Let Me Be the One

Chapter Sixteen

Ryan pulled his mouth from hers, but he didn't remove his hand from her neck. She felt branded by his touch as he reached into his pocket for his cell phone and called them a cab to replace the limo he'd sent home. His eyes never once left hers as he spoke and the second he hung up, his mouth was right back there on hers.

Taking.

Demanding.

He wasn't asking permission to kiss her.

He wasn't trying to convince her with coaxing, persuasive words that they should sleep together.

Instead, he was simply showing her in the most elemental of ways that what they'd been building up to all night long was definitely going to happen.

Amazingly, it was exactly that which drew her passion all the way out of her. Regardless of her previous reluctance, there was no denying that this one moment - pulled tight into Ryan's arms, her lips and tongue tangling with his in a dark room that smelled like beer and grease - was perfect.

He was a man. She was a woman. And they would share with each other what men and women had been made to share from the beginning of time.

He barely pulled his mouth from hers as he led them through the room and out the front door to the sidewalk, and it occurred to Vicki that if anyone saw them now and recognized Ryan, there would be absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that they really were a couple.

How crazy this was, this one night of passion they were about to have in a world where what looked real wasn't...and what was false could become mind-blowingly, momentarily true in a sweet moment of desire.

Back in the bar she hadn't let herself reach for him, hadn't touched him for fear that if she held onto him, she would never be able to let him go. But she'd had no choice but to wrap her arms around him when they'd been moving through the crowded bar. Now, even as he opened the back door of the waiting taxi for her, he kept his other hand over hers, holding her against him as if he feared she'd go running if he let go for even a second.

Vicki had never been the kind of woman who made out in the back of a cab. Her ex-husband had told her many times that she was too uptight to be a "real" artist, that if she could ever figure out how to loosen up, she might have a chance of tapping into her true artistic self.

She'd hated him every time he said it, hated him even more once they'd split up because she'd felt he was right. But now, for the very first time, she realized it hadn't been all her fault, after all.

Because when Ryan was kissing her, when his hands were on her and he was stroking the bare skin just above her kneecap, she couldn't do anything but be in the moment.

She had no choice but to be that woman.

It took being with Ryan for her to realize that her ex simply hadn't been man enough to draw that passionate a response out of her, no matter how wondrous everyone thought him to be, no matter how sought-after he was by both women and men in their insular art world.

Ryan lifted his mouth from hers again for the briefest of seconds to give his address to the taxi driver, and then he was all hers again. He sat back against the leather seat and effortlessly lifted her onto his lap so that she was straddling him.

She gasped at how thick and hard and throbbing he was, pressed up tight against the vee between her legs. His fingers on her upper thighs and then the curve at the bottom of her h*ps drew the next gasp from her.

She'd laughed with Ryan a thousand times. They'd talked late so many nights about family and travels and their dreams. But in all that time, she'd never known this side of him, had never guessed that the easygoing boy she'd had such a crush on could ever be such a possessive man.

No one had ever claimed her so completely in any moment, not even the man she'd married.

With nothing more than Ryan's eyes and hands on her, she felt irrevocably his. It thrilled - and scared - her in equal measure.

Confused by the riot of emotions moving through her, pulled at by arousal and desires she'd never thought would see the light of day, she did the only thing she could: she put her sculptor's hand on his beautiful face and closed her eyes.

She needed to see him. Really see him in the only way she truly knew how to see anything.

Vicki let her hands rest on Ryan's cheekbones for a long moment, settling into the feel of his skin and bones just as she had a thousand times before with clay.

It should have settled her. Only, clay didn't have a heartbeat.

Clay wasn't warm.

Clay didn't breathe raggedly in and out.

And clay didn't say her name in a breath that was as much a plea as it was an expression of pure gratitude.

His hands tightened on her h*ps as he drew her even closer to him and she couldn't stop herself from rocking once, twice, three times into the pleasure his thick heat gave her just at her core. A low groan came from his throat and as she arched into him just one more time, he pressed his mouth to the hollow of her neck and licked against her skin.

Oh God, that one slow stroke of his tongue was almost enough to pitch her over the edge. Just a few more brushes on her overheated, oversensitive skin, just a handful of thrusts against him, and she'd not only be the kind of woman who made out in the back of a cab...she'd also be the kind that cl**axed in one.

But, amazingly, it wasn't her sense of propriety, it wasn't even a last grasp at self-control that had her shifting back on his thighs just enough to keep from imploding. It was the fact that her hands were even more insistent, simply craved the chance to finally touch the man she'd only been able to admire visually for so long, that had her refocusing on the planes and hollows of his face.

She could have explored Ryan's face for hours - the slightly irregular bone over the bridge of his nose where he'd once been hit with a baseball, the peaks and valleys of his upper lip, the bristling stubble across his chin and cheeks that scratched at her fingers and palms, the perfect curve of his earlobe, the strong beat of his heart at his pulse point.

How different, she had to wonder, would all of this feel against the insides of her thighs rather than her hands?

And would she find out tonight?

The decadent questions had Vicki shifting closer to him again, and her eyes fluttered open. Until now, Ryan had always been the one to kiss her. Right from that first night in the cocktail lounge when their game of pretend had begun, Ryan had been the one to claim her mouth in the gentle kiss.

They both knew he could take anything he wanted from her right now, even in the back of a cab. He was bigger. Stronger. And she wanted him. Badly. And yet, he remained perfectly still beneath her.

Watching her with those dark eyes.

Waiting, as if to see whether she was brave enough to demand from him what he'd demanded from her in the bar.

Vicki told herself her heart shouldn't be thudding so hard in her chest over yet another kiss. But it was.

Because she knew this was so much more than a kiss.

It was the difference between allowing herself to be seduced by Ryan...and being an equal partner in seduction.

Ryan hadn't said a word, but she could hear his voice just the same. Come on, Vicki. Just one little kiss. Give it to me. You know you want to.

As if he'd said the words aloud, his dark eyes lit with the humor that was never far from the surface, the perfect combination of wicked and daring, safe and sweet.

That was when Vicki knew she was a goner.

Not just for one kiss.

Not just for one night.

But forever.

They'd make love tonight. It would be beautiful and thrilling and, likely, the culmination of every sexual fantasy she'd ever had.

But Vicki didn't need to sleep with Ryan to know that he'd already conquered all the corners of her heart.

And that making love would likely cause irreparable damage between them come morning.

She kissed him anyway.