by Pamela Aares
She wriggled out from under his legs with a strength that surprised him. Then she knelt beside him and motioned to his shirt on the floor. “Lie down.”
No one had ever commanded him, certainly no woman. A thrill of titillation shot deep as he did as she bid.
“You’ll wish you had never introduced me to Italian restraint,” she said as she straddled him.
Placing one palm against his heart, she reached around behind herself and fingered his balls. He hauled in a breath and fought for control as she rocked her hips and slipped rhythmically along his shaft while stroking his tightening balls with her fingers.
He growled his pleasure, and she smiled. He cupped her breasts, his palms curving around the perfect and firm mounds. He tweaked her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, and she gasped.
“I want you inside me, Adrian. Now.”
He wanted nothing more. But he couldn’t resist teasing her. “What happened to slow?”
“Lost in translation?” she said with a low moan as she pressed her hands to his shoulders and wriggled until he could feel the pulse in her sex throbbing against him.
He gripped her hips, raising her, and she used her hands to position the tip of his erection at her opening.
And then he remembered—no condom. He grabbed her hips, his fingers denting her flesh, and dragged her up so that she straddled his waist, safely away from his throbbing shaft. His whole body trembled as his hands circled her waist and held her firmly in place.
“Natasha. I don’t have any protection.”
Her eyes widened in the flickering light. “This wasn’t the surprise you had planned?”
Had she really thought he’d brought her to the cave for sex? Was she teasing him? He couldn’t tell.
“No. I’d just thought to show you this place. Ohhh,” he growled when she reached behind her and fingered the slick hood of his shaft. “Stop that or—”
“I can’t imagine a better surprise,” she purred. She closed her hand around his hard shaft. “I haven’t had a lover for five years.” She bent and teased her tongue along his lower lip. “And I’ve been tested.”
Suddenly his argument for his perfect health record seemed unbelievably urgent.
“And I haven’t had unprotected sex since I was eighteen,” he bit out as she tried to wriggle free of his grip. It was the truth. He wouldn’t have dared. All he needed was a palimony suit slapped on him. He’d never met a woman worth the risk. Not until Natasha.
“Then it would appear we can have a happy ending.” She raised up and, lightning fast, dropped her hips and enveloped him.
Her tight warmth as he speared into her made him convulse and cry out her name. It had been a decade since he’d been flesh to flesh inside a woman. He’d forgotten the world-shattering rush of direct contact.
“Slowly, Natasha.” He stilled her hips with his hands and restricted her movement. “Slowly.”
He wanted the moment to last. As he rocked her, his thoughts, his plans—everything but the connection of their bodies—melted away. And below the blaze of desire, an unfamiliar feeling flooded into him, at first elusive, and then, like a camera coming into slow focus, he recognized the feeling.
Love.
He’d thought he’d known the territory of his heart, thought he’d known what the word meant. Yet discovering that love and sex and ball-busting pleasure could be wrapped up in a single moment, in a single woman, astonished him.
And he knew in that moment that his plan was a perfect path forward for a life with her. It had to be, because he couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t include Natasha Raley.
Chapter Seventeen
THE BLASTS OF EMOTION THAT HAD ROCKED Natasha while making love with Adrian should have scared the dickens out of her. But as she lay in his arms in the candlelit cave, she didn’t feel fear.
She felt changed.
As they donned their clothes, she caught her reflection in a mirrored pane in a cobweb-covered hutch leaning along one wall of the wine cave. An inner shining reflected back to her as if calling to her to trust her heart, to trust life. But how could she trust anything she felt right then? She felt untamed, set loose—maybe even unmoored. How could she trust herself when she’d made such a mess of her life?
Like a thread of dye in a glass of water, fear began to release its poison, spreading slowly and coloring every thought and feeling in its path. She wanted to scream. She wanted to stop time. She wanted to start her life over, to get it right, to be born as a normal child without a disability, a woman with a normal family and an education. A woman with a future that didn’t terrify her.
She touched her hand to her cheek and then to the mirror. The pane came loose. Her body braced for the shatter as it dropped to the clay floor of the cave.
But it didn’t shatter. It rested, intact, against the leg of the hutch.
Adrian curved his arms around her from behind and touched his lips to the nape of her neck.
“You just avoided seven years of bad luck.”
Natasha let out the breath she’d been holding. “If only our wives’ tales and fairy stories were true.”
He turned her to face him. The gentle kiss he brushed to her lips had tears welling. Tears that she was determined this time not to let loose.
“I’d like to think they are, Natasha. I’d like to think that life brings us gifts that lead to joy.”
Some cynical part of her rose up, some part of her still angry for what had been, some part of her that didn’t believe in what could be. The part of her fed by fear.
“We don’t live in the same worlds, Adrian.”
The hurt in his eyes made her wish she hadn’t said anything. Some truths hurt more than the value of their telling.
He touched his finger to her heart. “We live in the world we choose to live in. The rest is details.”
Details. Details like money for food and shelter, for an education for your children. For being able to pursue passion and dreams. She wanted to push at the walls of reality going up all around her. She didn’t want to be angry with him. He hadn’t chosen his parents, his station in life. He was a good man, a man she shouldn’t have let in so close. A man who would continue to live his life as it was meant to be. A life that she knew wouldn’t, couldn’t, include a woman like her.
She couldn’t look him in the eye. If she did, every confused emotion would pour out of her mouth and she’d regret spoiling a moment that should have its place without all that. A moment she could call up later, tugging the memory around her like an antidote when darkness threatened. She tried to step away from his embrace, but he snuggled her against his chest.
“Natasha.”
He paused. She loved how he said her name, how he said more with his tone than most people could with hundreds of words. As if her name were the beginning of a refrain of a song. A song she hoped never to forget.
“I have to go away again,” he said quietly. “For two weeks. I—”
Was it embarrassment she saw in the flickering light? Or just the weight of the truth he was about to tell? A sense of dread flooded her, pinning her in place.
“I promised Zoe I’d ride for her in a polo match in Santa Barbara.” He grinned, and her dread deepened. “I think you saw how much she likes to win.” He squeezed her hand. “And then I have to return to Rome for a long-planned memorial for my mother, a dedication for a library that was close to her heart.”
The gap yawned between them, widening as he spoke. It didn’t matter that his words were softly voiced, that his tone wasn’t arrogant. The matter-of-fact tone only made her feel the disparity more deeply. But the way he held her with his gaze made it impossible to look away. No matter what happened in her future, she would never forget the way Adrian looked at her. It made her feel treasured, even if she wasn’t the treasure he sought.
“But before I leave, I want you to know that I’ve put the reins of the new business in your hands.”
Her heart stuttered. What h
ad he said? Maybe looking into his eyes had caused her to lose the thread of what he was saying.
“You what?”
“I’d planned to wait to tell you, but I can’t resist.”
The light dancing in his eyes and his happy smile felt wrong. All wrong.
“I made you the manager of the new native plant nursery. Anything you want or need to make it a success is at your disposal. Zoe and Coco can help you with artwork. And I’ve told Tammy you’re to have all the help you require, and for now I’ve assigned Enrique to work with you. Tammy says he’s great with plants,” he went on, almost without taking a breath. “I’m clearing the back greenhouse. We’ll build another before next season. And Alana has offered to house any starts that won’t fit in our greenhouse in hers.”
She stepped back from him. His words began to feel like prickles of ice against her skin. The cave that had seemed so magical, that had been the setting for the only experience of complete joy that she’d ever had, suddenly felt like a trap.
“The computer system is in,” he added. “And I think you’ll like the interface. Alana uses the same system and—oh yes, she also said she’ll help while I’m gone. I think she’s envious that—”
“Adrian, stop. I can’t possibly do what you’re imagining.”
“Don’t be nervous. I have great faith in you.”
“It’s not nerves!”
“This gives you a career path, something to call your own.”
Her fear broke into anger and embarrassment. She couldn’t do the job he’d assigned to her.
“You can’t just waltz into someone’s life and start rearranging it. Start dictating this and that like, like some oligarch.”
He flinched at her angry tone.
“That’s a harsh word, Natasha.”
“Okay, like some billionaire’s son.” Her tone was biting. Instantly she regretted her angry words. But shock made it impossible to corral the anger roiling through her. And under her shock and anger loomed the sinking feeling that he was paying her off for having sex with him. As if he felt guilty and this impulsive promotion was a salve for the eventual pain they both knew would come.
“Grandson,” he said, all trace of his smile gone from his face. “And, no, I wouldn’t dream of telling you how to run things. You can manage the new business however you see fit. But Tammy has her hands full, so you’ll have to do your own ordering at first, and your own record keeping, but Alana assures me the accounting system is excellent and easy to use.”
His tone was cool, calculating. Businesslike. As if he was trying to sell her on the position.
“I prefer to just continue as I am.” She struggled for a convincing tone. “I like what I’m doing now. You should hire someone with much more experience than me for this new project.”
He put his palms on her shoulders, but she twisted away. It was impossible to think when Adrian touched her.
“You’re perfect for this.” He let out a shuddering sigh that she wished hadn’t reached into her heart. “You have the passion, the vision. You love native plants.”
She couldn’t argue with that. And he hadn’t meant harm. Plus it was her fault he didn’t have the facts, didn’t know the nightmare he was spinning.
The horror of having to track figures—handle ordering, use a computer—took shape in her mind. And it was a nasty, scary shape.
Her throat tightened as despair rose to curl around her anger. She considered telling him about her dyslexia, but what would happen when his attentions shifted, when he came to his senses and reentered the world he’d been born into? When she wasn’t special to him and was the wrong person in a key job?
No matter what happened between her and Adrian, she had to think of Tyler, of his future. She needed her job. She had a new rent to pay. A college fund to save for. She’d just have to buck up and find a way to bumble through until she figured out her next step. Mary might help. Petey could advise her. Maybe Mary was right, maybe the tapes or the classes would work. She could look for another job in the meantime, and maybe she could—
“We need someone to get more of these plants into the world,” Adrian said, his smile returning and his tone becoming more animated as he spoke. “Did you know that the honeybees are disappearing? I mean, I know we don’t need the bees for our self-pollinating grapevines, but without plants for the bees and butterflies and other pollinators, we lose the integrity of the ecosystem. And even the diehard growers are beginning to recognize the benefits of having plants to draw in ladybugs and lacewings along with butterflies and bees—they provide the best sort of protection against insect pests.”
His enthusiasm teased some of the energy out of her anger, but it didn’t ease the anxiety building in her chest. As he took her hands in his and kissed her fingertips, she tried to swallow back her building fear. There was no way she could run the business. No way she’d be able to do a job that required her to use computers and keep track of numbers and accounts.
“This is important work, Natasha, and you are the perfect person to do it. You are that someone, Natasha.”
He lifted her chin with his fingers. “And it’s not all doom and gloom about disappearing bees and plants. This could be fun—Alana has already offered to help integrate our new business with her body-care line. Just think of the possibilities—our flowers, their olive oil, your magic.”
If only she did have magic. She’d wave a wand and make her dyslexia disappear. She’d make it so that the difference in class and income and life experience between her and Adrian didn’t matter.
But it did matter. All of it mattered.
As he walked her to her car, her battling thoughts made it hard to respond to his enthusiastic chatter. Even the prospect of getting to work with the plants she loved didn’t cheer her.
When he kissed her goodbye, a numbing feeling of dread spread in her chest. It wasn’t just her looming failure at the work that horrified her.
She’d fallen in love with Adrian, something she’d sworn she wouldn’t do. He might be infatuated enough at the moment to forget about the gap that separated them, but she wasn’t enough of a fool to pretend that such a chasm could ever be crossed.
Chapter Eighteen
ANXIETY HAMMERED HARD AS NATASHA drove home. Once there, she tried to focus on straightening up the apartment, on organizing Tyler’s school clothes. She tried not to worry about Eddie and not to wallow in her misgivings about the job Adrian had thrust onto her. But most of all she fought to battle back the sadness she wished she didn’t feel. Sometimes it didn’t pay to be a realist. But she’d lived too long in the world not to know what lay ahead.
Still fighting her warring feelings, she stirred the minestrone she’d made the day before and dished it into bowls. She glanced at the clock and then headed outside. As the light lingered later in the day, it was harder and harder for her to call Tyler away from his friends and inside to do his homework.
On their small porch, she shaded her eyes from the slanting sunlight.
“Tyler!”
“One more inning?” he shouted from the field beside their apartment.
He took a swing at the ball a neighbor boy pitched to him.
She tapped at her wrist, even though she wasn’t wearing a watch. “Dinner.”
With a shrug to his friends, Tyler grabbed his glove from the grass and headed in her direction. She couldn’t help but smile. He’d made new friends. He was doing well in school. He’d made the school baseball team. And although she thought some of the boys were too young for hardball, the coach had reassured her that none of the boys was in any danger. She needed to relax, that coach had said. If only she could.
Later that night after Tyler went off to bed, she opened the tablet the school had given him. She tapped at the screen, and letter by careful letter she typed in the name of the local junior college. But the screen that flashed up was gibberish to her. In a blue box at the top she spied a phone number and copied it onto a scrap of paper. She checked
and rechecked the sequence of numbers, making sure they matched, that she hadn’t reversed any or left any out.
In the morning she’d call and sign up for the class Mary had recommended. And dared to hope that she might learn to function well enough, quickly enough, to keep her job.
Where had this new willingness to try come from? If anyone had told her that physical desire could bolster self-esteem and make her want to leap tall buildings, she’d have been convinced they were full of beans. Or deluded.
Deluded.
Adrian was likely deluded too. Even so, she shouldn’t have blown up at him. He was a good man, but he’d put her in an impossible situation. And that was her fault. Though she hadn’t lied, she’d lied by omission. A quote from one of the audiobooks she’d listened to ages ago came back to her. The cruelest lies are often told in silence. Now she knew too well what the author had meant. She should’ve told Adrian right then, when they’d left the cave, or as he’d seen her to her car. If only she’d had the courage to come clean, to tell him about her limitations. Perhaps even own up to her fears. But she’d been raw, torn open by the passion they’d shared, by the feelings that had laced through her, leaving little rips in the protective cocoon she’d carefully spun for so many years.
Deep down inside, some part of her wished she could tell Adrian the truth. Tell him not only about her disability but about the inner darkness she fought every day. But fear whispered its convincing song. Her foster father’s condemning words always lurked, stabbing at her. You’ll never amount to anything, Natasha. You’re a marginal person, just like us. A creature on the run. The man’s cruel words had left more scars than his hands had.
Afraid that the flicker of strength, of courage—of hope—that she held so tightly to would be extinguished, she decided her secrets were best kept locked away.
Two nights later, Natasha tossed in her bed, unable to sleep. Adrian was in Rome. Living the life he was born to. She tried counting backward from fifty to zero, measuring each intake and exhale, following the instructions on the tapes Mary had given her. But nothing she tried stopped her imagination. The images of him in lush settings, surrounded by beautiful women—of him happy in his realm—took on rich colors, sounds and shapes, like a Hollywood blockbuster on a huge screen playing relentlessly in her mind.