by Sarah Abbot
The softness of a mattress gave beneath her weight as he placed her upon his bed, lowering her by degrees, as if unwilling to relinquish his hold. The scent of him was all around her, within her; the feel of him was all hard planes of muscle flexing beneath the cable knit of his sweater. In that moment, she could believe that wild, seafaring blood pumped through his veins.
Ryan dropped his head to kiss her, blotting out the light and yet magically unfurling it within her in one swift motion.
He lowered his torso onto hers as their bodies began to move together as one. His hands stroked her, lifted her toward him, glided over the bareness of her back in a hypnotic, fluid motion that was so like the sea, she felt buoyant.
Abby gasped beneath him, wanting nothing more than to consume him, to draw him inside her. There was nothing between them of bitterness, of hatred, of age-old resentment. There was only a blind, consuming need, the likes of which Abby could scarcely understand.
“Abby,” he whispered. He looked down at her, stroking her face with his hand. “I can’t, Abby,” he said softly, his voice sounding as if it had been dragged over broken glass. “We can’t.”
She blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want you regretting anything.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m quite capable of deciding what I will and will not regret, Ryan.”
He rose slowly from the bed and pulled a blanket onto her. “You were right, what you said tonight. This is too much too soon.”
Abby felt a pang of jealousy. “Is this about Ronnie?”
“Ronnie?” he asked, sounding genuinely baffled. “No, it’s about you and me.”
She took his hand, lifted it to her heart, pressed it there. “Feel this, Ryan. Feel me.” Her heart raced in her chest, fluttering beneath his hand like a captive butterfly, longing to be set free. “I want to be with you, Ryan. I want you. If you have something going on with Ronnie, please tell me. I swear, I wouldn’t dream of interfering. But if you don’t— if you can truly say that you never will—then what do we have to lose?” She paused, chased the breath that seemed determined to outrun her.
“Ryan, you and I, we could have something amazing. Don’t ask me how I know that, because I couldn’t tell you, but I feel it, Ryan, deep in a place I’ve never let another man. Don’t ask me to turn my back on that. Don’t you turn yours on it.”
Understanding was unfurling relentlessly within him. All of a sudden, he understood his father’s fascination for Celeste, and his torment upon losing her. He understood it all as if he carried the memory in his blood. He understood it because now, it was him.
He looked down at Abby, rubbed his hand over his swollen mouth and drew it across his burning face to distract himself from the other, much more disquieting flame that kindled brighter with every indrawn breath.
He’d never wanted a woman as badly as he did her. He looked into her trusting, upturned face; he remembered the women before her that he had hurt so badly. Did he want that for her? Was he capable of caring without destroying? And would loving her destroy him as loving had destroyed his father?
He felt as if he stood on a precipice, overlooking a future that was shrouded in uncertainty. Loving Abby would mean leaping into the chasm of chance, submitting himself to the pull and tug of fate.
Something within him had awakened. Something long dormant, fiercely demanding, and as restless as a caged animal. He knew what it was; he knew it intimately, for this was not the first time it had whispered warnings to him.
It was not pirate blood. No, lust and hedonism were not new to him, and certainly didn’t unsettle him. Those, he could understand.
It was the blood of the artist.
He felt it now, demanding a quenching that could come only from that rare, exquisite union of muse and master. It rose to an aching crescendo within him—the throbbing need to touch, to consume, to be absorbed by her perfection, her luminescent beauty.
He felt Abby draw her fingertips down the length of his cheek, leaving trails of invisible fire in their wake. He looked down at her, his heart hammering as their eyes met. If he had it in his blood to want her this much, there was no question that he had it in his blood to love her…and loving her would be more than a little dangerous, more than a little magnificent.
He cupped her face in his hands, straining against the fierceness that threatened to consume him. “No,” he said, answering her at last. “I won’t turn my back on that.”
Her eyes glistened with a fervency that he felt to his core. “Neither will I.”
He kissed her, deeply, madly, felt the walls around his heart crumble and the warmth of her desire slip in. “You were meant to be mine, Abby,” he swore. “I can’t breathe without thinking of you; I can’t sleep without dreaming of you. It’s like I woke up the day you arrived, and realized I was only half here; I realized that everything I never knew I wanted was right in front of me,” he said, grasping her face. “I don’t know why, ’cause God knows, I don’t deserve it—don’t deserve you—but I want you, just the same.”
Abby drew away from him, returning the fierceness of his gaze. “You can’t have me without making peace with the past, Ryan, because like it or not, that’s where we started. That’s where this passion began.” When she kissed him, Ryan felt the timeless ghost of the past rise within him, flow around them—eddy and pool in the hollows created by old resentments and erode their edges until they were gentled into something impossibly alluring. “We started with Douglas and Celeste,” she said. “And part of their love beats in our hearts.”
He grabbed her to his chest, wanting to draw her light into the dark places of his soul, and she was right there with him, accepting the deluge of long-denied passion that thundered over them both.
She was exactly as he’d imagined, from the way she touched his fevered skin to the aching, almost frantic need she stirred within him.
Her hands were all over him…delicately tracing the lines of his body, then kneading his flesh almost ravenously. Her need matched his own as they threw off their clothes, tumbling over each other in greedy abandon, matching pleasure for pleasure, pain for pain.
He sank into her, and they rolled over the bed in a tangle of sheets, knocking a bedside table and sending coins, a watch, and a lamp skittering in all directions, but he was oblivious to everything except Abby: her hands, her mouth, her body, the raggedness of her breath.
She was his, at last. Completely and irrevocably. And with that realization, a wild pleasure shuddered through him, echoed in her own trembling release.
Afterward, Abby touched his chest, distanced them minutely. Her face was soft and lovely in the dim light. “Douglas and Celeste—they’ve come full circle in us,” she said quietly. “Tell me you can let it go, Ryan. That’s the only way this will work.”
Ryan inhaled slowly, tentatively—searched his soul for the answer even as he searched her eyes and saw the treasure that she was; he saw the possibilities that waited in her wide-open heart. Could he possibly let the past go? Was he even capable of letting it go?
He understood, now—in a way he hadn’t until he looked into Abby’s face and gave voice to the dark and secret truth of what she did to him—that regardless of their shared history, he simply didn’t have the strength to overcome the sudden, exquisite ache of wanting her. In fact, he didn’t want to overcome it.
The truth was, that for the first time since love had left his spirit as shattered as his parents’ union, he felt ready to live in spite of the dangers loving brings—ready to love in spite of it.
There’s no way on this green earth I’m letting her walk away. Part of him had come back to life since knowing her and was pounding at the door of his heart.
An unimaginable warmth filled the breadth of his chest, purled through his being—and the answer was there, illuminated by the hope he saw in her eyes. Yes, he could let it go. In fact, he already had.
Chapter Twenty-six
&nb
sp; “I must say, Abby,” said Ronnie as they walked toward Rum Runner’s. “I’ve been looking forward to tonight all week. Speaking of which, you’ve been awfully hard to get hold of. Where’ve you been, anyway?”
Where’ve I been? Abby’s stomach tightened at the thought of telling Ronnie about her budding relationship with Ryan, but tell her she must…this much she’d resolved before leaving the warmth and comfort of Ryan’s house to meet Ronnie for their prearranged evening out.
There was no doubt in Abby’s mind that Ronnie would take the news badly. Even so, keeping the truth from her friend was out of the question.
Reluctantly, Abby relinquished her comfortable spot on cloud nine, giving herself over to the tug of responsibility. As she did so, a pang of guilt hit her square in the chest. She couldn’t shake the feeling that in falling for Ryan, she’d betrayed Ronnie. Ronnie, after all, had loved Ryan since they were teens, and Abby had known as much.
A gust of wind ruffled the trim of the awning they walked beneath, bringing with it the bracing scent of salt, sea and sand. Abby inhaled deeply. She wanted nothing more than to air out her soul, let it snap in the breeze, bleach in the sun; let rough grains of sand slough the dingy stain of betrayal from her heart.
“Hellooo, in there.” Ronnie waved her hand in front of Abby’s eyes. “Are you awake, Abby?”
“I’m sorry, Ron,” she said, feeling miserable on so many levels, it made her stomach clench. “Ronnie, I have to be honest with you about something.”
“Can honesty wait, Abby?” Ronnie picked up her pace, trotting over the cobblestones en route to the downtown core of Destiny Bay. “There’s a crew in town from that Australian ship, and they’re headed to Rum Runner’s tonight. I thought I’d introduce myself to the first mate.”
The first mate? “Just wait a minute here,” Abby said. “I thought you had your sights set on Ryan?”
The smile melted from Ronnie’s face. “I’m crazy about Ryan. He’s not crazy about me. You do the math.”
Ronnie had given her just the opening she needed. Abby took a deep breath. “Ronnie, I’m in love with Ryan.”
Ronnie stopped walking. Abby stopped breathing. The wind stopped blowing.
“It’s true, Ronnie,” Abby said, her voice straining past the lump in her throat.
An extraordinary array of emotions flitted over Ronnie’s features: disbelief, rage, hurt…Abby saw them all, and a few she couldn’t even identify.
Ronnie brought her hands up to her hair, grabbed two fistfuls and held on tight. Her breath was heavy and fast; her eyes blazed with anger. From between her forearms, she stared at Abby as if she were a ghost. “You—you love him? You—what?” Her hands were rubbing her forehead as she broke into a frantic pace, looking at Abby occasionally, as if to make certain this wasn’t a bad dream.
The wind was back, colder, darker. Ronnie whirled on her, her face a contorted mask of rage. “How?” she gasped.
“How do you go from friend to traitor in…how long did it take, Abby? How long before you fell hook, line and sinker for the man I love?”
Abby’s mouth jawed up and down wordlessly. When at last she could muster words, she spoke. “I’m so sorry, Ronnie. I mean, I’m not sorry that I got together with Ryan; I can’t be sorry about that, but I’m sorry that I hurt you.”
“Well, that kind of sorry doesn’t count!” Ronnie shouted, heedless of passersby who turned and stared. “You just don’t understand what you’ve done. You don’t get it at all! He was the first man I ever loved. I practically beat my head against a wall for fifteen bloody years to get him. And here you waltz onto our island and grab him up like he’s a berry, ripe for the picking! What makes you so special that not even the invincible Ryan Brannigan can resist you? Have you inherited your mother’s gift for stealin’ away the hearts of men?”
Abby felt as if she’d been struck. She looked into the sky to keep from crying. This is so much worse than I thought it would be! And far above, clouds scudded across the silvery moon like clippers on the wind. “This is between you and me. Please don’t bring my mother into this.”
“Why? Because she’s off-limits?” Ronnie let out a cry. “Well, guess what? So was Ryan!”
“You said yourself that he doesn’t love you,” Abby shot back, feeling anger of her own now. “Do you expect him to stay celibate for the rest of his life?”
“No, but nor do I expect a friend to set her claws in him. It would have been different if someone else had happened into his life, but not a friend, Abby. Never a friend.”
Abby’s indignation puddled around her ankles. Ronnie was right. It was a terrible thing to do to a friend. Truth was like a weight in her belly. “Ronnie,” she said, tears brimming. “What can I say to you?” She reached for Ronnie’s hand, but was rewarded with a glare that could freeze water. “What can I do?” she asked, even though she knew there was nothing she could do to soothe Ronnie, nothing she could say to take the pain away. There was only the truth, and the hope that in time, it would be easier for her to accept.
Ronnie looked down at the slick cobblestones, her hair falling across her face. “Part of me wants to hurt you like you’ve hurt me,” she said, and the anger in Ronnie’s voice was suddenly tempered by something worn and weary; something so sad it made Abby’s breath catch. “But the strangest thing is that another part of me wants to hold your hand and feel for you.” Ronnie’s eyes hardened again. “ ’Cause there’s nothing I could do to you that will hurt you as much as Ryan can. And will.”
Abby let Ronnie’s words sift through the air and anoint her with understanding: Ronnie fully expected their affair to end badly. Well, Abby wouldn’t let that happen.
“It’s funny, aye—how fate is?” Ronnie said acidly, arms tight across her chest. “You’re so like your ma, it’s scary. Taking what’s not yours, flaunting your conquest for all to see. What makes this especially wrong is the fact that you’ve seen the results of your mother’s actions, and yet you choose to follow in her footsteps anyway!”
Ronnie was in such pure, palpable pain, Abby couldn’t even pretend to be angry. Her own stomach wrenched violently; she seemed to absorb some of Ronnie’s torment and recoil at its bitterness. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and the words were laden with absolute honesty, absolute sorrow for the injury she’d done to Ronnie.
“I need to be alone,” Ronnie said through a sob. “Please, don’t follow me.” She turned and ran down the cobblestone street, sorrow streaming behind her like the tails of ropes that bound her to a man who would never be hers.
When the sound of Ronnie’s footfalls at last became more distant, Abby let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Hand on her chest, she chased the air that seemed pitifully insufficient to fill the gaping emptiness in her chest; the emptiness that sprang into being at Ronnie’s loss and suddenly dulled the luster of Abby’s joy in finding love.
Ryan. She’d give anything to have his arms around her right now; to hear him tell her she wasn’t as cruel as she believed herself to be. More than anything, she needed to feel the twin of her desire echoed in his touch; she needed his strength to stare down every whisperer who claimed that she and Ryan would always be haunted by the specter of their shared history.
There would always be people who—like Ronnie— would be intent on pointing out the fact that she had snatched Ryan away from someone better suited, just as her mother had done with Ryan’s father.
Yes, there would always be doubters. How long would she and Ryan be able to withstand having the past thrown in their faces? What if she finally, finally let herself love completely, and the past became too much for Ryan? What if he turned his back on her? How would she ever recover?
“She is not going to do this to me!” she said through her teeth, forcing the fear from her mind. Her head was aching and her stomach tight. She had to see Ryan, had to be in his presence when she asked herself if she dared risk it— because loving Ryan would be the biggest risk of her li
fe.
With tears in her eyes, she made her way toward Rum Runner’s.
Raucous sounds from the bar spilled into the street— along with a staggering drunk or two. Abby turned just in time to see Bartholomew Briggs receive a hearty thump on the back from a bouncer twice his size.
“Go on with ya, Bartholomew! Come back when you’re a little steadier on your feet.” In helpful demonstration of the bouncer’s assertion, Bartholomew promptly fell face-first into the street.
Abby gasped, torn between the impulse to ran to his aid, and the voice of logic that told her to run, altogether.
Tentatively, she took a step forward. She might be feeling unsteady herself, but at least she wasn’t face-first on the street.
“Hold up there, miss,” called the bouncer. “Old Bart’s like a rubber ball. Bounces up in a second or two. He’s got the stomach of a dandy, though. I’d stay back, if I were you.”
Bartholomew rolled laboriously onto his back and stared into the sky. His lips moved as if in supplication to the spinning stars, then fell still as his eyes rested at last upon Abby’s face.
A trembling finger rose, pointed directly at her. “Leave! If you know what’s good for you, lass, you’ll leave!” He turned his head and began retching. “The devil’s comin’ for you! He’ll have you like he had your ma! Leave, leave!” he hollered between gags.
Abby’s knees went weak. She reached out, found the hood of a car and leaned in to support herself. The devil’s coming? He’d have her like he had her mother? The ground seemed to spin out from beneath her, the stars overhead seemed to sway. She had to get to Ryan—had to get to safety.
Too late, she saw a singing, stumbling, drinking crowd of sailors coming right for her. She scrambled to get out of their way, but was snatched around the waist by a burly seaman, twirled into the heaving center of their jovial midst and moved by sheer forward momentum along with the crew. When she was finally plunked back down by the well-meaning, beer-soaked bunch, it was smack-dab in the middle of Rum Runner’s.