“It’s not the only thing.” She jumped a little when he stepped up behind her, so close she could feel his erection through their clothes.
“Are you serious? I’ve just started getting the feeling back in the lower half of my body.”
He slid his hand between her legs, rubbing the seam of her jeans. “Can you feel that?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She pushed against his hand, enjoying the delicious friction.
“Undo your jeans.”
She heard his zipper, followed by the rustle of a condom wrapper, and did as she was told.
Ryan grasped the waist of her jeans and tugged them, along with her panties, down over her thighs. Then he pressed one hand against her back, bending her over the bed, while the other guided his hard length into her.
She gasped at the deep penetration, putting one hand on the bed to steady herself. He tangled his fingers in her hair, tugging her head up so her back arched. The rush of heat weakened her knees, but his other hand went to her hip, holding her still so he could drive into her.
“All day long on that damn bike, with your body wrapped around me, I’ve thought about fucking you.” His fingers tugged at her hair while his strokes came faster and harder, driving her thighs against the edge of the mattress. “Then seeing your ass, like that, with you bent over my bed... You are...so...damn...sweet.”
He thrust hard with every word and Lauren bunched the covers in her fists, pulling them to her mouth.
“Scream. Nobody will hear you but me.”
The orgasm hit hard and strong and fast and she might have screamed. He released her hair and used both hands to rock her hips as he came, driving into her with hard, uneven strokes. Then, when the tremors had passed, he sank to the soft carpeting and, breathless and more than a little weak in the knees, she went down with him.
“Holy shit,” he said after a few minutes. “That was...I don’t even have a word for it.”
“Holy shit sums it up pretty well.” She stared up at the ceiling. “Nice carpeting, by the way.”
“Thanks. Hardwood’s all the rage in bedrooms now. Allergies and asthma and all that. But I like a nice carpet under my feet first thing in the morning.”
“That bed sure did look comfy.”
He chuckled, groping around for her hand. She laced her fingers through his and he squeezed. “I swear I had every intention of getting you into my bed.”
“Half-under it’s kind of close.”
An hour later, they were curled up on the couch, eating pizza delivered to the door. Lauren had to admit she liked that. Whitford didn’t have any place that delivered unless Fran was going by your place anyway and happened to be in a good mood. But she didn’t cook it for you.
The rosy afterglow of sex and the satisfaction of delicious, extra-cheese takeout were dimmed a little by the big old elephant in the room. Maybe not in the room, exactly, but it was taking up space in her head, anyway. She’d had a lot of time to think on the back of the bike, and her mind wasn’t going to rest until she knew what Ryan was thinking.
“So back at the diner,” she said, setting her crust on her paper plate, “you told Paige if she was all moved in and Rosie didn’t mind, that we’d go to her new house for Thanksgiving.”
He paused in midbite, then slowly chewed and swallowed. “Yeah, about that. I probably shouldn’t have answered for you.”
“I guess the question is, do you see us as...I don’t know, the kind of couple who goes to Thanksgiving dinner at the family’s together?”
He gave her a grin, which she knew preceded some funny comment meant to deflect the conversation away from becoming too serious. Or to keep her from asking questions he didn’t know the answers to. “Well, yeah. I’m your you know, whatever, right?”
“Yeah, you are.”
“But I know you have Nick and your parents to consider, so I should have put her off and talked to you first.”
She nodded, picking some of the crispy melted cheese off the crust to pop into her mouth. “So it’s whether or not I already had plans and not our relationship having a question mark?”
“You think our relationship has a question mark?”
“Don’t you?” Looking at her pizza crust was easier than looking at him, so she kept picking at it.
“I don’t think it has an exclamation point yet, but more than a question mark. Maybe one of those dot-dot-dot things?”
So their relationship had an ellipsis. Like there was more to come, but it was open-ended due to lack of detail. “Okay.”
“But you think it has a question mark?”
“I think it has a lot of question marks.”
He set his empty paper plate on the coffee table and then leaned back against the couch, his body angled to face her. “There are always question marks.”