by Lisa Jackson
He came back to her and kissed her lovingly. Her body instinctively arched beneath his, and Ryder moaned in pure ecstasy as he thrust into her, filling her.
Joanna clutched the headboard to keep herself from pushing him away, an urge as instinctive as every other she’d been following tonight. This was all new to her, but she was determined to come through like a champion. It was like physical therapy, she told herself, using muscles that initially resisted but following through anyway because the final reward was worth the effort.
Still, her body was screaming at her, the way it had every time her therapists in the rehab hospital tried a brand-new exercise on her broken limbs. Joanna tried to ignore it. Never mind that she’d never done this before, she would file the pain away and concentrate on pleasing him….
“Sweetheart, you’re so tense.” Unlike her therapists, who didn’t acknowledge her pain—what would’ve been the point? of course it hurt—Ryder did notice. “Are you all right?”
Joanna nodded, a fine sheen of perspiration bathing her entire body. “Let’s just get on with it,” she said, gritting her teeth.
“Honey, I can tell it’s been a while since you’ve—” Ryder began. A thought struck him and he instantly refuted it. No, it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. Not after the passionate way she’d kissed him and touched him, not after her eager advances.
“Joanna, exactly how long has it been for you?” he asked in a strangled tone.
She smoothed her hands over his back. The lull had given her body time to accommodate and adjust to his. Joanna felt a flash of triumph. She had won the fight against her reluctant body again, once more proving her superlative mind-over-matter ability.
“It’s starting to feel good, Ryder,” she said, more than a little amazed. She’d been willing to settle for the lessening of pain; she certainly hadn’t expected pleasure. But pleasure was what she was definitely experiencing as she melted around his virile strength.
The hot fusion of their bodies was almost dizzyingly pleasurable. “Very good, Ryder,” she whispered on a moan.
Ryder nearly gave it up then and there, but he held on. She’d been the one orchestrating things between them tonight, and it was time he took the lead. “You didn’t answer my question, Joanna. How long has it been since you’ve made love?”
She nipped at his shoulder. Warm waves of sensual bliss were flooding her. “Not since my last lifetime, whenever that was. If ever that was,” she added. She wasn’t too sure about past lives.
“This is your first time?” He fairly gasped it.
“Don’t be mad, Ryder. I didn’t intend for you to know.”
“Joanna, I’m not mad.” He raised his head to look into her eyes. “But you should’ve told me.”
“I wanted to make love with you, Ryder, not send you on a guilt trip. Which you’re now about to take, anyway,” she grumbled.
“I’m not feeling guilty. Okay. Yes, I am, but not about going to bed with you. Joanna, I should’ve taken things gentle and slow and instead, I—”
“You did exactly what I wanted, Ryder. It was wonderful.” She wrapped her limbs around him and kissed him tenderly.
“You think that’s it?” He was smiling as he lifted his lips from hers. “My sweet darling, we’ve hardly begun.”
That night he showed her what she’d been wondering about, what she’d been yearning for. He taught her everything about the joys and pleasures of a man and woman making love. Joanna gave herself to him, creating and sharing bliss as they explored and finally exceeded the boundaries of their passion.
Emotion swelled within Ryder, so mingled with desire that he couldn’t begin to separate them. The combination inspired a passion stronger and fiercer than he’d ever known.
Joanna was his, all his. Only his. He hadn’t thought being first mattered all that much, but being Joanna’s first lover meant more to him than he could ever have imagined.
Afterward, they lay together, nearly insensate with the rapture of their shattering release. Holding her tightly, Ryder buried his face in her hair, inhaling the alluring scent that was Joanna Chandler.
“Are you going to tell me how—and why—a beautiful, sensual, passionate woman like you has waited so long to—”
“I knew you’d be shocked,” Joanna said lightly. “You thought because I’d traveled all over Europe on a Euro-rail pass that I’d slept my way across the continent, as well. And when you throw in my lack of education plus my job in the film industry—well, of course, you’d think I was something of a slut!”
“Joanna, I never thought that.” Ryder was chagrined. Actually, he had thought her résumé added up to a very sexually experienced woman. But he’d never considered her a slut!
“Sure you did, but I forgive you.” She kissed him playfully.
Joanna wasn’t about to get into why she had remained so guarded and restrained sexually. She’d never analyzed the reason, although her feelings of inferiority about her patched-together body probably played a vital role.
She thought about those early days of posthospital freedom, when she’d partied hearty and hardy. Even then she’d set certain lines and limits for herself that she refused to cross.
“You didn’t even try to answer my question, Joanna,” Ryder persisted.
Joanna didn’t want to delve too deeply into the whys and wherefores, especially not now. If she talked about her life-altering accident, she would have to show him her body, and that would definitely dim the afterglow.
“Let’s just say I’d never let myself lose complete control before. Not until tonight,” she said with a pleased little smile, nuzzling his hand that was stroking her neck.
Her answer didn’t please Ryder. It occurred to him that what he wanted to hear were words he would have found sappy and unbelievable back in his cool-adventurer days. He wanted Joanna to say that she’d been saving herself for the right man, that she’d never been in love before—and that he, Ryder Fortune, was the one she’d been waiting for her entire life.
Because he was in love with her. He had never felt this way about any woman before, but he knew right then and there that she was the love of his life.
“Ryder, there’s something we need to talk about, something I have to tell you.” Her voice was soft, hesitant.
“You can tell me anything, sweetheart,” Ryder promised fervently.
He was sure she wanted to tell him she loved him but felt shy. It was up to him to assure her that her declaration elated him. And then he would confess that he was in love with her, too.
“I can’t continue as your executive assistant, Ryder. We both know that what I said in the office earlier today is true. You need somebody with business talent and skills that you can eventually promote to a higher position in the company. We both know that person is not me, Ryder.”
Her words had the equivalent effect of whacking him over the head with a plank. Ryder sat up straight, reeling from the blow. “I can’t believe you’re saying this now, Joanna. Not after—after—”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t sleep with you again, baby.” She scrambled to her knees to face him, pulling the sheet around her. “I want to, I want you. But I can’t be your executive assistant any longer. Ryder, let’s be honest. I’m not only awful at it, but I’m potentially dangerous in the position. So far I haven’t made any real costly mistakes, but I’m capable of it, and we both know that, too.”
“I’m resisting the primal urge to wring your neck, because I know you’re a novice at postcoital conversation,” Ryder said. “Let’s get one thing straight here and now, Joanna. I don’t want you to leave Fortune’s Design. I want you with me. I want to see you every day and every night.”
Joanna made no reply. She was silent so long that Ryder wondered if he’d scared her. Had he come across sounding obsessive, like a crazed stalker? He decided he didn’t care. What he’d said was true, and he wasn’t willing to play the denial game.
“There’s a way I could stay at Fortune
’s Design, if you’d agree to it,” Joanna said at last.
Ryder realized that he would agree to anything she said. In a humbling moment of self-awareness, he knew that six months ago he would’ve laughed at such behavior as that of a lovelorn chump. Six months ago, he hadn’t met Joanna.
“What is it?” he asked quietly.
“Since Miss Volk is gone, I could be the receptionist. That’s a job I can do well, Ryder. You could hire a new executive assistant and pay me my current salary and—”
“Your current salary is less than what Miss Volk earned, Joanna.”
“Well, you always said she was highly overpaid.”
He managed to hang on to his temper. “I’ll pay you what I paid Miss Volk if you really want that job, Joanna. But I’m perfectly willing to keep you as my—”
“Keep me as your lover,” Joanna suggested, sliding her arms around his neck and cuddling close. “And hire me as your new receptionist.”
Ryder’s new executive assistant, Madison Worth, was exactly the type of executive assistant Joanna insisted he needed, possessing superb office skills along with substantial administrative ability. Well-educated—summa cum laude in business from Dartmouth—with the talent and proficiency that guaranteed promotion to a higher position in any company, at twenty-three, Madison Worth was indeed an asset to Fortune’s Design.
On a personal level Ryder found her brash, aggressive and supremely confident, driven and outspoken. Also, somewhat insufferable. He figured that her family—the Worths, who owned the Michigan-based conglomerate Worth Industries, Ltd.—was probably thrilled that their youngest member had chosen to seek her fortune elsewhere.
Joanna claimed that Fortune’s Design was lucky to have someone like Madison Worth who was brilliant, hardworking and socially and professionally well connected.
“And she’s completely loyal to you and the company, Ryder,” Joanna rhapsodized. “Madison says she’ll never forget that you gave her the chance to prove herself, while her own chauvinistic family tried to sideline her in favor of her selfish brother and her nasty cousin, who is also male. Madison said that the Worths don’t value women at all.” They’d had this conversation in June, she recalled.
Joanna got along splendidly with Madison Worth. No surprise there, she got along splendidly with everybody. Since she’d taken over the reception desk, she saw her colleagues in the company a lot more than when she’d been sequestered in Ryder’s office. Her desk had become a hangout for her pals in Marketing, though they inevitably scattered if Ryder happened to come along. Her popularity spread to other departments as well. Everybody liked Joanna.
“It’s a credit to Joanna’s interpersonal skills that nobody in the company resents her,” Madison Worth announced one day in late June.
She’d come into Ryder’s office without knocking, a practice that never failed to annoy him. He suspected she’d acquired the habit in her position as the boss’s daughter at Worth company headquarters, but understanding the origin of her behavior made it no less irritating.
On the first day Madison Worth had reported for work, back in March, Ryder had retrieved the architectural plans and hired a construction company to complete them. He’d added an incentive clause, a bonus if the work was finished speedily, which it was. The proximity he’d shared with Joanna would’ve driven both him and Madison to justifiable homicide.
And now Madison had barged into his office once again with one of her brash assertions. Ryder fumed.
“Why would anyone resent Joanna?” he demanded.
“Because of your affair, of course,” Madison replied frankly in that deadpan, no-nonsense manner of hers. If she had a sense of humor, Ryder had yet to see evidence of it, though he had seen her actually laughing with Joanna and some of those social butterflies from the marketing department.
“Affairs within a company, particularly one involving the CEO are poisonous to corporate culture,” Madison continued dogmatically. “Most companies strictly forbid intra-office dating, particularly any relationship that involves a superior with an underling. The potential for sex harassment charges and discrimination is rife.”
“Joanna is not going to hit me with a lawsuit,” Ryder said shortly.
“Not now,” Madison agreed. “But what happens when you two break up? You could easily use your position as her boss to—”
“Joanna and I are not going to break up,” snapped Ryder.
“Oh? When are you two getting married?”
He could’ve sworn he saw the young woman smirk. Ryder nearly cracked the pencil he was holding in half. The subject of marriage was a sore one with him. He wanted to get married. He wanted it completely. He would’ve announced his engagement to Joanna yesterday—hell, he would’ve announced it way back in March!—except she wouldn’t go along with it.
He well remembered the first time he’d proposed to her. It had been the night she’d told him about her near-fatal accident and the severe injuries she had suffered in it. Thinking about how close he’d come to losing her still caused his hair to stand on end. He had nearly lost her before he’d ever had the chance to find her.
He tried to tell her how meaningless his life would’ve been without her in it. He tried every day and every night to show her how much he cared. Still, Joanna seemed to remain unconvinced.
It frustrated him endlessly.
Along with proposing to her, he had also told her he loved her that same night, the night she had finally shown him her body. It had been in their hotel room in Washington, D.C., on the trip to meet with the patent examiner. Joanna had flatly refused to share the luxurious Jacuzzi with him, without even giving a reason why. She’d also insisted on making love in the dark, despite the absence of track lighting that Ryder had agreed ruined the romantic ambience in his own bedroom.
He finally realized that she was hiding something from him. So much for his heralded insight, his terrific power of perception. Until that night he hadn’t intuited that she was hiding the sight of her body.
Ryder suspected some kind of easy-to-resolve post-virginal hang-up but should have known Joanna would not be so predictable. She had finally, reluctantly allowed him to see her in full light, visibly bracing herself for…what?
He still wasn’t sure what she had expected from him. Revulsion? Rejection?
The very idea incensed him. “I love you, Joanna. For crying out loud, why would you think, even for a minute, that I would be turned off by a few scars? They’re barely noticeable, anyway.”
“You’re being tactful and that’s terribly dear of you, Ryder, but you don’t have to pretend with me,” she’d said wearily. “I know my body looks like a map of the interstate highway system. Hardly the stuff of male fantasies.”
“You are every fantasy I’ve ever had, Joanna. My current fantasy involves marrying you. Marry me, Joanna.”
She had kissed him and told him that she loved him, too—and refused to marry him.
They’d played out similar versions of that scenario several times a week since, but Ryder was not about to give up. He was a Fortune, and inevitably he would get what he wanted. Joanna, whom he loved beyond reason, would be his wife.
But it was so damn frustrating, waiting for her to realize it.
A fact he did not care to have his efficient, officious executive assistant remind him of. No question that her “When are you two getting married?” had hit a raw nerve.
“Exactly what brings you into my office at this particular time, Madison?” he asked, not bothering to disguise his displeasure with her presence.
As ever, Madison was undaunted. She waved a large document at him.
“Here is the new-product-design plan, Ryder. I took all of the reports from each of the divisions, compiled them, tabbed them and provided an executive summary. I also figured that while I was at it, I’d do a complete time line from conception through development to market.”
She laid her project down on his desk. “Now I’m going to arrange to have a
ll of our paper files scanned into the computer system. We’re way overdue on that, I think. Unless you have something else for me to do?”
“No, nothing right now, Madison.” Once again, his executive assistant had impressed him. Madison Worth carried the definition of self-starter to new heights.
He remembered Joanna’s foray into executive assistanthood. There could be no comparison between the two young women, just as there could be no comparison between Joanna and the dragonish Miss Volk. When it came to receptionists, Joanna, with her sweet friendly manner and winning smile, was beyond compare.
Just thinking about her fueled his need to see her.
“Thank you for this, Madison.” He nodded at the detailed report she’d given him. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a question to ask Joanna.”
Instead of leaving, Madison stood in front of his office door, eyeing him curiously. “You’ve certainly made no secret that you’re crazy about Joanna. You’re together constantly. You two practically live together. Why don’t you marry her?” she asked bluntly.
Eight
Ryder was aware that only the progeny of business aristocracy, someone possessing the unfaltering confidence born of money, class and smarts would dare to ask her boss such a question. An apt description of Madison Worth.
“I don’t see how my relationship with Joanna is any of your business,” he said tightly.
He decided he was within his rights to fire Madison for impertinence, except it would be an ill-advised enactment of the old “cutting off his nose to spite his face” cliché.
A look of dawning comprehension was spreading across Madison’s face. “Oh, I get it now. Joanna won’t marry you. You’ve already asked her, and she said no.”
“May I repeat, this is none of your damn business, Madison!”
“I don’t know why she would refuse.” Madison frowned, trying to puzzle it out. Being unable to comprehend anything was not acceptable to her. “Joanna is madly in love with you, she’s very open about that. So why wouldn’t—”
