words, but she got the point because she gave a little smile and a larger kiss.
Allie’s mouth was still on his when the door flew open. Bree. His sister stood there, bearing some resemblance to a gunslinger in the Old West. Instead of guns, though, she had cans of Easy Cheesy in each hand.
“I keep spares in my car,” Bree mumbled when she followed his gaze to the cans. “You know, just in case of a crisis.”
After the weird kidnapping attempt, Ryder wasn’t sure what Bree intended to do with the cheese, but he considered she might throw them at him. She didn’t. Bree squirted some from the first can into her mouth and then did the same with the second one.
“It’s too early for tequila shots,” she added after she’d swallowed the stuff. “So, this will have to do.”
She came in, still moving a little like a gunslinger, but her appearance was somewhat diminished by the yellow goop on her lips.
“I’m not giving up Ryder,” Allie told her. “My feelings for him run deep.” Allie looked at him. “Sorry, I couldn’t come up with a different description without coffee or a hit of that cheese.”
He shrugged. Deep worked for him just fine because it meant this was just the start. And Ryder couldn’t wait.
“And I suppose you’re not giving up Allie,” Bree said, shifting her attention to Ryder.
“No.” Then he did some more waiting.
Bree had a squirt of cheese first, taking it the way she would a tequila shot. She still had on her tough expression, but it faded by degrees with each volleyed glance they gave her.
“Crap,” Bree finally said. “All right. Go ahead and fall in love. Just remember one very important thing.”
Ryder frowned. “Nothing can go wrong with that?”
Allie frowned, too. “Easy Cheesy cures all?” she tried.
Bree gave them a flat look. “Sheez. No originality from either of you. I was going to say have sex until your legs buckle, and when you come up for air, give me a call so we can get some nachos.”
That knot in Ryder’s stomach loosened a little. “You mean that?”
Bree huffed, and her flat look morphed into a shrug. Then a nod. “Just promise me that the Bra Posse will live on.”
Allie went to her, brushed a kiss on Bree’s cheek. “It will. Friends forever.”
Bree made an exaggerated roll of her eyes, but the smile was genuine. “Forever,” she said softly to Allie, but her gaze wavered a little when she looked at Ryder. “And what about you? Are you in on this friends-forever stuff?”
“Yeah.” When Allie stepped aside, Ryder went to his sister and pulled her into his arms. “I won’t even object to the Bra part of Bra Posse. Not much anyway,” he added in a mumble.
Bree stared at him. “I can’t lose you. Either of you.” Her voice cracked a little, and cursing no one in particular, she slung an arm around Allie, dragging them all into a group hug.
“You won’t lose me,” Allie assured her.
“You won’t lose me,” Ryder echoed. It was the truth, but because Bree was also his sister, he had to add the brotherly jab of “Well, unless you try another half-assed attempt to kidnap me. Or squirt me with those cheese guns.”
Bree was smiling again when she pulled back to face them. “Well, then. The next attempt will just have to be full-assed.” She winked, squirted them both on their mouths with cheese and, laughing, she headed for the door. “Don’t forget the part about calling me after you recover from your leg-buckling sex.”
Ryder slipped his arm around Allie as they watched Bree leave. He felt as if everything had suddenly moved into place. Not the old familiar grooves that’d once made up his life. But new ones—that still involved Allie, Bree, Curt and, yes, even Easy Cheesy. All in all, these new grooves were darn good.
Perfect, in a new “looking forward to this” kind of way.
“Well?” Allie asked, staring up at him.
“Bree had some sage advice.” Ryder smiled. Licked the cheese off her lips, and he kissed her. “Let’s see if I can really make your knees buckle.”
An hour later, Ryder proved that he could do just that.
* * * * *