TITLE: Five Times Ryan Heard Kirsten Say, "Don't Tell Sandy"
PART 3/5: His Salvation
SPOILERS: Series

03. Ryan knew he should have been using the gloves, but he didn't care. He was angry, frustrated... needing something to numb his inner anguish. And for him, that something was pain. So he boxed bare-knuckled with his punching bag, splitting open the skin of his knuckles until they bled. Sweat was getting in his eyes, dripping from his hair, but he kept going, ignoring everyone and everything around him.

Until her. Until he caught in his peripheral vision the outline of her svelte figure in his doorway. So he turned, paused... and there she was, leaning against the door, just watching him. "What are you doing?" he demanded of her, voice gruff from lack of breath.

Kirsten nodded at his hands. "What are you doing? We got you those gloves for a reason."

He shook her off, went back to ignoring, and kept punching and jabbing at the bag. "Don't need 'em."

"Ryan, look at yourself."

He continued to ignore her. What did she know of what he was going through? First all the stupid stuff with Trey, and then Johnny... now he was having that jerk Volchok to contend with yet again. "Go away, Kirsten."

He knew his words sounded harsh, but at the moment he didn't care. Kirsten herself was just another reminder of how screwed up his life was. Since they'd kissed accidentally on Valentine's Day two years before, things had changed between them. Tension spiked sky-high, leaving room for lots of unnecessary spats and, subsequently, stolen passionate kisses from time to time.

In just a couple years Kirsten had become everything Ryan wanted but could never have. Not with Sandy and Seth still around. So he stayed with Marissa, dealt with all of her stupid shit... then tried and failed for a little bit of normalcy with Sadie. Now he was back trying to save Marissa again. He really needed to stop.

As if reading his thoughts, Kirsten took a step forward and said softly, "Ryan, you have to stop this."

This time, he listened. He stopped punching and slumped, sweaty and exhausted, against the bag for a moment. When he felt Kirsten approach, he moved away. "I'm not the best company right now, Kirsten. Go find Sandy."

He knew that would sting. Kirsten and Sandy weren't on the best of terms lately with all of Sandy's dealings at the Newport Group, getting in over his head. Ryan wasn't even sure why he said it. And this was how their spats would always start when they were alone together. The ever-present tension would put him on edge; he'd say something biting, cutting, and Kirsten would shoot something right back.

Pretty soon they'd either be glaring at each other or yelling at each other and then... then, one of them would charge. Lips would collide, limbs would tangle. They'd fall either onto the nearest couch or bed or against the wall and kiss out all of their frustration. But kissing was as far as it had gone. Kissing was as far as he would let it go, though he had an inkling several times that it could've turned into so much more.

"I'm not playing this game with you today, Ryan," Kirsten told him lowly and took him by the wrists, leading him to the bathroom.

Ryan, confused by both the words and by what she was doing, numbly followed where she led, and didn't resist when she pushed at his shoulders and made him sit on the toilet seat. He watched her silently, looked up at her through his lashes and caught just a hint of a smile on her face as she went into the medicine cabinet... pulled out a bottle of peroxide and cotton swabs. Then, she knelt in front of him, between his legs... he gulped a little at the image.

From the crook of her eyebrow, she knew what was on his mind but didn't comment. Instead, she wet one of the cotton swabs with peroxide and told him, "This'll probably sting."

"Good," he replied darkly, and looked away when he felt her look up at him.

"I told you not even a month ago, when that whole thing with Jess was going on--"

"I can't keep saving everybody, yeah I know." He winced and hissed just a little when the peroxide touched his open wounds.

"Not just that, Ryan," she murmured, concentrating on what she was doing. "You can't blame yourself when something bad happens to somebody close to you. It's not your fault. What happened with Johnny was not your fault. Nothing that happened between Jess and Trey was your fault. Not even what happened with Trey and Marissa."

"It seems like it's been one problem after another since I got here. For you and Sandy, too."

"My problems with Sandy are not your fault, either, so don't even think that for a second."

"But if he wouldn't have brought me here--"

"Then you and I would never have met." She looked up and pinned him with her gaze... soft and seductive and a million other things all at once. "In a way, Ryan, you saved me too. You saved me from being the 'Ice Queen' of Newport, and... I don't even want to think what things would be like here without you."

"Kirsten--"

"I had to live without you for not one, but two full summers. The first time, Sandy and I barely spoke to each other. The second was--"

"Suriak," he finished.

"Yes. And that was its own version of hell."

"So... are you saying I should be concentrating on saving you?" he asked tentatively, watching her smile as she dried his hands.

"You already saved me. For now, I think you should concentrate on saving yourself. You don't need to keep playing the hero, the rescuer. You'll go insane if you keep doing that, Ryan." Those blue eyes met his again as she told him, "You have to find some sort of salvation before you self-destruct."

Ryan reached out and stroked Kirsten's cheek with the back of his finger, his eyes busy tracing her classic, angelic features. "I think I already found her," he whispered, gingerly tucking some blonde hair behind her ear, practically overjoyed that she was allowing such tender, intimate contact.

They leaned in simultaneously and their lips met halfway... though it was nothing like the kisses they had when they argued. This was soft, tentative... testing the boundaries that forever seemed to be blurring and changing between them. When Kirsten opened her lips under his, Ryan was assailed with memories of Valentine's Day and captured her lips again with his own, cupping her face. He felt her scoot closer, hands curling around his biceps as their tongues got reacquainted... and before long he had hauled her up onto his lap with both arms locked around her waist and they were kissing feverishly.

His hands slid up her back, under her shirt, and Kirsten breathed into him, "I need you."

"I'm right here," he assured her, pressing her as close as humanly possible while they continued to devour each other.

"No." She broke from the kiss and she rested her forehead against his, breathing labored as she met his eyes.

In her eyes Ryan saw every ounce of permission he was looking for, saw exactly what she needed, and plundered her lips with his own once again, locking her legs around his waist as he stood up with her, carrying her to his bed. He laid her down gently, crawled in after her... and for the first time let his hands wander her form. Clothing was shed quickly, each eager to release that two (three, really) years-worth of tension. Ryan kissed Kirsten with urgency, needing her, his only salvation, twice as much as she needed him.

"Ryan, please."

He nodded against her and twisted away to grab a condom... and that was when Kirsten's cell phone rang. Both of them groaning, Kirsten sat up with the sheet tucked under her arms and grabbed the offending silver object from her discarded jeans. She pulled it to her ear. "Hello." Then, her eyes widened. "Sandy. Yeah, I'm uh... I'm at the house. Are you on your way home? Yeah, I think we should talk too." She sighed and closed her eyes, chin dropping to her chest. Her blonde hair fell forward like a curtain around her face. "Yeah. Okay, I'll see you in a bit. Bye."

Ryan could only watch Kirsten's (bare) back since she wouldn't turn to look at him, as she put her phone away and started putting on her clothes. Ryan wanted to say something... anything... that would get her to stay, the carnal part of him wanting to finish what they started, but he knew the reason for her frenzy. "He's coming home," he stated, not really asking.

Kirsten turned only slightly over her shoulder while she dressed. "Yes."

He nodded though he knew she didn't see this action, and just continued silently watching her as she hurriedly resituated her clothing and slipped into her shoes. "Sandy can't know about this," she told him breathlessly, and then made a hasty retreat before he could say anything more.

Ryan flopped back against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling, inhaling deeply and exhaling a huge sigh. Yeah, this wouldn't increase the tension at all, he though wryly, and then turned over to bury his face in his pillow.

CONTINUED IN PART 4/5: Happy Accidents