Challenging Andie

by Sally Clements

  Ryan nodded. He knew how that could be. “It drags you in. How long has it been since your grandmother…”

  “She died a year ago after a long illness that left her bedridden. I managed to keep her at home, though. An old friend from the village helped out until I got back from school in the afternoons.”

  While her mother had been in Bekostan, reporting on the trauma people were suffering every day, her daughter had been struggling to keep her grandmother from being taken into a home. It couldn’t have been easy, assuming full responsibility for an old lady’s care. His mother hadn’t been old, or infirmed, just heartsick that his father had left to set up house with a new woman. When his father refused to see him and Brianne anymore announcing his mistress’s pregnancy meant he’d have ‘a new family now,’ it had been enough to send his mother straight back into the depression she was just beginning to crawl out of.

  “It must have been difficult.” Ryan touched her hand, wishing he could convey sympathy more clearly.

  “Sometimes, but my grandmother was a wonderful woman who gave me all her love and care. I’m glad I could be there in her time of need. I loved her. If you love someone, you have to take the pain too, don’t you?” She glanced across the restaurant. “Ah, here’s our dinner.”

  The waitress placed a plate full of spaghetti Bolognese before Andie, and fish and fries in front of Ryan.

  “Did you ever visit your mother when she was on assignment?”

  “Me?” Andie’s eyes opened wide. She shook her head. “God no. Emily wouldn’t have wanted me there. I’ve never even been out of the country, although that’s one of the things on my list.”

  “List?” Curiosity spiked.

  “My list of challenges.” Andie twirled spaghetti around her fork. “Didn’t I tell you about that?”

  “I’m pretty sure I would have remembered.” Ryan pushed a sprig of parsley aside. Did anyone ever eat this stuff? “So, what’s this list about?” He speared a forkful of crispy fish, and chewed.

  Andie swallowed a mouthful of food. Sipped at her sparkling water. “Emily was one of the most adventurous women on the planet. On every visit, she took me out on ‘an adventure’ as a special treat.” Her mouth pulled up at the corner in a micro grimace. “Unfortunately, all the things she loved to do were terrifying. Rollercoasters were one of her favorites. I remember being taken on one when I was about five. I was so terrified she had to carry me off.” She tried for a smile, but failed. “Anyway, she wasn’t very impressed. Next, she took me to a ‘tactile zoo’. One where they let you up close and personal with the animals. I was so excited. I thought I’d be petting goats and rabbits.” A flicker of humor lit up her eyes. “Of course, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”

  “Uh-oh.”

  Andie’s nose wrinkled. She looked so cute Ryan battled the urge to grin.

  “I didn’t mind the lizards and snakes too much.” She shuddered. “And to be fair, she didn’t know about me and spiders, but she soon found out.”

  “Arachnophobic?”

  “Big time.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “It was a common theme, disastrous family outings. On the occasions we went out to dinner…” She covered her mouth and smothered a laugh. “One time, it was a restaurant that specialized in unusual food. I refused to choose between ostrich and kangaroo, so she ordered alligator for me. When I found out what it was I threw up.”

  “In the restaurant.”

  Andie nodded. “All over the table. We ate at home with Gran after that.”

  Andie’s laugh didn’t hide the pain. It must have been rough, being so out of touch with her mother that the scant times they had together ended in disaster. At least he hadn’t had to pretend to like his father.

  “Gran got me. She knew what I liked to eat, knew I loved animals and art. Being with her was easy compared to being with Emily. After a while, Emily just gave up, I think. When I went to teacher training college—that was it, really. She couldn’t hide her disappointment.” Andie put her fork down. “Enough about me. Your turn.”

  “Did you never call Emily Mum?” The question slipped out.

  “No. Always Emily. She liked to be called by her name.”

  Even by her daughter?

  A shadow flickered over Andie’s eyes. She leaned her head to the side, then looked down at her plate.

  Enough childhood memories. He refilled her glass, and changed the subject. “You still haven’t told me about the list.”

  “After Emily died I thought about all the things she loved. All the things that frightened me, or I’d been nervous about trying. I decided to conquer them. I call it my list of challenges. We met on number one.”

  “How many things are there on this list?” Ryan dipped the last fry in tomato ketchup and chewed. She was doing this for her mother, then. To feel worthy of being her mother’s daughter. If being brave was about facing your fears, Emily hadn’t been, had she? Because her fear must have been staying at home, making a life with a small daughter who needed her. She’d bailed at the soonest opportunity.

  “Five.” Andie picked up the menu again. “Well, four now, I guess. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. You’d laugh if you knew what was on it. I’m a total coward.”

  “Scaredy-pants Andie—I remember.” He brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed them. “And I don’t believe you’re a coward for a moment. Everything you’ve done since I’ve met you has been brave.”

  Andie’s eyes darkened to navy. Her cheeks flushed. “So say you, but I bet you’ve never balked at anything in your whole life. You’re a proper action-man.”

  “I’ve even got the scar.” Ryan stroked a finger across the faint scar on his cheek.

  “Did you get it when you were reporting a story?”

  “I got it in conflict,” Ryan said. “With my sister, when I was ten.”

  Andie’s eyes widened.

  “We were being very brave—bouncing on the bed, even though my mother had repeatedly told us not to. Brianne shoved me, and I slipped. The bedside light was a casualty, and I cut my cheek on the shards.”

  “You must have been a handful.”

  Ryan leaned closer, letting his gaze fall to her full lips. “Still am.”

  The air crackled with unspoken promise. Andie’s lips parted on a tiny intake of breath. Before he could say anything more, the waitress arrived to take their dessert order.

  “Why don’t we just get something to go?” The restaurant’s appeal faded, replaced with the urge to get her alone.

  Andie’s eyes shone.

  When she nodded, Ryan pointed at a large gateau on the dessert trolley. “Can you pack up all of that to go?”

  Chapter Six

  They stopped off at Andie’s house on the way, where she packed a bag of essential things, and a couple of non-essentials too—a ridiculously filmy nightie, and the sexy underwear impulse-bought on her last shopping trip to London. She pulled the cardboard box she’d found in the attic out from the bottom of her wardrobe, and added that too. It contained letters from Emily to Gran. She’d read one, and since the television interview, curiosity about her mother demanded she investigate the box’s contents further, to see what else might be awaiting discovery.

  She also picked up her car, wanting to have the option of leaving when she wanted, rather than depending on Ryan to ferry her around. They only had a few days together and it was always better to be self-sufficient.

  As they arrived as the cottage, the full import of her decision to stay struck Andie full-force.

  The door swung open at Ryan’s push.

  Andie’s heart flew into her mouth, as though she’d stepped off a precipice and was tumbling through the air, with nothing but hope to save her from disaster. Ryan was a good man. The attraction that looped around her heart and tugged her in every time they touched was so dangerously compelling she couldn’t resist spending more time in his company. With luck, this reckless move wouldn’t end in disas
ter. She’d made the step—there was nothing she could do to protect herself at this stage.

  Ryan’s touch electrified from arm to hand. Strong fingers laced through hers. Andie turned, touched his chest, palm warming with the heat emanating through the soft cotton. Fingertips traced his heartbeat.

  A warm hand stroked her hair. Slowly, tenderly.

  She tilted her chin to his hand. A soft sign escaped, like a whisper, a longing made audible in the soft exhalation of breath.

  Ryan’s mouth lowered, firm lips caressed. Once, twice.

  She had to smile. Soft seduction was so delicious. She pulled him closer, and immediately the time for soft seduction was over. Passion flared to explosive life in an instant. There was too much material between their bodies—too many miles of rug to stumble over before reaching the sofa. Frantic hands clutched at his shirt, rapidly undoing buttons in the urge to feel the smoothly muscled skin beneath her fingertips.

  When Ryan picked her up in his powerful arms, and strode up the stairs two at a time to the bedroom, her heart threatened to burst out of her chest, it was pounding so hard. She rested against the strong column of his bronzed neck, feeling the muscles and tendons strain against her lips. With every labored breath, she breathed in his scent. Her head swam at the taste of him against her tongue.

  Somehow they made it onto the bed, both breathing heavily. In one smooth movement her dress unzipped. She pushed the shirt from his shoulders, tracing the scar discovered on his bicep with shaking fingers. A reminder of conflict, a brush with danger. One that might have given her pause for thought and brought reality back into glaring focus, if she’d been able to think, but this moment wasn’t about thinking, wasn’t about considering. It was about experiencing the warmth of his body, the touch of calloused hands on her breasts.

  Sensation flashed through Andie in a heated wave. Somehow he’d managed to strip off his clothes, and the brush of his naked thigh sent her heart beating faster. She couldn’t wait any longer, couldn’t… Her hands clutched around his torso. “Ryan.” She sounded aroused and needy, and didn’t care. She was both.

  “I need a condom.” He grabbed his jeans from the floor, retrieved a small foil packet, and quickly sheathed himself.

  Andie’d never felt such abandon. Such urgency. She wasn’t a virgin, there’d been a couple of boyfriends through the years, but sex had always been a disappointment. It had never been anything like this. This was a desperate need—an overload of all her senses—that banished thought and reason.

  She trailed her lips over his jaw, loving the feeling of rough stubble. Her mouth parted to drag her teeth across his neck.

  He jerked at the contact. “Slow down,” he breathed against her temple.

  A laugh bubbled up from nowhere, delight made real. “No,” she whispered. “Go faster.”

  Ryan groaned. “You’re killing me here.”

  If this was killing—being an assassin would be her dream job.

  With one hand, he eased her back onto the cool cotton sheets. “We’re taking it slow.” His eyes burned with a fever that matched the heat burning through her.

  One hand cupped her breast and he lavished attention on its partner, teasing the nipple with his teeth, turning her blood molten. She gripped his muscled shoulders, as the sensation intensified.

  Slowly, with painful intensity, his mouth moved lower, lips trailing over her stomach. Andie gasped. “Come up here.” She wanted the weight of his body on hers with a desire that verged on desperation.

  He looked up with a tormenting smile. “Not yet.”

  He held her arms flat against the bed, then shifted, moving lower.

  Andie gave in to sensation, parting her legs with a soft sigh. As his head dipped to the juncture of her thighs, her sigh turned to a moan.

  His hands slipped below her bottom, angling her up, then warm hands caressed her inner thighs, the slow strokes echoing the movement of his tongue.

  Andie gasped and bunched the sheet between frantic fingers. She writhed as his hands moved to cup her breasts. Heard her frantic breaths as fingers teased her erect nipples. She couldn’t hold on, couldn’t…

  Fireworks exploded behind her closed eyes, and she soared higher, higher, then tumbled over the top and floated back toward earth again.

  She pulled in breath after breath, in search of air.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Ryan’s deep voice was almost a growl. His hands smoothed over her inner thighs.

  Andie buried her hands in his hair.

  In one smooth movement, they were chest to chest.

  She held him close as their mouths met, in a kiss so deep, so intense that her eyelids flickered shut again.

  She felt like she’d run a marathon, but somehow, as his mouth moved to trail down her neck, the sensation overload relit the flame of desire in her core again. His rigid length was against her thigh, and she wriggled, wanting him closer, wanting him inside.

  Her hands slipped lower, wantonly gripping his firm behind.

  “Make love to me,” she whispered against his temple.

  She felt the smile on Ryan’s lips. He shifted, and in one strong stroke, entered her.

  She was so ready for him, and yet he was so big that her body stretched to accommodate him.

  Ryan stilled instantly. “All right?” he whispered.

  “More than all right.” Joy shone through Andie, as though a sun was inside her chest, infusing its heat and sunlight outward through her arms and hands, filling her with its glow.

  Ryan’s hand cupped the side of her face, and she moved her mouth to his palm, kissing and tasting the salt on his skin as he moved faster and faster until their rapid breaths matched, and, in perfect synch, they careened off the precipice, and soared, like hawks caught in an updraft, together.

  *****

  Ryan was in trouble. He knew it. He’d never been one for spooning, but the feel of Andie’s soft body, relaxed in sleep curved up against his was wonderful. Dead to the world, she wouldn’t know if he breathed in the faint lemon perfume of her hair like a lovesick sap. Wouldn’t know if his hand played with a lock of her golden hair like a talisman. Curled it around his finger and gripped on tight. Her legs against his, thighs to knees. Her soft breaths punctuating the darkness of the night.

  What had started as an irresistible attraction had morphed into something more. He’d meant to make slow and careful love to her, knowing she’d had it tough the past few weeks, and wanting to make the night perfect. The moment she’d demanded they make love, so desperate and demanding, all thoughts of taking it easy had burned up and disappeared. He’d never felt like that before. Never been so…desperate, so out of control. Never wanted to snuggle in passion’s aftermath.

  Andie sighed in her sleep.

  Ryan released her hair, slid his hand over her ribcage, and closed his eyes.

  *****

  Sun steaming through the window woke Ryan from sleep. Another dreamless night. He sat up, and scrubbed a hand over his face. The room was empty. He touched the indentation where she’d lain, finding it cold. Relief flowed at the knowledge he was alone with his disquieting thoughts. The dreams were so constantly present that their absence threw him out of kilter, brought home the fact that for many, a peaceful night’s sleep was the norm, rather than an oddity. Being alone was good. It negated the possibility he’d unwittingly reveal a part of himself he wasn’t ready to share—not even with Andie.

  In his world, tormented dreams were an inevitable side-effect of allowing a story to penetrate the psyche. Many of the correspondents who arrived at the daily press briefings in the embassy were bleary eyed through an over consumption of alcohol the night before. Drink and reportage went together hand in glove. A necessary evil to get through the days and nights reporting a bloody conflict and the horrors that man perpetrated against man. He’d avoided the bottle, seeing in all too graphic detail how drinking had destroyed talented men and women alike. The old pros propping up the bar in the hotel the press us
ed were always jovial, but dead inside.

  Ryan made for the bathroom. The shower’s pounding spray washed away thought, washed away reflection, but pain still lingered. He stuck his head under the spray, breathed in the cloud of damp steam, and tried to quiet his mind.

  Andie had grown up without a mother for Emily had rejected the warm safety of home and family to champion another country’s cause, blocking out the alternate reality that she could have lived. Did that future lay in store for him too? He’d considered himself self-contained. Didn’t believe he needed anyone or anything but the chance to report on stories. Awards had been given for his dispassionate reporting and he’d been proud of his ability to disconnect from the tragic events he documented. His report on the aftermath of the bombing in Rexa had been syndicated around the world, with its haunting footage of children and adults caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time, lying bloodied in the makeshift hospital on the outskirts of the city.

  He’d been able to report calmly on their pain. Capture their faces and ravaged bodies, and talk to the survivors about their experiences. Being one step removed was part of the job, the only way to survive in the midst of such agony. For years he’d pushed down his emotions—considered himself immune, but they bled out into his dreams.

  The dreams had been absent for the past two nights with Andie at his side. Without even trying, she’d changed him. Made it difficult to remain detached in the face of her grief. Now, the veil between day and night was gossamer thin, stretched to ripping. The horrors were in danger of protruding through into his daily reality. The mechanism instinctively used for years to push them back into his unconscious irretrievably broken.

  Ryan laid both hands against the cool tiles behind the shower head. Closed his eyes, and surrendered to the kaleidoscope of images that flickered behind his eyelids in an unrelenting show reel. Heat raced through him. The sound of water hammering on the floor of the shower stall sparked memories of a long forgotten thunderstorm, rain streaming down a baked mud wall—terracotta pooling with swirls of blood. Ryan’s arms shook as he pushed hard against the tiles. His chest burned with the effort of breathing. Slowly, he leaned against the cold tiles, and slid down the wall into a crouch.