With a flick of her wrist, she turned on the gas and then pulled a pot from the shelf above her stove. As she poured the velvet red soup into the pan, the scent of coriander and a spice she couldn’t place wafted up. She stirred, willing her hands to stop shaking and her tummy to settle down. Maybe it was just a delayed effect of the shock of the day’s news settling in.
She watched the spoon as she twirled it in the thick soup and then shut her eyes. Whispering, she repeated the mantra her therapist had given her to calm herself. Though it had seemed silly when she’d first heard the phrase, she repeated it now for all she was worth. In a few minutes her pulse calmed. She tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot and laid it on the silver spoon rest on the counter. Smoothing her hands on her jeans, she took a breath and headed back to her living room.
Ryan had the TV uncrated and set up on the table. Muted sports announcers gestured across the screen.
“Gotta love technology,” he said as he fiddled with the back of the TV. “The game starts in five minutes.”
“Then we can eat in here.” Instead of coming out with a breezy casual tone, her voice sounded throaty, as if the desire that wove through her wouldn’t be wrangled.
The country music switched off outside, and the door banged behind Adam as he strode into the room.
“Not quite finished,” Adam said to Cara with a shrug and a smile. Then he saw Ryan. If a man could grow three inches by pulling himself up, Adam did it.
Ryan rose from where he crouched by the TV and towered a good four inches above Adam.
“Adam, this is Ryan. He’s fixing up the old Smith place.”
“We’ve met,” Ryan said in a gravelly voice.
The two men practically growled their greetings as they shook hands. Back East, she’d had men vying to win her, men who she suspected wanted more of what came along with her—to be part of the Barrington family and the perks such a liaison offered—more than they wanted her. Ryan and Adam were squaring off for her, for Cara the bus driver.
Any delight she felt was muted by the ratcheting tightness in her belly. The energy sparking in the room and in her was nothing to toy with. Movies and stories might attempt to portray the power of primal attraction, but she knew there was a potent quality to real attraction; its alluring power called for nothing less than being stripped down to the bone. It was power with an edge.
“Cara says you’ve done the place up well,” Adam said as he stepped back.
“Just getting started,” Ryan said. He hadn’t done anything specific, but she felt that he’d cast a glass shield around her, a shield he wasn’t about to let Adam penetrate.
“Well, I was just leaving,” Adam said to Ryan. He turned a challenging smile to Cara. “See you tomorrow.” He walked out the door.
Was it her imagination or did Ryan gloat as he sat on her small couch?
“Here,” he said as he patted the cushion beside him. “I’ll show you how to work it.” He waved a gray remote. “I love this. One remote works everything.” He glanced around the room. “You do have a cellphone, don’t you?”
“It’s Northern California, not the Serengeti,” she said in a teasing tone. “We even have running water.”
He laughed.
She would never tire of the sound of his laugh. It lifted her in places she didn’t even know needed lifting. She felt some of the tension that had grabbed her in the kitchen ease.
“That’s good, because it works off the cell signal. Until you get a satellite dish.”
“I’m not getting a satellite dish,” she protested. He raised a brow. “And don’t go getting any ideas.”
She sat beside him and took the remote he held out to her. He was right. It was easy to work the controls. And it was evident the TV was a gift. But it was vastly easier to control the TV than it was to temper the flutter of her nerves. Just sitting near him made her feel light-headed.
“You ever watch baseball?”
His tone was easy, casual. She tried to tune into it as if she could align her body and relax. Fat chance.
“A little,” she answered. “I went to a few Yankees games with my grandfather.”
“Now there’s a tough stadium to hit in. How long did you live in New York?”
“Oh, off and on maybe... ” Maybe all her life. She’d had three years to perfect answers to these questions, had even practiced some, but Ryan threw her off her game. “Off and on until I went to college.”
This was going to be a tougher evening than she’d imagined. His open manner once again made her want to abandon her defenses and bare her soul. She was sure he was going to continue his questions and only hoped she wouldn’t have to lie outright. She straightened her spine, preparing to dodge and wishing she didn’t have to.
But then he reached over and took her hand.
“Is it okay if I kiss you?”
She froze.
A hundred reasons that it wasn’t okay raced through her mind, like debris flying in a wild wind.
He moved his hand up her arm and pulled her closer.
Inches from him, all she could feel was heat. It must’ve melted her brain because she found herself nodding yes.
He reached his hand to the nape of her neck, never taking his eyes off hers. He wasn’t smiling. How a man could appear gentle and yet searing at the same time, she didn’t know. Before she could put another thought together, he dipped his lips to hers.
Tumbling. Falling, lost... And yet a voice inside her whispered home. But when her tongue met his, even that voice drifted away as desire melted the hard edges of her wariness and she gave over to the power his kiss fired. It felt so good, tasting him, testing herself, joining their mouths and tongues. She’d missed him. Missed this. It was as if the boundary of her body and his had disappeared and she floated with him in a radiant, enveloping pulse of light and heat and pure sensation. When he pulled away, she felt like she’d been unplugged from the source of life itself.
“I smell something burning,” he said.
He stroked his thumb along the curve of her jaw. She fought her desire to feel his lips against hers, to rejoin the blissful, disorienting journey once again. But she didn’t, couldn’t, move.
“Maybe we should do something about it?” he whispered against her cheek.
Snapped back into the room, back into her brain, she jumped up.
“The soup!”
Her legs were rubbery as she dashed into the kitchen. Her hands still trembled as she flicked off the flame and grabbed the wooden spoon. The spoon dragged at the crusted bottom of the pot.
“I think it’s salvageable,” she shouted from the kitchen. Her voice sounded foreign to her. The world she’d visited while lost in his kiss hadn’t fully released its grip.
She spooned the soup into bowls, slid a spoon into each bowl and walked with still unsteady steps back into her living room. Her brain tattooed messages into her, reminding her of the reasons an affair with Ryan Rea was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea. Terrifically poor timing, exactly what she did not need. If she was going to put the brakes on, she’d better do it now.
He stood and took the bowls from her and set them on the table near the base of the TV.
Then he turned and grasped her by her forearms and held her in his gaze as he drew her to him. She saw the force of his wanting and felt her own and fought both.
“It’ll get cold,” she stammered, backing up a step.
“Reheating is a guy’s best friend.” He curved his hands around her waist and tugged her back to him.
“But the game—”
“There are more than a dozen games left in the season.”
Before she could come up with a response, his lips met hers.
Her body took over and shut down the voice saying no. As his hands slid up under her sweater, her body arched to meet him. She tore at his shirt and slid her palms up the hard planes of his chest. A groan escaped him as she bit at his lips. He grabbed the hem of her sweater and pulled it over he
r head.
“You’re beautiful, Cara.”
She heard his words but more astonishing, she felt them. A shiver ran through her as he curved his palms under her breasts. Her nipples puckered in the cool room, and he bent down and closed his mouth over her breast, teasing her already hard nipple with his teeth. She shuddered, and her legs began to buckle under her.
With unsteady hands she held his shoulders, pressing into them as she fought for balance. He nipped at her again and cradled her other breast in his palm. She threw her head back and swayed with the delight of rushing pleasure. He caught her around her waist and lifted her in his arms, his mouth finding hers as he lowered her to the couch. It was more than a kiss; his lips crushed hers. She arched up as liquid heat and want fired with near painful intensity.
But then he pulled away.
Cool air rushed against her breasts. She lifted up, reaching for the button at the waist of his jeans, but he put his palm to her shoulder and pressed her back against the couch. He held her in a penetrating gaze as he pulled her jeans down her hips. She saw the question in his eyes, and she nodded. Nothing would keep her from sating the want he’d ignited. His breath came quick, hers came quicker. He tossed her jeans to the floor and slid his hands beneath her. Her breath caught in her chest as he cupped her bottom. She arched up, his hands following her bucking, and lifting her higher. His lips brushed against her thighs. He lowered her hips and pulled her panties down her legs and tossed them away. As his mouth reached her sex and his tongue circled her already throbbing peak, sensation shut down thought, and Cara lost herself to pleasure.
Chapter Twelve
Clutching her clothes, Cara hurried up the stairs to her bedroom. In the breathless aftermath of world-rocking sex, dressing in front of him was more than she could handle. She needed a few moments alone to get her bearings. Wordlessly she had wrapped her sweater around her bare hips, grabbed her jeans and headed for the stairs.
As she’d walked out of the room, she’d felt his eyes on her and felt strangely self-conscious. No, more than self-conscious. She was off kilter. Sex with Ryan had shocked her. Not the frenzied movements, not the almost violent way they’d ripped at each other’s clothes as if there were only seconds of time left to live, not the urgent arching, the primal thrusting or the loss of control. What shocked her was the realization that until the moment their bodies joined, until he’d filled her, rocked her, pleasured her, she hadn’t known what she’d been missing. The recognition that her body was designed to harness the power the meeting of their bodies ignited stripped her bearings from her. It was as if the language of their touch had given her the magic words to enter a portal of an unknown universe and she was a new creature, foreign to herself. As if her inner and outer realities were no longer distinguishable.
Never had she felt such a loss of control. Never had she been swept into a vortex of pleasure beyond imagining. Never had she felt so close to a person that she’d become a part of him and he a part of her.
She dropped down on the edge of her bed and took a breath. And a resonant peace washed through her. She squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to hold on to the bliss, knowing that any moment thoughts would rush in and tear it away.
She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked slowly. Rhythmically. And said another silent thanks that he’d maintained enough control to slip on a condom. She hadn’t been in any frame of mind to remember that. It occurred to her that perhaps he hadn’t been as carried away as she’d been; she had little experience with passion. She dropped her chin, her face heating, wondering if he thought she’d gotten too carried away. If so, how could she face him again?
But as she remembered the look in his eyes as he’d kissed her afterward, she was pretty sure he’d been in pretty deep too. And then she grinned. Yeah, he’d been rocked.
She rose from the bed and slipped on her robe, then turned to look in her mirror. And immediately she knew that the silken robe would send the wrong signal. Well, it would send the right signal, but she couldn’t imagine surviving another rush of passion so soon.
She needed to think, get her wits back about her. There were many forces at work unraveling her carefully laid out life plan, but what truly scared her was a dawning realization that she might have to choose between freedom and love.
And perhaps what scared her most was her lack of fear at the dissolving of her established boundaries.
When she’d moved to Albion Bay she’d learned to rope in her impulses, learned to be resolute about what she could and couldn’t say. Learned the forces at work in the town and come to find her place within them. So she could be resolute. Usually. But the power he’d freed was like a nourishing force, filling her until she felt it not only inside but outside, as if it pulsed from within her. It wasn’t a power at her command.
She slipped her sweater and jeans back on and headed down the stairs.
When she returned to her living room, he had reheated the soup and had napkins set out beside the bowls.
He shook out a napkin and handed it to her, his eyes searching her face. “Told you reheating was a guy’s best friend.”
She took the napkin and forced a smile.
“The Braves are ahead,” he said, nodding toward the TV.
It was as if he knew she felt awkward. Maybe he did too, but he didn’t show it. Or maybe he did this sort of thing all the time. He was a rich, handsome, single, sexy man living in the fast lane; women probably threw themselves at him. The thought dismayed her, and doubt flooded in.
She sipped from her spoon. Though she was aware of being hungry, she could barely swallow. Trying to relax, she spooned in a few more bites. The simple red pepper soup warmed a path in her, easing her. But her pulse hadn’t settled down one bit. The game was just a hum in the background; he’d turned the sound down low. To her surprise, the murmur of the announcers was almost soothing.
He set his bowl on the table and turned to her. “I won’t apologize for how this went down,” he said, gesturing to the couch. “But next time—if you’ll give me a next time—I want to love you properly, in a bed. To go slow and give you the pleasure you deserve.”
His eyes scanned her face, and she looked away, not ready to reveal the conflicting feelings warring in her.
He took her bowl from her, then took both her hands in his.
“I want to know you, Cara. Everything. Your favorite color. What you did as a kid. What fantasies and fascinations you keep locked up in here.” He tapped a finger against her heart.
Something snapped in her. He wanted to know more about the person she’d fought so hard to become, the person she was under all the trappings she’d thrown off with such effort. But what she presented wasn’t the whole picture. It wasn’t pretense, but it was exclusion.
Yet keeping details of her life from him was more than an exclusion. No matter how much she wished it otherwise, deception lived at the heart of her life. And now guilt swept her like an insistent tide that wouldn’t be turned back. She could imagine how she would feel if she were him, if he kept such a secret from her. Before tonight, before he’d cracked her world open, she’d imagined they’d date, have fun, enjoy one another’s company.
But that was a lie she couldn’t go on telling herself.
When he’d kissed her by the stream, when she’d felt the answering energy coursing from him, she’d known then that he wanted more than to date her. The realization had buoyed and sunk her at the same time.
And she hadn’t fathomed the way connecting her body with his would tip the balance and throw everything off. She hadn’t thought past the driving force of her desire. She simply hadn’t thought.
“I’m partial to blue,” he said with a grin.
Blue.
The word barely registered. His eyes searched her face when she didn’t respond.
“I’m fond of green,” she said, grasping to fill the silence. Green was her favorite color—at least she could be honest about that. Her brain was kicking in, whizzin
g out scenarios, none of them happy.
“All sorts of greens,” she added as she pulled her hands from his.
She couldn’t think right when he touched her.
“The greens of early spring leaves, the faded green of the late-summer grasses.” She pressed her palms to the knees of her jeans, wiping away the evidence of her surging heart. “There are so many shades of green.”
Her voice was shaky. And though he cast a half smile, she saw the puzzlement in his eyes. He was a perceptive man, she knew that. This was more than a conversation about favorite colors. He was testing her for trust.
Trusting a person was her number one need.
The irony of her own untrustworthiness hit her hard.
It wasn’t fair to Ryan to take the relationship deeper, not if she wasn’t ready to come clean. And she wasn’t ready to give up the life she’d fought so hard to carve out, not yet, maybe not ever. Giving up getting to know him was one more sacrifice she might have to make if she wanted to keep her life on track.
That she’d trade the shaky prospect of love for the very real state of freedom didn’t surprise her.
What surprised her was that in such a short time she’d become more than fond of him; the force of her feelings shocked her. And though she’d shoved down the voice that said he was a key to her happiness, she hadn’t shut it off completely. That insistent voice felt like a lifeline to her future, like a harmony of words that, if she tiptoed across them, sounding them out as she went, would show her the way. It would’ve been easier to ignore the voice, to simply tell herself that she’d had an amazing experience, that he’d shown her not only a world but a way of being that maybe someday she’d know again. But she didn’t believe that; fate likely didn’t give people second chances, not if they turned their back on its generosity.
“The field in every stadium has a different color of green,” Ryan said, picking up on the thread of the conversation and still watching her face. “The grasses, even AstroTurf, come in different shades.” He lifted his spoon and swallowed down some soup. “I hate AstroTurf. It’s a conspiracy to keep the trainers in business.”
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