BorntobeWild (19 page)

She did. It wasn’t as if she featured in a lot of magazines
but she’d had a spot in an airline publication, when she’d entered a contest to
design a new logo. She hadn’t won but the contest has still brought her to
people’s attention and she’d made the most of the opportunity by wearing her
own jewelry. It had worked, more then she realized, if Riku had seen her there.
“I remember.”

“When I got to New York I came to find you. I didn’t say
that, even to myself but I had the address of your store by then. I arrived
that day to see if I had the courage to go in. You drew me, Cyn. You always do.
Always have. I didn’t mean to crash into you quite as obviously as I did
though.”

He smiled and glory be she found the muscles to smile back. “I
couldn’t believe it. There you were. It was like yesterday. Stupid.”

“The same for me. Not the stupid part. I knew right then I’d
made a huge mistake back in Paris.”

“Leaving the conservatory?” she said with a smile.

“Letting you go. I did, didn’t I?”

“Yes.” No prevarication, she promised herself. “I thought
you’d moved on. So if I turned up at a gig and you let me in out of pity I’d
have been a hanger-on. Like I was that first night. Hated that. It reminded me
of what I might have been if I’d got back in touch with you when you were first
famous, before the stores were successful, before I’d sold my first design. A
hanger-on. An extra. Someone who didn’t really matter.”

“Never that, Cyn. If I’d realized—” he shook his head. “I’m
sorry.”

She nodded. No more doing favors for other people, to please
them or to spite them. She needed to know one more thing. “Did you call your
mother?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw and she heard the
faint rasp of day-old beard. She ached to touch it, let it abrade her palm,
feel him in every way possible but she couldn’t. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. It
depended on what he said now. “I called her. We’re friends, or rather, we’re
cordial acquaintances. Both of us will be happy with that, I think. Keep our
distance but keep in contact.”

What he said sounded sensible. “You haven’t asked me about
the financier she set up for me.”

He fixed her with a penetrating gaze. “That’s your business.
I won’t interfere. I won’t even comment unless you want me to.”

“It didn’t work out,” she told him baldly. “He wanted more
than I was prepared to give him. The other deal he put me in contact with did.
And another. The Rowan Group want me to design exclusive pieces for them to go
in their flagship hotels worldwide.”

“Jesus!” No stopping him now. He surged across the space
between them, taking her in his arms for a bear hug. “I’m so proud of you. You
created your own path, did what you had to do to be happy. You could have taken
the gig and by now you’d be feted, adored and a star.”

“And miserable,” she said.

“Cyn, oh, Cyn, I need you. I can’t think past that. It wakes
me in the night, beats me around the head all day.”

Need? He’d never said what she’d wanted to hear. Only now,
after she’d met his parents did she understand. Arm’s-length upbringing didn’t
make for easy admission of emotions, especially ones that might make him
vulnerable to people who wanted to control him. She understood because before
his death her father had done it to her, withholding his touch and his
affection. Either he didn’t know how or he’d chosen to train her that way. She
didn’t know. “Riku, we can’t. We have to approach this like rational adults—”

“No, no we don’t. Why? I know I need you, I don’t want to
end this.”

“Why not? To teach your mother a lesson? That’s why you did
it, isn’t it? Proposed to me so dramatically and so publicly in the middle of
the restaurant.” One she did not intend to enter ever again. She’d remember
that fraught atmosphere to her dying day.

“It might have started like that.” He chopped his hand on
the cushions, the reverberations reaching her as if he touched her. “No, that’s
not true. Maybe the details, sure but nothing else. I didn’t want to let you
go. Not again, and I thought marrying you would mean you couldn’t run away so
easily.”

She closed her eyes but tears still seeped from under the
lids.

He touched her, cupping her cheeks, kissing her lips oh so
gently. “Don’t, Cyn. Don’t cry over me. Over us.”

Then they were kissing for real, touching hungrily, after
they’d starved themselves for a month. She slid her hands under his T-shirt,
stroked the heat of his chest. He banded his arms around her, dragged her
close, his erection hard against her skin. He tilted his head, slanted his
mouth over hers and kissed her with a voraciousness that told her everything
about how much he’d missed her.

Cyn responded, as frantic as Riku, tasting the elusive
flavor she’d missed so much, longed for every minute since she’d gotten on the
New York-bound plane in Las Vegas.

He tore his lips away from hers. “You are amazing, the most
wonderful, resourceful woman in the world. And I love you.”

Silence dropped like a stone plummeting into water but she
didn’t feel uncomfortable now. “I love you too.” So fucking easy. Why hadn’t
she said it before?

No words required as he took her mouth like a man starving. “Come
to bed with me. Please, Cyn. Fuck!” He released her as if she were a hot potato
and she frowned, puzzled. He’d changed his mind
now
? “Your ribs—I must
have hurt you.”

“No.” She got to her feet. “That idea of yours, to go to
bed?” One by one she unfastened the buttons on her shirt. Six of them and one
on each cuff. Then she let the garment slide away, to drop on the floor. “Look,
Ma, no bruises.” She put on the fake American accent that had always made him
laugh. It didn’t fail her now.

He stood and took her hand, leading her upstairs to the
bedroom that should rightfully be theirs.

He undressed her, laid her down and watched her as he
removed his own clothes. He liked to look at her and she liked to have him
look. She lay on the silky violet bedcover, a deep, vivid color that suited her
better than the one there when she moved in. She watched the way his gaze
travelled from her now-unmarked side to her breasts, peaked in invitation, and
her pussy, freshly waxed, leaving the small tuft of curls that proclaimed her
womanhood and drew attention to it.

He still had his hair removed too. Surprised to see bare
balls and groin, she blinked. “You don’t have to put stage costumes on for a
while.”

“I like it.” He touched his hard, straining cock. “Don’t you
think it makes it look bigger? That’s what they say.”

“It’s not why you do it.”

He grinned, all masculine self-confidence. “No, it isn’t.
Let me show you.” He reached for the drawer by the bed, where they kept the
condoms.

“No,” she said. “I’m safe now, taking the Pill regularly. I
had a period a week ago.”

“You?” He laughed, scoffing at her. “Safe? I don’t think so.”

“I mean—” to her annoyance she felt her face heat and knew
she was blushing. “You know what I mean.”

He stared at her, watching her face. “How do you feel about
not being pregnant?”

She didn’t know what to say so she said nothing.

“You don’t have to tell me. Relieved, am I right? This isn’t
the time, Cyn. We need to sort out our lives then we can make other decisions.
I want to be with you for a very long time and if you want me too. We’ll have
years to make a family. But not yet. So let’s not take any chances right now.”

She swallowed. He thought that through fine. Although she
experienced twinges from her biological clock she had a lot to do before she
could spare the time a baby needed and deserved. She didn’t have to say it. She
saw the knowledge in his eyes.

Opening the drawer, he removed a small packet and tore it
open. His cock reared up, almost touching his belly it was so rigid. Its
natural inward curve made her heat with the memory of what that shape could do
inside her.

Riku came down to her, slowly lowering his body over hers,
surrounding her with his warmth. “I want our child to come into a world where
it’s wanted and planned for. We might get there soon, it might take a few years
or it not happen at all. Let’s give ourselves space, hmm?”

Yes, he was right. As he was about this. Pausing only to
test her readiness with his fingers, he pushed his cock deep inside her.
Smooth, waxed skin met its mate, the sensitivity incredible. “Wow.”

“Yeah, wow.” His voice sounded rougher. Not surprising. He
withdrew, thrust in deeply, steadily. She curled her hand around his neck in
the way she loved and brought him down for a kiss. Their first since he’d come
back. “We were always going to end here today, weren’t we?”

“Nothing’s certain.” He slid inside her again, his passage
easier now her juices had lubricated the way. “Cyn, I love you.”

“I love you too. I never told you either. I wanted you to
say it first. I didn’t want you to get embarrassed because you didn’t love me
back, or worse, tell me you liked me.”

“No fear of that.” Their laughter echoed joyfully around the
room. “I mean I like you but I love you more. It’s so good, saying it, I don’t
think I’ll ever stop.”

“Don’t. It sounds wonderful.”

Whatever happened next, they’d have this moment. There was
only ever this moment. No future, no past, except in their memories. She loved
him. “That feels so good.”

“It does.” Flattening his palms on the bed, he pushed up to
change his angle of entry. She caught her breath on a gasp and let it out
slowly. So fucking good. “Keep doing that. I know we’re making love but maybe
we won’t give up fucking altogether?”

“You mean I can come get you in the store at lunchtime?”

Her turn to laugh. “And I can grab you in the recording
studio?”

“Sounds painful.” He glanced at her ribs and she knew what
he was thinking.

“I have a final X-ray coming up but I’m okay now. Don’t
think about it anymore.”

“I can’t think of anything right this minute, except doing
this.”

He let go and took them both flying. A series of sharp,
shallow thrusts followed by deeper, slower drives to the center of her being
sent her rocketing to the brink of climax. When he touched her clit, just
touched it, she screamed his name and lifted her legs to wind them around his
waist and pull him in. “Fuck, Riku!”

“Your wish, my angel, is my command.”

He fucked her. She fucked him back, their bodies slipping
against each other as her pussy grew wetter and they got hotter, in every way
possible. Sweat rolled in rivulets down his chest. She thirsted to lick it off,
follow the tiny beads with her tongue but she had to satisfy herself with
watching his muscles work in beautiful harmony.

Coming back to her, he worked her hard and she welcomed him
in. Next time she’d have him on his back, or perhaps with them both sitting,
facing each other, or doggy-style.

Fuck, they’d do them all. Some she hadn’t thought of yet.

He didn’t give in to his own orgasm until he’d made her come
one more time and he laughed, sheer joy in the tones as she rocked against him.
Their mingled laughter sounded like the best music ever made and finally every
part of the puzzle they’d been constructing together came together seamlessly
and made them whole.

Showered and tucked back in bed she went sleepily into his
arms and laid her head on his shoulder. Riku kissed the top of her head and
took her hand, smoothing his thumb over her wedding ring. “Did you alter it
yourself?”

“Are you kidding? It’s a Tiffany ring, so I let them do it.
I shouldn’t have but I loved it so much I’d have paid you for it.”

“Never.” He tilted her chin and kissed her. “It’s yours.”

“I love you, Riku,” she said, because she did and she needed
to say it.

“I love you too.”

“Did you always know?”

He shook his head slightly. “I couldn’t take anything for
granted. But I wanted it to be true. You needed time. I lost my temper that day
in Las Vegas. Been so careful not to push you too far so you’d leave me like
you did before. Walking on eggshells, so when I badly wanted to ask you if
you’d ever feel the way I did, instead I gave you a fucking stupid ultimatum.”

She stroked his cheek and he caught the tip of her finger in
his mouth and nipped.

“You were right, I needed the time. You rushed back into my
life and I didn’t know what had hit me. I was so scared, Riku. Not of you but
all the things in myself I hid away. I didn’t know how to say it, and now when
I do it seems so easy.”

“Hard-won though.” He kissed her again. “I love you. I want
a ring too, one you’ve designed. For me. Because I’m demanding like that.”

“Of course I’ll design you a ring. I’ll make it myself. That’s
not what I’m best at. I leave a lot of the technical stuff to the experts.”

“I don’t care. Design me a wing nut and I’ll wear it.”

Her mind sharpening, she stared at him, eyes wide. “Wow. An
auto line. Maybe the hotel will like that. If they don’t I’ll do it anyway. You’re
a genius.”

Hugging her, he chuckled, the sound vibrating through her. “So
people say. It’s crap. Einstein was a genius. Chopin was a genius. Riku
Shiraishi is a musician.”

“What do we do now?”

“Stay together. Manage, as other people do. We’ll have to
spend time apart, like adults with different careers do from time to time. Cyn,
I’m yours. Completely yours. I belong to you. If you say stop then I’ll stop.”

“That’s dangerous.” After rolling onto her elbow she leaned
over him, propped her other elbow on the other side of his chest and used him
like a mattress. Unsafe, because his cock was already answering the pressure of
her body but she didn’t care. She’d go again soon and she’d take charge.

“So are you, my love.” He twisted a lock of her hair around
his fingers, watched the loop as it slid through them. “I have to return to
Chicago soon. Can you come with me? I don’t want to pressure you but I don’t
want to be apart from you. Just for a couple of weeks. We’re hot right now,
burning up the studio.”