Getting His Way: Sapphire Falls Book Seven (13 page)

Now she wanted to see it for herself.

“I’m sorry you’ve had to give that up,” she said sincerely.

“I’m not,” he said. “I did all of that. I’m ready for a new adventure.”

She scoffed at that. “In Sapphire Falls?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Tess realized, as the back of her neck tingled, that he meant
her
. Oh boy. “Settling down is an adventure?”

“You say settling down like it’s a bad thing,” he chided. “Staying in one place can be a lot of fun too.”

Why did her mind go instantly to her
bed
as a place that it could be fun to stay? Oh, yeah—Bryan. “I wouldn’t say it’s
adventurous
though.”

“Oh, honey, an adventure is really just something you haven’t done before.”

She was pretty sure he was referring to sex. “Well, for me, that list is long.” That was true for adventures and for sex.

“Yeah, that’s the best thing I’ve heard in a long time.”

The way he said it, and the way her nipples and other parts responded to it, she knew he definitely was referring to sex. She immediately blushed.

He moved, sliding onto the couch next to her. He turned toward her and rested his arm on the back of the couch, his fingertips only a millimeter from her neck. Tess had the urge to do a not-so-subtle cat stretch up against those fingers.

“No need to be embarrassed, Tess,” he told her. “I might not be able to show you the wonders of the world, but there are a lot of wonders I
can
show you.”

She swallowed hard. Yep, that had to be about sex. Her mind flashed to the against-the-wall stuff that she’d been imagining. It was her favorite thing in the books. But suddenly, with Bryan, her couch seemed just fine.

“But I’m leaving,” she said. She barely recognized the husky voice as her own.

“All the more reason to get to this.”

She wet her lips and loved the way Bryan’s eyes flared with heat. “You wouldn’t use sex as a way to get me to stay would you?” she asked.

He leaned in and wrapped a big hand around the back of her neck. “Oh, I didn’t promise I wouldn’t try to get you to stay.”

His hot breath was on her mouth, and she instinctively turned toward it. “You understand that I want to see the world though? Do new things.”

“Tess, you can see the world and do new things. Take trips. Go places. Experience it. And then come back to me.”

Dammit. She didn’t want to be romanced with sweet words and soft touches. But wow, how did a girl not melt
a little
at that?

Still, she wasn’t talking about vacations or long weekends on the beach or shopping in Paris or sightseeing in Washington D.C. She was talking about really
being
in other places. Taking the back roads, finding the out-of-the-way places, experiencing the cultures and the food and the people. And running. Training in the flat plains of Nebraska was not the same as training in the mountains.

Bryan would get that. She knew he would. She doubted if Bryan had ever been on a tour bus of any kind ever. He didn’t want to see the things he could look up online or read about in other people’s books. He’d made his own experiences.

So, yeah, he’d understand. If she could bring herself to admit that she’d read and listened to every word he’d ever said on the subject.

That wasn’t going to happen today.

“But for now, I’m going to concentrate on you doing new things right here,” he said.

He ran his thumb up and down the side of her neck, and he could have just as easily been touching her breasts if her reaction was any indication. She moaned softly and arched toward him.

“You really like this virgin thing, don’t you?” she asked.

“You have
no
idea.”

“Why? What’s that about?”

“Knowing that no one else has ever…” He cleared his throat. “Tess, I can’t even tell you how much I love knowing that no one else has ever touched you the way I’m going to touch you.”

She’d never even felt some of the parts of her body that tightened when he said that.

“You sound pretty sure you’re going to be touching me.”

“Oh, I’m
very
sure about that.”

She cocked an eyebrow, even though it felt like every cell in her body was straining to be closer to him.

“Come on, Tess,” he said with a slow, sexy grin. “This has been building up since I stole you from Ty.”

“We were five,” she said with a choked little laugh. “And I don’t think Ty wanted me for his girlfriend.”

“Well, you don’t know Ty as well as I do,” he said, running his thumb up and down her neck again.

The rasp of the rougher skin of his thumb against her skin made goose bumps erupt and skitter down her arm.

“You didn’t know Ty then,” she said, trying to keep her mind on his words. “You two met that day for the first time.”

All of her reasons for not wanting to have Bryan touch her
all over
had disappeared from her brain, so she thought she should at least try to carry on a conversation.

“Guys know some things instinctively,” he said. “Like when another guy is moving in on the girl that’s supposed to be
his
.”

His.

God, for so long she’d wanted to be his. In every way.

But that had been back when she’d been a sad little stalker girl.

She was over that. She was moving to Denver even though Bryan had moved home. That wasn’t the action of a stalker girl at all. That was the opposite of sad and stalkery, in fact.

“So what do you say, Tess?” Bryan asked, snapping her back to the moment. “You up for an adventure with me in the here and now?”

He leaned in, putting his lips against her neck, and Tessa felt the heat shoot through her to her toes.

“I’ve thought about this for a long time,” she told him.

She felt him smile against her neck. “I know.”

Again, she almost laughed. That was such a Bryan thing to say. But she suddenly felt the flutter of butterflies unlike any she’d felt before. Not good ones. Bad ones. Very bad.

She couldn’t do this. Not like this. He was going to be sweet. He was going to seduce her romantically. He was going to go slow and take care of her. He was going to be concerned with her being a virgin and the idea that he wanted her to be the mother of his children. He was going to kiss her like he had in his office the other night instead of
ravishing
her.

Dammit. She wanted some ravishing.

Slow and romantic seductions were
not
what she’d been imagining while she read her romance novels and listened to the guys joke about Bryan’s exploits. Of course, none of them had known Tess was listening. Heaven forbid they say something scandalous in front of sweet Tess.

Biologically or physically or whatever, she might be a virgin. But she had a dirty mind. And she wanted to use it.

But Bryan could barely say the word fuck around her. And frankly, she couldn’t take that. Not from the star of her naughty dreams.

She wanted Bryan to give her the hot, world-rocking fantasy she’d been…well, fantasizing about all this time. If he didn’t, she was going to be devastated. Truly. It would ruin her crush forever. And that crush was as much a part of her as her love for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and Miranda Lambert.

She couldn’t let Bryan Murray
make love
to her.

“Bryan?”

“Yeah?”

He softly kissed her neck and trailed his lips to her collarbone.

Okay, soft kisses weren’t really where she wanted to go, but that wasn’t so bad.

“I can’t do this like this.”

He stopped, his lips still on her skin but no longer moving.

Slowly, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “You don’t have to be nervous, Tess. I’ll take care of you.”

She laughed at that, but it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all. Of course he’d take care of her. That was the problem.

“I know.” She pushed away from him and scrambled to her feet. It was warm and comfortable in Bryan’s arms. Having his lips against
any
of her was hardly torturous. But this wasn’t what she wanted. Warm and comfortable wasn’t what she wanted.

She wanted
hot
and…not comfortable. Tess frowned. That wasn’t quite right.

She wanted…out of her comfort zone. Yes. That sounded better.

And it was time for her to get what she wanted. To stop waiting around and living vicariously through someone else. Bryan had done the traveling she wanted to do. Bryan had had the hot sex she wanted to have. She wanted things for herself. Real things. No more fantasies. She wanted to experience what she could and have her own memories—hot shower sex, hiking in the mountains, hot dining-room-table sex, running in Rome, eating at a roadside pub in Ireland, hot we-could-get-caught-but-don’t-care sex, photos by a waterfall in Hawaii.

But she was a virgin in Sapphire Falls at the moment, and it still felt right to think that Bryan Murray would be her first. In this town. She wanted to be a grab-the-moment girl. This was a moment definitely worth grabbing.

Bryan was watching her with some concern. “You okay?”

“Yes.” She said it with conviction and was proud of it.

“You sure?”

“I want you.”

That made him straighten. But he didn’t say anything. After a moment, he shifted, leaning back on the couch and propping his elbows on top of the cushion behind him, watching her with a heat Tess swore she could feel across the few feet that separated them.

“You can have me, honey.”

He was the picture of patience and pure
maleness
.

Was that a word? Tess wasn’t sure suddenly. Hell, she wasn’t sure
word
was a word at this point. But it did not matter. Maleness was a word now. And it was sitting on her couch.

She was definitely doing this.

“Bryan.”

“Yes, Tessa?”

“I’m not getting naked until you promise to say fuck at least once. And I’m definitely going to need you to suck on my nipples.”

Heat flared in his eyes.

“Tess?”

She wet her lips. “Yeah?”

“Come here.”

With that, she climbed into his lap.

His hands went to her hips, and the moment he touched her, the bravado left her.

“Is this okay?” she asked, straddling his thighs and resting her hands on his shoulders.

He gave her a smile that was somehow tender and hot at the same time. “Never been more okay, ever.”

And so maybe he didn’t need to use the word fuck. His words seemed to work for her anyway.

“You with me, honey?” he asked.

She was staring at his mouth and couldn’t seem to stop. And damn, that honey thing was good too. The closest he’d ever gotten to a nickname or endearment had been Tessy before this. But honey was good. She liked honey.

She nodded. “I’m with you.”

Because, no matter what else she wished for, she would always be
with
Bryan.

“Good.” He gave her a little nod. “Then come here.”

“I’m already here.” She was straddling his lap, but she was holding herself up off of him.

“Oh, no,” he said with a half-smile. “You can be a lot more
here
than that.”

She looked at his fly. She’d been trying not to look at it. Or stare at it. Or drool over it. But now she couldn’t help it. She looked at his fly, then back up to his face.

“Yep,” he said, his smile full now. “Come here.”

She took a deep breath and inched closer to his torso.

“Relax, honey,” he told her gruffly.

“I’m fine.”

He chuckled. “You’re holding yourself so tight you can barely breathe.”

“No, I’m—”

“Relax, Tess.” He squeezed her hips. “It’s me. This is going to be good. I promise.”

He was right. Everything in her was tight and nearly vibrating. But she wasn’t
worried
exactly. “I’m not tense because I’m scared,” she assured him. “This isn’t a virgin thing.”

He chuckled. “Okay. Good to know. So what’s the problem?”

She looked into his eyes and saw the humor and affection that she’d seen so often over the years. Humor and affection wasn’t exactly what she wanted him to feel, but she’d seen more than that earlier. A heat she never would have guessed she could make him feel. That gave her the boost of self-confidence she needed.

“I can’t believe that my ass is actually going to touch a part of you.”

She’d surprised him. She could tell by the pause and then the short bark of laughter. “Oh, honey, there is going to be so much of you touching so much of me.”

The rest of the tension left her body as she felt her muscles melt. They
all
wanted him touching them. All at once. Now.

She sat down on his lap without further ado.

“That’s right,” he said gruffly. “Now put your hands on me.”