by Karen Fenech
“Nice to see you again,” Mitch said.
“You, too.”
Like Ryan, Mitch, John, Ben, and Zach were all large, powerfully built men. They each greeted Faith warmly, enveloping her in their huge embrace. Eve, Shelby and Caroline hugged her as well. Faith returned their hugs with warm hugs of her own. The only person she didn’t know was Allison. Zach made the introduction, with a smile on his face and his arm tight around the woman. From what Faith knew of Zach, he’d never been in a serious relationship before. Clearly, he was in one now. It was obvious he was in love with Allison.
Allison took Faith’s hand in both of hers. “I’m new to the family. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
Allison’s features were delicate, refined. She was an incredibly beautiful woman despite a series of thread-thin scars on her face. More scars crisscrossed the skin on her arms, visible when she’d lifted her hands to Faith and the bell-like sleeves of the loose-fitting top she wore fell away. The top also dipped a bit at the bodice baring another scar. Jagged and puckered it arced on her breast bone. Faith’s heart went out to the woman who’d obviously been through something horrific.
Faith released Allison’s hands and faced Ryan. “I’ll be on my way.”
“You obviously came by for a reason.”
Reason? Ah . . . Faith extended her arm with Ryan’s now-clean suit jacket. “I just stopped by to bring you this. I had it cleaned.” As far as excuses went, it was lame and she knew it.
Ryan took the jacket and tossed it on a table by the door. As she backed away, he clasped her hand, stopping her. Keeping his gaze on her, he said, “You’re here. Stay.”
Before she could respond, he tugged her deeper into the apartment. The place was small, a tiny one-bedroom. Ryan’s family discreetly stepped back from the entrance and into what was passing for a living room. Once they’d settled in, every available surface appeared to be occupied by one of them. The women were seated on the couch and one arm chair, while the men lounged on a large thick rug that covered most of the floor. Mitch and Shelby’s little girl crawled into Mitch’s lap. Ben’s wife, Caroline, held one of their two boys, while Ben held the other, making faces and tickling the child while stealing glances at the TV which was tuned to a football game. All eyes that weren’t on the children were on the television. Strangely, Mallory and Gage were absent from the group.
“You okay?”
Ryan’s voice brought her out of her thoughts. Okay? No, but she nodded.
A cheer came from the TV, followed by muttered complaints from the three men. Ryan was still holding her hand. He stroked his thumb across her knuckles and led her away from his family and into the narrow kitchen. The door swung closed behind them, muting the sounds of the television and conversation, and enclosing them in the small space.
He reached into the fridge. Steaks marinated in a deep dish on the center shelf. He took out a half-full bottle of wine, poured some into a glass and held it out to her. Faith shook her head. “I can’t stay long.”
Ryan set the glass onto the chipped counter then leaned back against the wall and gave her a slow nod. “Okay.”
He didn’t say anything more, just stood back and waited in that patient, laid back way he had, giving her time to get it out. Really, she was feeling more like a fool with each minute that passed. She shouldn’t have come here. Returning his jacket certainly wasn’t pressing. It could have waited. It would have waited. She’d intended to drop it off at the station. Leave it with Galbraith. So why had she come? She closed her eyes. She’d wanted to see him. That was what this visit was. Well, she’d seen him. Time to be on her way. But she remained where she was.
When she opened her eyes again, Ryan’s were still fixed on her. The tiny lines around his eyes and mouth were a bit more pronounced. His eyes were heavy-lidded. Tired. He looked tired. Without thinking, she reached up and gently brushed her fingertips across his cheek. He hadn’t shaved and his stubble rasped in the silence, a sound she found endearing and oh, so, sexy.
He curled his fingers around her hand, brought it to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm. The tender gesture had her heart aching with both pleasure and pain. She missed him so much. And wasn’t that why she’d come here? She hadn’t been able to stand not seeing him for another day. Allowing him to kiss her, kissing him in return, had crumbled her defenses. She didn’t want to need him. Nothing good could come of it and she was fighting against that need, even now.
Her throat tightened. “I wish you weren’t working this case.”
“Do you?” he asked gently. “Is that really how you feel?”
Her mouth trembled. “It’s too hard. We’re too hard.”
He hadn’t released her hand. She hadn’t taken it from his and now his grip tightened. The dark brown of his irises grew darker as his gaze intensified on her. His deep voice throbbed with emotion. “But worth everything we have to go through to be together.”
Her gaze fastened on his and she could see the conviction in his eyes. How she loved him.
A baby cried.
Ryan’s eyes remained steady on hers. “Come and meet my son.”
Keeping her hand in his, he led her to the bedroom. He picked up the boy, cradled him against his thick biceps. Ryan loved kids. Faith recalled telling him with a laugh that he’d turn her into a baby machine once they got married. The memory came out of nowhere, and it hurt. She would have loved to be able to joke with him like that as she carried his child.
Looking into this baby’s sweet, beautiful face, stole her breath. He looked like Ryan and her heart melted. She reached out and softly touched his cheek with her fingertips. His skin was pink and warm from his nap. His beautiful eyes shimmered with tears. She ached to hold him against her.
But of course he wasn’t hers to hold. He never would be. If she needed a reminder of why she and Ryan could not be together, there he was, this precious little boy. If she’d been thinking somewhere in the back of her mind of the possibility that she and Ryan could go back to the way things had been between them, then here was the proof that they couldn’t.
Tears clogged her throat. Her hand trembled as she slowly drew it back from Jeremy.
“Faith . . .”
She looked up into Ryan’s eyes. Could he see what she was thinking? Could he see her pain and yearning? His gaze was open just now and in it she saw a yearning as well. This hurt so much.
Fighting tears, she backed away. Ryan reached out and clasped her hand. She shook her head. He released her and she went to the door.
“Faith.”
It was Mitch softly calling out to her.
“Why don’t you stay for the barbecue?” Mitch said. “Summer or fall, I still grill a mean steak.”
Faith had to swallow before she could respond. “Thank you, but I have an appointment.”
Before she could break down and lose it completely, she twisted the door knob and went into the hall.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ryan took Jeremy back to Tina at the appointed time and then after goodbyes to his family, he left them to make their own way to the airport and drove to Faith’s. Night had descended but lights were still on when Ryan pulled up to her driveway. He couldn’t have turned around and gone back home even if they hadn’t been.
She opened the door before he’d reached it. She didn’t look surprised to see him. She still wore the jeans and blouse she’d had on when she’d come to his place earlier. Her face looked a little pale, her eyes too huge in her pretty face. And, yeah, she looked as delicate, as fragile as fresh spun glass.
He reached out gently and brushed hair back from her cheek. “I told myself I wouldn’t push you. That pushing you was only hurting you. So I backed off. But you’re still hurting and being away from you is killing me.” Quietly he said, “What are we doing to each other, Faith?” She closed her eyes and tears leaked from the corners. Her tears felt like a knife to his gut. “Baby, no.”
He
slid his fingers into her hair and wrapped her in his arms. She wound her own arms around his waist, fingers bunching at his back, clutching his jacket. He took her face between his palms and covered her mouth with his.
* * *
Faith rose on tiptoe pressing harder to him. Again, she was reminded of his size as her head only reached his shoulder. Against her lips, Ryan murmured something she didn’t catch then his tongue was in her mouth and he was kissing her as if there were no tomorrow.
She didn’t want to think about tomorrow. She didn’t want to think of all of the reasons not to be with Ryan. She’d been away from him for a year and where had that gotten her? She was not over him. She was still right where she had been—as in love with him now as she had been the day he’d left her. Being in his arms now, she felt she was exactly where she needed to be for the first time in one year. Right now, at this moment, her need for him rose above her fear that this was temporary, that it would all go away and leave her heart shattered all over again.
She’d told him it was too hard, their being together, but being apart was breaking her one day at a time.
Ryan’s mouth slid from hers and he kissed her cheek, her eyes, her nose, the stubble on his jaw lightly scratching her skin. He slid his mouth back to hers. Open, wet, hot, he kissed her with teeth and tongue, urgently, possessively.
His arms were like steel bands around her. Her heart knew who held her and her body responded, waking up as if from a deep sleep or from mourning. That’s what her body, her life had been like without him, a period of mourning. Her body began to throb and everything that had lain dormant sprang to life.
Pressed as tightly against each other as they were, she molded herself to him. His chest was a solid wall of muscle, hard, unyielding. Everything female in her responded to everything male in him. Her head spun. Her body burned, recognizing him and wanting him with a passion she could only feel for him.
Ryan made a harsh, guttural sound and pushed her against the wall at her back. She could feel his erection pressing against her belly, tangible proof that he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. She reached up and dug her fingers into his thick hair holding him to her. Need raw and pure streaked through her. They were still both dressed but she burned as hot as fire everywhere his body met hers. She could feel that same need, that same fire in him.
But he stopped. Drew back from her. His eyes as sharp as lasers bore into hers. “Tell me you want this. I need to hear you say it.”
Her voice wasn’t steady and came out breathy but she managed to say the words. “I want this.”
Still, he hesitated. “No condom. I’m clean, Faith.”
She knew without doubt that if he weren’t, he would not have come to her. “It’s okay. I’m still on birth control. And I’m clean too.” She didn’t add that he was the last man she’d been with.
The harsh fluorescent light directly above them was like a spotlight showcasing his rugged masculine beauty. His eyes blazed with passion. He brought his mouth to hers again. He slid his hand beneath her shirt. Big, rough, slightly callused, his palm moved over her belly, up her sides, making her tremble. He reached her breast, thumbed her nipple inside her bra. It beaded tight. She arched against him, against his erection. He groaned long and loud and now he was trembling too.
“I can’t make it to a bed.” He gritted out the words, his voice rough, hoarse.
On a gasp she said, “No bed. Here. Now.”
Without breaking the kiss, he lifted her with an ease that always brought home to her just how strong he was and his easy strength thrilled her. The movement rubbed her against him and she drew in a quick breath, feeling him swell, grow harder.
Cradling her nape, her back, he gently laid her down onto the floral rug in the center of the hall, following her down as he did. The sound of the zipper on her pants lowering and then his zipper doing the same blended with their harsh breathing.
He didn’t remove his jeans, but he raised her hips enough to slide her pants and panties off and then he was at her entrance. She was shaking, shuddering, sucking in great gulps of air. With their breaths mingling, he pushed into her. Hard, thick, pulsing, and familiar, so achingly familiar. They came together as if they’d never been apart. Her body knew him, welcomed him. She matched him stroke for stroke as they fell into a rhythm that was theirs alone.
She delved beneath his jacket, his shirt and ran her hands over the hard ridges of muscle in his back and shoulders that she knew as well as she knew her own body. And she knew the absolute joy and completeness that she’d felt every time they made love.
Ryan altered the angle of his penetration in a way she remembered that had her thrashing beneath him and clawing his back. Then she was hurtling over the edge. An instant later, he followed.
* * *
Ryan looked down at Faith lying beneath him on the rug in her hall. Softly, he brushed his knuckle down her cheek. “Not where I wanted to make love with you.”
She reached up and curled her much smaller finger around his. “It was perfect.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “Do we have to move? Can we just stay right where we are for the rest of the day, or year?”
“I could be persuaded.” He kissed her closed eyelids. “How about we move only as far as the tub?”
Faith opened her eyes. There was recognition there, memories of times they’d just soaked, basking in the warm water after a long day, and memories of making love with the warm water sloshing against the side of the tub and streaming down their bodies. She nodded.
He lifted her off the rug. With her in his arms, he climbed the stairs to the all white bathroom and set her on the vanity. Her soap was in the bottom of the tub. Leaving it there, he got the water going. As the tub filled slowly, he turned to her. Brushing his fingertips across the hair that fell across her brow, he leaned in and kissed her.
With a soft sigh that hit him straight in the heart, she linked her arms around his neck and returned his kiss. He raised his head. “Faith, about you and me—”
“No, don’t talk.” She shook her head, sending her hair cascading down her back. “I don’t want to talk about us.”
He didn’t like hearing that or that she’d tensed. She was still wary. Still afraid. He started to say what he’d intended to anyway, but she spoke before he could.
“I just want to feel.” Her words tumbled out one on top of the other, coming out in a desperate rush. “For tonight, I just want to feel.”
She was pleading with him and it almost undid him. He could give her that. One night of nothing but love. The first of a lifetime. If he had to tell her, had to show her every day that what they had was forever, then that was what he would do. Beginning with this one night.
He touched her hair again, stroked it gently, watched it fall through his fingers back onto her shoulders. A light perfume, soft and delicate, wafted up from her hair, from her skin. The perfume, coupled with her own scent, formed a fragrance that could only be Faith.
Slowly he bent toward her and brushed his mouth against hers. Faith’s lips trembled beneath his. Beautiful. So beautiful. He opened his mouth, coaxed hers to open for him, and when she did, he gently caressed her tongue with his. She sighed, a soft breath that he inhaled. And he felt as if the part of him that had been missing for the last year was now found.
He wouldn’t say it. Not tonight. I just want to feel.
He smoothed his hand down her body that was still partly dressed. They hadn’t gotten around to undressing fully. She was naked from the waist down. Her jeans and panties were somewhere on the rug downstairs, but she still wore a silky scoop neck blouse that skimmed her thighs. Ryan began undoing the buttons, kissing each part of her as he revealed it.
He bent his head to kiss the swell of her breast, in a sexy half-cup, sheer bra thing that scrambled his thoughts for a moment.
He laved the bra, coaxing the nipple to poke against the damp, now transparent lace. Her nipple beaded and tightened, a beautiful rosy red and he groan
ed. She squirmed against him. He could feel a restless energy coming off of her. She moved her thighs and they brushed against his erection, straining against his open jeans.
Before he could take the jeans off, Faith’s hands were there, tugging them. He removed them and his boxers, leaving them at his feet. He shrugged out of his leather jacket, dropping it to the tile. His shirt went next. Faith gave a throaty little moan of appreciation then ran her hands lightly over his chest. Just that slight touch had his muscles quivering and his erection throbbing. She reached down between them, took him in her hand and began to stroke him. Long, slow strokes.
He closed his eyes. Clenched his teeth. He eased himself out of her grasp then brought her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it.
Steam rose from the tub, making the air moist and hot. He tested the temperature of the water. Finding it comfortable, he shut off the taps. Gently, he lowered Faith into the water then joined her.
He leaned back against the tub. Faith rose onto her knees, and faced him. Water lapped against the porcelain sides as she moved into his arms. He scooped water into one palm then spread his fingers, and let the water fall onto Faith. It beaded on her neck, her arms, her breasts, then slid down her skin. Ryan followed the drops with his lips.
She inhaled sharply and her breasts bobbed in the water. The peaks were flushed and swollen. Ryan caressed one with his thumb and took the other into his mouth, licking, sucking. Soft and warm. Perfect. He closed his eyes savoring the feel of her.
She reached beneath the water, found him and again began stroking him. His muscles tightened and he threw his head back as her sweet touch threatened to take him over the edge.
He slid his hand down her slick flesh and entered her with one finger. He gritted his teeth as her hot, wet heat clamped down on him. He moved his finger, beginning a slow exploration of her. Her hand on him jerked. She moaned again then clasped his shoulder with her free hand, her fingers digging into his skin.
