Things they hadn’t even done when they’d been teenagers and full of hormones and rebellion, which would have been the perfect time. Not when they were in their thirties and full of nothing but opposing ideals and a deep, ingrained desire to not lose anything that mattered to them.

It occurred to her then that it was a bigger risk now than it would have ever been when they were young.

But that thought was only a fleeting one, because after that he started pushing her skirt up her thighs, the damp fabric resisting, but before long she was exposed, and he was hooking his finger in the waistband of her panties and pulling them down her legs, wedging her thighs apart with his broad shoulders.

Then he dipped his head, and it was no longer her breasts that were receiving attention from that wicked mouth—a mouth she would’ve never characterized as wicked before this—it was somewhere much more intimate.

“I don’t like that,” she said, her voice a rushed whisper.

It always felt like too much pressure, too much attention, and she didn’t allow more than a feeble gesture toward the act because she didn’t like being set up for failure.

She was much more comfortable with things where the objective was her partner’s orgasm and not her own, since clearly that wasn’t the point or purpose of her getting naked with someone.

“Then no one’s done it right,” he growled, not put off by her protest.

She was about to protest again when his mouth made contact with her wet, aching flesh.

His tongue left a streak of fiery need behind as he traced a path through her folds to the center of her need for him.

And something unexpected happened. Something incredible.

A miracle, really.

He pressed his fingers down against her, parting her, spreading her wide as he explored her with his mouth, as he pushed her harder, farther, farther than she had ever imagined possible, not just with a partner, but to heights she hadn’t even begun to achieve on her own.

She was panting, her breath coming in short, harsh gasps.

It was electrifying. Terrifying.

Because she had no control over this. She wasn’t conducting the train, not now. And not ever, not with him.

She tried to flex her hips in time with the movement, follow the rhythm of the rain, make some sense of it, try and get ahead of it, try and bring it back under her control, but there was no doing that. Not at all.

Because he set the pace, and he set the intensity. Because he made it amazing and dangerous and wonderful. Because he was Ryder Daniels, her very best friend in the entire world, and the only man who had ever seemed to know what to do with her body.

Her friend, who she would have said was beautiful, but perhaps far too good to be wicked in quite this way.

But she’d underestimated him.

And as disturbing as everything about tonight was, that might have been the most disturbing thing of all.