Chapter Fifteen
Claire’s head was spinning, her heart was pounding, but all she could do was open herself to his kiss. She closed her eyes, ignited by his touch and the heat of the sun, and let herself be taken.
If Ryan had brought her here to show her another side of himself, it was working. It wasn’t just everything he’d confessed. She could see for herself the changes he’d made in his life, so that it was suddenly hard to remember that the man she was kissing was the same one who’d broken her heart all those years ago.
“You’re different,” she murmured as she tasted him. “You’re more like you used to be, but it’s not just that. There’s something else, too.”
“I’m not the only one who’s grown.”
She pulled away a little to look at him, not sure what he meant.
“Don’t you think you’ve changed, Claire Collins?” he said, his voice a whisper brushing against her ears like the wind, pushing her hair back, letting the breeze—or maybe that was his lips—raise cool goose bumps on the tender flesh of her neck.
Touch me, she willed him. Stop fucking teasing me and touch me.
If she was looking for proof that he was right, that was it: the demanding voice in her head, the one that begged and cursed and pleaded. The part of her that wanted.
And it wasn’t just a voice. It wasn’t a secret inside her head.
She hooked her finger in the waistband of his shorts. She could see the outline of his thigh muscles, hard and strong as they disappeared up the fabric. And the outline of something else, clear and prominent, its own rock-hard protrusion.
“Maybe I have,” she whispered in his ear and yanked him closer.
She drew her hand down between them. It was the same thing she’d done to him at the base of the cliff. Only this time, she pressed all the way against him, and she wasn’t just grazing his cock.
There, in that movement, was everything she needed him to know. She wasn’t on the sidelines anymore. She wasn’t letting him make all the decisions.
She knew what she wanted. And she’d developed a tendency to get what she set her sights on—if she worked for it hard enough.
She was willing to work for this, sliding her palm over the front of his shorts, stroking his erection through the fabric. She heard his moan in her ear, felt the buck of his hips pressing into her, looking for leverage, demanding to push, to thrust, to be inside her already.
“You dirty tease,” he said as she grazed her thumb across the tip of his cock and then slid down again, still not giving him satisfaction—not through his shorts and with all their clothes still on.
“I’m not teasing,” she said, letting her fingers stroke and pull back, touch him and then release. “I mean everything I’m doing to you.”
His groan was low. Masculine. This was the same man who looked at the route up the rock with such intensity it was as though he was boring through stone. He was the same man who stood on stage, the darkness all around him, a bright light focused on his face as he commanded the crowd.
His teeth went to the side of her neck, a hard bite that made her knees threaten to give out. She threw her head back, let him kiss her salty bare skin, devouring her, one hand in her hair, the other palming her ass, pulling her tight to him so it wasn’t just her hand that was stroking his cock but her whole body, her stomach, the top of her thigh pressing against him.
“Fuck,” he groaned as she moved her hips.
“Too much?” she asked, and the sound he made may have started out as a laugh, but it ended as a growl, low and throaty in her ear. A dangerous, animalistic sound. A sound that said if she followed him this far, there’d be no turning back.
But she couldn’t think about it, couldn’t parse through the “what now’s” and all the reasons they should stop. It was the same way she’d felt when she first met him at the bar, heard him sing, felt his eyes on her. Everything else receded until it was just the two of them, together. Just him and the mountains all around them and the steep edge of the precipice they’d somehow made it up.
He spun her so her back was pressed to his torso, his arms tight around her.
“Like this?” he asked as he reached around and cupped her through her leggings.
“Yes,” she whispered, grinding back against him.
His hand moved under her clothes, pushing aside her underwear, and stroked softly. “Or like this?”
“More,” she panted.
He slid a finger inside. She widened her legs to draw him deeper.
“That’s it,” he urged her as she took him in, his finger stretching her, making her squirm and whimper for more.
“You want this?” he asked.
“Please.”
“Say it,” he demanded, driving inside her, his finger pressed right where she needed it and his other arm wrapped around her, holding her so there was nowhere to go but back against him.
“I want you,” she panted, before realizing that sure as hell wasn’t what he’d asked. He’d meant this, his finger inside her, soon to be his cock. Fucking her, taking her, another round of nothing but sex, just a little morning gratification for both of them.
But she’d said she wanted him. Not just anyone, not just anything. His fingers, his cock. His breath in his ear, his body against her. His orgasm, his loss of control. Everything about him making her fall apart.
She wondered if he’d register the shift. She felt like she should resist, pull back, keep this from going too far.
But it was too late. For both of them.
Because he didn’t pull away.
“I’m always going to give you what you want,” he said, and she felt the pressure, the sweet, aching stretch as another finger entered her, and she had to have it, had to have more.
She reached behind her, pulling his hips closer. She fumbled to pull down his shorts and felt the length of him spring free. She stroked him as he worked his fingers inside her, pressing the heel of his palm to her clit.
“This is all yours,” he said as sensation coursed through her, rising like a wave that, when it broke, was going to break hard. “Anything you want,” he panted, his voice urging her on, his fingers making it hard to think of anything else.
“Take what you want,” he said again. “You’re not allowed to hold back with me anymore.”
“No?” she asked, the one word all she could manage.
“No,” he said, his hand moving faster, harder. “You’re going to come.”
“Because you told me to?”
“Because you want it. And you’re not going to deny what you want.”
It wasn’t just that he drove a tempting bargain. Everything he was doing to her made it impossible for her to disagree. How could he touch her like this? How could he know her body so well?
She wanted to say it was just sex. Rub the right place and what did she expect would happen?
But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t feel it, the pleasure building deep inside her. He didn’t just go through the right motions but stroked and pressed and circled and teased, made the pleasure build at just the right pace, drawing her back when she got too close, making it last until she couldn’t anymore, she couldn’t, she couldn’t—
She came with a cry, collapsing against the slab of his chest. But he was supporting her, keeping her grounded, drawing out the waves as he held her shuddering body against his.
“That’s it, baby,” he murmured in her ear. How could his hands be that strong and his mouth that soft, his body so forceful and his kisses so light they somehow made her heart beat even faster than if he’d just pressed her up against a rock or a tree or whatever and taken her?
She leaned her body back against him, her head on his shoulder, the sun warming her face, her bare arms, her thighs still sweetly trembling.
He took his hand out of her leggings and stroked softly up her belly, trailing her wetness over her skin, as if she could have forgotten what he did to her, the way her body responded to his every touch.
He brought his fingers to his mouth. Licked. Traced the first two fingers across her lips so she could taste herself and him at the same time. The wetness of both of them, mingled.
Then his fingers in her mouth. Her, sucking. Twirling her tongue. That tongue that was going to do such things to him.
So much for recovery time. She didn’t want to recover. She didn’t want to be done with him, be over this, have everything go back to normal—whatever that was.
Back to work and stress and fretting and always being the responsible one, the one at home, the one who lived in these gorgeous mountains but was so busy with the routine of her life that she hardly ever stepped outside to see it.
Back to telling herself she had everything she needed so she never had to acknowledge that small part of her that felt sorrow and longing, that missed what she’d once had—someone’s arms around her, loving her.
And not just someone.
Him.
She turned and dropped to her knees.
He was rock hard. The idea that touching her had turned him on that much made heat pulse between her legs all over again.
His cock was perfect. Not a battering ram, but just enough to feel a sweet stretch, a sense of fullness as she took him into her mouth, in and out. He had a view of the whole valley and the cliffs to draw his eyes, but he wasn’t looking at any of that.
He was looking at her and his cock disappearing between her lips. At her messy ponytail, her flushed cheeks, the sweaty T-shirt hanging off her shoulder…
He was taking all of that in, and the look on his face said he had no complaints about a single inch. He threaded his fingers through her hair, gasping when she pressed him deep to her throat and swirled her tongue around the tip, making sure every thick, hard inch of him was enveloped in her warmth.
“You’d better stop,” he gasped.
He had to be joking. As if even an earthquake could make her pull away.
A few more deep thrusts and he was coming into her mouth, hot and sweet and salty and so much of it—the first taste of it a surprise, and then, oh God, filling her so she was swallowing fast as he groaned, emptying himself into her until he was spent.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted it so badly, his pleasure and hers. She stood, and he took her in his arms, holding her close until they sat again, looking out at the view.
There was a wide space on top of the cliff for them to perch, but they stayed side by side, legs touching, hands brushing as they reached for the rest of the snacks Ryan had packed.
He passed her the water bottle and then put his lips right where hers had just been, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
She felt relaxed. Happy. Like some small part of her life was just…easy.
And then Ryan said, not even looking at her but out at the blaze of trees and the snowy peaks in the distance behind them, “I want to meet Maya.”
“What?” Claire said, nearly choking on a pretzel.
“I’ve been here for days, Claire. I have meetings in Chicago about what comes after this tour, and I can’t put my manager off forever. I want to meet her.”
Claire wanted to ask if this was how he usually swept women off their feet—telling them he could put his career on hold for a whole forty-eight or seventy-two hours or however much longer he thought he was staying, like she was supposed to fawn all over him for that teensy tiny sacrifice.
But she knew that when it came to Ryan, music was his life. More than family, more than her. Certainly more than being a father.
And yet he was asking for this, the one thing he cared about more than getting back to Chicago right away.
She could have said no. But her legs felt like jelly, and her heart was too splattered from the adrenaline of her very first climb and what they’d just done to make its usual protest. And her brain… Well, wasn’t he the one who said she should trust the evidence before her, not all her preconceived ideas?
Her evidence right now was the heat of his body; the firm, hard press of his thigh; the weight of his arm now snaking around her shoulder and drawing her to him so that all she could do was rest her cheek against his shoulder as he popped an M&M into her mouth.
“Okay,” she finally said, hoping she wasn’t about to make the biggest mistake of her life. Or the second biggest, since nothing would ever beat running away with him in the first place.
He shifted, and she raised her head off his shoulder so they were looking at each other. “Really?”
“But on one condition.”
“What?”
She took a breath and said it. “I’m not going to tell her you’re her dad.”
She couldn’t read the flicker that crossed Ryan’s face. Was he upset? Relieved? Or was it just a stray cloud passing over the blue, and it didn’t mean a thing?
“We both know you’re going back to Chicago.” She said the words the same way he had. Facts were still facts, even if the heart could be tricked for a while. Gravity still existed, even if for a few moments it felt like Ryan had been holding her up in midair.
He was entitled to lay eyes on his daughter. But not to throw her world upside-down.
She waited for him to disagree, to tell her he wasn’t leaving or this wasn’t what she thought. But after a pause, he said, “I know I’m not father material. You don’t have to say it; I’ve looked in the mirror before. Hell, my dad—” He let out a laugh, but it wasn’t the kind that said anything was funny. It was the kind of forced sound that made Claire’s heart ache.
She remembered the stories Ryan used to tell about his childhood. How it was always a toss-up whether things were worse when his father was around and lashing out at Ryan and his mother and siblings, or when he disappeared for weeks, even months at a time, leaving no clue as to where he’d gone or when he was going to turn up again. If he turned up at all.
“I don’t want that for Maya,” he said. “I’m not going to be in and out of her life. I just want to see her, once, before I go home.”
And there it was. The reminder that no matter what they’d just done in the mountains, their real lives continued all the same.
She counted her heartbeats, wishing they could tell her what to do. “Saturday afternoon,” she said, making a split-second decision. “If the weather’s nice, we’ll go to the playground.”
Maybe it was cruel of her to pick something so completely kid focused. But in the end, she thought it was a small mercy. He’d think Maya was cute for two seconds. Then he’d get bored, then annoyed, and he’d be glad when he got on that plane that his life was in Chicago with rock stars and all his freedom, where the only people who screamed were his fans.
If she’d thought there was anything else going on here—that maybe he didn’t have to leave so soon, or maybe he actually wanted to stick around…
The way he talked about Chicago made it clear that wasn’t an option. Saturday was one small favor she owed him. And then they really would be done.