As You Wish (13 page)

“Am I hurting you?”

She laughed. “Sweet agony.”

His rhythm took her. He cradled her against his body, pressing his hot mouth to her pulse. The rough hair on his chest rubbed against her, sparking against her nipples and scraping her belly. “Touch me.”

She heard a faint request in his tone and flattened her hands against the thick muscles of his back, bunching and releasing as he drove into her. One of her hands strayed into his hair. The silky strands tangled around her fingers. Her body gripped him everywhere. She tensed her hands, her short nails dug into his flesh. The cool breeze almost didn’t reach her. She arched toward him, making small, helpless noises in her throat. The universe fell away to only this moment, only the places where his skin touched hers, only where his body moved inside hers. A storm broke, swirling away everything that remained of her and leaving only their bodies joined as one. She screamed, clutching him to her breast. A moment later, he shuddered and collapsed on her with an animal snarl.

She felt like one of the candles that had lit their passion, pooled into a puddle of melted wax, still warm and soft. Now she ached differently. This was the ache of muscles tensed too long and suddenly catastrophically released.

“I’m okay,” she murmured, amazed at the sheer truth of it. She felt okay in a way that she hadn’t for weeks.

“What?” He lifted his head from her chest. “Oh, good.” He rolled off her, reaching over the side of the bed to discard the condom and pull another heavy blanket over them. The material was chilly from lying on the ground, but he drew her against his body, warming her before the sensation become unpleasant.

“This was wonderful,” she murmured.

“Yeah.” He leaned his forehead against her temple. “You were wonderful too.”

She laughed. “Me? I just did what I was told. You did all the work.”

He combed his fingers through her hair. “I made you work pretty hard. I didn’t think you were ever going to manage to say that one word.”

“Oh, that.” She curved her cheek into the hollow of his shoulder, wondering if he felt its heat against his skin. Once again he’d pushed her to a place she didn’t think she could ever go, and she was very glad he had. Brushing her fingertips along his pectoral muscle, she felt it shift under her touch. He thought she was beautiful. He honestly thought she was beautiful.

“You surprised me, though.”

She turned so they were forehead to forehead. His eyes were dark and shadowed, and he looked so handsome that for a moment she didn’t think she could speak. “How?”

“You asked me to go down on you. I figured it would be months before you got that bold.”

She smiled. “Well, it was a pretty short leap between touch and kiss, and I was afraid you were going to use those gloves on me.”

He laughed, and the rich sound of it warmed her more than his arms. “I wouldn’t do that. You were almost too wound as it was.” His face turned serious. “I wasn’t too hard on you, was I? I didn’t make you feel too bad or scare you?”

“No. It was just enough. It was just what I needed.” She sighed, recognizing the truth of those words too. Her conditioning would have driven her to give the same answer, but in this case, it was what she needed. The gentle handling with rough gloves, the insistent demands, the tight control, and the exacting pressure. Even forcing her to face her fear that she wasn’t pretty and his revelation that he thought she was. Yes, it was what she wanted and needed most.

“I guess you probably want to go inside to your own bed, huh?”

She studied his face. She heard a wistful request belying his words and saw it reflected in his eyes as clearly as the candlelight. He’d offered the perfect opening for her. She could go inside to her empty house and her cold bed. Or she could lie here for a while in his arms. The empty house and the cold bed would be there when she needed them, just as they had been all her life. This would not last. “Let’s just lay here for a while and savor the moment.”

Ryan gathered her tight, resting her head on his chest, stroking her hair. Patricia allowed her eyes to drowse closed and listened to the strong, steady beat of his heart under her ear.

* * * *

Ryan opened his eyes and tried to understand why he felt so warm with the first blush of dawn spreading across the sky. He shifted, and the woman beside him stirred. Pieces of the evening filtered back, explaining why he felt so calm, so relaxed, so blissful. But edged around that bliss was anxiety. Last time he’d felt this way, it had ended in disaster and exile from everyone he knew or cared about.

Patricia turned, pressing her cheek into the hollow of his shoulder and sighing. The blanket shifted, exposing his skin to the early October frost. He hadn’t planned on falling asleep. He’d only intended to hold her for a little while, reveling in the fact that she would let him, before shooing her back inside. Fortunately, the blankets were very warm.

She’d surprised him again. Almost as much as that first day in the potting shed. When the phone rang last night, he’d known it could only be her. When he’d found her, she’d looked so lost that only his slow-burning anger over the way she’d humiliated him kept him from pulling her into his arms and telling her he would fix everything. Absolutely everything.

But it hadn’t been anger alone that had kept him from her. Fear had curdled in his gut. He’d needed to know if it was him she wanted or just his jumper cables and his stupid willingness to ride to her rescue. Kissing the top of her head, he knew he’d have ridden to her rescue anyway. He couldn’t have denied that small, frightened voice on the other end of the phone line, but it would have eliminated the question of who the real submissive was.

Patricia jerked upright with a gasp, clutching the blanket over her breasts. “What’s going on? Why am I outside?” Her head whipped around.

Ryan put his arms around her. “It’s okay. We fell asleep. Lay back down; it’s cold.”

“Why is it cold?”

He smiled. “Because it’s October, silly.” He kissed her forehead. Her gaze locked on his, and she relaxed as he eased her back into his embrace. “Do you remember last night?”

A rosy blush tinged her cheeks. “Yes.”

“We’re still in the garden.”

“Is it—are we safe here? Nobody will see us?”

“I shut the gates and set the perimeter security after you came in, and I locked the door of the garden behind you. I took care of everything.” He stroked her shoulder. Her skin had a satin smoothness that amazed him every time he touched her. She was so fine and beautiful he couldn’t imagine why she let him near her, but she welcomed him. For some reason he couldn’t understand, she wanted him.

“Including me,” she said.

“Of course.”

Her hand moved to the middle of his chest, tangling through his hair. “I really am sorry. For everything.”

Including this? Ryan wondered. Was this the kiss-off he’d feared from the moment she’d left him in the potting shed a month ago? Had she realized she’d gotten mixed up in something too twisted for her refined sensibilities? Was that why she was afraid of someone seeing them? “Everything?” he asked.

“What I did the other night in the kitchen was inexcusable. I should never have tried to use you that way. And what I did last Thursday was worse.” She looked up at him, her eyes gleaming in the dawn. “I wanted to make you kneel at my feet if you wouldn’t let me kneel at yours, and I threw a dinner party to do it. It was awful of me.”

“For a minute there at your party, I thought you were going to start petting my hair,” Ryan said. Could she feel how much he was quaking inside? She was going to end it, and he would never be able to stay here when she did. If she married David, Ryan would end up doing something stupid again. He would have to go far, far away. Somewhere where they didn’t even get newspapers until a week later. The Arctic Circle, so the great outdoors would keep him cool when he saw her face in the national news on the arm of that drippy David doofus because she’d cured cancer.

She laughed. “You know, I almost forgot myself and did just that.” Her smile disappeared. “It was agony having you so close and thinking you didn’t want me.”

“I did,” Ryan said. Panic surged through his veins. If he were smarter, he’d be able to think of something to make her keep him. He could convince her to let him stay near her. “I wanted to kiss you right there in front of all your guests, but I thought that was a quick way to get fired.”

“I would never fire you for what has happened between us.” She shifted so her weight rested on his chest. The rose light of sunrise spilled down the wall behind her head, shadowing her face and lighting her hair. “It wouldn’t be right to throw you out of a job because of this. It would kill me to see you every day and know that you would never touch me again, but I swear to you that I won’t fire you, and I won’t force you to quit because of us.”

“There’s an us?”
“Us”
sounded promising. Maybe there wasn’t a
“thanks for the memories”
speech in his immediate future. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Her light weight on his body wasn’t restricting him; it was the desperate need to hear her answer.

Her fingers brushed his cheek. “I thought that after last night. Unless…” Her voice trailed away.

“Unless what?”

“I guess I was being stupid.” She tried to sit up, but Ryan tightened his arms around her, dragging her back to his chest. “Ryan, what are you doing?”

“Unless what?” His blood pounded in his ears. He couldn’t let her go now. But he didn’t have a choice. She had all the choices and all the power. All he could do was obey. Again. “Unless what?”

She turned her face away, giving him a profile. Her jaw trembled, and her long golden eyelashes fluttered to her cheeks. She swallowed. “I thought that maybe you cared for me.”

“I do.”

She turned back, her eyes wide with wonder. “Do you really?”

“Yes.” Oxygen flooded his lungs. She hadn’t been giving him The Speech. No
here’s your hat and what’s your hurry
. No
it’s been fun, but
… She had been afraid he didn’t want her. How was that for high comedy?

He pulled her on top of him again, drawing her lips to his, and kissed her until her legs wound around his hips and her moans vibrated through his chest. He rolled them over, pulling away from her.

“No, don’t go.” She groaned. “Make love to me, please.”

“Do you have to go to the hospital this morning?” he asked, reaching over the side of the bed for the extra condoms he’d brought last night. They were cold, so he pressed one into his palm.

“No.”

“Is anyone expecting you or coming here?” The gates were shut; no one was getting in regardless. Not unless he let them, and he wasn’t about to do that.

“No.”

He kissed her again, pulling her exquisite body to his. Her hands stroked his back. He lifted his face away from hers to admire her desire-hazed eyes and the halo of blonde hair spread across the bed he’d made for her. This would have to end. Good things always did, usually in pain and bitterness. If he cut it off quick, she might get out of this with some dignity, and he might get out alive. It was best for both of them. She lived a life so different from his that she might as well live in another country, and if this got out, she would be humiliated. But for right now, for this sunrise, she was all his.

And he was all hers.

As he leaned back to slip on the now warm condom, she ran her fingers down his chest, lingering on his nipples before trailing across his belly.

He sheathed himself in her, bringing a delighted cry from her lips. She arched up to him, riding his thrusts, tightening around him almost instantly like they had been designed for one another. Matching parts finding one another. Then he lost himself to the crest of desire that crashed through him, willing to ride it as long as he could. When he came back, he felt her touching his hair.

“Ryan, you are so wonderful. You make me feel so good,” she whispered. “I never knew I could feel like this.”

Ryan rolled off her. “You weren’t a virgin, were you?” he asked, a new worry rearing its head. Could he have somehow missed that little detail? As overwound as he’d been last night, very possibly. But no, he’d breached her before in the potting shed on the table, when he’d still had enough control with her to know what was happening.

“No, but I might as well have been.” She traced her fingertips along his cheekbone.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No. Not at all. I loved it. I want to do it again, but I guess it’ll take a while before you’re up to it.”

“Maybe.” He propped his cheek against his hand to study her face. The sun had risen high enough to flood the garden with light. The last of the fall flowers and the first of the fall leaves bathed everything in rich color. “So did you like last night better or this morning?”

“Hmm.” She raised an eyebrow. “We might have to do some more experimental trials to figure that out.”

“Good.” He pinned her down. “I have one more condom here and a few more at my house. And neither one of us has to be anywhere all day.”

* * * *

Patricia rubbed her temple, studying the chart she was filling in. Yesterday still held her in its sweet embrace, but a headache was gaining ground.

But yesterday…

Smiling, she leaned her head against the wall of the exam cubicle. They’d spent the whole day together yesterday. Cleaning up the garden, cooking, walking the grounds. He’d been so playful and relaxed, even threatening to throw her in the reflecting pond. The whole time he’d held her over the railing in his strong arms, she’d known he wouldn’t drop her. After dinner they’d had a prolonged session in the music room, ending with them making love in front of the fire he made her build. He would never do anything to hurt her. He took care of her in all the ways she needed taking care of.

Most of today she’d been mellower than usual, causing the staff of the clinic to talk, but she didn’t care. Even the string of cranky patients with colds she’d spent the day treating hadn’t ruined her mood.

“Oh God, it’s true.”