Unlikely (7 page)

“Dominic, I wish it were that easy.”

Nick’s father harrumphed loudly. “I think you all make it too complicated,” he grumbled. “I talked to the guy this morning. He seems nice. He has a job. He doesn’t smell.”

Before Sophie could think of a witty or at least logical rejoinder, Holly was clapping her hands together getting the group’s attention. She redirected the kids to new gardening tasks and turned organization of the painting over to Dominic.

“Last time I checked, there was too much talking and not enough painting gettin’ done,” Dominic said, looking pointedly from Sophie to Holly. “So I’m changing things up. Holly, you and Nick are painting the pink and green rooms, and I’ll work with Sophie and Ryan to get the purple and blue-green rooms done. Hopefully we’ll be dry enough in time for the afternoon furniture deliveries.”

Sophie knew a setup when she saw one. First Holly, now Dominic. They were pushing her and Ryan together, and her rebellious nature made her want to push back. Not because she wasn’t attracted to him—it was getting very hard to ignore her attraction to him when they were in the same room together. But because it was starting to feel like a setup by a well-meaning mother or aunt. And Sophie knew how to handle those. First, she thanked them. Then, she made a date for drinks at a loud restaurant far from her house. And lastly if she could, she went by another name. Obligation fulfilled, she never saw the guy again.

Thank goodness Dominic was there to act as a buffer. If she could just get through today, then she could have time to think about what Dominic and Holly had said and decide if she was ready to act on her feelings.

The three of them worked in relative quiet, painting the first bedroom a soft lilac. Dominic was suspiciously efficient, and had painted the room’s edges and corners expertly.

“I gotta check on Nicky.” He paused meaningfully. “So
…I’ll leave you guys to fill in these walls here.” And with that he nimbly—quite nimbly for an older man—sprinted from the room.

“Well, that was subtle,” Ryan said, laughing.

Sophie shook her head ruefully. “What exactly did you say to him this morning?” she asked. “He took a liking to you kind of quickly. I think he practically has us walking down the aisle.” She hummed Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” under her breath.

“I told him the truth,” he said.

Sophie’s stomach bottomed out. He liked her, he really liked her. Damn it, she sounded like Sally Field. She felt lighthearted and joyous all at once. Here she was, the blue-haired Goth girl, and this hot guy with beautiful blue eyes and thick leonine hair wanted to kiss her. She could scarcely believe it. As they finished the last wall, she glanced surreptitiously at the broad expanse of his back, the narrow hips, the perfect muscular butt, and her breath quickened, and her mouth watered. Maybe she could give it a whirl with him. Maybe this time it would be different. They weren’t getting married—she didn’t believe in marriage—so maybe she could break her rule if a quick romp with this guy was in the cards.

He completed the last bare spot on the plaster surface and set down his roller. Sophie picked up her supplies. “We only have one room left before lunch,” she said innocently, then sashayed from the room, swinging her hips provocatively in a way she was sure would grab his attention.

She heard him drop something and curse swiftly under his breath. But he was with her in the corner room in a matter of moments. Dominic had completed the preliminary work on this room as well. She guessed they’d have a few moments alone. When she pushed the heavy door with her foot, it closed with a click that echoed in the empty room. In seconds, she closed the distance between them and snaked her arms around his waist, pushing up his white t-shirt, and kissed him hard. Her last thought was to remember to thank Holly for insisting they use low odor paint. The only risk of suffocation was if she and Ryan didn’t come up for air soon enough.

Sophie had more switchbacks than Coldwater Canyon. One moment she was as hot as molten wax, another, as cold as stone. As Sophie thrust her tongue in his mouth and ran her short nails down his bare back, Ryan decided he preferred her hot. He cupped her sweet little bottom and molded her against his erection. The friction felt so good, he didn’t want to finish painting or do any more volunteer work. He wanted her in his bed, underneath him right now. But years of delayed gratification had taught him that some things were worth waiting for. Reluctantly, he broke contact with her.

“I think we better get started…” He paused to take in a shuddered breath and she lifted a pierced eyebrow suggestively. “…painting this room before we wreck Dominic’s work.”

In silence humming with sexual tension, they poured the evergreen paint into a large tray and dipped their rollers. Sophie started at the far corner of one wall. Peeking over her shoulder and looking unabashedly at his package, she smiled. “I guess you were happy to see me.”

“You could say that,” he choked out, mentally dousing himself in the coldest water he could imagine
—a January swim off the Malibu coast without a wetsuit.

They both started when a tentative knock sounded at the door. Sophie, done with her wall, pulled the door open to admit Holly.

“We just closed it to making painting above the doorway easier,” Sophie offered guiltily.

Holly studiously ignored their excuses. “Lunch is ready when you guys are. The caterers have set up everything.” She left the room as quickly as she had entered.

Sobered, they made quick work of the remaining unpainted areas and cleaned up their equipment. Ryan made sure he wasn’t alone with Sophie the rest of the afternoon. Something about her made him rush in, throwing common sense to the wind. He did everything he could to exhaust himself—moving heavy furniture, helping place a burlap wrapped tree ball in the ground. He heaved mattresses in place, and set up donated computer equipment.

Though he had initially come to Korby to corner Sophie, he was glad he had volunteered. He learned a lot about what good work the center did helping kids who didn’t have anyone else to help them. He even made a note in his Blackberry, when no one was looking, to send them a donation when he got home. Equia had done a lot today, but the center could use all the help it could get.

He had cleaned up the best he could in the utility sink, but he lingered looking around for Sophie.

She popped out onto the front lawn and came to stand beside him. “Suddenly Dominic has to run a million errands tonight.” She linked her paint-splattered elbow with this. “Think you can give me a ride up to the Valley?”

He tipped an imaginary hat. “It would be my pleasure.”

Sophie kissed and hugged her friends and slipped into the Acura.

As Ryan was about to pull out of the small parking lot, she gasped, and he slammed his foot on the brake throwing them against the seatbelts.

“What is it? You okay?” he asked, concerned.

“I think I got paint on your nice leather seats,” she explained.

He breathed an audible sigh of relief. “It’s only a car. Just don’t let anything happen to the woman in that seat.”

Sophie was surprised that Ryan didn’t need directions to her Studio City home on Babcock Avenue. Most Angelenos were unable to picture the San Fernando Valley as anything but one giant unhip, monolithic suburb.

Sophie lost a little bit of her bravado for every mile they got closer to her house. Once he got to her house he’d have certain expectations that she suspected she couldn’t fulfill. “You seem to know your way around the Valley,” she said into the silence of the car just to have something to say.

“I grew up here,” he said.

“Really? Where?” she asked, unable to hide the surprise in her voice. “I’ve lived around Studio City and North Hollywood for years.”

“Near Victory and White Oak,” he said, elaborating no further.

He was from the hot center of the Valley that walked the often-unstable line between working and middle class. The ‘Beverly Hills Post Office’ house and tailored button-down wardrobe did not bring Reseda to mind. Sophie refrained from asking the follow up questions that sprang to her lips. That kind of conversation would reveal more about herself than she was willing.

Ryan’s large hand set the parking brake as he pulled up to her house and brought her mind back to the issue at hand.

This was where it always got hairy for her. She had no idea how to get them from point A—fully clothed—to point B—hot, sweaty, and naked on her crisp white sheets. And she wanted to get there—bad. She invited Ryan into the house and left him to wander as she let Sasha out. It was going to take a lot of Dutch courage to get through tonight—but if their earlier kisses were any indication—this time it would be worth it.

“So what’s your real hair color, if I may ask?”

Sophie took a gulp from one of the large glasses of wine she had poured for herself and Ryan. “So formal,” she said, her voice dropping a register. “Yes, you may ask if the drapes match the carpet. Isn’t that what you really want to know?”

A slight blush rose high on Ryan’s cheekbones. She was sure he did not usually hear that kind of language in his ivory tower universe.

“You’re not going to shock me out of being attracted to you,” he said matter-of-factly. “I think you’re cute with blue or pink or yellow hair. I was just wondering where you started.”

Discombobulated by her second compliment of the day, she took another greedy swallow of
wine, and poured more into her glass from the now half-empty bottle on the coffee table.

Ryan
carefully placed his own goblet on the wood. “Do I scare you?” he asked, looking directly into her eyes.

Sophie’s eyes skidded away from Ryan’s intense azure gaze. She looked at the dog, hoping for salvation from her sudden feelings for Ryan. The damned cur was no help. She was sound asleep, snoring audibly, feet twitching in the way only dogs in REM sleep do. She’d love it if the dog’s need to go to the bathroom would excuse her from this conversation. Sophie considered nudging Sasha with her bare foot, but that would be too obvious. Instead, she filled her wine glass to the brim and scooted to the far corner of the room’s only seating, taking her wine with her. She wished right then that she’d had the money to buy a chair for the room as well, so she could be far enough away that the citrusy scent emanating from him didn’t make her swoon.

After that long delay, she answered untruthfully. “No.” Then she took another sip of wine. She held the glass’s stem tight in a death grip.

Ryan eased back into the sofa’s other corner and crossed one long leg across the other knee. Looking like he had settled in for the long haul, he
examined her thoughtfully.

“Why don’t you date lawyers?” he asked. When she did not answer right away, he continued. “I want to know because
I
want to…date you.” But from his tone it sounded like he had far more in mind than just
dating
.

“But you don’t know me,” Sophie said, deflecting the question. “From what I can see, I can’t be your usual type.”

Ryan smiled at that. “You’re right. I usually date boring women with boring jobs who want three kids and a pseudo Mediterranean McMansion. You’re none of those things. You’re bold, funny, brash, interesting, and pretty. I’m a guy so I’ll admit that part of my attraction to you is purely physical. I haven’t been able to look at another woman since I met you.”

Sophie laughed, something she’d never done during or leading up to sex with someone. Maybe it was going to be okay.

“This is a modern miracle,” she proclaimed. “A guy who doesn’t look. Call Oprah and Barbara Walters! Forget that. Call NBC. You’ll be on
Dateline
.” She was practically shouting, causing Sasha to open one sleepy eye cautiously.

“Okay, maybe I still look,” Ryan said, backing off good-naturedly. “I am a guy. But the only woman I think about being with is you,” he said seriously. Sophie’s laughter ceased abruptly.

She started getting the jittery feeling in her stomach that she got when a man was going to try to kiss her. She hated herself for constantly feeling like a teenager around attractive members of the opposite sex no matter how old she was. She took another sip of wine, and noticed that at least she had started feeling the calming effects of the alcohol.
Thank goodness
, she thought.

“I have blue hair,” Sophie said, trying to delay what she knew was coming. Did all guys get that seriously sexy intense look before they were going to pounce on
a girl?

Ryan didn’t exactly pounce. Instead, his movements were slow and deliberate, giving her time to back out. She very much didn’t want to back out. But there was no mistaking his intention. He unwrapped her fingers from her now
half-empty wine glass, and put it on the small coffee table.

“Sunflower, you’re the funniest, most spontaneous person I’ve ever met,” he said, stroking her blue bangs. “I want to finish what we started this morning.” Then he kissed her. It had been a long time since Sophie had deliberately kissed a man, and she couldn’t ever remember being kissed like this. It was very different from their earlier spontaneous encounters.

Though it was only his lips that grazed hers, Sophie could feel Ryan everywhere, from her tingling nipples to her pulsing sex. The pressure from his lips made her fingers itch to touch him. The room suddenly felt twenty degrees warmer than it had moments before.

One of Ryan’s hands slid from her hair and gently traced the shell of her ear, stopping at each ring that studded the rim, and the other moved from her shoulder to her hip. She held her breath. It was going okay so far. It felt good. Then she tensed when his hands caressed the small of her back through the open side vent of the overalls.

He pulled his mouth from hers and placed soothing kisses on her forehead, her studded eyebrow, on the delicate skin of her eyelids. The room had gotten dark as dusk fell and the autumn sun had set. Other than the firm line of his stubbled jaw and blue eyes now almost black with desire, twilight obscured most of his features. From what she could see, though, confusion warred with desire on his handsome face.

He thrust his hands into his hair, making the waves almost stand on end. “I want to make love with you in the worst way, Sophie.” He blew out a breath. “But I’m getting mixed signals here. Do you want to be with me? Now?” Ryan asked, his voice rough with need and slightly tinged with the fear of rejection.

Alcohol fueling her bravado, Sophie nodded in silent response. She grasped Ryan’s hand and all but dragged him to her bedroom before she lost her nerve. The only light in the sparsely furnished room came from a long horizontal window over the bed and a low wattage fixture near the closet. Brightly colored Indian print scarves tented the overhead light, as well as her bedside lamps. She turned on the lights, throwing the area into stark red relief. The reds and purples set the scene for seduction.

She expected him to kiss her again, needing him to take charge. Sophie wanted to lose herself in that kiss’s potential. It would be one hundred times easier than having to think about what she was doing and with whom. Most people were carried away during sex. At least, that’s the way the steamy erotic novels she sometimes read portrayed it. With the two men she had ever been with, she was awkwardly self-conscious during the entire act, and it was happening again. She hadn’t drank enough to slip into obliviousness.

Instead of kissing her, Ryan surprised her by slowly unlatching the hooks of the overalls and allowing the bib and straps to fall from her body to a blue heap on the floor. She stepped from the pool of tie dyed cotton, clad only in her sports bra and discount store white cotton briefs that covered everything and left a whole lot to the imagination. If Ryan noticed the incongruity between her undergarments and the loud, revealing clothes she usually wore, he didn’t say a thing.

“You okay, Sunflower?” Ryan asked, gently pushing her blue hair away from her face.

Sophie nodded and hesitantly reached out to touch him. She stroked his fine, silky hair, traced her finger down his corded neck, and ran her hands lightly down the back of his shirt feeling his muscles bunch slightly at her touch. It floored her that she could get this kind of reaction from him.

“I think you have too many clothes on,” she whispered in the deepening darkness.

Faster than the blink of an eye, Ryan was out of his t-shirt and jeans. He dropped a condom onto the wrinkled bedcovers.

“Sure of yourself, huh?” Sophie whispered, very thankful that she didn’t have to reveal the seventy-two pack of condoms in her bedside drawer
—or the fact that the box was hermetically sealed in its original cellophane.

“Just hopeful,” he said. “Very hopeful.” In the dim light of the closet bulb, she could see his erection barely jutting from the open placket of his underwear. He wore boxers. She should have guessed. Ryan seemed like a starched cotton boxer kind of guy. He pulled her closer so they were mostly skin-to-skin and kissed her. Finally. Any thoughts of underwear choice left her mind.

He teased her lips with his, at first hesitant, then with growing pressure as she leaned into him more heavily. As he sought and gained access with his tongue, she ran her hands along his smooth back and muscular arms. It felt like heaven, being held by him. It had been so long since she had shared a good kiss with a man, the kind that made her tingle everywhere. Ryan pulled her even closer and his hands strayed to her briefs. He slipped his warm palms under the elastic waist and cupped her small round bottom, bringing her into close contact with his penis, which bobbed gently as if beckoning her.

Ryan eased the panties from her thighs, shucked his own undergarments, and left them in a pool on the floor with their other clothes. He pulled her gently to lie down on the slightly mussed bedcovers, deftly sliding the condom under a pillow. “I think it’s you who has on too many clothes now.” He gingerly eased the tight-fitting blue elastic bra over her breasts and head, leaving them both bare from head to toe. Reflexively, Sophie moved her arms across her breasts.

“You’re beautiful. There’s no need to hide yourself from me,” Ryan said, lifting her arm away from her chest.

Sophie’s face warmed and she was glad that he couldn’t see her blush in the darkness. “But I take after my father, up top. My boobs are too small and my nipples too large…” she said, trailing off.

Ryan laughed. He propped up on an elbow staring down at her. “In negotiation there’s something called not talking after the close.” He smoothed his hand along her collarbone, down her thin arm, and captured her small hand in his. “I’m here because I want to be here and I’m very attracted to you. You are not going to be able to talk me out of wanting you, Sophie. I’ve been thinking about this far too long for that to happen.”

When his head came closer she felt her body vibrate, waiting for one of those bone melting kisses, but was taken aback when he kissed her breasts, his lips teasing everywhere with little butterfly kisses before taking one dusky nipple then the other deep into his warm mouth. When she thought she would not be able to take any more, Ryan’s fingers smoothed over her slightly convex stomach and parted her nether lips below. He slowly stroked her clit already slick with her arousal. It went on like that, Ryan alternating between lavishing attention on both breasts and sipping at her lips as if she were the finest champagne.

Her arms felt like dead fish at her sides. It was times like this her inexperience showed. Should she touch him—touch him there—where men most craved? Unsure, she tentatively stroked his hair again, the curve of his jaw, retracing ground that was now becoming familiar. She skated her hand down his arm, marveling at the springy hairs that gently tickled the pads of her fingers. More uncertain than ever, she stroked his hip.

Only when he paused in his own ministrations, expectant, did she touch the soft skin of his erection. It jumped of its own accord, seeming to enjoy the tactile stimulation. Emboldened, if only slightly, she traced the contours of his penis with her fingertips. It was like smooth velvet over hardened steel. Ryan pulled her away from his organ and grasped her hand and intertwined their fingers. “Can we
…are you ready?”

Sophie nodded, still mute. Ryan found the condom under her head and sheathed himself. He rose over her, bracing his forearms on both sides of her head and kissed her deeply, easing her legs apart with one knee. He made sure she was ready for him and guided himself toward her center. She gasped, tensing when he was only in halfway.

Sophie’s body gripped him like a fist. He didn’t know if he would be able to last long like this. He liked to pride himself on making it a good experience for the woman he was with, and didn’t want his first time—or any time—with Sophie to be a quick wham bam. He tried to slow his breathing. “You okay?” he asked when he regained the ability to speak.

“I’m okay,” she let out with a hiss, releasing the breath she had been holding. “I just need you to go slow.”

Ryan pulled out almost the entire way. Then, holding himself as steady as possible, he eased his cock back in and out several times very slowly, a little farther each time, until he’d buried himself up to the root. He blew out a breath, closed his eyes, and turned his head. Ryan tried to think about baseball, politics, or anything that wouldn’t excite him. He didn’t want to slam into her as if he was a piston rod that could not stop.

When he was back under control again, he began to move slowly, insinuating his hand between them and caressing the small nubbin that he knew would bring her pleasure. Whether it was two minutes or twenty, he couldn’t say, but while Sophie’s breathing quickened and her nipples were hard, he didn’t think she was any closer to an orgasm than she had been minutes ago. He strongly believed in “ladies first,” but knew he could not endure the mind-bending pleasure of being inside her much longer.

“Sophie.” He paused mid stroke, looking down at her closed eyes. Her serene face revealed nothing. “I can’t hold out much longer.” It had been a long time for him and his body was ready to go no matter what his brain wanted or she needed. “Oh, God,” he breathed. “I promise to make you feel this good.” The next downward stroke obliterated any coherent thought. It all boiled down to sensation for Ryan. When it came, his orgasm was deep and long.