Chapter Fifteen

Megan

 

 

 

 

“Oh my God.” My hand covers my mouth. I feel sick.

How could she . . .

How . . .

“How could they do that to me?”

Ryder moves close to me but I can’t even look at him.

“They watched me grieve for months and didn’t say a word.” Tears stream fast down my face and I let them. My hands are too heavy to lift them to wipe my cheeks dry.

“Hey.” Ryder lifts me onto his lap and cups my face. “What’s going on?”

“I was grounded the entire week before I graduated—before you were supposed to come get me. They confiscated my phone.” I look at him as what I'm saying sets in. “I didn't text you. I sat on my porch waiting for you for eight hours. My parents watched me cry myself to sleep for months. They never said a word.”

Ryder pulls me against his chest, tucking my head under his chin, his arms coming around me, protecting me, comforting me. “Shit, I should have come anyway. I wanted to. What the messages said . . . they were the things I always feared. It was easy to believe them.”

We sit for the longest time. I listen to the beating of his heart, breathing in time with it, syncing us. Every time I try to speak, a new wave hits me and he holds me tighter, whispering in my ear, telling me he’s here.

He’s here.

But seven years later.

How could they?

When I pull away and meet his eyes, Ryder is a completely different person to the one I’ve spent the last few years hating. All the resentment, the hurt I felt toward him has dissipated.

Vanished.

Gone.

He did love me back then. And the way he’s looking at me now, it makes me think he may love me still.

“All these years.” My forehead rests on his.

“You still in touch with them?” His voice is hard and I know it’s taking a lot for him to hold everything he’s feeling in. After all, they didn’t just steal this time from me.

They stole it from us.

I shook my head. “I guess they expected I would give up on all my plans and stay home. When I left for school in September, they told me I was no longer welcome in their home. They cut me off. I haven’t spoken to them since.”

He kisses me and I lean against him. “You’re better off without them.”

“I still can’t believe all of this.”

After a minute, he sighs. “All we can do now is move past it. We can finally be together and drop all the shit that we thought we knew. I want you, and no matter what I thought you did, I’ve never stopped loving you.”

Hearing him say those words throws me over the edge. I crash my lips to his. I need him now, and for the first time since he showed up, I'm not scared of what might happen.

His hands grip the bottom of my shirt as he rips it over my head. I do the same to him, taking a minute to appreciate the man in front of me. His sculpted chest is covered in different tattoos, the ink following each ridge and plane of his skin. Where once he was lithe and toned, he is now muscular and broad.

The boy I once knew has grown up.

He unclasps my bra, letting it fall to the floor. With our mouths latched together, our tongues entangled as if we need each other to breathe, he stands up, his fingers gripping my ass, holding me tightly against his body.

“Bedroom,” I moan. “Second door.” He walks down the hall. With a low growl he continues his path, his head dipping, his tongue trailing down my neck and landing on my chest. I throw my head back as his mouth envelops my nipple. I hear my door slam shut and then he drops me, my back hitting the soft bed.

Ryder yanks my pants down my legs, taking my underwear with them. For a minute he looks down at my body, his eyes taking me in, a fire igniting in them as he keeps his gaze on me but lowers his hands to pop the button on his jeans, pushing them down off his hips.

My eyes widen as I take in all of him. “You like what you see?” He climbs onto the bed, the mattress dipping, and he moves up to hover over me.

“Very much.”

His hand trails up my body, leaving goose bumps in its wake. “I’ve dreamt about this, having you underneath me again, for seven years. Every night I went to sleep, I reached out for you. I hope you didn't have any plans tonight because, now that I have you, we aren’t leaving this bed for a long fucking while.”

I laugh as he kisses the skin between my breasts. Each time he lifts his head his kiss moves lower and lower, my eyes tracking his, feeling his strong hands splay over my hip bones, a huge smile on his face. My body tenses as I ready myself for what he’s about to do. He finally lowers his mouth, his tongue tracing a line up me, stopping at my clit. I grip the sheets, the material bunched in my tensed hands. A moan escapes me as his tongue enters me and his thumb glides down, circling my clit. I start to buck, unable to stay still with the pleasure crackling through me.

He nips at my skin and I groan. “Don’t hold back. I want to hear you. I want to know how good I’m making you feel.”

I can feel my body building. “Ryder!” My body explodes into a million pieces.

Ryder crawls closer to my face. “Hearing you scream my name while my tongue was inside of you was the sexiest thing I’ve ever fucking heard. Only thing better would be hearing you scream while my dick is inside you.”

My hands trail up his arms and play with the hair at the back of his neck. “You keep talking like that, you won’t even need to touch me for me to go over the edge again.”

“Maybe we'll have to try that someday. For now, I need you.” His hand grips my ass and pulls me closer to him. “You on the pill? I want to be inside you and feel every inch, nothing between us.”

The way he asks shocks me. “I am.”

His tongue peeks out, wetting the crease of his lips. He leans down, kissing my neck, inching closer to my entrance. I arch my back, begging him to take me because more than anything I want to feel him inside me, to be close with him again.

When he slides in I gasp, giving myself a moment to adjust to his size. Once he starts to move, a moan falls out of my lips and I almost don’t even recognize my own voice.

“Let me hear you, babe,” Ryder’s rough voice growls out.

He starts to move faster and I dig my nails into the skin on his back.

Everything inside of me tightens.

His arms tense as he moves. “Fuck, you are so goddamn tight. I can't last much longer.”

“I’m close.” My voice is breathy. I can’t think straight.

When his head dips and he nips at my neck, I fall off the cliff, arching into him as he stills and a loud growl reverberates through his chest.

Ryder collapses on the bed next to me. “Jesus Christ, I missed you.”

I missed him, too.

More than I’m willing to admit.