I can feel his resistance stretching, and now I just have to wait for the moment he breaks. The moment he can no longer remain still. But he’s making me wait. He’s making me work for that moment when my already tilting universe spins into bedlam. I flatten my tongue and drag it up the column of his throat, forcing his head back farther, the taste of his skin intoxicating. His restrained moan vibrates against my mouth, and then I’m at his ear, breathing against it, and his body solidifies. He’s about to break. I bite down on his lobe and drag it through my teeth, then press a kiss in the hollow below his ear. It tips him.
Reaching back, he takes my upper arm and pulls me around his body, and I come to rest on his front, arms locked over his shoulders, legs wrapped around his waist. The tips of our noses touch, his big hands cupping my bottom. Half of his face is shadowed, the other half vividly clear. I wonder for a moment if the moon is casting the same shadows on me. It would be appropriate. Symbolic, even. He can only know half of me. Ryan doesn’t know me as well as he believes, and that pains me so much. For him, I want to be just this girl. This Hannah. The woman he’s letting me be. I couldn’t face his disappointment if he knew of the woman I once was.
I glance away from him, hiding, and rest my chin on his shoulder, looking out across the still water, my unbearable thoughts getting the better of me. The burden of my past will never leave me. I can pretend to be free of it, but a sadness so deep doesn’t ever fade.
Ryan pushes his face into me, encouraging me out, and when he has my eyes again, he still doesn’t speak. He doesn’t ask questions, even though I know he’s sensed my sudden despondency. Instead, he separates our chests a little, giving him just enough room to slide his hand between us.
I breathe in and hold it, bracing my hands into his shoulders. The first feel of him guiding himself to me has me biting my lip. The feel of him nudging at my entrance has my jaw tightening. The feel of him sliding into me has my eyes closing, my forehead falling onto his. And when he hits me deep and stills, I cry out, the sound of my pleasure echoing in the evening air all around us. He releases a strangled gasp, and I roll my head across his, forcing myself to look at him when he flexes his hips and withdraws. His eyes tell a thousand stories. His silence speaks a thousand words. I’ve never experienced a connection to someone like this, not just physically. This closeness could crush the bleakness in me. With Ryan, there could be only sunshiny days.
I frame his face with my hands, trying to express my gratitude without saying it. He’s comfort. He’s happiness. He’s strength. He’s everything a man should be to a woman. The idea that he could be mine for ever is too good to be true. The possibility of him giving me this crazy sense of wild uninhibitedness for the rest of my life is hard to let go of. What would he get in return, except my lies and secrets? I blink, and an unexpected tear rolls down my cheek, because Realisation has just ambushed me.
I’m falling in love with him.
Part of me is desperate to stop myself. I mustn’t love someone. Mustn’t let anyone close enough to find the old me. Another part of me wants to let myself go and free-fall into the unknown. Except it won’t be the unknown. And that’s one of the things I admire most about Ryan Willis. He is who he is, no apologies. He has nothing to prove, no one to impress. Take him or leave him, this is who he is. Can I take him? Can I truly have him and all his wonderfulness?
Ryan must sense my further turmoil, because he’s suddenly moving, albeit lazily, driving in and out of me with an almost cruel flow. My woes are forgotten – a tactical move on his part, I’m sure – and I loosen my legs a little, giving him space to indulge me. I wrap one hand around his neck, using it as an anchor to follow his drives, and hold his biceps with the other, feeling his muscles roll. His face is a foot away, but his breathing still warms my cheeks, and I get the perfect view of his handsome ruggedness, every bit of his pleasure there for me to see. His expression is strained, his stare concentrated with dizzying intensity.
The water splashes up our bodies, our pace becomes a little more hectic, and his hands move to my hips, lifting me and bringing me back down onto him. The build of my climax comes fast, and I fight with it, trying to push it back, not ready for this to be finished just yet. ‘No,’ I grate, hauling myself forward. Our fronts collide, and I grab his hair at the temples, holding tightly. ‘Slowly,’ I order, giving him a purposely soft kiss. He accepts easily, panting around it. ‘I don’t want this to end yet.’