by Rachel Lee
“Promise me,” he murmured as he kissed her neck and caressed her breasts, “you’ll tell me if anything hurts even a tiny bit.”
“Promise,” she answered with the last bit of air she seemed to be able to find. She was flying again, rising to the heights with this man. His hand found her center and the knot of exquisite nerves. For just an instant his touch almost hurt, but then her body began the inevitable blossoming.
“Ryker?” Impatience began to drive her.
“Shh...” A mere whisper as his fingers lashed her back to the precipice. Then, she felt him enter her, stretching her, filling her, answering a need she had forgotten she had. It felt so good to be filled with him, so good.
Then he drove her crazy by continuing to caress her and move very slowly within her. Gently. He didn’t look like a gentle man, but his tenderness with her was amazing.
Little by little he carried her up, refusing to increase his pace, making her want to cry out for more. But he didn’t give it to her, drawing the experience out, taking half a lifetime in which she reached new pinnacles of longing and pleasure, until the ache became too much to bear. Then, at last, the explosion rolled over her, leaving her nearly blind with its intensity. Only dimly did she feel him stiffen behind her, followed by the throbbing of his member as he reached his own satisfaction.
Replete, exhausted, she tumbled with him into utter bliss.
* * *
She fell asleep almost instantly. That amused Ryker, but he figured she’d had a long day, and she hadn’t taken her usual nap. He reached across the bed, trying not to disturb her, and managed to pull most of the blankets over her to keep her warm.
Then he lay holding her, staring at the wall beyond her bed, dealing with the sense that something inside him had just changed permanently. No other sexual experience had left him feeling that way, except his very first, but Marisa had somehow changed him.
Or maybe the change had been coming on for a while. He’d certainly begun questioning himself in ways he never had before. Deep inside him resided an uncomfortable feeling, the sense that he was unworthy to hold this woman.
She didn’t make him feel that way, but the very fact that he was feeling it acted like a warning flag. At some level he was trying to deal with a basic fact: he could go back to his regular life, or he could make a drastic change so he wouldn’t feel unworthy of the gift Marisa had just given him.
He needed to be wary of such questions because they could blunt his edge, and all too often his life depended on his edge. So, pretty soon here he was going to have to answer the question: Was he going back or taking a different direction?
His hand rested over her belly, atop the blanket, and he felt the baby stir and kick. Absolutely magical. He spread his hand so he could feel it better and thought about a new little girl coming into this world, all shiny and spotless and eager for life. He’d like to feel even a touch of that eagerness again. He supposed Marisa would, too.
Life left no one shiny and spotless, though. Everyone got dinged and picked up some stains. Life sometimes shoveled manure as if it were a game.
The question was what you did about it. He thought he’d been accomplishing good and important things, that the inevitable stains didn’t outweigh the good he’d done. Then he thought about a fatherless child who would soon enter this world and wondered whether any of his past missions could ever outweigh the importance of caring for a child.
Maybe Johnny had missed his boat to redemption.
Ryker sighed quietly and tried to wipe the questions from his head. He had grown increasingly certain that he needed to change something, that he was getting tired of his mission-oriented life, but he had to be careful about what he chose.
His parents kept nagging him to settle down, especially his mother. Sometimes he was quite certain that she believed he was a changeling. They didn’t know any more about what he did than Marisa, but they knew it wasn’t “normal.” His mother’s worried gaze popped up in his mind’s eye, and he felt her concern for him reach across the miles. He could never answer her questions, nor erase her fears for him, not as long as he kept his job. His missions were important, but maybe he’d failed to consider how they affected others. The way John had apparently never given any real thought to what might become of Marisa.
On the one hand he was making sacrifices for his country. On the other he was stealing something from the people he cared about most. Facing that, he knew the time for change had come. No ifs, ands or buts. The attitude shift in him answered the question.
Now all he had to do was figure it out.
* * *
Marisa slept through the entire night. When her eyes popped open and saw the digital clock beside the bed, she started. She was alone in the bed, and now she was embarrassed. What a way to treat Ryker after their incredible lovemaking. Hurrying, she popped out of bed, showered and dressed quickly in one of Johnny’s old sweatshirts and a pair of stretchy fleece pants.
She found Ryker in the kitchen enjoying coffee with a stack of toast on the table. He looked at her with a warm smile. “Sleep well?” he asked.
“I can’t believe... Ryker, I’m sorry. That was rude.”
“Rude?” He shook his head, laughing quietly, and rose to wrap her in his arms. She leaned into him, loving the way it felt to be held by him. Then, gently, he turned her around so that she leaned back into his embrace. One of his hands settled over her swollen belly, the other cupped her breast boldly, causing her to gasp with instant pleasure.
“No apologies,” he said, dropping a kiss on her neck. “It was wonderful. You were tired. How are you and how’s your little passenger?”
“We’re fine. We’re better than fine,” she admitted, relaxing into him. “It was so beautiful.”
“It was,” he agreed, his voice nearly a deep purr. “Perfect. But now I need to feed you.”
She felt reluctance as he released her and urged her into a chair. As she sat, she realized she didn’t want him to let go of her. She wanted him to take her back to bed and bring that miraculous magic to her once more.
Just looking at him made her ache with hunger. She no longer cared why it had happened; it had just happened, and right now it made her feel happy. She was allowed that, right?
He fed her scrambled eggs and toast, along with a cup of coffee and a tall glass of orange juice. He sat across from her with his own coffee, just smiling.
There was a peace to this morning, the kind of peace she hadn’t felt in a long time. For once she didn’t even remind herself that he’d leave her the way Johnny had so often. This morning none of that mattered.
Her appetite seemed to have reawakened with her, and she ate heartily...at least until shyness began to overtake her. She wasn’t usually a shy person, but so much had changed last night. The intimacy they’d shared... All of a sudden, the memory of how she had cut loose, how she had asked Ryker to take her to bed, overwhelmed her. How did they move forward now? She didn’t have a thing to say, even though her body was still vibrating at his presence.
“Marisa? Are you regretting last night?”
She glanced up and saw that his face had shadowed, lost some of its relaxation. “No,” she said swiftly. “I’m just...it’s just...” She bit her lip. “I don’t know where we go from here. I just feel...shy, I guess. Unsure. Last night changed things, and I don’t know quite what to say or do.”
She darted a look at him and was amazed to see him smiling. “Ah,” he said as if he understood that garble.
“Ah?”
He tilted his head to one side briefly, a kind of shrug. “I think I get it. Well, this doesn’t change anything you don’t want it to change. I’m still the same Ryker, except that I happen to be feeling quite special this morning.”
“You feel special?” The idea amazed her.
He nodded and leaned forward,
reaching for her hand. “You gave me an incredible gift. Why wouldn’t I feel special?”
“But...you gave me something special, too.”
“I hope so. Just relax and be yourself. I wouldn’t change one hair on your head, Marisa Hayes. Not one. You’re beautiful, you’re generous with yourself, you’re a loving person. You deserve every good thing in life. If I gave you one of them, then I’m a very lucky guy.”
Wow, that was overwhelming from a man who had often seemed to her to live behind impenetrable walls. Except those walls had been coming down, like with the Christmas tree yesterday. For whatever reason, he was reaching out for something. Maybe not her, but he was reaching, and she suspected he was trying to regain something he’d lost.
She turned her hand over, clasping his in return. “Thank you.”
His smile deepened. “Today’s a good day for just basking in the glow, don’t you think?”
“Carpe diem?” she asked.
He laughed. “I take ’em where I can get ’em.”
Which reminded her of when he had said that he loved ’em and left ’em. He’d warned her, and she’d reached for him, anyway. But certainly she wasn’t naive enough to fall for him. She knew their time together was limited. No, she wasn’t foolish enough to do that.
So why not just enjoy the day?
* * *
They cuddled on the couch much of the day, taking time to eat, enjoying the tree and desultory conversation that just kind of rambled. It wasn’t as if either of them were in a mood to dive into deep emotional waters.
Hardly surprising her, he admitted to having been a bit of a daredevil as a kid and showed her the scars to prove it. Stitches and broken bones had been common for him as a child, and he recounted the time his mother had stood beside him in the emergency room and just burst out with, “Will you, please, just live long enough to grow up?”
“I think I was hard on her,” he admitted. “She tried to shrug a lot of it off as natural high jinks, but finally it really started to get to her. I behaved a little better after that.”
“Really? I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Well, there were only a few more stitches and no broken bones.”
She sighed, feeling his shoulder beneath the back of her head. His arm wrapped around her, beneath her breasts and just over her belly. She spoke. “I think I’m glad I’m having a girl.”
“Nothing says a girl can’t be a daredevil, too.”
She laughed. “I guess not.”
“What about you?”
“Nothing like you. I was kind of a geek or a nerd, or whatever it’s called these days. Always buried in books. Part of the chess team and debate team. Editor of the school paper. A bookworm, in short.”
“You’re one helluva pretty bookworm.”
“I didn’t date,” she admitted. “I’m not sure, but I think I scared guys off.”
“I can’t imagine it.”
“Well, I sure didn’t appeal to them.”
He lifted his hand, cupping her breast. “Say that one more time, I dare you.”
“What are you going to do?” she demanded.
“This?” He rubbed his palm back and forth across the peak of her breast. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her nipple hardened instantly. Shivers of longing poured through her. “Ryker...” she gasped.
“Let me tease you. I think we need to be careful.” He stopped caressing her and instead gave her a gentle squeeze.
“My doctor said...”
“I’m sure your doctor was right. But I’m not sure he was imagining a marathon. For your sake, I can wait. How about you?”
She sighed, closing her eyes, clamping her thighs together to quiet her hunger. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Maybe better than finding out someone was totally wrong.”
She couldn’t deny it.
“Besides, I’m really enjoying this, holding you like this. Sad truth about Ryker Tremaine?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t do this. Ever. But here I am, and I’m thinking about all I chose to miss until you came along.”
Her heart filled with an odd combination of pleasure and pain. Pleased that he was content with holding her like this, sad that he had missed so much. “That was sweet,” she said.
“Just the unvarnished truth. Any other time in my life I wouldn’t have been here this morning.”
She caught her breath. The swelling in her heart no longer contained any pleasure at all. She couldn’t tell which of them she hurt more for, him or her. This was ephemeral, she reminded herself. A passing moment he might well forget as soon as he left. Meaningless. It had to be meaningless, because she couldn’t return to the life she had lived with Johnny. Not now. Not with a baby.
“Anyway,” he said presently, “don’t you have a party to plan? We could talk about that. And about whether to do the front of the house and how much decorating we should do.”
“You want to go to the store?”
His arm tightened a bit around her midsection. “Not today. I don’t want to lose one second with you.”
Warmth flooded her, banishing the phantoms of fear that had started to hover nearby again. Take it for what it was. Enjoy the day.
For the first time since the funeral she honestly believed that the future was worth living for. She was alive again, and regardless of what loomed, she didn’t want to lose a second with Ryker, either.
Chapter Ten
“Good morning.”
She awoke to feel Ryker’s breath on her neck, along with a peppering of light kisses. He’d made love to her again during the night, gentle yet explosive love, and she felt cherished to her very soul.
“’Morning,” she said sleepily, stirring happily to his touches. She was tangled in the blankets, and when she tried to turn over to face him, he had to help her. He was smiling.
She felt herself smile in response, felt her heart lift. A surprisingly tender man, one she hadn’t thought he could be when she first met him. Ryker had exposed a whole side of himself to her that she would have bet he rarely shared.
“How’s the passenger?” he asked.
“She’s fine.” A poke answered her, as if the baby was saying good morning, as well.
“I’m still in awe,” he admitted. First he ran his hand over her belly, then swept it down her back, pressing her bottom to bring her closer. “You are irresistible,” he murmured before stealing a long, deep kiss.
When she could breathe again, she asked, “Even with bed head?”
“Especially with bed head.” He flashed her a grin. “Should I make breakfast?”
“I could do it,” she offered.
“I know you could. But I like to feel helpful.”
“What do you call last night?”
That drew a belly laugh from him. He stole another quick kiss, then rolled out of bed in all his naked glory. She lay there smiling into her pillow as he took a quick shower, then headed for the kitchen in jeans and a T-shirt.
Her turn now, she supposed, but she hated to leave the bed just yet. She could still feel his warmth, could still detect his scent and the scent of last night’s lovemaking.
She closed her eyes and let Johnny’s memory surface. She hoped he wouldn’t be upset with her but could no longer imagine why he should be. Julie had been right. He’d been the one who kept leaving. And finally he had left for good.
Sighing, she at last pulled herself up and into the shower. Everywhere she rubbed herself with soap and a washcloth, she found herself remembering Ryker’s hands on her.
She realized as she toweled off that he had wedged himself into her life, and that when he left, the sorrow was now inevitable. She’d miss him. But she would survive.
For the first
time, she appreciated the fact that while she had withdrawn from life for so long in her grief, she had gotten through the worst of it. She was strong. Selfish in some ways, but strong in the important ways.
Strong enough to be left again. Strong enough to raise her baby. Strong.
* * *
She and Ryker were just finishing breakfast when Julie bounced in through the side door. She grinned at both of them, bringing a blast of frigid air in with her before she shoved the door closed.
“My, don’t you two look cozy,” she remarked cheerfully, shedding her scarf and jacket. “How’s it going?”
Then she peered at Marisa and shot a sharp look at Ryker.
“My, my,” she said.
Marisa felt her cheeks heat. “Cut it out, Julie.”
“Why?” Julie headed for the coffeepot, filled a mug and came to sit with them. “You look more relaxed than I’ve seen you in forever. Your face doesn’t look pinched.”
Marisa didn’t know how to respond to that. All she knew was that she didn’t want to discuss with Julie what had happened. It was private, a secret to keep to herself and savor.
“Vast improvement,” Julie went on. “It had better stay that way. So how are you feeling, other than relaxed?”
“I’m fine,” Marisa answered promptly. Better than fine, but there was no point saying anything that would only draw out more questions. “I was thinking of having a party for my friends. I’ve been so withdrawn, and I think I owe you guys all an apology.”
Julie became instantly diverted. She waved a hand. “You don’t owe any apologies. But a party in your state? What kind of party?”
“Something simple.”
Julie flashed another grin. “I could manage it for you.”
Marisa shook her head. “If you throw the party, how am I thanking all my friends for sticking with me? No, I’ll just do something simple. Coffee and Christmas cookies. I just want to let everyone know I still love them. They must have wondered.”
Julie reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “Everyone understood, hon. And what kind of friends would we be if we didn’t stick beside you? It’ll do us all some good to see you start taking steps out of hibernation. That’s all we need.”