No, he wasn’t, and he couldn’t be in love with her. It sounded far too good to be true.
“You don’t love me,” Jaci insisted, her voice shaky. Yet she could hear, and she was sure he could, too, the note of hope in her voice.
“Yeah, I do. I am so in love with you. I didn’t want to be, didn’t think I ever would fall in love again, but I have. With you.” He didn’t touch her, he didn’t try to persuade her with his body because his eyes, his fabulous eyes, radiated the truth of that statement. He loved her? Good grief. Jaci gripped the counter with her hands in an effort to keep from hurtling herself into his arms.
“But you run, every time. Every time we get close, you bolt.”
“And that’s something I will try to stop doing,” Ryan told her, a smile starting to flirt with his eyes and mouth. He held out his broad hand to her and waited until she placed hers in it. Jaci sighed at the warmth of his fingers curling around hers. She stared down at their intertwined hands and wondered if she was dreaming. But if she was, surely she would’ve chosen a more romantic setting for this crazy conversation? It was a tiny bathroom in a tiny apartment... It didn’t matter, she’d take it. She’d take him.
Ryan’s finger under her chin lifted her face up and she gasped at the love she saw in his eyes. No, this was too good to be a dream. “I really don’t want to carry on this conversation in the bathroom, but you’re not getting out of here before I hear what I need to.”
Jaci grinned and picked up her spare hand and ran her finger over his collarbone, down his chest, across those ridges in his abdomen, stopping very low down. “What do you want to hear? That I love your body? I do,” she teased and saw his eyes darken with passion.
Ryan gripped her finger to stop it going lower. “You know what I want to hear, Jace. Tell me.”
When Jaci saw the emotion in his eyes, all thoughts of teasing him evaporated. He looked unsure and a little scared. As if he was expecting her to reject him, to reject them. Her heart, bottom lip and hands trembled from excitement, from love...
“Ryan, of course I love you. I have for a while.”
Ryan rested his forehead on hers and she could feel the tension leaving his body. “Thank God.”
“How could you not know that?” Jaci linked her arms around his neck and placed her face against his strong chest. “Honestly, for a smart man you can be such an idiot on occasion.”
“Apparently so,” Ryan agreed, his arms holding her tightly. He pulled his head back to smile at her, relief and passion and, yes, love dancing in his eyes. “Come back to bed, darling, and let me show you how much I love and adore you.”
“You’ve just missed sex,” Jaci teased him on a happy laugh.
Ryan pushed her bangs off her forehead and rubbed the pad of his thumb across her delicately arched brow. “No, sweetheart, I’ve just missed you.” He grinned. “But hey, I’m a guy, and if you’re offering...”
Jaci launched herself upward and he caught her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. “Anywhere, anyhow, anytime.”
Ryan kissed her open mouth, and Jaci’s body sighed and shivered in anticipation. “Can I add that to your contract?” he asked as he backed out of the bathroom into the bedroom.
Lover, friend, boss...there wasn’t much she wouldn’t do for him, Jaci thought as he lowered her onto the bed and covered her body with his.
Anything. Anywhere. Anytime.
* * *
Much, much later Ryan was back in his jeans and Jaci was wearing his button-down shirt and they were sitting cross-legged on her bed, digging chocolate chip ice cream from the container she’d abandoned earlier.
What an evening, Jaci thought, casting her mind back over the past few hours. She felt as if she’d ridden a crazy roller coaster of emotion, stomach churning, heart thumping adrenaline, and she’d come out the other side thrilled. Happy. Content. Dopey. Oh, they still had a lot to talk about, but they’d be fine.
Had he really said that he’d secured funding for Blown Away? Her spoon stopped halfway to her mouth and she didn’t realize that ice cream was rolling off the utensil and dropping to her knee. “Did I hear you say that you have funding for Blown Away?”
Ryan leaned forward, maneuvered the spoon in her hand to his mouth and ran his thumb over the ice cream on her knee, licking his digit afterward. “Uh-huh.”
“Do I have to pretend to be your girlfriend or your wife this time?” Jaci teased.