Sorry, ladies. Hate to break it to ya, but he’s all mine.

Hungry for him, I trailed open-mouth kisses down his hard body, barraging him with a mixture of sensations; scoring fingernails over his pecs, soft bites over the muscular swells of his stomach, the soothing wetness of my roaming tongue.

Ryan’s eyes scrunched together and he melted back into the pillows when I slipped my wet lips and tongue around the length of him. Our time together was limited so I was going to make every second count.

“Oh, Tar,” he whispered out, tensing from the onslaught. His fingers coiled in my hair, tugging, pressing, guiding me up and down as I pleasured him. Damn, that was such a turn-on for me. I raked my hand up his chest and swallowed him deeper, drawing out surrendering moans from his throat, watching him watch me.

I had just begun to get creative with my hand and mouth when the shrill of his cell phone rudely interrupted our moment.

“Grrr . . . what?” he growled, refocusing his attention to the nightstand. “Who the hell is bothering me now?” I laughed to myself, immediately thinking of the one person who has a knack for calling at the worst possible times. She must have a sixth sense for knowing the exact moment when her son is about to get laid.

“Ignore it,” I murmured, taking him as deep as I could go without choking. I wanted him to relax and forget about his constantly ringing cell phone, his hellacious schedule, and gauging by his purrs and the fact that he just moaned “oh God” again, hopefully in a few more minutes he’d forget how to spell his own name. I hoped that the caller would give up soon; the continuous ringing was annoying.

Two minutes later, his phone chimed again. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ryan groaned. He twisted to grab his phone but it was several inches out of his reach.

“Mmm-mmm.” I held him firm, pinning his hips back down.

“Just let me turn it off.”

“No. You’ll check messages. Leave it.”

“No, I woh—oh, fuh . . . ,” he hissed, sucking in a breath between his teeth. “Damn that feels good. Mmm . . .”

Yeah, I knew you’d like that.

His hands immediately returned to touching me, finger-combing my long hair out of the way while I tried not to mentally count the number of times his phone rang.

Ryan tugged my chin, huskily growling,

“Stop, baby. Stop. I don’t want to come yet.” The moment I looked up at him, his hand swept my neck and he pulled me up to his mouth. “Come here.”

I wanted to drink him into every cell in my body. Take him to new places where pleasure and love were as necessary as oxygen. I sucked his top lip into my mouth, wanting, needing.

He moaned in my mouth and wrapped an arm around me. With one fast swoop, he effortlessly flipped me over, hovering on top of me.

Long fingers brushed fire up my thigh and slipped deep into me while he feasted like a starving babe on my breast. Desire to feel more than his slick fingers inside me had me tingling, but all those wonderful, erotic thoughts flew from my mind the moment his freaking cell phone rang again.

“Son of a . . .” He rolled away from me and slapped his hand down on the intrusion. In all honesty, at this point I was curious to know who the hell was being so damn persistent.

He looked at the display and scoffed, answering my questioning stare. “It was Marla.

All four times. I’m turning it off now.” No sooner did he say those words than the landline telephone on the table in our suite shrilled loudly. That got one very angry, rock-hard, and unsated man out of his bed.

Someone was about to get holy hell unleashed on them.

“What?” he said with a venomous bite, letting whoever was calling know his exact feelings about being disturbed. “I was trying to sleep.

Now? Why?” His jaw clenched. “This can’t wait an hour? No. I just woke up. Fine.

Give me ten minutes,” he muttered. “I said ten minutes.”

Ryan grabbed his clothing off the floor and cursed. I hadn’t seen him this pissed in a long time. “Tar, you need to get up and get dressed.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

Ryan looked at me warily as he pulled his jeans up over his naked body.

I started to worry. “Hey. What’s going on?”

His lips puckered with disgust. “Marla and David are on their way up.”

I groaned to myself. Wouldn’t be the first time his publicist and manager disrupted his life at an inopportune time. To say they were overbearing was an understatement. He jostled the clothing around in his open suitcase with frustration, sparking my next question.

“Why?”

He rubbed his forehead. “Photos were leaked,” he mumbled.

A wave of fright pricked at my nerves.

“What photos?”

I watched the back of his head sway.

“People in the bar took shots of me proposing to you on Saturday,” he muttered over his shoulder. “Pictures and videos are all over the Internet now.”

I drew in a deep breath as his sudden anger about this blindsided me. Ryan was so riled he had trouble picking two T-shirts apart.

You proposed publicly. I figured a few bar patrons would capture pictures on their cells. What did you expect?

“So? How bad is it?”

Ryan signed heavily before looking back at me with apologetic eyes. “Tar, you know how it is. Pictures were on some fan sites and Twitter that night already.” I stared at my feet, trying to understand.

This was not bad news, or was it?

“Taryn.” Ryan interrupted my thoughts, tossing my jeans over to me.

I let out another sigh as I shoved my right foot into the pants leg. “Why didn’t you tell me about this being a problem sooner?”

“Tar—you know why,” Ryan muttered as he slipped a T-shirt over his head. “Let’s not go there, okay, babe? Please?”

“But . . .”

He appeared resigned but tense. “But what? This is not stuff I want you worrying about, that’s why.”

I shook my head. “That’s not . . . I’m just a bit confused. Yesterday when Mike collected us at the airport, he warned me that the paparazzi were going to swarm and I asked him if I should hide my ring. When he called you to ask, you said to tell me ‘never fucking ever take your ring off.’ So if it didn’t matter for me to be seen with this ring and to have people know we’re engaged, why does it matter today?”

Ryan narrowed his eyes. “And did you?” I was momentarily stunned, knowing that that brusque tone wasn’t really meant for me. “Did I what? Keep your ring on or get photographed wearing it?”