Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers Book 1), page 29
A laugh barrels out of me. Ryder drops, his insane quads flexing as his body takes a defensive stance. His legs are a little wide, so I try for a nutmeg, to thread the ball between them. He anticipates this, dropping his shin and catching it, then immediately pulling a Maradona that yanks it back from me.
“Asshole,” I mutter.
“You thought you could ’meg me, Willa?”
I shove him. He doesn’t budge.
“Keep it clean, Sunshine.”
He’s ribbing me. Provoking me. His feet hover over the ball, his stance is cocky and confident. I lunge for it and he bypasses me, nailing a shot into the goal.
I stare at the net, then slowly swivel my gaze to him. “Beginner’s luck.”
His grin is wider than the field. “Whatever you say.”
That does it. I leave the net with the ball, pulling it out to the top of what would be the box if it were painted on the grass. Ryder drops again, and this time I don’t focus on his killer legs. I see the whole space and I do something ballsy. I fake left, then lunge right, chipping the ball over his shoulder. Ryder’s caught in the direction I faked him as I slice by, trapping the ball on my chest down to my thigh, where I boot it into the net.
Ryder’s eyes dart from the net to me. “Damn. That was sexy.”
I bite my lip to fight a smile. “And to think I’m just getting started.”
We play for a long time. I get a few goals past him, but Ryder’s formidable. He’s fast and he’s physical. He also has nine inches and seventy-five pounds on me, which helps.
I’m tired. My thighs shake from exertion and Ryder’s drenched in sweat. Our play gets rougher, touches increase, and our bodies grow closer. I’m practically sitting on his lap, Ryder’s large hand against my thigh as I hold the ball out, shielding it from his foot’s reach.
Thunder rumbles a ways off. Ryder peers up to the sky, then down to me. “Last goal.”
I whistle. It’s my possession. We’re tied. If I score this, I win. I shift slightly, and Ryder’s right up against me, goal-side. Perfect defending. His body’s low, his center of gravity exactly as it should be. He feels like a wall I’ll never get past. Every time I’ve gotten by has felt miraculous. I can’t even think about what tricks I have left.
“What’s she going to do?” I whisper, peering at him over my shoulder. We’re both dripping with sweat, Ryder’s jaw’s tight. “You called last goal, Bergman. What’s it going to be?” His fist tightens on my shirt as I send my ass right into his groin.
“You tell me, Willa.” He sends his hips back into me, making my eyes flutter for just a moment before they snap open. “It’s your call, how this ends. I’ve done what I could.”
Suddenly, air rushes out of my lungs as our eyes lock. We aren’t talking about this little competition. We aren’t talking about a friendly one-on-one game.
“No, we’re not.” His head dips closer. I can smell the perfect scent of his sweat. Heat pours off his body.
“I said that out loud,” I whisper.
He nods. “Do what you have to do, Willa, but please just do it already. Put me out of my misery.”
Tears well in my eyes as I straighten my spine. Trailing the ball left, I lean into him. I lean so hard that if he pulled back, I’d fall on my ass, and he knows it. He could let me tumble in the grass, rip the ball off of me and score, no problem.
But he doesn’t.
“You could let me bite it right now.”
“I know,” he grits out.
I shove into him again. “Why don’t you?”
He shakes his head, his hands tightening around my waist. “Because it’s a dirty move. There’s trust. You lean into me, and I lean back.”
I glance up at him and feel stupid tears spill down my cheeks.
His body stills. Rain sweeps across the grass, fine and warm. It dapples Ryder’s cheeks, clumps his eyelashes. I kick the ball away and spin before my fists find his shirt, then squeeze tight. “I don’t want the last word right now. I don’t want to win. And that’s not normal.”
Ryder exhales shakily, his eyes searching mine.
“I want what you want,” I tell him, loud and clear, slow and sure. I don’t want him to miss a word I say. “All-in, fair and square. I want to be afraid with you rather than fearless and alone. Only when it’s us.”
Ryder’s hands are vise grips on my waist.
“Because I love you, Ryder Bergman. I’m scared shitless to say it, but I love you. I love you, and I always will.”
Air rushes out of his lungs as Ryder crushes me to him. “Willa,” he mutters into my hair. One long kiss to my curls, as he breathes in, then sighs. “I love you.”
I kiss over his heart, reach for his neck. Kisses there too. I want to kiss him everywhere. I want him to feel how much he means to me. I want to make up for so much lost time.
“I love you,” he says again, his lips soft along my neck. “I have since you glared up at me and looked like you wanted to roast my skin for dinner.”
A wet, gunky laugh bursts out of me, as the rain picks up. It’s highly unromantic, how hellish I look. My hair’s plastered to my head, snot dripping down my nose. My eyes are red. I’m an ugly crier.
“No, you’re not.” His hands smooth my hair off my face. “You’re beautiful, always, and I love you endlessly, Willa Rose Sutter. I can’t help it. I wish I could. I know this makes your life messier. I know I’ve tortured you. I know we piss each other off as much as we make each other happy. I know I want a quiet life and yours will be nothing but wildly exciting, as you deserve it to be.
“But I want your life to be my life, Sunshine. I’ll do whatever it takes for your world to be mine.”
“Ryder.” I press my forehead to his chest. My ear rests over his heart. It’s pounding, fast. It’s this tiny reminder that the man holding me is just as fragile. He’s just as easily wounded and broken. He’s taking a risk, loving me.
Rain pelts down on us as we sway. Until one rough hand grasps my jaw and tips my face up.
Ryder’s eyes search mine, a quiet, beautiful smile painting his face. “I love you, Willa Rose.”
My smile is ridiculous. It’s a comical, clown-at-the-circus, child-at-Christmas smile. “I love you, too, Ryder.”
His kiss is soft and tender. It’s a quiet press of his mouth, gently opening, unfurling into something warm and bone-deep satisfying. I flick my tongue and find his. I taste him, savor him, as our bodies lock tight. Hands find hair and fabric and skin, and tug, begging for more.
“More,” I whisper. “I want it all.”
His smile is soft against my lips, his sigh of contentment as warm as the breeze that surrounds us. “Me too, Sunshine.”
29
Willa
Playlist: “All Night,” Beyoncé
I stand in a puddle of water at my feet. The rain picked up on our walk back. We’re warm and soaked. Ryder stares at me, chest rising and falling like he’s trying to quiet the storm inside himself. Thunderclouds darken the sky, casting the bedroom in sleepy shades of gray and taupe, rainwater blue.
Ryder steps closer and runs his hands down my arms. His lips press to my temple. Soft, warm kisses as his fingers curl around the hem of my shirt. It peels up my torso and catches on my wet hair before he tugs it resolutely off. Ryder sucks in a breath, the most beautiful expression on his face. Pained wonder. It’s not even the first time he’s seen me naked, but he looks undone.
Two shaking hands grip the zipper of my sports bra, the unfurling sound echoing in the room before he pushes it off my shoulders.
“God, Willa.” He blinks rapidly and quickly wipes his eyes.
“Are you crying, Brawny?”
“Stop it,” he mutters, kissing me quickly. “Say my name.”
“Ryder,” I whisper. His hands slide along my waist, to my shorts and panties, fingers hooking into the material and dragging them down. He kneels as he goes.
“Hold on,” he orders quietly.
I grasp his shoulders as I step out of my clothes, but Ryder doesn’t stand. His hands drift up my thighs, across my pelvis, then down—
“Willa.” Ryder stares up at me, his fingers slowly teasing along impossibly sensitive skin.
A hum of pleasure slips out. “Yes?”
He smiles as he presses a kiss low on my hip. My eyes flutter shut. “I knew things felt smooth last night…but I did not see you being a waxer.”
“Rooney said I should. Said if I didn’t like your beard, I shouldn’t make you deal with mine.”
Ryder laughs against my skin.
Good grief, I need a filter. A hot flush surges to my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to say all of that out loud.”
His lips kiss their way down from my hip, along the tender skin inside my legs, before traveling upward again. “I would have been happy no matter what. Nothing would stop me from doing this.”
“Ryder, I don’t…historically, that is, this doesn’t normally make me—ohhh.”
“Hush,” he mutters against my skin. “We’ve already established that’s not on you.”
My grip tightens on his shoulders as Ryder gently splays me open. Air rushes over everywhere that’s warm and wet and aching. I’m flushed, hot, and shivering. When his tongue sweeps over me again, teasingly slow, I buck into his mouth instinctively.
“Ryder,” I whisper.
He grins against my skin. “Goddamn, you taste good, Willa. So, so good.”
I blush spectacularly. “Really?”
“Hell, yes,” he growls. His hands cup my ass and tug me closer.
Something he does with his tongue this time tickles and I giggle reflexively. Embarrassment heats my cheeks. What if I offended him? Have I ruined the mood? Ryder pulls back and smiles up at me. Just smiles.
“Too soft?” he asks.
“I think so. It tickled.”
He glances down at everything before him. He looks incredibly analytical for a second, just how he did when he was talking yesterday about troubleshooting the roof for a leak. Then a grin tugs at his mouth. “So beautiful. I get to see this, taste this, forever.”
“Forever, huh?” I ask breathily, trying to sound flippant. Even though my heart’s tripping at the weight and promise of his words. Ryder wants me. Forever.
“Yup,” he says quietly in between kisses that tease and torture me, so close to where I’m dying for touch. “I’m like a…barn owl. One and done.”
I snort and nearly fold over him as I laugh. “A barn owl?”
Ryder shrugs and kisses my belly as I straighten, his hands kneading my ass. “First monogamous species that came to mind. They pick one mate for life.” He nuzzles my bare skin and licks gently, firmer this time. “Just be glad I didn’t woo you with dead mice. You’d have to be very polite about it since you’d, of course, accept my offer.”
His lips whisper over my pelvic bone. I feel a jolt of pleasure swirl in my belly and dance to my breasts. “A-and how would I accept this offer?”
“Well, if you were anything like a female barn owl, you’d make a croaking sound.” He presses a kiss right above my clit. My knees buckle as some kind of ungodly noise leaves me.
“Pretty much like that.” Ryder does it again. Another kiss right over the sensitive skin protecting where I’m wildly sensitive. I gasp and lean into it.
“Ahh,” he murmurs. “She does like it. Noted.”
I sigh as he kisses me just like that again and again, as his fingers slowly tease where I’m so wet, I’m starting to drip down my thighs. Which—I’d like the record to show—has never ever happened before. My hands go reflexively to his thick blond hair, half out of its bun. I tug out his hair tie and run my fingers through those soft, golden strands, fisting them.
It doesn’t happen quickly, but Ryder doesn’t seem to mind. I tangle my fingers deeper into his hair and find a rhythm against his mouth that feels incredible. It’s a quiet, steady build, a candlewick catching, then slowly burning brighter, brighter—
“I’m close. Oh God,” I yell so loudly if there are people miles away, they heard it. I could not care less.
Ryder gently nods, a soft hum leaving his mouth. Tenderly, he lowers his lips to my clit and sucks, until my orgasm soars through my body, my toes, my fingers, my breasts, and settles heavily in the pulse between my thighs. More coaxing kisses and gentle words, then Ryder stands and sweeps me into his arms like it’s choreography he had blocked out from step one.
“So beautiful,” he whispers. I grasp his face and kiss him as he holds me. I taste myself and him, and I want him so badly I can’t find air, I can’t see the world around me. I just see and feel and want Ryder.
When he sets me on the bed, I sit up, tugging off his sopping clothes. Ryder shivers as I rub my hands up and down his arms, whipping back the sheets and thick comforter, then dragging him inside. Pausing, he unhooks the mechanisms behind his ears and carefully sets them on the nightstand.
When he turns back toward me, he grins one of those rare, bright smiles of his. Better than the sun slipping out from behind a dark cloud, firelight glowing in midnight blackness. It knocks the air out of my lungs.
His eyes roam my body, following the path of his hand as it cups my breast, travels down my waist, wrapping tight around my backside and hauling me close. We both gasp when his erection presses between us. Instinctively, I grip him and slide my thumb along the sensitive underside of his length. I savor him how I savored him last night, delighting in the soft, velvety skin that moves gently with my hand, the thick rigidity of his cock, how it pulses as I stroke him.
Ryder’s eyes slam shut when I slide his length along my soaked entrance. His head drops back as he falls onto the pillow. I’m doing that. I’m making him fall apart. When his eyes open, I sign good. So good.
He smiles gently and signs it back. Then I do something, sliding myself against him, that earns a pained sound of desperation. Grasping his arms, I pull Ryder over top of me. He drops his weight between my legs, making me cry out, and it feels incredible to be covered head to toe by his massive body, to feel pinned and held and consumed. Ryder’s long, powerful frame, burning hot, so solid over mine, is blindingly sensual. It’s comforting. Our gaze holds as he drifts over me, sliding the head of his erection right along my clit.
I ghost my hands over his fantastic backside, appreciating the gentle flex of his muscles as he moves against me. Eventually, my hands travel up his back to wrap around his neck. I bring him close and speak to his good ear. “I’m on the pill. I don’t want anything between us.”
His forehead drops to my shoulder as a groan leaves him, and when he picks up his head, his eyes are emerald flames. Molten gems, beautiful desire, as he leans back and guides himself until just the tip wedges inside me. He’s slow, careful as he begins to ease in.
I grasp his wrist and squeeze to earn his attention. More, I sign.
An exhale rushes out of him, as our eyes lock, as with painstaking care and steadiness, Ryder fills me.
“Ry,” I gasp.
It’s overwhelming. I’m full and stretched, but so much more, I’m pinned by his stare, heart-struck as his mouth falls open the first time he drags back and thrusts into me.
“Okay?” he asks.
I nod furiously. “Yes.” I cup his cheek and he leans into it, turning to press a kiss in my palm.
On the next sure roll of his hips, sparks dance over my skin. Each time’s easier, as my body relaxes, as I only get wetter. I’m drenched and Ryder’s gloriously hard. Somehow, we fit, just like he promised. Ryder drops to his elbows, and his hands cradle my head. His eyes hold mine, with each measured, sure thrust that sends air quietly rushing from my lungs.
I blink back tears which he thumbs away. He presses his lips to my ear and whispers, the cadence uneven, almost too soft. “Touch me.”
My heart squeezes. He’s nervous, too. Pulling him close in my arms, I kiss the crook of his neck and shoulder, rubbing his back, kneading his muscles. Ryder leans back enough to watch me again. He nudges my legs with his thighs and presses them wider, grinding his pelvis against mine. It rubs my clit, just how his tongue did before. Steady, soft circles as he swirls his hips.
His cock is thicker. His breathing is labored. Sweat beads his temple and a gust of air leaves him when I clench myself around his length. His rhythm falters when I do it again, but Ryder’s eyes never leave mine.
Tender, aching need grows inside me, a tightening knot about to snap. It’s harsh, urgent. Each time Ryder drifts out, then drives into me, I’m more desperate, more frantic. My toes curl, my hands groping the sheets. Anything to anchor myself.
Ryder dips his head and whispers in my ear, “Let go.”
My body tightens, release impossibly close. I don’t want this terrifying, beautiful bliss to end. Each stroke, my body coils harder, tension builds.
“Let go and fall, Willa.” He grabs my hands and locks our fingers. “I’ll catch you.” His voice stutters as his movement grows quicker.
Tears stream down my face. My whole body shakes. It’s the unsexiest thing and somehow I still feel so beautiful as Ryder’s eyes hold mine, as he dips and kisses me, never breaking eye contact. Seating himself inside my body, Ryder thrusts his hips into mine.
“I’m sorry,” he mouths against my lips.
His brow pinches, his mouth falls open as he spills, hot and long inside me. I watch his face tighten, his arms tremor, but his eyes never leave mine. I know he didn’t want to come before me, but it’s what I need. Once again, Ryder bravely goes ahead, showing me it’s safe so I know I can trust to follow him.
I cry his name as the first crushing wave hits me. I’m clawing at Ryder, gasping for air. The next wave crests, and I scream. His hips roll into mine, he thrusts deeper, giving me the still-powerful feel of his length inside me. Another wave, then another. I shake and sob, arching into him as I smash onto shore, obliterated.
It’s the most frightening, stunning, raw moment of my life. I wish it never had to end.
