Sullivans 06 - Let Me Be the One

her up for air.
    “Life is good.” She was so soft and sweet against him that he could hardly remember what he’d done all day. “Smith helped me convince a bunch more filthy rich people to clean up some by giving the schools money for sports programs. I don’t know why I didn’t think to pull him in before now.”
    She grinned. “I can only imagine the team the two of you must make. Those poor rich people didn’t stand a chance, did they?”
    Did she have any idea how pretty her mouth was when she was smiling at him?
    “Are you ready for our date?”
    She moved her hands around his back and pulled him closer. “Almost.”
    “Is there — ” He had to clear his throat to push the words past the lust clogging them. “Is there something you need to do first?”
    “Yes.” She went up on her tippy-toes. “More of this.”
    Her mouth had barely touched his when he had her up on the marble counter, a fistful of cotton fabric in his hands. Still— “You said you wanted to go slow. We can do this date without sex, Vicki.”
    The thought of walking away from all her heat, her sweetness, was almost unbearable. But he didn’t want her to have a single reason not to go out on another date with him, couldn’t let her think all he wanted her for was sex.
    “If you need me to control myself,” he promised, “I’ll find a way to do it.”
    “I guess that means you’re a stronger person than I am,” she said as she took his shirt in her hands and yanked it over his head. “Because there’s no way I can wait for the date to be over to have you.”
    She took his face in her hands to kiss him again, but even though there was nothing in the world he wanted more, Ryan had to make absolutely sure she wouldn’t use their pre-date sex as a reason to back away from him later.
    “You and me, we’re about more than great sex.”
    She licked at his lips. “Of course we are. But the sex is a really fantastic bonus, don’t you think?”
    He had to kiss her again once, then twice, before saying, “The best bonus in the world.”
     
    * * *
     
    An hour later, they were walking hand in hand onto the same wetland path they’d walked so many times before as teenagers.
    “I can’t believe you brought me back here.” She squeezed his hand tighter as she pulled him toward the water, murky green as it slowly flowed along the peninsula south of the city. “Ready for the plunge?”
    Side by side, they squatted down on the muddy edge to stick their hands underwater. Vicki looked down at their hands just under the surface, then back at him.
    “This is a really lovely first date. Thank you.”
    “Even the part where I tore off your clothes the second you walked in the front door?”
    She shot him a wicked—and well satisfied—grin. “Especially that.”
    “Do you know what I always wanted to do out here?” he asked her.
    “Probably the same thing I wanted.”
    In perfect sync, they leaned in to kiss each other. But just as their lips were about to touch, Vicki’s heels started skidding on the muddy bank.
    Her wide, laughing eyes were the last thing he saw before she toppled into the water...and took him in with her.
    Ducks scattered into the sky as they splashed their way to the surface. Laughing too hard to bother climbing out of the sludgy water, as they held onto each other, the ducks that had flown away settled back down to swim around them.
    A clump of something green and gooey clung to Vicki’s hair, mud streaked her cheek...and still, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
    “What are you looking at?”
    “You,” was all he could say. “Just you, Vicki.”
    And then he gave up on talking altogether to make good on the wet and dirty wetlands kiss he’d waited fifteen years to give her.
     
    * * *
     
    Twenty-four hours later, Vicki hummed along with the pop song she’d had on repeat for the past two days as she worked. Cheesy love songs performed by sixteen-year-old kids were her weakness. Serious artists, she knew, were supposed to behave accordingly. But she’d never been any good at looking, sounding, or acting the part of the serious artist.
    Then again, she hadn’t thought she’d be able to pull off the role of Ryan Sullivan’s fiancée very convincingly, either.
    Of course, that had nothing whatsoever to do with her acting skills...and everything to do with the fact that she’d lost her heart to him so long ago.
    It wasn’t hard to act besotted when you actually were. And when