Nicole

Ryder grabs his hair. He’s so worked up I’m surprised he doesn’t yank it out.

“Are you crazy? That was totally a foul!” he barks into the sea of screaming fans as he reprimands the refs. Along with nearly twenty thousand others doing the same at this preseason game.

Ryder is one of those obsessive sports guys who get riled up, and I can completely relate.

“Are you kidding me?” I shout down to the court. “That was so foul it should be in the garbage.”

He snaps his gaze to me and raises his eyebrows approvingly. “Excellent trash talk. I had no idea you had it in you.”

I suppose that’s the point of dating—to learn these things. Or, in our case, let’s call it practical dating. He parks himself in his seat, and I plop down next to him as the game resumes with an ear-splitting whistle.

“That was highway robbery,” he says over the stomping of feet in the stands as the Knicks run up the court.

“It was a bald-faced crime.”

“Theft, I tell you.” He holds up a hand and we high-five. “By the way, when you said something on my list, I thought you meant the list of dates for the dating guide. But this is way better.”

I point at him. “Your list of ideal dates. The ones you told me about when you asked for mine.”

“And you remembered.”

I’d sensed he’d had a shitty day at work. Even if he doesn’t want to talk about it, I don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know. Our boss is tough as nails, and while I’m Cal’s golden child right now, it’s because of my show’s ratings and the column’s popularity. If Cal’s riding someone hard, it means he needs more from them to please the sponsors. That’s not a fun position to be in, so I called in a favor. Delaney’s boyfriend is a big-deal entertainment lawyer with contacts all over the city, and he snagged last-minute tickets for tonight.

Since Ryder’s whisking me around Manhattan on my most favorite dates, I can try to do the same for him. Now, I’ve a happy man by my side, which is exactly how you want the man tasked with knocking you up to feel.

After the Knicks score again, we stand and cheer. Ryder wraps his arms around me and plants a PDA kiss on my lips. “What if the kiss cam caught us?” he whispers.

“How scandalous,” I joke.

“If the kiss cam was on, I’d give you one of those kisses where I bend you back and you have to rope your arms around me and hold on tight so you don’t fall.”

I lick my lips, inviting him.

His eyebrows rise, and he pretends to talk to himself. “And then I said to myself, why am I not doing that now, anyway?”

He loops a hand around my back, dips me as far as he can without bumping the people next to us, and kisses the hell out of me. We’re in the midst of thousands of raucous fans, and he kisses me like he knows my body. Like he knows how I like it.

Slow and tender at first. A teasing slide of lips—just enough so I can taste his spearmint breath. Once I’m under his kissing spell, he parts my lips, opens my mouth, and tangles his tongue with mine. Softly, I moan into his mouth. A shudder runs through my body, and everything goes hazy. My brain sends the message to swoon, just swoon.

That’s how he kisses me.

But he doesn’t stop there. For the second act, he kisses deeper, harder, with a hint of what he’ll do to me later. A little rough. A little greedy.

All manly.

My knees go weak.

It’s the strangest thing, because I’m in public and the roar of the crowd and the sound of the buzzer should be a turnoff. But he’s such a turn-on that all I want is to grab his hand, tug him out of the stands, and yank him into the bathroom next to the nacho stand.

And, honestly, I think bathroom sex is way overrated.

Sure, sometimes it works out with Os for everyone. But that’s mostly in fiction. In the pages of a book, you never hear about the smells in the restroom. Who wants to screw when it stinks like urine? Not this girl.

That’s why I break the kiss—so I don’t yank him into a public restroom. I breathe out hard, finger the collar of his soft T-shirt, and whisper, “If you kept doing that I was going to tackle you and hump you right here.”

He laughs, the sound mingling with the noise of the crowd, the thump of shoes, the jeers and cheers. As we sit, he says, “I probably wouldn’t object.”

I run my hand up his arm, feeling his bicep. “What the hell do you do to get these guns?”

“Weights.”

“No.” I pretend to be shocked. “Don’t tell me that. You’re naturally perfect. You’re naturally toned.”

“Ha. If only.”

I lift my chin haughtily. “I refuse to believe you’re anything but a perfect specimen of DNA.”

His smile disappears. When it registers what I said, I wince. Have I insulted him by making him think all I want is his perfect DNA?

Well, that kind of is all I want.

Why, then, does it feel as if I’ve said the wrong thing?

The Knicks win, and we cheer outrageously for their victory, but something feels off. I know it’s what I said earlier about his DNA, except the hustle and bustle of Madison Square Garden is not the time or place to make it right. Even though Ryder isn’t a man to hold grudges, I want to clear the air, to let him know I don’t just view him in this one-track way. Even though I suppose it would seem like I do.

We reach his building after a short ride, and we head up the steps to his small one-bedroom. As soon as the door shuts, Romeo leaps up and slathers his master in kisses.

“Hey, boy, were you good while I was gone?” The dog answers with a wag and a long sloppy kiss. The master responds with a chin-scratching. There’s such affection between them, and I wonder if Ryder was always this sweet with his pup, or if he poured more love into the dog after his marriage ended. Do we have a finite amount of love inside us that we allocate to the people and animals we fall madly for? And if someone breaks our heart, can we simply siphon off that love toward another creature? As the dog rubs his white and brown snout against Ryder’s leg, I suspect this creature helped his best friend through heartbreak. I’d like to give the dog a biscuit. I’d like to give him a whole pack as a thank-you.

As Ryder leashes his beast, he looks me up and down, heat in his dark blue eyes. “Do me a favor while I take him around the block.” His voice is rough.

“Sure.”

“Get in my favorite outfit. Wait in my bedroom. I want you naked and ready when I return.”

That sounds damn good to me, too, but even when I strip down to nothing in his bedroom, I can’t shrug off the comment from earlier.

Ten minutes later, the door creaks open. There’s a clank of the metal end of the leash hitting the hook. The dog slurps water loudly in his bowl. Ryder tells him to go to the couch, then praises him.

And I am the naked redhead waiting on his navy-blue bed.

The naked redhead who should be a cat in heat. But I feel too much weirdness to just flip the switch to sex. When Ryder enters the bedroom, he does that sexy thing men do. He raises his arm over his head and reaches behind him, tugging off his black Henley in one quick move.

His gorgeous chest is on display, and my fingers itch to touch it. But my mind is in charge. Or maybe my heart. I sit up, even as he stalks closer, ready to eat me up.

“You’re more than your DNA,” I blurt out, meeting his eyes.

His face is hard to read at first, but then a slow smile spreads. It lights up the room. “Yeah? What am I?”

I crawl to the end of the bed and run my fingers up his chest. “I could rattle off a million traits, but I already told you those when I asked for your help. What I’ll tell you is this—I care deeply for you. And I believe with my whole heart that dates shouldn’t just be about the woman. I could sense you had a crappy day, and I wanted to make you happy again.” I brush my fingertips across his cheek. “That’s why I took you to the game.”

His lips part, and his expression softens further. His lovely blue eyes flash with a vulnerability that is rare for him, but I’ve seen it more and more. “It was one of my ideal dates,” he says as I drop my hand. He catches it, threading his fingers through mine. Sparks fly over my skin. “I love that you remembered.”

“I think when it comes to sex and dating, sometimes society focuses too much on the woman and what the man can do to please her and win her.” I squeeze his fingers, and he squeezes mine back. “But women should also want to do things to make the men they’re with happy. Don’t you think?”

He presses a gentle kiss to my forehead. “I was happy tonight.”

“Are you happy now?”

He nods. “Yes.”

One word. So simple. But it does something to me—his yes ignites tingles all over my flesh. “Good. I like it when you’re happy.”

“I’ll be even happier when I’m buried inside you,” he says, his voice going low and dirty.

I loop my arms around his neck. “I think this is my last chance this month.” That makes me nervous and wildly excited at the same time.

“Then let’s make it count.”

I turn onto my front because that’s the best position, when I’m on my hands and knees, but he grabs my ankle and flips me back over. I arch a brow. He grabs the other ankle, and he tugs my ass to the edge of his bed.

He kneels on the floor and widens my legs.

“Ryder,” I say, my voice feathery. A pulse beats between my legs.

He shakes his head. “No protests.” He dusts a kiss on the inside of my knee, then travels along my thigh with his lips.

“But I can’t get pregnant if you spend all the time going down on me.” My protest is, admittedly, half-hearted. I ache for his mouth, even while I crave the long, hard length of him.

“No, you can’t. But you can get wet. You can get incredibly wet. And then after I make you come on my lips, you’ll be so goddamn ready for me to fuck you. You’ll take me deeper than I’ve been before. And like that, with you so hot and wet, we’ll give you what you want.”

There’s surely no scientific basis for his theory, but I don’t need science right now. I need lust. Want. Carnal desire.

His words are a torch. They send flames all through my body, making me ache even more for him. He rewards my ache with his mouth. He licks me up each thigh, and I moan, and I groan, and I quiver. When he presses his delicious lips to me, I tremble.

“Oh God.” My pitch climbs an octave as he flicks his tongue up and down my wetness.

I will say this about Ryder Lockhart: he has a world-class tongue. He’s a champion with his mouth, and he treats me like dessert. With him, I’m candy, I’m ice cream, I’m all the sugar in the world. His wicked tongue is an instrument of pure, white-hot pleasure.

“You know how I like it, Nicole?”

My cheeks heat as he looks up at me, his lips glistening.

“So hot when you blush,” he says, sliding his finger across my center to keep me on edge. “Now, are you going to do what I like?”

I nibble on the corner of my lower lip and nod.

“Good,” he growls, as he bites the inside of my thigh. “Fuck my face hard. Grab my head and go to town.”

He likes it when he doesn’t just lick me, but when I fuck his face, too. He told me the other night he won’t stand for it if I just lie there. Now that I’ve learned how he likes it, I don’t intend to take it lying down. The man makes oral sex a two-person sport, and in return I get the best Os I’ve ever had.

He reaches for my hands and brings them to his hair. He makes me wrap them around his head. Then his mouth is between my legs again, licking and kissing and sucking.

Oh God. I’m on fire. I’m parked on the edge of the mattress, and truly, I’m fucking his face. It feels filthy and freeing at the same time, with him kneeling between my legs, worshipping me with that incredible mouth as I grab and clutch him closer.

“Oh God, it’s so good,” I cry out.

He murmurs against me, “Want you to come.”

The man is obsessed with my pleasure. It’s his drug, his addiction, and I want to give him his fix.

I want the fix, too.

I yank him harder between my legs. I’m rewarded with a throaty groan as he buries his face between my thighs, devouring me with his mouth, his tongue, his lips, his long, strong fingers.

Those fingers. They reach a spot inside me that turns me into a shaking, trembling, shattering hot mess.

“I’m coming,” I cry out, and then I don’t stop saying it. I can’t stop. Because I can’t stop coming. It hits me in violent waves, a magnificent storm of pleasure that sends me writhing, twisting against his mouth.

Until I’m panting and can’t move anymore.

Maybe I can’t, but seconds later, he rises, grabs my hips, and flips me. My feet are jelly on the floor. But he’s got me, holding me tight. He bends me over the bed, his big hand pressing between my shoulder blades. He flattens my back, turning me into an L. He hikes up my hips, raising me, and he pushes inside.

I don’t know that I will ever get over how good it feels when he first takes me. When he fills me. When he rocks into me. It’s an explosion of pleasure.

My name sounds rough and gritty on his lips as he grunts Nicole. “It’s so fucking good. Fucking you is so fucking good,” he rasps.

I am a rag doll beneath him. My body sizzles. Electric sparks spread over my skin with every thrust, every drive.

“So deep in you,” he rasps. “That’s what you want, baby?”

“Yes. God, yes.” My fingers curl tightly into his sheets, gripping them.

He pulls back then slams into me, and I howl. I’m an animal. I’m wild and hungry. He dips his hand between my legs. His finger slides over my clit, and with one touch I’m about to explode. I’m so damn close to the edge that when he drives into me once more, I shatter.

I break apart into diamonds, into starlight, into the whole damn night sky. I yell his name. God’s name. I shout incoherent words.

And I’m not the only one.

His noises. His sounds. His breath. He’s so close, and the prospect thrills me. He’s groaning and fucking me so hard and so deep that I know, I just know, this has to be it. He shudders, his fingers digging hard into my hips as he comes.

My mind is awash with mad hope. With a crazy faith that his passion tonight did the trick. That he just gave me my heart’s desire.

When he pulls out, he tugs me up on his bed and wraps his arms around me. “I think we did it,” he murmurs in my ear, and my heart beats harder. I love that he believes the same thing about how we just came together.

I grin as I wriggle back against him. “Me, too.” I am a happy, dopey, woozy woman.

“Oh shit,” he says, sitting up straight.

“What’s wrong?”

He grabs a pillow, pats the bed, and instructs me to lift my butt. I raise my rear, and he slides the pillow under me.

It’s the most endearing thing, the way he always remembers. Part of me wants to keep that thought to myself because it feels so couple-y, and I know we shouldn’t even pretend we’re that. But I want him to know how it makes me feel. “Hey, Ryder,” I say, looping a hand in his hair. “You’re really sweet about this whole thing.”

He narrows his eyes and huffs. “I’m not sweet.”

I push his chest. “You’re so sweet, and you don’t even want to admit it.”

“I’m just helpful.”

“Hate to break it to you, but being helpful is sweet.”

He laughs then levels me with an intense stare. “It’s helpful when I put my sperm in you, isn’t it?”

“Helpful and so, so sweet,” I say, playfully.

I sigh as I run my hand over my belly, imagining. It’s an astonishing thought that someday soon I might feel a bump. I want that so badly—to be in my own bed at night, my palm spread over my basketball, feeling the life inside me. I want to know what that’s like. So much hope bubbles inside me I have a surplus. I could bottle this hope, sell it, and still have enough. I turn to look at Ryder. He’s propped on his side, his head in his hand, his fingers tracing my hip. His firm, strong body is naked and sheened with sweat. He’s gorgeous, and I could stare at him all night. “Do you really think it worked?” I ask.

“I do.”

“Did you ever think you’d be doing this with your colleague?”

He cracks up. “Hell, no. I thought I’d be . . .”

“You thought you’d still be with . . .” I let my voice trail off, too. For some reason, it makes me sad that he was so connected to someone else.

“Yeah, but that’s not something I think about anymore.”

“Do you miss her?” I ask, my muscles tightening with the wish for a no.

He shakes his head and drags a hand through his hair. “Nope.”

I relax. “Does she ever try to get in touch with you?”

“She did, but not recently.”

“Are you glad it ended?”

He draws a deep breath. He’s never told me in detail, but I was able to figure out she cheated on him from things he’s said. “I’m glad it ended when it did. Before I was in even deeper. Before we had kids.”

“Did you want them with her?” I ask, once more holding my breath for a no.

“Eventually,” he says, and that’s as close to a no as I can ask for. He draws lazy circles along my thigh. “What about you? Did you ever like anyone enough to want to have kids with him?”

I shake my head a little wistfully. “I think that part of me is broken.”

“What part?” he asks, his brow knitting in curiosity.

I tap my heart. “I’ve never been in love. Sure, I felt puppy love for my high school boyfriend. But as a grown woman? I think I’ve come close, but nothing that feels like mad, passionate love. Unless you count Ruby. I’m definitely in mad love with her. Like you are with Romeo.”

When the dog hears his name, he bounds into the room. He plops his butt down and wags his tail. Ryder pats the bed. The dog jumps up and flops next to his master. Just two naked adults, and one naked dog. “And now there’s three in the bed,” I say with a laugh.

“A ménage à trois,” he jokes, then his voice turns serious again. “You’ve really never been in love?” He sounds flummoxed, like he can’t quite imagine how I’ve gone through life without this.

I run a hand through my tangled hair, smoothing it out. “It sort of felt like it once a few years ago, with someone I was with for several months,” I say with a shrug. “I thought it was. But looking back, I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

I stare at the ceiling. “Why?” I repeat. “I’ve asked myself that question. I liked Greg so much. He was a good guy. But I didn’t feel that zing,” I say, tapping my breastbone. “That magic here. You must have felt that.”

He nods. “Definitely.”

My heart plummets, and I’m ashamed that I’d wanted him to say he never felt the zing with his ex. I shouldn’t be jealous that the man has fallen in love in the past, especially when I’m not interested in love. I focus on Greg instead. “I didn’t feel that zing with my former fiancé, so I called it off.”

“Ouch.”

I crinkle my nose. “I’m mean. A terribly cruel woman.”

He laughs lightly. “No, you’re not. Hell, I’m sure it hurt him. Any man would be devastated to lose you,” he says, and my heart dares to twirl. It’s such a strange little sensation hopping around in my chest. “But better at that time than once you were married.”

“That’s what I figured. Because I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be certain you’re in love. You’re supposed to get that feeling when you know it can’t be anything but love, right?”

His lips curve into a smile. “Yeah,” he says, and his hand slides over my belly, on top of mine. He squeezes my fingers. “The way you’ll feel soon.”

“Yes.” My eyes light up because he gets it. He truly understands me.

“Still,” he says, shaking his head in amusement, “it’s amazing you can talk about love the way you do, and yet you’ve never really felt it. You understand on this deep level, but you’ve never been in love.”

I’m an oddity to him. I’m the clock in the antique shop that doesn’t tell time. “But see, I don’t think romantic love is all that different than the love for your friends, or your family, or a dog. Is it? That kind of love?”

He turns away from me and strokes Romeo’s soft fur. “That kind of love is different, but I try not to think about it.” He stops then exhales heavily. “Or to let myself feel it.”

My chest aches, and sadness tunnels through me. I despise that his ex-wife hurt him so much that he has to turn off his heart. I run my fingers through his hair. He tenses briefly then relaxes. He sighs, and it sounds almost happy, as if he’s truly content in this moment here with me. I know the feeling—it matches my own right now. But whether I’m content, whether I want to throat-punch his ex, or whether my traitorous heart spins when he says sweet things, I’m still a practical woman, and I’m well aware of how absolutely critical our arrangement is.

“It’s a good thing we know the score, right?” I say, keeping it light before it gets heavy.

“Absolutely. And speaking of score, I’m including the Knicks game in the dating guide, especially because you liked pretending to be on the kiss cam so much.”

I smile, remembering how very much I enjoyed his version of the kiss cam. “Loved it. You’ll be doing men all over the city a service if they kiss their woman like you kissed me.”

He runs a finger along my hipbone. “By the way, thanks a lot for planning to be out of town right when you got me all hyped up on regular sex.”

I leave in another day for a trip to California so I can record a few shows with live audiences. Cal likes to do that from time to time when a show is popular, so I’m thrilled to have the chance. “Tell me about it. I’ll have to pack some vibrators.”

He holds up his right palm and stares sadly at it. “This is all I’ve got for the next week.”

I laugh, then it turns into a sigh, and it occurs to me that even though I desperately want our banging to do the trick, I’m going to miss sleeping with him. I’m going to miss seeing him, too.

And since we know the score, I see no reason not to tell him. “Is it weird that I’m kind of bummed about not seeing you while I’m gone?”

“Only if it’s weird that I’m kind of bummed, too,” he says, then he drops a kiss to my forehead. Tingles spread everywhere—all over my body, to the tips of my toes and the ends of my hair.

“Do that again,” I command as the world falls away and all I feel are his lips, his tenderness, and his warmth.

“As you wish.” He kisses me, soft and gentle, as I lie on his bed in Chelsea, praying to the goddesses of fertility that a piece of him is mixing with a part of me tonight to make a whole new person.