The Man Every Woman Wants (12 page)

Though perhaps it was just as well. He too was weary. It had been a long day. A strange day. Who would have believed that it would end with his sleeping with Laura? Even more strange that he would enjoy it so damned much. Ryan pulled some bedclothes over her before getting back into bed, careful not to disturb her. He didn't want to wake her now. He wanted to think, a much easier process when he wasn't aroused. Or, worse, frustrated.

It didn't take Ryan long to figure out that he'd probably made a big mistake tonight. Not only was Laura a work colleague, but she was nothing like the hard-hearted career woman he'd always believed her to be. If she had been, he'd have no worries about continuing his affair with her. Unfortunately, underneath the tough-girl façade she wore seemingly with ease, Laura was actually a sweetie. And a softie. And sexy as hell!

Which was where the real problem lay: Laura's sexiness was different from the kind of sexiness Ryan usually went for. He liked his women a little wild and wanton. Very experienced, too. Liked them to know their way around a man's body. He
never went for the shy, retiring types who needed seducing on every level. And he never, God forbid, took a virgin to bed.

Not that Laura was a virgin. But she might as well have been, from what he'd seen tonight. Perversely, he'd loved that about her, loved it that she was so inexperienced. Her responses to the things he'd done were wonderfully fresh, full of surprise and the most enchanting gratitude—not to mention passion. Her orgasms had been very intense.

It irked Ryan considerably that Laura had loved not one but two total bastards in her life. But then, that was the nature of love, wasn't it? It didn't make sense. It was both irrational and sometimes self-destructive, in his opinion, especially where women were concerned.

Which brought him to his major problem where Laura was concerned.

What if she fell in love with him?

There was no use pretending that it couldn't happen, just because Laura didn't overly like him. Women fell in love with men they didn't like all the time.

Ryan didn't want to hurt her. Hell, he'd spent most of his life trying not to hurt women. Not that he'd always succeeded. But he had never deliberately set out to hurt any of them.

Would he hurt Laura if he continued sleeping with her?

That was the question he had to answer before morning came. Which meant before he surrendered to his own tiredness and dropped off to sleep.

Ryan frowned. Maybe he would hurt her more if he stopped. Clearly, she'd loved the sex tonight. Loved it all. If he called it quits tomorrow morning she might think she'd done something wrong, or that he'd already grown bored with her. She would take it as a personal rejection. Women were quick to blame themselves when a man dumped them. To do so after just one night together would be cruel.

On top of that, there was no guarantee that Laura would become emotionally involved with him. She was thirty years old and a lawyer, for pity's sake. Hardly a naïve little thing. She
already knew the score where he was concerned, knew that he was not husband material. All he was good for was some fun and games, something which she was in dire need of, in his opinion.

If she continued to sleep with him, then the risk was hers, wasn't it? Her future happiness was not his responsibility. She was an adult who could decide for herself what she wanted to do. He wasn't about to force her to continue their affair. It was up to her. But he would ask her again in the morning if that was what she wanted. Give her a chance to change her mind.

Feeling marginally better, Ryan stretched out and closed his eyes. But they immediately snapped open again. Of course, if Laura did decide to continue their affair—and he was pretty sure that she would—he would have to get himself a new lawyer. He would make that very clear indeed.

Never mixing business with pleasure was one rule Ryan didn't intend to break!

R
YAN
woke before Laura. Without thinking, he snuggled up to her still sleeping form, curving his body around hers from behind. His arousal was instantaneous and extremely corrupting, banishing any thought of giving her either the opportunity or the time to change her mind about continuing their sexual relationship. Already he was stroking her bare breasts, stirring her back to consciousness, wallowing in the way she started moaning with pleasure.

And then he remembered—no more condoms.

Swearing with frustration, he leapt out of the bed and marched off to the bathroom where he jumped into a cold shower, staying there till he was ready to behave himself. By the time he emerged, well wrapped in a towel, Laura was wide awake and sitting up in the bed, a sheet thankfully clutched over those beautiful breasts of hers.

‘Sorry about that,' he muttered, striding over to the wardrobe where his clothes were hung. ‘Forgot we'd run out of protection.'

Laura was sorry too—sorry that he'd stopped.

‘The bathroom's all yours,' he threw over his shoulder. ‘Though I'll have to go back and shave at some stage. I'd leave the stubble on today in other circumstances, but I have a suspicion that Cynthia would not approve. Or your gran, for that matter.'

‘You're probably right about Aunt Cynthia, but Gran won't mind. She likes macho-looking men.'

Me too
, Laura thought as she admired Ryan's back view. She loved the wideness of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist and hips. Loved the rippling muscles which framed his spine and bulged in his arms. Loved the length and strength of his legs.

He shrugged those gorgeously broad shoulders. ‘In that case I won't bother.'

She stayed to watch him dress, even though she really needed to go to the bathroom. But she held on long enough to see him step into some sexy Y-fronts then pull on the black jeans he'd worn yesterday. A white T-shirt followed, over which he drew on a long-sleeved black shirt. What was it about a man in black, she wondered, that was so darned sexy?

He turned suddenly, his eyes thoughtful. ‘Before I forget, there's something I have to ask you.'

Laura's heart contracted with immediate anxiety. ‘Oh? What?'

‘Are you quite sure you want to keep sleeping with me? If you would prefer to leave things as a one-night stand, I'll understand.'

Laura was truly taken aback, and a little dismayed. Was this his way of saying he wanted out?

She could only shake her head. ‘I don't understand you, Ryan. I thought you still wanted me this morning.'

‘I do.'

‘Then what's the problem all of a sudden?'

‘No problem on my part. I just wanted to give you the chance to change your mind. Sometimes things appear differently the morning after the night before. One's thoughts become clearer.'

‘My thoughts are quite clear, thank you very much,' she said somewhat tartly. She hated it when men acted as though women were silly creatures who didn't know their own mind.

‘You do realise that becoming my lover is not a permanent
position,' he went on firmly. ‘And that it will mean the end of our business relationship.'

Laura was beginning to become quite impatient with him. There really was no need to keep reminding her what the score was. She already knew his track record.

‘That's fine by me,' she bit out. ‘I too have a life rule about having affairs with clients.'

His eyebrows lifted. ‘Ah yes. I'd forgotten for a moment that you'd done that before. But of course you were in love with that particular client. Which is why it ended badly.'

The penny finally dropped for Laura. ‘Oh, I see. You're worried that I might fall in love with you?'

‘Something like that.'

‘You truly are a most arrogant man.'

‘Possibly,' he admitted. ‘But not, thankfully, a libertine.'

‘That's debatable at this point in time.'

He smiled. ‘I rather like it when you get stroppy.'

‘That's because it makes you feel safe!' she snapped.

He laughed. ‘Nothing about you right now makes me feel safe, Laura. Which is why I want you to get that beautiful body of yours into the bathroom where I can't get at it.'

Laura tried to stay annoyed with him—but how could she when he'd just called her beautiful, not to mention admitted to an almost uncontrollable desire for her?

‘You'll have to turn away then,' she told him with feigned haughtiness. ‘I wouldn't want you to lose control at the sight of my beautiful
naked
body.'

His groan secretly delighted her. ‘Must you remind me? Okay then,' he added as he spun round to put his back to her. ‘Get going. And take some bloody clothes with you!'

‘I can't. They're over there where you are.'

‘In that case just get yourself into that bathroom the way you are. But I won't be here when you come out. I'll be downstairs somewhere, chatting up Cynthia!'

Ryan breathed a sigh of relief once Laura was safely in the bathroom. She hadn't been far wrong with her caustic remark
about his losing control at the sight of her nakedness. He'd done his best to sound calm and reasonable when he'd given her the chance to change her mind—and when he'd reminded her that any relationship with him was never a permanent one. But underneath his cool exterior, he'd been struggling all the while to ignore the less-than-cool messages his body kept sending him.

He wasn't sure what he would have done if she'd said no, Ryan, I don't want to have any more sex with you. He suspected his behaviour at that point in time might not have been very noble. Only the knowledge that he could take her to bed tonight and on many more future nights had put some sanity into his head and some control over his wayward flesh.

Ryan shook his head as he sat down to put on his socks and shoes. It had been a long time since a woman had got under his skin the way Laura had. Actually, he could not remember it happening before at all. Ever!

Any other man might have imagined he was falling in love but Ryan knew differently. Romantic love was not an emotion he was capable of, not since he'd seen up close and personally what that kind of love had done to his mother. Ryan had only been twelve when he'd vowed never to fall in love, or marry, or have children. And nothing had happened since to change his mind on that score.

So, no, he knew he wasn't in love with Laura. It was desire which was possessing him at the moment, a desire which was heightened by her lack of sexual experience. He could not wait to show her everything. Tonight simply could not come quickly enough!

‘T
HANK
God you rang me,' were Alison's first words. ‘I've been dying of curiosity all morning.'

‘It's only ten-thirty,' Laura told her friend. ‘I couldn't ring you before. I haven't had a minute to myself.'

A white lie, actually. She'd been alone upstairs for a good while before breakfast but had spent the time trying to get her head around things. As soon as Ryan had left the room and she'd been out of his corrupting presence, Laura had been besieged by doubt over what she'd agreed to.

So much for her much-vaunted pride! She felt disgusted with herself, not so much for sleeping with him last night—wild horses could not have stopped her from doing that!—but for agreeing to sleep with him some more without his offering her anything in return. He'd not even offered her the face-saving grace of becoming a proper girlfriend. He hadn't said a word about dating her, just about sex.

On top of that he expected her to waltz into work and announce that he was no longer her client? What excuse could she possibly give? ‘Sorry but he's screwing me now and he doesn't screw women he works with'?

The man wanted his cake and wanted to eat it too, came the mutinous thought.

The trouble was she still wanted him on
any
terms. The shock and shame of this realisation was almost too much to bear.

She'd had to force herself to go downstairs for breakfast and to face not just Ryan but the rest of the family. She'd found them all in the kitchen being treated to one of Aunt Cynthia's over-the-top English-style breakfasts. Laura was never one for eating anything heavy in the mornings and would usually have refused, but this time she'd allowed herself to be fed bacon, eggs, baked beans and fried tomatoes with lashings of toast, because that way she hadn't had to talk much.

After breakfast, she'd helped her aunt wash up whilst Ryan had whisked Jane off on the promised drive in his convertible. He still hadn't returned half an hour later, which had given Laura the opportunity to go upstairs and finally ring her friend.

‘You sound a little strained,' Alison said. ‘Please don't tell me that nothing happened last night between you two?'

‘Something happened all right.'

‘Ooh. Do tell.'

Laura told her everything. Well, not in minute detail, but in broad strokes; some things were too private to divulge. And possibly too embarrassing. But she certainly told her every single thing about the chat Ryan had had with her when she had woken up, plus her decision to continue her affair with Ryan even though she knew it was heading nowhere.

‘Please don't tell me I'm a fool,' she finished up, feeling drained all of a sudden.

‘Far from it,' Alison said. ‘If I were in your position I'd do exactly the same.'

‘You would?'

‘Yes, of course! After all, Laura, what's your alternative? You crawl back into an even more bitter and frustrated spinster cave where you hate all men and never have any fun?'

‘But what if I fall in love with him, Alison?' she cried, voicing the worst fear she had about the situation. ‘I can't afford to fall for another Mr Wrong. I just can't!'

‘But this is different to the other two. Can't you see that? They pretended they loved you. Ryan wants nothing from you but your body.'

‘But that sounds so cheap and nasty!'

‘Not to me, it doesn't. To me it sounds seriously sexy. Go for it, I say. And, if you fall in love with him, so what? You might be sad for a while when it's over, but you won't be left feeling bitter and betrayed. You'll have some wonderful memories of a great lover who's made you see how beautiful and sexy you are. And, who knows? You might turn out to be the one.'

‘What one?'

‘The one who changes his mind about love and marriage.'

Laura laughed. ‘You don't know Ryan.'

‘Maybe not, but I'd like to. Why don't you bring him over next weekend for a barbeque?'

‘I don't think he wants that kind of relationship.'

‘You mean he just wants sex from you and nothing else?' Now Alison sounded shocked. ‘No dates or anything like that?'

‘I think so.'

‘Now, that
is
cheap and nasty. You wouldn't settle for that, Laura? Surely?'

‘That's what I'm afraid of, Alison. That I might settle for
any
arrangement with him.'

‘Oh dear…'

‘What do you mean by saying “oh dear” like that?'

Alison stopped herself just in time from telling her friend that it sounded like she was already in love with him. Nothing was to be gained by telling her, if that was the case.

But she had an awful feeling that this affair was not going to turn out well for Laura. There was nothing to be gained by telling her that, either. She was damned if she did, and damned if she didn't.

‘I just don't like the thought of your agreeing to anything, Laura,' she said instead. ‘Don't lose your pride over the man, no matter how good he is in bed.'

‘A minute ago you were all for my having more sex with him!' Laura exclaimed, sounding exasperated.

‘I am. Truly. Just…be careful.'

Suddenly, she wished she hadn't encouraged Laura to go to bed with him.

‘I have to go, Alison. I can hear Ryan's car coming up the drive.'

‘Ring me tonight, will you?'

‘Maybe not till tomorrow,' Laura returned. ‘I might be busy tonight.'

Of course
, Alison thought sourly.
The lord and master of the bedroom will want another dose of what he'd obviously enjoyed last night.
And Alison knew what that was—relative innocence. That was what intrigued him about Laura, came the sudden, highly intuitive realisation. She wasn't like all the other Penthouse Pet types that playboys usually bedded. She was a lovely sincere girl with a warm heart who hadn't slept around, and who was way too vulnerable for the likes of Ryan Armstrong.

Alison grimaced as she wished she could take back all the stupid advice she'd given Laura, both yesterday and today. She should have realised that her friend wasn't cut out for strictly sexual flings. She was going to get hurt again and she, Alison, would be partly responsible. But it was too late now. The die had been cast and Laura would just have to roll with it. All Alison could do was be there when the end came.

But she wasn't looking forward to it.