The Edge of Heaven (35 page)

Her cheeks burned with shame, and there was no way she could even look at him. Not after what she'd admitted to him.

"Are Sam and Rachel expecting you home tonight?" he asked.

"No. I told them Brian was giving me a ride back to school."

"Brian?" he asked. "Just how well do you know Brian?"

"Well enough," she said.

"Well enough to climb into bed with him?"

"We didn't exactly make it that far."

"Dammit, Emma! He could have really hurt you. You know that, don't you? You know how stupid a thing that was to do? Do you have so little respect for yourself and your body that you'd just go off with some guy and—"

"And you're so picky about the women you take to your bed?" she yelled right back, then looked around the room, plain as can be and empty, except for the bed. "This bed, right? I'm surprised you haven't installed a revolving door to handle all the traffic."

"What the hell does that mean?" he yelled.

"You and all those women parading in and out of here. It's what people call a double standard, Rye. You can sleep with as many women as you want, and it's fine, but if I go to bed with a guy, there's something wrong with that?"

"I wasn't questioning your morals, Emma, just your incredible stupidity. You could have been hurt so badly. Do you know anything about this guy?"

"We went to high school together."

"And you were close?"

"Not exactly."

"Have you seen him at all since then?"

"No," she said.

"So you just thought, What the hell? Have a few drinks and hop in bed with him."

"That was my plan," she admitted.

"You make a habit of doing things like that?"

"No, I was thinking if I got drunk, I might be able to go through with it."

He just got madder. "Why would you ever want to force yourself to have sex with a guy you barely know?"

"Because he was there, okay? Because he poured champagne down my throat, and because it's my birthday."

"So this is some kind of ritual? You have sex with strangers on your birthday? Jesus, Emma, what the hell are you doing?"

"I don't have sex with anybody, you stupid man," she said. "I don't ever go to bed with anybody. I swear I'm the only virgin left on the entire campus of the University of Cincinnati. Maybe the only one over twenty-one in the whole state, if not the entire Midwest, and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of missing you and wanting you and wishing that everything could have been different between us."

"Emma—"

"It's you. How can you not know it's you? I've been so stupid. I've been waiting for you. Waiting for you to get over this hang-up you have about my age or to stop caring what Sam thinks or for me to grow up enough that it didn't matter anymore. And I guess some really stupid part of me held out some hope that today, when I turned twenty-one, that might be enough. That you might come to me and say, 'Okay, twenty-one I can handle. It's not eighteen. It's not nineteen. It's not twenty. And I just can't stay away any longer.' But that didn't happen. You didn't even come to my party."

He didn't say anything for the longest time, and Emma couldn't believe she'd said all that she had. God, could this night possibly get any worse? But she'd said it all, finally, and no matter what the consequences, she felt better getting it out. She was furious with him and herself and everything about his awful night.

He'd been just as angry himself, but as she watched, all the anger seemed to drain out of him, weariness and maybe resignation seeping in. He gave her a cautious glance and just as quickly looked away, no doubt trying to build those walls once again to keep her out.

"Emma, I'm sorry."

She believed he was, and it was the last thing she wanted from him.

"Why? For not caring about me? For thinking I'm a sweet kid?" The words dripped with sarcasm. They'd been burnt into her brain, from that first day he'd called her that, when she'd sworn he'd been doing it just to push her away. She'd been so sure he hadn't meant it.

The years had taught her that he had.

"I'm sorry for hurting you," he said.

"It's not your fault. You can't help it if I don't even register on your radar. I know there isn't any lack of female companionship in your life."

"It's not like that, Emma."

"Oh, please. I've heard all about it."

"They're just women," he claimed. "No one special."

"Fine." She started seething again. He'd go out with anybody but her, and she'd gotten to the point where she'd do the same thing, if it helped her get over him. She closed her eyes and sank back against the wall. "I can't keep doing this, Rye. I can't keep living my life like someone in a deep freeze, waiting for something I'll never have. And I know it's not the smartest plan in the world—to fall into bed with someone. But I'm desperate. I have to forget about you. I have to break that hold somehow and move on."

"You were ready to sleep with the first guy who came along to do that?"

"No. I tried it with... I've been seeing this guy for months. He's been so patient, so understanding, and I kept hoping I would love him. Why can't I just love him?" she said, her voice breaking.

"I don't think we get to choose, Emma. I don't think we can will ourselves to love anyone, any more than we can will ourselves to stop loving someone we're not supposed to care about."

"Then I'm doomed? I'm going to be this miserable for the rest of my life? Because I won't let myself feel this way forever. I can't. It hurts too much."

She started to cry again, dammit. Miserably. Uncontrollably.

Rye picked her up and carried her to the bed. She didn't want to be there. Didn't want any part of the room where he'd brought all those other women, damn him.

"Let me go," she said.

"No." He pulled back the covers and put her between them.

"Rye—"

He sat down on the bed beside her, bunched the pillows against the headboard, and then climbed in, clothes and all. He settled himself against the pillows and then pulled her to him, her head to his chest and her arms going around his waist.

"I can't let you go on like this." His arm came around her, his hand stroking her hair. "It's no telling what you might do. Grab the next man you see?"

"I didn't mean to do that," she said miserably. "I had a perfectly reasonable plan."

"Sex with someone you don't even like is not a reasonable plan, Emma."

"I didn't plan that. That just happened," she said, closing her eyes and letting her tears fall. She had a feeling she'd hate herself in the morning for telling him these things. She had just been so mad at him, so mad at the whole situation. "I had a good plan. With... the guy I told you about. The one I've been seeing. I do know him, and I like him. Really, I do."

He thought she had some odd sexual hang-up when she wouldn't sleep with him, even more so after she'd finally told him she'd never slept with anyone. And she let him go on thinking that, unable to tell him the truth. That she was stupidly in love with a man who didn't care about her at all and had never been able to give herself to anyone else.

"I was going to just make myself do it with him," she said. "I even went to a doctor and got one of those shots—like the pill, except you get one and you're covered for months. I was all ready last week, and I tried. I really tried. But I couldn't do it. And then, my birthday came, and I just felt so stupid. Twenty-one, and still waiting."

"You should wait," he said. "You should wait for someone you love."

"I don't think I'll ever love anyone but you," she admitted. "Rye, have you ever loved anyone?"

"Yes," he said, slowly as if he didn't want to admit to it.

She was afraid to ask, but made herself. "What happened?"

"It didn't work out."

"But you got over it, right?" She asked. He certainly seemed to be making the most of his life with the opposite sex.

"No, I don't think I'll ever get over her."

"Oh." Something inside her died right then and there, and maybe this was just what she needed to hear to finally be done with him. He was in love with someone else.

What a fool she'd been.

"I have to go," she said, pulling herself away from him.

He kept his arm around her, pulling her back down to him. "What are you going to do, Emma? Find someone else and crawl into bed with him?"

"What if I do?"

"I can't let you do that," he said.

"And just how do you think you're going to stop me?"

Chapter 17

"Like this."

His mouth came down on hers. His warm breath, and then his lips, his tongue, his touch exquisitely gentle and slow. Her tears started falling once again, because it was so sweet, bitter, bittersweet. This was what she'd wanted so badly for more than two endless years, what she thought she'd never have.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

He drew back a fraction of an inch. "Kissing you."

"Why?"

"Because it's usually a really good place to start."

"Start what?"

"Making love to a woman."

She froze. "You're not going to do that."

"Not if you don't want me to. But there's no way I'm going to let you have another night like tonight. No way I'm turning you loose on the world determined to find some man—any damned man—to have sex with you."

Before she could say anything to that, she got his mouth again, warm and sure, moving over hers. No one kissed quite like he did. She should know. She'd kissed a lot of guys trying to find someone who did, someone who could bring her body alive the way he did.

It was like an infusion of heat, of need. It blossomed deep inside of her, maybe in her heart, eventually settling lower, deep in her belly, and spreading all the way to her fingertips and her toes. Her whole body started tingling. It was like every inch of her skin was on edge, begging for his hands, his mouth.

Her breasts were full and heavy, her nipples hardening. He drank from her mouth, taking and taking and taking until he made her head spin. He turned her in his arms until she was facing him, lying on top of him, and then he shifted his legs, spreading them to either side of hers, and he was...

Oh, he wanted her.

She could feel him, hard and swollen and throbbing against her.

She gasped. Couldn't help it. He honestly wanted her?

"You're going to have to say it," he said. "We're not having any mistakes about this, and you've got to swear to me you're not still drunk."

"I'm not," she said. She thought she must be dreaming, but she wasn't drunk anymore.

"And this is what you want?"

"Yes."

"Emma, I don't want you to regret this in the morning."

"I could never regret this."

"Because there's no going back from this."

"I know that, Rye."

"And you're safe? Right now? That shot you were talking about—I'm not going to make you pregnant?"

"I'm safe," she said, still not quite believing he was going to do this, that the two of them were. "What made you change your mind?"

He sighed, his hand at the side of her face, his forehead coming down to rest against hers. "I think you'd honestly go through with it, that sooner or later you'd find someone and make yourself do this for all the wrong reasons. You might get hurt, Emma. There's no telling what someone would do to you."

So this was a favor?

He kissed the tip of her nose, and she noticed that his breathing was labored and not quite steady. "I'll be gentle."

"I know you will."

He kissed her cheek then, a butterfly kiss. "I'll be thorough."

Emma shivered, about a thousand highly erotic pictures rushing through her head.

"I'll make it very, very good for you."

Oh, he would.

He kissed her mouth again finally, hungrily, completely, just as he'd promised. It was like her body had turned liquid and molded itself to his. He buried his face in the tender skin at the side of her neck, and she shivered and clung to him, trying to get closer, desperate to hang on so tight he couldn't get away. Little moaning sounds were coming from her throat. She couldn't help it. It was like her whole body was crying out.