A moment later, she was walking into the room and he was feeling like more of an ass than ever as he followed her inside. He didn’t know what he’d said wrong...just that he had definitely screwed things up even worse.

And he didn’t have the first clue how to fix it.

Chapter Fifteen

It was too much.

Ryan was too much.

They’d left the party ten minutes ago, but after the night she’d just had—and a kiss she didn’t think she’d ever be able to forget—Vicki simply couldn’t be this close to Ryan anymore.

She reached blindly for the silver handle inside the limo, but the door wouldn’t budge when she tried to push it open.

“Vicki?”

Her breath caught in her throat at nothing more than the sound of her name on Ryan’s lips, nearly choking her. So many times over the course of the night he’d said her name while reaching for her. And every single time, she’d tried to forcibly remind herself that it was all pretend, that none of it was real, that she wasn’t really his...and wouldn’t ever be.

Maybe, just maybe, she might have been able to succeed at heeding those constant reminders, if only he hadn’t added in the brush of his fingers over her shoulder, the stroke of his knuckles over her cheek, the press of his hand at her lower back as they moved through the room to talk with his teammates.

With every caress, every inch of his hard body against hers, she lost hold of her own body—and her heart—a little bit more. Until, at the end of the party, she’d been a quivering mess of nerves and lust and overwhelming need.

“I need to get out.” The desperation in her voice was painfully clear. But she was long past the point of being able to hide anything from anyone. Especially herself.

Which was precisely why she needed to get away.

Away from Ryan.

And away from her own desires.

“Stop the car, please!” Her voice was shrill as she teetered on the edge of shattering, right at the cusp of her breaking point.

A moment later, the limo smoothly pulled over to the side of the road and the lock clicked open. She nearly fell into the gutter in her hurry to escape its confines.

She didn’t have a plan, hadn’t thought ahead as to where she would go. When she looked up and saw the door to a bar, it seemed like divine providence.

A drink. Or maybe a dozen.

She’d do anything right now to dull the pulsing need, the potent memories on her skin of Ryan’s hands and mouth on her, his arms around her.

Vicki pushed in through the black and red door. Her fingertips brushed over paint that had been scratched off and repainted likely a hundred times since the bar had first started serving, and she tried to focus on the stickiness of the wood, the small and large divots in the grain where pieces had been knocked out by fists. Somehow, some way, she needed to fill up her well of tactile sensation with something other than Ryan.

All night long he’d been under her hands. For a sculptor, there was nothing more sensual than touch. All those touches had tipped her over the edge into near madness.

The soft cotton of his dress shirt beneath her fingertips.

His incredibly honed muscles just beneath the fabric.

The lines of his ribs.

The tendons that held everything together.

Her hands had shaken as she tried not to do what the artist in her demanded she do—trace the rises and falls of his body.

At the same time, tonight’s party had brought everything into such sharp relief that there was no way she could even try to deny just how wrong they were for each other.

Everything was easy for Ryan. His career, his relationships, his family. She, on the other hand, had struggled her whole life with her art, with making friends while always heading to a new town, with fitting in as an artist in a military family. Where Ryan was so utterly comfortable in his own skin, she’d never known quite how to feel about her abundance of curves on a body that wasn’t nearly tall enough to carry them.

And yet, strangely, she never used to worry about those things when she was with Ryan. Because she’d always been so sure that he didn’t look at her as a woman. As much as she’d often wished that he had over the years, it had also been tremendously freeing not to have to worry about any of that nonsense.

She’d always been herself with him. Regardless of what she wore, or whether or not she had makeup on, or whether she ate all her food and then grabbed the last bite of his, she’d always known that he would still be her friend.

Vicki absolutely, positively couldn’t lose that just because she was letting ridiculous fantasies take her over, minute by minute, day by day.

Once and for all, she needed to kiss all those what if this turned real and my dreams came true? fantasies goodbye.

Ryan needed to be with someone who could carry the pressure of being the partner of a famous athlete. It was laughable to think she could ever be that woman, not when it gave her hives even to think about it, especially now that she knew exactly how hot the spotlight was on his life.

Fact was, she didn’t fit into his world as anything but a friend, and one day, when he found the woman who would be his wife, no doubt their friendship would be relegated to way in the background.

And she’d deal with it.

Probably in the same totally unhinged way she was dealing with it now, she thought with more than a little inner sarcasm as she pushed into a group of men and women, young and flirting and already drunk, and put her hands flat on the bar.

“I need a Scotch. Make it a double.”

The sea of youth and blatant sexuality parted for her, likely because they didn’t want her obviously impending mental and emotional breakdown to kill their buzz.

And yet, it wasn’t until the bartender slid the drink over that she realized what she’d ordered.

Scotch was the first drink she’d ever had when Ryan had smuggled a bottle of Johnnie Walker into her garage late one Saturday night. Perfect Ryan Sullivan had actually stolen booze from one of his friends’ houses, then left the fun to come hang out with her instead.

They’d gotten drunk together that night. Well, at least she had, and it had been so fun. She’d felt so loose, and warm, and even when she’d started to slur her words and had knocked over one of her brother’s bikes, she’d felt so safe.

There wasn’t another soul in the world with whom she could have let her guard down like that. And the fact that Ryan had chosen her that night over his other friends, at least for those few hours, warmed her as much as the alcohol had.

It was also the night he’d almost kissed her and she’d freaked out and pushed him away.