Sullivans 06 - Let Me Be the One

back arched just enough to make the slight indentation on her torso slightly more pronounced.
    He stared down at her, the woman he’d waited half a lifetime to finally make his own.
    “Perfect.”
    With a quick lick over the tip of each breast, he finally tilted the bottle over her. Champagne pooled between her breasts for a split second before beginning the slow, sweet slide down toward her belly button.
    His groan sounded in the room a beat before he leaned down to lick his way up over the sweet, fizzly liquid, from her waist to her breastbone. One by one, Vicki’s fingers slipped from the couch until her hands were in his hair again and she was arching into his mouth.
    A moment later, Ryan lifted her up off the couch. He’d given slow his best shot.
    But he was known for speed, after all.
    He carried her over to the bed and left her arms just long enough to put on protection. And then he was sliding deep and she was gasping out his name. He stilled and stared into her eyes.
    “That first day we met, when I was lying over you on the grass, I knew you were the one.”
    Vicki smiled up at him, even more beautiful now than she’d been all those years ago when they’d lain together on the high school lawn.
    “I did, too.”

Chapter Twenty-eight
     
    Four nights later, Vicki and Ryan walked into the San Francisco Modern Art Museum hand in hand for the fellowship awards ceremony.
    “He’s here.” Ryan’s low voice vibrated with anger.
    He wasn’t just her best friend and fiancé , he was a Sullivan. He would always want to protect—and avenge—her, especially when it came to her first husband.
    She squeezed his hand as Anthony made his way across the room straight toward them. “I’m glad he’s here.” And it was true. She actually appreciated this opportunity to see her ex again. It was her chance to finally put him where he belonged.
    In the past.
    But before her ex-husband could get to her, a beautiful woman approached her. “Are you Vicki Bennett?”
    Vicki had never met the woman before, but she recognized her nonetheless. It was the woman in the picture with James. The one who had sold her soul to a sadistic devil for a million-dollar prize.
    “Yes, I’m Vicki.”
    “I’m Kris. I worked with—” The woman faltered, paused, regrouped. “—with James. I was last year’s sculpture winner. I just heard the fantastic news that he’s been kicked off the fellowship board. Off all of them, actually, including the board of this museum.” Before Vicki could respond, the woman said, “I don’t normally do things like this,” and then strong sculptor arms were coming around her in an unexpected hug. “Thank you for doing what I didn’t have the strength to do.”
    Vicki had spent plenty of time on the phone with several of the board members during the past few days while she’d been in St. Louis watching Ryan’s first round of playoff games. Again and again she’d gone over what had happened with James, but it wasn’t until Anne called her with the good news about James’s dismissal as she and Ryan were getting on a plane to come home that she knew for sure that they believed her.
    The woman’s eyes shone with unshed tears as she took a step back. “I never should have said yes to his offer to 'help' me. Everything I have now feels like it’s been tainted with ugliness. I’m going to leave, go somewhere new, start over where people don’t know about the mistakes I’ve made.”
    Vicki had been mulling over the Italian residency for the past few days, but any way she looked at it—and despite Ryan’s obvious willingness to chuck it all in for her—she couldn’t quite picture herself in Europe again. Suddenly, she knew exactly what she was going to tell the museum curator.
    “I’ve recently heard that there is a year-long residency opportunity in Italy for a sculptor. Does that sound like something you might be interested in?”
    The woman’s eyes grew big. “Are you kidding? I’d jump on a plane to Italy in a heartbeat. There isn’t one single thing tying me to San Francisco.”
    Whereas, everything in the world that mattered to Vicki was right here.
    As they exchanged contact information and Vicki promised to make the call to the museum as soon as the awards ceremony was over, she finally realized she hadn’t introduced the woman to Ryan.
    “Kris, this is my fiancé , Ryan Sullivan.”
    She was the first woman Vicki had ever met that didn’t look like she wanted to