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His hands tugged at my shirt. I lifted my arms to help him out of it, then I clumsily reached for his, but he was already taking it off. Soon we were both standing there half naked: him in jeans and me in my jeans and bra with my breasts spilling over the top.

His hungry lips left mine and made their way south towards my breasts. He sucked and pulled at my nipples with his teeth causing short spasms of pleasure to shoot through me.

I tugged at his jeans; undoing the button and unzipping the fly in one go. His jeans fell away. He stepped out of them and pushed them to the side, giving me ample view of his amazing body as he stood there in just his boxer briefs and a massive hard-on.

Stepping back towards me, he reached around and unclipped my bra, letting it fall to the floor, while his eyes never left mine. He quickly undid the button of my jeans and then the zip, guiding me backwards while he helped me out of them. Soon I was just in my lacy red G-string.

Ryan took a small step back, averting his gaze from my eyes to admire the rest of me for a moment. With a small, pleased smile, he dropped to his knees.
Goodness.
He didn’t waste precious time.

He ripped down my panties and parted my legs, settling in between them. His tongue licked me. First, sharp quick flicks, and then slow demanding ones that devoured me.

I grabbed his head to try and balance but he nudged me backwards, holding me in place by my thighs. I tensed at the sudden cold sensation against my back. He had me pressed up against the frosted glass wall. The sense of danger thrilled me.

Once I had the support, I arched myself closer to him, so that he could go deeper.

I let out a breathless moan that turned into a cry when I felt a finger go in. His tongue moved to pleasure my clit, while his finger, followed by another, slipped in and out with quick movements. I didn’t want his fingers in there. I wanted something bigger, much bigger and thicker.

“Ryan…I want you inside of me…”

He pulled his tongue away and looked up at me, while his fingers continued. I was met with a wicked grin. It was so unbelievably hot watching him touch me so expertly with his fingers but I craved more.

He slipped a third finger in, as he slowly got to his feet.

I somehow managed to get his briefs off with minimum interruption to what he was doing to me. His length stood there proudly, tempting me to touch it.

I grabbed hold of his thickness, moving my hand up and down his shaft until soon we were matching in rhythm. We stayed like that for a while: my hand on him, his fingers inside me, bringing each other closer to the edge.

Just when I could feel myself on the verge, Ryan let out a primitive growl and released his fingers, suddenly pressing up against me. He grabbed me by the backside, lifted me over his hard erection and carefully guided me in.

He went in slowly, allowing my body to adjust so it could fit all of him in. It was a tight fit this way. I felt as though the tip of his length was touching my belly button.

He began thrusting, up and down, up and down, while his hands squeezed my ass and my back rubbed up against the cold, hard glass.

Loud moans escaped the both of us, as we both neared our release.

Suddenly with a jerk, the walls around me collapsed. I screamed out his name in pleasure as my climax roared through me. I threw myself forward and bit down hard on his shoulder, which caused his own climax to escape. We came together, his hot load shooting up and filling me, causing me to jerk once again at the feeling.

Both breathing heavily, Ryan helped me down and we both collapsed on the cold marble tiles. In other circumstances, I would’ve complained but the heat and all the sweat from our recent activity made the hard, cold stone almost comforting.

CHAPTER
11

“Holy shit, that was incredible,” he said after we’d had a chance to catch our breath. He was right, that was incredible.

We were both still naked. He was on his side, propped on his elbow, facing me while one leg wrapped around my waist and his hand drew patterns over my stomach. I wasn’t sure whether he was watching me or staring at the sensual patterns he was making. I tilted my head closer towards his chest. “I could fuck you forever, you know that?”

A smile crept up on my face but I didn’t look up at him. “You’ll be awfully tired. You’d need a lot of stamina for that.”

“Oh, I have the stamina,” he replied in a cocky tone, bending down to kiss my forehead.

We both chuckled then he went silent again. I shifted to face him, his leg lifting momentarily before resting back on my hipbone.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked as our eyes locked, his brilliant hazel eyes studying me.

“Nothing, just admiring your beauty from where I am.” He
was
thinking of something, but he was refusing to admit it.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re a bad liar.”

“I am not. I really
am
liking what I see.” His playful grin transformed into a frown.

“What is it?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Hanging out three days in a row with the same girl? Isn’t that a big no-no in the super, bad-boy, players rule book?”

“Shut up,” he teased tickling my belly. I wriggled around until he eventually gave up. “It’s just the club’s holding a charity ball next Saturday night. I was planning on attending alone this year because my sister can’t make it but I was thinking maybe you’d like to come instead.”
He took his sister to his events?

“Like as your
date
? So that would make it our second date?”

“Don’t sound too thrilled about it. Yes, as my date. What else?”

“So if that’s next Saturday, what’s with tomorrow?”

“Dress shopping…”

“
Dress shopping?
Do you normally invite the girls you’re fucking to these highly publicized events?”

He blinked at me, unable to say anything for a moment then the corner of his mouth tweaked into a lop-sided smile. “Do you really think I’m that bad?”

“You
are
that bad. I’ve read the stories on Google about your mischievous ways, Mr. Fox.”

“You
Googled
me?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” I admitted sheepishly. “I did it today, actually. How could I not? I needed to know what I was in for.”

“Fine, but don’t believe everything you read,” he warned. “The truth is I’ve just never really wanted or had the time for a serious girlfriend. I grew up on baseball. I played in the little leagues, then throughout high school, and when I was two weeks shy of my sixteenth birthday I got offered a contract with the Yankees and played my first major league game that week. It has been my entire life for the last eight years.”

“Wow. Isn’t that next to impossible?”

He shrugged. “It happens on rare occasions.”

“I guess you really are one of the best and that explains why you’re the highest paid player.” I grinned, remembering some of the facts that I’d uncovered on the web.

“I love the game. The money’s alright too I guess…Oh by the way, since we’re on the topic, I Googled you too.”

I tensed. He noticed just as he always did. “Oh, come on. You can search the Internet on me, but I can’t do the same?”

“It’s not that,” I admitted.

“That’s what I wanted to ask you earlier. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want too.” As if to reassure me, Ryan gave me a squeeze.

“You’ve probably read all about it anyway.”

“But I want to hear it from you. I, of all people know that the media like to make up lies and half-truths just to get a scoop.”

I nodded at him. I knew that too. That’s what they’d done with the accident― twisted the truth. I took a deep breath, unable to believe what I was about to share with this man.

“I was ten and we were on our way home from the zoo,” I began. Ryan listened silently, his hand continued to gently stroke my stomach as I spoke. “I’d really wanted to see the new elephant exhibit. I had an unhealthy obsession with elephants.” A small smile rose on my face as a memory of me as a small child, riding around on my older brother’s back, while he pretended to be a large elephant, popped into my mind.

“Alexander, my eldest brother, who was sixteen at the time, offered to take me but Mom thought it’d be a great idea if we all go as a family. Except my father was flat out with business meetings and Connor had friends over. They didn’t want to upset me, so Alex and Mom took me instead. I had the best time at the zoo, but it turned out to be the worst day of my life. On the way back, I kept talking and tickling the both of them, pretending I was the baby elephant. They were laughing of course; I was the apple in their eyes. All I remember next was we were at a set of lights and Mom drove through them, there was a loud bang and woke up to smoke. Then the car caught fire and I remember feeling like I was going to die before Alex saved me. He told me to run. So, I did…”

Ryan pulled me closer to him, kissing my forehead. I could feel the tears in my eyes.

“The worst part of all was that the press claimed that my mom was drinking and that she planned on suicide. Where did they even get stories like that? They wrote about how I was sent away for rehab, how my father was so depressed that he would most likely waste his entire fortune and that Connor and I would grow up unstable.”

“They can be so cruel,” he whispered.

“My family had just lost two people that mattered so much and yet the media were relentless and wouldn’t stop with the bullshit. Why couldn’t they accept it for what it was?”

“And what was that Evangeline? Do you think it was your fault?”

When I didn’t answer, Ryan squeezed me again. “Bella, you were ten. It was a terrible accident, yes, but it wasn’t your fault. You need to start believing that.”

A warm tear escaped from the corner of my eye and slid down to my ear, followed by another. I couldn’t believe the type of kindness Ryan was showing me. A new side of him opened up and it was causing me to fall for him hard. Part of me knew he was right about the accident but it was hard for me to accept. If I had just sat there quietly in the car like I was supposed to, I wouldn’t have killed my family.

“My father did go through depression, to the point that he couldn’t bear to see my face anymore, so my brother and I were sent to live with Gran and Pop in Orange County. Connor was able to mask his pain, but he wasn’t in the wreck, he didn’t feel it or hear the frightened last words our brother spoke. I couldn’t. The only way I learned to deal with the pain was to escape. Whenever it got really bad, I’d cut myself to take the pain away.”

I raised my arm to show him the faint white scars on my wrist that I’d kept hidden from everyone else. Just when I thought he’d pull away and tell me he wanted nothing to do with me, he did the opposite― surprising me yet again. Instead, he bent down and pressed his lips to my wrist. More tears escaped me.

“I’ve never told anyone else except for my therapist, who found out because she saw the cuts one day. She taught me different methods to use whenever I felt like self-harming myself. In the end, I hid from the media and kept a low profile. I wanted no one to recognize me. I wanted to be invisible.”

“It’s impossible to be invisible, Evangeline. Everything about you just wants to shine. You’re a burning star fighting against the darkest of shadows. Even I can see that.” He kissed me on the lips again.

Revealing my deepest secret to him was easier than I’d expected. It helped that Ryan was a great listener. He didn’t judge or ask questions, he knew how I felt and the right words to say. I kissed him back. His hand lifted from my stomach and rested gently against the side of my face, gently caressing my cheek.

“I meant every word of that. We’ll get there, baby. I’ll be right here to help you. You were born to shine.” He pulled away just enough so that the tips of our noses were touching. “That’s why you don’t like anyone, other than Connor, using ‘Evie’ isn’t it? Because it reminds you too much of them, of your brother and your mom, doesn’t it?”

I nodded without moving away. “I think you should start using it again. It’s such a beautiful name and perfect for the most beautiful girl I know.” He kissed me again.

I wanted him. I wanted for him to swallow up the darkness and make it all disappear. Something deep down told me that Ryan could do that. He could set me free. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him on top of me. Our kisses deepened until Ryan pulled away suddenly.

“Not here, Bella.”

Before I had time to ask questions, he got to his feet and was picking me up off the ground. He carried me down the hall and into his room. The smell of fresh, clean sheets filled the air.
Thank you, Rose
. He gently lowered me on the bed and rested my head against the pillows. His eyes never left mine as he lowered himself tenderly on top of me. My legs opened to him willingly. Propped up on his elbows, he bent down to kiss me. First all up my neck, then both my cheeks, before lastly landing on my lips. I parted my mouth to welcome his soft, wet tongue. Our tongues met and danced. I could feel my eyes stinging again as tears wanted to free themselves. I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him closer towards me. His weight pinned me down, but it wasn’t overbearing. This was what I wanted, to feel protected by him. I could feel the tip of his erection nudging at my entrance. It made my body feel like it wanted to burst.