“I don’t mind.”
Acutely aware of his soft footfalls behind her on the walkway, Shawna couldn’t shake a feeling of déjà vu. At the front door, she rummaged in her purse for the keys. The sound of her searching fingers magnified in the quiet neighborhood. The darkness of the porch enveloped them. She would have to put replacing the burned out light bulb on her list of things to do because she kept forgetting. She finally pulled the key ring from her purse.
Shawna hesitated before placing the key in the door. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful. She looked up at Ryan, feeling jittery and uneasy. He seemed bigger in the dark, with the moon and the night sky as a backdrop. “Thank you for bringing me home.”
He leaned in close and she stopped breathing. His voice was soft, caressingly low when he spoke. “I’d do anything for you.”
Ryan felt his body harden. The intimacy of the porch wreaked havoc on his senses, and so did knowing he stood outside her home. He’d told himself to back off, but he was right at it again.
She didn’t respond, choosing to insert the key into the lock. The light from a pole in the parking lot cast a faint glow across her neck, and he wished he could press his lips against her tender flesh and listen to her soft little moans as she became aroused. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that a few seconds passed before he registered her struggle with the dead bolt.
“Is it stuck?” he asked.
“Yes. Sometimes it gets like that.” She pushed and turned the key at the same time.
“You should get that fixed. Let me try.”
Instead of allowing her to move aside so he could work on the door, he reached around her, enclosing her in his arms. Any excuse to be close to her. He heard her soft intake of breath. He stood as close to her as he possibly could without pressing his entire body into hers and letting her feel how much he wanted her. She stiffened as he placed his hand over the batch of keys, twisted, and pushed. The door gave.
“There,” he said.
Neither of them moved and the temptation to press his face against the inviting crook of her neck and immerse himself in her smell overtook him.
Shawna felt his breath on her ear. Did he want to touch her as much as she wanted to be touched by him? Because right now she wanted to be made love to, the same way he’d made love to her before. The trembling fingers of one hand reached out to grasp the doorframe.
“Good night, Ryan.”
She felt compelled to say that because she worried that if she didn’t, she would invite him in. Part of her wanted him to come inside and remind her of what it was like to be blindingly out of control. Thoughts of him had lessened over the years, but she’d never truly forgotten him and what they’d shared.
His knuckles brushed the base of her spine and her skin prickled under his touch.
“I’m not leaving, Shawna,” he said.
“What are you going to do? Stand out here?”
“No.” His hand covered hers and stilled the trembling of her fingers.
“I’m not letting you in. You have to leave.” A last-ditch effort to save face, but spending the night together had been inevitable from the minute she’d climbed into the truck with him.
“You don’t want me to, and I don’t want to.” He rested his head against hers and whispered the next words. “I’m coming in.”
Chapter Fourteen
They barely made it inside before Ryan was on her, the hard steel of his arousal straining against her backside in a restless grind. He was surprised it didn’t tear through his suddenly too-snug jeans.
Grasping her from behind in the dark, he removed the sweater she had wrapped around her and tugged the ponytail holder from her hair to bury his fingers in the silky layers.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he said in hoarse tones.