Chapter Nineteen

Sophia

Ryan pulls me into him to brace me against the cold. Spring isn’t quite here just yet and although the days have been warming up, the nights are still cold enough to make our teeth chatter. We’re heading in the direction of the subway, but there is an urgency about what I want right now that is going to require a much faster form of transport. As soon as I see a cab go past, my hand goes up in the air to hail it. We sit in the back, hands linked across the spare seat between us, mostly silent for the short journey back to the apartment.

We turn the climb up to the top floor spontaneously into a race, jumping steps two at a time to be the first one there, perhaps fearful that if we leave it too long, one of us might change our minds.

I’m out of breath, struggling to find the key in my bag, while Ryan leans casually against the wall, his chest rising and falling, his cheeks slightly red from the effort.

“Are you okay?” I ask him, not for what he’s just done but for what I hope we are about to. The look in Ryan’s eyes tells me he knows exactly what I’m referring to.

“I’ve never been better”, he says.

I let us in and shut the door on the world behind us, the silence of the apartment a welcome indication that Alice isn’t home.

“Do you want?—” I’m half way through saying while Ryan responds by lifting me up into the air and hugging me into him.

“I want you”, he says, the words wrapped around urgent kisses, as he maneuvers me towards our bedroom.

This had the potential to be awkward. Our first night together sharing a bed for real, the night before our wedding day. If Ryan and I hadn’t jumped the gun and done what we couldn’t resist doing on the sofa in the dressing room the sexual tension in here could have been so unbearable I might have exploded. As it is, we’re doing exactly what I had secretly hoped we might.

Ryan carries me to the bedroom and then drops me on the bed like a trophy. I take a moment to observe him and giggle slightly at how quickly things can change between two people. One moment we’re little other than colleagues at work about to enter into a business style arrangement with each other, and right now we are nothing short of lovers, about to tear each other’s clothes off.

“You look gorgeous”, Ryan says, as he pulls off his T-shirt and advances towards me. I put my feet up against his chest not because I want to stop him, but so I can appreciate him just that little bit longer before we begin.

“What?” Ryan asks, his hands smoothing the skin of my lower leg.

I shake my head slightly. “Nothing”, I say. “I just can’t believe this is happening for real.”

Ryan moves his hand higher up my leg, his fingers following the curve of the muscle up towards my inner thigh.

“I should have said something sooner”, he says, “I wanted to. I just didn’t know how.”

Those fingers edge my panties and curve away, riding top side of my upper leg and smoothing the peak of my hip bone. It makes me moan and I do nothing to hide it.

“Me too”, I say, the words sticking on my lips. “I didn’t think—.” I cut my sentence short because Ryan is looking at me in the way that makes me realize that whatever I felt in the past has absolutely no relevance to what we’re doing now, or what we’re going to do together in the future.

“I’m so glad we did what we did at the theatre”, Ryan says, closing the distance between our bodies. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a really long time.”

I let my legs slide either side of his torso, so Ryan can fold himself against me and press me into the bed.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested in me”, I confess, “not like that.”

I can feel the heat coming off his skin like fire burning just below the surface, and it makes me eager to undress too, so I can press my nakedness against his, and feel that warmth radiate through my body.

“Are you kidding?” Ryan says. “I was spellbound by you.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. Off stage, when we were together, all of that was acting. If I’d shown you the real me, you’d have found me out in a second. I was terrified you’d see through it and find out how I really felt about you.”

Ryan leans in to kiss along my neck towards the sensitivity of my collar bone. I let him unbutton my top to feed kisses along the upper part of my chest, while I run my fingers through his hair and try not to lose myself all at once in his perfection.

“Why?” I moan into his ear, chasing the words with hot kisses.

“Why?” Ryan repeats.

I nod, a little too turned on to be able to find the word again.

“Because that way, I couldn’t ever lose you”, he says, pausing a while to take me in. I see the truth hang there in his turquoise eyes like a childhood fear before a smile wraps his lips into a protective curve and it’s gone again.

“That’s dumb”, I say. “And very cute.”

“So, what’s your excuse?” Ryan says, unbuttoning my top even further.

I sit up for a moment so he can pull it over my head. “I’m very demanding”, I say. “I need a lot of attention.”

“I can see that”, Ryan says, his fingers dancing along the edge of my bra.

“And long distance relationships don’t work”, I say.

Ryan teases his fingers inside my bra, searching for my nipple. When he finds it, it springs erect almost instantly and I feel a shudder of pleasure rush down my spine that lifts me momentarily off the bed.

“You like that?” Ryan asks, popping the clasp at the front of my bra to fully expose me.

I nod. “I’m so sensitive right now”, I confess.

Ryan takes his time with me, clearly keen not to rush. I sink back into the bed as he dances the tips of his fingers gracefully around my areola, before leaning in to tease my swollen sensitivity with his tongue. He entertains himself like that for a while, moving from one nipple to the other, exciting them both with gently flicks, tantalising bites and stomach tightening sucks that leave me unable to do anything else but breath heavily and moan his name.

When he feels like he’s indulged himself enough, he gradually moves away from my breasts and begins to kiss down towards my belly. My hands go there quickly, my skin fizzing, tickled by the movement of his lips.

“Do you think I’m fat?” I ask him, suddenly concerned.

Ryan lifts his tongue away from my belly button. “Are you kidding me? You are absolutely gorgeous.”

He briefly smooths the swollen skin between my belly button and the waistband of my skirt, as though demonstrating to me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way I look, before turning his attention to the removal of the rest of my clothes.

His hand is under my skirt, and his fingers are all but wrapped around the fabric of my panties and ready to slide them down before I stop him.

“You first”, I demand, my hand pressed against the flatness of his abdomen. “You tease me every day at the theatre with that incredible bulge and I might have felt it inside me earlier tonight, but I think it’s fair that before we get married I know exactly what I’m working with. You can do anything you like to me afterward, and I’m likely to demand that you do, but right now, I have a request of my own.”

Ryan reluctantly removes his hands from my panties and straightens up. “Go on”, he says.

“Strip”, I say suggestively, my foot outstretched and rubbing his bulge. “I want to see it.”

“Okay”, Ryan says, just as keen to perform as he is to pleasure me. “I can do that.”

He steps off the bed to give himself some space, while I prop myself up on my pillows, let my skirt ruck up just enough to give him a taste of what’s to come and settle in for the show.

Ryan pops the buttons on his jeans dramatically, while his cock seems to grow even bigger as he goes. With his fly completely open, his thickness presses against the whiteness of his boxershorts and makes me shudder in excitement. He seems even bigger now than he did before, perhaps because of the effect seeing him trapped behind fabric gives me. I watch with eyes as big as dinner plates as he expertly removes his jeans and then stands there like a carved statue of a Roman god, his absolute perfection unable to deny. He is gorgeous beyond question, with eyes that are so alive and emotive they look like universes in constant flux. His chest, torso and legs could all belong to an elite athlete, while his cock stands so proudly against the boxershorts imprisoning it, that he could model underwear for the adult industry. With his clothes on, Ryan is every girl’s dream, with them off he’s their forbidden fantasy.

I am wet just looking at him, and right now it’s impossible to hide just how turned on I am.

“You want me to stop?” Ryan asks, perhaps because he can see I’m practically crippled by his beauty.

“No fucking way”, I say, maybe a little more strongly than I expect.

“Okay”, Ryan says, shrugging, his fingers already teasing the waistband of his boxershorts, aware of exactly what he’s doing to me. “You know we’ve got all the time in the world now to enjoy this? Maybe we want to be careful not to rush things.”

I hitch my skirt a little higher so he can see the outline of my pussy and just how wet he’s making my panties.

“I guess that’s a good point”, Ryan says in response. “But if I take these off—.”

“Off”, I cut in, my patience running thin.

Ryan smiles. I know he loves doing this to me, and even though it might seem like I’m in control, Ryan’s the one holding the cards right now.

He begins slowly, teasing the fabric down and revealing his pubic hair, the base of his huge cock, and a suggestion of the thickness of his shaft, before he pauses, takes a long look at me looking at him while I’m practically licking my lips in anticipation, and decides to cut to the chase.

I giggle with excitement as he stands there completely naked, my future husband at the foot of what must now be referred to as our bed, his huge dick pointing somewhere between me and the ceiling, practically begging out loud to be sucked.

Ryan smiles proudly, adopts a couple of poses while his dick throbs like a warning alarm, and then slowly begins to approach the bed, a hunger in his eyes I’m not even sure I’ll be able to satiate.

“Better?” he asks as he kneels alongside me.

“Better”, I say, my cheeks about as red as beetroots.

“Now it’s your turn.”

His hands are back at my skirt again, before I squirm away from him. “Not until I taste you”, I say.

“Oh, that’s important, is it?” he asks.

I nod. “Very important.”

“Well okay”, Ryan says, easing into the position I’ve just vacated, “if you put it like that.”

“Just a little taste”, I say, moving towards him. “After that, you can do what you want.”

Ryan puts his hands up behind his head. “Are you always this demanding?” he asks, while I smooth my hands down his belly, keen to resist touching him for as long as I can.

“Not always”, I say, my fingers dancing along the curve of muscle that runs like a path towards the edge of his penis. “Only when it’s necessary.”

I tease my finger along Ryan’s shaft, and just before I reach his swollen crown, his dick spasms. “You turn me on”, Ryan says when my eyes go to his. “I can’t help it.”

“Me too”, I say, while I wrap my fingers around his dick and squeeze, just to test his strength.

“My pussy is so wet.”

“I want to lick your pussy”, Ryan says.

I begin to wank him gently, his dick so big I could fit my hand around his shaft twice and I still wouldn’t reach the top.

“After”, I say, leaning towards him, so desperate to get him inside my mouth I can barely form a full sentence.

Ryan moans and leans back against the pillow as I run my tongue along the lower edge of his shaft, guide his fatness beyond my lips and smack his taste against the roof of my mouth. I’ve barely got much more than his crown beyond my lips and I already feel like he’s filled me entirely, which is such a thrilling sensation, I feel the swirls of pleasure deep in the pit of my stomach.

Ryan reaches out to me naturally to comb his fingers through my hair, but I don’t allow it.

“No hands, no touching”, I say, the words sewn around teasing licks of the sensitive bundle of tissue that connects his shaft to his crown.

“That’s highly unfair”, Ryan moans, his hands shooting back to behind his head to sit where they were before.

“I know”, I say, “which is why you’re going to like it even more.”

As I suck his dick I can feel the muscles of his stomach tighten and his crown swell against my tongue. I take as much of him as I can, leaning out over his shaft and lowering myself as far as I can go until his dick pushes just that little bit too far inside me, and I have to reposition myself and begin again, and I bounce up and down on his hardness just to feel him thick and insistent against the back of my throat. Ryan moans, and gasps and I feel his skin shudder under my touch, and I have to pause for a while to get breath, careful not to lose myself in him completely.

Sucking his cock is just as incredible as I always imagined it would be, and not only is it hard for me to stop once I’ve started, it’s an incredible turn on. When I finally feel like I’ve tasted him enough, my lips are tingling, my throat’s numb and Ryan’s cock is throbbing so much he looks like he’s half a second away from coming, my pussy is absolutely soaking.

I wriggle away from him so I can pull my skirt off and continue.

“Is it my turn yet?” Ryan asks, unsure whether I’m giving him the all clear to involve himself again.

“You just sit there and watch for a moment”, I say. “I’ll tell you when it’s your turn.”

I stand on the bed in front of him unclip my skirt and let it fall around my ankles.

“Are you going to give me a twirl at least?” Ryan insists, his panty melting eyes looking up to me longingly.

“Okay”, I say, already beginning to turn, “but remember no touching until I say so.”

I step slowly, like a catwalk model reaching the end of the runway, pivoting to the left, looking back over my shoulder and then changing direction again before I’ve done a full turn. When my back’s to Ryan, and I know he’s got his eyes all over me, I loop my thumbs in my waistband and go to lower my panties. Despite the fact I’ve been an actress for quite some time now, I’m actually quite shy about my body and usually nothing like this in the bedroom, but with Ryan, I feel confident enough to both be myself and feel sexy.

I cross my legs, slide my panties down and begin to bend over slowly, so when my panties are at my knees, Ryan can see just how turned on I am.

“Fuck me”, Ryan says, as I reveal myself too him, twisting my head around so I can see his expression. “You weren’t joking about your flexibility were you?”

I giggle and straighten back up to spin around, my legs crossed and my pussy all but hidden now. “Did you like that, Ryan Carter Speed?” I say as I step slowly towards him.

Ryan nods, allowing himself to slide a little further down the bed to accommodate me.

“Remember, no touching”, I remind him, as I step around his waist and pause briefly above his cock. I’m feeling dirty right now, and I’m enjoying the control. After I’ve had my fun I’m going to switch these roles over and let Ryan command me, but right now I’m going to enjoy this fully.

I make as though I’m about to crouch over his cock, bending my legs enough for him to see my pussy spread in anticipation, but I don’t linger there for long. I’ll come back to his cock, but only after I’ve had his tongue inside me first. Ryan’s let me taste him, it’s only fair I let him taste me too.

I step forward again and right before I drop to my knees and push my pussy into Ryan’s mouth, a little flash of understanding moving across his eyes tells me he gets the idea.

“And I thought butter wouldn’t melt”, Ryan says.

I lower myself into position, crouching over his mouth, making sure his hands are spread out away from me. “Are you disappointed?” I ask, dropping my pussy tantalising close to his lips.

Ryan shakes his head. “You’ve just made me want you about a million times more.”

He can’t help but dart out his tongue and I moan as he rides it along the stickiness of my slit.

“Good”, I groan, as I shake a shudder out of my spine. “Because when you’ve pushed me all the way to the edge, I want you to show me exactly what that means.”

He tongues me again, and this time I drop my knees a little further, grinding my pussy into his lips and taking his tongue as deep inside me as I can.

“You like it hard?” Ryan asks after I let him up for air.

“Mmmhmmm”, I gasp, dropping my knees again and riding my sensitivity back and forth over his mouth.

“Deep?” Ryan asks, his tongue moving in circles around my clit.

“Mmmhmmm”, I gasp, my stomach turning somersaults as my pussy tingles against his tongue.

“You are so wet”, he says.

“It’s what you do to me”, I confess. “I can’t help it.”

“Can I?” Ryan asks, his hands desperate to get involved.

“Put them here and pull me into you”, I say, indicating how I want him to hold me. He follows my lead, places his hands on my thighs and pulls me right down into him. I feel his tongue disappear up inside my pussy, and then try to pull away because the sensation is too much, but can’t until he releases me.

“Gently”, I warn, while Ryan looks at me innocently. “You’ll make me come too soon.”

I gasp and fall forward onto him, grind my clitoris against the bump of his top lip, and gather up fist fulls of pillow until I’m right at the edge and have to pull away again. This time Ryan heeds my warning and lets me go as soon as I give him the signal.

“That is too fucking good”, I confess, my pussy tingling so much I almost don’t dare to let him continue.

Ryan smiles, his lips shiny with my juices. “Just a little bit more”, he says. “You taste so good.”

“Okay”, I say breathlessly. “But not like this.”

I shift my position, turning around a hundred and eighty degrees into a sixty nine so I can distract myself with Ryan’s cock, while he tongues my hole and teases me towards orgasmic bliss.

I hover there for a while, licking and sucking Ryan’s dick before he can’t take the teasing anymore and pulls me into him. I last about three seconds before I have to pull away again, the sensation of his tongue around my pussy lips enough to make me feel like I’m going to explode.

“Gently”, I warn him again. “I want to come with you inside me.”

“Sorry”, Ryan says. “It’s just—. I get carried away.”

I lower myself again, and this time Ryan takes a different tack, teasing me with light flicks of his tongue around the opening to my pussy, while he massages my ass cheek. Every so often he lets his tongue dip inside my hole, until after a while we fall into synchronization, so the more I slide of his cock inside me, the deeper he goes too.

With Ryan’s dick back inside my mouth, I’m able to focus my concentration away from my own orgasm momentarily, and I eventually manage to ride the wave that was about to hit me. I know that the next time it comes round it’s going to be even bigger, but by then I plan to be on all fours while Ryan shows me just how good he is at fucking.

I’m bouncing up and down on Ryan’s dick, while I bounce my pussy up and down on his tongue, and I can’t help but feel like all of my Christmases have come at once.

Ryan toys my pussy hole with his middle finger and runs laps around my clitoris with the tip of his tongue, while I swallow as much of his hugeness as I can, my lips almost close enough to touch his balls. After a while, and when I know I can’t resist it anymore, I pull away. Ryan’s reluctant to let me go, but he knows that it’s not going to end here.

I reposition myself, slide a little further down Ryan’s body and gather his throbbing cock in my hand. He’s too big for me to mount without standing, which is better anyway because it gives him a much better view of what I’m about to do to him. I wank him a little, hold my pussy open with the other hand, even though I know I’m so wet I could slide in two of him without issue, and slowly lower myself onto his thickness.

When we fucked earlier, I was far too excited to fully concentrate on the feeling of penetration, but right now I’m way more conscious about making sure I enjoy it. I place him at the entrance to my pussy, drop my weight a little while holding him tightly around the base and gasp as I feel his crown break into me.

“Fuck”, I moan and pull him almost immediately out again.

“Are you okay?” Ryan asks, his breathless voice twisted by concern.

“Yeah”, I gasp, my knees feeling weak. “That was just even better than I thought it would be.”

I do it again, gathering his cock and teasing it towards my hole, placing him at my entrance and sinking him up inside my pussy, and this time I manage to last a bit longer. As I slowly draw him out, I feel waves of pleasure beat out through the depths of my pussy, like echoes from an orgasm I haven’t yet had.

I could go on like this all night, putting him inside me and pulling him out, but I want to feel the full length of him pushing as deep inside me as he can go, while I ride us both towards absolute bliss.

For the third time I gather him in my hands and place him at the entrance to my throbbing pussy. I let him enter me again, just as slowly as the two times before, but this time I don’t stop. I crouch above him with my hands on my knees, and let gravity take over. I have a perfect view from here, and a little turn of my head knows Ryan does too. We both watch as I swallow Ryan’s entire length up inside me, pause briefly with his balls up against my clitoris fighting off the urge to come, before I withdraw slowly, until his crown threatens to pop out of me entirely, and then repeat the whole process again and again.

Ryan is so big that when I’m pulling away my legs are nearly straight and when I’m sat down I have no idea how he fits inside me. I fuck him like this, the pair of us moaning like a pair of caged animals, the desire to come so strong, I know there will be little more I can do to hold it back.

Ryan has one hand around my hip and the other intertwined with my hair, and every time I drop myself down onto his dick, he pulls my neck back like a carriage driver reigning in a horse and it turns me on so much I can’t even get my brain to force the words to my mouth in order to tell him so.

I could easily finish like this and be the happiest girl in the entire universe, but there’s one thing I still want to do tonight, and while the opportunity is here, I’m not going to miss it.

I take hold of Ryan’s hand, and lift myself slowly off his cock.

“Like this”, I say, falling forward onto my knees and pulling Ryan with me. “I want you to hold onto me so tightly your fingers go white.”

“I thought you’d never ask”, Ryan says, lifting himself into position.

I arch my back, spread my legs, stretch out like a cat and push my pussy towards him suggestively. “I had to make you want it first”, I say, practically purring.

Ryan moves in behind me, spreading my legs even further with a deft push of his knees, demonstrating just how powerful he can be if he wants to show it. I reach out to him and gather the muscles of his forearm in my hand, before guiding his hand towards my hip, making sure he’s holding tightly.

With his other hand, Ryan takes hold of his throbbing dick and when I feel it at the entrance to my pussy again, I almost come.

Ryan guides himself inside me slowly, pushes himself as deep as I think he can go, runs his finger along my spine towards my hair, pulls my neck back just enough to make me moan and then somehow manages to sink his dick even further inside me.

“Fuck”, I gasp.

Ryan drops my hair, places his hand on my other hip and begins to thrust his huge cock inside me. He builds slowly at first, careful with me until he knows just how I like it, every single movement enough to take my breath away.

I can’t believe how good it feels. I mean, I knew it would be good based on what we’ve done so far, but I didn’t know just how good. Letting Ryan fuck me like this is like going on a tour of heaven, nirvana and valhalla all in the same day.

I flatten myself even further into the mattress and turn towards him so I can watch the muscles of his torso tense as he pounds his body against me.

“Harder”, I beg, my voice barely a whisper, and Ryan responds by gritting his teeth, stepping up another gear and fucking me so hard I can almost feel the entire house shifting out of it’s foundations.

The sensation is out of this world, and it isn’t long before I know there won’t be any way back from here. If my body was tingling before, it’s screaming at me right now like it’s about to explode into a million pieces.

“Oh fuck”, I moan. “Fuck, Ryan. That’s so good.”

“I know”, Ryan says, his dick like a magic wand. “I don’t know how long—.”

My pussy is tingling, my skin feels like it’s on fire, and my clitoris is throbbing so hard it’s practically the size of my thumb. I don’t know how much more of this incredible feeling I can take.

My heart pounds relentlessly in my body, while sweat balls up and trickles down my temple. Ryan grips the skin around my hips, his cock head swells even thicker inside me and his breathing tells me he’s about to lose it.

Seeing him on the edge like this and how much it means to him to be doing this with me, mixed with everything else that he’s doing to me on a purely physical level, is way too much for me to cope with it.

I feel it rushing towards me like a runaway train, a force behind it like a star collapsing.

“I’m going to—”, I begin, before the rest of the sentence gets whipped away by moans.

I scream but it does nothing to abate the thunderous rush that explodes inside me. I scream because there is nothing else left to do. The pleasure is overwhelming, the sensation enough to completely cripple me.

“Fuck”, Ryan says, his breathing staccato and rugged now, like a wild animal being released from captivity. “Fuck”, he screams at the top of his voice, before he jerks so hard against me, I can’t help but collapse into the mattress.

Ryan comes inside me what feels like a dozen times, each one of his ejaculations enough in itself to set my orgasm off again with an echo wave that increases each time in intensity, and when he’s finally done, after what feels like a much longer time than it probably is, and his body has more or less calmed down again except for the odd shivering aftershock, I feel like I’ve gone so high I’m never going to come back down to earth again.

Forget cloud nine, this feels like cloud infinity.

I’m shaking, or trembling might be a better word, and a really long time passes before I even feel capable of understanding language let alone trying to form a sentence.

My heart is going at about the speed of light, my entire body is tingling like Ryan’s just run an electric current through me and I’m about as happy as I think it’s possible for one girl to be. I’ve never come that hard or for that long in my entire life. I never even thought sex like that could exist before now.

“Fuck”, is the entire summation of my experience, the intensity of it leaving me essentially speechless.

Ryan breathes deeply. “Good?” he asks. “What you wanted?”

“Fuck yes”, I say.

Ryan collapses with me to the mattress and pulls me into him. I wriggle away, not because I don’t want to be close to him right now, but because if I don’t pull his cock out of my pussy immediately, I might seriously explode for real.

“That was incredible”, Ryan says, his hand on my belly, “really fucking incredible.”

I feel an overwhelming urge to laugh.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing “, I say, shaking my head. “I just never thought anything could feel that could. I think I came about a hundred times. I think I’m still coming.”

“I know, right?” Ryan says. “Look at my hands, I’m trembling.”

I take his hand and wrap myself into him. “Thank you”, I say and kiss him.

“For what?”

“For this”, I say. “For asking me to marry you. For being such a fucking stallion. For wanting me.”

“Are you practising your wedding speech?” Ryan asks.

“I mean it”, I say. “Thank you for being honest with me, for telling me how you feel.”

Ryan smiles. “Thank you for making that possible”, he says. “I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t flirted with me.”

I fake outrage and let my mouth drop open theatrically. “Me flirt with you?” I say. “Like you haven’t spent the last two months doing just that with me.”

“Hey”, Ryan says, holding his hands up. “You’re the one who pulled me into the shadows, and the one that sat on my lap in the dressing room.”

“That was acting remember”, I point out.

Ryan smiles, detecting the sarcasm in my voice. “You were so good at it, I almost didn’t know.”

“Almost?” I ask.

Ryan shrugs. “That kiss in the corridor was definitely for real.”

I let my mouth drop open again. “Maybe”, I say after a while. I trace the line of his adonis belt with my finger. “That and every single other time we did it.”

The look in Ryan’s eyes makes me want to melt. “I can’t believe you feel the same way”, he says.

“I can’t believe we wasted two months not doing that.”

Ryan laughs. “Good point.”

“What are you going to wear?”

“I hadn’t even thought about it.”

“You want to go shopping tomorrow?” I say, resting my head on his chest and stifling a yawn. “We could choose something cool.”

Ryan runs his fingers through my hair. “Sure”, he says. “That sounds like fun.”

“I like you Ryan Carter Speed”, I confess. “I think I really like you.”

“That’s good”, he says. “Because I really like you too, Sophia Grace Moreaux.”

“Maybe we should get married”, I joke, “find an apartment, live together, be happy.”

“I’d like that”, Ryan says.

“Me too”, I say, tiredness beginning to overwhelm me. “I’d really like that too.”

I fall asleep like that for a while, until the coldness of the night forces us both under the covers and Ryan holds me protectively until I feel sleep dragging me under again.

Tomorrow I’m getting married, and even though we’re doing it to claim Ryan’s great aunt’s inheritance, in the back of my mind I wonder if it’s something that could turn out to be a whole universe more than that for both of us.

It’s really early days between us, but something about how he makes me feel and how I know he feels about me, makes me think that if we are careful with each other, we could be onto something really special.

Ryan turns me on, makes me smile and genuinely seems to care about me, and as long as none of those things change, I’m going to be the happiest girl in the world.

I wrap myself inside him, pull his arm tight around my chest and stretch my legs out against his. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a million and one questions about where tomorrow is going to lead us long term, but none of those things seem all that relevant right now especially after what we’ve just done together. I settle for, “if you steal the duvet it’s a deal breaker”, and finally let sleep take me under.