Chapter Seventeen
Claire laid down on her couch and closed her eyes. She’d finally gotten a hyped-up, sugar-addled, excited little wizard to bed, and she was pretty close to nodding off herself when she heard her phone vibrate next to her.
She reached for it sleepily, having no idea how to describe her day if it was friends texting for updates.
But it was from Ryan. And it was only one word.
Damn.
She sat up. Was that a good damn, or a bad one? She wrote back a single question mark.
Did that go okay? he asked in response.
She smiled. It had been clear he was nervous when he’d first arrived at the park, and it tickled her to know he cared so much about what Maya thought of him. Gutted by a five-year-old. She would never have guessed.
You got into princess character, bought her ice cream, and listened to every fact about T. rex known to humankind, she typed quickly. She loves you.
She pressed send before she could think about what she’d just typed. Maya, love, and Ryan weren’t words that belonged together in the same sentence.
But all he did was send back a smiley face. Typical Ryan—a response that was no response at all.
She’s asleep now? he asked.
Finally.
And the other beautiful woman I got to see today?
Also exhausted, she wrote back. Which was true, even if it didn’t explain why her heart had suddenly kicked up so fast at that word. Beautiful.
She waited for him to say good night, some sweet last line telling her to sleep well. Wasn’t it late? Hadn’t she just told him she was tired? When was he going back to Chicago, anyway?
But instead he wrote, That was really nice today.
I know, she said. Maya had a blast.
Me, too, she added. Just in case that hadn’t been clear.
What are you up to tonight? Ryan asked.
Uh…sleeping?
That’s it?
Yeah, Ryan. That’s what I usually do.
Alone?
Huh?
Are you sleeping alone?
You’re crazy. Who do you think I’d be sleeping with?
There wasn’t even a pause before he wrote back, Me.
Claire inhaled sharply, the only sound ringing through the dark, quiet house. How could one little syllable shoot all the way through her, making her suddenly ache?
He was leaving.
And she needed him to.
He was walking heartbreak, and she couldn’t afford to lose sight of that.
But it was late, she was just sleepy enough to be relaxed, and she didn’t want to think about the smart thing, the right thing, the only reasonable thing she could do. She just wanted more of that warm, soft feeling he gave her.
Something tells me we wouldn’t be doing much sleeping, she wrote, and then pressed send before her better self could take the reins and tell him good night.
We’d sleep, he wrote back. Claire bit her lip, confused. Had she misinterpreted everything? Was there really nothing else going on?
Then her phone vibrated again.
After you passed out from coming so hard.
Her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip, and she stifled a cry. She glanced at the stairs, but Maya was in bed, asleep. She turned back to the phone. She had no idea what to say.
Don’t forget about your muscle tear, she typed.
?
Working your shoulder too hard when you’re giving it to me.
She could picture his smile when he wrote, Like that’s going to stop me.
But you always want to keep your massage therapist happy.
I want to keep my massage therapist blissed out and screaming my name.
She swallowed. Yeah, she’d take that.
How about another massage? he proposed. Just to loosen things up.
I don’t think I could focus on just your shoulder right now, she wrote honestly.
Why do you think it took me so long to get dressed last week?
He sent a winking face, and Claire went both hot and cold. Had she made him hard in her office? Before they’d even done anything?
Immediately, she thought about his broad shoulders, his bare back splayed out before her, her greedy hands spending way too much time working over his body when the only place she really needed to touch him was around that muscle tear.
I’m not too injured, though, he wrote. My fingers work just fine.
She felt it as though he was actually there touching her, a sweet, sharp pleasure gliding all the way down, like ice between her breasts on a too-hot day.
And my tongue, he added.
And my—
Claire couldn’t believe she was looking at the word cock in her messages. Her friends used to talk all the time about the dick pics they’d gotten when they were single and dating online. Given how much Maya liked to play games on her phone, she’d stayed away from that world altogether.
That’s a relief, she wrote, feeling lightheaded.
But if it makes you worry less, why don’t you get on top?
She heard a noise she was afraid was Maya, and she then realized it was her own breath escaping. She could barely look at her phone again when it vibrated; she was that afraid she was going to combust.
I’d love to feel you ride me, he wrote, like he knew every filthy thought that had just been flashing through her mind.
Slow and deep? she asked, unable to believe those were her hands typing that. That it was her mind going there in the first place. Or fast and rough?
No no no, he wrote, and she could picture him shaking his head, dark hair falling into his eyes, down to that hard, strong angle of his jaw. This is about what YOU want.
She took a breath. Her hand was faintly trembling. They were getting to the end of her ability to talk like this. She had no idea what she was saying, or even why she was saying it.
Maybe she should stop. Tell him this was fun, but she had to go to sleep. Alone. Without thoughts of him and those hands of his making her toss and turn all night.
Then he wrote back.
If you can’t decide, how about we try both?
She had a feeling her blush could have lit up the whole neighborhood if anyone were watching.
But no one was. It was just her and the darkness and the one man who turned her on beyond belief. She could do this.
I never knew you were so patient, she typed.
And rush your pleasure?
When you put it that way…
You’ll just have to tell me if I’m doing it too hard, he typed, echoing her words in the massage room, when she’d made sure she wasn’t giving him more than he could handle.
But that morning—and the sense that she had to keep things cool between them—felt as far away as New York.
All her life, Claire had been good. Except for that time when she’d dropped out of school and gotten pregnant—but then she’d doubled down so hard to make up for her mistakes, she’d been more vigilant than ever.
Someone had to take care of Maya, make a living, ensure it didn’t all come crashing down. Someone had to make the eighteen billion decisions every day, from what to have for dinner to what kind of treatment was best to heal a client’s pain.
Only now, here was Ryan giving her the chance to throw back her head and stop thinking all the damn time. Giving her permission to shut off her mind and feel.
It was heady. Seductive. Impossible to think rationally about in the dark of night. Especially when thinking was the exact opposite of what she wanted.
And if I beg for it harder? she typed, knowing as she wrote the words that she shouldn’t. But she couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across her face, or the warmth from pooling in her chest…and lower.
The phone vibrated again—but this time, it didn’t stop.
“I can be over in five minutes,” he said when she answered, his voice almost a growl. “Ten minutes, tops.”
“And wake Maya up as soon as you walk through the door?” Claire whispered, her eye on the stairs.
“I’ll be quiet.” He paused. “It’s your screaming I’m worried about.”
Oh, God. Her thighs were clenching. “You know I’ll be good.”
“Not when I’m through with you.”
His filthy mouth was pure torture. She wanted to say to hell with it and sneak him quietly in. But some part of her was still aware enough to remind him that Maya could wake up while he was there.
“You need this, Claire,” he said.
“I know,” she conceded with a moan. “But I can’t risk it.”
“Are you always such an expert at denying yourself?”
“Does this sound like denial to you?”
“It is if you think there’s any chance you’ll fall asleep as wet as you are.”
Her breath caught. “That’s awfully presumptuous.”
“Are you telling me you aren’t?”
“I don’t know,” she lied. “I’d have to check.”
“Then I must not be doing my job right.”
“Your job?”
“If you were soaking, you’d already know.”
Oh, she knew all right. But she teased him that he still had work to do.
“I didn’t even get you started?”
“I didn’t say that,” she hedged, shifting on the sofa, all too aware of the warmth between her thighs.
“Touch yourself,” he told her. “Tell me what you feel.”
The Claire who’d spent five years getting her life in order and making sure she never made any more mistakes would have told him in no uncertain terms that while it was nice chatting with him, this was crazy and she had to go.
But this Claire—the one who went rock climbing and had sex outdoors and let Ryan meet Maya and didn’t run for the hills as soon as she knew he was in town—took a deep breath and asked what she suddenly, desperately needed to know.
“Are you hard?”
She was bracing herself for his answer, that yes already making her shiver, when he laughed.
“Oh no, sweetheart. You’re not getting out of this that easily. You have to tell me, first. Besides,” he added, his voice dropping deliciously low, “don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
So, he wouldn’t make it easy for her. But she got her yes all the same.
She pictured him lying in his hotel bed, unzipping his jeans, and the thought of him stroking himself to the sound of her voice made a flood pool inside her. When she did as he demanded and slipped a finger under her pajama pants, all she could do was moan.
“That’s it, darling,” he coaxed her. “Tell me how it feels.”
She couldn’t believe she was actually searching for the words. “It’s so soft,” she said breathlessly. “Warm.”
She heard him groan with satisfaction. “Put a finger inside.”
She did.
“It’s not enough,” she whimpered.
“Put in another one.”
She pushed her first two fingers in and felt the silk of her body opening to her touch.
“That better?” he asked.
She panted out a yes, too worked up to think of anything else.
“If I were there, those would be my fingers,” he said. “I’d be deep inside you, stroking right where you want it, making you nice and ready.”
“Yes.”
“So that’s what you’re going to do for me, darling. Stroke right where you need it and think of how it’s going to feel when you’re ready for my cock.”
“Now,” she nearly sobbed, her legs trembling.
“Not yet. I know you can go farther.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I’ll—”
“Don’t come yet, darling. I’m not finished with you.”
She eased up the pressure just a little.
“Are you touching yourself?” she asked.
“I told you. This is about you.”
“I need to know you’re doing it, too.”
He laughed, a slow, easy sound. “If I touch myself right now, I’ll explode. And I don’t think either of us wants that just yet.”
But she did want that. She wanted him to come for her so that she could let go, too. To let go and feel it and not have to keep waiting so much, building it up, torturing her with his demands.
“You’ll get there,” he said gently. “I’m not going to leave you unsatisfied.”
“Please,” she begged.
“There’s something else I want to do to you.”
“Anything,” she said without even thinking. Because she knew it was true. She didn’t think there was anything he could suggest to her right now that she wouldn’t want. Her body was zinging with electricity, desperate for release. And the thought of his pleasure, his wanting—his wanting her—only made the feeling that much sharper, bringing her even closer to the edge.
“I can’t let you come before I lick you all over.”
“Everywhere?” she asked.
“The side of your neck. Your breasts. Your nipples, which I know right now are begging to be sucked.”
She was still fucking herself with her two fingers, in and out, slow enough to be excruciating, hard enough that every time she pressed deeper, she shuddered. Now, with her free hand, she caressed her breasts, thinking about his hands on her, his tongue.
“Lick your fingers and touch your nipples,” he said. “Imagine my mouth right there.”
She did as he said, imagining him pulling her breast, sucking hard, raking her sensitive skin with his teeth and the scruff on his jaw.
“Then I’d kiss you all the way down your stomach, over the insides of your thighs, licking you until you can’t take it anymore.”
“I can’t,” she said desperately. “I’m already there.”
“I’d suck your clit,” he said, not listening to her. “I’d slide my fingers inside you like you have now, and I’d be circling that sweet spot with my tongue, feeling your hips move as you get closer and closer.”
“Yes,” she moaned, her hips moving like that now, right on the sofa, so desperate for release he could have said anything to her and she would have done it just to be in his hands, knowing he was going to do everything he could to make her come.
“But I won’t let you finish,” he continued, and she felt something wrench inside her because he was making her wait.
“Please,” she said again. “I need you.”
“That’s right,” he said, and she pictured his beautiful mouth lifting in that sly half smile. “Because you’re mine tonight. You know that?”
“I’m yours,” she panted. Tonight. Tonight, at least, she was completely at his mercy.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“God, yes.”
“Are you going to come?”
She couldn’t even say it. All she could do was whimper his name, begging and demanding, needing him to give it to her now.
“When I finally slide my cock in—”
She gasped, worked her fingers harder—
“You’re going to be so wet, so desperate, so ready to be fucked that you’re going to come harder than you ever have in your life.”
“I want to.”
“Fuck yourself just how you want it,” he said. “Make yourself come.”
“And you?” She could barely get the words out.
“I’ve got my cock in my fist, wishing I was inside you instead.”
The image nearly killed her.
“Come for me,” he said. “Come right now. Come so hard you see stars.”
His voice was as raw and commanding as when he was on stage. Just as when she’d first met him, there was no resisting. He told her again to come, and that was it—she broke. She had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out, the waves tightening around her fingers. She heard his own throaty cry and imagined she could feel his cock, the perfect thickness of him thrusting just as he’d said, pumping hard and full until they were both spent. She drew the sensations out until she felt herself go limp. And then she had to close her eyes as she withdrew her hand, because everything was spinning, her body was aching, and it was all she could do not to beg him right then to stay with her, to really be hers, to never go back to Chicago…
But that was just the orgasm talking. It was just late-night loneliness and hormones. It had no bearing on the real world.
Even if, as her blood still pounded in her veins, she wanted everything he said to be true.
“I wish I were there right now,” Ryan said softly into the phone when they were done. “Even now, just to actually sleep.”
She almost said yes, come over right now. She could fall asleep wrapped in his arms, lulled by the sound of his breathing.
She could wake up to him, and in the morning, they’d do everything they’d promised on the phone, and she could—
She opened her eyes. Would she send him in to check on Maya when he woke up? Wait with him in bed while she tore in there, ready for cereal and cartoons?
Reality flooded her, all the reasons she couldn’t go there. It was one thing to let herself go to the sound of his voice in the dark of night. But she couldn’t let go of everything she was responsible for.
“I’m tempted,” she said honestly. “But it would be too confusing for Maya to wake up and see you here.”
“For Maya?” he asked. “Or for you?”
The words cut her deeply. But he wasn’t being fair. Maya was just a kid. She didn’t deserve to get dragged into whatever completely irresponsible decisions her mom was making.
Maya had liked Ryan way too much, that was clear. She’d spent all night babbling about his cool hair and his cool tattoo and his cool ice cream cone and how “Mom has such a cool friend.”
She sighed into the phone as she reluctantly told Ryan good night.
The kid was bound to get her heart broken.
Just like her mom.