No smile creases her lips. “Don’t do that.” She jumps off the counter, snatching her hand back.
I follow her out of the bathroom. “What?”
She whips around. “Don’t use sexual advances to keep from answering the question.”
“It’s not some new revelation. I’ve always been upfront and honest about my feelings on commitment. Plus, you like my sexual advances.” I step closer, locking her to the wall. “You blush when I say them.”
Her hands land on my chest and she shoves me back before stepping over and jumping off the arm of the chair to get to her room. At the last minute, she circles back around, up on the chair and back down again, poking her finger at me. “You know what I think? You’re scared. The whole no commitment thing is so you can keep everyone at arm’s length. I think you really want a wife and kids and the whole package, but you’d rather act like you don’t than let someone in here.” She places her hand over my heart.
I desperately deny the urge to cover her hand with mine.
“As far as the sexual advances. Yes, they make me blush because I want those things from you. I want to feel the smoothness of the skin I just shaved run up my thigh. I want your hands and lips to explore my body. And you can act like you don’t want those things, and until recently, I believed you. I thought I was invisible to you.” Tears well in her eyes and my heart splinters as if it took a blow from a sledgehammer.
She’s never been invisible to me.
“Rian,” I whisper.
She shakes her head, and strands of hair fall from her ponytail. The tears magically disappear, and fury transforms her blue irises. “Go ahead and deny it. Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll box you up and put you on the top shelf.” She pulls my good hand up to run my fingers over her lips. “Tell me you don’t want to taste these?”
I stare at her lips, but I say nothing.
She tips her head back and runs my fingers down her throat and through the valley of her breasts. “How much do you want to truly feel me?”
I’m stunned into silence because I never thought there was a woman like this living inside Rian. She’s putting her hand out for me to see. Everything the pansy inside of me hides.
All my muscles tense, trying to deny the urge to give into her. The thick air around us makes dragging in a breath impossible.
“It’s now or never. Take me now or never.” She rests my hand between her breasts, her eyes glued to mine.
When I say nothing, she shifts away, but I grab her wrist. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do?”
“Do you have any idea the agony you’re putting me through?”
The cord of tension between us snaps like an elastic pulled to its limits, and I push aside the thought of all consequences. Whipping her around so her back is plastered to the wall, I cradle her cheek with my good hand and I lock her against it with my hips.
“Just remember you asked for this,” I say and slam my lips to hers.
My entire body feels as if it’s floating ad I’m having an out of body experience. That this is a dream would make sense, because Rian’s never complained to anyone about anything. She’s the least confrontational person I know.
But as our lips melt together and she opens for my tongue, all the worries that fill my life every day vanish and all I feel, see, and smell is her. The sweetness of her perfume, the softness of her touch, the blush that goes from her neck to cheeks. I’d die kissing her and be content. She’s everything and nothing like I imagined she’d be, but one thing she is, is perfect.
Someone knocks on the door, but it doesn’t stop us. I’ve waited too long for this, so whoever it is can go the fuck away. Rian’s grip on my shoulders must mean we’re in agreement.
“Holy…” Seth says from somewhere behind us.
My tongue only deepens the kiss because if Seth’s smart, he’ll walk back out that door. Rian’s moan says she’s on board with my plan.
“Rian Isabella Wright!”
Fuck. Our lips fly off one another’s and look toward the door to find Rian’s mom with her hands on her hips. Seth can’t hide his amusement—laughing, stopping, then laughing again. Eventually he covers his mouth with his shirt.
“Mom!” Rian says, wiping her mouth while I back away from her.
My heart that was flying like a balloon in the blue sky with white clouds pops, landing in my stomach like a semi-truck. Time to get the hell out of Dodge.
Chapter Nineteen
Rian
You’d think someone screamed fire with the speed that Dylan shakes my parents’ hands, heads to his room for a second, says goodbye and is out the door. Seth follows him.
As soon as they leave, my mom says my name like a question, as though she doesn’t need to ask me the actual question of why I was lip-locked with Dylan when she walked through the door.
“What?” I ask.
“You know exactly what. Am I to assume you finished that math equation if you have time to kiss your roommate?”
My dad sits at the kitchen table, grabbing an apple out of his pocket and biting into it. I’m not even going to ask where he got the apple.
“I haven’t figured it out yet. Well, the first part I have, but that’s it.” I grab a water from the fridge. “Do either of you want anything?”
“Water would be great,” my dad says, smiling. “You look good, sweetheart. Your cheeks are rosy like when you were a baby.”
“Because she couldn’t breathe with Dylan suctioned to her face like that,” my mom says, sitting. “Do you have coffee? I didn’t have enough this morning and I have a horrible headache.”
“I can make some.”
Which I will gladly do in order to not have to sit at that table. It’s much easier for me to roll my eyes with my back turned to her.
As my mom rambles on about Johann, all I can think about is how I had the nerve to pressure Dylan into kissing me. I was so angry with his flirty behavior, knowing he wasn’t planning to back it up with action. I also can’t stop thinking about what his lips felt like on mine. The way he didn’t want it to end—just like me. Although he barely touched me, it felt as if he was everywhere on my skin.
“Hanging out here isn’t the type of environment you need. A tattoo artist? And then that Seth gave me a business card of what he does. Nude pictures.” She purses her lips and shakes her head.
“I don’t know, Barbie. Maybe we should give it a try.”
I glance over my shoulder to see my mom’s reaction to the thought of having her picture taken in lingerie. My dad waggles his eyebrows as my mom looks at him as if he’s lost his mind.
“It’s not nude, Mom,” I say, turning back around.
“There’s a picture on his business card.”
“Let me see it,” my dad says.
“I dropped it by mistake in the hallway.”
I huff. Does she really think Seth won’t figure out what she did?
I’m not sure what look my dad gives my mom, but she sighs. “I did. Sorry. I didn’t realize you wanted to lower your IQ by looking at nude pictures. Next thing, you’ll be asking me to have plastic surgery.”