Even if he only touched me once.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I rasped.
He whispered his lips along the angle of my jaw, and a groan rolled from his chest and off his tongue. “Cookie. Have been dying to touch you like this for so long.”
He was suddenly on his knees in front of me, and he had me by the outside of each thigh, hot hands under the fabric of my skirt.
Gunmetal eyes raved as he looked up at me.
Sparks in the middle of the night.
Midnight at my feet.
“Cookie.” The moan was torment, and my heart clattered, every inch of me shaking as I looked down at the man, my breaths so shallow and hard that they panted out into the dense air.
“You sure you want this?” he asked.
“Please,” I whimpered.
That seemed to be the thing Ryder needed to give him the go because he was suddenly back on his feet. Before I could make sense of it, he’d spun me around and bent me over the counter.
Shock rocked from my lungs, and the cold of the metal countertop burned against my heated flesh. I felt disoriented, complicated and confounded as the room spun and spun as Ryder flipped up the skirt of my dress so it was around my waist.
Cool air hit my bottom, and I writhed, half in embarrassment at the way I was exposed and half in desperation for him to put me out of my misery.
“Fuck,” Ryder hissed, and those big hands were suddenly on my butt cheeks, squeezing and kneading. “This ass, Dakota. Thing dreams are made of. Did you know that? The way I’ve wanted to get my hands all over it? Mark it? Claim it?”
Lust crashed through me, all mixed with the confusion. “I thought we were friends?”
Somehow, I was tossing out the weak designation we’d relegated ourselves to. Trying to make it a tease, only the last word cracked.
His rough chuckle scraped the air, just like his rough hands were scraping over my backside. “Oh, Dakota, we’re friends. Really good friends.”
I pushed back against him, the fire inside too intense not to beg. “Show me.”
“So eager.”
“What do you expect? I’ve been waiting half a lifetime.” I tried to play it light. It didn’t work. Not when it was the darkest confession of my soul. Everything I’d given him once and he’d rejected, and now…
The walls closed in and his aura possessed, my entire being quivering as he rode his palms up to the elastic band of my underwear that were fully lace and high-waisted. A pair that made me feel pretty and sexy and had given me the extra boost of courage before I’d come downstairs earlier tonight.
Not that I’d thought that I was going to let Brad see them, but a girl should always be prepared.
But what I hadn’t been prepared for was this.
I honestly didn’t think I’d ever really be when Ryder hooked his fingers in them and began to drag them down my trembling legs.
Everything whirled.
Shifting.
Pivoting.
Turning.
Like every thought and belief I’d possessed had been rearranged.
Old wants and new need and all the questions littered in between.
He angled all the way down so he could wind them free of the pink pumps I wore, and I writhed and squeezed my thighs together when I realized he was kneeling behind me, my ass propped in his face.
I knew I was dripping and soaking wet, and I moaned when Ryder brought attention to it. “You’re drenched, Cookie,” he muttered, dragging his fingertips up the back of my thigh as he slowly stood.
Shivers rolled through me at the tease.
Then he barely brushed his fingers through my pussy.
I jolted forward at his touch, my nails digging into the hard surface like it could keep me steady.
Keep me from floating away.
Because I’d imagined Ryder so many times, but it’d never been quite like this.
No way to anticipate the energy that thrummed. The desire that coated the air like an oil slick.
Electricity snapped within it.
In one heated instant, it felt like everything was going to blow.
“Please, Ryder. I don’t think I can handle you teasing me.”
Low laughter curled from him, and he angled over my back, off to my left side, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Do you need to come, Cookie?”
I whimpered, “Yes.”
Even though I wasn’t sure I could handle it.
This was already too much.
I was shivering and shuddering and couldn’t see straight, and the man had barely touched me.
“Please, make me come.”
The air stirred when he knelt behind me again. He spread my cheeks and licked me from my clit all the way to my ass. I lurched forward at the contact, and a choked breath escaped me. My breasts were pressed to the counter, my heart hammering so hard I was sure Ryder could hear it beating against the metal.