The First Rule by Nicole S. Goodin

4

Ryan

Her delicate handsigns the sheet of paper, somewhat reluctantly, but without shaking. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so nervous.

She’s close enough I can smell her scent again. It’s so much more intoxicating than any volume of alcohol could ever be.

She hands me back the pen, those captivating eyes of hers holding me in a trance.

“Your turn,” she whispers.

I could be signing my life away here, everything I’ve worked so hard for is at risk right now, but I don’t care. I trust this woman with my life. All of it means nothing in comparison to her. None of it is worth anything without her.

It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made.

She breaks our connection, and I scrawl my signature below hers without giving it another thought.

“Done.”

She steps back as I get to my feet, my height towering over her small frame.

She’s anxious. She’s shifting her weight from foot to foot, unsure what to do with herself.

I reach for our glasses and offer the least full one to her. “Cheers.”

We clink the crystal together and each of us drink until they’re dry.

“What now?” Darcy asks quietly. “I don’t know how you want to do this…”

I hold my finger up to my lips and step closer to her.

She gasps as I pry the empty glass from her hands and set it down, pulling her flush against me in the next second.

I’ve imagined this moment so many times. Pictured it so many different ways, yet none of them were ever quite like this.

It’s nothing like what I wanted, but somehow, it’s still everything. She’s everything. I’m going to savour every second of this.

“I’ve got you,” I breathe.

I cup her face in my hands and tip her head up towards mine.

“You promise?”

“I promise, Darcy. You can trust me. I’ll take care of you.”

She nods, her eyes fluttering shut as I close the distance between us, doing what I’ve wanted to do for years and kissing her. Finally.

I expected her to be timid… reserved, but the second our lips meet, something inside her snaps and she presses herself closer to me, her hands winding up my chest to cling onto my neck.

I press her lips open and sweep my tongue into her mouth, she moans and kisses me back even harder. She sucks my lip ring into her mouth in a way that makes me think it’s not the first time she’s thought about doing it.

“Jesus, Darcy.” I groan as she lets it slip through her plump lips.

“Ryan,” she replies, breathless.

I need to be careful here, remind myself where I am and who I’m with. This isn’t some meaningless one-night stand. This is Darcy. This is the woman I’ve been in love with for years.

It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t feel the same way. It doesn’t matter that my feelings are one-sided; I will make her feel loved. Because she is. It’s that simple and that complicated.

I press my lips gently to her jaw, kissing along her chin and down her throat. She swallows deeply under my touch.

I follow the column of her throat up her neck to her ear, kissing every inch of skin I come into contact with.

She tastes even better than I could have imagined. She’s so fucking sweet.

I know there’s a solid chance I’m only getting one shot at this. One night only with her and I’m going to make sure that I savour every second I get, even if it breaks my own heart in the process.

I wrap my arms around her waist and lift her up, still kissing her endlessly as I walk her towards the huge bed.

I can’t speak for her, but I feel sober as a judge. The buzz of the alcohol is long gone and the only thing consuming me now is her.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Darce?” I whisper against her ear.

She looks up at me, so hurt, so scared, so beautiful and nods her head. “I’m sure.”

I stare at her, letting my gaze travel from her messy blonde hair to her perfect cleavage.

She watches me, watching her. “Ryan,” she whispers again; this time it sounds like begging.

I can’t stay away any longer. I have to have her. I’ve waited so long to hear my name on her lips.

She’s mine now, for this moment. Not his. Mine.

I’m a completely and utterly shit human, because when I turn her around and unzip the wedding dress that she chose to wear to marry my brother, I let myself believe that she’s wearing it for me.

“You’re beautiful.” I repeat the two words I said to her the very first night we met, holding her gaze as I relive the moment I’ve never quite let go of. They might be generic words, nothing words really, but I wish she could feel them, remember them…

I know I’m being stupid, in the world we live in, a woman like Darcy has been called beautiful one million times over at this point.

She’s the kind of woman who turns heads when she walks into a room. She has been beautiful for as long as I’ve known her, and she probably always will be. A simple compliment isn’t something she’d recall.

She shudders as I slip the straps off her shoulders and slide them down her arms.

Her back is facing me, and I press a single kiss to the middle of her bare shoulder blades. She’s braless, and I’m dying to spin her around and take care of her perfect tits, but I remind myself to take my time.

Foreplay isn’t exactly required for this particular arrangement, but hell if I’m not going to make the most of it.

Her dress falls to the floor, and she’s standing before me in nothing but a scrap of white lace, her perky ass cheeks peeking out the bottom.

Fuck.

Nothing has ever been so perfect, nothing.

I crouch down and run my tongue from the base of her spine all the way up to the top of her neck.

She moans, a breathless, sensual moan, and I’m completely fucked from that sound alone.

I’m fully dressed, hard as a rock, desperate to be inside her.

She spins to face me as my arms surround her, and her fingers claw at the buttons on my shirt, forcing them out of their buttonholes and opening the fabric to her. I shrug out of it, and it falls to the floor at our feet.

I growl as her nails skim across my skin, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

I lie her down on the soft white bedding, trying and failing to be as gentle as I’d like, not that she seems to mind – her eyes are filled with hunger.

She watches me as I unhook my belt and tug it from the loops on my suit pants, and I stare back at her, taking my fill of her sexy-as-hell body and beautiful eyes.

She shifts, wiggling her hips, and that’s when I spot it.

A tiny moon and star tattoo on her hip.

My breath gets caught in my throat.

It can’t be.

I swallow, my throat thick.

“You’ve got a tattoo.”

Her eyes dart down to her hip, almost as though she’s checking it’s still there.

“It’s nothing,” she whispers as her fingers gloss over the small, inked lines on her otherwise untouched skin.

It’s not nothing – it’s the furthest thing from nothing, but I can’t say a word. I’ve got a tattoo nearly identical on my body too – not that she’d ever notice it amongst the patchwork of colours and patterns adorning my skin, but it’s there… as a reminder of that night.

As if I’d ever need a visual reminder.

Five years ago:

“What are you looking at?”

She points up at the clear night’s sky, scattered with bright stars.

“Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?”

I nod. I have. I’m looking at something infinitely more beautiful than some yellow dot in a dark sky. I’m looking at her.

“I know it sounds cliché, but looking up at the stars just makes me feel so small. It really puts things into perspective for me, just how tiny my problems really are.”

I reluctantly tear my gaze from her and tilt my head upwards towards the sky, trying to see what she sees.

“There’s a whole other world out there,” I reply.

“One we know virtually nothing about.”

“It is humbling,” I admit.

“I think so... when my parents were alive, they would always tell one another that they loved each other to the moon and all of the stars. It embarrassed me as a kid, but now I think it’s kind of perfect.”

“To the moon and all of the stars,” I repeat.

I know right then, in that very moment, after only an hour of knowing this woman, that I’m going to love her exactly like that, forever.

“No partof you is nothing, Darcy.”

I lower my mouth to her hip and kiss the thin lines marking her.

She shudders beneath me, and I smirk to myself. I love the way her body reacts to me – it’s completely out of her control.

I kneel between her parted legs and tug down my suit pants, taking my boxer briefs with them.

My dick is raging now, sitting up loud and at attention – all for her. She doesn’t miss it either, she’s watching with laser focus.

“Lose the underwear,” I tell her as I tug off my pants the rest of the way.

Her eyes widen, probably at the commanding tone in my voice, but she lifts her ass and slides them down her legs without comment.

My head drops back as a groan escapes my lips. “You’ve got the sexiest little pussy I’ve ever seen. Jesus Christ.”

She blushes a deep red on her cheeks and her teeth sink into her bottom lip. She’s embarrassed – shy. She’s got no fucking reason to be. She couldn’t be more perfect to me if she tried.

I dive between her legs, my arms wrapping around her thighs to hold her in place as my tongue makes contact with her clit.

She arches her back, a cry of pleasure bouncing off the walls around us as I tease and torment her with my mouth.

Her hands find my head and grip onto my hair, pulling and tugging as I bring her to the brink.

Her hips start to wriggle, and I hold her tighter, not allowing her any escape from the orgasm I know is building inside her.

“Ryan!” she cries out. “Fuck, Ryan, I’m –”

I don’t stop – I take her all the way there until she’s shaking in my arms, her moans becoming louder as she rides the wave.

I gently let go and sit back, grinning at her as she jerks and twitches.

“Oh my god.” She pants. “That was amazing.”

“Oh, baby, we’re only just getting started,” I say with a wicked grin.

Before she can even reply, I’ve lined myself up and pushed deep inside her hot little body.

“Fuuuuck,” I breathe as her walls grip me tight and she moans in my ear.

This woman has ruined me already. Nothing has ever felt so good – so right, and as I start to move inside her, filling her deeper with every stroke, I know that nothing else ever will.

* * *

I waketo the sound of a groan and a muttered, “Oh fuck.” I’d know that voice anywhere, and unfortunately, I also recognise the torment in the tone.

Memories of last night come back to me in a flood, a rush of images hitting my brain one after the other, each having more impact than the last.

They’re so good, but without the influence of alcohol in my system, I can see that this was never going to be as simple as our hastily made agreement led us to believe.

This is complicated. This is messy. This might result in a baby.

I feel the bed move and I lift my head, too fast – my vision blurs before I gather my bearings and zone in on her.

“Darcy.” My voice is raspy as I reach for her arm, stopping her from climbing off the bed. She’s got the sheet wrapped around her naked body, the golden skin of her back and shoulders exposed to me. “Come here.”

“Ryan, don’t. This was a mistake.”

She just referred to the greatest night of my life as a mistake, and the only person I’m disappointed with is myself for thinking it was going to go any other way than this.

Dreams are free but sleeping with the woman who was meant to be your new sister-in-law was never going to go well for me, especially not when I love her the way I do.

“You can get a morning-after pill, Darcy, you don’t have to risk anything you don’t want to risk.” The words come out numb, dull. Dead.

“There shouldn’t be anything for me to risk, this should never have happened,” she whispers.

She’s right. I never should have offered. I never should have crossed the line. She was hurt and vulnerable, and I shouldn’t have done it.

“I’m sorry,” I start to say, but she cuts me off.

“It’s not your fault.” Her voice is broken and small, but I know she means those words. She doesn’t blame me, but she regrets what happened between us and that probably hurts more than if she did decide to hold me responsible for our actions. “My head is killing me. I need to shower. I’m a mess, everything is a mess.” She’s on the verge of tears.

“I can help you. I can take care of anything you need.”

She shrugs off my hand that is still lingering on her arm. “I think you’ve done enough.”

I nod in defeated acceptance. She’s dismissing me.

“I want to help you.” I’m pleading now, and I hate the sound of the desperation on my lips, but I can’t make it disappear.

“Please.” It’s barely a whisper this time. “Just go.”

I turn away as she stands, giving her privacy. I don’t turn back until I hear the door to the bathroom shut.

I gather my clothes in silence, putting each item on far slower than required, hopeful that she’ll come back out and face me, but suddenly I’m fully dressed, and I can still hear the spray of the shower hitting the floor.

She’s not coming out. Not while I’m still here.

I glance around the room, spotting our agreement still on the desk where we left it. I can’t help myself. I fold it in half and shove it in the pocket of my suit pants. And then I do something I never thought I’d do… I do exactly as she asked, and I walk away from her.