by Dani Collins
The bed itself was a king-size statement of power, tall and stalwart, its linens almond colored with a bold chocolate stripe across the foot. She dragged her eyes away from it as she heard a whispery sound and the light changed.
Ryzard moved with deliberation to draw woven shades down into a clip, allowing filtered sunlight to penetrate, but giving them privacy.
Her stomach swooped and she put out her hand, not sure where to find purchase when the floor was dipping at the same time.
“I thought we’d go to a room in the club,” she said, linking her hands before her to hide that she was trembling with nerves. And excitement.
He turned from the last window and brushed away his mask, tossing it aside. “As I said, I don’t want to be interrupted.”
By staff wanting to pack their belongings, she imagined he meant, but couldn’t speak because he came close enough to remove her mask.
She stopped him.
“I’ve seen your face, Tiffany.”
“I don’t want you to see how scared I am.”
He frowned. “Of me?”
“Your reaction.”
He shook his head, dismissing her fear as he trailed light fingertips over her clothing, grazing the sides of her breasts and settling warm hands on her waist. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you again. I wish you’d warned me the other night. I wasn’t nearly as gentle as I could have been.”
“I know pain, Ryzard. That was nothing.”
“It was something,” he told her, pulling her close enough to brush his mouth against hers, not properly kissing her. Teasing. “I’ll never forget it.”
An odd expression spasmed across his face before he controlled it, as if he hadn’t meant to admit that to her, but she drew in his confession like air, deeply affected, wanting to hold on to this special feeling he provoked in her. Everything in her yearned so badly to please him, and she was so sure she wouldn’t.
Get it over with, she told herself. She had to let him see and judge and reject before she climbed too high in optimism and desire. A long fall from excitement to disgust would be more than she could bear. If she did it now, before they’d gone too far, she’d still be able to dress and trudge into the nearest town to phone her brother—the one she kept forgetting about.
For now, she had to gather her courage.
Gently removing Ryzard’s hands from her waist, she took a step back. The mask seemed like a tiny bit of necessary protection so she kept it, reaching first for the single button that held her linen jacket closed.
Removing it exposed her arm, marbled in streaks of red and pink, some parts geometric patterns from the grafts, other edges random and white. Not looking at him, she opened her pants and stepped out of them. Her left leg was as bad as her arm, and the top of her good right thigh was peppered with rectangles where they’d taken skin to patch the bad. Her stomach had the same types of scars. She threw off her sleeveless silk top and stood there in her cherry red bra and underpants and gold gladiator sandals.
For the life of her, she couldn’t lift her chin. Her eyes were glued to the floor, her mind full of the rugged road map her body had become. No ivory virgin here.
“You do know pain, Tiffany,” he said quietly.
That brought her eyes up. He studied her gravely, all the way to her toes, and gradually climbed his gaze back to her face. Stepping closer, he touched her chin to bring her face up and looked into her eyes. His were somber, but glowing with something fierce.
“You humble me. I don’t know if I could have fought through such a thing.”
She had to bite her lips to keep them from trembling.
Gently he removed her mask and let it fall. She felt incredibly vulnerable, standing before him nearly naked when he was clothed.
“Do not be ashamed of your courage to survive.”
She had wanted to be told she was pretty despite her scars, but what he said was better, filling her with an emotion she couldn’t describe. Tipping into him, she hugged him tight.
And realized he was aroused. His hand swept her bare back down to where her thong exposed her naked cheek. With a purposeful clench of his fingers into the firm flesh, he tilted her hips into pressing where he grew harder by the second.
“You’re turned on,” she breathed in wonder.
“I’ve got you naked next to a bed. How the hell else would I react?”
That made her laugh, then she squealed as he picked her up and lightly tossed her onto the mattress. Coming up on her elbows, she accused, “Caveman.”
“Believe it,” he confirmed, yanking off his shirt and dropping it away. His pants came off with similar haste. “Off with the rest,” he ordered, jerking his chin at her lingerie. “This time we’re both naked.”
He was, in record time, and pulled off her shoes without ceremony.
“Don’t wreck them. I like those,” she protested, pausing in finding the clip between her breasts to reach for the strap of her shoe.
“What about these?” he asked, hooking two fingers in her panties at her hip. “Special favorite? Because I’m out of patience.” He snapped them.
“Oh!” Why his primitive act turned her on, she couldn’t imagine, but the way he loomed over her, practically overwhelming her with his strength, gave her a thrill. Probably because she felt totally safe despite his resolute expression and proprietary touch. He was impatient, but not without discipline. He threw away her bra, but then he simply held her, his weight on one elbow as he studied her breasts.
“Does this hurt?” he asked, tracing where her scar licked like a flame up the side of her breast.
“I can barely feel anything. Just a bit of pressure. Nerve damage. You know how your face feels after the dentist and the freezing is just starting to come out?”
“Good to know. I’ll focus where you can feel it.” He cupped her breast and flicked her nipple with his thumb.
The sensation was sharper than she anticipated, and she flinched.
“No?” he prompted.
“I— No, it’s good, just really...” She blushed. This was surreal, lying in full light with a gorgeous man naked against her. Twin desires to curl into him and to stop and give herself time to take it in accosted her.
He lowered his head to lick, and her inner muscles clenched like a fist, tearing a sound of reaction out of her.
Almost experimentally, he switched to her other breast, teasing and making her shift restlessly. It felt incredible, but wasn’t quite as intense as the other.
He moved to her left one again and another shot of extreme sensation went through her, flooding her loins with a heated rush of pleasure. She didn’t know if her nerve endings were compensating for others nearby that had ceased to work, but the way his tongue toyed so delicately made her pinch her thighs together.
“That one is really sensitive,” she panted, smoothing her hand over his short, thick hair and clutching at his shoulders, not sure if she wanted him to stop or take her over the edge.
“I can tell,” he said with smoldering approval. Opening his mouth on her, he sucked delicately, nearly levitating her off the bed.
“Ryzard,” she cried, knee bending and thighs opening as she tried to grasp more of him. With a growl, he slid down and bit softly at her inner thigh. “Do you know how many things I want to do to you?”
Moaning, she threw her arm over her eyes and surrendered. “Do anything. I love everything you do to me.”
For a second he did nothing. She wondered if she’d done something wrong and started to drop her arm away. Then she felt his touch delicately parting her. His mouth. Pressing the back of her wrist against her open mouth, she muffled her throaty groan of abject joy. To be wanted like this, so deliciously ravished, brought tears of happiness to the seams of her closed eyes.
And oh that was nice. P
leasure coiled and built on itself through her middle, winding her into the sweetest tension. She wanted release and she wanted this to go on and on. Then he slid a testing finger in her, and she knew exactly what she wanted.
And told him.
“I can’t wait, either,” he said in a raw voice, as if the truth stunned him. In a sliding lunge across her, he nearly yanked the bedside drawer from its table and seconds later smoothed latex down his length.
When he pressed into her, she welcomed him with a gasp, nails tightening into his skin as he possessed her with ruthless care, slow and inexorable. Through her lashes, she watched him watching her and bit her lip, feeling deeply exposed, but moved by the intimacy at the same time.
“I can’t believe I’m the only man who knows how amazing you are,” he said gutturally, hands holding her head as he rocked side to side, settling deep inside her, sealing their connection.
Her body didn’t feel like her own. She trembled in arousal, limbs both weak and strong, clinging to him. Her mouth offered itself, parting and begging for his.
* * *
With a tortured growl, Ryzard kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her, wanting more and more of her. All of her. Indelibly.
But that intense, deep possession couldn’t be sustained forever. Eventually, he drew back enough for ecstasy to strum through him as her sheath stroked and clenched around him. She smelled incredible, felt even better, tasted like forbidden substances. He became animalistic, purely in his physical state, senses captured and held by this creature who entranced him. Nothing entered his vision except the expression of exquisite torture against the unique pattern on her face.
In a rare moment of unguarded openness, he removed his internal shields so he could fully absorb the pure, sweet light of her. His only thought was to fill her with the same all-encompassing rapture that held him in its grip.
She sobbed his name and he increased his tempo, reacting to her need and compelled to fulfill it. She met him thrust for thrust, their bodies so attuned they scaled the cliff together and soared into the abyss with perfect affinity. Clutching her tight under him, buried deep in her shivering depths, he let out a ragged cry of triumph as he gave in to pulse-pounding release.
CHAPTER SIX
RYZARD ROLLED AWAY, then settled on his back, his body brushing hers, but only incidentally. He wasn’t embracing or meaning to touch her that Tiffany could tell.
She turned her head to see his profile was unreadable. Not displeased, but not...
Oh, she didn’t know what she was looking for. A spear of inadequacy impaled her. While she had been caught up in their lovemaking, she’d been fine, but now she was back to being scared and self-conscious of her scars. She sat up.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said, hand loosely cuffing her wrist.
Ha. Where could she go? They weren’t allowed back into the club. Hello, big brother, can you pick me up at the docks?
Glancing over her shoulder, she tried to read his mood behind his heavy eyelids, but his spiky lashes made it impossible.
“You seem...” She didn’t want to reveal how sensitive she was to disapproval right now. They might have been intimate in other ways before, but this was different. It wasn’t just the physicality or revealing of her scars. She’d been incredibly uninhibited, exposing the very heart of herself.
“It’s probably best if I go,” she managed in a husky voice.
“I don’t know what I seem, but I’m only trying to assimilate something that—” He breathed a word in his own language. She suspected it was a curse, but his tone was kind of awed and self-deprecating at the same time.
Facing forward, she closed her lids against a sudden sting, biting back an urge to beg him to continue what he’d almost said. It sounded as if he was as moved by their lovemaking as she was, which was balm to her tattered soul.
He released her wrist to stroke her lower back, making her lift her head from where she’d let it droop to rest on her knees.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Just trying not to act like a first-timer.”
“This is unique for both of us.”
She tried not to drink too deeply of that heady assessment. She was already falling for him in little ways and couldn’t afford to become too enamored. This was merely an extension of their one-night stand.
“You keep condoms in the drawer by the bed,” she pointed out. “I’m not that unique.”
A beat of dark silence, then, “I never claimed to be a virgin.”
She wanted to glare at him, but couldn’t risk him seeing how hard it was for her to acknowledge his experience. Why? What right did she have to possessive feelings? She was lucky to be included in his special club at all.
“And this won’t be the only bed I’ll ever be in, so—hey!”
He had her on her back and under him before she realized he could move that fast.
“Here’s a tip for someone new to this,” he growled. “We don’t discuss past and future lovers, particularly when we’re still making love to each other.”
She blinked in shock, heart hammering.
His aggression fell away to a baffled, tender caress that he smoothed along her good cheek. “Don’t make me feel guilty for my life before I met you. How could I have known that what I thought was pleasure...” His expression clouded with a look of such angst, it made her heart hurt.
“It’s just chemistry,” she assured him, teetering inwardly against her own words even as she attempted to comfort him with them. The remark went directly against her girlish desire to hear that she was actually very special to him.
She held her breath, hoping against logic that he’d offer such a pledge.
“Exceptional chemistry,” he agreed. His hungry gaze followed his hand as he caressed from her lips to her collarbone, across the damp underside of her breast and down to her hip where his thumb aligned to the crease at the top of her leg. “But you do understand this is simply an affair? It can’t lead to anything permanent. I’m not the sort of life partner you’re looking for.”
His blunt statement fell between them like a metal wall, softened only by the expression of regret on his face.
“Glad you said it first,” she said with a poignant smile, hoping it hid the way she tensed internally. She was as wary of certain fantasies as he was, but not nearly as adept at cutting her emotions out of her heart. “I told you what I think of being the woman behind the man. You’re merely a guilty indulgence, like cheating on a diet.”
His brow winged, indignant but amused. “Let’s fatten you up then.”
* * *
Ryzard gave up trying to work. They’d been sailing three hours already, so he had another word with his captain, then remained at the helm while his instructions were carried out. As the wind whipped his shirt through the open windows of the pilothouse, he once again congratulated himself on having the wisdom to switch from a single-hulled sailboat to the double construction of a cat. The three-sixty views and flexibility with anchorage were worth the ribbing he received from traditionalists.
Hell, if he had allowed his concentration to wander like this on his old schooner, they’d all be dead, but here he could indulge himself with recollecting every delicious minute of his day. He’d devoted several hours to learning each and every one of Tiffany’s pleasure triggers, stimulating both of them as he expanded both of their educations in physical delight. Sweetest of all had been her generous straddling of him, broken voice asking for direction as she tugged him along her path to bliss.
They’d been like drunkards at that point, sheened in perspiration. Her eyes had been glassy, her pouted lips reddened by a thousand kisses. Her breasts had swayed with their undulations, her hips an instrument of torture he wielded on himself as he guided her with hands clamped tight in ownership.
> He’d been sure he would die, it had been that good.
Rubbing his face, he dragged himself back to reality, yanking open his collar in search of a cool breeze to take his libido down a notch. They were flying over the waves, skipping at a light angle, demanding he pay attention, but all he could think was, how could he be this aroused again? She’d drained him dry. They’d collapsed into unconsciousness, utterly exhausted from making love.
He’d woken soon after, sweaty and thick with recovery, wanting her again.
When he’d shifted, she’d grumbled without opening her eyes, “Don’t move. My hip hurts. I need to keep my leg propped.”
He didn’t doubt it. His joints had protested his rising from the bed, and he’d never crashed and burned in a roadster. He’d substituted a pillow under her thigh and watched her settle back into sleep before taking his insatiable libido for a cold shower in a spare cabin.
Then he’d made a decision he was still second-guessing, but it was done. She was his.
I love everything you do to me. The power of that statement unexpectedly exploded in his mind again, but that first bit, I love...
He scratched his chest where a sensation gathered like sweat trickling. The tickle was behind his breastbone, uncomfortable and impossible to erase. It’s just chemistry, she’d said as he’d been reeling from a depth of pleasure he’d never experienced before.
He’d agreed with her, clinging to that simple explanation, but it was harder to blame chemistry when he’d found himself unable to wake her and send her on her way.
Why not? Why was his response to her, on every level, so much more intense than it had been with the woman he’d loved, the one he’d pledged to marry? He hated himself for it, but he couldn’t deny it.
He and Luiza hadn’t had the luxury of time and privacy to soak themselves in sexual intimacy, though. Their bond had been forged by shared secrets and ideals. She had loved him when he’d had no one else. Her vision had become his.