Ryder's Bride (Brides Bay Book 1) Read online

  He gently cupped her cheeks with his big hands. “Because I want it to be really good for you,” he murmured. “I don’t want to rush anything.”

  She pressed her palms over his hands and took in both the hard set of his mouth and the almost fierce glitter in his dark gaze. Emotion tugged at her heart, and she had to swallow twice before she could answer.

  “It’s okay, Ry. I’m ready. So, so ready.”

  His mouth eased into a smile that made her go all soft inside. His hands drifted down to her thighs, smoothly stroking them and making her tremble.

  “Pink bows and black lace.” He tugged on the little bow in the center of her panties. “So sweet. Like you.” He trailed a finger down and pressed gently on her clit through the damp, silky fabric.

  Such a light touch, yet it jolted right through her. Claire grabbed his shoulders as a little hiss escaped her ips.

  Growling deep in his throat, Ry hooked his thumbs inside her panties and quickly drew them down her legs. He let them drop to the floor, then planted his hands on the inside of her thighs and slowly pushed her wide open.

  A hot flush rose up her neck and into her cheeks. Conflicting emotions swept through her—a little bit of shyness and a whole lot of excitement. But there was more than that, so much more. She saw a possessive tenderness in his gaze that made her heart flutter and turn over in her chest.

  I want him so much.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  Do not cry, you dope. The light in his eyes made her feel both vulnerable and cherished—and special in a way she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  If ever.

  When his gaze lifted to her face, its intensity threatened to suck the air out of her body. Unless she was tragically mistaken, there was as much need in his eyes as there was in her heart.

  He leaned in and pressed a long, slow kiss to her mouth. It melted every bone in her body.

  “Don’t ever doubt that, honey,” he said when he finally pulled back. “You’re beautiful both inside and out.”

  Claire blinked hard. She would not screw this up by getting messy and emotional. It was too soon and too fast for that. Tonight was about pleasure, about living in the moment. It was about letting herself go and not making things more complicated then they needed to be.

  Focus on the moment. Focus on Ry.

  He gently guided her until she rested comfortably against the back of the couch, a few cushions propped behind her. That position thrust her breasts up and he took full advantage, sucking and kissing her nipples until she was again squirming beneath him. Then he slid down her body, and his big, deft hands eased her wide.

  Finally, finally, his mouth was on her, his tongue slipping through her wet folds, teasing her open and tasting her. He clamped his hands on her hips, holding her still as he took what he wanted, driving her wild. Sensation built in a relentless wave, carrying her right to the edge.

  When he sucked her clit into his mouth, Claire detonated. The pleasure was so staggering that her hips lifted right off the cushions, and a long moan surged up from deep within her. But before she even had a chance to catch a breath, Ry was pulling her upright. He took her lips in a wet, open-mouthed kiss that was both urgent and tender, tasting so earthy and so passionate that it made her shake. One of his hands cradled her head as he gentled the kiss into a sweet, possessive nuzzle before easing back.

  She opened her eyes. Ry was staring at her, his gaze dark and hot. One of his hands slipped down to her neck, while the other reached for his zipper. He shoved his pants down over his knees and managed to get out of them without standing or moving away from between her thighs. When he yanked off his briefs, Claire felt her eyes go wide.

  Holy shit.

  To say that Ryder Griffin was all man was the understatement of the year.

  And you’re going to ride Ryder, Claire. In your old house, no less.

  She couldn’t hold back a snicker at the lame joke that had somehow popped into her head. It was obviously more the product of nerves than anything else.

  His hand stilled and his eyebrows shot up. “I gotta say that a chuckle wasn’t exactly the reaction I was expecting.”

  She flapped a hand. “It wasn’t about that, trust me. You are very impressive.”

  “Then is there a problem?” he asked, with a just a touch of masculine ire.

  She draped her arms over his broad shoulders and pressed a kiss to his lips, so loving the taste of him.

  “Do I look like I have a problem?” She reached down and wrapped her fingers around his thick erection. It pulsed hot and heavy in her hand.

  “Uh, no,” he breathed, resting his forehead against hers. “I guess you don’t.”

  “I want you so much that I can’t wait a moment longer,” she whispered.

  She’d been waiting forever for him, it seemed, and now she would finally have him.

  “I’m so with you,” he whispered back.

  He straightened up and reached for his jeans, quickly extracting a condom from his pocket. He ripped it open and sheathed himself in record time.

  Suddenly, Claire truly couldn’t wait a second longer. She wrapped her legs around his hips, bringing herself snug against him. When his cock slid through her wet folds and rubbed across her clit, she gasped at the sensations sparking through her body once more.

  Ry groaned and his eyelids fluttered down. “Man, you’re so hot and wet.”

  Since no words could describe how she felt—how good they felt together—Claire simply brought her hands around his neck and tunneled her fingers into his short, thick hair.

  His eyelids lifted and their gazes locked. “Ready?”

  “So ready,” she whispered.

  He thrust into her in a long, slow slide that stole every last breath of air from her body.

  Then he began to move—strong, steady, and quickly building. His hand found the curve of her back, settling low to pull her against him. It felt like pure energy rocketing through her body, firing her up wherever they touched. Her hands moved from his neck to curl around his powerful biceps. She clung to him, giving in to the strength of his body while he pounded into her.

  She could barely believe it but he took her to the very edge so quickly again, rocking her into ecstasy. Her body clenched around him, milking his thick length. When he reached down and flicked a thumb over her clit, a long shudder coursed through her and she curled around him, so far gone in the pleasure—in him—that she could hardly think. All she could do was feel Ry deep inside her, feel their hearts pounding against each other, and feel his groan vibrate through their bodies as he came hard.

  Her heart opened to a passion she’d never felt before and an emotion so sweet and yet so devastating that she wanted to cry for joy.

  But she refused to mar the moment with tears that would embarrass them both. Instead, she just rested against him, focusing on their bodies and how good they felt together. She concentrated on the amazing fact that for once she’d let go and done something wild. Something so unlike her.

  Ry sucked in a deep breath. “Wow. I can’t believe we waited so long to do this.”

  She pressed her face into his shoulder, struggling to get her emotions under control. “I hope it was worth the wait.”

  He tipped her chin up, gazing down at her with an intensity that had her throat going tight again.

  “More than you know, Claire,” he said in a solemn voice. “And a hell of a lot more than I deserve.”

  She blinked up at him, surprised by the depth of emotion in his words and on his face. She should feel totally at sea and even scared after taking a risk that felt like an emotional revolution.

  Instead, she was…happy.

  * * *

  Stanley’s woof from downstairs pulled Ry awake. Blearily, he glanced at the bedside clock.

  3:20 a.m.

  With a yawn, he turned over to reach an arm out for Claire and found the space where she’d been empty. Had she snuck out and gone home?

 
He could almost guarantee she’d had second thoughts, because they seemed second nature to Claire. Yet she didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who’d bolt on a guy after the kind of evening they’d just spent together. It might have been a mistake to give in to all those weeks of frustration and desire but if so, it was a mistake that felt totally right to him.

  They’d had spectacular sex all over—even once in the kitchen, with her up on the counter. After all that, she’d curled up in his arms on the sofa and dropped into a heavy doze. When he gently woke her after a while and asked if she wanted to go upstairs to bed—to stay the night and sleep—she’d surprised him by mumbling yes. She’d been three-quarters out of it when he carried her up and had fallen into a coma-like slumber as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  Maybe suddenly waking up in the middle of the night and finding herself in her parents’ old room had freaked her out. It sucked for both of them that she was still so hung up about the place. As difficult as it would be for her to see the old house torn down, he figured it could end up being good for her. Once the place was gone, it should be easier for her to finally move on.

  He smiled and rolled out of bed. His current plan was for more hot sex in the morning, and then he’d whip up a big breakfast for her. After that…who knew what might happen?

  Flipping on a lamp, he opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of sleep pants. Stanley woofed again and Ry hurried downstairs to find the dog sitting on his haunches, staring out the patio door.

  Claire was on the patio, barefoot and wearing nothing but one of his white dress shirts. It barely concealed the sweet curve of her ass and did nothing to hide her slim, gorgeous legs. When he thought about those legs resting on his shoulders as he went down on her, he started to get hard again.

  He slid the door open. “Taking in the night air?”

  Stanley rushed out and headed straight past her to his favorite spot for doing his business.

  Claire turned and gave him a smile. “Stargazing out here brings back so many memories. My sister and I would get up in the middle of the night sometimes and come out here on the lawn. We’d wrap ourselves up all cozy in blankets and lie on our backs to stare up at the sky and talk about every silly thing we could think of. Boys, usually.”

  Ry found that image of the sisters surprisingly sweet. “Want me to grab a couple of blankets now? Maybe keep the little walk down memory lane going?”

  “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “Not a bit. Either that or you should come back to bed.” He smiled. “You’re not exactly dressed for the outdoors.”

  She scrunched up her nose. “I’m sorry about taking your shirt. Your closet door was open and…”

  “No worries. It looks a hell of a lot better on your body than it does on mine.”

  She gave him a shy little grin. “How about we start with the blankets, then see what happens?”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Ry headed back upstairs with Stanley right on his heels.

  He found a couple of king-size blankets in the linen closet and took them back to the patio, handing one to Claire. She stepped out onto the grass and stretched out the blanket like they were going to have a picnic.

  She shot a glance down to where his sleep pants displayed clear signs of his amorous intentions. “We can sit on this one and wrap ourselves in the other and snuggle.”

  “Sorry about…uh, that.”

  “Don’t be, because I’m not. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to think of something to do with your little problem if you’re patient.”

  When his head jerked back a little, she pursed her lips, trying not to laugh. “Oops, sorry again. Little is a most inaccurate choice of words when it comes to your equipment.”

  She flashed him a cheeky grin that made him want to take her right on the spot. He couldn’t believe how much he wanted her. Sleeping with Claire had driven home everything he knew about her with a certainty that floored him.

  When she gracefully sat down and leaned back onto her elbows, he wrapped one side of the big blanket around her and sat down before pulling the other side around him. “By the way, did I mention before that you have a truly spectacular ass, Maddox?”

  Claire snuggled closer as he put an arm around her waist. “Yes, I distinctly recall that unforgettably romantic line.” She gave him a little poke in the ribs with her free hand. “But I bet you say that to all your girls.”

  While she’d tried to make it sound like a joke, he heard the implied question. The stereotype of the hard-partying pro athlete was apparently alive and well here, as it had been everywhere.

  “All what girls?”

  “Well, the hordes of groupies that follow teams around, for starters. You probably had to beat them off with a big stick.” When he laughed, she poked him again. “And I don’t mean that stick.”

  He shook his head. “Not true. Sure, some of that stuff goes on. But at least half the guys I played with were happily married and wouldn’t go anywhere near groupies.”

  “What about the other half?” she asked softly. “The unmarried ones, like you.”

  At this point, it seemed wrong not to tell her about his brief marriage.

  “Actually, I was married for a short time. But even after it went south, I didn’t go in for the kind of hookup you’re talking about. I kept business and pleasure separate. Always.”

  She twisted around to stare at him. “I had no idea you’d been married.”

  “Okay, when you said you didn’t Google me, I guess you meant it,” he said in a light tone. “Anyway, it was just a high school sweetheart kind of thing. We were so not right for each other but too young and stupid to know it for a while.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Krista.”

  He tightened his arm around her. Claire’s warmth was an antidote to the cold sense of failure that dogged him whenever he thought about that ugly period of his life.

  “We had big trust issues,” he added. “I tried hard but could never manage to reassure her. Being away so much didn’t help. The team was on the road half the time, and it’s a really long season—up to nine months if you make the playoffs. Krista was convinced that I had to be screwing women in practically every NHL town between Boston and LA. Sometimes she’d call me at four in the morning, just to see if I was actually there or if I had a woman in my room. A couple of times she even hopped on a plane and showed up at the team hotel late at night.”

  She rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “That’s so nuts.”

  “Tell me about it. Look, you might think that where there was smoke, there had to be some fire, but believe me, it was all in Krista’s head. Nothing I could say or do made any difference. Hell, I’m no angel, that’s for sure, but I’ve never cheated—not on the ice, not on my taxes, and not in my marriage.”

  Claire hugged him. “You may be a complete pain in the butt sometimes, but I definitely don’t see you as a cheating kind of guy.”

  He snorted out a laugh, and the tightness in his gut eased up a bit.

  “Can I ask if Krista left you, or if you were the one to call it quits?”

  He propped his chin on her head. It was easier to talk about when he wasn’t looking at her. “It was me. I divorced her after three years. She was an emotional mess and getting worse. I tried everything I could think of to help, including marriage counseling.” That little experiment had done nothing to convince him that hauling your emotions out for microscopic inspection did any good. In fact, it had seemed to hasten epically bad results. “I reached out to her friends too, but that didn’t help either. In the end, I just couldn’t stay with her any longer. A few times, she even threatened to kill herself if I left, so that made it even harder. But I knew that staying would only make things worse. That she needed me gone as much as I needed to go.”

  “How very sad for both of you.” Claire’s voice was filled with compassion, both for him and a person she’d never met.

  “I haven’t tal
ked to her in a couple of years. I know she’s still with the guy she married soon after we split up though. They’re probably living the good life on the financial settlement from the divorce.”

  Ry wasn’t proud of the bitterness that had just leached into his voice. But Krista had put him through hell, and he had yet to fully rid himself of the lingering pain.

  “I’m sure you were very generous.”

  “I agreed to just about everything she asked for. It was important to me to make sure she’d be okay at least financially.”

  Claire twisted out from under his arm and looked up at him. She was all moonlight and shadows, her face a study in solemn beauty. “I truly didn’t meant to pry, but I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to tell me.”

  The story was still incomplete. “You might as well know one last thing.”

  She stretched up and kissed him softly on the lips. Ry breathed her in like a warmly scented ocean breeze. “Only if you need to tell me.”

  “I want to.” He wanted her to understand why he was the way he was. “And it’s going to sound like a stupid soap opera.”

  “Well, now you’ve really got my interest.”

  “One time in the offseason, I’d flown to Phoenix for a sports banquet. I was on my way to the hotel when I got a call saying the organizers had to cancel the event. There was a serious fire in the hotel, and they’d evacuated the place an hour earlier and closed it down. So, I turned around and caught a flight home, one that got me to my place about nine o’clock instead of after midnight, when I was supposed to be back. When I walked in the door, there was Krista and our neighbor at the top of the stairs, still kind of scrambling with their clothes. It was so obvious what had happened that I just walked back out without saying a word. I stayed at a hotel that night and called a lawyer first thing in the morning.”

  He wasn’t going to give Claire any more sordid details. She didn’t need to know how Krista had been unrepentant and had even called her infidelity just “tit for tat” for his non-existent philandering. She’d even flung out the accusation to a mutual friend that Ry could no longer satisfy her in bed. Even after all their troubles, it had leveled him to hear her be so utterly dishonest.