You Before Me (5 page)

“Thanks.” He turns to me
once more. “You brought her
here
? As a
date
? No wonder you're single.” He
laughs.

“I asked if it was okay, and she said
yes. Besides, we're about to go somewhere else. Who's coming to
pick you up?”

“I'm catching a ride with one of my
friends.” He looks over his shoulder, and someone waves him over.
“I better go. Nice to meet you, Ryan.”

“You too.”

“I'll see you soon, Gabe?”

“Yeah. Let Mom know I'll be home for
supper Sunday,” I tell him.

“Will do. Later!”

He turns and jogs towards his friend.
Ryan steps to stand in front of me, a sneaky smile on her lips as
she loosely wraps her arms around my waist.

“Where to next, Officer?”

“Do you like cake?” I
question.

She giggles, a ridiculously girly
giggle. “Of course I do.”

“Then allow me to lead the way.” Once
she hooks her arm around my elbow and we start walking out of the
stadium, I tell her where we're going. “There's a cafe not to far
from here, and they have some of the best cakes I've ever had. I
thought we could go there for something sweet to eat, and then walk
around downtown or whatever you want to do.”

“Sounds good to me.”

At the cafe, Ryan gets a slice of
German chocolate cake while I settle for a slice of upside down
pineapple cake. She asks if they have any Sunkist, but they don't
so she orders water instead. We're sitting at a little, high table,
our knees touching.

“You really like Sunkist, don't
you?”

Ryan just took a bite, so she only
nods. After she swallows, she says, “It's that or water. I'm
slightly addicted to it. Always have been.”

“Mhm.” I take a delicious bite myself,
and then ask, “What's one of your favorite things to
do?”

Without any hesitation whatsoever, the
words fly out of her mouth. “Have sex.”

She catches me off guard with her
answer, my fork pausing halfway to my mouth. Ryan's eyes widen as
if she's just now realizing she said that.

“Shit. I mean, crap.
Sorry. That's, um, not a good, ladylike thing to say.” Her cheeks
flush a light pink, her eyes focused on her cake. Something tells
me this is the first and last time I'll ever see her blush because
it doesn't seem like something she does often. “I don't really have
a favorite thing. If it's fun or if there's some sort of thrill to
it, then I'm happy. Kind of goes back to what I said about my
major. Nothing sparks a passion in me. Even simple activities
apparently because I can't even pick a favorite,
appropriate
, thing I
like to do.” Ryan's dark green eyes peek at me from underneath her
lashes. “Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble.”

“Ramble away. I don't mind.” I give
her a kind smile because it almost seems that her own answer threw
her for a loop, and she's slightly uncomfortable now. It doesn't
seem to fit her personality, but it does make her more real to me.
“And you do have a passion of sorts. Liking things that thrill you,
as you say. It sounds like you're an adventurous, daring type of
person.”

Ryan laughs. She's so sexy when she
does. Whatever emotions she's dealing with disappears into simple,
carefree joy when she laughs. “Hm. Not so sure about adventurous.
Daring seems to fit me, I guess. What about you? What else in your
life fuels you besides your job? That does fuel you,
right?”

“Oh yeah, I love what I do. I also
like to go out to one of my dad's pieces of land and shoot targets
with some of the guys in my family. We get together at least one
Saturday a month just for that.”

She shakes her head slightly, her hair
falling forward to cover that shoulder I'm dying to touch again.
The hand in my lap gains a mind of its own as it moves to rest on
her knee.

“What?” I ask, referring to her head
shaking.

“I don't know if I could shoot a gun.
The thought of them is intimidating in itself.”

“Nah. It's fun to target practice and
a really good way to relieve stress. You're daring. Maybe you
should try it. As long as you know how to use a gun correctly,
you'll be fine.”

At this, Ryan smiles. I'm confused for
a second until, with laughter in her voice, she says, “Already
finding something new to teach me, huh? Maybe you should have been
a teacher instead.”

That makes me laugh. “I don't know
about all that, but if you want to try it, let me know. You can
come with me next time we all get together.”

Ryan softly giggles. “You would let me
around your family? I'm not sure if that's a good idea.” There's so
much more weight to her words than she's letting on. Why doesn't
she think so? Ryan seems perfectly acceptable. Before I can analyze
it too much, she adds with heated eyes, “Besides, wouldn't a
private lesson be more fun?” Her eyes fall to my neck when I
swallow hard, and I briefly wonder if she's watching my Adam's
apple bobble.

“You may have a point
there.”

We continue to have small talk, and I
learn that Ryan is a pretty well-rounded person for her age. She
can play a couple different instruments, although she said that she
doesn't regularly. She can speak Spanish fluently, but again,
doesn't that often. There's a lot that she knows how to do, but it
seems as if she doesn't actively do any of them. She was right.
There's nothing that stands out enough for her to dedicate herself
fully. I'm sure there is more to it than that, though. However, she
has definitely attempted to find that passion she's always talking
about based on what she's told me.

There are so many hidden secrets about
Ryan. She goes back and forth between talking a tad bitterly about
her childhood to acting as if it wasn't a big deal at all. Her tone
mostly carries an air of factual,
there's-nothing-I-can-do-about-it-so-why-worry type of attitude.
The familiar urge to figure out the crooks and crannies of her
bitterness and repair them rises within me. I always find women who
are in some way broken, and I always want to put them back
together. Somehow, I'm alone in the end. That's for another day
though.

As our night dies down, and we head to
back to her place, Ryan becomes a dangerously enticing woman,
slowly luring me in. There are the simple touches like her hand
high on my thigh as I drive with those fingers of hers trailing a
carefree pattern. There's her laugh, which is ridiculously sexy.
It's almost as if she knows just the exact laugh that will turn a
guy on. And then the tempting, dirty words she seemingly casually
throws out about what could come.

By the time we make it up the stairs
and stand outside Ryan's apartment door, I've been captured. My
mind and body are capable of thinking of only one thing. She's lets
go of my hand to unlock her door, but she doesn't push it open.
Instead, she turns, leans against her door and tugs me towards her
with a sexy, sly smile. My chest is flush against hers, my hands
clutching her hips. A fog officially clouds my mind as my senses
zone in on her lips and this killer body. I don't even get the
opportunity to be the one to lean into her first because Ryan does
it.

She watches me as she
brings her face to mine, her lips brushing against mine lightly at
first. They lift into a quick, small smile as if knowing I'm hooked
before she presses them to my lips. Ryan brings her hands flat on
my chest. The feel of her is
everywhere
, all over my body,
demanding attention. When she opens her mouth, my tongue
instinctively reaches for hers. Ryan has a bit of a sweet taste
from the cake. She grips the back of my neck, deepening the kiss,
drowning my senses with all of her. Nothing exists in this moment
except her.

When she pulls away, my lips can't
help but try to follow them, wanting to reconnect. Ryan giggles and
smiles while lightly running her fingers back down my chest. In a
breathy, seductive voice, she asks, “Would you like to come
inside?”

I nod quickly before kissing her
hungrily again. We head inside a moment later, my hands still
firmly planted on her body. Ryan falls onto the couch and pulls me
down with her. I easily get lost in her touch. With her heady
kisses, it feels like she's pouring everything she has into them to
make them as hot as possible. She expertly removes our clothes,
revealing a tattoo on her hip of a dandelion with the white seeds
floating away.

While kissing me, Ryan reaches down
between us, wrapping her fingers around me for a moment before
guiding me inside her. Ryan is a powerful seductress as she infuses
every movement, sound, and touch with an almost primal need. It
drives me crazy with need before I finally come undone with my
release a minute after she shudders with pleasure beneath
me.

That was hands down some of the best
sex I've ever had. But afterwards, as I'm redressing, I see two
more tattoos on her back as she disappears down the hall to change
into pajamas. One a large, pink seahorse on the right side, and on
the left, a black and blue lavishly drawn outline of a hummingbird.
Her absence causes me to suddenly realize what has
happened.

Me, the classic good guy, just had sex
on the first date with a nineteen year old. Almost twenty. I nearly
feel sleazy. So easily she was able to make me run past a line I
normally don't even cross. Not to mention that based on the fact
that she did ask me inside, she probably does this often. Sex on a
first date is most likely normal for her. Without meaning to, I
shake my head. This girl is already messing with me.

“You all right, Gabe?” Ryan questions
with just a touch of concern. She sits down on her couch, wearing
girly pajamas. I've come to notice that most of her emotions are
carefully, very subtly crafted into her voice when she speaks.
Unless you're really listening, you'll miss it.

“Yeah. I should probably go.” I stuff
my hands into my pockets. Her long legs are on display for me, and
my mind is already thinking about sex again.

No. I can't go there right now. I
can't be drawn in again, no matter how easy that would
be.

Ryan stands, walks over to me, and
kisses my cheek innocently. “Thank you for tonight. I had a lot of
fun.”

How does she manage to
look so pure when I feel so lousy? Ryan is watching me, waiting for
me to speak. Clearing my throat, I say, “Thank
you
. We'll have to do something
again.”

Her eyes are full of doubt even while
she agrees, “Yes, we will.”

“G'night, Ryan.”

And then I'm gone, wondering how
tonight and Ryan fits with the kind of man I strive to be. Because
tonight, after I left, I didn't particularly feel like an honorable
man.

Ryan

I stare at the door long
after Gabe is gone. I've slept with plenty of guys before and never
have any of them looked so...so
guilty
afterwards. At least, to me,
that's kind of how he looked. With my parents, I'm used to negative
emotions and not meeting their expectations. But with guys? I'm
usually pretty good with them. Am I losing my touch or something?
Why did he look like that?

Finally, I get tired of staring at the
door, so I go lay in bed and stare at my ceiling instead. The
ceiling is so much more interesting, you know. With a sigh, I
wonder if maybe my disappointment streak is starting to expand to
my entire life and not just with my parents. That list is a long
one. First, they decided to let the gender of their child be a
surprise, but they were praying for a boy. That obviously didn't
happen. Then there's my long list of activities where I either
wasn't good enough for them to keep paying for it or they pressured
me too much and I quit. It never failed. Every time I found
something I enjoyed, they over-compensated on pushing me to be my
absolute best. And my absolute best was never good enough for
them.

I guess since I wasn't a boy, they
figure me to be helpless or something. My parents have such high
expectations for me and over the years, I started rebelling against
all of them. Some for the better, some for the worst. All I've
heard about is how things would be so much easier had I been a boy,
and I gave up trying to please them to a certain point. I am in
college and my grades are fantastic, but to make them even a little
proud of me? That is obviously never going to happen, which makes
me think of my stupid comment to Gabe about me meeting his
parents.

That would have been a disaster. I
have dissatisfied my parents enough. I don't need to let down
someone else's. And trust me, they would hate me. I'm too
outspoken, too sexually-inclined, too
everything-your-mother-warned-you-about. Not to mention that I'm a
quitter and tattooed and nothing parents like in a girl as a person
and especially not as their son's girlfriend. Hell, if I were a guy
and I was dating me, I wouldn't bring me home to my parents either.
I know myself better than anyone else does, so I'm positive this is
true.

Maybe my intuition about Gabe being a
one hundred percent good guy is true. Before he left, he must have
realized that this, me, obviously won't end well on his behalf and
that's what the look on his face was. My phone vibrates on my
nightstand, but it's just Viv, and I don't want to talk to her
right now. Unfortunately, my gut says that Gabe is going to be
placed on my long list of inadequacies. Oh well, right? I'm not
dating material anyway.