The Three Fates of Ryan Love (6 page)

“Go to sleep, Sabelle. I'll protect you from the monsters under the bed.”

His voice was tired, but his words settled deep inside her and she knew they were true. He wouldn't abandon her to this frightening fate that was of her own making. He wouldn't turn out the light when she closed her eyes and disappear into the darkness.

He'd only just met her, certainly didn't trust her, yet he would do his best to keep her from harm.

R
yan's room was in the back of the house, his window under the boughs of a giant mesquite that had withstood monsoons, haboobs, and freak hailstorms aplenty. It was a tough, useful native of this desert land. The mesquite and he had been friends all his life. He'd climbed it as a boy, thanked it for not making him mow beneath it in the summer as an adolescent, and praised it for keeping the sun out of his room in the mornings as a teenager. Now the shadow of its branches moved across the wall with the intermittent gusts of wind outside.

It was almost 6:30 a.m., but he couldn't blame the breaking dawn for his wakefulness, because his room was still dark. It was Sabelle, all warm and soft and undeniably female in the bed beside him.

She wasn't asleep, either, and every little twitch she made burned a trail through his senses. He could still see her standing in his doorway, his high school T-shirt taut at her breasts, his jeans clinging to her thighs, tight on her hips. No bra. No underwear, unless she'd borrowed a pair of his. Even the sock feet had turned him on. The socks were too big, baggy at the ankles. Sexy in a way that defied explanation. She looked like some sugar-sweet porn star dressed in too-tight boy's clothes.

He was rock hard inside his jeans and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Well, there was one thing, but the only part of him that thought it was a good idea couldn't be counted on for sound reasoning.

She'd come to use him, but she'd saved his life, too, and even though he knew he'd regret it later, he pulled her closer. His hips to hers, belly to spine, chest to shoulders. The pillow separated her cheek from his arm, but his other one crossed her ribs and came to rest beneath the warm, seductive weight of her breasts. A turn of his palm and he'd be cupping one.

He couldn't help himself. He let the backs of his fingers brush against the underside. It was so soft that it made him groan.

Her hair kept tangling with the shadow of beard he hadn't thought he'd need to shave. Now he wished he had so he could rub his chin against the silky skin at the crook of her neck.

“Are you asleep?” she asked in a soft breath.

The sound of her voice was a welcome distraction. He eased away so she wouldn't feel just how
un
asleep he was.

“Not yet.”

“What are you thinking about?”

Touching. Kissing. Fucking. You.

“I'm wondering why I'm not asleep.”

“Are you okay?”

She rolled onto her back just as he rose up on his arm to answer. The shift in weight, the dip in the mattress. She kept going, ending up on her side, facing him, her body warm and yielding against his, her hands spread over his ribs. She didn't try to put space between them. Neither did he. He eased down and brought her even closer. His body thought it a good decision. Not enough blood was reaching his brain to contradict it.

Her hair had fallen forward and Ryan skimmed it away from her face, letting his fingers linger at her cheek. She had the softest skin.

She brushed her fingers against his bare chest. He answered the liberty by trailing his hand down her shoulder to the soft slope of her back. She arched like a cat and the languid undulation rippled through his body. Jesus, she felt good. He had one shiny moment of sanity before she did it again. He couldn't remember why he'd thought this a bad idea.

She grew quiet once more, her mouth close to his throat, her breath a heated burst against the hollow. Had she just kissed him? He pressed his nose against the satiny skin of her temple and breathed her in.

“Thank you for letting me stay,” she said in a voice so low that every part of him strained to listen.

“Not exactly a hardship, snowflake,” he answered gruffly, and his hand slipped back up her spine to the warmth of her nape.

Again her body moved with his touch, a gentle wave against him. He needed to stop this. Nothing from her scream, to the explosion, to her truths and lies, to
this moment
here
, said that getting closer was the thing to do. She was one beautiful, soft, scented bundle of trouble from any angle. Getting in deeper with Sabelle would only make her
his
bundle of beautiful, soft, scented trouble. The best decision he could make would be to roll over and go the fuck to sleep.

Her legs moved against his. He pushed one of his between them and her hips flexed forward, the heated center of her hot against his thigh. She made a soft sound that fired his blood and glanced up, her eyes a shimmering silver, her lips parted.

She'd come to him because she thought him a good man who would help her. He tried to remember that, because he didn't feel like such a good man right then. He just felt like a man.

He brushed his lips against hers, once, twice. Her lips clung to his, silky soft and sweetly wet. He eased back so he could see her face. Her eyes were wide, glittering, her lips dark in the pale oval of her face.

“Okay?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

Her eyes met his and he was lost for a moment in all the complicated things he saw there.

“Tell me to stop.”

“No.”

He pressed his nose to her temple, his hands restless on her hips, her back. She was so small, the cage of her ribs delicate beneath the span of his hands. “Then tell me what you want.”

She was breathless, her voice unsteady, husky, dark with promise. “You.”

The answer should have sent him running, but it hit his senses like a drug. He took her mouth again, this time with less finesse, more of the driving need that had him swollen and heavy, wanting to strip her bare. His hands moved up to the soft weight of her breasts while he kissed her, licked the soft edges of her mouth, let her breath become his. The sound she made went through him like a current, flipping his brain off, switching everything else on.

He shifted and she was beneath him, where he'd wanted her almost from the first instant. He opened his mouth over the pulse that beat behind her ear and her hips bumped his.

He kissed again, easy and slow. There was no reason to rush. Not when she twined her arms around him and tangled her legs with his, not when she moved against him in that soft, fluid way that was driving him mad.

She kissed like it was her first time. Clumsy, clinging. Her teeth bumped his, her tongue darted hesitantly. Sexy in its awkwardness, alluring in its readiness.

“Like this,” he said, parting her lips and deepening the kiss.

He held her tight as he brushed his tongue against hers, feeling her shiver, hearing the soft sound she made in her throat. Her hands slipped around to the small of his back as she pressed into him, her mouth hungry, her body fitting the hard angles of his. He kept the kisses slow, deep, wanting to keep kissing her until he'd managed to get every stitch of clothes off her and bury himself deep inside her body.

He couldn't remember ever needing something as much as he needed to be skin to skin with this woman. His hands were under her shirt, palms cupping the soft weight of her breasts, thumbs brushing the hard points of her nipples. He'd been painfully aware that she didn't have a bra since the moment he'd found her. Now he groaned and covered one breast with his mouth, sucking her nipple through the light cotton, feeling the point of no return bearing down on him like a runaway train.

He sat up, straddling her hips as he tugged her shirt up and over her head. He tossed it on the floor and sat back on his heels, looking down at her. She was the color of moonlight, all pearl and shimmer, her skin cool to the eyes, hot to the touch. She was so beautiful it caught him in his chest and squeezed.

Her breasts were full, tight with dark pink nipples that puckered at his stare. He caught them each between finger and thumb, rolling the pebbled tips, tugging gently. She bucked and covered her face with her arms.

Her chest filled when he leaned down and took the tight flesh in his mouth, and a small, strangled cry came from her lips. He licked and sucked and nuzzled until her body throbbed beneath his touch.

“You with me, snowflake?” he muttered, finding her mouth again. Her fingers scraped his scalp as she pushed them through his hair. “Tell me what you want.”

“All of it.”

Exactly the answer he had hoped to hear and yet . . . something in her voice . . . in the tension he felt in her body . . . He groaned and forced himself to pause. Reluctantly, he lifted his head and looked in her eyes. They were round and wide as she stilled.

“Did I . . . What's wrong?”

She'd been about to ask an entirely different question. One that spoke of inexperience, of a need for reassurance.

“Not a damn thing's wrong,” he said, reining himself in, trying to cool his fired blood. “Especially not with you.” He kissed her again because he couldn't help it. “But we should probably slow this down a little.”

“Why?” she asked in a bewildered voice.

Because I'm an idiot and you don't even know what comes next, do you?

“I've seen . . . you meet new women at your bar and . . . and have sex with them that very night. Why does it suddenly need to be slow with me?”

He stared at her, openmouthed. He could feel the heat rising on her skin. If the light were brighter, he'd be able to see her blush. But she didn't look away or try to hide the defiant desire in her eyes.

There was something else there, too. Something deeper and more complex. The look she gave him could mean so many things.

“Have you ever done this before, Sabelle?” he asked gently.

Her lashes came down, hiding her thoughts, again. “Is there a prerequisite that I don't know about?” she asked coolly.

Except she couldn't quite pull it off. The question had a quaver in it.

Jesus, she was a virgin
.

The thought formed with complete certainty. He was already withdrawing as he spoke. “No,” he said. “It's just . . . your first time shouldn't be like this.”

“Like what?”

“With someone you don't know,” he said, wishing he didn't have to. “It should be someone special.”

“Was your first time special?”

“I'm a man. It's different.”

“How?”

“It just is.”

She nodded, unconvinced. “How old do you think I am, Ryan?”

He pushed away and sat back against the headboard, watching her warily. She rolled to her knees and faced him, a bare-breasted goddess with tousled hair and lips red from kissing.

“Twenty-three, twenty-four? Somewhere around there.”

“Old enough to know what I want.”

She was waiting for him to think that through, but she still hadn't put her shirt back on and she looked like a wet dream come to life. Thinking took a lot more skill than he possessed right then.

“This is my first night with a man, because seers are female. All of us, females.”

He frowned.

“It's always been so. Only females are gifted with the sight.” She leaned forward, her hair a wild mess, her eyes blazing, breasts heavy and nipples hard. “I want to know what it feels like, Ryan.”

“It?”

“You.”

She climbed on top of him, straddling his thighs as he'd done hers and leaning down to kiss his belly just above the unfastened top button of his fly. His body jumped to attention as his head fell back, thumping the headboard. All hope for higher thought ceased. Her mouth was wet, her tongue hot against his skin. She nipped at the tender flesh as his cock strained against his jeans, ready and willing, no matter how wrong it was. She kissed him again, a little lower this time and he nearly came right then and there, like it was his first time, too.

He sat up, pulling her with him. Hands on her hips, he tugged her onto the hard length of him and held her face while he kissed her. She rocked against him, creating friction, pressure. He was so hard that it was almost pain. The good kind.

His hands were on her breasts again and all that was soft, warm woman was pressed against him. In total surrender, he rolled her beneath him, pausing just long enough to peel those tight jeans off her long, silky legs.

He stripped them both bare in minutes, caught between the urge to rush, to
take
, and the need to savor, to give. Her eyes shone in the shadows and her lips were swollen. The bruise on her cheek looked dark against her pale skin. Gently he kissed it, then the scratches on her collarbone, the burn on her ribs.

Her scent called to him, to a baser him. One that survived by instinct and obeyed his nature. He couldn't have kept his mouth off her if he'd tried.

“What are you . . . what are . . . oh . . .”

She was pink in the softest places, against his lips, against his tongue. He closed his eyes and lost himself in the way she tasted, the way she quivered. Her feet were flat to the mattress, her hips lifted to his mouth, thighs hot against his ears. She breathed in quick, urgent pants, then not at all while he kissed and licked and nipped.