To Wear His Ring

by Diana Palmer

  And then you’ll go again. And soon, you’ll be immersed in your project. And I’ll be here, and the calls will come less often. “I hope you get the deal. It’s important to you.”

  “Paramount,” Ethan told her. “After this one, a change of direction.”

  Lucy tried to look interested, but it was hard when she was saying goodbye inside.

  “I was thinking of buying some land somewhere. Do you think you could live anywhere else but Summerhill?”

  Lucy looked up sharply. He had asked the question in the same breath as he finished the statement, she noted. If she had done that, it would suggest she was breathless, nervous. She tried and failed to imagine Ethan nervous—although she had seen breathless…

  She repeated the question in her head. Could she live anywhere else? With you? she wanted to ask. Maybe with you, she answered herself. Her fingers made a mess of toast crumbs on her plate. Was he asking her to go with him?

  Her overactive brain then slipped in a worrying new thought. Was he just trying to prepare her for the worst? They hadn’t discussed what he had found out in the village. Maybe he was trying to tell her she didn’t have a hope in hell of keeping Summerhill anyway. “If I did that, Tom would just carve it up.”

  Ethan nodded slowly. She could see the sky blue of her robe in his eyes, but beyond that were shadows of regret. The two things she would hate most for him to take away from here were regret and guilt.

  “Lucy, I’ll be at the end of the phone.”

  Shame put an edge on her voice. “Don’t worry,” she insisted. “I told him I’d fight him about selling the land.”

  “I know you will.”

  Yes, she thought. You gave me that. A week ago, I wouldn’t have fought.

  An awful uncomfortable silence ensued as they both pretended to be busy with their breakfast. She darted furtive looks at him across the small table. Can I live with this? With his body every few months and his deep, slow voice on the phone. He will go. And I will visit occasionally. And it won’t be more than we are able to give.

  Lucy inhaled, making a conscious effort not to clench her jaw. She couldn’t take pity from him. She did not want sacrifices and ultimatums. She looked up to see him watching her, concern darkening his eyes.

  He exhaled noisily. “Dammit! I’ll stay…”

  Her whole body tensed. She would not be a liability. His liability. Making a snap decision, she rose abruptly. There was one way she knew of to shut a man up before he said something that could not be reversed.

  Her body would succor them both. A fist of desire tightened in her stomach. It was desperate and consuming, and she saw that he recognised it. Perhaps awash with his unwanted guilt, he approved of it.

  This is what I can give, and it is heartfelt, and it doesn’t need words.

  He rose, too, as she reached for him. They came together at the edge of the table and her hands were at his belt, tugging him toward the bed. As they lurched together, he cupped her face and kissed her deeply.

  Lucy sighed into his mouth, overcome by a mindless lust. She pushed the shirt off his shoulders. Biceps bunched and rippled under her eager strokes. She dug her nails into his flat belly, then scraped gently down. Impatient to tear those pants off, loving the feel of taut and supple skin and his earthy, morning-male scent.

  She strove to shrink his focus to nothing but sensation. When he was far away, she wanted him to remember this—how she made him feel. No guilt to taint his memory. She wanted a physical, tangible memory of her to stay inside him. She wanted to be inside him.

  Long, taut and muscular, his skin taunted her fingertips. Her nerve endings hummed with the anticipation of having everything she wanted right here in front of her, drowning in need.

  The lower she went, the more still he became, but she heard the blood rushing through his veins. Down, she pushed at his trousers and briefs, bending her knees. Up, her hands smoothed around his buttocks, kneading the clenched muscles. His thighs strained like tree trunks, but he quivered when she took him in her hands. She made one long firm stroke from his heated curved underside up the length of him, loving the tensile resistance and the way he strained toward her. Her fingertips swept over the thick tip of him. His groan swept from his fingers into her mind as his hands landed lightly on her head.

  She felt the heat flooding into him, the satiny skin tight and hot, scorching a trail to her heart.

  Ethan couldn’t watch when he saw her perfect lips part and close around him. Too erotic. With the unmanageable hang-up he had about her mouth, he wouldn’t last ten seconds if he watched.

  The need to thrust screamed through him. He braced his thighs, confident in his strength, and was shocked to find himself trembling.

  He knew what she was doing. Once again, deflecting attention away from her problems, her desolation by using her impressive arsenal. Charm, kissing, sex. He’d learned that about her.

  He groaned as she took him deeper. Hell of a way to cope.

  But she was tough enough to cope with Tom, even if she didn’t know that yet, and Ethan fully intended to back her up all the way.

  Just not in person right now. And he felt bad about that.

  He felt terrible about that.

  More—too much! He wanted her beautiful mouth on his. Whispering her name, he stroked through her hair down to her face and coaxed her up. She met his lips with her own when he dipped his head. Something brimmed in her eyes, abstract and sad, but before he could wonder, worry, he was taken over by her kiss, distracted by the feel of her body against his. He molded her body close and felt the cool slide of his wet erection against her robe-covered belly. The blue of her eyes now smoked up into something more immediate.

  She pressed forward into him, her spine arched. He slipped the loose knot of her robe so that it hung down, still covering her breasts. Mesmerized by the luster of her skin against the cool blue of the fabric, he reached out and touched her through the robe. She took a deep breath in, so her chest rose and rose. The silky fabric slid under his fingers and over her skin with a liquid sensuality that nevertheless dried his throat like chalk.

  Around and around in little circles, under and over, slipping and sliding like an ice cube melting. Her breath stopped when the material sighed over the hard tips of her breasts. His throat closed when she let her head loll back, his whispered name trickling out through her parted lips.

  It was an age before she reached for another breath. As he took his silken touch lower, he drew the robe slowly down her arms. Where the fabric touched, his mouth followed. Her marble skin quivered and tightened. He rubbed and licked and kissed his way right down to her toes, then discarded the robe and started up again. Her sweet musky smell broke over him, making him sweat with greed. With one arm wrapped around her to support her trembling legs, his mouth and fingers took what he needed and gave her the release she craved.

  As if he’d turned a switch, her every muscle seized. On and on, it screeched and ripped through her, that fine edge between pleasure and pain not just blurred but shattered like a windscreen. Holding her together by the tips of her fingernails, by the edge of her teeth. When his hands began to soothe the cramped muscles in the backs of her legs, she flopped back onto the bed, quaking. She had kissed the sky with his name on her lips. But now—in a minute when she got her breath—she was filled with another burn. Aggravated by aftershocks of such sweetness, she needed his abrasive invading presence inside her. Needed to be stretched, filled, grounded.

  With arms that felt like jelly, she gripped his shoulders and hauled him up over her. With a mouth that wanted to sob with the ecstasy that streamed through every cell, every particle that made her whole, she crooned her wish into his ear, then kissed him. Felt his smile against her lips and tasted herself and his need.

  There was nothing more ragingly erotic than a woman who talked dirty, especially when it filtered out through the lips of an angel.

  He wanted to immerse himself, to feel her moving, flowing under and
around him. Their kiss promised pleasure to come, and an exchange of tenderness that bewildered him. Too much emotion. He broke off the kiss and nuzzled her throat. Dangerous, maybe lifealtering emotion.

  He reached toward the depleted box of condoms on her bedside table where they had been since last night. Quickly sheathing himself, he lay back over her, sinking into her kiss again. His hands moved, inch by inch up her forearms, entwining her fingers in his.

  Face-to-face, bodies pressed together, his hips hunched into the cradle of hers. He eased into her and in the brightening morning light, watched her eyes fill with warmth, spiced with danger.

  Slow and deep. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he nipped and nuzzled her mouth, swallowing her labored little breaths. Her hips rocked and rolled, and he felt himself so deep, so lushly gloved. The humming in his ears sounded like an old refrigerator, surging and retreating and vibrating.

  She rocked and squeezed and her inner thighs gripped him in velvet welcome. The blood screamed through his every vein, every artery. He felt again the change in her body temperature and an intimate swelling. Heard the desperate sighs that signaled her focus. Her fingers were locked onto his and she seemed to gather for a last great push. Ethan tensed and thrust deep.

  Lucy shattered. Incoherent baby words rushed out of her mouth as her head thrashed from side to side. He heard his name, felt her contractions dissolve him into a heavy, drenching mist of pure pleasure.

  Afterward she lay on her side but cuddled in close. Her drawn-up knees were jammed into his gut and she held him tightly.

  “I really love that thing you do,” he murmured into her hair.

  “What thing?”

  “After you come. All elbows and knees and head, like you’re trying to climb right inside my rib cage.”

  He felt her mouth move against his throat. “Do I? Sorry.”

  Ethan increased the pressure of his arms, holding her closer. “I love it. It’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

  He listened to her breathing pan out and deepen. He bet she’d gotten little sleep last night after Tom’s bombshell.

  He pressed his lips to the top of her head, feeling little peace himself. Or eagerness to get back to work. Or even self-satisfaction after the best sex of his life.

  She was warm and smelled sexy. For a moment, his chest expanded so completely, his arms were compelled to cuddle her closer. Then a hollow feeling deflated him.

  First things first. Get Turtle Island started. Land the deal.

  Lousy timing, when everything was crashing around her ears. Could he stall, just for a couple of days? On the other hand, he had read the economy reports. Could the islanders afford to alienate MagnaCorp?

  Ethan craned his neck to look at the curve of Lucy’s cheek, the shadows her lashes made on her pale skin.

  Be patient, stick to the plan and in a couple of short years—less—he could relax, kick back, contemplate the future. Maybe with Lucy in it—if she still wanted him.

  Contemplate Lucy.

  Her knees scraped down his body slowly and now there was no impediment between them. She nestled in closer with a contented sigh. His heart swelled again, perplexing him. So much more intimacy than ever before.

  Contemplate love. Loving Lucy.

  Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, then snapped them open again.

  Lucy donned raincoat and gum boots and walked down to clean out the stables. Their stablehand had been cut off by the flood yesterday and she couldn’t return the horses to the stable until the stalls had been cleared.

  She found the smell of sodden slimy straw and mud quite suited her mood. Rank and festering.

  Lucy was tired of people she cared about being indifferent toward her. She must deserve it, because that was all she had ever inspired in people—at least the people she wanted love from. Basically, she wasn’t lovable. Had never been, starting from the day her mother had left.

  Sweep, sweep. She was working up a sweat here.

  There was something about her that meant she would never be number one. She would always be part-time, long-distance, ditzy, nice little Lucy.

  Her pique was unreasonable. She could no more expect him to give up his job, his life than he could expect her to walk away from her birthright. She leaned on her broom, panting with exertion and frustration. If that is what he had been referring to.

  Although if Tom had his way, her birthright would be chopped up and flushed away. And what would she be left with then?

  What she’d always had. Nothing. Nobody. And nowhere to run. She bent her back to her work and was vigorous about it.

  What were the options? The most logical and probable: stay here and battle Tom’s obstinacy, possibly his enemies and definitely his demons, while trying somehow to turn Summerhill from a debt-ridden, badly-run lodge and neglected farm, into—what? Did she even have any idea?

  Or she could jump on the nearest plane and fly off to—Paris? Prague?—though the language would be a problem and languages were so not her forte. Didn’t matter where. It had always worked for her in the past. Until her father had gotten sick and the vein of money had become plugged.

  But—she pulled her hat off, overheating. Maybe Ethan loved her, or could grow to love her. He gave her something. Hope. With him, anything seemed possible. She felt smart, not dumb. She had good ideas. And perhaps now a little belief in herself.

  Her mind darted about like a blind moth.

  What would he do if she told him, right now, she loved him? Would he run just as everyone she had ever cared for had? Could she ever be happy with only a part of him?

  A familiar figure slopped across the yard outside the stables. The stablehand had arrived. She watched him approach but was so deep in thought, she didn’t really register she was no longer alone.

  He stopped and they looked at each other, then he reached out for the broom. “Jeez,” he said, wheezing a little. “We’ve been in drought for three years and now this. It’s all or nothing, eh?”

  He tugged the broom from her grasp and began sweeping. Lucy looked after him, his words seeping through the fetid smell of the stable.

  All or nothing. Why did it have to be? She could eat two pieces of the pie, couldn’t she? Instead of the whole thing or none at all.

  She started for the house before she lost her nerve. Maybe the fermenting straw had addled her brain, but she was going to walk into the house and tell him she was in love with him. She was going to face the issue instead of running. This was life. There was no fairy-tale family life, no loving, indulgent parents. Just Lucy and her equal love for Summerhill land and for Ethan Rae.

  Ethan took the stairs two at a time, fuelled by anger, shame—and relief. In his room, he tossed his bag onto the bed and began to fill it. Relief? Because there was no choice to be made now. Everything was back to normal.

  Acid rose in his throat like the burn of Tom’s words.

  Ethan and Magnus had been in the conference facility for half an hour before Tom burst in. Magnus’s overriding concern was safety—his wife had let slip about the afternoon weather report Tom had chosen to ignore.

  “Can’t control the weather,” Tom had snapped, shooting a venomous look at Ethan. He obviously thought Lucy had blabbed.

  Poor sap. His back was against the wall. Unwittingly, Magnus built the fire, stoked it, till Tom felt he had no option but to blame Lucy for everything.

  “Lady Luck turns her back sometimes, Magnus,” Tom had wheedled. “It’s cyclical. You’re a businessman. You know that.”

  “Not good enough, son. A big part of your business is safety.” Magnus paused, and hammered home the second nail in Lucy’s coffin. “If Lucy hadn’t remembered that hut, we’d still be out there now.”

  Now Ethan yanked savagely on the zip of the suit compartment of his bag and heard the door open. He threw Lucy an icy look when she entered his room but forced himself to continue with his mental checklist. Shirt, underwear, toiletries—he was nearly done. His movements were quick a
nd efficient but tension wired his jaw and stretched his spine into a hostile rod.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw her hover in the doorway, her black jeans stained and tucked into long woolly socks that dropped bits of plant matter onto the floor. She looked flushed and rumpled.

  “What are you doing?” she asked quietly, twisting her hands together in front of her.

  His hands crushed the clothing down, then he hauled on the zip. Lucy flinched at the scraping thud of the bag hitting the floor. He continued to pretend to ignore her, moving to the table to organize his laptop and briefcase.

  “You really had me going,” he muttered after an age.

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “Should have chosen your accomplice with more care.” Bitterness scoured his throat. Tom’s sneering face flashed past his eyes. “Your brother loused it up for you.”

  Without looking at her, Ethan sensed her cringe with foreboding. Not his problem. Laptop snapped shut, papers stacked, briefcase closed. “If he’d just been patient…but Tom couldn’t leave it alone. He burst in, ranting and raving about how he knew we were cutting him loose. How, because of our pillow talk, Magnus knew about the court case, the gambling, the debt, the shady associates.” He smiled grimly at his watch, slapped his pockets. “Funny thing was, I hadn’t told Magnus any of that.”

  Before Tom’s intrusion, Ethan had secured a stay in the decision about Summerhill’s place on the Global List. He’d also mentioned that Lucy had some good ideas that deserved to be given a chance. In an effort to calm Tom, Magnus suggested he take a leaf out of his sister’s book.

  A red rag to a bull…

  The elderly, respected businessman was unprepared for Tom’s insults, the final one: that his precious club was a highfalutin bag of hot air that Summerhill could manage without. Magnus had stormed out, calling loudly to his wife to get her things.

  Ethan laid the briefcase and laptop on top of his bag and scooped up his jacket. Lucy stood silent. Not wanting to, knowing he shouldn’t, he raked his eyes over her face. Not just milky-pale now, a much more deathly hue. Her eyes were anguished; those perfect lips parted slightly.