Nerd Girl (37 page)

Hearing those words felt like an arrow had pierced through my heart. I knew this was his past and his story, but hearing him say that he had asked someone else to marry him pained me nonetheless.

He took a deep breath. “Dating for so long and not getting married, well it was really becoming an issue with her, our family, and everyone we knew. Her clock was ticking,” he said with a smirk.

I knew what that felt like.
Why don’t men have clocks? It just makes women sound a little crazy
…

“I started wondering if something was wrong with me,” he continued. “I mean, what do two people do after they date for that long? They get married, right? So why didn’t I feel the urge to settle down like every other normal person my age? I started feeling really guilty about my hangups. I felt like I owed it to Catherine; I took her brother away from her and maybe committing to being with her could be my way of making it up to her.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “So that’s why I did it. I know it wasn’t very noble, but I hope you understand my motives now.”

I nodded. “It all makes sense now. Oddly, it makes me feel relieved,” I said quietly. “It’s different to ask someone to marry you because you love her and then break it off. In your case, it sounds like it was more out of a deeply-rooted sense of responsibility.” I paused, debating whether or not to ask my next question. But I knew I needed to know the answer. “Did you love her?” I whispered.

He wasn’t quick to answer, and when he finally did, his voice was quiet and cautious. “Yes, I did,” he confessed. “But I know now that it’s in a different way than I love you. I grew up with her. I think I’ll always love her in some way, but it’s more like how I love Lauren.”

I nodded, understanding, but I had to admit that it still pained me to know that a part of her would always be a part of him. I looked away in shame for feeling so greedy and resentful. I couldn’t help it. I wanted all of him.

“She has my past; but you, Julia, you have my future,” he assured me.

My feelings must’ve shown on my face. Either that or he was really intuitive and he could read my mind.

“I have never felt the love, and need, and the complete high I get when I’m with you with anybody else.” He placed a hand on my cheek and I leaned into it. “When I met you, you helped me realize that there are different forms of love. You completely redefined my idea of what it means to love someone
… to be
in love
with someone.” He leaned his forehead against mine and exhaled a shaky breath. “To be with you, Julia, I had to let go of my guilty conscience over Daniel. I didn’t realize I was holding onto it so much and it was because of Catherine. That’s why you didn’t hear from me for a week. When she asked if I was sure that choosing you was the right thing to do, I told her as much. That’s why she let me go, why she let us go. She couldn’t argue with that. Deep down, she knew it, too.”

I was right about him. When we met at Betty’s that first night, I recognized he had a deep sense of responsibility to those who loved and cared for him. That’s who he is. He put aside any of his own feelings for others and convinced himself in the process that what they wanted is what he wanted, too.

“Julia, when I met you, it was like I could really see for the first time. The lights turned on and everything looked sharper, better, brighter. Now I know what all the great authors are talking about. Love is all-consuming—you were right. You became my air, my sun, my future. I couldn’t imagine you not in it. A lifetime of knowing someone didn’t compare to being with you for only a few weeks. It just didn’t. That’s how I know I’m in love with you. Thank God you came along when you did.”

He held my face with both hands and I felt the tears flow down my face as he brought his lips to mine. I kissed him back with all my heart and I could think of nothing more than how much I was in love with this man. Nothing in my life could compare to this moment. He had become my light amidst the darkness of these last several months. I had fallen in love for the last time and I knew I was done.

I shouldn’t.

But I’ve always wanted to.

I wondered how long it would take him to wake up. We made love twice last night. I was surprised at my own appetite for Ryan. I was a total horndog with him; in a constant state of arousal. Our pheromones were in overdrive with both of our hormones having regressed to teenage levels. The need to touch him was sometimes overpowering—like right now.

I felt his hardness even before I fully awoke. Ryan was lying on his back with a sheet barely covering the lower half of his body. I looked over at the clock, and it showed it was ten minutes to eight. He was lightly snoring and clearly in a deep state of sleep.

Oh, what the hell. I lightly lifted the sheet off of his torso and ogled his long, hard length, fully appreciating his beautiful male body. I then slowly maneuvered myself above him, straddling him, but not yet touching him. I didn’t have to use my hands to help him enter me. To my amusement, he could’ve pitched a tent quite nicely. I leaned forward and carefully lowered myself onto him.

Ah
… the feeling of him filling me was exquisite. I could see that Ryan was stirring now and before he could come to full consciousness, I closed my eyes and I started rocking my hips back and forth.

“Mmm,” Ryan mumbled drowsily.

I opened my eyes to see his lazy smile and his eyes only half open. “Good morning,” I said, giving him my sex kitten grin.

He groaned and placed his hands on my hips to help rock me back and forth. He slid in and out of me so slow, so sweet. He rubbed his thumb on my sex and stroked subtly, driving me wild. I started moving faster, grabbing the headboard to help brace myself as I rocked harder against him. I soon felt the sensation deep in my core and felt myself tighten, exploding in my climax and crying out as I arched my head back. His release came almost at the same time, deep inside me, trembling like an earthquake through his body. I grabbed his chest in an attempt at stability, but collapsed into him with a moan of blissful completion.

“Should I feel taken advantage of?” he chuckled.

“You didn’t seem to mind,” I mumbled as I nuzzled into his shoulder.

“No, not at all,” he said, smiling. His fingers lightly traced up and down my arm. “You can wake me up like that anytime.”

“I wonder when the transition occurs in a relationship when suddenly you don’t feel the need and desire to have sex every day,” I pondered.

“With you? Never. I will never tire of this.” He grabbed my ass and nuzzled his lips into my neck.

I giggled, and, out of lunatic curiosity, decided to ask him the question that all couples eventually shared with one another at some point in their relationship. “How many women have you slept with?”

He looked at me with immediate suspicion. “Okay, this can’t be good. There’s no way I can answer this question and not get you mad at me or not have you hold it against me at some point in the future.”

“So that means you’ve slept with a lot of women,” I said more as a statement, than a question.

“Uh, not necessarily. See, it’s started already,” he said, holding up his free hand in protest.

“Well, then what do you have to hide?” I asked innocently.

“Why do women always want to know this? It’s not like I want to know how many men you’ve been with. I’m more than happy never knowing the answer to that question, by the way. It would just totally drive me nuts, thinking about it. Why isn’t it the same for you?” he retorted.

“Morbid curiosity, I guess. Fine, you don’t have to tell me,” I pouted.

“Sixteen,” he said dryly.

“Hmm, okay.” I mulled it over in my head. I was surprised the number wasn’t higher. It was nice to know that he wasn’t a male whore, at least. Sixteen was far from whore status.

“Satisfied?” he asked. “Oh, wait, now seventeen.”

“Your lucky number,” I said and kissed him, rewarding him for his openness.

“I don’t want to know your number, though,” he replied quickly in return.

“It’s not that bad.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s less than your number, but I won’t tell you, if it’s really going to bug you.”

“More than one bugs me,” he said curtly and pressed his lips together.

“Besides, I’m a younger than you, so I’ve had less sex-applicable years with which to notch my belt.”

“I don’t want to know! I don’t want to know!” He stuck his fingers in his ears and hummed an obnoxious tune. “And ‘sex-applicable years’? Geez, Julia!” He poked me in the ribs. “I’m not that old!”

“So, out of those sixteen, how many were actually girlfriends?” I asked coyly. I moved into a sitting position, my legs folded off to one side. The light duvet still covered me below the waist, though I was conscious of the fact that I was nude from the waist up and I had mussed up sex hair. With the morning light peeking through the cabin windows, I had a pretty good image of how I appeared.
Sensual and just fucked.

Ryan was enjoying the view and appeared to finally be giving into my inquisitiveness. He folded his arms behind his head and reclined against the headboard. His eyes were hooded and lingered lasciviously on my breasts. “You really want to know? I thought we already discussed this before.” His eyes met mine with amusement.

“No, let’s be clear.
I
discussed it.
You
weren’t so forthcoming,” I teased accusingly.

“Touché! I give in,” he said, smiling. He chuckled and shook his head, rewarding me by revealing both of his dimples. “But before I say anything, I need to do one thing.”

He launched himself at me and grabbed me playfully, pushing me backwards onto the bed. He held down each of my wrists. My upper body was defenseless against his attempted kisses. I decided to play hard to get, playfully pushing him away, but it just encouraged him further.

When he released my wrists and began tickling my sides, I couldn’t prevent a squeal. “Ah! Stop!” I begged.

He finally relented. Once I stopped wiggling, I let him kiss me and just like that, we were making out again, morning breath and all. His mouth moved down to one of my nipples, licking and sucking it greedily. I groaned and felt the need immediately in my groin. I couldn’t get enough of him. If he was trying to change or avoid the subject, it worked. As his lips moved down to my stomach, his tongue drew circles and he teased me with his lips and teeth. I sighed in contentment.

“I have an idea,” he said, taking a break from his nibbling and looking up at me expectantly. He hovered over me with a devious grin. “Let’s spend the whole day in bed. We have nowhere to go. We can make love some more,” he said as he began nibbling one of my ears, sending shivers down my body, “or we can listen to music, or read.”

“Or both.”

“We can eat in bed. Whatever you want. I just want you naked all day,” he said with a smirk.

“Okay,” I agreed and started to giggle, drunk with the thought of being in bed with Ryan all day.

We made love until we were both deliciously sore from overuse. In between our lovemaking, we listened to more music, ate and fed each other in bed. I read my book while Ryan did some work emails. We laughed a lot and talked about our friends, books, movies. We shared random stories and discussed our recurring dreams, theorizing what they meant and uprooting our deepest fears and worries.

We stayed true to our goal, more or less. Ryan only got dressed briefly to grab some food from the seafood merchant down the dock. I wore one of his t-shirts to cook. The idea of cooking naked was a bit too voyeuristic for me, not to mention a little dangerous. We decided to eat dinner out in the main cabin since cracking crab shells could get messy in bed.

What would my teammates think if they only knew I was here, making love around the clock, with the infamous Ryan McGraw? Mia would totally freak, I’m sure. I smiled to myself, but not before Ryan saw me.

“What are you thinking about so coyly?”

“I’m not sure you want to know,” I said hesitantly.

He looked at me wryly. “Okay, you can’t say that and then expect me to leave you alone.”

“I was just wondering what the other women on my team would say if they knew what I’ve been doing all day and with whom.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow in mock curiosity.

“Do you have any idea what the women at the office think of you?” I asked him.

“No,” he said innocently. “I never paid much attention.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sheesh! For an extremely intelligent and highly visible man, you really are clueless about some things. Do you honestly have no idea what the women at work think of you?”

He looked a little surprised and shrugged his shoulders.

“My first day, I had lunch with a few of my teammates and talked about which executives were the hottest. You topped the list,” I said, almost gloating. “Let me add that this was before I knew who you were.”

“This is what you all talk about during lunch?” He sounded perplexed, like it was the oddest conversation topic. “Who else made the list?” he finally asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Kyle Warren,” I said nonchalantly.

“Humph.” Ryan’s eyes narrowed and he looked mildly irritated.