Duke of Manhattan

I began to pinch and knead the muscles at the base of his neck, working my way down his shoulder, first one side and then the other. His body slowly relaxed with every touch. “It feels good,” he mumbled.

“I told you it would.” He sank back onto my chest, and I slipped my arms under his. “Fred-a-dick got you tense,” I said.

“Apparently, you’re the cure for that,” he said.

“Wanna talk about it?” I asked.

He turned his head to look at me. “Nope. I can’t even remember why he pissed me off now.”

“Families are complicated,” I said.

“Yeah, you can say that again. I’m lucky really. I have my grandfather and Darcy—a lot of people don’t even have that. They’ve never let me down. I can count on them for anything. And I would walk through fire for them.”

I squeezed him tighter. “You don’t wish you had more of a relationship with your parents?” I asked.

He skidded his hand over the surface of the water. “My grandparents were my parents really.” That wasn’t an answer but I couldn’t tell whether he was being deliberately evasive.

“You don’t miss your mom?”

He sighed, his body pressing against mine. “An idea of her perhaps. But I can’t miss someone who I never knew, who was never around.”

“I suppose.” I let a beat of silence extend between us.

“I wouldn’t wish the parents I had on anyone and I wouldn’t want to be the people they are. But at the same time, I can’t complain about the privileged life I have.”

“I’m not sure any privilege makes up for not having a mom.”

He didn’t respond and then scooped up some water and splashed his face.

“Will I meet her?” I asked.

Ryder shook his head. “I have no idea where she is at the moment.” He cleared his throat. “Haven’t seen her for a couple of years.”

I couldn’t imagine what it must be like not to have parents—to not have seen my mother in years. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. Not now. When we were kids it was . . . more difficult. But now? Like I said, I have my grandfather and Darcy. That’s all I need.” He spoke with conviction as if he, his grandfather and his sister were in a fortified castle, with high walls and a deep moat. No one was allowed in or out. But I got the feeling he’d just let me peek over the edge, just for a few minutes.

I swept my hand down his chest and he turned to look at me. As he did, I bent and kissed him on the nose before I had a chance to think that maybe I shouldn’t. I was used to doing what came naturally with the man I was with. I’d never had to check myself or wonder if it was too much.

Ryder grinned up at me. He didn’t seem to mind. “You have suds on your head,” he said.

“I do?” I asked as he dusted them off.

“They suited you. But you could wear naked with anything and you’d make it look great.” He chuckled. “God, am I being a cheeseball again?” He turned back around and we both faced forward.

“Again?” I asked.

“You called me a cheeseball the first night we met,” he said, his exhale pressing against my belly.

“I did?” There was nothing cheesy about Ryder.

“Yeah, it threw me off my game a little. You don’t remember?”

I remembered him being charming. And gorgeous. And I remembered wanting to see him naked but not being cheesy.

“Nope.” I stroked my finger down from his hairline at the top his neck to the top of his spine. Even the most innocuous part of the man’s body was a turn on. “I don’t remember you being a cheeseball. Are you giving me fake compliments?”

Was his flattery just a knee-jerk reaction to being with a woman? A line he used often? Victoria had certainly painted him as a man who’d do whatever it took to get a woman into bed. “Or did you mean it?”

He paused before saying, “Yeah, I meant it. You’re beautiful. Unselfconscious and open, which is really attractive.” He took a breath, my hands rising and falling with his chest. “I find it very sexy.”

I pressed my mouth against his shoulder to stop myself from grinning so wide my face split in two. He did mean it. I could feel it, and it could never be cheesy if he meant it.

He squeezed my legs and then trailed his thumb down to my ankle before he stood. He was getting out? I wasn’t ready.

“Your turn for a foot rub,” he said as he sat back down opposite me, took my ankle and began to work his thumbs into the sole of my foot in firm, determined strokes.

“This is nice,” he said. “I’ve never . . .”

Shared a bath?

Talked about his family?

Slept with a woman more than once?

All of the above?

His thumb hit a particularly tender spot and I groaned, closing my eyes. When he stopped, I opened them to find him looking at me.

“The sounds that you make . . .”

I tilted my head, inviting him to finish his sentence.

“I like them.”

I grinned.

“They make me . . .”

His eyes grew darker and he didn’t need to say anything for me to know what he meant. I slid my foot from his hand, and found his erection below the water.

“Giving me a foot rub gets you hard?”

“The noises that come out of your mouth do,” he replied, capturing my foot with both hands.

“I don’t mean to be so loud.” Had I been loud with Marcus? Since we’d moved in together, we’d never had a reason to hold back but at the same time, I couldn’t ever remember trying to. With Ryder I was only too aware of how much the sound was bursting out of me.

“I like every noise you make.” He smoothed his hand up the inside of my leg. The water chased upward, lapping over my pussy. I wasn’t sure if it was the water, his words or his stare that heated my body.

I wanted his fingers, higher, sweeping over my clit but instead his hand went back to my foot, his thumb circling over my heel.

His cock jerked against his belly and when I looked up his eyes met mine—hungry.

“Clean enough?” I slid my foot from his hand, braced my hands on the side of the bath and stood. “Because I want to get a little dirty.” The suds still clung to parts of my body as Ryder swept his eyes over the length of me. I held out my hand and he grinned.





Seventeen





Ryder


“Fucking croquet? Really?” I muttered under my breath as we started to descend the stairs. I really would have preferred to spend the day in bed with Scarlett. Last night in the bath, the bed, the floor and against the wall had been a much more preferable way to pass time than with a bunch of people I didn’t know or didn’t care for.

She squeezed my hand and whispered, “Don’t be so miserable. It’s a beautiful day and I’ve never played.”

“I’d prefer to play with you.”

Frederick and Victoria were coming over as well as my aunt and uncle and Scarlett’s sister, brother and best friend, who’d arrived yesterday and were staying at the nearby hotel. No doubt Darcy would have invited about fifty more people as well because she knew everyone within a fifty-mile radius. The wedding was tomorrow and we’d see all the same people again.

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