Chapter 25

chapter

twenty-five

Something flared in his eyes, hot and bright. He surged up to capture her mouth again, his hands skimming down her back to cup her ass. In one fluid motion, he stood, lifting her with shocking ease. She gasped and wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her down the hallway to his bedroom.

Valor trotted after them, but Rylan gently closed the door, leaving the dog in the hall.

Valor whined pathetically and pawed at the door.

She buried her giggle against Rylan’s neck. “Aw, poor guy.”

“He’s not invited.” He laid her on the bed with surprising tenderness, his eyes roaming over her body with naked hunger. She reached for him, but he caught her wrists. His grip was firm but gentle as he stretched her arms above her head, his body a solid weight pressing her into the mattress. Izzy’s breath caught in her throat, desire pooling low in her belly at the dominant gesture.

“Not yet,” he murmured, his voice low and gravelly. “If you touch me, I won’t be able to control myself.” He held her wrists loosely with his prosthetic hand while his left trailed down her body, fingers skimming over the swell of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips. Even through the fabric of her shirt, his touch ignited sparks across her skin.

She arched into him, craving more contact, but he kept her pinned with maddening gentleness. His lips followed the path of his hand, pressing feather-light kisses down the column of her throat, along her collarbone, between her breasts. Then he returned to her mouth.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he murmured against her lips.

“So do something about it,” she challenged breathlessly.

A wicked grin curved his lips. He released her wrists and sat back on his heels, slowly dragging her shirt up and over her head. His eyes were molten gold in the dim light of the bedroom as they drank in the sight of her, clad only in a simple black bra and jeans. His gaze swept over her like a physical caress. “God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured, his voice both reverent and rough with want.

Izzy’s breath hitched at the raw desire in his eyes. She reached behind her to unhook her bra, letting it fall away. Rylan’s gaze dropped to her bare breasts, and he made a low, appreciative sound in the back of his throat, making her feel like her little barely B-cups were the sexiest things in the world.

He leaned down, trailing kisses along the column of her throat, down to the valley between her breasts. He took one taut nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the sensitive peak. Izzy gasped, her back arching off the bed. Her fingers tangled in his hair, holding him close as he lavished attention on first one breast, then the other.

“Rylan,” she breathed, almost dizzy with want. She could feel the evidence of his arousal pressing hard against her thigh. “I need you.”

He lifted his head, a surprising look of vulnerability in his eyes. “I really didn’t want to need you, too. But I do. So fucking much it hurts.“

Her heart clenched at his raw confession. She cupped his face in her hands, her thumbs brushing over the rough stubble on his jaw. “Then stop fighting it,” she whispered. “Let me in, Rylan. All the way.”

He closed his eyes, turned his face into her palm, and pressed a kiss to its center. When he opened those gorgeous eyes again, the vulnerability was still there, but it was edged with a steely determination that made her shiver.

“Okay,” he said simply. Then he was kissing her again, deep and hungry, like he was trying to devour her whole. His hands were everywhere, stroking, kneading, igniting her body until she was writhing beneath him, desperate for more.

He fumbled with the button of her jeans, popping it open and dragging down the zipper. Together, they worked the denim down her legs until she was bare before him, wearing nothing but a scrap of black lace.

Rylan hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties and slowly, teasingly, pulled them down her legs. Then he was kissing his way back up, his lips and tongue blazing a trail of fire along the inside of her thigh.

Izzy’s hips bucked up involuntarily when he reached the apex of her thighs. “Please,” she whimpered, not even sure what she was begging for. She just knew she needed his mouth on her, needed to feel his touch consuming her.

As if reading her mind, Rylan settled between her legs, throwing one of her thighs over his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to her inner thigh, his breath hot against her sensitive flesh. “I’ve got you,” he murmured. Then his mouth was on her.

Izzy cried out, her head falling back against the pillows as his tongue delved into her slick folds. He explored her with long, slow licks, savoring her like a man dying of thirst. When he closed his lips around her clit and sucked, stars exploded behind her eyes.

“Oh God,” she gasped, fisting her hands in the sheets. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

He didn’t. His lips and tongue worked her mercilessly, stoking the fire building low in her belly higher and higher. He slid first one, then two fingers inside her, curling them just right. Izzy shattered with a hoarse cry, her body shuddering and clenching around his fingers as the orgasm crashed over her in wave after wave of searing bliss.

Rylan gentled his touch, lapping at her slowly as she came down from the high. When the last aftershock had faded, he pressed one final, soft kiss to her center and crawled back up her body, stretching out beside her. Izzy turned into him, boneless and sated, her skin still humming with pleasure.

“That was...” She trailed off, unable to find words to adequately describe the intensity of what she’d just experienced.

“Fucking gorgeous.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek. “I love the sounds you just made. Loved watching you fly apart as I tasted you. Loved knowing I’m the one who did that to you.”

Izzy leaned into his touch, her heart swelling with emotion. She’d never felt so cherished, so...loved. Even if he couldn’t say the words, she felt it in every brush of his fingers, every heated glance, every reverent kiss.

She reached between them, her fingers skimming over the hard planes of his stomach to the waistband of his jeans. She could feel how much he wanted her, straining against the denim. “Your turn,” she murmured, pushing him onto his back.

Rylan went willingly, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth as she straddled his hips. “Yes, ma’am.”

She took her time exploring him, mapping the hard planes and angles of his body with her hands and mouth. She traced the ink of his tattoo with her tongue, following the swirls of color down the corded muscle of his arm. She kissed each scar, each mark that told the story of his strength and survival.

Rylan’s breath hitched as Izzy’s lips skimmed over a particularly sensitive spot just below his collarbone. His hands flexed on her hips, fingers digging into her skin. “Izzy...” Her name was a plea and a prayer on his lips.

She lifted her head, meeting his heated gaze. Slowly, deliberately, she reached for the button of his jeans, popping it open. The sound of the zipper seemed overly loud in the charged quiet of the bedroom. Rylan lifted his hips, helping her slide the denim down his legs.

He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Her breath caught as his cock sprang free, thick and hard and perfect. She wrapped her fingers around him, and Rylan hissed out a breath between his teeth.

She stroked him slowly, reveling in the velvety steel of him, the way he throbbed in her hand. A bead of moisture gathered at the tip, and she leaned down, flicking her tongue out to taste him. Rylan groaned, low and deep, his hips jerking up involuntarily.

She took him into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the sensitive head before sinking down, taking him as deep as she could. Rylan’s hand tangled in her hair, not guiding her movements, just holding on as she bobbed up and down, hollowing her cheeks to increase the suction.

“Fuck, Izzy,” he ground out, his voice a gravelly rasp. “That feels so good. Too good. You gotta stop, darlin’, or this is gonna be over embarrassingly fast.”

She released him, but replaced her mouth with her hand, giving him a long, hard stroke that made his eyes roll back and pulled another groan from deep in his chest.

She grinned at him. “Do you have any condoms?”

His eyes flew open. “Oh, fuck.” He sat up abruptly and reached for the nightstand, rummaging through the drawer. “Oh, fuck,” he said again with feeling. “It’s been… a while.”

Izzy couldn’t help the small surge of satisfaction at that admission. “For me, too. I’m on the pill,” she offered. “And I had a clean bill of health at my last physical. I haven’t been with anyone since.”

Rylan cupped her face, his thumb sweeping over her cheekbone. “I’m clean, too, but I don’t want you to feel pressured. We can wait until we have condoms.”

In answer, she straddled his lap, teasing his tip through her slick folds. They both groaned at the contact. Then, with agonizing slowness, she sank onto him, taking him into her body inch by delicious inch.

Rylan’s head fell back against the headboard with a low groan, his hands gripping her hips almost hard enough to bruise. “Christ, you feel incredible.”

So did he. Better than she imagined. And, oh, had she imagined. Over and over and over again. She’d worn out the batteries in her vibrator with her visions of him, but no fantasy came close to the real thing, to the hot, hard length of him stretching and filling her so perfectly. She took a moment to adjust, reveling in the exquisite feeling of fullness, of being so intimately joined with this man who was beginning to mean everything to her.

Then she began to move, setting a slow, torturous rhythm, rising and falling above him. She braced her hands on his chest, rolling her hips in a way that made stars burst behind her eyelids. He met her thrust for thrust, his pelvis grinding against a sweet spot with each deep stroke.

The pleasure built quickly, coiling tighter and tighter low in her belly.

Rylan slid his left hand between their bodies, and his fingers found her clit. He circled the sensitive bundle of nerves in time with their movements, and Izzy felt herself teetering on the edge.

“That’s it, darlin’,” he rasped, his eyes locked on her face, drinking in every flicker of pleasure. “Let go. I want to feel you come around me.”

The deep timbre of his voice, the intensity in his gaze, and the steady pressure of his fingers were her undoing. She shattered with a cry, her inner muscles fluttering and clenching around him as ecstasy burst through her body in searing waves.

He growled and surged up, switching the positions so fast her head would’ve spun if it wasn’t still reeling from the orgasm. Suddenly, she was on her back, Rylan looming above her, his hips still driving into her as he chased his own release. His eyes were molten gold, boring into hers with an intensity that stole her breath. The headboard cracked against the wall with every snap of his hips, and she held on for dear life, meeting him thrust for desperate thrust. Her nails dug into his shoulders, likely leaving crescent-shaped marks, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Everything narrowed to the coiling tension building inside her again, impossibly soon.

The second organism sizzled through her, bright and shocking like a lightning strike. She screamed through it, her heels digging into his ass as she urged him deeper, harder, faster. She was lost to the sensation, to the primal need to be filled and claimed by this man.

Rylan’s rhythm began to falter, his thrusts growing erratic. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his breath hot against her skin. “Fuck, Izzy. I’m gonna… I can’t… ”

“Yes,” she gasped, clenching around him. “Come for me, Rylan. I want to feel you let go.”

A few more deep, hard strokes, and he was there, his body going rigid above her as his release pulsed hot and thick inside her. Her name tore from his throat with a hoarse groan, and he buried his face against her neck, his hand tangling almost painfully in her hair. She held him through it, stroking soothingly over his sweat-dampened skin as he shuddered and pulsed within her.

She couldn’t deny it any longer. She was in love with him. Deeply, irrevocably in love. If she was honest with herself, she had started falling before he ever really knew her name, back when she was just a deputy on the periphery of Redwood Coast Rescue.

Finally, Rylan’s body relaxed, his weight pressing her into the mattress in a way that felt safe and right.

He lifted his head to look down at her, his eyes soft and sated, a small smile on his lips. He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “You okay?”

She leaned into his touch. Even though they were still intimately connected, she couldn’t get enough of his touch. “More than okay. That was...”

“Earth-shattering? Life-altering? The best sex you’ve ever had?” he suggested with a playful grin.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him this relaxed, this unfiltered, this… joyful. She blinked against the rush of happy tears and swatted his chest, hoping to distract him so he didn’t see the sheen in her eyes. “All of the above. Definitely the best sex I’ve ever had.”

Something flickered in his eyes, there and gone too fast to decipher. Then he was kissing her, slow and deep, like he was trying to pour everything he couldn’t say into the press of his lips.

When they finally broke apart, he rolled to the side, taking her with him so she was draped across his chest. She could feel his heart pounding beneath her cheek, gradually slowing to a steady rhythm. His arms came around her, holding her close.

“Stay,” he murmured against her temple. “I know it’s selfish of me to ask, but I don’t want you to go.”

Izzy’s heart turned over in her chest. She knew what it cost him to make himself vulnerable like this, to admit he needed her. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I’m not going anywhere.”

He exhaled as if in relief and tightened his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin.

Izzy snuggled into him, relishing the solid heat of his body, the steady thump of his heart beneath her cheek. Something warm and wonderful unfurled in her chest. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she was exactly where she was meant to be— in the arms of this strong, brave, beautifully broken man who was beginning to feel a lot like home.

She knew they had a lot to talk about, a lot to work through. His demons weren’t going to be vanquished by one night of mind-blowing sex.

But for now, in this perfect moment, she let herself believe that maybe, just maybe, they could find a way to heal each other.