Against the Wall Read online

  She had to figure out how to get through to him, because she wasn’t willing to go through life never knowing how incredible it felt to be wrapped up in his muscled arms, to have him wrapped up in her body, to feel him inside of her, so vital and honest and real.

  She could have had a score of other lovers by now, but that wasn’t what she’d wanted. She wanted to be taken by a real man, and Ryan McCall was the most real man she’d ever known, in every way. After falling so hard for him, no other guy was going to do.

  But what were her options here? Why did he keep putting up such a struggle?

  Screwing up her courage to confess everything, Shea felt him come up behind her, not close enough to touch—he never touched her—but near enough that she could sense him there. She looked up at the darkened window and could see his rugged reflection rising above her own, so tall and rough and gorgeous. Not perfect—but still the most amazing person she’d ever known.

  When he spoke, his voice was quiet, deep, sending goose bumps across her flesh from the sound alone. “Why’d you go there, Shea? What did you really think you were going to find in a place like that?”

  Her eyes met his in the glass, gray against blue, the stormy sea and the midnight sky. She stood on the edge of a cliff, arms flung wide, and jumped. “You, Ryan. God, don’t you get it? I went there to find you. Who else do you think I was looking for?”

  Ryan frowned, and this time there was an edge to his voice that she’d never quite heard before. Not anger really, but more like…like desperation. “Looking for me to do what, damn it?”

  Shea’s eyes closed, her lush mouth curving in bitter amusement. Her heart was broken, but hey, at least she could still laugh at herself. “I went there to pick you up, Ry. Come on, is it really so hard to get the concept?”

  The frown remained, the look in his eyes telling her he wasn’t quite buying it when she peeked a look at his expression. Or maybe he just found it too ridiculous to believe.

  She couldn’t help it. She laughed slightly, a soft sound only partly humor, and hugged her arms around her body, holding herself together. She looked back out through the glass, losing her gaze to the safe blackness of the night. “Is it really so hard to believe? I knew that’s where you picked up your…women. Hannah told me all about your little Friday night excursions. And I also knew that if I was ever going to…to…oh hell—” She paused to take a deep breath, and then slowly let it out. “I knew that if I was ever going to get your attention—”

  Strong hands clamped down on her shoulders, spinning her around, pressing her back up against the cool panes of the window with a small push. Her breath hitched, stopping the flow of her confession, and suddenly there was no more air to draw in to finish it. One look at the heat in his eyes and every word curled in on itself in her mind, like paper within a flame.

  “Ryan?” she asked breathlessly, hating the way he was looking at her with so much resentment firing his beautiful stare.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Shea? Are you crazy?” he gritted through his clenched teeth, every word bitten and hard with fury.

  His eyes went darker, as if that were possible, and slowly traveled down the length of her scantily clad body, sending a rush of heat through her blood. Her own chin lifted with stubborn pride. “You may not like it, but it’s the truth. I went there because I thought—”

  “You thought what, you little idiot? That I’d pick you up in a place like Red’s and that would make it okay for me to fuck you?” he demanded crudely, trying to hurt her. Anything to scare her away before he did the unthinkable and gave in to what his damn cock wanted so badly.

  “I—” She swallowed thickly, working for her voice, knowing she’d rather die than back down now. “I’ve tried everything, Ryan, but you never give me a chance. It’s like you see right through me, like I’m not even there! So yeah, I thought seeing me at Red Mackey’s Bar might make you think of me differently, and really notice who I am. What’s so wrong with that? You go to bed with the rest of them. Why not with me?”

  He was so angry he felt like he wanted to rip something apart—so friggin’ on edge that all he really wanted was to plow his aching cock up her pussy and take everything he’d wanted to take for the past three godforsaken months. What was she trying to do to him?

  As if watching through a thick fog of physical need, he saw one big hand move from her shoulder to her breast. He fingered the sensuous silk covering the firm mound and deliberately rasped her small nipple, trying desperately to ignore what the feel of her did to his dick. At this rate, he was going to reach ungodly proportions.

  “And this?” he asked with a forced, cocky smirk, ruefully aware that the simple touch of her nipple beneath his fingertips was about to make him come in his pants. “Was this get-up supposed to make me want you, Shea? Make me see you as anything other than a naïve young woman asking for something she wouldn’t know what to do with in the first place? I’m not one of your young poets or artists, damn it. When I take a woman home for the night, it’s not all rosy and sweet. I fuck with my mouth and my hands and my cock, with the lights bright, honey, so I can see just what kind of cunt I’m pounding into. I’m not soft and I’m sure as hell not small, and I don’t think you really know what you want. Christ, I’m twice your size,” he sneered. “I’d probably tear you apart!”

  Oh God, she silently groaned, feeling a rush of liquid heat melt her pussy at his shocking touch and words. She swallowed over the lump in her throat and tried to find a spark of hope in the fear she’d heard just beneath his anger. “No, you’re wrong, damn it. I know what I want. You’re just too afraid to believe it. What is it, Ry? You got a thing about not sleeping with anyone who knows more about you than your first name?”

  His eyes widened, then narrowed, pinning her in place—something shifting through them that she didn’t understand, couldn’t identify. “So you went there to get laid, huh?”

  He took her left nipple between two knuckles and twisted the small nub, eliciting a sharp breath from her parted, wine-colored lips. The warm look in her gray gaze became glazed with desire, stormy and vague, as if she were already on the verge of coming, and he knew she’d be one of those women he could bring to orgasm just by sucking on her tits. “I hadn’t pegged you as that kind of girl, but then, hey—I’ve been wrong before.”

  Shea couldn’t think of an argument, not with the barrage of emotions and physical sensations spearing through her. All she could think to give him was the truth. “I went there looking for you, Ryan. Because I want you.” She swallowed, panted—pleaded with the hungry look in her eyes. “Because I want you to want me the same way.”

  He smiled at that, but there was no joy in it, no warmth. Without taking his eyes from hers, he reached behind her to draw the blinds, then closed his large hands over her bare shoulders. With insistent pressure, he easily maneuvered her to the side until the smooth surface of the wall was at her back. When he had her where he wanted her, he let go.

  “Well, I’m here now,” he drawled in a husky rasp. “If you want me to give it to you, Shea, get rid of the clothes.”

  “What?” she asked blankly, not quite following his sudden change in mood. One minute he was pissed at her—and in the next he wanted to have sex?

  “You heard me. Strip that pathetic excuse for a dress from this little body and I’ll think about giving you the screwing you went looking for tonight.”

  Shea stiffened, instinctively trying to pull away at his snide tone, but a big hand gripped her arm, holding her in place. “Last chance, Shea. Take it off now or don’t ever come near me again.”

  Ryan was calling her bluff. It was a challenge. She could see it in his eyes and the grim set of his mouth. Shea understood that much and she also believed him. And she wanted him enough to go through with it. Wanted him enough to hope that somehow she’d reach him this way, when every other way had failed.

  You can do this…you can do this…you can do this!

  She si
lently repeated the litany over and over, determined to see this through, no matter how daunting the idea seemed of stripping naked in front of him while he stood before her completely clothed and acting like an ass. She had to see this through, because no way in hell was she willing to give up on him now.

  Forget her heart. Forget how she felt about him. Forget the emotions involved. She owed this to her poor, sex-starved body. Owed it the fuck of a lifetime, and Ryan McCall was the perfect man for the job.

  For the first time in her life, she was going to be the one having all the fun—the one getting the stud instead of the dud. Her one pathetic attempt at sex had been the biggest screw-up in the history of screwing, because she’d been so busy listening to her mind, she hadn’t heard her body.

  But she was listening to it now. And it told her that Ryan McCall made Jimmy Prescott look like a limp-dicked little prick with peach pits for balls.

  Oh yeah, she’d made a bad decision the first time around, mostly from letting stupid fear dictate her actions. Hey Shea…you gotta get a guy. And Shea…you better make sure it’s a guy you can handle. So she had, only to end up with Jimmy, who’d cared more about messing up his hair than getting her off. And then it’d been Whoa, Shea…you must’ve been out of your friggin’ mind!

  Right there—the story of her life. So much time wasted waiting for what she wanted to come to her. Too many years spent living like a nun, hiding behind her fears and labels. Too many nights spent alone, when she should’ve dragged her head out of the sand ages ago and opened her eyes to a world of sensual possibilities.

  Of course, it wasn’t until Ryan had flashed her that lopsided grin of his that she’d truly understood what she’d been missing out on. And now that she knew, she was ready to know a whole hell of a lot more, no matter how much of a warning her heart was screaming at her.

  No snotty-nosed little dickhead for her this time around. Oh no. Her body had chosen a guy with enough explosive, dominating sexuality to keep her pulsing with pleasure until she passed out—and Shea was looking forward to every single decadent second of it.

  He wasn’t a pretty-boy piece of eye-candy, and she liked that. For the life of her, Shea had never been able to understand Hollywood’s obsession with androgynous men. Bleck! What woman in her right mind wanted to go out with a guy who was prettier than she was? No, there wasn’t anything pretty about Ryan, but he was beautiful in an entirely masculine sort of way. A tall, golden bad boy with sinful looks and a wicked reputation.

  He moved with the menacing ease of a dangerous predator, and Shea had gone to bed every night wondering if he moved the same way when lying between a woman’s thighs, buried deep within her body, fucking her brains out.

  But even with her vivid imagination, she knew her limited experience could in no way do him justice. It would be like comparing rotten apples to Chocolate Sin Cake. No, his sexual prowess was something she was just going to have to find out for herself, and she and her sex-starved libido were more than ready for the opportunity.

  They were ready for it right now.

  She looked up at him from beneath her long lashes and suddenly her lips curled into a wicked smile full of carnal possibilities, feral and hungry and God-it’s-about-time! Then with trembling fingers, she pushed the silky dress right off her shoulders. It fell to the floor in a quiet swoosh of fabric, and she was standing before him wearing nothing but a miniscule black lace thong and her sandals.

  Ryan felt his stomach drop to his feet and his heart lodge in his throat. Oh, hell. The last of his control shot to pieces as the raging hunger she always ignited in him blazed to life. He’d fought for so long to keep it tightly bottled up with denial, and now he staggered under its force. What was it about this woman that drove him to this, that pushed him so far beyond any place he’d ever been before?

  He tried to think of what to say. Something…anything, but there were no words, nothing to hold on to over the frantic pumping of his blood. He stared down at her, his eyes wild with need. Her breasts were somewhat small but beautiful, incredibly sexy and perfectly shaped with pink-tipped, uplifted nipples that he wanted to lick and suck and tease with the scrape of his teeth. Every raw, dirty, sexually explicit act he’d fantasized about doing to her burned through his brain in a torrent of erotic images, making him quiver with lust.

  His gaze lowered and his eyes found the dark triangle of curls through the sheer black panel of her panties, and he could just make out the delicate cleft of her cunt. More than anything in the world, Ryan wanted to press his face there, separate her lips with his thumbs, and plunge his tongue deep inside of her until she filled his mouth with her taste. He wanted to make her scream and claw and beg until he’d impressed himself on her so thoroughly, they couldn’t be torn apart.

  It was terrifying.

  And sheer freaking insanity!

  His cock swelled to the point that he feared he’d bust straight through the fly of his jeans just from looking at her. Then everything happened at once. One second he was staring down at her with glittering blue eyes—and in the next, he was all over her.

  Chapter Three

  As if they had a mind of their own, Ryan’s fingers gripped Shea’s tightly, his intention clearly to stop her if she tried to pull away. But she wasn’t trying. Just as she’d hoped, his free hand swiftly ripped open the fly of his jeans. His movements were jerky and urgent as he thrust her hand through his open fly, filling her small palm with the brutal thickness of his pulsing cock.

  He was unbelievable, so incredibly long and strong and thicker than anything she’d ever imagined.

  Somehow she’d always envisioned him fitting into her hand the way Jimmy had, instead of overflowing with so many inches of hard, thick flesh. She knew there was no logical way she could ever take all of him inside her.

  Dear God, just the thought made Shea flush with heat. This couldn’t be normal, could it? All she had, besides what she’d read about, was a measly point of comparison with a guy who’d made her feel like a sex-ed demo: just insert tab A into slot B and try not to fall asleep before it’s all over. Not that she could’ve ever fallen asleep in the sixty seconds it’d taken Jimmy to get it in, bump between her legs with the finesse of a dog dry-humping someone’s leg, and then blow his load in his rubber while groaning, “Oh baby, Jimmy gives it so good.”

  Puh…lease. She’d been so revolted she’d grabbed her things, headed back to her dorm room, and immediately taken an hour long, scalding shower to wash the whole sordid experience away.

  But Ryan was just as intoxicating as she’d always known he would be. All she wanted to do was get closer to him, until they were smashed against one another, and she could feel all that delicious strength and heat pounding her—inside of her. Damn, even through the barrier of his cotton boxers, his skin was hot to the touch—and hotter still as he forced down the elastic waistband. Then she was touching him flesh to flesh and couldn’t bite back the low hum of arousal that burst from her throat.

  Ryan’s big body shuddered against her slight frame as he worked her fingers up and down the length of his aching cock, his own hand showing her how to touch him, how hard he liked to be gripped and pulled.

  With his face suddenly buried in the sensitive crook of her neck and shoulder, Shea could feel the harsh groans of breath bursting from his throat against her skin, so warm and exciting. She loved the silkiness of his flesh, the burgeoning, granite-hard mass of pumping blood buried beneath the sliding skin.

  “Oh fuck,” he muttered, and again he guided her motions, teaching her how to stroke him from root to tip, their fingers tangled around the huge, pulsing rod.

  When Shea felt the moisture gathering on the massive, plum-like head, she couldn’t resist the erotic urge to explore the weeping slit with her thumb. “You’re wet,” she murmured thickly, smearing the pearly drops across the broad crown.

  Ryan ground his forehead into the wall above her left shoulder, pumping his cock between their fingers while animal-like
snarls escaped his throat. He was hard and thick, pulsing from the wide base all the long way up to the huge head, and her sweet little touches were damn near unmanning him. His free hand fisted, then slammed into the wall beside his head. “Christ,” he panted gruffly. “I need to touch you, Shea, but I don’t wanna rush this—rush you.”

  “Damn it, Ryan, do I look rushed?” She loved his warm, masculine scent and nuzzled his collarbone for more. But she needed his taste too, and so she lapped at the hollow in the base of his throat, wanting to explore everywhere at once. “Please touch me, Ry. I’ve dreamed about what it’d be like to have your hands on me, inside of me, making me scream.”

  He cursed viciously beneath his breath, and before she could blink, he ripped the insubstantial black lace thong from her body.

  Her empty hand was taken from its resting place against his hard-muscled chest. This time she suffered a moment’s hesitation as he forced it between her own legs, his fingers relentless in their hold and deliberate intent, their other hands still stroking his cock.

  She squirmed against him, shocked and flushed and so hungry for him she could barely stay on her feet. An excited moan broke through her lips as Ryan kneed her legs farther apart and moved their fingers across her drenched pussy, allowing her to feel the slippery wet heat and swollen flesh.

  “God, I want to fuck you,” he groaned against her neck, his face buried there, breathing in her sultry, feminine scent with every ragged breath he took.

  The back of her head ground into the wall and her eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Uhhmm—”