Winning her Brother's Best Friend (Tea for Two, #2) Page 6

  He walked out, making sure his expression was composed.

  As he suspected, Ginny was waiting for him on the sidewalk, right outside the front entrance.

  She grinned at him, her eyes still sparkling.

  She’d won tonight. For sure. No doubt. There was no way he could even begin to equal her play.

  And he’d asked for it by interfering with her conversation earlier because he’d been so stupidly jealous.

  He shook his head at her, unable to keep a smile from twitching on the corners of his lips.

  “You said there were no rules,” she told him as he approached.

  “I did,” he admitted. “Although your plan might have backfired a bit. I might not be able to get any more phone numbers tonight, but you’re not going to be able to either.”

  “You really think so? I bet if I go back in there, I’ll be able to get a few.”

  She was probably right. She was the victim in the eyes of the club, and a lot of men wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of that. “Do you want to?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. I know it’s just eleven, but it feels like we’re done for the night.”

  “Are you staying at Emma’s tonight?”

  “Yeah. She’s spending the weekend at Noah’s again.”

  He put a hand on her back and started in the direction of the apartment building. “I’ll walk you back.”

  His hand stayed where it was, resting lightly on the small of her back as they walked. He told himself to drop it, but he couldn’t seem to get his hand to obey. Ginny leaned toward him unconsciously, still smiling to herself, probably remembering her brilliant move earlier.

  She should be going home with him.

  She should be sleeping in his arms tonight.

  She was his.

  And he couldn’t seem to make himself believe that this fundamental truth just wasn’t so.

  “So how many numbers did you get?” she asked. She was watching him now with a close observation, as if she were trying to figure out what his expression meant.

  He couldn’t possibly let her know.

  He thought back. “Five. No, six. Six.”

  A slow smile spread out over her face.

  He sighed. “You got more?”

  “No. I got six too. But that means I’m still one ahead.”

  “I guess so. But we still have two more weeks left to go. And maybe we better make a few rules, or you could pull the same stunt next week.”

  She shook her head with a chuckle. “Just one rule. No interfering with each other.”

  “Deal.”

  They were silent as they walked the rest of the way to Emma’s apartment.

  Ryan’s skin was slightly flushed, and his heart was racing like crazy. He kept trying to remind himself that she wasn’t coming home with him. He was taking her to her friend’s apartment, where she would close the door on him, leaving him alone outside.

  When they reached the building’s entrance, she keyed in the code, and Ryan unthinkingly walked in with her and then upstairs to Emma’s unit. At the door, she turned around, leaning against the doorframe as she gazed up at him. Her smile wasn’t quite as broad now, and it had taken on a different resonance. It was deep, fond, slightly awed.

  He couldn’t—he absolutely couldn’t—resist that particular expression. It was everything he wanted, and there was nothing in him strong enough to hold himself back.

  He leaned forward, curving one of his hands around the back of her head and pulling her toward him.

  She was stretching up toward him as he closed the distance between their mouths.

  He kissed her, and his blood and head and heart all roared with pleasure and triumph and possession.

  This was how it was supposed to be. Almost all of him knew it. Only his mind didn’t believe it.

  Five

  Ginny hadn’t given it a second thought when Ryan walked into the apartment building with her instead of saying goodbye on the sidewalk the way they’d done the week before. It just felt natural—for him to remain at her side as she walked upstairs and unlocked the front door to Emma’s apartment.

  It was only after she turned to see the hot, hungry look in his eyes that she realized something was happening here—something a lot more significant than his being a gentleman and escorting her home.

  When he cradled the back of her head with one of his big hands, she acted on instinct, stretching up toward him, trying to get closer to his mouth.

  And when their mouths met, all attempts to think at all disappeared in a warm, thick rush of pleasure.

  Of need.

  This was what she wanted.

  This was what she’d been waiting for.

  This was why no other man had ever tempted her to do anything but casually date.

  Ryan—and the rightness of how they were together.

  The kiss was deep almost immediately, his tongue slipping into her mouth and sliding against hers, causing shivers to run up and down her spine. She twined her arms around his neck as he pushed her backward until she was stopped by the doorframe.

  Her ears buzzed as one of his hands moved from her back to her bottom, cupping it possessively as the whole hard line of his body pressed against hers. She was trapped between him and the doorframe, and it was exactly where she wanted to be.

  Arousal was soon pulsing at her center, and she hooked a leg around his thighs in response to the carnal compulsion. One small part of her mind remembered that they were still in the hallway, so she fumbled behind her blindly until she found the doorknob.

  When she opened the door, they almost fell inside, still lost in the embrace.

  Keeping control of their bodies, Ryan turned them around so her back was to the interior wall as he kicked the front door closed.

  Then he was kissing her again, and her mind and heart roared with excitement. He wanted her. He had to. Nothing else could explain the fierceness of his embrace, the almost frantic desperation of his hands and mouth.

  She wound one leg around him again as they kept kissing, hooking it higher this time so her skirt hiked up around her hips and her arousal was rubbing against his body. She moaned in relief at the stimulation, the sound trapped by his mouth.

  Ryan was rocking his hips into her, making huffing sounds at the back of his throat. He was hard in his pants. She could feel it very clearly, and she ground herself against the bulge of his erection with a shameless eagerness that wasn’t at all like her.

  He’d moved his hands under her skirt now and was trying to pull down her panties. Since her leg was still wrapped around him, he couldn’t get very far, so he just moved the fabric aside so his fingers could find her wet heat.

  She broke out of the kiss with a strangled cry of pleasure when she felt his fingers stroke her intimately.

  “Ginny,” he rasped, pulling his head back just far enough for him to stare at her face with a feral kind of possessiveness.

  She clutched at his shirt, her knees almost buckling as he continued to explore until his thumb had found her clit.

  She cried out loudly when he applied pressure, barely hanging on as the pleasure coalesced inside her with ridiculous speed.

  She was coming before she realized it, her body shaking with the spasms of the orgasm.

  “Fuck, Ginny,” Ryan muttered as she buried her face in his chest to stifle her cry of release. “I love that I can make you come so easily.”

  In a different situation, she would have been annoyed by the words, would have resented the fact that he thought she was easy.

  But the truth was she loved that she came so easily for him too. No one had ever been able to turn her on the way he did.

  When her body had relaxed and the intensity of the pleasure dissipated, she pulled him down into another kiss, wrapping her whole body around him as he lifted her up. They were still kissing as he carried her over toward the couch.

  “Not there,” she managed to mumble against his lips. “Emma would never
forgive me if we did it on her couch.”

  He gave a low grunt of amusement as he kept walking toward the main bedroom. “Not that one,” she managed to say before he walked in. So he kept carrying her until he reached the guest bedroom.

  It wasn’t really a bedroom. It was probably categorized as a den because it didn’t have a closet, but Emma had set it up as a guest bedroom with a twin bed, a small dresser, and a TV. Ryan walked them over to the bed and lowered her onto it, kicking his shoes off before he moved on top of her.

  She grabbed at him eagerly as his weight pressed down over her, and once more she wrapped both legs around him until she could grind herself against his erection.

  “Fuck, Ginny,” he gasped. “You’re killing me.” His hand closed around one of her hips. “Slow down, kitten. Slow down a little.”

  He’d called her that in college, and she’d always loved it—a special name he had just for her. He hadn’t used it since they’d broken up. The sound of it now made her whimper with even greater need. “I can’t.” She was clawing at his back, trying to pull his shirt off.

  With a groan, Ryan pulled away from her enough to drag his shirt off over his head and then undo his pants. While he did, Ginny discovered that her little purse was still hooked over her arm, so she opened it, found a condom, and then tossed the purse on the floor.

  She unwrapped the condom as he freed his erection, and then she rolled it on for him, her heart pounding at the sight of him again after all this time.

  Then he reached over to slide her panties down her legs, and she pushed up her skirt as he settled between her thighs.

  He leaned forward to kiss her softly before he lined himself up at her entrance. She lifted her hips to complete the thrust, and both of them groaned at the penetration.

  He felt so good, so big, so right inside her. She loved the thickness of him, the heat of his body warming her skin, the look in his eyes that was somehow both scorching hot and desperately needy at the same time.

  There was no one in the world like Ryan, and he was finally back where he belonged, between her legs, inside her body.

  He held himself still, obviously trying to regain some control before he started to move. But she couldn’t wait any longer. She had to respond to the overflowing of her heart. She wrapped both her legs around him and began to rock her hips.

  He made a thick sound at the back of his throat. “Kitten, please.”

  She dug her fingernails into the back of his neck, loving the way he hissed in response.

  “Kitten, I’m going to lose it.”

  “I want you to lose it. Please, Ryan. Take me exactly the way you want to.”

  Her words evidently snapped the last threads of his control. With a growling sound, he straightened his arms and started to thrust.

  “Yes,” she breathed as she moved with him. “Yes. Just like that.”

  Their motion was fast, hard, primal, almost clumsy in its rawness. After a minute, he repositioned so he could move a hand to her bottom, cupping her there and guiding her motion so she was moving to his rhythm.

  The pleasure ached inside her so much she was gasping and moaning uninhibitedly. As his speed intensified, she started to sweat, her whole body flushing with effort and feeling.

  “Fuck,” he grunted, moving in her hard and fast and almost frantic. “Fuck... kitten... come... soon.”

  As if his words had been an on switch, her climax broke inside her, slamming into her with hot, heavy waves of pleasure. She bit her bottom lip to stifle her scream, and she’d come down just enough to watch his face twist and his eyes blaze as his own release washed over him.

  His body shook as he came, and she kept tightening around him until the last of the spasms had worked through them.

  They both collapsed onto the bed afterward, hot, sated, exhausted, and completely unable to speak.

  They’d had a lot of sex when they’d dated in college. Both of them had been eager and energetic and completely wrapped up in each other. But they’d been young then and relatively inexperienced. The sex they’d had was good, but it had never been like this.

  This was the best sex of her life. Nothing in her past had even come close.

  She wondered if the same was true for him.

  “Wow,” he said hoarsely after a few minutes. He’d rolled off her and was lying on his side so he could look at her. His face was damp with perspiration and flushed with effort and utterly relaxed, a little smile on the corners of his mouth. “That was... that was...”

  “Yeah,” she replied as if he’d finished his sentence. She knew exactly what he was trying to say. “It was.”

  He didn’t say anything else. She wasn’t sure he was capable of it.

  She wasn’t sure she was either.

  After the sex they’d just had, she wasn’t sure they needed to say anything anyway.

  THEY LAY TOGETHER ON the bed for about a half hour, and Ryan was so warm and relaxed that he almost dozed off.

  He blinked a few times, waking himself up, and his breath caught in his throat as he focused on Ginny’s face and saw the look in her eyes.

  He’d never seen anything like it—not even back when they were together. It was so deep, so intense, so awed, like she couldn’t believe they were actually here.

  He couldn’t believe it either. He smiled at her fondly, his heart jumping when she smiled back.

  Responding to the swell of emotion, he pulled her toward him, kissing her until she was soft and clingy against him. He loved the feel of her body—strong and soft at the same time. He loved each curve and dip and angle, and he let his hands slowly slide over her skin until she moaned.

  He rolled her over onto her back and brushed kisses over her face, down her neck, and trailing down to her collarbone. She was still wearing her little wrinkled dress, so he found the zipper and gently pulled it off and then removed her bra.

  He stared down at her naked body, his sated arousal tightening again at the sight of her sprawled beneath him, her hair mussed, cheeks flushed, body exposed to his gaze, his touch.

  “Ryan,” she breathed, her voice catching on the one word.

  He lifted his eyes to her face.

  She shifted slightly. “Are you planning to do anything?”

  “I am doing something.”

  He was staring. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t believe he was seeing Ginny like this again. He couldn’t believe she was even more beautiful, more desirable, more touchable now than she’d been in college.

  He couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch her again.

  “Ryan,” she said again. She was obviously getting self-conscious under his fixed gaze. “Would you hurry—”

  He broke her words off with a kiss. Then, lifting his head, he murmured, “There isn’t going to be any hurrying this time.”

  He was turned on again—just by the sight of her bare breasts—but it wasn’t urgent or painful. They’d rushed before, and he wasn’t going to rush this time too.

  He was going to take his time.

  He kissed his way down her body, spending extra time on her breasts and her deliciously tender lower belly. She was moving restlessly when he reached the cleft between her legs.

  “Ryan,” she gasped, when he positioned himself between her thighs.

  He looked up so he could see her face, her slightly swollen lips, her wild eyes.

  “Please.”

  The one word—with a slight edge of desperation—caused his heart to swell again and his erection to pulse uncomfortably.

  Pushing down his own desire, he lowered his head, his vision blurring over as he caught a whiff of the warm, natural scent of her.

  She was aroused. Very aroused.

  Because of him.

  He was breathing deeply when he nuzzled her, when his tongue slid up and down her warm, wet flesh, when he extended it enough to play around her entrance.

  She made a helpless sound and tightened her fingers in the sheets. She was clearly trying to ho
ld her hips still but couldn’t quite manage it.

  He repositioned his arms so he could use one of his hands, and he pleasured her with his mouth and fingers until her thighs were shaking with tension and she was making soft, pretty, rhythmic grunts as her pleasure reached its peak.

  When he found her clit once more and closed his lips down around it hard, she shattered, coming all around him with a half-stifled sob.

  He was pleased and proud and achingly aroused as he stroked her through the last of her spasms and then straightened up.

  “Get down here,” she gasped, pulling him down on top of her. He kissed her deeply, rocking down into her to ease some of the pressure at his groin.

  They didn’t really stop kissing as they fumbled together until he was wearing another condom. Then he was sliding into her again and taking her slowly, deeply.

  She was so hot and tight around him, moving exactly right beneath him. And he couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, could barely even breathe as he thrust.

  She kept gasping out his name, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.

  Ginny. His Ginny. Wanting him like this.

  Even after all these years.

  Even after he’d lost her.

  He wasn’t sure if she came again or not. She just kept saying his name, begging him to let go until he couldn’t hold back his climax. He came hard, jerking against her almost clumsily while her hands stroked him through the rippling pleasure.

  They lay together, tangled in each other’s arms and legs, for a long time afterward.

  And it was only after his breathing evened out and his mind cleared that he’d realized he’d given her his heart again.

  No, that wasn’t quite right.

  He’d never taken his heart back.

  It had been Ginny’s all this time.

  And he wasn’t sure he would ever get it back.

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, he got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. The physical pleasure and relaxation had faded now, and the rush of intense emotions had all clenched down into a tight, aching ball at the pit of his gut.