Wild Embrace (Wilder Irish #11) - Mari Carr Page 0,46

it, the touch provoking the response he knew would ring the death knell for him.

She jerked upwards and, after that, it was a fifty-yard dash to the finish line. Ryder thrust hard and fast, over and over, as Darcy met him blow for blow.

His intention had been finesse, gentleness, care.

Instead, he was fucking her like it was his last night on Earth, taking her with a need so powerful, it made him dizzy.

Darcy cried out his name, scratched his back and, less than a minute later, she came, pulsing tightly around his dick as his climax crashed down on him.

He called out her name repeatedly as he spilled every single of drop of come deep inside her body. Darcy trembled as she wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly, his chest to her breasts.

As his wits began to return, he realized he was probably crushing her beneath his weight, but Darcy didn’t complain or even loosen her grip, determined to keep him on her, close to her.

Finally, he managed to find the strength to shove himself to the side. Darcy twisted with him so that when he landed on his back, she was there, curling into his embrace like a sleepy kitten.

He placed several kisses to the top of her head, whispering her name, telling her she was amazing, beautiful, perfect. Everything.

She was everything to him.

Ryder didn’t know how much she’d heard before her breathing had steadied, the slow, gentle inhalations and exhalations telling him she’d fallen asleep.

He was physically exhausted, but emotionally, it was as if he’d taken a hit of speed. His previously sluggish brain was suddenly alert and focused and aware of just one thing.

They were only one date in, and he was already in way too deep. With that thought, his throat began to close, his chest tightening, as wave after wave of panic washed through him. He couldn’t do this again. Couldn’t go through it all again.

Memories of the past four years crashed over him—the betrayal, the pain, the loneliness.

Losing Denise had taken him down hard.

Losing Darcy?

Fuck.

That would finish him off for good.

Chapter Ten

Darcy stared at her computer screen and realized she hadn’t done a single thing to the flyer she was working on in the past twenty minutes. Her thoughts were consumed with Ryder.

She’d fallen asleep in his arms Saturday night after losing her virginity. She was pretty sure that in the history of “deflowerings,” hers had been the best ever. Ryder had been so incredibly sweet and careful and sexy.

She’d replayed it at least a million times since then, and it had only been thirty-six hours.

She had hoped to expand on the experience, but Ryder had been up and dressed early Sunday morning when she woke. He’d been waiting for her, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her sleep. Everything about it had felt so romantic.

She’d tried to convince him to take his clothes off and come back to bed, but he’d said he wanted to be home before Clint woke up and realized he hadn’t been home all night. She understood and respected that, even though she was disappointed. They’d only had sex once and that hadn’t been anywhere near enough for her.

Not just because it had been amazing, as in top-three-orgasms-of-her-life amazing, but because it had only whetted her appetite for more.

It had been on the tip of her tongue to invite him and Clint to watch football with her and her cousins yesterday, but before she could say anything, Ryder had mentioned having a lot of chores to do. He’d kissed her—not as passionately as he had the night before, but still pretty damn decently—and then said he’d see her at work on Monday.

She had texted him a couple times yesterday, but his responses—though perfectly fine—had taken a long time coming. When it became somewhat obvious he either didn’t have time to text or didn’t want to—she prayed it wasn’t the latter—she had stopped, deciding she’d let him take the lead on communicating with her.

He hadn’t initiated anything after that. No texts and no calls from him.

Darcy was fighting like hell not to read too much into that, desperate not to become one of those women who fell apart if a guy wasn’t talking to her every second of the day, but there’d been something—something she couldn’t put her finger on—in Ryder’s face Sunday morning that was bothering her.

So here she was at work…at noon on Monday…and she still hadn’t seen Ryder. The door to his office