You Before Me (20 page)

“Anyway, it sort of makes sense
because my parents bought me whatever I wanted throughout the year.
They were always really busy with work too. Besides, sharing a
birthday with Halloween meant I got to dress up and go trick or
treating, so it worked out. Long story short, I didn't tell you
because we don't celebrate birthdays. Not in a traditional sense.
We give each other birthday cards with a bit of money inside, and
that's it.”

My heart tears for her. How fucked up
is her family? I don't understand why they wouldn't do something
for the day they were born. I kiss the top of her head, feeling a
tear fall onto the bare skin between my neck and
t-shirt.

“Are you satisfied now?” Her voice is
monotone.

“That you talked to me? Yes.” An idea
forms, but I decide to change the subject. “Why did you pick a
saloon girl costume?”

Ryan laughs, not expecting that. She
sits up to look at me. With the pad of my thumbs, I wipe away her
silent tears. “I love watching old TV shows like Bonanza, The
Rifleman, The Big Valley. You get the gist. So that's what I wanted
to be. How hot was I? Well, I was before I was wasted.” She
chuckles.

I make a show of looking at my watch
on my wrist. “You're always hot, Ryan. I need to go.”

She frowns. “Dinner with your
family?”

“Yeah,” I lie. Well, sort of. I'm
supposed to go, but I'm going to cancel. “I'll text you when I
leave, and you can spend the night at my place?”

“I have class tomorrow.”

“I have work,” I deadpan. C'mon, Ryan.
Don't let me down. “Besides, I thought you wanted hot sex?” I
smirk.

She laughs, playfully hitting me in
the arm. “Fine. I guess I could come over. Better make it worth my
while, Officer.” Ryan gives me a swift kiss.

“I will.”

After our goodbyes and a heady kiss, I
leave for my secret mission. I run around town like a crazy person,
searching for everything I want. Two and a half hours later, I
examine my handiwork back at home. Ryan should be here any moment.
Speak of the devil, I think as I hear a door shut outside. I walk
out to greet her, so this can work just as I want.

“Hey, Gabe,” she grins, hoisting her
bag over her shoulder. Her hair is down, and she's changed since I
saw her earlier. She's now wearing jeans, an orange v-neck sweater,
and a scarf hangs loosely around her neck.

“Hey,” I greet, taking her bag from
her. “I have a surprise for you.”

“You do?” She asks,
confused.

“Yep. Close your eyes. I'll lead you
inside.”

Her eyes close instantly, but she
says, “What have you done, Gabe?”

I place my hand over her eyes, just to
be sure she doesn't peek. Her eyelashes tickle my palm. “Close your
eyes,” I repeat. When the fluttering stops, I place my free hand on
the small of her back, leading her towards the door. “Two steps
right in front of you,” I tell her. She walks up the steps. “Reach
for the door, please.”

Ryan giggles and blindly sticks her
hand out to find the doorknob. I instruct her until her fingers
curl around the knob. She opens it and then steps
inside.

“Ready?” I'm suddenly nervous of what
her reaction will be.

“Yep.”

My hand falls away. I step next to her
to see what she thinks. Her lips part as she takes in her
surroundings. My house has been transformed. There are streamers
hanging from the ceiling from the kitchen into the living room,
balloons floating everywhere. In the middle of the kitchen, a
seahorse piñata, which took forever to find, is hanging. There's a
cake sitting on my table with chips and Happy Birthday plates
waiting to be used along with two of those cone hats kids wear
sometimes. Ryan steps further into the house and towards the living
room, seeing a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey and more party
favors. On my end table, there are bubbles waiting to be blown,
silly string, and even a mini pool set.

Ryan swivels to face me, awe written
over her features. “What's this?” She asks softly,
carefully.

I shrug nonchalantly. “I wanted to
give you the birthday party you never had.” This seems like such a
dumb idea now. No way Ryan will go for this. But she slowly starts
to smile.

“What do we do first?”

And that starts our journey of
becoming kids again. Ryan wanted to do the piñata first and while
she wore the blindfold, I gave her instructions on where to swing.
She missed the first time, swinging entirely too low thanks to what
I told her, and I sprayed her with silly string, causing her to
giggle and squeal my name.

“So close. Just a bit higher,” I
lie.

She misses again, and I laugh,
spraying her again. We do this a couple more times before I come
behind her and help, breaking the seahorse in half. I hold Ryan by
the waist and turn her away, so I can grab the candy for myself,
causing more giggles to bubble out of her. We play all the games,
blow bubbles, and engage in a silly string fight, making an
absolute mess of my house. But it's tons of fun, and Ryan hasn't
stopped smiling since she walked into the house.

“Okay! Okay!” she surrenders from
behind my couch as I crouch behind the recliner. “You win! I want
cake now.” She peers over the couch, and I can see that she has the
green silly string all tangled in her red hair. “Truce?” She
questions.

“All right. Truce.” As I stand up,
Ryan runs for the kitchen, spraying me on her way, laughing. “Shame
on you, Ryan,” I chuckle, pulling it off my face. She slides into
the chair, and I set my cans down. I was empty anyway.

“C'mon! Time for cake,
Gabe.”

I find a knife and two spoons and
retrieve the ice cream, going ahead and taking off the lid. Ryan
asks to cut the cake, so I let her. She cuts a large slice and puts
it on the plate. I raise my eyebrows when she slides it over in
front of me before getting up to squeeze between the table and me
to straddle my lap.

“Do I get to make special requests?”
She asks, running her hands down my chest.

“Of course. Whatever you want,
Ryan.”

She smiles, reaching behind her to
slide the plate over further so she can access it better. Ryan gets
a spoonful of cake and waits for me to open my mouth. I do,
completely turned on by the fact that she's feeding me. Ryan
watches me, seemingly fascinated before handing the spoon to
me.

“Your turn.”

I lean forward, pressing her between
me and the table as I tug the ice cream closer. “Vanilla,
chocolate, or strawberry?” I ask.

“All three.”

Chuckling, I manage to get a small bit
of all three onto the spoon, lifting it to her lips. She sucks the
ice cream off the spoon with more force than necessary, and I shake
my head at her, smiling. We keep going back and forth until the
slice of cake is gone, and the ice cream has melted puddles around
the edges of the container.

Ryan takes the spoon from me, setting
it on the paper plate. “Thank you, Gabe. I don't even know what to
think. Did you do this instead of going to your parents?” She wraps
her arms around my neck, her fingers playing with some of my
curls.

I rest my hands on her hips. “Yeah.
Mom wasn't happy that I cancelled last minute, but she'll
understand.” I curl my fingers into her back. “I wanted to do this
for you.”

She rests her forehead on mine, her
eyes closed. “Best birthday ever,” she says quietly. When her eyes
flash open, they are watery, causing me to notice her shallow,
cautious breathing as if she's trying not to cry. “Gabe, I-” her
voice falters, struggling with whatever she wants to say. Her mouth
closes and opens several times, but nothing more comes out, so I
decide to ease the tension.

“It may be your party, but you're
going to have to clean this mess up because I'm not going to do
it,” I tell her, pulling a piece of silly string from her
hair.

Ryan barks out a laugh just as I
hoped. “That's so wrong.”

“Just kidding.” I pause. “Sort of.”
Ryan giggles, and I push her hair behind her ear. “Ready for your
hot birthday sex now?”

Her eyes darken with desire, her
laughing halts immediately, but she shakes her head. “Maybe later.”
That is unusual for Ryan. With a blink of the eye, her desire is
gone, and so many emotions take its place.

“Tell me what you're
thinking.”

Ryan takes a deep breath. “You really
want to know?”

“Absolutely.”

She almost looks nervous for a moment.
It quickly disappears. I love that she looks directly at me,
whether she's nervous or not. She's going to face it head on.
Finally, she mutters, “I was thinking about us and how... how this,
us, scares me a little.”

For probably the first time ever, Ryan
doesn't ramble on. She waits for me to say something. I wish she
would babble endlessly to explain herself.

“You're going to have to give me more
than that, Ryan. What do you mean?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing.
Everything. I don't know. Thank you again for today,” she repeats,
changing the subject. “It means a lot that you did this for
me.”

I try to decide if I should press her
or not, but her phone rings from across the room. Ryan makes no
move to get it. Her eyes don't leave me. I wonder if she wants me
to pry further. She doesn't give me a chance to make a
decision.

“Can we go watch a movie?” She glances
into the living room. “Maybe in your room, so we don't have to
clean up yet?”

“Yeah, you're in charge,
remember?”

Ryan stands, and I follow her into the
bedroom after putting the ice cream away. I prop some pillows
against the headboard before lying down with the remote, turning on
the TV. Ryan cuddles up to me, resting her head on my chest as I
search for a horror movie. Once I find one, I set the remote down
next to me, idly running my hands through her hair, pulling out
silly string along the way. Ryan becomes immersed in the movie, but
my mind is elsewhere.

How do we scare her? What was she
about to say before that? I'm full of unanswered questions. While
I'm thinking, my hand leaves her hair and the tips of my fingers
skim down her back, finding a sliver of bare skin from where her
shirt rode up a bit. I'm so happy I decided to do this for her. It
wouldn't have happened if I hadn't have made her told me though.
She deserved to have a party, especially one like this that was
full of child-play.

Ryan lifts her head to look at me,
distracting me from my thoughts. Lust has taken over once more. She
grabs the remote and turns off the movie, the end credits
disappearing into blackness. Ryan straddles me, sitting upright.
The hem of her shirt bunches in her fingers as she pulls it up and
over her head. Ryan throws it aside, leaning down to kiss
me.

“I'm ready for my hot birthday sex,
Gabe,” she whispers, kissing along my bearded jaw. Ryan grazes her
teeth over my ear.

I roll us over, so I hover above her.
Ryan's gloriously red hair is splayed across my pillows. Right
then, I decided that we're not going to have hot birthday sex.
We're going to make slow, deliciously scorching love. With every
ounce of emotion in me, I kiss her. Ryan sighs into my mouth. I run
my tongue along her teeth, already lost. Ryan sucks on the tip of
my tongue before swiping hers against it. My hands turn into fists
on either side of her shoulders. Abandoning her mouth, I settle
between her legs, grinding against her as I kiss her shoulder to
her collarbone. Then I dip my head inward to kiss the swells of her
breasts.

“Take off your pants,” I murmur,
lifting myself back off her. I hover as if I'm about to do a push
up while Ryan quickly works underneath me to remove her pants. “Bra
too.” Once Ryan is completely naked, my eyes rake over her body.
God, she's beautiful. I move so I'm only half laying on her,
leaving part of her exposed.

Ryan hungrily brings my face back to
hers so she can kiss me. I cup my hand over her between her legs.
She inhales with surprise. My fingers brush over her, feeling how
wet she is already. My middle finger runs between her folds before
sinking lower, inserting into her. Ryan's leg between my legs
moves, brushing against my erection and making me groan into her
mouth. Leaving that behind, I travel to give special attention to
her breasts, slowing moving my finger inside her.

Just as I take her nipple into mouth,
I push in another finger. Ryan tightens around them, and I smile. I
tug her nipple between my teeth and pull until it pops out, moving
more vigorously inside her.

“Fuck, Gabe.” She claws at my shirt,
wanting to take it off. “I want you now.”

Chuckling, I have no problem giving
her what she wants. “Get the condom.” I lift my chin towards the
side table. She's got it in her hands, ripping the wrapper before I
can unbutton my jeans. I take them off and I'm on my knees beside
her. Ryan sits up and rolls the condom on me. She strokes me a few
times. I love how I feel in her hand.

“Lay down, legs open wide.”

I move in between her legs, quickly
entering her. Ryan hooks her legs around my waist, lifting to have
more of me. I put my hand low on her belly and push her back down.
She lets out a low whimper, only the tip of me inside her now.
Leaning down, I kiss her and begin to move deliberately slow. Ryan
attempts to push me further and harder with her calves, but it
doesn't work. The hand on her stomach moves lower to rub her
clit.