Eight Ways to Ecstasy (24 page)

And for a second, this fleeting instant, the hot spark in his eyes softened.

“You are the sexiest thing I have ever seen,” he said.

And then he was off her.

She did just as he'd asked her to as he stalked across the room, pulling open drawers and running the sink in the en suite. Closing her eyes, she slipped her fingers through her wetness. Spread it around in slow, teasing circles and kept herself warm.

As if anything about her could even remember being cold right now. He'd brought her to the heights of ecstasy before, but it had never been like this. It was arousal like free fall, like floating, like she could hold here on this bank of air and never, ever come down.

The toys made a dull impact as he tossed them down on the bed beside her head. They were followed by the little foil square of a condom and—another hot pulse throbbed through her when she recognized the clear liquid in the bottle. He was going to press that into her, open her up where she was unyielding, where she'd never taken a man before. Make her wet and easy for his cock, and she was going to let him.

With a hand on her hip, he flipped her over and pushed her higher on the bed. Warm broad palms settled on the backs of her thighs, spreading them farther, making space for him to settle between.

“Lift up.”

She got her arms under herself, levering onto her knees. He slipped a pillow under her hips, and then there were soft lips and damp kisses on the curve of her rear, gentle fingers sliding along the lips of her sex.

“Beautiful,” he said, a low rumble she felt in the hot pit of need he'd created within her.

The glass was cool and smooth against her body. He ran it up and down her slit, over her clit and then back to hover at her opening. She pushed into it, wanting it in, wanting him to sooth this empty ache, make her full, make her real.

He
tsk
ed her, grip going to steel against her hip. Pulsing around nothing, she choked on her own breath. Her shaking arms gave up on her, and she fell forward, face mashing into the sheets.

“Rylan…”

God, this was torture. The floating became plummeting, became the ground flying up to meet her, and she needed—she
needed
—

“Ask me for it.”

“Please.” Her breath shuddered, and her eyes flooded.

And then it was perfect, was right, her body held aloft as the toy pressed inside. She soared on every twisting ridge of the glass as he eased it in, her sex pulsing, hot flesh parting, and she was full, full.

“God, yes,” she groaned.

Sliding it home, he traced a rough thumb around the edge of the glass. Flicked his finger across her clit, and she sobbed.

His whole face pressed against the small of her back, a noise that was pure sex sending more hot rushes pulsing through her veins.

“You have no idea,” he said, and it was almost a growl.

With a kiss to her hip, he lifted up. And then he was draping himself over her. Denim scraped against her rear, the hard ridge of his belt and then the longer line of his cock as the bare skin of his chest brushed her spine.

The harsh buzz of the vibrator rent the air, and her body clenched down hard, making the glass press against an electric place inside her. He slipped the shivering head of the vibe to her clit, and it was too much, too soon. She shot a hand down, grasping the handle, shifting his grip until she could get it angled better.

All the air left her lungs in a rush, punched out of her by the hot spike of pleasure flooding through her sex.

“That's right. Doesn't that feel good?”

She moaned, rocking her face into the mattress, pushing her hips up into his. “Feels amazing.”

“Don't stop.” Pulling his hand away, he left her to the work of driving herself higher. His palm skirted its way up her side, over her shoulder to her neck. Tugging at her hair, he turned her head, and then his mouth was on hers, the kiss deep and wet and
dirty
, and she wanted more.

“Don't you stop.”

“Never,” he said, and there was a sharpness to it. A vehemence and a biting edge of teeth.

Her whole body flashed cold when he lifted himself off her. She looked back to find him settled on his knees, his chest heaving, abdominals tense. His gaze was full of fire as he picked up the bottle.

She swallowed hard, throat rasping. Lube was something new to her repertoire, but she couldn't hold back the fresh shiver of arousal at the gleam of his fingers as he drizzled them slick. Rolled the liquid around.

His eyes bore into hers as he trailed a soft, wet touch down from the base of her spine, lower and lower. She blinked her lids closed, bracing herself.

The pressure against her ass was so gentle, though. He had to be shaking with the restraint, and she was trembling herself. But the breach was easy, painless.

Melting into the bed, she gave herself over to it. The sparkling buzz against her clit and the hard fullness in her sex, and Rylan, always Rylan, working her open, deeper. A second and then a third finger pushed in until the fullness crescendoed.

She dug her face into the mattress, rocking back and forth. She needed escape and more and to get away and for him to
take
her already.

“I can't.” It came out a whine, a high sound that couldn't have come from her except that her throat was raw from it. “I can't.”

“You can. Baby, hold on, you're so close. Just relax and let me and—”

Inside her, something melted. And then the slide was easier, the fullness all pleasure.

“Oh Kate, that's beautiful, that's perfect.”

But it wasn't.

“Please.” Real, actual tears bubbled up at the corner of her eyes. She felt wet and vulnerable and open and like she would fly apart. She needed to be pinned down. Held to this earth. To be made his. “
Please.
”

He swore aloud. His fingers pulled free, and time went taffy-slow. A crystalline moment of empty waiting. Some long, far way off in the distance, clothing rustled. Foil tore, and then there was his low grunt. Slick sounds.

The searing line of him pressed to the cheek of her ass, and she was liquid, was all need and heat and pleading cries, babbling for his touch. His cock.

A hot hand landed at her hip. Voice gravel, he asked, “Are you ready?”

And her heart thundered.

How much of her life had she spent fearing pain? Sex had hurt her once, and it had made her shy away from it for ages.

Because she'd let a man touch her without patience. Because she hadn't been able to tell him what she needed.

She knew how to say that now.

People had told her this would
hurt
, but she was with Rylan. There was no fear. No pain.

She opened her eyes, and her vision swam. “Yes.”

“You trust me?”

His breath caught on the word, and it was a hook under her rips, prying her open.

She'd sworn she'd never trust anyone—
especially
him—again.

But how could she not? How could she go on, accepting this from him—touch and heat and a kind of tenderness she'd never known, even when he was asking her to do this?

How could she have ever, ever imagined she could stop herself?

The world went still.

And she heard the word fall from her own numb lips.
“Yes.”

She'd known that he was bigger than his fingers, but it still took her breath away when he pressed the head of his cock against her opening.

“You can do it, baby. Easy, easy, just let it happen.”

He pushed and pushed, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight. Focused on the waves of warmth from the buzzing at her clit, the soft clench of her sex where he'd filled her there, too, and the way her body fought her mind. Tried to keep him out, refused to yield.

Then all at once, the head slipped in, and she arched her back. Her cry pierced the air, but it didn't hurt.

“It's okay, it's okay, fuck, tell me it's good, Kate, tell me—”

She choked on her own breath. “It's good.”

It was amazing.

He fell back over her again, as if the strength in his arms wasn't enough to hold him up. It drove her down, too, until she was flush with the mattress, sweaty skin driven hard into cool sheets. Prone and helpless and with her bottom in the air, hips propped up by the pillow. The motion only forced him deeper. She sobbed his name into the bed as he opened her around his cock, made space inside her for himself and claimed it—conquered it and filled it.

“Rylan.” She tilted her head to the side, reached out with the hand that wasn't still on the toy. She pulled him forward and panted hard as he drove that extra inch deeper. All his hot flesh blanketed hers. She was surrounded and held and…and
fucked
.

And she was kissed. His tongue swept through her lips as he rocked his body into hers, forcing breathy gasps and whines and all these sounds she usually kept to herself from her lungs, and she was at his mercy. There was nothing to hold back and no way to contain the
brilliance
flaring up and down her spine.

The blinding, impossible release.

“You're beautiful, you're amazing.” Rylan was babbling against her mouth, maybe as overcome as she was. “So tight around me, can you come? Wanna feel you—”

She choked on another scream as she flicked the vibrator up higher, and they both groaned aloud.

He kissed her cheek and her temple and the corner of her lips, and his hand at her hip felt hard enough to bruise, and she
wanted
that. She'd be feeling this for days as it was, and every mark he left was another point of heat. Another thing to
keep
.

Because she could keep him. She could have this. All she had to do was—

“Kate, I—”

He pulled back once and pushed in hard, and it was an explosion, all the fullness and the heat balled into something too big and too much, and it consumed her, dragged her under, every cell another point of flame radiating into nothingness. Climax claimed her in shattering pulses, and it was oblivion and love and giving of herself and receiving, and he was right there with her, breathing her name against her ear. Stuttering in his thrusts until he slammed in deep. Until he poured himself into her.

All she'd had to do was let him in.

And she was golden. Complete.

“Okay.” Kate flopped backward onto the carpet, starfishing. “I have got to play hooky more often.”

She twisted her neck to look over at Rylan, and it made something in his heart glow warm. She was here, in his home, comfortable and happy and relaxed, and in that moment, it felt like everything he'd ever wanted in the world.

She blinked at him, the soft haze to her expression shifting. He'd been staring at her, lovesick, for too long.

Clearing his throat, he reached over to the bowl of grapes between them and plucked one out.

It had taken them a while, but eventually, they'd put themselves together enough to get their clothes back on and stumble down the stairs. His whole body still thrumming with satisfaction, his mind blanked by how completely she'd let herself go, he'd been stymied by what to offer her next. But he shouldn't have worried. She'd hit his kitchen, and from whatever had been included in his grocery delivery, she'd managed to assemble a veritable feast. A picnic, there amid the boxes and the drop cloth–covered furnishings still jumbled together in his living room. Spread out on the floor in front of the flickering flames in his fireplace.

Perfection.

Dropping onto his side, propped up on one elbow, he reached over to hold the grape above her lips. With a smile in her eyes, she opened her mouth and let him place it on her tongue. His body was done for the night, but it still managed to stir as he traced the bottom curve of her lip.

“Vacation does seem to suit you,” he agreed.

She sighed, and a little of the exhaustion he'd seen in her back on the steps of the museum cast a shadow across her cheeks. She hadn't been ready to discuss it then, and he hadn't blamed her. She wasn't volunteering anything now, either, but whatever it was that had happened was simmering close to the surface.

Swallowing, he shifted to brush his fingertips along the edge of her face. “Do you want to talk about what made you need one so badly?”

She shrugged and looked away. “Just stuff with school.”

“Oh?”

It had taken some adjustment, and he still had to fight the instinct to jump in, but he'd grown more accustomed to the silences in her conversation over the past few weeks. He had a better sense of when he needed to let her wait.

Finally, gaze still on the fire, she said, “You remember that portfolio project I was telling you about?”

“The one that was frustrating you so much?”

“That's the one. I had a meeting with my adviser about it this morning. It…didn't go so great.”

A hot well of protectiveness opened up inside him. “How so?”

“She basically agreed with me that the stuff I've been doing for it isn't good enough.” God, the hollow way she said those last few words made him ache.

“I'm sure that's not how she put it.” How would she dare? With Kate's insecurities, with how hard she worked. How could anyone dream of saying that to her?

She gave a dry, sad little laugh. “She might as well have. I believe ‘not up to the levels we were expecting' was the exact phrase.”

Rylan would kill her. He'd find the professor or teacher or whatever and he'd make her regret ever even thinking something like that.

But Kate waved away the fury that had to be written across his face. “She's right. The paintings, they're just…they're awful. I'm honestly relieved someone was willing to tell me the truth about them.”

And he felt that one between his ribs. The truth. He'd been nothing but truthful to her the whole time since he'd returned.

Besides. His throat went tight. It wasn't as if she'd let him see any of the things she'd been working on. She'd taken pains, every time he went to her apartment, to keep them hidden from his sight.

“I've seen your work.” In the past, he had. “There's no way—”

But Kate shook her head. “She's seen the drawings I did in Paris, too, and she loved them. It's the new stuff. The work I've done since I've been back. I'm just
stuck
.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Maybe she needed a better place to work. He still hadn't figured out how to tell her the top floor of the house was hers, but she could have it now. She could have anything money could buy if it would help.

“Honestly?” She turned her head to the side to look at him again. “You've already done it. Today, getting away from it all, getting out of my head.” She flashed a weak smile. “I needed that.”

“Then I'm glad I could give it to you.”

Letting out a long, low sigh, she started to haul herself up. “That said, I should probably get going.”

“You don't have to.”
Stay
, he wanted to say.
Stay forever.

“I wish.” Sitting up straight, she combed her fingers through her hair. “I think—this whole time with this project. I've been half assing it, you know? Not really committing. I think it's because I was so wishy-washy about it. The subjects I picked.” She folded her hands together in her lap. “I have to buckle down. Focus.”

She could have been talking about his life. The world shivered in front of him.

Ever since he'd come back from Paris, he'd been walking a line. Asking for more time from the board, doing the bare minimum he had to to keep their options open. He'd been floating along the surface of his involvement with the company, with his family. Refusing to commit.

Except now the board was threatening to force his hand.

“After all,” she said, her voice coming as if from a long, long way away. “You can't play hooky forever.”

When the world resolved itself again, it had a different shape.

Sitting up, he reached out. Put his hand on her wrist and held her there. “But what if you could.”

The idea formed out of nowhere, complete and perfect and crystal in his head. He'd been walking a line, and today, with his sister hounding him, he'd resigned himself to a certain side of it. But nothing was making him fall that way. He could do whatever he wanted to, could make whatever choice he decided was right.

He could fall to the other side. It hadn't worked the last time he'd tried it, but this time it could. This time he could do it better.

Her smile, fake as it had been, faded away. “Excuse me?”

“What if you could play hooky forever? What if
we
could?” His thoughts snowballed, taking on mass and speed. He tightened his grip on her arm, shifting onto his knees. “You're getting all this bullshit at school, and this shit with my father's company—”

“Wait, what?”

There was too much to catch her up on. “It doesn't matter. I just— They're trying to force me to step up and be CEO, and I thought I had to let them, but what if I don't?” His pulse raced, and it was like he could breathe again. “We could go. Get on a plane tonight and leave it all behind. I'll take you anywhere in the world you want to see. Florence is gorgeous this time of year, or Kyoto. Have you ever been to Japan? It's beautiful. Or we can go back to Paris and you can paint whatever you want.”

He'd come to New York to try to reclaim his home, but home didn't have to be a place. Not a house or a city. It could be a person.

He reached for her face, capturing it between his palms. “Kate, just say the word and—”

“No.”

“—and we'll go and—”

That wasn't the word he'd been waiting to hear.

Stopping dead in his tracks, he refocused, seeing the room around him again instead of all the corners of the world. All the places they could fly to.

He saw her. And she was pale. Shaking.

She pulled away from his grip, and it was like a slap. In one terrible, lurching movement, she threw herself to her feet, and he reached out for her, but his hand connected with nothing. With empty air.

And all the dreams he'd just begun to construct around himself came shattering, crashing to the ground.

All Kate could hear was her mother's voice, echoing around in her head.

…before your father convinced me to drop out of school.

Because that was what Rylan was suggesting here. He wanted her to give up everything she'd worked so hard for, and what? Become his mistress? Randomly tour around the world with him while he turned his back on everything and everyone?

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, because that was a whole other layer of cognitive dissonance.

They wanted him to become CEO.

It was news to her, and he just threw it out there so casually. Didn't bother to explain it. Didn't even pay any attention to the fact that he'd been hiding this entire part of his life.

He'd come back here to save his father's company, sure, but when had it become about him taking over? What was he doing day to day?

Who
was
he?

Men like that, men who seem too good to be true…They have a wife or another life or something they're not telling you.

And Kate had tried to tell her mother Rylan was different.

Oh God, it was Paris all over again. Except it was even
worse
. It was him forgetting to mention all these things about himself, and maybe he wasn't doing it with the intent to fool her, but he was doing it
now
. After they'd already fallen apart once because he'd been holding back.

After she'd let him into her life again, pushed aside her own doubts and decided to trust him. Even though she'd known better.

It had all been too good to be true.

Now here she was, with Rylan on his knees in front of her again, but it didn't soften her heart. It made her heart sick.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

He was gazing up at her as if he had no idea why she was upset. “Deadly.”

Her stomach gave a lurching twist. “You want me to drop out of school.”

Brow furrowing, he recoiled. “That's not what I said.”

“But you want me to give up everything and go prance around the world with you? What part of that doesn't involve me dropping out?”

“I mean—only if you want to.”

“Why would you think I want to?” Had he only been humoring her? Listening to her talk about her program, following her around to galleries. Telling her he loved her art.

“You just said it wasn't going well—”

“But that doesn't mean I want to stop.”

She'd been working herself to the bone this semester. No way in hell was she giving up now. But Rylan—giving up was basically his thing, wasn't it? His whole time in Paris, he'd been running away from his responsibilities. His first instinct when she hit a stumbling block was that she should run away, too, and didn't that just tell her everything?

His jaw flexed. “Well, then fine. Don't. But if it's not helping you, you have options.”

“Like being dependent on you?”

“Like letting me take care of you and show you beautiful things.”

A hysterical laugh ate like acid through her throat.

She'd been around for the part of her parents' marriage when her father had made both her mother and her believe they needed him because they honestly couldn't survive without him. Because they weren't good enough. She'd survived the part of her and Aaron's relationship when he'd started the long process of tearing her down.

But those weren't the only ways to trap someone. Apparently, her father had begun by building her mother up. Buying her things, encouraging her photography.

Only to change. Later, when he wanted her to be someone different.

“Did you know that my dad bought my mother a camera? Back before they got married.”

The hard set to his mouth softened, going confused again. “What does that have to do with—”

She shook her head. Her eyes stung, her whole face going hot with humiliation and a rage that went right to her bones. “And here I told her you weren't anything like him.”

She might as well have slapped him. Fire lit his expression, and then he was climbing to his feet. Towering over her, and she took an unconscious step back.

“Because I'm not,” he spat. “How can you even— Where is this coming from?”

This had been coming all along. Since the moment she'd met him. Since the second she'd let him in.

Bile churned in the back of her throat. Since she'd been an idiot and let him in
again
.

Her back hit the wall, and her skin crawled. She was stuck. There wasn't enough space in this room, wasn't enough air in her lungs. And he kept creeping closer.

Rising up to her full height, she lifted her chin. “What do you mean they want to make you CEO?”

His eyes just about bugged out of his skull. “Are you
trying
to give me whiplash?”

And there was the dismissiveness she'd been waiting for. The frustration.

“I'm trying to figure out who the hell you are and what you want from me.”

Hurt bled across his features for all of a second before he schooled his expression. “We're back to this?”

“Did we ever stop being about this? You tell me nothing about your life, and you promised this time.” That might be what gutted her the most. He'd promised to do better, and she'd let herself believe him.

“I tell you about my life all the time! You were the one who showed up today and said you wanted to forget about the outside world. Was I supposed to tell you about my day before or after that?”

She scoffed. “Like this all happened today?”

“It all came to a head today, yes. I thought I had another couple of months, and then I find out today I only have weeks.”

“But you still knew it was coming. Yet you never managed to bring it up in conversation once—”

“I tried!” He actually threw his hands up in the air at that. “Do you know how many times I've tried to tell you about what I've been doing with my days? But every goddamn time, you change the subject.” His voice rasped, grating and awful. “You say you want to know about me, yet when it comes down to it, you don't want to know anything that fucks with your precious little poor girl starving artist worldview.”