Promises Kept

by Carolyn Faulkner

  It was during that slew of words that Anna found she could no longer hold the rising crest of her pleasure back, and she had to let it go before it overwhelmed her, bucking and writing against him, moaning so long and low that it was nearly a growl.

  And he didn't let her get away with just one ecstatic peak, but milked every iota of bliss from her fevered body that he could before he allowed her to collapse back on the bed, thoroughly exhausted.

  Although his rampant flesh was demanding its own release inside her, he clamped ruthlessly down on himself and merely kissed and held her back to a more peaceful state before slowly disentangling himself from her as he got up. Anna made an abortive attempt to rise, too, after finally having realized – however fuzzily - that she wasn't in her own room. Remy told her calmly but implacably that he wanted her to take a nap, and that she wasn't to get out of bed – except to go to the bathroom – until he got back.

  Anna knew she should argue with him about his autocratic edict – so he didn't get too used to bossing her around - but she was too exhausted to do it, and instead let him talk her into – or rather dominate her into – staying right where he wanted her. She was asleep before he left the room.

  Anna didn't know it because she was so sound asleep, but Remy had checked on her several times while she slept, and had delegated situations on the ranch that he really should have seen to himself in favor of staying close to her. He needed to be there when she awoke.

  He wasn't going to let her do what he thought she was probably going to try to do – weasel out of a situation that had taken a very wonderful turn, as far as he was concerned, despite his misgivings about the ranch's financial fortunes. The last time he'd gone to check on her, he found her up and frantically searching around the room for something to put on. She'd already donned her t-shirt again, which, if he had been able to catch her, he might not have allowed.

  Chapter IV

  Atleast she was still bare bottomed, and the first thing he did was walk right up to her and haul her into his arms, his hands landing right on what was still a pretty warm backside. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked, tipping her chin up so that she had to look at him.

  Anna would have given anything if she had been able to make her escape to her own room – not that he would have let any closed door stop him from barging in, she supposed, but it afforded her a sense of safety that his big bedroom, with its even bigger bed – didn't. And when his hands claimed that part of her that they had so recently punished, and he forced her to meet his gaze, her entire body blushed an unbecoming beet red as the memories of what had happened between them flooded through her mind and were blatantly displayed to him in her flesh. There was no way that he didn't know exactly what she was thinking, considering the ferocity of that full body blush.

  But what she hadn't realized – because she was out of her mind at first with pain and then with an ecstasy that entirely obliterated the discomfort – was that he was at least as aroused as she was. There was absolutely no mistaking the prominent bulge in his pants.

  "To my room," she blurted out, futilely trying to wrest herself away from him.

  He didn't even bother to comment on her useless struggles. He just contracted his arms a bit around her, and they ceased to be. "Did you sleep well, I hope?" He nuzzled a spot behind her ear that he'd only just learned was incredibly sensitive on her.

  Damn him! He made her brain turn even mushier than it already was as soon as he applied his lips or hands anywhere on her body. A ragged, pleasure filled sigh escaped her mouth before she could squelch it. She had to get away from him. She wasn't sure what to think or how to act around him any more, and she didn't like it at all. She'd done her best to keep her true feelings about him locked away for so long that she felt the need to squash them down even further now. Anna didn't harbor any illusions that the interlude they'd had together meant anywhere near as much to him as it did to her.

  But the more he kissed her, having graduated to her lips by now, the fewer coherent thoughts her brain became capable of generating. "No – yes. Yes, I did, thank you."

  "I'm glad. You needed it after that spanking, to say nothing of our extra curricular activities." Which he seemed determined to indulge in again – even more fully, she was sure – right this very minute.

  Anna forced her brain to flip into survival mode. Although it nearly killed her to do so, she stood stock still in his arms until he noticed that she was no longer responding to him. Not that he let her go right away, but at least he stopped trying to seduce her, for the moment anyway. She had a good feeling that the ship had long since sailed, as far as he was concerned. "I need to go to my room," she stated in a clear, unwavering tone that she was inordinately pleased at having achieved. "But I need to borrow –"

  Before she could finish her sentence, Remy reached into his back pocket and produced the underwear she'd lost in his study, smiling mischievously as he handed them to her, like he was handing over a trophy of some sort. "They were all the way across the room, hanging off my hat rack."

  He was wearing an insufferably self satisfied smile that she was dying to smack off his ruggedly beautiful face. Apparently that thought tickled him to no end, but Anna was much less than amused. "Where are my shorts?"

  "I put them on your bed along with your IPod," he confessed unrepentantly. "I rather like you in just your underwear. If Libby wasn't around, I'd keep you in just them all the time."

  He finally let her go, but not until she joined him in a deep, soul shattering kiss that had her off kilter again as soon as their lips met, which she remedied as soon as she could after he released her.

  As she turned and walked to the door, she said, "If Libby wasn't here, I wouldn't be here."

  Anna missed the fierce scowl on Remy's face at that idea, as she hurried with as much dignity as she could muster to the relative safety of her room.

  * * * * *

  She hadn't noticed that, as she'd stood staring out the sliding glass doors, reliving those memories, that tears were streaming down her face. When she finally came all the way out of her painful reverie, Anna resolutely grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her eyes, chuckling softly. After their final confrontation, she'd used so much tissue she'd seriously considered taking out stock in the corporation.

  Even though it was much earlier than usual, she was feeling particularly bedraggled, probably because of the dilemma with Libby and the remembrances she'd spent the afternoon wallowing in. She climbed into bed where her cat Topher, always searching for a comfortable place to nap, snuggled up next to her. To her pleasant surprise, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep within minutes.

  * * * * *

  Remy hung up the phone with a deep sigh, his face like a thundercloud. He ran a hand through his hair, messing the black strands even more than it usually was, not that that was anything he particularly worried about. Whether every hair was in place never had and never would be on his radar.

  Crying women had never been his forte, either – never would be – and it was worse when it was his sister Libby who was doing the crying and a thousand times more horrid since he felt like there was precious little he could do to remedy the problem. If ever a situation called for a drink, this was it. He pulled open the bottom drawer of his enormous desk and took out the bottle of Jim Beam and the cheap glass that had lived there for several years.

  Since she'd left.

  Six years, eight months, two days and – he glanced at the family heirloom grandfather clock that one of his ancestors had seen fit to conveniently tuck into the corner of the room that had been used as an office by the heads of the family for generations since – twelve hours ago. In all that time, she'd never said one word to him. Not one. Anything he gleaned about her from that point on came from his sister, and she said precious little, especially at first, when he had become public enemy number one in his own house.

  He poured three fingers of the amber liquid into the rocks glass, thinking it was most definitely
a misnomer since this glass in particular had never so much as even heard the tinkling of ice. He didn't much like the taste of any alcohol, so when he drank whiskey it was with one thought in mind – to forget – and he didn't want any namby pamby water interfering with that goal, not that he'd ever really been lucky enough to get to that state despite his usual type-A attempts.

  No, somehow he'd come to an uneasy realization that he was condemned to remember every second of his time with her until the day he died. Six long, torturous years and still the very essence of her flooded his mind if it so much as flitted anywhere near a thought of her, recalling the sweet scent of her, the feel of her in his arms, making him rock hard each and every time, no matter how much time passed or the physical – and emotional – distance between them. He shifted in his chair, already at throbbing, painful attention and cursing the fit of even his most comfortable pair of well worn jeans.

  Worse yet, what he seemed condemned to remember most often was the look on her face when he'd said what he felt he'd had to say to her, when he'd seen that bright, usually happy face crumble in on itself, the arms she'd raised to him in unrestrained, effusive, open welcome falling limply to her sides as he spoke – as evenly and calmly as he could – dashing her dreams of a happily ever after with him to smithereens and sending her running away from him to the opposite ends of the earth. Or at least the continent, anyway.

  Here he sat in Texas, literally aching for wanting her, and there she was in Maine, literally as far away from him as she could physically manage without leaving the United States entirely. His fist clenched around the glass as he brought it to his mouth for another big swig, his grip threatening to break it before it reached his lips.

  She had loved him. He never doubted that fact. She had been his much younger sister's best friend since they were both in diapers, and he had felt the weight of her hero worship of him even from before the point where she'd grown up enough to really notice boys.

  Perhaps it was the fact she lacked male guidance in her life, being both father and brotherless, but Remy had known, somehow, that despite the differences in their ages — or maybe because of it — even when she and his sister were still playing with dolls and riding their bikes around the ranch, that she would have much preferred to tag along after him.

  Not that Annalise Kenner had been in the least overt about her feelings. Even as a young girl, she had had enough natural reserve not to throw herself at him, surprisingly, considering how outgoing she usually was. Hell, when she got older he'd practically had to beg her to go out with him that first time, despite the intimacies they'd already shared, thanks to his firm belief in the efficacy of spanking as a form of discipline. He was not used to women turning him down! They had always buzzed around him from the time he hit early adolescence and he had been able to take his pick.

  Leave it to Annalise to be contrary to the bone. He felt a reluctant smile spread across his face as he raised his glass to her in silent toast before gulping down another swig. The way it burned down the back of his throat and into his belly was a welcome, if only momentary distraction from his thoughts.

  Before her, he'd never gotten too involved with any particular woman. There were no premature engagements and, because he was scrupulously careful – no shotgun weddings. Not even a starter marriage. He liked living alone – well, with his family – and without all of the complications he could see from friends' relationships that arose as soon as they put a ring on some woman's finger.

  The closest he'd come to really being involved was her, and he'd destroyed that forever, and by his own hand. Or rather, by his stupidity bolstered by stubborn, overweening pride.

  Now she avoided him and the ranch he knew she adored almost as much as he did, like the proverbial plague. She'd been back exactly once in six years, and Remy knew that she and his sister had conspired to make sure that he wasn't even in the country when she returned. The conspiracy of silence they had formed around a maneuver so expertly executed that the CIA would have been jealous assured that he hadn't found out about her visit until nearly two months afterwards, when old Fred Trombetta had slipped up and let the cat out of the bag, looking as though he'd betrayed a state secret.

  The old man had flushed bright red and tried to issue a fumbling retraction, but Remy got the point. She'd slipped back here only when she knew he wasn't going to be around. Message received.

  Remy brought the bottle to the glass again, filling it for the forth – or was it fifth? – time. As usual, the liquor did nothing to dull the ache he'd created by trying to drown his memories of her. He knew it wouldn't work and he'd pay for it tomorrow when he felt like someone had dragged his tongue along the carpet and then scotch taped it to the roof of his mouth.

  He got up, much more slowly than usual, hit the light on the way out of the room and headed down the hall to his bed, bottle in one hand, glass in the other, raising it frequently to his mouth during the short trip until he could collapse nude on his big bed – a very out of character trail of clothes strewn haphazardly around the room - still tortured by increasingly vivid, entirely sensual memories of her, and the one time he'd allowed himself off that very closely held chain and let himself get to know and love her even more, and on an excruciatingly intimate level.

  Ah, hell, who was he kidding? He'd fallen for her even harder than she had for him. And at exactly the wrong time in his life to do it.

  He remembered every excruciating detail of it; his venal recollections rising at multiple unexpected points during every single day without her, torturing him even when he wasn't twelve sheets to the wind. But now his staunch mental faculties were weakened, so he could not prevent the invading fantasies. They overtook him completely.

  If he had thought he was hard before, the pictures flitting across the deepest recesses of his mind now had him ready to explode. Anna, with hair that was so blonde it was nearly white, letting that long length of French vanilla curls fall onto his chest as she playfully dragged just the soft, silky tips over his straining nipples….

  So he didn't fight them any more. He let go of a self control that was usually one of his best traits and had been surprisingly loathe to desert him, considering just how far gone he was, letting the memories wash over him like lava until his mind began to dwell on the most poignant of thoughts… the look on Anna's face when he'd first insinuated himself between her legs, eager and curious and very aroused, but also very naturally apprehensive.

  It echoed, in a strange way, her expression the first time he'd taken her over his lap in his study, tugging her over when he knew she'd least expected it, having to work harder than he'd thought he'd have to to ignore the tinges of fear he could see in her eyes, but resolute in his knowledge that what he was about to do for her would help her to remember that nothing was worth enough to him for her to endanger her own safety in any way.

  He never wanted to hurt her – ever, even to satisfy his own raging desires – but when he'd taken her over his knee, he'd known exactly what she needed, and he would never allow himself to be dissuaded from giving it to her, whether she wanted it or not, and she most definitely didn't.

  Not wanting to dwell on how blatantly spanking her aroused him, Remy had just enough sobriety left to force his thoughts back to that one and only experience – the one he'd lived on for the past six years – when she'd truly become his; his body remembering every mind blowing detail of what it was like to feel her open to him, reluctantly at first but not through any thought or deed of her own. Instead, it was her body's natural protection of that very private part of her, and he accepted and embraced what that meant about her.

  He was her first. Somehow, it had seemed very natural at the time.

  Remy had caught her eye, seeing flecks of fear and even embarrassment there – as if she had the ridiculous feeling that she had to apologize for the inconvenience - and sought to soothe both away. His head dipped to suckle lightly at a pert nipple as he murmured in what he wished was a less growly
— although nonetheless reverent — tone, "Thank you for waiting for me."

  When their eyes met again, seconds later, there were tears rolling out of hers and into the hair at her temples. Another man might not even have noticed them, but Remy was acutely attuned to everything about the woman who lay beneath him, and, settling himself possessively yet innocently between her legs, he reached up and brushed the tears away.

  "I wish it wasn't going to hurt, although I'm selfish enough to be flattered that I'm your first, Miss Annalise," he whispered. His warm, sensual lips coaxed a response from her in record time, a tribute to his persistence and attention to what inspired her.

  She peeped up at him from demurely lowered lids. "It's all right," she returned softly.

  "No, it's not," he stated with obvious chagrin, smiling ruefully at her when she chuckled at his stubbornness. "You were right on the brink until this, I know it, and I'll do my best to get you back there, I promise."

  And he knew he had achieved his goal. He had never been known as the most patient of men — his hands would all agree — but with her, his patience knew no limits.

  He lifted himself away from her, allowing his rock hard erection to find the entrance to what seemed like its home and began to press into her as gently as possible. Every molecule of his being wanted to ram himself into her, but he wasn't about to do that. Instead, he was slow but insistent, distracting her with his mouth on her nipples, alert to every sound she uttered, feeling her contracting around him, as if she'd eject him from her body that simply.

  Remy could see the tightness around her eyes, the wrinkles on her forehead and the tension around her mouth, knowing he was causing her discomfort and hating every minute of it. Finally, he gave a more formidable thrust and Anna cried out, the sheer ragged unrestrained utterance slicing jaggedly into his heart.