Part 18 (2/2)

The thing was, even before he'd known just how amazing it was to make love to her, Ryan had wanted more.

Everything.

He wanted everything.

Not just to give Vicki his heart, but to know that she wanted to give hers to him, too.

Ryan hadn't had to fight for much in his life. School, sports, friends, women-they'd all come easily. Even his friends.h.i.+p with Vicki had always been natural, comfortable-easy-right from the start.

But he wasn't satisfied with friends.h.i.+p anymore.

Not when he wanted what his parents had shared.

Not when he wanted what his brothers and sisters were finding for themselves, one after the other.

And not when he held Chase's baby daughter, Emma, in his arms and wondered what his and Vicki's children would look like.

All her life, Vicki had kept reaching, kept believing, kept trying to turn her most pa.s.sionate dreams into reality.

Now, it was finally his turn to reach. To believe. And to try.

Ryan Sullivan had finally found something that mattered enough to fight for.

Love.

”I'm so glad you could come to Summer's party,” Mary Sullivan said when Vicki joined her on the patio.

”You know how much I love spending time with your family. And Emma is positively gorgeous.” Zach and Heather's dogs had clearly adopted the baby as they flanked her pink and purple vibrating baby seat. A moment later, Jake helped Sophie up from the nearby couch, her belly looking even bigger than it had just a day ago. ”And I'm so glad things worked out so well for Sophie and Jake.”

Summer's grandmother, who had flown out from Minneapolis for Summer's birthday party, smiled and said, ”Congratulations on your engagement.”

Vicki worked to smile back and say, ”Thank you,” without faltering. Thank G.o.d Mary already knew the truth, or she would have felt even worse about the situation than she already did.

The other woman turned to Mary. ”You must be so thrilled to know that another one of your children has found the one.”

Mary put her arm around Vicki and didn't miss a beat in the game of pretend they were playing. ”I couldn't be happier for Vicki and Ryan. He had such a crush on her when they were in school together. It was amazing for me to see him be so serious about a girl when he'd always been so relaxed about it all before.”

Wow, Vicki thought, now I know where Smith gets his acting chops.

Mary turned to her and added, ”The night he went over to ask you to the prom and found out you had already agreed to go with someone else...well, it just about broke my heart to see him like that.”

Forgetting they were supposed to be pretending, Vicki blurted, ”He was going to ask me to the Soph.o.m.ore Prom?”

Summer's grandmother cut in to ask, ”He never told you?”

Vicki shook her head, wondering if Mary could have made that up. ”No. He never told me.”

At her unspoken question, Ryan's mother patted her arm and nodded. ”It's true, Vicki. He really did go to ask you to the prom. I know how worried he was about doing something that might ruin your friends.h.i.+p. Asking you to that dance was going to be his big risk. Unfortunately, he never got to take it.” Mary's eyes held hers. ”Until now.”

Summer's grandmother was saying something about romantic love stories and long-lost high school sweethearts, but Vicki could barely keep track of it. Fortunately, Mary seemed to understand that she needed to be left alone with her thoughts.

Vicki had been so careful to keep herself from getting hurt every step of the way with Ryan this past week. But as she watched Ryan pick up Emma and give her kisses all over her face that had the baby nuzzling even closer to him, Vicki suddenly wondered if what she'd thought was so smart had actually been blindingly stupid, instead.

As they drove through the city back to Ryan's house, Vicki was as nervous as she'd ever been. Ryan was strangely silent, which was okay, since she couldn't have made small talk for the life of her.

Oh G.o.d, she couldn't believe what she was thinking of doing-that she was actually toying with the idea of confessing her feelings to him after all these years. Because even after her body had given away far more than she'd ever planned while in his arms the previous evening, it was still possible to write that off as ”just s.e.x.”

Whereas, once she crossed the ”I like you as more than a friend” line with actual words, there was no taking them back...or trying to attribute them to one crazy night.

At the outset of this week, she'd made a vow to be calm and rational rather than too pa.s.sionate for her own good. Okay, so she'd blown it last night, and clearly if she wanted it, there was tons more ridiculously good blowing it on her horizon.

But was the greatest s.e.x in the world worth risking her heart-and her friends.h.i.+p with Ryan-over?

When they arrived home, they walked inside and she put their things down on his kitchen counter, the same way she had so many nights before that week. Only, tonight, everything felt different.

Different enough that she suddenly blurted, ”You were going to ask me to the prom?”

”I had it bad for you even then.”

Slowly, she turned to face him. He stared at her and she stared back. Time stood still as she tried to read what was in his eyes.

”Ryan?” His name on her lips made them tingle. Made her want. Desperately.

”It won't be weird this time.”

Vicki's heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear her own voice over it.

”Promise?”

”I promise.”

Just that quickly, the fire that had been sparking and kindling between them all night long finally burst into flames as he cupped her hips and pulled her tightly against him, her palms grazing his jaw as she moved to thread her fingers into his hair.

Their mouths licked, sucked, even bit at each other as they made it over to the couch. Vicki clenched Ryan's s.h.i.+rt in her fist and pulled him down, her core clenching with heat as he moved his heavy weight over her.

They'd gone so slow their first time, needing that pace to feed their discovery of each other. But she wouldn't survive that tonight, not when she was already this desperate for him to take her, to make her his again.

The b.u.t.tons of his dress s.h.i.+rt flew in every direction as she ripped open his s.h.i.+rt and pressed hungry kisses to his chest. She flicked her tongue over him and he groaned her name into her hair even as he yanked her dress off her shoulders.

She loved how rough his hands were as he shoved the fabric off her chest, her hips, then down her legs.

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