Right there in script, over his heart. Etched like an eternal vow against his skin.
Shaking with nerves, I lean back against the wall to support my suddenly weak knees. It takes more effort than I want to admit to force the next words past my lips.
“What do you want from me, Ryder?”
“I don’t want anythingfromyou, Felicity.” He sucks in a sharp breath. “I just want you.”
“Just me.” My laugh is lightning, splitting the air. “You act like this is simple. Like there’s some obvious fix I’ve been overlooking, that’ll make everything right between us. Like I can just hand over my soul to you and trust you not to break it.” I shake my head. “It’s not simple.”
“It’sneverbeen simple between us. It never will be. It’s fucking impossible to love someone and not get hurt. God, you think this has been easy for me? Being with you, inches away, and not being able to touch you? Acting like I’m just another one of the guys — your bandmate, your fucking friend, when all I want to do is—”
His jaw clamps shut to contain the rest of his words, but I can see them blazing bright in his eyes. All the sins he’d like to inflict on me, with roaming lips and grazing teeth and nicotine-stained fingers. He trembles on the edge, a man at his breaking point.
I just want you.
Ryder holds himself utterly still as I push off the wall. I lean forward, a fraction of an inch, careful not to touch him as my face cranes up. The space dwindles from inches to centimeters to units so small I don’t have names left for them. I feel his breath on my lips, ragged pants of passion. I see his eyes dilating in the mellow light from my bedside table as I hover there, on the precipice of something far scarier than singing in front of a sold-out crowd, infinitely more terrifying than going head-to-head with my parents in court.
Him.
Us.
Now.
“When all you want to do is…what, Ryder?” I murmur against his mouth, an undeniable challenge.
He meets it with a growl, his lips crushing mine in the most savage, brutal, breath-stealing kiss of my entire life. His mouth is hard, angry. Devouring me. Devastating me. I return the kiss with every ounce of fire I possess, two years of pent up longing and hurt and lust, a bottomless torrent of pain and loneliness and need, pouring out from me to him.
His hands slam me back against the wall so hard the painting over the headboard rattles. He’s rough with impatience and passion and yes, even rage, as his tongue sweeps into my mouth, laying claim to something he never fully relinquished.
“You’re mine,” he growls against my neck, biting the delicate flesh so hard I’m sure his teeth will leave a mark. “You hear me?Mine. Body and soul, baby.”
I don’t respond except to drag him closer, my fingernails scoring paths down the bare skin of his back. I’m vaguely aware that his towel has fallen away, that he’s fully naked against me, throbbing with need, impossibly hard as he pins my hips to the wall with his own. It only makes me feel more reckless, more violent.
Take me so hard, I forget our past.
Break me into fragments of desire.
Pull me apart, piece by piece.
My neck cranes as he claims my mouth again, his tongue driving me to the edge of passion as his hands snake their way down my body. When he slips one up under my dress, into my underwear, I feel my whole world stutter to a halt.
God.
Yes.
This.
“Felicity.” His forehead hits mine as his fingers move like magic. “I need to hear you say it.”
A gasp of pleasure is my only response.
“Say it,” Ryder commands, grabbing my chin with his other hand and forcing my eyes to his. “No more running. Whatever happens after the tour, we deal with it together. Face it together.”
A flicker of unease shoots through my lust-clouded brain.
After the tour?
“Who cares about the future?Kiss me,” I demand, breathless. But he doesn’t. His face goes dark as he removes his fingers from between my legs. I cry out at the sudden loss, thighs clenching as passion courses through me unchecked.