Ryder

forty five

A loud flash of thunder, warm lips on my skin, a sound escaping my lips as hands held me up and firm against the wooden door--hot, burning--a burning red, it was everywhere.

My eyelids fluttered open, inhaling softly and sharply at the same time, and I managed to glance over Ryder's shoulder at the dark room ahead of us--the spare room Dad showed me earlier, I realized somewhere between my muddled thoughts. So we'd made our way up here and up the stairs somehow.

"Querida," Ryder whispered against the beating pulse of my neck, fingers digging into my waist, and biting. My head thumped softly back against the door. All I remembered, I thought in a daze, was seeing that wild fiery look in his eyes downstairs, the branding kiss on my lips, and the urgent need to get him upstairs and in this room so that he'd finally--finally make good on his promises.

"What," he continued to speak, lips a torture to my skin, and voice so heavily laced with raw desire, "are you thinking."

I shook my head, fingers grasping his shoulders, trembling and cold even when I felt like warm fire from the inside.

It was probably the worst time to talk, think, speak about such things--but I had to, and it was on the tip of my tongue, so it just came tumbling out,

"I...That..." I trailed off, shuddered, and gripped his shoulders to push him back so he'd let me speak. He stopped, scowled, but didn't dive back to kiss me again, his eyes the darkest of blues as they stared at me. "The girl at the reception. She gave you her number."

He blinked, looked confused, and his grip on my waist tightened.

"At the theater?" I added weakly.

Recognition flitted in his eyes but it went away just as fast. He leaned close, almost threateningly, but the threat of it washed away when he cupped my face in both hands and pressed our foreheads together.

"You think, querida, that I will call her?" He asked, voice heavy with want.

"I don't know."

He pressed close, impossibly closer, and I gasped, tightening my legs around his waist. "I will not."

I nodded, about to tell him to forget it--this--this stupid topic because obviously none of that mattered right now, but none of those words made it past my tongue. I thumped my head back against the door and nodded again--feverish, frantic, wanting.

"I do not lie to you, do I?"

I shook my head.

"Believe me then," he murmured against the corner of my mouth, "that I have never wanted anyone--no one else but you, mi amor."

My fingers sunk into his hair, the soft strands that I gripped tighter as he tortured me with his lips and his words and the whole of him.

"And I will show you because I promised," he spoke, punctuating his words by holding me up by my hips and dragging his teeth down my throat in sweet agony. "I'll undress you first, and then I'll kiss every inch of you until you believe me. Until you know I haven't lied to you once. Until you know I have never once wanted for anything, anyone, but you."

There was the bed beneath me, a dull thud, my heart in the hands of this blue-eyed wonder that stared at me from above me, and I wondered how--why I'd gotten so lucky.

But Ryder was keen on his words, so he didn't let me ponder over my own thoughts for more than a few seconds, and then his hands were on me again, on my shirt, rucking it up and kissing his way up my stomach.

"We'll take this off, yes?"

It took me a moment but then I realized he was asking, and I breathed in fast, short breaths--panting--and nodded.