“Yeah. I wish this was your hand jerking me off.”
“It is.” She allowed herself a small moan—as much for him as herself—and arched her back, straining her nipples against the cool top sheet above her. “And you’re touching me. Fingering me.”
He groaned in her ear. “I want to feel how tight you are. Hot and wet for me.”
She rolled her hips up, tilting her pelvis so she could follow his instructions. “I am.” The admission was freeing. “Just for you.”
“I want to taste you.” He was growling now, his words fast and hard in her ear. She could picture his hand, pumping up and down his shaft as he worked them both toward their release. “Lick you up until you scream.”
“Yes…” she whispered, panting as she rolled the pads of her fingers over her clit, imagining they were his tongue.
“Suck on you as you come—”
He kept talking, dirty words that enflamed her senses, but she was already orgasming, her sex spasming against her hand, fresh floods of moisture proof of his effect on her.
Oh. My. God.
She struggled to catch her breath as her limbs twitched, and she pressed her face into the phone, desperate to hear Ryan losing it. He grunted in her ear, then let out a long, low, strangled sound.
So that’s what he sounds like when he climaxes
. She pressed her lips together, happier than happy with that secret knowledge.
Together, they took long, shaky breaths. Then Ryan cleared his throat. “I was kind of expecting you to not respond until the morning or something. But…that was really, really nice.”
She laughed, pressing the phone tighter to her ear. “Yeah.”
“I can’t wait to do it again, maybe in the same room.”
“Same.”
He took a deep breath. “You’re going to sleep now?”
Definitely. “Uh huh.”
“Sweet dreams, then.”
“Oh, you can count on that.”
“Me, too. See you tomorrow night. Try not to blush too hard.”
Impossible. “I can’t wait.”
— —
“Is it time for us to go to the party yet?”
Ryan’s kids had been perched at the kitchen window for thirty minutes, watching the stream of vehicles come in the lane. They were parked almost all the way up to his house now.
Definitely enough people so we can blend into the crowd
. After the scorching hot phone sex the night before with Holly, Ryan was more than a little nervous about sharing the same space as her, and people who knew him—like Olivia.
She was going to know in a split second that something was up.
Like his dick.
He needed Prozac to get through this party. What he had instead were three unbelievably excited kids. That was probably karma hard at work.
Not that he regretted last night—after Holly pulling back a few times, he wasn’t sure where she was at, and he wasn’t in a position to push her if she didn’t want to take their physical relationship to the next level. When she sucked in that little quick breath, then spilled out those two magic words—
“I’m naked”
—he’d done a fist pump like a giddy teenager.
Now he just needed to keep a lid on his reaction to her, and make sure nobody fell into the fire.
“Yep, it’s party time. Everyone remember the rules?” He opened the door and they all filed out onto the porch. “Keep an eye out for cars. Keep to the side. No touching the fire. Ask for someone to help with the—”
Crap he almost forgot the marshmallows. He darted back inside and grabbed the party-sized bag. He handed it to Jack to carry, then they were off.
As they neared the gathering of cast and crew and locals, he caught sight of Rafe and Dean Foster, heads bowed. They were talking shop, no doubt. Part of him wanted to slide on over there and find out what was up—either cop talk or Army talk, and he’d know the players in both conversations. But that stuff was never kid-friendly, and it wasn’t like he had someone else to hand the munchkins off to.
And as Maya slide around his leg, hiding from all the faces she didn’t recognize, he couldn’t begrudge his Non-Stop Dad role. They needed him, and he needed to be needed. It gave him a sense of balance—he’d never get over feeling like he’d failed Lynn somehow, but he wasn’t going to fail their kids.
“You want up, baby?” He stroked her hair as she shook her face into his thigh.
Nope
. “Okay. Hey, I see food. Who’s hungry?”
He navigated his tiny clan toward the buffet. Still no sign of Holly, but Olivia was talking to the pretty woman who was staying in cottage number four…
Parvati
. The name slipped into his mind from a conversation with Holly. An actress, and the director’s wife. Ryan lifted his hand when Olivia caught sight of him, and she waved them over.
“You came! Hi, guys.” She got down to his kids’ level and leaned in, lowering her voice. “There’s so much good food. Would anyone like a fruit kebab? Or maybe a sausage on a bun? Tiny quiches?”
“We brought our own marshmallows,” Jack said, holding out the bag. Olivia winked at him and whispered that he could hide it under the buffet so they’d be all theirs once the bonfire really got going.
“I want Holly,” Maya whispered, tugging on Ryan’s hand.
Olivia shot him a confused look, and he took a deep breath, hoping she just hadn’t heard Maya use Holly’s real name. “Have you seen Hope?”
“I think she’s inside with James and Joshua, they’ll be out in a minute.” She glanced back to Maya. “You like Hope, eh? She’ll be out soon and I’m sure you can get a picture with her.”
Ryan’s chest squeezed tight. This was just his friend, and he already couldn’t handle it. His arms burned as he kept them loosely at his side, feigning a casual presentation he didn’t feel in the least. “Come on, let’s go find a strawberry.”
“Holly likes strawberries,” his daughter said, tugging him in the direction of her grandparents’ house. Where his almost-lover was, but she’d be wearing her celebrity hat and he didn’t want to see that. Didn’t want anyone to see him seeing her and not being able to touch her, because nobody could know what she was to him.
Which is what, exactly?
He shoved that question away. He had to focus on the more immediate problem—what she was to his children, and how to manage that. “Hang on there, boo. Remember that the movie people are working today, too, even though it’s a party. We can’t just barge in. Let’s go find one on the buffet.”
And have a private chat about maybe not using Holly’s real name in public.
Convincing his kids to go home for popcorn and a movie in his bed would probably be a hard fail. He shrugged at Olivia, ignoring the still confused look on her face as she returned to her conversation with Parvati. At the buffet, he gave each boy a plate to carry. Maya could share his. He didn’t feel like eating, anyway. Swallowing around the massive stress lump in his throat would be impossible.
“Hey, three pieces of cheese is enough, kiddo.” Gavin grinned up at him as he glowered. It was a really impressive spread. He didn’t even know there was this kind of catering available on the peninsula. “Okay, where should we sit?”
“Can we go down to the dock?” Jack asked. Where Gavin and Maya took after Lynn, social butterflies when Maya wasn’t being typically pre-schooler shy, Jack was exactly like Ryan.
Can we get away from these people, please?
“You bet. Come on.”
But before they could step away from the group, a cheer went up. He knew why before he even turned around, but that didn’t change the punch to his gut any less. Bracketed on either side by her director and co-star, Holly glowed on the steps of the deck in a blue sundress and white heels, her hair done up and face professionally made-up. She looked slim, confident, and unbelievably beautiful. Way out of his league, and she was, at the moment. That was Hope Creswell, A-list movie star, in her element.
From the back of the crowd, with three kids banging into his legs, juggling a plate of food and a metric ton of emotional baggage, Ryan watched as the woman he was undeniably hooked on lifted her hand and said a few lovely words of thanks to the crew, and the local community for their hospitality. She looked around as she spoke, seemingly making eye contact with everyone.
But she didn’t look at him, not until the end. And when she did, she stopped scanning the crowd.
James Spencer also spoke, but Ryan didn’t hear anything the director said. He was too tangled up in Holly’s gaze, locked on him, and the warm little smile playing out on her lips.
I was thinking about you, and how close we’ve come a few times…
Nope. Couldn’t think of that, not right now.
Couldn’t really think of anything
else
, either.
He needed to get her alone. Alone alone, not with his kids sleeping upstairs.
Maybe if they slept together, he’d be able to function in her presence. Probably not. But it was worth a shot. That was his story and he was sticking to it.
— —
Holly moved around the party, talking to people she knew and taking pictures with those she didn’t. The whole time, she felt Ryan looking at her. Watching. Wanting.
It burned her up inside, being this close and not being next to him.
“Holly!” She turned as she heard her name, but it wasn’t Ryan. He was moving toward her, but his attention was focused lower—at the three-foot level.
Maya.
The little blonde head bobbed through the crowd toward her, and she lifted her head to tell him she could see his daughter. The tight, anxious look on his face pulled her up short, and she just waited until they both arrived at her side.
“Hi,” she said quietly, smiling.
He gave her an absent-minded smile in response, but his focus was all on the four-year-old. “Maya Howard, there’s no running away from me.”
“Daddy, I just wanted to see—”
“You can’t bother Ms. Creswell…” He kept talking, quietly lecturing Maya, but Holly’s head went fuzzy hearing Ryan refer to her in a formal, distant way. Blood rushing through her ears, she tried to rewind the last ten minutes. She hadn’t been imagining the look they’d shared.
But of course things were different in public.
And they were very much in public. Not just people he knew, but a lot he didn’t, and all of them knew who she was. She’d gotten lost in the fantasy of being an ordinary girl.
No freedom for you, Holly Cresinski. You gave that up a long time ago.
“It’s fine, I was looking forward to spending some time with Maya today,” she said smoothly, her voice bouncing lightly over the family disagreement. Inside she was still reeling from the sharp reminder she was Ryan’s little secret—not new information, but it still smarted. “Did you get something to eat?”
“I have strawberries for you,” Maya said, pointing to the plate in Ryan’s hand. Sure enough, almost half of it was covered in fat, red berries.
“They look great, thank you.”
“Can we sit and eat them?”
“Absolutely. Give me two minutes to say hi to a few more people and then I’ll meet you at the logs by the fire, okay?”
“Okay.” Maya slid her hand into her dad’s and tugged him away. Holly waited for Ryan to catch her eye as they turned away, but he didn’t.
That stung too, but she knew she was being silly.
It was another ten minutes before she made it over to them. Ryan had securely surrounded himself with kids, so she sat next to Maya and they ate berries together. Slowly other people joined them, then Greg and Trey from Dancelight Productions, one of the producing companies of the film, got up and gave a big speech of thanks to the community. They’d done this once before, at the start of the film, and they’d have another big shindig for the wrap party, but this smaller bonfire for the community members directly involved—local police and park rangers who were doing off-duty security, all the food service and site maintenance crew, right down to the eternally helpful and chipper Olivia Minelli, who knew everyone and everything, and could make anything happen, all you had to do was ask her.
Despite Parvati and James snapping at each other and Joshua acting like a baby, the film was getting made on schedule and close to budget. And she’d met the Howards. So the biggest one couldn’t look at her in public. Maybe that was because he’d jerked off in her ear the night before. Never before had grunting been so sexy. Now if he made those sex noises in her ear, she’d need to change her panties.
“Rumour has it that some of the kids here today brought their own marshmallows,” Greg said, winking at Olivia.
“That was us,” Gavin called out.
“Good idea, son.” Greg nodded at him. “You want to get those and pass them around? A little bird might have given us that heads up, so two of Bruce County’s finest, Rafe Minelli and Dean Foster, spent most of the afternoon finding good marshmallow roasting sticks. We’ll pass those around…”
Even with Maya sitting between them, she could feel Ryan laughing quietly. She slid him a sideways glance. “What?”
He didn’t look at her, but his lips curled up a bit. “Can’t believe Rafe and Dean had to find people sticks.”
“It was my idea!” she hissed under her breath, but now she was grinning too.
That made him laugh harder. Okay, so maybe people could have just found their own. They were surrounded by brushy forest, after all.
“I also had them pick up marshmallows in case you forgot.”
“Yeah?” He made this little
well all right then
chin lift that warmed her to her core.
“Daddy, can I have a shmarshmallow?” Maya asked, leaning into Ryan’s side.
He wrapped his arm around her. “Sure thing. Can I roast it for you?”
“I don’t like it roasted. I like white.”
He took one from the bag as Gavin slowly walked past them, carefully holding the treats out so each person around the fire could take one if they wanted.
Holly took hers, thanking the seven-year-old as he moved past her, then slid it onto the end of her stick. To actually roast it on the fire, they had to get up from the logs used for seating, and as she stood, Jack jumped to his feet. “Can I roast yours for you?”