Only With You (21 page)

I let my head fall back against the tile around the hot tub, closed my eyes and groaned silently. This girl would evidently be the death of me, but it would be a sweet death if I had anything to say about it.

No longer wanting to put off the inevitable, I hoisted myself out of the water and toweled off as quickly as possible, before striding into the bedroom in what I hoped was a sexy way. I stopped short when I saw Sydney lying naked in the middle of the bed, her soft pale skin shimmering in the light from candles on both nightstands. Her dark hair fanned out over the pillows she was propped up against, and her eyes were on me. Then she bit her lip, and I had to forcibly hold myself back from running and pouncing on top of her.

This was not one of those moments. Sure, I hoped that in time we’d have those
instances where I could be aggressive and playful and not hold back, but now, as we were about to embark on something I’d thought about for years and that would inevitably change our relationship for good, I wanted to take it slow, make it last, show her how much she meant to me.

I’d never made love to anyone before, but I was going to do it with her.
And I didn’t want to know if anyone had ever made love to her, because tonight was about us. It was about moving forward together. We’d be leaving behind a decade long friendship for something so much greater. I wanted to be the guy she’d always dreamed about. I wanted to erase from her memory all those other jerks who hadn’t known how to treat her like she deserved to be treated. I wanted her to know how I felt about her through more than just words. And more than anything, I wanted her to see that no matter how much our lives tried to pull us apart, we’d always know that with each other was where we belonged.

She loved me. This
girl who was so beautiful I almost couldn’t breathe when I looked at her, the one who was watching me from across the room with a small smile playing on her lips, loved me. And I loved her. I always had.

Taking a deep breath, but trying to hide it since I didn’t want her to know I was nervous in any way, shape, or form, I started to stride across the room to her. She watched me the whole way, and when I reached the bed, she sat up and held her hand out to me. I took it and crawled onto the bed, my eyes never leaving hers.

There wasn’t any hesitation, and neither of us second-guessed what we were doing or feigned innocence. She pulled and I went willingly, sliding my body over hers, covering her, my weight balanced on my forearms on either side of her head. I gazed down at her, and she ran her fingers through my hair.

“You’re so beautiful, Syd,” I whispered to her, and she smiled at me.

Then she tugged my head down ever so gently so our lips met, the heat and passion we’d both been feeling moments before in the hot tub still there, but our pace was slower, smoother, as if we both wanted to take our time and not rush into anything. We wanted to enjoy this moment and make it last.

I kissed her for long minutes, our mouths moving in tandem, our tongues tangling together, my body pressing hers int
o the mattress, connecting us at as many points as possible. When I finally pulled away from her mouth, I kissed just to the left of those sweet lips before trailing my lips down to her chin, along her jawline and down her neck, kissing and sucking tenderly and eliciting soft moans from her that made me shiver from the want they created. Her hands that had splayed against my back raked gently up and down, her fingernails caressing my skin, lighting it on fire as she spread her legs and let me sink closer to her.

As I dr
ug my lips down her collarbone, working through my quest to touch every inch of her skin with my mouth, her hands flattened against my back, holding me against her and preventing me from moving further down her body. I paused and looked up at her in question, wondering why she was stopping me. Her dark eyes were piercing as I gazed into them, her breath was shallow as it came out of her partially opened mouth in short, soft bursts. The need I saw when I looked at her surely matched my own, so raw and exposed.

One of her hands moved from my back to reach for something on the nightstand, and when she brought it back, I saw it was a condom.

I looked at her in question. “We’ll get there,” I assured her.

She shook her head. “Now.”

I swallowed as my heart started to beat faster in my chest. “Now? But I was just getting started.”

She shook her head again. “I need this, Ryder,” she said, and the way she said my name had my blood racing
through my veins. “I need you. Please.”

She sounded so desperate. I’d never heard her like that before, her voice rough and gravelly, her eyes pleading, her hips rising from the bed to press against me.

“Please,” she said again. “I’ve wanted this for months. Don’t make me wait any longer. I want you.”

Well, g
oddamn.
How the hell could I ever turn that down?

I shifted off of her, and she sat up, her long hair tumbling over her shoulders, giving her a wild look that matc
hed the look in her eyes and her mannerisms as she tore the foil packet with her teeth. Her eyes darted up to mine for a moment, and she smiled before she bent her head and sucked me into her mouth.

I just about shot up off the bed as soon as the warm heat of her mouth engulfed me and she started to suck gently. What the hell was she doing to me?
Whatever it was, I never wanted it to stop. But it had to or I was going to lose it.

“Shit, Syd,” I growled out, doing everything in my power not to let go in her mouth, including gritting my teeth and grabbing clumps of the comforter in my hands and squeezing so tightly I was sure my knuckles were white.

And as fast as she’d taken me in her mouth, she let me go with a soft pop, and I could breathe again, doing everything in my power to pull back, slow things down and not make a complete ass of myself. She looked up at me, her lips wet and plump, her eyes burning with need. Then she kissed me, assaulting my mouth as little moans escaped her lips.

“I love how you kiss,” she said against my lips
. “I want to kiss you forever.”

Done.

When she said that, my mind drifted back to New Year’s Eve. I’d thought the same thing for about three minutes before everything had come crashing down around me. But now I didn’t have to worry about that, because I had Syd in my arms, and she wasn’t pushing me away. She was, in fact, pulling me closer.

“You’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted to kiss,” I told her, eliciting a smile from her plump, swollen lips.

She smiled again and sat up, turning her attention to where her mouth had been minutes before as she started to roll the condom over my length. Then she lay down next to me, her body angled toward mine. I tilted my head so I could look at her for a few seconds before turning, cupping her face in my hands and kissing her deeply as I rolled back on top, her legs opening so I could settle between them.

Never breaking our
kiss, with one hand, I poised myself at her entrance and slowly started to push into her. She was tight, and I wondered how long it had been for her. We hadn’t discussed if either of us had been with anyone since we’d kissed on New Year’s Eve, but I suspected she hadn’t. The last guy for her had probably been that asshole actor she’d dated. With that knowledge, I decided to make it my mission that she would never think of him or any of the other guys she’d been with again.

I moved slowly, not wanting to hurt her in any
way, and when I reached the point where I could go no further, she cried out, and I pulled back immediately to look at her.

“Are you okay?
Did I hurt you?”

She looked up at me, her brown eyes shining in the light from the candles, as her hands slid down to cup my ass cheeks. Then she pulled me further into her if tha
t was even possible and smiled.

She bit her lip and look
ed at me seductively. “Do I look like I’m in pain?”

I returned her smile and started to move with sh
ort thrusts followed longer, deeper ones as I watched the bliss register on Sydney’s face. When I started to move faster I knew I wasn’t going to last nearly as long as I’d hoped. I’d built this moment up in my mind, but nothing could have prepared me for how mind-numbingly incredible it truly was to experience it, and I was in danger of going over the edge at any second.

“Oh, my God, Ryder!” Sydney cried out,
as she tossed her head back, and I bit down hard on my lip.

I wasn’t going before her
, but shit if hearing my name on her lips, cried out while she was in the throes of ecstasy, didn’t about do me in. When she lifted her head, I could see on her face that she was getting close. Her eyes were on me, but she was losing focus, and her soft moans had gotten increasingly louder and more intermittent. Pushing deeper and harder, I built us both toward that point I knew we desperately wanted to reach. And when she couldn’t keep it together any longer, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she arched off the bed for a few seconds before sinking back down into the mattress, her head back and her neck exposed.

I pressed my lips to her neck, right below her ear as I pushed into her one last time before collapsing on top of her in a spent heap. My breathing was harsh and erratic against her skin, my chest rising and falling against hers as her arms came around my back and held me close, one hand threading into my hair.

I sighed contentedly, and she laughed nervously, so I pulled back to look at her. She was smiling and shaking her head.

“What?” I asked, unsure what to make of the look on her face.

She closed her eyes, shook her head again and tried to roll over and hide from me, pulling her hands back so she could cover her face with them. She mumbled something, and I thought I caught the word embarrassed.

“Syd?” I questioned,
starting to get amused by whatever was going on with her.

I shifted so I wasn’t smothering her completely and reached up to pry her hands away from her face. When she looked at me again, her face was bright red.

“What is going on with you?” I asked, not sure what to think.

She took a deep breath and gi
ggled nervously before she full-on laughed.

Um, why was she laughing?

She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me, long and deep. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you.”

“Well that’s good to know.”

Laughing during sex probably wasn’t a good thing.

She shook her head again. “I’m sorry.
I was just thinking about sixth grade and when we first started going to the skate park. Do you remember that?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Sixth grade?”

Her face softened and she nodded. “Yeah.  Remember how we used to watch everyone on the half pipe, and then one day we decided we’d try it, but you were scared?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

I didn’t really want to think about being a timid little kid while I was naked with my new, hot girlfriend. I had no idea where she was going with this.

“I never told you, but was scared too, so I told you we could go up together. You asked me to hold your hand,
and you were so adorable and trembling. I tried to be brave and act like it didn’t bother me, but I was terrified.”

“I know you were,” I said softly. “
I could tell, but you were trying to be all tough. It was cute. I might have fallen a little bit in love with you back then.”

Even in the candle light, I saw her cheeks blush.
“I just I wanted to be brave for you.”

“I don’t think that’s funny. As much as I hate to admit, because it might tarnish my manhood, I think it was really sweet of you.”

She looked up at me then. “Babe, nothing’s going to tarnish your manhood,” she said, eyes intense. “Trust me, and that wasn’t why I was laughing. I don’t know why I thought about it, but it just popped into my head, and then I thought about the fact that we just had sex – you and me – the same kids who dragged their boards up to the top of that half pipe, who looked down from the top and were terrified at how high it was, but we realized that all the other kids were staring at us, egging us on, and if we didn’t ride down it, we were going to get made fun of. I didn’t care, but you wouldn’t let me climb back down. You took my hand, made me get on my board, and we rode it for the first time together. And it was incredible.”

“I remember.
It was a hell of a ride.”

It
was
really high up, but the rush I got from feeling the wood beneath my skateboard and the feel of the wind in my hair as I flew down one side of the ramp and up the other. I’d never forgotten it. What we’d just done had been like that, but it was a thousand times better.

Sydney’s face got serious all of a sudden. “What we just did, it was like that, but it felt more like I didn’t make it to the other side of the ramp. It was more like I
was soaring and then suddenly I crashed at the bottom and made a fool of myself.”

“
What? Why?” I questioned, not sure I followed, but she had me just the slightest bit concerned.

She shook her head, realizing I wasn’t
understanding where she was going. “Shit, I’m so embarrassed, Ry,” she said, trying to cover her face again, but I wouldn’t let her. I made her look at me.