Let Me Be the One

Chapter Twenty-three

Vicki snuggled in closer to Ryan. He had a bad habit of kicking off the covers while they were sleeping, but as long as he was there to keep her warm, she didn't mind.

A few minutes later, alarms started to sound from around the room. "Time to wake up, sleepyhead. You have a plane to catch." She softened her words with a soft flick of her tongue across his earlobe.

He groaned and tried to pull her closer, but as much as she wanted to let him drag her beneath him to make their morning even more perfect, first she needed to wiggle out from beneath his arm to find his various alarms and turn each of them off.

By the time she clicked off the last one, he was sitting up in bed giving her a very appreciative - and smoldering - look.

"You look so good na**d, you've just given me a new idea."

She raised an eyebrow even as she moved toward his outstretched arm. "Are you sure it's a new idea?"

He pulled her over him so that she was straddling him over the covers. "I think we should make this a clothes-free room."

She laughed and kissed him. "Okay."

His large, extremely talented hands cupped her br**sts and as he lowered his mouth to them, he said, "If I'd known it was going to be that easy to convince you, I would have said the whole house should be a na**d zone."

Her laughter stopped the second his tongue slicked over her. She threaded her fingers through his hair and held him against her as he feasted on her.

She was panting as she said, "Maybe."

He lifted her head. "Say that again?"

She gave him a wicked smile. He needed to get on the road soon, but if they worked fast, they could squeeze in a little fun, couldn't they? "Make me say it."

Just that fast, her wrists were in his hand, her gentle morning lover turning deliciously dominant in a split-second change-up.

Ryan's free hand moved between her legs and his mouth covered hers as his fingers played over her aroused flesh.

"You ready to talk yet?"

Talk? She could barely breathe.

"Okay, then. You've left me no choice but to get serious with you." He moved his hand down to the top of her abdomen and stopped right there - such a good tease.

Already overflowing with wanting, Vicki gasped out the word, "One."

"One what?" His fingers went a little lower, just brushing against her curls, but no matter how she tried to move against his hand, he held firm.

"You can have me na**d for one day."

"Where? Just in the bedroom?" He nipped at her earlobe with a possessive growl. "Or the whole house?"

He moved his hand even lower, but still not low enough.

She all but moaned the words, "The whole house."

He grinned down at her, but his eyes were dark with desire. "Only once?"

She couldn't believe what she was about to promise him. But no one had ever made her feel so desired - or safe - that she could even consider agreeing to stay na**d for one full day with him.

"At least once."

"Every month." His words were a seductive flicker of warm breath and stubble over her br**sts and stomach as he kissed his way down her body until his mouth was hovering right over his teasing hand. "Promise me a na**d day every month and I'll give you what you want."

If she'd been able to, she would have promised him anything, everything, but all she could manage was, "Please, Ryan."

She'd stopped trying to quiet her pleas when they were in bed together. Not only because it didn't feel like she was giving up any of her power to him when she begged...but also because she knew how much he liked knowing he was making her crazy.

His mouth came down on her at the exact moment his fingers slid inside, and Vicki instantly came apart in a flash of brilliant, beautiful color.

Moments later, he moved over her, inside her, and she was wrapped all around him and he was wrapped around her, too, and it was all so beautiful and perfect that she knew it couldn't possibly get any better.

"I love you."

They were the three words she'd waited half her life for Ryan to say. Not only to hear him say it...but also to believe it could be true.

She'd been so young when she'd learned not to get too attached to anything since her father would be stationed somewhere new at least every year. But that one year with Ryan had been different. So special that she hadn't been able to keep herself from losing her heart to him. Just like this week, when she'd given him her heart all over again.

And still, even when he'd told her how he felt about her, and that he wanted their fake relationship to be real, she'd held herself back out of fear that their friends-to-lovers story was too good to be anything but fiction.

Only, as they lay together, with his heartbeat thudding in time with hers, Vicki felt closer to Ryan than she'd ever felt to anyone else. Close enough that she finally allowed herself to give voice to the feelings she'd once believed would forever remain silent.

"I love you, too."

The joy on his face at her confession had her heart clenching hard in her chest and tears coming so fast they were already slipping down her cheek one after the other.

"God, it's good to hear you say that. So damn good, Vicki. Say it again."

"I love you," she whispered again and again between kisses, and even though they were already so close, she needed more.

And as their words of love for each other tangled on their tongues and mouths, their morning quickie turned into something even hotter and sweeter with Ryan's fingers threading through hers, and he took her body - and heart - up to the highest peak she'd ever crested one more beautiful time.

* * *

Vicki was towel-drying her hair as Ryan gathered up the last of his things to head out for the airport. They'd used up every single second of their final morning before the playoffs - and then some, she thought with a smile.

She put on her usual studio uniform of a tank top and pair of leggings and headed out to the kitchen. Her smile grew even bigger as she thought about just how she could make Ryan's day just a little bit better before he got on the plane for St. Louis to play the Cardinals in the first game of the playoffs.

He was staring at his cell phone and she couldn't see his face as he said, "Thanks for calling about this, Smith."

When he kept scrolling down the screen, she took the chance to stare at him for a few seconds...and to reflect on the shocking fact that he was all hers.

Oh, how she was going to miss him while he was in Missouri for five days. How had she ever managed to go so many years without seeing him, when now she was barely going to make it a week?

Thanking God he'd be back from his games just before the fellowship board made their decision, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her face against his back. "Okay, you can have it." He turned to face her and she was grinning as she said, "One completely, totally na**d d - " Vicki's words fell away as she saw his face. "What's wrong?"

"Smith just called to let me know about some new press."

She tried to shrug off the quick hit of panic by joking, "If it's just more awful pictures of me - "

"It's an interview with your ex."

At that point, even Ryan's warm hands on her arms couldn't keep the chill from moving over her. "What did he say?"

"Stupid stuff. He's obviously upset that you've moved on."

She could see how angry Ryan was, the muscle jumping in his jaw, the murder in his eyes. She looked at his phone on the counter. "Is that what you were reading?"

Reluctantly, he handed it to her and held her even closer as she started to read, his arms around her obviously meant to hold her steady.

Vicki's heart pounded hard as she scanned through the part where Anthony talked about his latest successes and achievements. He'd always been a master of letting people know just how well he was doing without it seeming like bragging. He'd been just as good at tearing her to shreds without her realizing it until she was already married to him - every word from his tongue a sharpened knife.

Finally, she came to the part of the interview that had her heart thudding almost to a stop in her chest.

Thirty years have come and gone since Anthony Abbott's first lauded sculpture. I ask him about the many changes we've all witnessed in his work over the past three decades, especially in the past twelve months.

"I know what you're really asking," he replies as his self-deprecating laughter fades away, leaving behind something best described as a deep, strong ache. "True love, broken hearts - how can they not impact a person? It doesn't matter if you're an artist or an accountant, when love comes into your life and turns it upside down, there's love in everything you do." He is silent and I can feel him weighing his next words carefully before he softly adds, "And if love leaves - when love leaves - everything you touch is replaced with brutal pain."

"He always thought he was such a poet," Vicki snarled.

"He's an ass," Ryan agreed, but she was already reading further...far enough for anger to turn to nausea.

Abbott's ex-wife is newly engaged. Not to an artist, this time, but to professional baseball player Ryan Sullivan.

"I wish them nothing but the best," he tells me as he lights a cigarette and takes a few strong pulls on it. "Perhaps because of what I do, I've always been attracted to beauty. Victoria is an undoubtedly beautiful woman, one I knew I had to have the moment I saw her. I have no doubt her new fiance feels the same way." His brow furrows as he jams his cigarette into the ashtray. "I just hope he knows to be careful...to make sure he comes first."

Does he believe his ex-wife used him to further her career?

Anthony stares into the distance for a long time before finally shaking his head. "I'd like to believe that's not the case."

"Oh my God, I can't believe he all but said that I used our marriage to try and advance my career!" The phone fell from her hands, but Ryan just let it fall and pulled her closer.

"I'm sorry, Vicki." He kissed the top of her head and his hands stroked down her back. She realized she was shaking against him as he said, "I'm sorry you were ever married to him. I'm sorry I wasn't there with you all these years. My lawyer is going to make that reporter wish she was - "

"It's not the reporter's fault." Funny, her voice sounded so steady when her insides felt like they'd shattered into tiny little shards swimming around inside her chest, a thousand little cuts nicking her as she rewound and replayed Anthony's words in her head. "She didn't put the words into his mouth. He's the one who thought I was using him, even though the truth is that marrying him was the worst thing I could have done for my career."

Anthony had always made sure to shove her into a shadowed background whenever she made the mistake of trying to catch even the smallest piece of the limelight that he'd already claimed for himself.

"He's an idiot. We all know it."

"You know it. I know it. But he just gave voice to what people have always, and will always, think. They think I used him." She made herself meet Ryan's concerned - and angry - gaze. "They'll think I'm using you, too."

"You can't let him win. Not when he's nothing but a bitter, self-absorbed prick."

She didn't want to let Anthony have any more of her soul than she'd already lost to him during their marriage. The only problem was, she couldn't completely discount the fact that her ex might be just a little right, too.

"What about the fact that I didn't tell you I was here until I needed you to step in with James to keep the fellowship from slipping away? Or what about the fact that I wanted to be with you for so long, but was so afraid to actually tell you how I felt - that I created this lie and pulled you and your family into my messed-up life? What if some part of what Anthony is saying about me, about the way he thinks I use people, is actually true?"

"Stop it."

Ryan put his hands on her shoulders, but even though he was holding her firmly in front of him, his fingers on her skin were gentle. Loving.

"You reached out for me because I'm your friend and you were in an ugly situation. I came because I love you and would do absolutely anything for you. If you think I give a rat's ass what anyone else thinks about you and me and our relationship, then you're going to make me question everything you just told me in bed this morning."

His eyes held hers, dark, intense, and full of unconditional love.

"Don't do that, Vicki. Don't even think about taking it back, not after I've waited so goddamned long to know that you feel the same way I do."

Tears spilled down her cheeks. "I would never take it back."

Finally, he smiled at her as he brushed his thumbs across her cheeks. "I would never let you." His phone rang again and he cursed when he looked down at the screen. "I've got to get on the team plane." He cupped her face in his hands. "Promise me you won't let any of the stupid things some as**ole said in an interview get in the way of finishing your brilliant sculpture. Especially not when you know he probably made sure that interview ran to coincide with his joining the fellowship board this week. You gave him ten years. He doesn't deserve even one more second."

Vicki had been on the move her whole life. She could feel that desperation to leave - to bury the past, to start over again in a place where her past didn't matter and no one knew her - starting to take her over. If she left, she could still hold these memories of being so close to Ryan this past week inside herself forever. And no matter how far she went, she knew she would never forget what it felt like to be in his arms, to feel safe and cherished.

But...leaving Ryan once when she was just a teenager had nearly destroyed her.

How could she even think about running from him now?

Especially when his open arms were the only place she ever wanted to run to again - and he was oh so right about Anthony not deserving even one more second of her energy.

A heartbeat later, his hands were in her hair and her mouth was under his as he kissed her so thoroughly, so passionately, that everything fell away but Ryan...and how much she loved him.

When he finally let her go, she didn't open her eyes right away, just let herself feel the hard, fast beat of his heart beneath her outstretched palms as she worked to catch her breath.

"All those years that he and I were together, I ignored that little voice that told me something wasn't quite right with our marriage. It was so much easier to listen to his voice and to everyone around me who said I'd be crazy not to want him. And he was so smooth, always had the perfect excuse for everything. I thought I could make him into the husband I needed. Over and over that last year we were together, I dreamed I was trying to carve marble with my fingers. I longed for tools to chip, to carve, to sand. But all I had were my hands, and they weren't enough. I could give my entire life over to it and still wouldn't have made even the slightest dent in the rock. The dreams stopped the night I left."

She opened her eyes back up and held Ryan's gaze as she admitted, "I'm still learning to listen to that little voice."

"What is it telling you?"

She went up on her tippy-toes to press a kiss to his mouth before whispering against his lips, "To give you that promise."

And to love him with her entire heart...and soul.

* * *

Ryan had barely closed the front door behind him when her phone rang. The past few days she'd gotten used to ignoring the calls from reporters and bloggers, but when she recognized the Italian country code, she knew she had to pick up.

Of course Anthony wouldn't be happy with merely giving the horrible interview. He'd want to make sure she saw it so that he could rub it in her face.

Damn it, she wasn't going to let him run her in circles. "Your tricks don't work on me anymore, Anthony, so you might as well quit trying."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Signorina Bennett?"

Oh! It wasn't her ex-husband calling. It was an Italian woman. One who was clearly confused by Vicki's outburst.

"Si, I'm sorry, this is Vicki Bennett."

"I apologize for calling you with no warning," the woman said in perfect English with a pretty Italian accent. "I am with the Museum of Contemporary Sculpture in Matera. We have been reviewing your work for the past few months and I am calling with some very good news. We have selected a dozen of your works to be put on display, and would be very pleased to offer you an artist-in-residence position."

While she'd been in Prague, Vicki had sent packages to a dozen museums around the world with artist-in-residence programs, deciding she would let fate be her guide.

She'd thought fate had chosen San Francisco. And Ryan.

What the heck was fate up to now?

Knowing the woman likely expected her to accept on the spot, Vicki finally managed to at least say, "I'm thrilled that you've chosen my sculptures for your museum, of course, but - "

The women cut her off by informing her of a much larger yearly artist-in-residence grant amount than she would make in San Francisco.

If she even won the fellowship.

"We would like to give you some time to consider the position, of course. But we absolutely must know by the end of the week so that we can prepare the exposition and accompanying literature in time for your arrival. I'm sure you understand our position. We have emailed you all the details."

The woman did not have to spell it out any further. If she didn't accept within a week, the opportunity would go to another sculptor.

And she would have lost the biggest chance she'd ever had.

Taking the residency in Italy was about more than that. Because it meant it didn't matter if she got the San Francisco fellowship anymore. Which meant that she didn't have to worry about James or Anthony...and she and Ryan wouldn't have to pretend to be engaged anymore.

But it would also mean leaving Ryan.

Yes, she knew they could probably figure out a way to make a long-distance relationship work, at least for the first few months after the season ended and his schedule was more flexible. But as soon as next baseball season began, nine months would go by before he would be able to get a plane to Europe.

She pulled the ring out from under her shirt and instinctively curled her hand around it. It wasn't real.

But could it become real with more time? With more honesty? With more risk?

And more faith?

Vicki promised the woman she would read through everything carefully, and that she would have an answer for her soon.