At least for one beautiful night.

* * *

It had been a hell of a night.

As one second had ticked through to the next, Ryan had wanted Vicki more. He’d been hyperaware of every sensual shift of her body, her mouth, her hands, her eyes. Her laughter had repeatedly lit up the party, and her innate sensuality had inflamed every living, breathing guy—and many of the women, he suspected—at the party.

He’d worked to hold onto his self-control, but being so close to her tonight while pretending to be more than they actually were had kicked him right over the edge.

It didn’t help any that he was jealous as hell of anyone else who made her laugh, who looked at her with appreciation, who couldn’t take their eyes off her luscious curves. If one more guy at the team party had asked to see her sculptures, he would have pounded his skull into the nearest marble tabletop.

Only, when they’d gotten in the limo to head back to his place, the madness had gotten worse. She smelled so good and as the party had worn on, he’d gotten used to the pleasure of reaching for her, stroking her soft skin.

He hadn’t wanted to stop, didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t pull her into him so that she could lay her head on his shoulder. Two friends who had made it through a rough evening together.

But when he’d reached for her, she’d slid just out of reach and then started shaking the door handle like she couldn’t wait to get away from him.

Finally, he’d seen how shattered she was. How tired.

He had been putting on the pro-ballplayer show for more than a decade. But she didn’t have his years of practice. Ryan felt terrible about the situation he’d put her in. And that was why he’d followed her out of the limo into the seedy bar.

To apologize.

At least, that was the reason he gave himself, the only reason he could allow.

He’d silently sworn up and down that he wasn’t going to touch her again, that he wasn’t going to give in to the urge to take her mouth...or to his desperate need to know if she would respond to him the way he’d always dreamed she would.

Only, now that he had her lips under his and her body wrapped tightly against him, despite all those years of wanting, regardless of the few kisses and caresses they’d already shared while playing girlfriend and boyfriend this past week, it was a goddamned revelation how good she smelled, how soft her lips were, how sweet her curves felt...and how much he wanted to be able to give in to the need to drag her against him like this whenever he wanted.

She was tired. Maybe even a little drunk.

Ryan knew he was taking advantage of both those things.

But, suddenly, he didn’t care anymore.

Not when everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d ever dreamed of, was finally on the verge of being his.

The chance to make love to Vicki was fifteen years in coming.

And Ryan Sullivan wasn’t going to waste another second of it.

Chapter Sixteen

Ryan pulled his mouth from hers, but he didn’t remove his hand from her neck. She felt branded by his touch as he reached into his pocket for his cell phone and called them a cab to replace the limo he’d sent home. His eyes never once left hers as he spoke and the second he hung up, his mouth was right back there on hers.

Taking.

Demanding.

He wasn’t asking permission to kiss her.

He wasn’t trying to convince her with coaxing, persuasive words that they should sleep together.

Instead, he was simply showing her in the most elemental of ways that what they’d been building up to all night long was definitely going to happen.

Amazingly, it was exactly that which drew her passion all the way out of her. Regardless of her previous reluctance, there was no denying that this one moment—pulled tight into Ryan’s arms, her lips and tongue tangling with his in a dark room that smelled like beer and grease—was perfect.

He was a man. She was a woman. And they would share with each other what men and women had been made to share from the beginning of time.

He barely pulled his mouth from hers as he led them through the room and out the front door to the sidewalk, and it occurred to Vicki that if anyone saw them now and recognized Ryan, there would be absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that they really were a couple.

How crazy this was, this one night of passion they were about to have in a world where what looked real wasn’t…and what was false could become mind-blowingly, momentarily true in a sweet moment of desire.

Back in the bar she hadn’t let herself reach for him, hadn’t touched him for fear that if she held onto him, she would never be able to let him go. But she’d had no choice but to wrap her arms around him when they’d been moving through the crowded bar. Now, even as he opened the back door of the waiting taxi for her, he kept his other hand over hers, holding her against him as if he feared she’d go running if he let go for even a second.

Vicki had never been the kind of woman who made out in the back of a cab. Her ex-husband had told her many times that she was too uptight to be a “real” artist, that if she could ever figure out how to loosen up, she might have a chance of tapping into her true artistic self.

She’d hated him every time he said it, hated him even more once they’d split up because she’d felt he was right. But now, for the very first time, she realized it hadn’t been all her fault, after all.

Because when Ryan was kissing her, when his hands were on her and he was stroking the bare skin just above her kneecap, she couldn’t do anything but be in the moment.

She had no choice but to be that woman.

It took being with Ryan for her to realize that her ex simply hadn’t been man enough to draw that passionate a response out of her, no matter how wondrous everyone thought him to be, no matter how sought-after he was by both women and men in their insular art world.

Ryan lifted his mouth from hers again for the briefest of seconds to give his address to the taxi driver, and then he was all hers again. He sat back against the leather seat and effortlessly lifted her onto his lap so that she was straddling him.

She gasped at how thick and hard and throbbing he was, pressed up tight against the vee between her legs. His fingers on her upper thighs and then the curve at the bottom of her hips drew the next gasp from her.

She’d laughed with Ryan a thousand times. They’d talked late so many nights about family and travels and their dreams. But in all that time, she’d never known this side of him, had never guessed that the easygoing boy she’d had such a crush on could ever be such a possessive man.