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You’re so tired, and your heart is beating out of your chest—and Ryland is so warm, and his sweater muffles the slurred-rushed thump of your pulse.
Your weight is pressing into him all over, or he’s nudging against you. That’s something he does when he’s craving your hugs. He just nudges against you, like a puppy nosing at the palm of a hand. Only you nudged this time, and so you’re sprawled on top of him, your thinly robed frame flush with his clothed—cotton tee, flannel pants, fox cardigan—one; and through the fabric piled between you you note things like the jut of his hips slowly bruising the tops of your thighs and the rise and decay of his chest against the pads of your fingers.
His hands, strong and sure when he’s focused and fidgety when he isn’t, spider from the backs of your thighs to the small of your back, trailing outward along the way to avoid—but tease—your ass. His palms brush the satin of your robe as his arms tighten around you. His fingertips tap three times on your back before he calms his nerves. Ryland Grace, always nervous, always brave.
The bravery he’s displaying at the moment is in the eye contact. Oh, the eye contact.
His eyes are so blue. Not the usual deep ocean hue you see in your friends or the electric blue radiating from high-def movie characters. His eyes are sky-adjacent, soft and sprinkled with frost-color in the light. Baby blue. Too easy to want to chase. And when he stares at you over the thin rims of the glasses thrown askew near the tip of his nose, you squirm.
Your toes graze his ankles. You’re stretched out on top of him, but he’s a little taller than you give him credit for. You’re the perfect height to tuck your head underneath his chin when he hugs you—at least when standing. Tonight you’re using that phenomenon where gravity compresses your body less while you’re horizontal to aid your height so that you can feel more inches of him.
And now you’re blushing.
He detects it somehow against his shoulder. Hot, the blood in your face hot where your cheek is pressed to him. One of the hands on your back draws upward, and his thumb streaks soft across your jaw. “What’s this for?” he rasps. His voice is usually a rasp, but this rasp is gentle. You feel his lower lip skim your hairline. You squirm again.
“You,” you say. “Sorry.”
He clicks his tongue. “What have I told you about the s-word, honey?” His fingers sweep into your hair. “It’s okay. I’ve been burned before.” His shoulder shifts beneath your head. “Literally.”
His voice is strained.
“Ammonia,” you remember, and yawn. You hope he doesn’t think you’re bored. You’re just so tired, and Ryland is just so warm. “I know. You’re safe.”
He tucks your hair behind your ear and traces a little elliptical with his fingertip. “You always say the right thing,” he sighs. His eyelids fall together in a slow blink. “How do you do that?”
You ponder for a moment. “You know what they say,” you murmur. “Silence is loud.”
You lift your head and peer down at him. He’s gazing back at you over his glasses frames, eyes almost half-lidded and glacier blue. It feels like a trap. He wants to—he wants to make you break and kiss him.
You look at him a while longer first. You’re not that weak, and you like to tease. You slink a few inches up the bed to hover your face precisely over his. His heart beats a tad faster than yours. He pushes his glasses higher with one of his knuckles. Then you latch onto his hand with yours before he can embrace you, and your fingers tangle with his against your hip.
He squirms—he’s just as pathetic as you are. He squeezes your hand. His lenses tilt on his face again when he tips his head back into the pillow, like he’s tempted to make the first move.
He’s patient. (Most of the time.) He wants you to act before he does. He wants to know you really want it.
But it’s so obvious.
Your hair spills around his face. Even in the shade, his eyes glint through his glasses. You try to focus on his hands—one around you, one holding your hand—and on the woven threads of his sweater against your opposite palm, but it’s so darn obvious you keep gravitating toward his lips.
You draw closer. He softens his breath, but you still feel it on your mouth. His chest rises into yours on his next inhale. You lift your clasped hands and shake out of his grip to rest your arm beside his head. His free fingers land, trembling, on your shoulder. He licks his lips. He doesn’t do it on purpose, but it’s still unfair.
You turn and touch your lips to the edge of his mouth. Just a graze. Ryland’s vision blurs from the tiniest contact. He breathes a little too hard, or wheezes, and tightens his arm around you. That’s all it takes. “Please,” he whispers (or wheezes). His eyes roll to yours. “Are you ever going to kiss—”
The “me” is smothered because you’re kissing him. The frames of his glasses knock into your face, and you can’t believe you aren’t crushing his nose. He holds you tight like he’s afraid you could float away, but you’re anchored. You feel your heartbeat thrum and your stomach twist, but it’s good. No. Good doesn’t do it justice. His lips are smooth and soft and the scruff on his chin tickles your skin just right. He breathes into your mouth, hums all quiet and adorable, and smiles while you kiss him silly.
You imagine his brows are pinched a smidge closer together and tilted up toward the messy locks of hair swept across his forehead. What you don’t have to imagine is the weight of his palms, the strength of his arms caging you in, and the heat of his mouth chasing yours. If he were less tuned into the rhythm you’re setting, he would be panting from this alone. You pet his hair with one hand to see if he loses control, but he takes it slow and steady. Patient.
He says your name between kisses. Uses it as a weapon to distract you so that he can press his lips to your cheek, to the side of your nose, to the corner of your eye, to your temple. He lets his tongue trace the shell of your ear with no prior warning, the cute little freak that he is. Gosh, you love him.
“I love you,” you coo, and he locks up tight like he’s going to strangle you, then loses the tension to let you breathe.
His left hand drifts to your lower back and applies a comforting pressure there. His right draws a line parallel to your spine and curves around your nape for his fingers to knead the muscles in your neck. He’s still licking you. Between his mouth and his hands, you don’t know what to think.
“I’m so lucky,” he croaks into your ear. “I love you too.”
“Kiss me,” you plead.
He pulls back to look at you. One of his lenses is nowhere near his eye. You would tell him to wear contacts if you weren’t so obsessed with his glasses.
He rubs your neck one last time and brings his hand around to cradle your jaw. You shiver when he hooks this thumb on your lower lip. His tongue glides across the top row of his teeth, and you unconsciously mirror him. He watches your mouth. You flick your tongue over his thumb. Then you close your lips around it.
“Hah-okay,” he murmurs, shifting beneath you. His eyelids flutter. He replaces his thumb with his mouth.
You know Ryland thinks kissing with tongue is awkward, but you don’t know why—especially since he’s so good at it. He licks into your mouth and tastes your tongue and your teeth until he senses your breath hitch, and that’s when he pulls back to peck your lips. You swipe the tip of your tongue through the seam in his lips to return the favor, and the hand petting his hair freezes, your thumb dipping over his forehead to trace the arch of his brow. He bites your bottom lip. It will bruise. A breath explodes hot from his mouth into yours when you card the fingers of your other hand through his hair, from the blond top layer to the darker roots. And when you take two fistfuls of it and pull, he whimpers.
You spread your thighs just to squeeze his hips between them. You stroke his hair with your left hand and fumble with the zipper of his cardigan with your right. Your fingers toy with the hem of his shirt before gliding underneath it to feel his bare skin. His fingers on your back twitch. You rest your palm on the left side of his chest and take the tempo of his heartbeat. His skin is so warm beneath these layers, and beneath you.
He smells like a meadow. You’re used to the scent of lab chemicals or soap or aftershave, but he smells like flowers sprouting from a riverbank. You think it’s his hair. Fancy conditioner or one of the products he likes. You nuzzle his jaw and push your face into his hair, so soft and unruly. You breathe him in, and you feel him writhe as your hand drags back down his chest.
“Holy cow,” he wheezes. You draw back and slightly diagonal from him. He whips his head to the side to meet your eyes. He’s barely wearing his glasses at this point.
He giggles with you.
He tucks his thumb under your jaw and pries your chin up.
And he kisses your neck.
You cry out. His lips and his tongue work to suck a mark into your skin and soothe the bruise. He trails kisses along the column of your throat. He laps at the sweat under your chin like a kitten.
He bites you.
Your vision whites out for a second. The heat and the spark of pain that set your nerves on fire make you very aware of all the places you’re touching him and all the places he’s touching you. He breathes hot and heavy against the hollow of your throat, skims his hands over the curve from your hips to your waist, sucks kisses in an arc toward your ear and nips at your earlobe. A strand of your hair catches on the corner of his mouth, but his lips are so slick with saliva that it slips away. You think he says your name, but your head is foggy. His glasses are foggy. It’s like the pretty blue of his eyes is masked behind a sheet of ice.
You push his glasses toward his hairline with the heel of your hand. He blinks up at you all innocent and clear, but within a fraction of a second he’s staring at your lips.
You gasp into the kiss he starts to give you and then sigh when he finishes it. Your breath blows his hair back from his forehead. You kiss the space between his brows and clamp your thighs around him again. Nope, you aren’t paying attention to whatever’s happening between his hips, but it’s tempting as heck to rock against them when he says, his voice already wrecked, “I’m more than willing to keep going.” Blink. “If you want.”
You so want.
Your stomach leaps into your chest, and your heart lurches into your throat. You like him like this. Sweet and soft. And clothed. Your nails idly scratch the front of his sweater.
“Or,” he says for you, eyes careful to read yours, “I would love to cuddle.”
You feel the edges of your lips pull toward your cheeks, and you’re helpless to stop it. “Sure,” you snicker. “You’re such a cuddle bug.”
Ryland’s grasp on you eases, and he turns his head to the side to expel a final, thick sigh. He’s regulating. He shifts underneath you, and the sheets hiss. When he rekindles that eye contact which thrills you so much—and which kills you so much—he says, “So what if I am?”
“So thank you,” you say. “For not phrasing it like it’s your second choice.”
“It’s not my second choice.” You don’t doubt him. He really does love to hold you. “I want to do this.”
One of his thighs rises between yours to lift your hips, and he rolls you so gently onto your side. You curl a hand around his bicep and feel him flex for you. Silly. He scoops you into his arms and hauls your knee over his thigh. He hugs you so tight the air deflates from your lungs, and your chest aches from the pressure. But it’s—well, good will really never do it justice.
His glasses unhook from one ear and dangle across his neck. You pry them from him and toss them onto the nightstand, your arm bent to reach behind you. You dim the lamp with your fingertips. He’s visible in the yellowish-orange, his face lit like a sunset.
You lean forward and press a pair of kisses to the indents his glasses left at the bridge of his nose. He hums. His lips are stretched into a thin smile. You want to draw the pad of your thumb across his eyelids to feel his lashes tickle you, but you don’t want to startle him. He’s probably a little loopy from all the kissing.
“So pretty in my arms, babygirl,” he coos. Conclusion: a little loopy.
You shake your head against the pillow and say, “Babygirl? That’s you.”
He silences you with a big smooch. You snake your arms around his neck to deepen the kiss and revel in the taste of his lips until he breaks away to yawn. He tangles a few fingers in your hair while his opposite hand traces an orbit around a mole on your hip. “Are you tired?” he whispers.
“No. I want to look at you,” you say. He should sleep fine with the lamp on. It’s safer than darkness. You thread your fingers through the hair at his nape and kiss the tip of his nose. “I’ll watch you sleep.”