Finger Prints

by Barbara Delinsky

  If she’d been worried about unwanted thoughts intruding as they’d done once before, her fears were unfounded. Her mind was filled with Ryan, to the exclusion of all else. His masculine scent filled her nostrils. The feel of his hard muscle delighted her hands. She pressed warm kisses to his waist as her fingertips ventured beneath the band of his briefs. Then, with the boldness of one possessed not by the ash-strewn past but a very fiery present, she slowly drew the fabric down his sinewed legs, discarding it at last and sitting back on her heels to look at him.

  He was magnificent, proud in his maleness. Trembling, she tipped her head back to meet his gaze. As she did, she touched him, her fingers encircling his rigidity, stroking his shaft of straining silk.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he choked, closing his eyes for an instant, then looking down at her again before grasping her arms and tugging her roughly to her feet. “God, Carly, this was supposed to be slow.” His fists were bunching up her slip. “But you’re unbelievable.” She raised her arms and the slip went in the direction his own clothes had gone. “Slow,” he gasped. “Slow and easy.” His hands were anything but as they fumbled with the catch of her bra and stripped the gossamer fabric from her flesh. Holding her firmly against him, he slid his hands into her panty hose, exploring the texture of her femininity for an instant before peeling the silk from her limbs. When she was naked too, he clutched her to him and buried his face in her neck. Then, muscles trembling in anticipation, he lowered them both to their knees.

  His hands framed her face, holding it away from him. “Slow…and…easy.” He repeated the litany once more, though to no avail. He was clearly at the end of a tautly held rope, but no more so than Carly, who was so abundantly aware of his nakedness against her that it was all she could do not to attack him. “Carly….”

  “I need you, Ryan,” came her whispered plea. Her arms wound around his neck, her body arched into his.

  “I can’t hold…babe…I need….” His mouth was inches from hers, his breath catching. He slid his hands down the backs of her thighs and drew them apart, lifting them over his own spread ones. “Lord, I don’t…think I can wait….”

  She felt his hardness and sucked in a tiny cry. “Don’t wait! Don’t…wait!” In one breath-stopping moment as she settled onto him he thrust deeply; her cry of ecstasy merged with his in echo of their bodies, now one.

  They stayed very still then, savoring the sense of filling and being filled. Carly whimpered her pleasure; Ryan held her all the more tightly.

  “You feel…so…good.” He managed a throaty rasp. Angling her body the slightest bit back, he caught her gaze, then let his own lower to the spot of their mating. Carly’s followed and she experienced an overwhelming sense of rightness. Their skin was, oh, so close, his hair-spattered, hers ivory smooth. With his sex buried deep inside her, their fit was snug and perfect.

  He pressed her bottom still closer, then slid his hands up her sides until his thumbs grazed the rock-hard tips of her breasts. Sucking in a hard breath, she closed her eyes, felt herself falling backward, landing ever so gently on the rug with Ryan above her, his face reflecting her own dire need. She flexed her muscles and began to move under him. Bowing his back, he withdrew nearly completely, then thrust more deeply than he had before.

  “That’s it, sweet…more…yes, ahh, yes….” His urgings brought her to the wild edge of sanity. The flame was lit; the heat burst forth. This time, though, Ryan was at the center of the flame and Carly had nothing to fear. Ever hotter she burned, spurred on by Ryan’s impassioned movements. She arched and strained, craving more and more of him. He gave her everything she wanted and then some. When at last her body exploded into brilliant fragments of ecstasy, he gave a hoarse cry and arched a final time into his own mind-shattering climax.

  The spasms seemed endless, a timeless sharing of rapture. When, after long moments of suspended delight, Ryan finally collapsed against her, they lay together in the sweet aftermath of heaven. Their hearts pounded, their limbs were drained of the power that had driven them so fiercely moments before.

  He moaned, his breathing ragged. She ran her hands over his damp skin, holding him to her, reluctant to release him even when he levered himself up to gaze down at her.

  “You’re beautiful, babe. Do you know that?”

  She shook her head and blushed, still unable to speak. Not so Ryan. Sliding off to her side and gathering her to him, he propped himself on an elbow.

  “That was magnificent. A first.”

  She knew what he meant and said as much through the eloquent fingers she lifted to his face. He caught a wandering one in his mouth and nipped at it. His eyes were the richest of browns, toasting her with their warmth. Then, he slowly mouthed three words. “I…love…you.”

  Her own eyes widened, first in joy, then in fear. It was the latter that took momentary control. With her breath lodged in her throat and her expression one of stunned denial, she shook her head, but Ryan was fast to hold it still.

  “No, no. Don’t fade out on me, Carly. I won’t expect anything from you. I just need you to know. That’s all.”

  “But you can’t…” she breathed feebly “I can’t….”

  “It’s all right,” he soothed, his eyes worshipping her with the love he’d professed. A soft smile broke through the darkness of his beard. “Don’t say anything. Just know what I feel. Okay?”

  It was his expression, so deep and filled with adoration, that stifled her fear. In his arms she felt safe and protected and, yes, loved, as she’d never felt before. For the moment she couldn’t think to question that love or to brood on its ramifications. The here and now were far too precious. Very slowly joy spread through her, bringing a soft smile to her lips.

  “Okay,” she whispered. As Ryan relaxed back on the rug, she closed her eyes and nestled against his chest. Gradually the heartbeat by her ear steadied and her own pulse slowed.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he murmured, deep in thought, hypnotized by the low flicker of flame in the hearth and the sacred warmth of the woman in his arms. He shifted her gently to better hold her. “I had it all planned. We were going to sit by the fire and talk, drink a little champagne and usher in the New Year simply enjoying each other’s company.” He looked down at her. “Because I do. I do enjoy your company.” When she propped her chin on his chest and sent him a chiding look that said she’d caught him with his hand in the cookie jar, he had the good grace to blush. “I mean, sure, I wanted to make love to you, but if you hadn’t wanted to we could have just lain here all night and I would have been happy.”

  Given the urgency of his tone, Carly half believed him. “I wouldn’t have been, but thank you for saying that,” she whispered.

  He squeezed her. “What do you mean, you wouldn’t have been? Was my body the only reason you came up here with me?”

  She rubbed her flushed cheek against his chest. Her laugh was warm and soft against his skin. “Of course not. But I knew what to expect. I knew it was inevitable. I wanted it.” Facing him again, she was suddenly serious. “I’ve never been this way with anyone, Ryan. I mean, there haven’t been many men, any men other than my husband, and even with him I wasn’t this way.”

  His heart soared. “What way?” he asked softly, needing to hear it from her.

  She averted her eyes, shy in the face of his soul-searching gaze. “Forward. Aggressive. I’ve never undressed a man.”

  A ripple of fire surged through him, and he hugged her. “God, you’re amazing!” he growled. “And there I was thinking you were reticent!”

  She had nothing to say to that. The fact was that Ryan brought out things in her she hadn’t known existed. Already she was tingling inside again. She slid her foot down his calf, sandwiching her leg between his two. Her hand moved gently across his chest. She savored the sensation of his firm skin, his soft pelt of hair beneath her fingertips. He was everything she could have asked for in a man, and her body sang. She touched him slowly, wonderingly, her
fingers shaping his hipbone, slipping over the smooth valley beyond. Opening her eyes, she relished what she saw, a terrain of uncompromising maleness that was even now responding to her touch.

  A low sound came from the back of his throat, followed by her name in hoarse question. Spreading her palm flat over his breast, she raised her head to find the light she’d rekindled shining bright in his eyes.

  Ryan deftly shifted her body over his, moving it sensuously until she lay comfortably astride him. With a hand beneath each of her arms, he held her higher.

  “Kiss me,” he ordered thickly and met her lips with his open mouth, drinking her sweetness with a thirst that belied his recent quenching. There had been women in the past; he couldn’t make claims to the same innocence as Carly. And, for his experience, his appreciation of her was all the greater. Here was one woman he knew he’d never, never tire of.

  Stroking her slender length, he deepened the kiss, sucking her tongue, plunging his beyond it to the darkest hollows of her mouth as he couldn’t do to her mind. If he’d had his wildest wish, she’d have returned his vow of love. But he knew she wouldn’t lie about something like that. And he also knew she wasn’t ready. So he meant what he’d told her; for the present, it was enough that she knew what he felt.

  “Oh, babe,” he muttered, his body on fire once more. The touch of her breasts on his chest, her belly on his, her most feminine parts on his most masculine—he suddenly ached as deeply as though he’d been celibate for years. “I want you again. Lord, Carly, I want you again.”

  She smiled softly, with a trace of smugness totally new to her, and inched her pelvis in a slow rotation. “I know.” Then she slid her knees against the rug and, framing his hips, raised herself to take him in.

  This time was the slow and easy Ryan had sought before. It was a more leisurely exploration of muscle and flesh, a more conscious mutual seduction, a taunting to the brink, then withholding and rising again, until they scaled a heart-stopping peak together.

  Long after, when Ryan could finally muster the strength to move, he hauled himself from her side.

  “Where are you going?” she whispered, unable to bear the thought of his warmth leaving her.

  He knelt over her and placed a soft kiss on her lips. “Not far, sweet. Just to build up the fire and make us more comfortable.”

  Curling up on the rug, she watched him add another log to the fire. When he disappeared into an adjacent room, she realized that the only things she knew of the cottage were what she could see from where she lay—the few furnishings nearby, a small desk by the wall, the rug and the fireplace. Her cheeks grew all the more pink at the thought of the rush they’d been in, and she felt a moment’s irrational modesty when Ryan returned. His arms were laden with pillows and a quilt, yet he couldn’t resist pausing to look down at her delicate form.

  Expelling a slow breath, he shook his head in amazement, then was on his knees, punching the pillows into a comfortable mass, spreading the quilt over her legs. If Carly was abundantly aware of her own nakedness, he was not of his. She marveled at his ease of movement, finding pleasure in the fluidity of his leanly solid lines.

  The crackling of the fire accompanied a loud pop as he uncorked the champagne. When he came down to sit cross-legged before her, he held two filled glasses. Clasping the quilt to her breasts, she shyly sat up and took the glass he offered.

  “What, uh, what time is it?”

  His grin was filled with mischief. “Ten after midnight. I’m afraid we missed the moment.”

  A rich rosy hue glossed her cheeks and she looked down. “Maybe we didn’t….”

  He chuckled, suspecting as she did that the New Year had arrived as they’d hit that last climactic peak. “What a way to go!” he decided. “I don’t believe I’ve ever done it quite that way.”

  She laughed softly, self-consciously. “Me either.”

  Ryan tucked a finger beneath her chin and brought her face up. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Happy New Year, babe.” He held out his glass.

  Eyes dewy with tears of happiness, Carly brought her glass up. “Happy New Year, Ryan. May it be a good year.”

  “A special year,” he added, holding her gaze as their glasses touched with a single soft, sweet ring. He held his glass to her lips and she sipped; she held her glass to his lips and he sipped. Then, as though to seal their wishes, each sipped from his own glass, putting his lips where the other’s had been.

  Tearing his gaze from hers at last, Ryan inhaled deeply. “Not bad.” He swirled the bubbly liquid in his glass. “Not bad at all.” Then he looked back at Carly. His eyes caressed her every feature, skimming the slender line of her neck, falling to her hand that clutched the quilt. Very gently he reached out and pried her fingers open, letting the quilt fall to her hips. “Your body’s beautiful. I don’t want you to hide it from me.”

  Smiling amid another rush of color, she let her gaze drop. “I guess…I’m not used to…it’s been so long.”

  “I know. But I love everything about you. Please believe that.”

  Her gaze met his. “I do,” she whispered.

  Putting first his glass then hers on the rug, he stretched out by her side, drew her into the crook of his shoulder and pulled the quilt over them both. With his free hand, he gathered both of hers to his lips and softly kissed her fingers, then placed them against his heart.

  “You took your wedding band off,” he murmured. He held his breath as he waited for her response. It came quietly.

  “Before you picked me up tonight.”

  “Was it hard?”

  She thought for a minute, frowning slightly. “No. Strangely. I thought it would be, but I just…did it. I guess the time was right.”

  “Does it bother you now?”

  “No. I loved Ma—my husband.” Somehow she couldn’t get herself to say a name that wasn’t the right one. Not to Ryan, who deserved so much more than a fabrication. “Nothing can change what we had.” She looked up at Ryan. “I think he’d know that.”

  “I’m sure he would,” Ryan answered, proud of her conviction.

  “Does it bother you when I talk about him?”

  “Of course not. Why should it?”

  She tried to find the proper words. “Some men would be jealous.”

  “Of a man who’s dead?” When she flinched, he held her tighter. “How can I be jealous, Carly? He was your husband. I’d feel worse if you said you didn’t love him. And you’re right. Nothing can change what you had. Nothing should change it.” He lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. “I don’t want to replace him. I want my own place in your heart. There’s room, I know there is, for him and for me. But I can wait,” he whispered, taking her face in his palms, threading his fingers into a riot of auburn waves. “As long as I know that you’re here for me now, that you’ll be with me back in Cambridge, that I can look forward to seeing you at night, waking up beside you in the morning—” When she would have protested, he put a thumb to her lips. “Whenever you can. That’s all. Whenever you can.” He took a breath. “I love you, Carly. I love you so.”

  Carly’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Ryan.”

  “Shh.” His thumbs smoothed the tears away. “Just be with me now, okay?”

  Knowing her heart would have it no other way, she forced a tremulous smile and nodded.

  Thirteen

  nEW YEAR’S DAY DAWNED BRIGHT AND CRISP, though Carly and Ryan didn’t see much of it. Having made love on and off for most of the night, they slept until well past noon, when Ryan put in a call to the main house for a hearty brunch, which they ate in bed.

  “This is positively decadent,” Carly commented. Ryan had just removed the large tray from the sheets and was climbing back beneath the covers with her.

  “Decadent is fun. Besides, we owe it to ourselves. When was the last time you spent the day in bed?”

  “Two years ago. I had the flu. My bones were aching then too.” The last was drawled with such meani
ng that Ryan rose deftly to the occasion.

  “Is that a complaint? I’ll have you know that it takes two to tango.” His eyes took on a lascivious gleam. “I seem to recall your waking me a couple of times there.”

  “Shh.” She drew the sheet to her nose. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “No need to be embarrassed. You enjoyed yourself, didn’t you?”

  The sheet fell back. “Mmm. And you?”

  He grinned. “What do you think?” Tucking her into his arms, he lay back more thoughtfully, speaking again only after a long silence. “Carly?”

  “Mmm?”

  He paused, debated, then went ahead. It needed to be said. “You hadn’t been with a man for a very long time. You couldn’t have been protected.”

  Tipping her head back, she studied the look of concern on his face.

  “I didn’t do anything, babe. I should have, but—”

  She touched a finger to his lips, and left it there to stroke the thickness of his mustache. “It’s all right. It’s as safe a time for me as it’ll ever be.” Her period had ended two days before.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “Would it upset you if you did become pregnant?”

  “Now?” She felt a sudden stab of pain, knowing that to carry Ryan’s child would be glorious yet dumb, really dumb. She might have set aside Matthew’s wedding band and in that sense released a part of the past, but much as she’d denied its intrusion on her time with Ryan, the past was still a future threat. “I think it would, for now. I’m not ready, Ryan.”

  “You do want to have children some day, though.”

  “Oh, yes,” she breathed. “Very much.”

  His features slowly relaxed. “Then we’ll talk about it another time.”

  As he’d done before, he was implying quite a future for them. And as she’d done before, Carly wasn’t ready to accede. She knew how much he wanted a family; they had talked about it more than once. Then she’d passed it off more easily; now, though, having shared all they had in the past hours, she found it harder to ignore. Ryan loved her. He wanted her to bear his children. She wondered just how long he was prepared to wait.