by Dani Collins
He didn’t want to be so enthralled. It went against everything he’d promised himself and Luiza’s memory. Nevertheless, he reacted to the way she rejected him with a pivot of her body. It incited him to strike fast to keep from being shut out. Fear that had nothing to do with the best interests of his country goaded him to act.
“Don’t underestimate what’s between us, Tiffany.” He inwardly cringed at revealing so much, but he was even more averse to her thinking he was capable of low motives. “The attraction between us is real and very strong.”
“Oh, give it up! You don’t want me. You—”
“Shall I prove it?” He rose and easily stalked her across the tiny space of the balcony, using her outstretched hand to tug her close and pulling her resistant body into to his own.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, wriggling for freedom then stilling when she felt his arousal. “You—” Confusion stilled her and she searched his expression.
“As I said.” He lowered his head, setting a determined kiss over her protesting mouth.
* * *
Tiffany continued to press for distance, but he wasn’t being mean, just insistent. Still, she was awfully confused. The way he’d given her that moment of hope that she could be attractive to someone before she realized it was all a ruse had been devastating. Now he was coming on strong, making her want to melt into him. Really, seriously, turn to mush in his arms. It was so frightening to be this affected. She did the only thing she could think to do. She tried to bite him.
He jerked his head back. “Are we playing rough, draga?” He shot his hand beneath her robe, grasping her breast in a firm hand, dislodging the slippery tie of her robe so it started to fall open.
“Don’t!” she cried, hunching and scrambling to keep as much cloth in place as possible. “Please, Ryzard, don’t do this. Not out here where anyone could see.”
He froze, then slowly withdrew his hand. The tips of his fingers grazed a distended nipple, sending a pulse of pleasure-pain through her. She was too humiliated to respond and too shaken by the fear of exposure to appreciate his obeying her plea.
“Tiffany,” he scolded as he held her in loose arms. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Pushing back until he reluctantly let his hold on her drop away, she ensured she was completely covered, but couldn’t lift her head.
“I’ve seen battle scars, you know.” The hand he used to smooth her hair back from her bad cheek was surprisingly compassionate.
* * *
Rather than turn into his caress, she averted from it.
“I’m your first lover since the accident? That’s why you’re so shy?” Ryzard was still trying to catch up to the way her shield of toughness had fallen away so quickly into such tremendous vulnerability. One second she’d been a worthy adversary, the next a broken fawn in need of swift protection.
“Yeah.” Her snorted word held a hysterical note. She tried to step over the chair he’d upended, trying to move away from him. Tears sheened her eyes, her emotions so close to the surface he knew she was near a tipping point.
He bent to right the chair, allowing her to move away into privacy because pieces were falling into place in his mind in a way he couldn’t quite believe. Her back seemed incredibly narrow and bowed under a weight as she entered the suite. He could hardly countenance what he was thinking, but her gasp of pain last night rang in his ears. He had thought she just wasn’t quite ready, but...
Cautiously he followed, one hand going to the door frame to steady himself as he asked, “Tiffany. Am I your only lover?”
She didn’t turn around, but her shoulders seemed to flinch before she lifted her head to say cockily, “So far, but with my looks and connections, I’m encouraged to believe there’s more in my future.”
He bit back a curse while his free hand clenched into a fist at his side. He wanted to shake her out of sheer frustration with her cavalier attitude, but at the same time he had a deep compulsion to cradle her against him. The erotic memory of their coming together grew sweeter even as he struggled with the ramifications of being a woman’s first. He’d done it once before. He knew the emotional ties it pulled from both parties.
A splintering sensation accosted him as he once again compared her with Luiza. His first instinct was to walk away. Confusing emotions tumbled through him like a rockslide, tainted with the intense grief he’d managed to avoid as the aftermath of war had consumed him. He once again hated himself as a traitor for having more than a passing interest in Tiffany, but learning he was her first changed things. He wasn’t so archaic he thought virginity was a seal of quality, but losing it was an important marker in a woman’s life. He couldn’t be dismissive of her or what she’d offered him, even if she was trying to be.
“Can you explain to me how this is possible, Mrs. Davis?”
* * *
Tiffany looked to the ceiling, battling back stupid tears and a deeper sense of vulnerability than she’d ever felt. There had been a time when her confidence, her belief in her own superiority, had been unflagging. In an instant she had become weak and broken and dependent. Finding her way back from that seemed impossible, and she hated that Ryzard saw her at this low point. He was so strong and sure of himself. Where had he been when she’d had all her defenses in place and could have handled his forceful, dynamic personality?
A dozen sarcastic responses to his question came to her tongue, but the nearest she could get to flippant was to say, “I was afraid I’d fall in love with someone else if I didn’t save myself for Paulie.”
She tightened her belt and turned, surprised to catch him in an unguarded moment.
The faraway look in his eye suggested he had dark thoughts of his own. Seeing he might not be as completely put together as he seemed gave her the courage to continue with more outspokenness than she’d ever allowed herself.
“Our marriage was written in stone. Our fathers were friends, and his mother was my mom’s maid of honor. Paulie and my brother, Christian, were inseparable through childhood. The architect and engineer designed the bridge between our families when Paulie and I were still in diapers. By the time I was in high school, no other boy had the guts to ask me out. They knew I was already taken.”
“You didn’t date? Didn’t sleep with him?”
“Paulie dated. He sowed enough wild oats for the both of us. He took me to the Friday night dances, and on Monday I would hear what had happened at the parties he went to after he dropped me at home. He came here and had affairs.”
“And you put up with that?”
She sighed, hugging herself. “I believed him when he told me he was getting it out of his system. He swore that once we were married, he would never stray. I still believe he meant it. He encouraged me to do the same,” she offered with a shrug, “but like I say, no one offered and I told myself it would be romantic to wait.”
“Did you love him?”
She sighed, chest aching as she admitted what she’d never told anyone. “I adored him like a best friend. That’s a good foundation for a marriage, right?” She had needed to believe it, but hearing it now only made her hug herself tighter.
She tried to stem the emotions swelling in her, but the rest of her feelings, the churning doubts and anger and grief, gathered and poured out. “I miss him like crazy. He’s the one person who would have been right beside me through all of this, keeping my spirits up, saying all the right things. But I don’t know if I’d even be speaking to him because I’m so angry. I hate him for dying, really truly hate hi—”
A sob arrived like a commuter train with a whoosh and a suck of air. She held herself steady as grief rose and peaked. She blinked and trembled until she could assimilate it. After a long minute, she found control again and managed to continue.
“I hate him for getting behind the wheel that n
ight. I hate Christian for giving him the car. I hate myself for thinking one spin up the drive when we were all so drunk would be okay.”
Something tickled her jaw, and she realized a tear had bled down her numb cheek to burn her chin. She swiped it away and sniffed back the rest.
Through blurred eyes, she saw Ryzard looked gray, but she was coming back from a dark place. The whole world looked dull and bleak.
“I’ve never admitted that to anyone,” she confessed. “I think it needed to come out. Thank you.” She rubbed her arms, becoming aware she was frozen and achy.
Ryzard’s long legs and wide chest appeared unexpectedly before her. He drew her into his arms even as she drew a surprised breath. His expression was stark and filled with deep anguish.
“Don’t say anything,” he said heavily, overcoming her automatic stiffening and pressing her into the solid strength of his body. “Just be quiet a minute.”
He smoothed hands along her back to mold her into him, warming her. It wasn’t a pass. It was comfort. After a hesitant moment, she let her head settle into the hollow of his shoulder and closed her eyes. He stroked her hair and she let her arms wrap around him, hugging him so the bruise that was her heart still ached, but felt covered and protected by the shield of his solid presence.
“Sometimes anger and hatred are the only things that get you through the injustice,” he said so quietly she wasn’t sure she really heard him, but the tickle across her hair told her his voice was real. “I envy people of strong faith. They never seem tortured by the why of it.”
She swallowed, floored to realize they were sharing a moment, something so deep and personal it didn’t need a name of a lost one for her to know he understood her utterly and completely. He suffered as she did.
Her hand moved on his back, soothing the tension in the muscles alongside his spine. She relaxed into him and they held each other for a long minute.
Gradually she realized he was becoming aroused. He wasn’t overt about it, but she knew and an answering thread of response began subtly changing her own body. Her internal organs felt quivery and her breasts grew sensitive. Awareness of their stark physical differences expanded in her mind along with how intimately they’d fit themselves together last night.
As heat suffused in her, she tried to pull away and keep her head ducked so he wouldn’t see how she was reacting.
He kept her close and tilted her face up. His mouth twitched ruefully, but his eyes remained somber. “You see?” he murmured. A sensation of pressure made her think he might have stroked his thumb over the scar tissue on her cheek. “We’re a good fit. You should let me give you the after-party you deserved before your wedding.”
“Tempting,” she said, backing out of his hold because a resurgence of warmth that had its feet in embarrassed longing tingled through her. “But I’m not a charity case you need to offer a pity lay. Give me your email and I’ll let you know if my father learns anything.”
“My desire for you has nothing to do with my political agenda,” he dismissed with a heavy dollop of annoyance. “I want you.”
She snorted. “Why?”
“Because, Tiffany, if you had any experience with men, you would know that last night was remarkable. There are people who have been together years and not been so attuned to each other.” He flinched a little as he said that, but she was too busy reacting to his outrageous claim.
“That’s not what you said this morning.” She tried to sound unaffected, but she was still feeling unfairly spanked. It reflected in the raspy edge on her tone and filled her with debasement long after the insult had landed. She couldn’t even look at him.
“I was under a wrong impression and behaved unpleasantly. I apologize.”
She eyed him, skeptical.
“I don’t apologize often. I suggest you accept it.”
“No doubt,” she allowed with a twitch of her lips. His arrogance ought to turn her off, but he seemed to have a right to it. His inner strength was as compelling as his obvious physical virility. When it wasn’t turned against her, that combination was lethally attractive.
“Come here,” he cajoled in a smoky invitation, even though he stood within touching distance and only had to reach out if he really wanted to.
“Why?” She stayed where she was, but everything in her gravitated to him.
“I want to kiss you. Show you how good we are together.”
“Seduce me?”
He offered a masculine smile so tomcattish and predatory, it made her stomach dip in giddy excitement. “I would very much like to make love to you again,” he said.
An image of her naked body, the one she avoided in the mirror every day, flashed in her mind. She drew the lapels of her robe together and shook her head.
“Find someone else. I’m not playing hard to get. I just don’t see the point.”
Rather than argue, he pursed his mouth in regret. “I’ve damaged your trust in me.”
“There wasn’t much to begin with,” she assured him with a tight smile.
“And the claws are revealed once again.” He seemed more amused than irritated. “You trusted me enough to share your—what does your American singer call it? The wonderland that is your body.”
“Yes, well, I was pretending to be someone else,” she dismissed with false breeziness, inner foundations unsteady as she recalled how completely she’d deluded herself into believing what she’d done was okay.
“Do it again,” he commanded.
“Ha!” She couldn’t help it. The man was so lofty and single-minded.
“I’m serious,” he insisted. “Put on your mask. We’ll go downstairs and find that woman capable of such delightful spontaneity.”
“It’s—no. I can’t.”
But she couldn’t think why. At least, not fast enough to have an answer ready when he demanded, “Why not?”
“Because...” She searched for a reason.
“We could dance again. We both enjoyed that. Of course, we could do that here.” He glanced to where the balcony doors stood open. The music from the band below drifted in with the sea-scented air and the swish of waves on the shore.
The mood and music came across as a lazy, exotic throb.
“No,” she said firmly, smart enough to be wary of his power once he got his hands on her. The way he’d felt her up on the dance floor last night had obviously been a spell of some kind.
“Downstairs it is. Shall we say one hour? I can shave and change in fifteen minutes, but you women need twenty just to find a pair of shoes.”
“He said,” she mocked, “demonstrating his vast experience with the opposite sex.”
“I won’t apologize. We’re adults. We can enjoy each other if we want to.” He moved forward to set a brief but profound kiss on her startled mouth. “Sure you don’t want to stay in?” he asked in a private tone that made her blood flutter in her arteries.
Oh, she was tempted, but she shook her head. “I’m not sure I even want to see you again.”
“Meet me downstairs, Tiffany, or I’ll come looking for you. But I don’t want to waste time searching. Set your watch.”
She shook her head. “I don’t like people thinking they can talk to me. I’d rather leave it on Do Not Disturb.”
“Set it so I can find you.” At her blank look, he gave her a head shake of exasperation. “Where is it? I’ll show you.”
A few minutes later she stood in her empty suite wondering how she’d gone from crying in the shower to having a date, one that made her feel more awake and alive than—this was dangerous—any other time in her life.
Oh, Tiffany, be careful. You could still fall for the wrong man.
No, she wasn’t that pathetic and vulnerable, she assured herself. Nor was she strong enough to stay in her room and risk his coming
for her. Besides, she had enjoyed feeling normal. There was no crime in that, was there?
She liked even more the idea of making him see her as beautiful. Turning, she went to see what treasures the designers might have left her.
CHAPTER FIVE
RYZARD MOVED THROUGH the three-dimensional images of a carnivale parade. He had to be careful. There were real people, Q Virtus members and petite q’s, dressed as colorfully as the fake partiers, but for the most part he walked right through projections of extravagant floats and scantily clad women wearing beaded bikinis and feather headdresses. He stopped for a troupe of men in checkered pants and neon elephant masks when they began a tumbling routine in front of him, nearly convinced they were real.
His watch hummed, indicating Tiffany was close by, but where?
His need to see her again, to know she’d come down here for him, was out of proportion to any normal sort of anticipation. He brushed it aside, thinking if he could have her just once more, he’d be able to forget about her. It didn’t matter that she’d revealed more about herself than he’d ever heard from all other Q Virtus members combined. Like most of the happenings here, their private conversation would stay locked in his own personal vault, not even to be revisited by him.
He especially refused to dwell on their comforting embrace when her mixture of grief and anger and self-blame had struck a chord in him. Even though, for the better part of a minute while he held her, he’d been at peace for the first time in a long time.
He stepped on a man’s hands and looked through the feet that would have struck him in the nose if the vision was real. Music blared, voices cheered, and the holographic players were so dense he might as well have been in a crowd on the street.
There. All the hairs stood up on his body as he took her in.
She had her head bent to study her watch and pivoted as though trying to orient herself with a compass. The movement allowed him to take her in from all sides.
