Sullivans 06 - Let Me Be the One

to force the words, “Of course we are,” up through his throat and past his lips.
    She paled at his totally unconvincing reply and when she said “Ryan?” in an even shakier voice he didn’t think before reaching for her.
    Even as he pulled her onto his lap and buried his face in her hair to breathe her in, he knew he needed to be a hell of lot more convincing, instead of sounding like a lovesick fool who had just been dumped by the girl of his dreams.
    Reminding himself that he’d already fulfilled so many more fantasies with her than he’d ever dreamed he would—and that he was going to have to be satisfied with that—he stroked her hair and pulled her closer to his chest.
    Working like hell to ignore the way her curves fit against him so perfectly, and the fact that the robe was gaping open over her naked breasts while one beautiful thigh was bared at the front opening of the fabric, he said, “We’ve always been friends, Vicki, and we always will be.”
    He felt her nod against his chest as he stroked her back and shoulders. He knew he shouldn’t keep giving in to the need to touch her like this, but if this was going to be the last time, then how could he help himself?
    With his other hand, he tipped up her head so that they had to look at each other and get past this. And make sure their friendship was safe.
    “We had sex and it was great, but we’re both adults.”
    She nodded again, but she still looked too serious. Too worried. It was going to kill him to do this, but for Vicki he’d bury what was in his heart and play it easy for her. Simply because she needed him to do it to make her feel better.
    “Just one thing I was hoping you’d promise me. As you probably know, rumor has it I’m pretty impressive.” He raised his eyebrows at her and lowered his voice, “Don’t tell anyone the truth, okay?”
    “The truth?” Her laughter was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. She shook her head before saying, “Trust me, the truth would make it hard for you to get out of your front door unaccosted ever again.”
    A moment later she was sliding from his lap and back onto her seat. She picked up a piece of bacon and popped it into her mouth. “What’s it like being so good at everything? Cooking. Baseball.” She shot him a wicked glance that had his blood pressure spiking. “Sex.” She finished the bacon with a lusty sigh of appreciation that was way too close to the sounds she’d made in his bed for him to keep from sweating as he sat next to her. “Truly, it must be exhausting.”
    “I’m bad at some things.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Name one thing.”
    Making you fall in love with me the way I’ve always been in love with you. You only ever saw the jock while you let those artist assholes chase you. And hurt you.
    “Making a clay pot.”
    She laughed, but shook her head. “You’d get there with practice.”
    “Okay, then, I’m a shitty outfielder.”
    She pointed her fork at him. “Bull. Remember that game in high school when they played you in center field? Hate to break it to you, but you were great.”
    The word great from her lips instantly brought back the night they’d just spent together, and as their eyes met and held he was this close to chucking it all in and pulling her back onto his lap so that he could kiss her and touch her and love her again.
    Only, just as he was about to draw her back into his arms, Vicki gave the barest shake of her head, so small that he wasn’t sure she even knew she’d done it.
    But he heard what she wasn’t saying out loud as if she’d screamed it at him.
    No.
     
    * * *
     
    “So, how’d it go last night?”
    Vicki nearly jumped out of her skin at Anne’s question as she finished putting the little sculptures she’d just made for Summer’s birthday party into the kiln in her studio.
    She’d hit a snag on her still-unnamed fellowship project and had put it away for a few hours to try to sketch herself out of the hole she was in. But when the sketching didn’t work either, she realized she had to face facts.
    After what had happened last night with Ryan—what amounted to the most beautiful, stunning, mind-blowing lovemaking of her life—she simply couldn’t get her brain to focus on work. On top of that, she was incredibly nervous about going to a family party, even more now that their fake engagement had morphed into an accidental night of sizzling hot sex.
    She could have gone to a toy store to buy Summer a