“So you weren’t ignoring me?” she whispers.
“I could never ignore you,” I groan. “All I’ve been doing is thinking about you, Rachel, every second. Waking and asleep, you, us…it’s all I want. I can’t believe you feel the same. I thought you were going to call me a madman.”
She giggles in the cutest way possible. There’s still an aura of anxiety around her. It’s as if she’s still clinging to the possibility I might not want to be with her. But it’s distant, lurking behind her smile and her bright eyes.
“You are a madman,” she says, smiling captivatingly. “But that’s not such a bad thing. I mean, I must be a madwoman too, right?”
“How is it possible?” I stroke my fingers along her face, causing her to turn toward me with an intoxicating breathy noise. “The second I saw you, Rachel, I knew. I knew with more certainty than I’ve ever known anything. I know I want you more than I know the sky is blue.”
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “But I feel it too.”
“That song you were singing….”
“It was about us,” she says, nodding. “I wrote it the first time we spoke online.”
“How does it end?” I ask.
“It’s not a full song, but I can tell you the last bit.”
I smirk. “Tell me? I want to hear it, hot stuff.”
“Hot stuff?” She slaps my chest playfully. “I’ll never get used to you saying things like that.”
“You better,” I grin. “Because I’m not going to stop. Are you ready?”
I take a few steps back, preparing for her performance.
My woman looks around the park with her panic-touched eyes, but then she looks at me and settles down. Taking a bolstering breath, she smooths her hair and stands up a little straighter.
When her voice comes, it’s like a balm to all my worries. I don’t have to stress about her not wanting me, not feeling the same.
We were made for each other.
“Now I’m left dreaming,” she sings, causing goose pimples to rise on my skin. “My whole body screaming. As I wait for that day called Never.”
I return to her, unwilling to be physically separated for long. She makes that loveable whimpering noise when I loop my arms around her, pulling her body right up against me.
“Your voice is incredible,” I tell her. “But I think you might need to change the ending.”
“Really?”
I nod. “It’s not a day called ‘Never,’ Rachel. It’s a day called Forever.”
I’m not sure who initiates the kiss, only that one moment we’re gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, and the next, our lips are pressed tightly together.
She moans and trails her fingernails down my neck, her body shifting against mine the same way her hips moved when I went down on her sweet soaked pussy.
It's like she can’t help it. Like a different force has taken over.
“Is your sister home?” I ask.
Rachel shakes her head. “Not for hours yet. Maybe not even until tomorrow.”
I stroke my hand along her cheek, disturbing her messy, beautiful hair. “And your apartment…can you have dogs in there?”
Rachel giggles and looks down at Rusty, scratching him on top of his head. “Only well-behaved ones. I don’t think this beast would be allowed in.”
I chuckle, grinning at Rusty. “You hear that, boy? You’re too wild.”
“He can come up,” Rachel says a moment later, her gaze flitting over my shoulder, down at the ground, anywhere but at me. “Ryland, remember, I’m…I want all that stuff. I want a life with you. But it’s not like I can snap my fingers and become the woman you need…in the bedroom.”
I lean down, brushing my lips against her cheek. “Rachel, you’re already the woman I need. You don’t have to do anything extra, play a role, or worry for a single second. I want you, all of you, and nothing else.”
We kiss again, deeper this time. I’m sure I can feel her heart pounding through her chest, into my body, as though we’re beating in unison with each other.
She whimpers and wriggles against me.
With a savage breath, I step away, shaking my head.
“Is something wrong?” she asks.
“No,” I snarl as my manhood surges against the inside of my pants, my tip bulging, swollen with the need for release. “But I can’t keep kissing you out here. It’s driving me wild.”
“Then…maybe…would you like to come up for a cup of coffee?”
She looks at me in her brave, shy way, a gorgeous contradiction.
“Yes,” I say, voice rough. “I want that so, so badly.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rachel
“Are you done patrolling, boy?” I laugh as Rusty walks around the apartment, nose to the floor, sniffing every inch of it. “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe here.”
I can feel Ryland’s gaze on me, but it feels dangerous to turn and look him fully in the face. During the walk up here, I struggled to accept what he told me, how it could be so similar to my fantasy.