A Younger Woman

by Wendy Rosnau

  Margo struggled to regain her pride, only instead of moaning, she found herself sucking in her breath and sighing Ry’s name as his skilled fingers continued to reinvent the meaning of the word pleasure.

  Working her zipper down, he wedged his hand into her panties, his long fingers dipping downward to find her in as much need as he obviously was. “I thought so,” he whispered, nipping her ear.

  He was ruthless in his intent, barely letting her catch her breath before he moved on to his next assault. With his free hand, he shoved her jeans to her knees. Margo pressed her forehead against the door, bit down on her bottom lip to keep from moaning again.

  “You’re mine, baby. Admit it.”

  Stubbornly Margo shook her head.

  “Say it. Say it!”

  “Yes,” Margo gasped as his fingers slid inside her. “Yes, damn you!”

  She heard his zipper open, felt his hot flesh surge forward, then he was pulling her to him and bending her forward a little at the same time. His heat, when he entered her, scalded her. Margo moaned out her pleasure, then pressed backward to take all of him inside her. She trembled, clung to the door, as she arched her back and angled her head to feel his hungry mouth on her neck.

  It was intense and quick. Mind numbing and sinfully satisfying. A slice of heaven on earth.

  Breathless, Margo felt his body relax against her, then leave her altogether. She sagged into the door, her jeans and panties still clinging to her knees. She could hear his hard breathing, hear him working to right his own damp clothes.

  “I’m sorry, baby, I shouldn’t have come at you like that.” She felt his hands on her once again, only this time he was carefully working her jeans and panties back up her thighs. Slowly he turned her to face him in the dark.

  Margo didn’t say anything and when the silence went on, he said, “I didn’t hurt you. If I did, I—”

  Margo kissed him quiet. She didn’t want him apologizing, and right now she didn’t have any words for him. In the old days he had loved her in a dozen different ways, and honestly she had enjoyed them all.

  “Say something.” He kissed her back, this time as if she was a fragile flower.

  Margo stared up at him in the darkness, wishing she could see his handsome face. “You know I never minded that—”

  “I came at you from all angles.” He sighed, kissed her nose. “Don’t run away from me anymore, baby. It scares the hell out of me when you take off like that.” When Margo didn’t answer, he pulled her close and squeezed tightly. “Say you won’t run. I need to hear—”

  “Ouch!” Margo gasped as a sharp pain ricocheted down her arm.

  Ry instantly released her. “What? What is it?”

  “It’s nothing. I—”

  Before she could finish, he reached for the light switch and the upended room was flooded with light. But neither gave a second look at the piles Margo had made in an effort to clean up the mess. They were both staring at the blood-stained satin that clung to her arm.

  “What the hell! Did I do that?” Ry demanded. “How? When?”

  Margo studied the red stain, recalled when it must have happened. “You didn’t do it, Ry. I did it,” she insisted. “I almost took a spill out the back door at the Toucan, and—”

  “Why didn’t you say something? Here, let me see.” Quickly he unbuttoned her shirt as if it were the most natural thing to do. Carefully, he slid the damp satin off her shoulders, then removed the blood-stained bandage. “The stitches look intact, but until I clean it up I won’t know for sure.”

  Margo looked down to see his hands were shaking where they touched her arm. She glanced up to study the serious expression on his face. “It’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

  “You’ve got to be more careful, dammit.”

  It was as if he wasn’t listening. Margo frowned, thought she’d heard his voice tremble. “Ry…”

  “I’ll clean it first, then—”

  “Ry?”

  “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of it, and—”

  “Ry!”

  He looked at her.

  “Tell me,” Margo reached out and took hold of his hand, “why you’re shaking?”

  He pulled his hand away. “It’s nothing.”

  “I want to know why you’re so upset. It’s not like you. At least not like the old you.”

  “Later. Right now your arm needs—”

  Margo pushed him away. “The deal is, you can repair the damage done to my arm if I get some straight answers to a few questions.”

  “Margo, this is serious.” He motioned to her arm. “You’re bleeding.”

  “A little blood is not going to kill me or I’d be already dead.”

  “Don’t talk like that!”

  “See. You get so upset about the silliest things.”

  “You’re going to have a nasty scar. That’s not silly, that’s a damn shame. Senseless, really!”

  Why was it every time she cracked a joke at her own expense Ry went ballistic? Again, Margo studied his face curiously. “I suppose letting you play doctor once more wouldn’t hurt.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “Then you agree?”

  “Agree?”

  “Say, yes, Margo, I accept your deal. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just ask.”

  He was wearing a frown. Suddenly it slid to a half smile, and he leaned forward and kissed her. Then softly, his lips a mere inch from hers, he whispered, “Yes, baby, I accept the deal. That is, if I can play doctor as long as I want, in any way I choose.”

  “You’re a dirty old man, Ry.”

  “You used to love the way I touched you, the way I had to have you the minute I knew you were burning.”

  Yes, she used to love his insistent hands and his visible need for her. She used to love his sexy body and his naughty blue eyes. The way he ate shrimp and wore those crazy Texas boots. Even the way that terrible cigarette dangled from his lips. The truth was, she used to love everything about Ry Archard and still did. In fact, she loved him more—the sensitive man who stood before her, for whatever reason, reminded her of a wounded hero.

  She was a crazy fool, and he was going to hurt her again. But, yes, she loved him with an ache so huge she knew—no feared—that this time, when he walked out of her life, she would never be able to piece together her broken heart. Still, she couldn’t stop loving him. Pretending to hate him was simply another lie she was tired of living with. She would love him until the day she died, and long after that. She just didn’t have a choice in the matter.

  Margo stepped away from the door, and as she walked past him, she reached out and snagged a couple of fingers on one of his big hands. “Come on, old man, let’s see if we can find a clean washcloth in the bathroom.”

  They walked past the junk piles, then entered her tiny bathroom. As Margo turned around, she found herself back in Ry’s arms, his expression stone sober. “I’ll find the bastards who shot you and ruined your place. Say you believe that, baby. Say you trust me, because you can, you know. You can trust me like no one else.”

  Normally she would have mocked his words to safeguard her own feelings, but he was so serious, and his words held such conviction. “I believe you’ll find the creeps. Trusting you—” Margo shrugged “—that’s going to be a little harder to come by.” Then she surprised both of them and kissed him. It was light and quick, but sincere.

  “What was that for?” he asked, his expression replete, yet curious.

  Margo thought a minute, needed to say something. “For leaving Charmaine Stewart in your partner’s capable hands, I guess.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  “And mine,” she agreed.

  He glanced around her spare bathroom. The white walls were cracked and yellowed, the mirror over the narrow sink and been shattered, but it still hung intact. Margo could see that Ry was taking stock of her meager lifestyle with an unusual amount of interest. Yes, the place looked pathetic, and she
felt a twinge of embarrassment over that. She could afford a better place if she wanted to, only that money had been better spent on keeping the fishing fleet alive. And as often as her brother had protested the money she’d offered him, Blu had swallowed his pride and taken it because they both had wanted the duFray Devils to survive.

  “I’m not here much,” she said when he faced her again. “Don’t pity me, or the way I choose to live.”

  “I don’t pity you.” He touched her cheek. “I admire you. I always have. Sit down.”

  Margo perched on the toilet seat. She kept her mouth shut while he retrieved a clean washcloth from the cupboard and knelt in front of her. She watched as he concentrated on wiping the blood away. After a while he said, “Blu’s lucky to have you as his sister. Do you suppose he realizes that?”

  “Starting in on Blu isn’t going to—”

  “Stop defending him.” He looked up, his blue eyes narrowed slightly. “He put you on DuBay Pier knowing it wasn’t safe. For that I’m going to—”

  Margo reached out and covered his mouth with her hand. “He didn’t put me on the pier. It was my decision to leave the alley.”

  He kissed the palm of her hand, then returned it to her lap. “It was a dangerous decision.”

  “I’m not sorry.”

  “I’ve got mixed feelings about it.” His hands stilled on her arm. “You could have been killed and that’s not something I want to consider. But since you weren’t… They say there’s a reason why things happen the way they do. If you hadn’t been shot and hadn’t come to the house we might not have—”

  “Slept together again?”

  “You can’t deny we’re good together.”

  “I never denied it. Why did you walk away two years ago?”

  She hadn’t meant to ask him that. She’d always felt the excuse he’d offered back then, as paltry as it had been, was enough. How could why matter when the bottom line was he didn’t want her any longer in his life?

  “It’s a long story.” He busied himself with her arm again, tossed the blood-stained washcloth into the sink. “Two years ago my job got between us.” He shook his head, began to bandage her arm. “I had resigned myself to accepting that. I’d worked out a way to live with it, and,” he glanced up and smiled, “life wasn’t great, but I was keeping it together.” He finished binding her arm and sat back on his haunches. “Truth is, baby, I’ve been living a lie and I don’t want to any longer.”

  He ran his fingers between her legs and parted them lightly. Coming up on his knees again, he moved between the notch he’d created. Slowly, his hands moved upward, over her thighs, past her trim waist to her breasts. His long fingers fanned out to feel all of her at one time, from seductive cleavage to the outer swell of each ripe mound. Margo closed her eyes and sucked in her breath. Then he was there, his mouth pressed against hers, sending her heart racing and her mind spinning.

  When he had them both breathing hard, he backed off. “Open your eyes. I want you looking at me when I say this.”

  Eyes open, Margo locked gazes with him.

  He drew in a long breath then let it out slowly. “Okay, here it is. I-I’ve never stopped loving you. That’s the honest truth. I made you think otherwise, but that was the whole idea.”

  He attempted to kiss her again, but Margo arched back at the same time her hand went to his chest to keep him at bay. He couldn’t love her and do what he’d done. It wasn’t possible to hurt someone as badly as he’d hurt her and then say he’d loved her. Was he trying to trick her again? She dropped her hands back to her lap. “When you love someone, you don’t destroy them, Ry. The day you left me, you said—”

  “I said what I had to to keep you alive.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  He stood quickly. “I know it sounds crazy, but there was a good reason why I acted like a bastard. Why I said those things to you the day I walked out. I’ll explain once we’re home.”

  “Home? I never said I was going home with you.”

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “I can if I want to.”

  “How badly do you want to learn the truth?”

  Margo hesitated. She wanted more than anything to learn the truth, but—

  “Maybe I was wrong,” he said suddenly. “It might be easier if you never knew. If you just kept—”

  Margo bristled. “I’m not a coward, Ry. If there’s something I should know, then I want to hear it.”

  For a long minute they stared at each other, then he held out his hand, a smile finally parting his lips. “Then let’s go home.”

  They drove through the Garden District in silence. Ry wasn’t sure how he was going to explain two wasted years to Margo without her ending up hating him, but they had struck a deal, and now he was going to have to live up to his part of it.

  Honestly, he hadn’t planned on telling her about Koch Menaro until after he’d solved the Burelly case. He’d analyzed the situation while he’d sat and listened to her sing, and what he’d decided was that the best approach was the old approach. To win Margo back he would work her the way he had in the old days, slowly and inventively. Then, when he was sure she trusted him again, he would sit down with her one day, a few months from now, and come clean.

  It was the coward’s way, he knew that, but there was no easy way to tell the woman you loved that you had sacrificed their life together out of fear. But tonight that look in her eyes had changed his mind. She deserved to know the truth, every sordid detail. And in the end it would be her decision to forgive him or not.

  It was still raining when Ry sped through the iron gate and up the incline into the carport. He shut the engine off, and they both sat there a minute. Finally he reached out and slid his arm around the back of Margo’s seat. He moved in quickly, his intent obvious. She angled her head back against his arm and allowed him to kiss her. He did so carefully, moved his mouth over hers with gentle persuasion, then murmured, “Let’s go inside.”

  Ry followed Margo into the kitchen moments later, flipping on the light as he closed the door behind him. He’d left the radio on as usual, and a soft sad song was playing. The coffeemaker was half-full. He watched her head for the coffee, watched her open the cupboard and reach for two yellow cups.

  He’d gotten used to her in the kitchen over the past few days, even though it seemed strange. She fit it, but then she should, since he’d bought it with her in mind. He wondered what she’d say if she knew her name was on the deed.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and get out of your wet clothes? Take a bath if you want, as long as you don’t get your bandage wet, that is. I’ll bring coffee,” he promised.

  She turned to look at him. “Are you always this helpful with your other houseguests?”

  “I told you before, I don’t have houseguests. What are you really asking, Margo? What is it you want to know?”

  She raised her chin, gave that little spare sigh she always did when she was faced with a question she’d rather not answer. “It’s not important.”

  “Ask it.”

  “All right. Has Charmaine Stewart ever been here?”

  Ry didn’t debate the question. He wasn’t going to detail Char’s visit, but he wasn’t going to deny it, either. “Once.”

  “Once?”

  “She arrived uninvited and didn’t stayed long. We’ve never slept together if that’s what your next question was going to be.” He wouldn’t go into the night Char had snuck up on him in the middle of the night while he was having one of his dreams about Margo. That would be too revealing right now, and he didn’t want to feel any more vulnerable than he already did. Before the night was over Margo could very easily walk out of his life forever. If that happened he would need at least his pride left intact.

  “I’ll be upstairs,” she said softly. “No hurry with the coffee. I’ve decided the bath will do me some good.”

  An hour later Ry was standing at the bedroom window when Margo stepped through the
open door. It had stopped raining and the sky was clear, the moon out. He heard her whisper-soft steps, caught her seductive scent and turned slowly. She was wearing one of his shirts, her shapely legs and bare feet giving his heart a jolt.

  She glanced at the unmade bed. “You’re slipping, Ry. I thought you said you made beds.”

  “I do, but not with a headache and you on my mind. I woke up with both.”

  She lowered her gaze to stare at the floor. “I didn’t try to kill you.”

  “I know.”

  She looked up. “You shouldn’t have eaten that third hamburger. I shouldn’t have let you.”

  “But they were so good,” he teased hoping to lighten her spirits. He strolled to the nightstand, poured her a cup of coffee and offered it to her.

  She accepted it, then asked, “Why do you have all those pills in the medicine cabinet?”

  With her simple question, Ry realized that the time had come. He could no longer avoid telling her about Koch Menaro and what had followed. “Sit down, Margo.” He pointed to the paisley chair and, once she was seated, he walked back to the window. “We were together about a month. If you remember, that last week, I—”

  “Started acting different.”

  “I can still hear you saying, ‘Are you crazy in love, or what?’ You said it just like that.”

  “I remember.”

  “You were right. I was crazy in love. I had loved you for so long that when we finally got together, I thought my life couldn’t be more perfect.” Ry glanced down to see his hands were shaking, and he jammed them into his pockets. “There was this guy. I picked him up on a murder charge months before we got together. The charge didn’t stick and he was released. In a matter of weeks he was back in on another charge, but he walked again.” He swore, remembering how smooth and calculating Koch was, how his eyes could look straight through a person. He turned to face Margo. “Koch decided to have a little fun with me and a few of the other cops.”