by Stacy Gail
Yes.
In one smooth motion he stood, bringing her with him only to turn and press her back against one of the pavilion’s stone columns. His hard body branded her with its heat, and he molded himself to her in one long line of perfection. Her breasts flattened against his rib cage while the bulge behind his zipper hardened with urgency that filled Claire with a surge of feminine triumph. This complex, life-scarred man wanted her, just as ravenously as she wanted him. In that moment out of time, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t the right kind of man for her, or that she was just as wrong for him. All that mattered was somehow, they were a perfect fit.
His warrior’s body was a delicious weight for her to bear, pressing against her with such reckless ardor she was nearly lifted off her feet. To brace herself, she wrapped her arms around his neck and parted her legs so his thigh could slip between her knees. He moved with hungry deliberation, pushing his leg between hers until she straddled him. The apex of her thighs rubbed against him as his fingers dug into her bottom to rock her in an edgy rhythm that melted her into a quivering mass of overheated flesh.
There was no way Claire could hold back the jagged little moan that escaped her. Scorching heat bloomed in her innermost core at the erotic friction, and she could do nothing more than wallow in the sensations designed to drive her insane. The world vanished as she strained to capture the glimpses of rapture, rocking her hips against his while the tension in her lower regions fast became an exquisite torture. A rough sound rumbled from deep in his throat as her sinuous movements rubbed against the thrust of his desire, and the shudders that rippled through him intoxicated her with delight.
“You’re perfect, everything I’ve ever dreamed of in a woman,” he whispered through ragged gasps of air, his voice thick and unrecognizable. In a bold gesture of claiming what was his, he made quick work of the three buttons of her gauzy blouse to cup the weight of a breast, lifting it in his palm while his thumb teased the lace-covered peak to excruciating tautness. A spasm of shivery rapture deep in her belly, like a small release in itself, made her whimper and bite his lip, her body lost in the unrelenting pleasure he gave her. He was so masterful in his touch, so adept at wringing a response from her, that all she could do was yearn for more. More skin sliding against bared, feverish skin. More grinding friction, more devouring kisses.
More.
“I need you.” The ardent admission broke from Claire with no thought of holding back. How could she hold back when she was trembling on the edge of ecstasy? “Ryder, please…now.”
“Then you finally understand.” Kisses, caresses, everywhere. He was killing her by inches with sensation. “You understand how good this can be. No one needs those outdated trappings anymore to find happiness. All you need is this.”
His words struck an off-key note in Claire’s internal symphony of sweet sensation. Dazed, she opened eyes she had no memory of closing, and bit her lip to stop the moan of pleasure when he bent to run his tongue beneath the lacy edge of her bra. “Wait…”
“I love that you wear your own sexy creations, Claire. I suspected you did, but not knowing was driving me nuts.” He pushed the lacy cup aside to palm the feminine flesh, his tongue toying with the taut peak before pulling it into his mouth to suckle it as if his life depended on it. “Claire…Claire, you’re so perfect, your skin is so delicate…God, I could make a meal of you.”
“Ryder.” She had to stop this, before she no longer had the will. “Enough.”
Dazedly he lifted his head, his eyes heavy-lidded with a desire that nearly buckled her knees. “You’re right, I just…lost myself. We can’t do this here—”
“You said trappings.” Blessed sanity returned with a fraction of distance between them, and she took advantage of it by trying to right her misplaced clothing. “What were you talking about?”
“What…? Oh. Marriage. All that outdated crap.” With his hot gaze intent on her, he waved a dismissive hand. “From the first moment we met, I’ve wanted to prove to you this is what matters between two people. The heat. The passion. The friction.” His smile was as hot as sin as he raised triumphant eyes to hers. “And you have to admit, the friction’s pretty damn good between us, am I right?”
“I…what?” Cold began to creep into her every cell like a killing frost. The euphoric pleasure dissolved as if it had never been, and she stared at him while even her lips turned to ice. “Wait. I don’t understand. Are you saying this wasn’t real? That you…were just proving…?”
“I wanted for you to finally admit it’s desire that brings people together, which is a good and beautiful thing.” He smiled, curling his arm around her waist to pull her closer once more. “I like it. You like it. When you come right down to it, sexual chemistry is really all that matters in a relationship.”
“You’re wrong.” Claire pressed a hand against his chest, hardly able to believe her ears. How could he believe that was all there was to it? How could he turn what they just shared into something…meaningless? “You have no idea how wrong you are. There’s so much more to relationships than just lust or desire. How can you not know that?”
“What, you mean love?” He let her go while his expression hardened with unmistakable cynicism. “Okay, fine. Lust, love—it doesn’t matter to me what you want to call it, I’m good either way. It’s all pretty much the same thing.”
“For you, obviously, but not for everyone else in the world.” She shook her head in furious dismay. How could he not know there was a difference?
“Claire, with one touch, you and I both know I can prove two people can enjoy a highly intimate relationship without screwing it up with the unattainable fiction of happily ever after. Just enjoy the moment for what it is.”
“So that’s what this—” she waved a hand at the romantic spread that had so moved her only minutes before, “—was all about? Enjoying the moment while proving your point?”
“Well, I did prove the point that we can enjoy each other without getting a license to do it, didn’t I?”
“Oh, you proved it, all right.” It took all her strength to keep her voice steady as abject humiliation and a deeper, bone-breaking pain cut into her like an invisible knife. “You didn’t go to all this trouble because you were actually starting to care about me in some emotional way. You just wanted to prove you were right. God, my first impression of you was dead-on,” she gritted, focusing on her fury so she wouldn’t give in to the need to cry. “You are absolutely the worst possible man for me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Claire—”
“This wasn’t some game to me, Ryder.” Her voice broke on his name, and to her horror tears swam in her eyes. “While you were playing Let’s Prove a Point, I was stupid enough to take everything that happened here seriously. I was stupid enough to take you seriously.”
“I am serious—”
“You don’t even know the meaning of the word!” she shot back passionately while the cold inside her grew, a vast wasteland of icy nothingness she refused to name. She didn’t want to. She wanted to bury it so far down deep she never felt it again. “When a man is serious, he doesn’t toy with a woman’s emotions. When a man is serious, he hurts when the person he’s involved with hurts. Damn it all.” With a frustrated growl she dragged her hands through her hair. “Why am I even trying to explain this to a man like you? It’s like trying to explain colors to the blind. Don’t,” she added when he opened his mouth to speak. “I don’t want to hear it. You’re determined to live a lifetime alone without any depth of feeling stronger than an itch you have to scratch, so there’s no point in wasting my breath—or another second of my time—on you.”
Some of the color seemed to drain from his face. “What?”
“Five minutes from now I’ll probably regret saying it, but it’s the truth, Ryder. Your parents may have done one hell of a number on you, but at least they’re brave enough to search for that other half that makes them whole. You on the other hand, are so horrified by the process
you can’t even recognize the search to find a soul mate is a good thing. Instead, you closed your heart without even trying to let someone in, all the while believing you’re smarter than everyone else for keeping yourself safe.”
“I’m smart enough to think forever is nothing more than a pipe dream all those greeting-card companies play up to sell a bunch of crap every February,” he muttered, his teeth so tightly clenched he looked like a cornered animal baring its fangs. “And I let plenty of people in. I’ve had countless relationships along the way.”
“You have no one,” she said, and the undeniable truth of it twisted the icy cold deeper. “You belong nowhere. You’re the most alone person I’ve ever met, and as furious as I am with you, I pity you even more.”
His light eyes flashed dangerously. “I don’t need your pity.”
“You have no idea what you need.” Shaking from head to toe and telling herself it was fury and not desolation that their near-lovemaking had been nothing more than a game to him, Claire looked at Ryder and tried to harden her heart. “Maybe someday you’ll figure it out, but I’m not strong enough to wait around to see if that ever happens.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying what I’ve known from the start—we’re too different.” Hearing the inescapable truth from her own lips plunged the icy pain all the way home, so sharply it made her wonder if words alone could kill. “From this point on, it’s best if we stay out of each other’s way. I don’t want to talk to you, or look at you—just pretend we’ve never met. God knows that’s what I’m going to do.”
But as Claire stalked back to her car, she knew pretending would be an exercise in futility.
Ryder watched Claire’s infuriated retreat with a knot twisting hard in his gut. It was for the best, he thought with ragged ferocity while the knot tightened until it felt like all circulation ceased and his insides had turned to ice. It never could have worked between them. She was right—no matter how combustible they were when it came to raw sexual chemistry, they were just too different. He had wanted to free himself of her happily-ever-after web, and with the subtlety of a butcher bringing down a cleaver, he’d hacked himself free. Good for him. From this point on, Claire Pomeroy would never want anything to do with the likes of him.
Hell yes, good for him.
Then Claire disappeared from view, and he was left alone.
Completely, utterly alone.
Chapter Seven
“Without a doubt, this is the ideal bachelorette party.” Rachel sighed blissfully, leaning back in her padded seat. A rhinestone tiara with a veil perched on her head marked her as the guest of honor, though from the way she glowed, anyone would have been able to spot her among the crowd of ten women. They were seated on a wide, flat-bottomed, open-air dining boat idly wending its way up the glassy-calm San Antonio River, with strawberry margaritas and plates of spicy chicken and beef fajitas along with handmade tortillas heaped in front of them. Festive multicolored lights hung from the live oak and magnolia trees twisting their centuries-old branches overhead, while luminarias lit the wide limestone walkways edging both sides of San Antonio’s well-known tourist attraction. At the front of the boat strummed a Spanish guitarist, a musician Claire often contracted for just such a romantic, never-to-be-forgotten evening.
Only Claire was feeling anything but romantic, or happy, or anything that a person should feel when hosting a party. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and never get out again.
Ryder.
Hidden by the shifting shadows of the sultry southern night, Claire’s expression clouded. The anger had faded over the past couple of days, to the point where she could at least understand the crux of the problem. With no real example of what a stable relationship was, the only kind of relationship Ryder seemed to understand was the wham-bam variety. If animal attraction and hot sex were the only things that brought him together with a woman, it was no wonder he didn’t believe something like marriage could last a lifetime. Things like a deep sense of belonging, devotion and love were probably as bewildering to him as ancient Sumerian. In his own ham-handed way, he had just tried to communicate that to her, no doubt because he’d recognized she wasn’t his usual type of woman. She was the love-everlasting type, which unfortunately led to her latest predicament.
Somewhere along the way, she’d fallen hopelessly in love with Ryder.
Emphasis on hopeless, she thought, deaf to the heart-stirring strains of an expertly played Spanish guitar. Hopeless was exactly what she was, falling for a man who didn’t even know what love was.
So, where did that leave her?
The smartest, least masochistic answer was simple—avoid Ryder like the plague he was, and convince her heart that Matt’s best man was the absolute worst man for her.
Too bad her heart was too stupid to listen.
“This was a wonderful idea.” Seated across from Claire, Rachel’s redheaded mother smiled brightly. “I was concerned a bachelorette party might entail something that would make my daughter hung-over and shamefaced on her wedding day, but this is just…wow!”
“And it’s only just beginning.” Claire forced a smile and wondered if it looked as dead as it felt. “Waiting for us at the end of this dinner cruise is a fabulous French-style cabaret called Cosmo. We’ll first enjoy live entertainment, then ballroom-style dancing with the actual entertainers, so I hope everyone brought their dancing shoes.”
“All I brought are two left feet.” Rachel groaned while the others squealed in delight. “I’m definitely going to need some Dutch courage to get through this.”
“With the exception of the bride-to-be, everyone is free to go wild on that front,” Claire told the party. “The limo that brought you downtown tonight is waiting at the cabaret to take all of you home. The bride, however, can’t be hung over for her big day, so it’s nonalcoholic beverages from here on in, Rachel.”
“Now I see why you offer to throw the bachelorette party as part of your services.” Rachel sighed and looked longingly at her margarita before pushing it away. “It’s your way of making sure tomorrow doesn’t find the bride hanging her head in a toilet bowl.”
“What about Matt?” A bridesmaid giggled at the other end of the table. “Think he and the rest of the guys will be as smart?”
Rachel’s bright expression dimmed. “With Ryder in charge, I can only imagine how their party is going. Do you know anything about their plans, Claire?”
“I’m afraid not.” Through sheer force of will, Claire kept her expression smooth, when something wounded and bleeding inside cringed at the sound of Ryder’s name. “The only thing I can do is offer up some advice born out of long experience on this particular subject—trust Matt, Rachel. Everything will be fine.”
“Believe me, I do trust Matt. Ryder’s the one I don’t trust. Hard to believe those two used to be exactly alike.”
Claire nearly snorted. “I find that not just hard to believe, but downright impossible.”
“Oh, it’s true. Those two were hard-partying playboys, keeping score on who could bag the most babes. Shameless, the pair of them,” Rachel added, laughing.
“But…” Claire stared at her, uncomprehending as she momentarily lost sight of her professionalism. “You don’t mind Matt was totally into that playboy mentality?”
“Not at all,” came the complacent reply. “All of that came to a grinding halt when we met—and I wasn’t the one who brought it to a halt. Matt did.”
“Of course he did,” Rachel’s mother said stoutly. “He knows a good thing when it comes along.”
“The good thing that came along was the most amazing sense of rightness…of belonging, I guess. Love really is such a powerful thing when it’s for real,” Rachel added, smiling in an awed sort of way. “Overnight Matt changed from a hopeless skirt-chaser to a devoted best friend and partner. As he puts it, he knows exactly what’s out there, and he knows he’s not missing a thing. He had his choice of women and lifestyles, and
what he chose was me. That’s true love.”
How wonderful that it had been so simple for Rachel, Claire thought later as they eventually docked beside the already-jumping cabaret. But things were different when it came to Ryder. He was a terminal playboy who lived only for the pleasure of the moment. There would never be a forever relationship for a man like that. If she were smart, she’d chalk up her experience with Ryder as a hard lesson learned, and move on as fast as she could.
Then again, if she were smart, she wouldn’t have landed herself in this mess in the first place.
A couple of hours later, Claire was encouraging the matron of honor to try a spirited rumba with the Spanish guitarist when she saw Rachel motion to her, a cell phone pressed to her ear. In seconds Claire was by the bride-to-be’s side.
“Everything okay?” she mouthed to Rachel, who rolled her eyes.
“Matt wants to talk to you, Claire.” Then Rachel put her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece, the corners of her mouth tight with exasperation. “My poor guy, he’s bored out of his mind. According to him, he’s at the suckiest bachelor party ever. I told him he should just bail and hook up with us down here at Cosmo since we’re having such a blast, and that’s when he said he wanted to talk to you. Maybe he wants to know if it’s all right?”
“Traditionally, the bride and groom aren’t supposed to see each other before the wedding, but personally I’ve always thought that was a stupid rule.” Faking another smile, Claire took the phone and moved toward the cabaret’s more tranquil front vestibule. “Good evening, Matt. Are you all right?”
“I’m outstanding,” came the clearly irritated voice of the groom-to-be, “except for the fact that I have an idiot for a best friend.”
Claire closed her eyes and focused on freezing her heart to its bitter core. If she could just be numb, she could get through the next twenty-four hours without dying inside every time she thought of Ryder. “Oh?”
“Things were going great for a while. Ryder took us all out to dinner at an Irish pub down on the river, and then he arranged for a private tasting of all the microbrews they had to offer. After that, we walked across the street to a piano bar. More beer flowed, and before I knew it Ryder starts crying in his drink over his horrific fate of having to live alone for the rest of his life. I’ve been to funerals more fun than this.”