Unwrapped by the Duke

by Amy Ruttan

  “Geraldine,” he said huskily. “I don’t want to ruin anything...”

  “You won’t.” She wrapped her hand around his neck. “This doesn’t have to mean anything. Please, just stay with me. Be with me.”

  Thomas gave in with a groan and took her in his arms and carried her over to his large bed across the room. Her pulse was racing with anticipation over what was going to happen, because she wanted this to happen. And she wanted it to be Thomas to erase the memories of Frederick.

  To make her not feel anything.

  She just wanted to be herself again.

  They sank onto the mattress together, kissing. She didn’t want any part of them separated. She just wanted to feel him pressed against her. No words were needed, because she knew that at this moment they both wanted the same thing. The kiss ended and they began to undress each other, slowly, kissing in between because they didn’t want to break the connection of their lips.

  Geri knew if they stopped for too long it might not happen.

  And she wanted it to happen.

  “I wanted to kiss you the moment I met you,” Thomas whispered against her cheek. “I wanted you.”

  “I wanted you to kiss me too.” She was terrified because the last time she had been this vulnerable to somebody, he’d broken her heart. Only she hadn’t given her heart to Thomas, so there was no way he could break it.

  Are you sure?

  She shook that thought out of her head and let herself be vulnerable to him. There was no point in questioning the inevitable. She wanted this. Only under Thomas’s smoldering gaze she suddenly felt a bit embarrassed about being naked in front of him. That she was so exposed to him.

  “You don’t need to hide from me,” he said, as if sensing her apprehension.

  They lay next to each other, both exposed and naked. She couldn’t get enough of touching him, feeling his muscles ripple under her fingertips, running her hands over his skin and through his hair, but the most heady feeling was having his strong hands on her.

  “I haven’t been with anyone since Frederick,” she admitted, embarrassed.

  He tipped her chin so she was looking at him. “Don’t be embarrassed.” He kissed her again, his lips urgent as he pulled her body flush with his.

  This was it.

  This was the moment. He pressed her against the mattress. His hands entwined with hers, his body so large over hers, she felt safe.

  Thomas gave her a kiss that seared her very soul. The warmth spread through her veins and then his lips moved from her mouth down her neck, following the erratic pulse points under her skin.

  Geri couldn’t ever remember feeling this way before. Not with anyone else. There was something different about this.

  “I want you so much,” she said, and she was surprised at herself for being so vocal about her desire, her need to have him possess her. She felt free. Her whole life had been about control. It had been the only way to keep the feelings out, to muddle through each day. The only way to cope with a life that had dealt with her harshly.

  His body shifted.

  “Where are you going?” she asked in a daze.

  “To get protection. I didn’t get it sooner because I couldn’t think clearly with you kissing me like that.”

  He moved away and got protection. When he came back she trembled in his arms.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he said.

  “I’m not.” And that was the truth. She wasn’t nervous, but she could feel the tremendous amount of emotion welling up inside her.

  He stroked her cheek and kissed her gently again. His lips gently nipped at her mouth, his hand on her breast and the other touching her between her legs. Desire coursed through her, was overwhelming. No man had ever made her feel this way before.

  Not even Frederick, who she’d thought had been her most passionate love affair, but then Frederick had said she was always cold between the sheets.

  “I know you want me,” Thomas whispered huskily.

  “I do.”

  He kissed her deeply as he entered her. She cried out in the pleasure of him taking her, because she couldn’t ever recall feeling like this before. He was so deep. She wrapped her legs around his legs, urging him to go even deeper. To take all of her.

  To completely possess her.

  She felt so alive. So free in that moment.

  Nothing existed but the two of them locked together in a passionate embrace. She wanted him completely as he thrust in her. It wasn’t long before both of them released, close together, in shared pleasure.

  When it was over he rolled on his back, holding her tight against him. She could hear his heart racing in time with hers. She’d never expected it to be like this with him. Of course she’d never expected it to be like anything with him, but the more time she’d spent with him the more she’d felt the ice around her heart thawing. The more she felt the control on her emotions slip away, the more alive she felt.

  And it frightened her, because she didn’t know anything else but heartache and pain.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THOMAS COULDN’T BELIEVE what had just happened. When he’d first seen Geraldine he’d been attracted to her, there was no doubt about it, and he’d thought about seducing her. Though he’d grown tired of that game. The chase and seduction. His reputation as the Dark Duke. He’d still wanted Geraldine. He just hadn’t had any intention of pursuing it further, because there was no further for him.

  Once he’d learned she was Charles’s daughter and his new partner she had become off-limits. He’d never thought this day would come. He had been going to make sure this wouldn’t happen.

  Even with Charles’s blessing.

  When they’d grown closer, he’d often fantasized about holding her in his arms, just like this, because even though he’d sworn he would never let this happen, he had desired her. The more he’d got to know her, the more he’d enjoyed being in her company, the more he’d wanted her.

  Since his father’s death and his diagnosis he’d had affair after affair, seducing women and not thinking any more about them afterwards, but he realized now it had never been like this with anyone. Not even Cassandra, who had been his longest relationship.

  Usually those seductions had taken place at their place or in a hotel. Even once in a cloakroom closet. This was the first time he’d brought someone into his home, to his room and his bed, and made love to them.

  It had been so long since he’d made love to anyone.

  This was something different and it scared him.

  There were so many emotions churning inside him. Lying here next to Geraldine was something totally different and for one moment he got an inkling of what his father had felt for his mother.

  It scared him to think of losing Geraldine because it would crush him.

  No. This isn’t love. It can’t be.

  Geraldine didn’t love him. She just needed him. She was going through something emotionally overwhelming. This was just about sating the desire they both had for each other. There had been no promises made. She’d made that clear. She just wanted him at this moment and he couldn’t let his heart open again. Not even to her.

  Why?

  He looked down at her against the pillow, her honey-brown hair fanning around her head like a halo, her body relaxed. Everything he’d just told himself seemed just like an excuse, because what he’d thought would only take once to get her out of his system made him realize that he needed more of her.

  He wanted more of her. And that scared him.

  As if she knew he was looking at her she opened her eyes and smiled up at him. A pink tinge flushed those creamy white cheeks.

  “Sorry, I drifted off.”

  “It’s quite all right,” he said. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. You must be e
xhausted.”

  “Not totally exhausted.” She smiled and then sat up. She got out of bed and picked up her clothes, pulling them on.

  “What’re you doing?” he asked.

  “Getting dressed. I should probably get home.”

  “Don’t you want to go to the hospital and see your father?”

  She shrugged. “I saw him.”

  “Do you not care that your father is going to be going through this major surgery tomorrow?”

  “You’re the surgeon. You’ll do a good job.”

  “Yes, but usually when people’s loved ones go through surgeries like this—”

  She cut him off. “There’s a difference, though. He may be my father biologically but I don’t know him well enough to feel the emotion you’re expecting from me.”

  He was shocked by her cold words. “He cares about you.”

  “He has a funny way of showing it. He’s never really gone out of his way to show me that he cares. I mean, was he even going to tell me about this angiosarcoma? He’s always so secretive. He went to a hospital across town to have chemotherapy.”

  “No,” he sighed.

  “Don’t loved ones usually tell their family about surgeries like that?” she asked testily.

  “He didn’t want you to be upset.”

  She gave him a disbelieving look and began to pull on her clothing. “This is the way he’s always been. When he introduced himself to me last year, he said, ‘Hello, my name is Charles Collins and I’m your father.’ He’s so formal. I don’t know what he expects from me. He was never there when I needed him.”

  “He didn’t know that you existed.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Thomas?” she snapped. “He should be the one telling me this.”

  “You’re absolutely right. He should be the one telling you this. Go to him.”

  “Would you stop pushing my father on me? I don’t need him. Just like every man in my life, he was never there when I needed him. He never supported me, he abandoned me. You should know about abandonment. Look what your father did to you.”

  It was like a slap across the face, but she was right.

  “You’re right.”

  “I think I’d better go,” Geraldine whispered.

  “Yes. Go and run away from your problems again,” he snapped.

  * * *

  What he’d said was like a knife through the heart, when he’d told her that she was running again. Because that’s exactly what she was doing, but saying it out loud stung all the more because he knew that she was vulnerable.

  She didn’t like feeling vulnerable.

  When Frederick had made her feel this way, she’d run away from him and given up her dream of being a surgeon.

  The one time she’d taken a chance and let a man in when she’d told herself not to she’d been hurt again. Thomas had hurt her.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said. “You haven’t been through what I’ve been through.”

  He shook his head. “How can you say that? I’ve told you about my childhood. My father was bitter. He lost my mother and unborn baby brother and that was it for him. He was done. I was just a reminder of the woman he loved. He didn’t want me around. At least your mother loved you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “My mother didn’t love me. I was a nuisance. I cramped her lifestyle. I don’t know why she didn’t send me off to live with my father, but she never did. She liked to remind me I was a burden, a mistake. I was alone most of my childhood.”

  “That is no reason to run away from your father now. Make it right.”

  “You don’t know anything,” she snapped. “It’s my life. I didn’t ask you to be a part of it.”

  His spine stiffened and his face was like thunder. “Is that how it’s going to be, then?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Fine.” He turned his back to her, closing her out, and she knew she’d ruined her chance with him. She knew she’d ruined everything and there was no going back, but Thomas didn’t know what he was talking about. He was meddling where he shouldn’t.

  She couldn’t make up with her father. The anger she carried for him was still there, although buried. She’d been alone for so long. She didn’t know how to be anything else but alone.

  Maybe you didn’t realize how lonely you were.

  “I’m not the only one running away, you know. You use your father and your heart condition as an excuse to run from any kind of attachment. To push people away. You’re no better than me. You just don’t want to admit it.”

  He didn’t acknowledge her.

  Stubborn.

  She let herself out of Thomas’s home and wandered down the street towards Holland Park. She only walked for a bit until she decided to take a taxi back to her father’s home.

  She just had to put it all out of her mind. She shouldn’t have slept with Thomas. That had been a huge mistake. They were supposed to be just business partners. That was it, but she’d let him through her barriers. He’d made her feel and having emotions that weren’t controlled was a dangerous thing indeed.

  As she walked into her father’s home it was empty. Strangely empty. Even though there had been times over the past couple of months that her father had been working or out with friends he had always come home.

  Her mother would go out sometimes and not return for days.

  She’d gotten used to having someone around. She just hadn’t realized it until now, in this moment. She’d gotten used to his presence without even knowing it. Wandering into the sitting room, she walked around aimlessly, staring at all the photographs of family members she didn’t know and who had been long gone before she’d ever come into the picture. Pictures of her father when he’d been young. Then she saw it. A picture she’d never noticed before.

  A picture of him and her mother. Happy.

  She picked up the frame and felt something taped to the back. It was a letter that was marked “Return to sender.” It was from her father to her mother and was addressed to her mother’s home in Glasgow, the home she’d grown up in, but scrawled in red ink on the front of the envelope was, “Moved, no longer lives here.”

  Which had not been true.

  Geri set the letter back down because it was not her business to read it, but she couldn’t help herself. She opened the letter and read what the words said. Tears began to stream down her face as she realized the letter had been sent just before she was born.

  And her father was begging her mother to come back to him. How much he loved her. How he didn’t care that she wasn’t part of his social class. He wanted to be with her, only her, and that there would be nobody else.

  Which was true. Her father had never remarried. Or had another romance.

  Why did her mother send the letter back? If she had just opened this letter...

  Geri shook her head. No, her mother had never loved her father. She’d made that clear. She had no interest in him, or Geraldine for that matter.

  As she looked in the mirror above the mantel she didn’t see much of her mother in herself, but she did see her father. His eyes, the color of his hair back then, his mannerisms, and she realized that he too had shut out emotions.

  Lived without feeling.

  And she realized that she was throwing away the opportunity to get to know her father. Maybe if she gave him half a chance she would know what it was like to have a parent love her. She decided she was going to go to the hospital and make things right.

  She had to make it right with her father.

  * * *

  Thomas was still fuming over his fight with Geraldine, but really what had he expected? He knew better than to dabble in the affairs of the heart.

  Perhaps she is hurt too.
<
br />   He shook that thought out of his head as he marched into the hospital in the middle of the night and headed up to see Charles.

  He had to swallow all his emotions at the moment. He couldn’t let them interfere right now, because he respected Charles too much to let him know what had just happened. His feelings aside, he had to work with Geraldine in a professional capacity. And he planned to keep it that way.

  No matter what his emotions were telling him.

  Charles was sitting up in bed. Pensive.

  “Charles?” Thomas said, unwinding his scarf as he came into the room.

  “An operating theater has become available. I want you to do the surgery. I am prepared for it. I’ve fasted. I’m ready.”

  Thomas scrubbed a hand over his face. “Are you certain?”

  Charles nodded. “I am. It’s growing too fast and I need it out. Or as much as you can get out.”

  “Have you spoken to Geraldine about this?”

  “I tried to call her a moment ago, but there was no answer.”

  Not surprising.

  Geraldine had made it quite clear that she didn’t have much affection for her father and he wondered if she had any emotions at all.

  “Do you still want to proceed with the surgery or shall we wait until you get hold of Geraldine?”

  “No, there is no point of waiting. She’d approve.”

  “Yes.”

  Geraldine wouldn’t want this surgery not to take place. Detached as she was from her father, she was logical when it came to medicine.

  “If you’re sure.”

  Charles looked at him sternly. “Very sure.”

  Thomas nodded. It would take a couple of hours for him to get his team ready and to call in his favorite scrub nurse, who he had no doubt would come in and assist him in this surgery as she was fond of Charles as well.

  He was uneasy about operating on Charles when nothing was settled between him and his daughter, but what choice did he have? Charles was his patient and insisted on having the surgery done.

  It was also in Charles’s best interests to attend to the angiosarcoma as quickly as possible. He walked into the surgeons’ locker room and began to change out of his street clothes. He tried to focus solely on the surgery that was about to take place, like he would do for any other patient. The only difference this time was he couldn’t help but think of Geraldine.