Page 25 of Ryder

He rubs his nose with mine. “Never thought you’d be screamin’ my name like that, did you?”

“Only in my dreams.”

His face softens and he loses the smirk. “You really waited?”

“You saw the evidence, I’m not lying. I didn’t do it on purpose, it just happened that way. I didn’t purposely save myself.” Not consciously anyway.

“I’m not gonna complain.”

He reaches behind, taking the elastic of the wings down my arm, then the other, then he throws it on the sidetable. “Were you always this much of an angel?”

I laugh, my mouth on his neck as I kiss and suck his skin. I love feeling the intensity of his pulse. The heat on his body. I want to bask in it. His scent is a mixture of oil, spice and a faded pine scent that goes straight to my core.

“Yes, you just haven't seen me in a while.” I love that he’s in no hurry to move, because clinging onto him feels like the safest place in the world.

Do not cry.

I may be tough, but I’m also an emotional being. He just took my virginity, and he looks like he wants to do it all over again. The intense way he stares at me? I can safely say that nobody hasever looked at me like that before. It’s as if he’s trying to figure me out, keep his distance, and fuck me at the same time.

That’s Ryder. His mind is a complex place.

“I keep thinkin’ back to when you used to read to me,” he says out of nowhere.

It was so long ago. “I think about that all the time.”

“Because of you, the other kids didn’t laugh at me like that asshole Wayne used to.”

“He’s a piece of shit.”

“Yep, but what you did? Nobody has ever done that for me. It helped my stutter. It’s like you waved a magic wand. I’ll never forget that.”

“It wasn’t your fault, and you’re an excellent reader, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

He smirks. “Never thought my bedtime story would be you moanin’ my name.”

“It was fate,” I state simply. “You came to that club for a reason. We were meant to run into one another.”

“You believe in all that woo-woo crap?”

“It’s not woo-woo. What are the chances that in all the clubs, in all of New Orleans, we’d run into one another?”

His face turns serious when he says. “You weren’t gonna tell me you were in town?”

My lips part. I tell him the truth. “Would you have answered?”

“I’d never not answer.”

I give him a pointed look. “That isn’t true.”

He sighs. “I tried to keep my distance. You were young, Crys. You had your whole life ahead of you, you still do.”

“Don’t get all sappy on me now.” I try to hide the inevitable fact that I’m going to be leaving, and Ryder is a man about town. We’re a million miles away. Though, he’s still inside me,so thinking about him with another woman makes my stomach lurch and my brain hurt.

I know I have no hold over this man, and I wouldn’t dare to ask him to wait for me. I need to finish school… but my pull toward him is strong, stronger than ever, if I’m being honest.This was one night, you fool. Nothing more.

We fit. I don’t normally fit anywhere.

“You know me, tough as nails.”

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