Only With You (12 page)

“Yes, I have.”

Then she started to get mad. “Ryder, I’m your best friend. I’ve known you since you were eight, and you’ve never dated any girls.”

“I’ve dated tons of girls, but I didn’t start dating until junior year
of high school, and you were already living in L.A. Hell, I lost my virginity to Megan Bates in the back of her SUV after the homecoming game that year.”

Her jaw dropped open, and I wondered if I’d taken it too far. She probably didn’t need to know that I’d slept with one of
the girls from our high school she’d never gotten along with.

A lot of the girls we went to school with hadn’t liked Sydney for some reason. I didn’t know if it was because she was equally as talented as she was gorgeous or if it was because she’d
just always gotten along with guys better, but she didn’t really have many girl friends when we were growing up. And Megan and her friends hadn’t ever been very nice to Sydney, which is another reason I never told Syd I hooked up with her. And I could see from her face that she wasn’t happy with me for doing that.

“
Megan Bates?! Really, Ryder?! What were you thinking? And how the hell did I not know that? We talked on the phone all the time. I saw you plenty of times, and you never thought to bring that up?”

“No, I didn’t bring it up. What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, I miss you, and by the w
ay, don’t be mad at me, but I screwed Megan last night?’”

“No! But you could have told me you were seeing her. You never talked to me about any girls, and
you’ve never once changed your status to ‘In a Relationship’ on Facebook.”

That’s because I was in love with you, hence no relationships for Ryder.

And the last thing I’d ever do was announce to the world that I had a girlfriend via social media. Not cool.

“That’s beca
use I’ve never had a
girlfriend
,” I explained, instead of telling the truth. “But I’ve dated, and I’ve had a decent amount of sex – with women – but I’ve never wanted to get serious with anyone. I didn’t tell you about any of the girls, because they weren’t important enough to me.”

Sydney was looking at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted horns and started speaking in tongues.

“What?” I asked, annoyed at the turn this conversation had taken.

“Holy crap.
My mind is spinning right now,” she said, putting her hands on either side of her head. “All these years, I completely thought you were gay.”

“Not even close.”

Then she looked hurt, and I wondered why. “Oh, my God. This makes it so much worse!”

“What? What’s worse?”
I asked, sitting up.

“The kiss,” she said, as she buried her head in her hands.

Crap. I honestly hoped she wouldn’t bring that up. Couldn’t we just move past the embarrassment?

“Our kiss?” I questioned, stalling for time. She nodded, her head still in her hand
s. “You mean the best kiss I’ve ever had?”

Okay, where did that come from? I wasn’t supposed to actually say that out loud.
I’d thought it for months, but I wasn’t supposed to tell
her
that.

Her head suddenly popped up, her eyes wide. “Are you serious?”

Too late to take it back now.

“Yeah, I’m dead serious. That kiss pretty much ruined me.
You
pretty much ruined me.”

And there I was, out on a limb for her to reach out and push me right off so I could fall to my death. If she rejected me again, I knew I was going straight into the bathroom to drown myself in the toilet. Just let it be over. Make the lambs stop screaming!

“Me?! Why?” she asked, and she sounded like she might be on the verge of tears.

So
I took a deep breath and prepared myself to put everything on the line, tell her all of it, because I’d been holding it in for too many years. Thank God I was drunk. I wouldn’t initially feel the pain of rejection.

In the morning I would feel it, and
then I would end things by drinking a bottle of arsenic, because I knew she was going to reject me again. Of course, I wasn’t exactly sure where to find arsenic, so maybe I’d just throw myself off the roof of the house like in Jake’s fake play. Ooh! Or I could throw myself directly into Lake Alice and let the alligators finish me off. That would be less messy – no body to clean up.

Oh, Jesus. What was I thinking? I was in a dark, dark place if my brain was getting excited about the different ways I could gruesomely off myself.

Then I made the mistake of looking at Syd, and I saw something in her eyes that I’d seen once before – on New Year’s Eve. It was the look that had given me the courage to kiss her that night. The look I’d read wrong. Unless, she’d only rejected me that night because she thought I was gay. Could that be it? But I’d kissed her. How could she think I was gay after I kissed her? Was it a bad kiss? Did it seem like I was inexperienced in kissing women? Why was my brain hurting?

I needed some answers, and in order to get them,
I figured it was confession time.

“Sydney,” I said,
gathering my sanity and praying to whichever deity might hear me as I stood and reached for her hands. She let me take them, so I slid my hands down to her waist and pulled her up onto the platform. “Here’s the deal. I’ve pretty much been in love with you since we were thirteen, but I knew you never felt the same way. Then in January when we were at my house and we were drinking, I took a chance. I kissed you. Then you pretty much shot me down, and it really sucked. That’s why. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.”

Okay, time to go ahead and just die now. But
I was very aware of the fact that she didn’t push me away, and my hands were still on her waist.

“
You
rejected
me
!” she suddenly said, her voice reaching an octave I’d only ever heard when she sang.

“No, I didn’t. I kissed you, and when I pulled back, you were looking at me like I
had two heads, and I knew you hated it.”

“Because I thought you were gay!
I was confused!”

Ok
ay, so apparently she had thought that.

“How could you
seriously
think I was gay?! We were best friends. Do you not think that if I was gay I would have told you?”

“I don’t know. I figured you didn’t want to talk about it,” she said softly.

“Syd, I would have told you something like that. I tell you everything else.”

Her eyes shifted, and she looked up at me through her lashes.
God, she was so beautiful. “Then how come you never told me about the girls you dated,” she asked, probably because the answer I’d given her before was bullshit, and she knew it.

I sighed.
“Because I didn’t want you to think about me with other girls. I didn’t want to talk about them with you. Whenever we talked, all I could think about was you. The other girls didn’t matter. You were the only girl I ever wanted to be with, and I couldn’t have you. But I always held out hope that one day you’d change your mind, and I didn’t want me having a girlfriend to keep anything from happening between us.” I shook my head. “It’s pathetic. I know.”

“It’s not pathetic,” she
said softly, as her hands covered mine and her thumbs ran over the backs of my hands, sending chills up my arms. I knew she was just comforting me, but it felt so damn good. “It’s actually kind of sweet. How come you never told me?”

Ugh.
I didn’t need her pity.

I
shrugged. “I had a good reason for that.”

“What’s that?”

“Rejection. It sucks. See me standing here right now, rejected? It’s not a fun place to be, and I’ve been feeling it for years but even more so in the past few months.”

Then
I wasn’t so sure I’d actually been rejected anymore as she lifted my hands from her waist and laced our fingers together between us in a really intimate way.

She shook her head. “I didn’t reject you, Ryder,” she said
softly, leaning closer, and my heart started to pound. “I never rejected you. I wanted to be with you that night, and
you
rejected
me
. And it sucked.”

My eyes got wide in that moment. “Say what?”

Holy shit! Did she just say she wanted to be with me? I couldn’t think. I couldn’t focus. Then suddenly, she was standing on her tiptoes, her mouth was on mine, and her hands were sliding around to grip the back of my neck.  

Then in one swift move, she
pushed me back onto the couch, her lips assaulting mine, searing and hot as she crawled up over me and put her hands on either side of my face, holding me there. All around me fireworks were shooting off, as I tried to rationalize what was happening. Sydney was kissing me. Me. Apparently she wanted me. Damn, she was a good kisser, and she tasted like candy. Holy shit. She was actually kissing me. And I was just lying there doing nothing.

Fuck that. I’d been waiting
my whole life for an opportunity like this.

In one swift motion, I had her flat on her back on the couch, my hands on either side of her head, tangled in her hair, my face
inches from hers. She smiled up at me, her breath coming in short bursts.

I leaned down
and pressed my lips to hers as softly and sweetly as I could before pulling back so I could drink in her perfect features.

“Are you being for real right now?” I asked her.

She nodded and tried to kiss me again, but I held her off.

“No, seriously. I need to know,” I insisted. “What the hell is going on?”

She let her head drop back and shook it a few times. “You are an idiot, and apparently so am I.”

Then she lifted her head to look at me again, and I loved
the look on her face – full of hunger and lust and something sweet and pure that I dared say looked a lot like love. But I wasn’t sure if it was. She hadn’t said she loved me, but then again I didn’t need her to. What she was giving me right then and there was enough. It was what I’d always wanted – for her to see me as more than a friend, to see me as a guy she wanted to be with.

“Ry,” she said
when I didn’t respond, “I realized a few months back that the guy I wanted had been right under my nose for years. When you kissed me, it was so amazing, but I didn’t know it was real. It was such a
good
kiss, but I honestly thought you were gay.”

“Why did you thi
nk I kissed you then?”

Before she answered me
I kissed her, because I could, and I was making up for years of not being able to. I hoped this was real. A part of me was afraid she’d bolt the next morning, and I’d be left to pick up the pieces of my broken heart, but right then, when I had her in my arms, I was going to take every moment for everything it was worth.

“I thought you were experimenting or something. You know, kiss your best friend to see if you really are gay,” she said sheepishly.

I let my head fall against her shoulder. “Do you know how many times I held back from kissing you over the years? Then I finally get the courage to do it, and you actually kiss me back, and the whole time you were thinking
that
?! I’m not that bad of a kisser, am I?”

I raised my head to look at her, and she laughed lightly. T
hen she kissed me again.

“You are an excellent kisser,” she said when she pulled back. “
And so hot.”

I groaned. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that to me? Jesus, am I asleep right now? Because if I am, I’m going to be
so pissed when I wake up.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re not
. And tomorrow morning when you wake up, I’m going to be right there with you.”

Sweet Jesus! Hallelujah!

I grinned. I couldn’t help it. I was so looking forward to waking up with her in my bed, in my arms.

I cleared m
y throat. “Um, so am I, uh, safe to assume this won’t be a platonic sleepover?”

Please say no. Please say no.

Her hand started to slide down my arm then, all slow and seductive like. “Only if you want it to be,” she said coyly.

“Oh, hell no,” I said, knowing she could feel the wood I was definitely sporting, because, shit, the girl I’d fantasized about for years
pretty much had her legs wrapped around me.

“Good,” she said
as her other hand slid up behind my head and pulled it down so she could start kissing me again.

I lost track of time
then. All of my attention was on her lips as I kissed them and her tongue as it flirted with mine. Her hands were threaded through my hair, and her legs were tangled up with mine. I was in heaven. And I never wanted to leave.

Chapter Eleven

Sydney

Bang, bang, bang. Bang, bang, bang.

“Dude, let me in,” someone whined from the other side of Ryder’s door.

He groaned and pulled back from kissing me, looking over his shoulder at the door. “Go away, Jake,” he growled.

“Ry, it’s four in the morning. I’m tired. I want to go to sleep,” Jake whined again, and I heard a faint thudding on the door like he was banging his head against it.

“Fine,” Ryder said, untangling his body from mine as he got up and ran a hand back through his hair.
I noticed how swollen his lips were.

I sat up and chanced a glance in the beer mirror opposite the couch only to see that I
too looked like I had been making out for the past two hours. Of course I had been, but no one else needed to know that, especially not Jake. We’d only met that night when I’d seen him outside the house, recognized him and basically accosted him while he was heading to the keg.

He’d done a double-take, recognizing me, but thankfully he was the only one who did. Everyone else was either too drunk or completely oblivious.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he’d asked, and I’d just put my hands on my hips and demanded to see Ryder.

I’d figured Jake
was protecting his boyfriend, but either way we got off on the wrong foot. Jake told me Ryder was busy, and I told him I didn’t care. I needed to talk to him. I was pissed that he’d blown me off.

Then I’d walked onto the porch only see that Ryder was busy with some girl’s tongue down his throat and her hand on his crotch. That was a pleasant view, let me tell you. Of course, after talking and finally telling him how I felt, I realized I’d been dead wrong about the gay th
ing. So wrong that I felt like a giant idiot in more ways than one, but then it didn’t matter, because Ryder told me he was in love with me. Then we were kissing, and everything got a little blurry in a really good way after that.

I watched him slide off the loft, his lean muscled back so mind-numbingly sexy.
I’d pulled his t-shirt off over his head a while go, and I’d had my hands splayed out all over the smooth, tanned skin of his back just moments before while his hands had been inside my hoodie. We hadn’t gone any further than heavy making out, but I knew we were just getting started. Or I did until Jake came home.

Ryder
unlocked the door and yanked it open, letting a very drunk looking Jake into the room. He looked up at me and smiled.

“Where have you been all night?” Ryder asked him.

Jake stretched his arms over his head exposing a thin strip of his tanned stomach. “I occupied Olivia for a while. Then she passed out, so Trey and I played
Assassins Creed
for a few hours.”

“Where’s Olivia?” Ryder asked, and I felt a spark of jealousy rush through me.

“Passed out on Trey’s couch. I couldn’t wake her up.”

“Great,” Ryder muttered, shaking his head. “Trey’s not going to be a dick to her is he?”

“No,” Jake said, looking appalled. “Mandy came over to see him. That’s why he kicked me out, so unless Olivia wants to join them – which she might, because she’s kind of kinky like that – she’ll be fine.”

“Idiots,” I thought I heard Ryder mumble.

Okay, he was just concerned about the girl. That was actually nice.

“Hi Sydney. What have you too been up to?”
Jake asked coyly, verbally acknowledging me for the first time since he’d entered the room. I had a feeling he knew very well what I’d been up to.

I smiled. We could be friends now that I wasn’t jealous of him. “Just making out with Ryder. He’s an excellent kisser,” I said and saw the smirk creep up on Ryder’s lips
as he looked over at me.

Jake halfway held up a hand for a lazy high-five. “
About damn time, bro. She’s hot.” Then he looked up at me. “Excellent show the other night, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

He smirked. “I liked that little black outfit you wore. It was
hot
! You have great legs and a great ass.”

Ryder reached out and slugged him in the arm without a word. When Jake looked
over at him, appalled that Ryder had hit him, Ryder just shook his head. “You don’t get to think she’s hot.”

“Why not? She is.”

“Go to bed, Jake.”

“But,” he protested, but he didn’t follow it up with any words. He just crawled under the loft and disappeared. I knew the guys each had a sleeping area under there. Ryder had told me about it when he’d first moved into the house.

When Jake disappeared, Ryder looked back up at me and smiled, his dimples that I loved so much popping just for me. I smiled in return, but then it turned into a yawn, so I covered my mouth.

“Are you tired?”
he asked me.

I nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

“Do you want to go to bed?”

I felt bad because I did want to go to bed, but I’d promised Ryder a non-platonic sleepover. Although, Jake was
now in the room, so a non-platonic night might be out of the question. I wasn’t really all that psyched about him hearing Ryder and me having sex for the first time. I didn’t want anyone to hear that.

But damn if that thought didn’t excite me. Sex with Ryder.
I’d thought about it a million times, and I wanted it so bad, but not like this. I bit my lip.

“Syd?” Ryder
prompted.

“I kind of want to go to sleep. Is that okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s totally fine.”

I breathed out a sigh of relief. Then
I bit my lip again.

“What’s wrong?”

“Um, so I kind of have to pee. Is there a bathroom I can use?”

I didn’t see any other
doors in the room, outside of the one leading to the hallway. If I didn’t have to pee so bad I wouldn’t have asked, because I could only imagine what a fraternity house bathroom looked like – especially after a party as big as the one they’d had that night.

“Come on,” Ryder said, reaching out his hand.

I took it, and he helped me down from the loft. Then he kissed me, as if he couldn’t get enough, but truthfully, I couldn’t either. Internally I was still reeling from everything that had transpired earlier in the night. Ryder wasn’t gay. And he wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him. It was so surreal that I had to keep telling myself it was all really happening.

Ryder
opened the door then and looked out into the hallway. It sounded quiet from what I could tell. All the girls who’d been out there when I’d first gotten to the house had either found a guy for the night or had gone home.

“The bathroom’s do
wn the hall to the right,” he said.

Then he threaded his arms around my waist and pulled me back against his bare chest. He kissed my neck, letting his lips linger there for a few seconds. When he lifted his head and nudged me forward
, he didn’t move from behind me as he walked us in tandem to the door at the end of the hall. When we got there, he turned me around, kissed me once more and smiled.

“I’ll guard the door so no one goes in there.”

“Thank you,” I said before entering the room.

When I came out a few minutes later, Ryder was leaning against
the wall across from the door, his eyes closed. They opened when I appeared.

“You’re tired too, aren’t you?”

He nodded his head. “Yeah, but I’m afraid to go to sleep. I want things to be good with us in the morning. You’re not going to freak out and bail on me, are you?”

I took a step closer to him and put my hand on his cheek. “No, I’m not. I’m sorry about how I acted after New Year
’s. It was wrong. I was just so embarrassed that I’d wanted something when I thought you didn’t, and I figured the distance would help. It didn’t.”

Ryder opened his mouth to say something, but a door opening a few feet away stopped him. He pulled me against him, and tur
ned my face away from the person shuffling down the hall toward us.

“Hey man,” a guy said before he entered the bathroom.

“Hey Trey,” Ryder said back, but they didn’t exchange any other words. Then he released me and took my hand. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

We crawled into Ryder’s little sleeping area, which wasn’t all that glamorous. He had a little light just inside the entrance that he turned on, and I could see that aside from a twin mattress
and haphazard bedding, there was a shelf with a few books on it and a few pages that had been ripped out of magazines taped to the walls. I recognized that they were all pictures of me from various magazine shoots I’d done. And in any other guy’s room, they would have creeped me out, but not in Ryder’s, although he looked panicked for a few seconds when he must have remembered they were there.

“So you fall asleep looking at me?” I asked as I scooted into the
far corner of the small space, and he let the curtain at the entrance fall closed behind him.

“Maybe.”

I smiled. “Do you do anything else in here while looking at me?”

I thought Ryder’s cheeks colored, but I couldn’t be sure. The light was dim, and his face was partly in shadows.

“I’m not answering that,” he said sheepishly.

“I’ve thought about you a few times,” I offered. “You know, when I was alone.”

His eyebrows rose. “Really?”

I shrugged. “Okay, maybe it was more than a few times,” I said, and a wide smile broke across his face.

Then he shook his head. “That’s so hot. I want to do all sorts of really inappropriate things to you right now.”

I noticed he didn’t move from where he was sitting, opposite me in the other corner of the small cave-like space, his head just inches from the ceiling.

“But you’re not going to, are you?” I deduced, and he shook his head.

“Not with Jake next door,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the particle board wall that separated their sleeping areas.

I nodded. “Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing.”

“Although, I’m probably going to be kicking myself tomorrow when you leave, since I’m not sure when I’ll get to see you again.
Where do you go next?”

I smiled. “I’m actually off for a w
eek, so I figured I might stay here and hang out with you. Although, I think I’ll probably get a hotel for the next few nights since – and I mean this in the most respectful way – I’m not sure this is the best place for me to stay.”

Ryder’s face broke into another grin. “No offense taken. This place is a pit.”

“Yeah, the bathroom,” I shook my head. “Not to get all diva on your or anything, but it was so gross.”

He shook hi
s head. “I know, and I’m a guy.”

“Plus there’s not much privacy here,” I said, shrugging. “If I get a hotel room, we can be alone, if you know what I mean.”

“That sounds pretty great,” he said, grinning at me for a few seconds, but then his smile faded, causing mine to do the same.

“What’s wrong?”

He took a deep breath. “Syd, I really would love for you to stay, trust me. But here’s the deal.” He looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. Then he dropped his gaze back to mine. “I’m going to kick myself for saying this, I know it, and I really, really don’t want you to read more into it than it is, because I’m being honest here.”

My face fell. Was he going to tell me that he really did have a girlfriend and that I couldn’t stay
because she didn’t know about me, because of course, why would he tell her about the girl he’d been crushing on for years? And then I wanted to smile, because he’d been crushing on me for years, but I couldn’t, because he was going to tell me that we couldn’t be together.

Okay, I was
being completely irrational in that moment, because none of what had been said between us that night or what I’d witnessed or experienced should indicate that he had a girlfriend, but I’d literally just gotten exactly what I had wanted for months, so a part of me was terrified it was going to be ripped out from under me in one fell swoop that knocked me flat on my ass.

“Syd, what’s wrong?” Ryder asked, panic in his eyes. “All the color just drained from your face.”

He crawled over to me and pulled me into his lap, his strong arms wrapping around me. I inhaled his familiar, comforting scent. He smelled so good.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I squeaked out.

“What? No. I already told you I wasn’t seeing anyone. God, we just made out for two hours. What kind of a guy do you think I am?”

“The kind of guy that makes out with more than one girl in a night,” I grumbled, because it was true.

“No, I . . . okay, so maybe I was that guy tonight, but that’s never happened before, and I never would have done anything with that girl had I known I was going to get to make out with you. You have to know that.”