Tied with a Bow Anthology, Vol. 2

by Morris, Raven

  “Thank you.”

  Chapter Five

  The ride back was filled with anticipation so palpable the pilot kept looking back at them.

  Kylie didn’t care. She didn’t care that everyone could see the way she was looking at Ty. She didn’t care that Bill had warned her about wearing her heart on her sleeve—and how he’d trampled it. She didn’t care that her dress was coated with sand and clinging to her breasts, her crotch, and her butt. She didn’t care that Ty’s eyes were almost a forest green so that anyone who knew him would know something was going on, or that he couldn’t take those eyes off her. That he couldn’t stop touching her.

  She didn’t care about any of that. All she did care about was that he wanted her with him. That they were going back to his room to spend the best evening together. That he wanted her to be there when he woke up in the morning.

  She didn’t know where this going, but she wanted to find out. Because the reason she’d come on to Ty all those years ago, something she’d never done with any guy, was because she’d been in love with him. Sleeping with someone was, to her, the ultimate communication two people could have, a meeting of hearts and minds and souls, with words and touch and feelings. She’d never taken it lightly.

  Ty hadn’t felt that way about her, and she’d known that. That’s why she hadn’t told him how she’d felt. Why she’d left in the early hours… because she hadn’t wanted that ultimate disappointment. But she’d loved him then and she loved him now. Researching him had only shown her what a good man he’d become. He ran surf classes for underprivileged kids, hiring many of them to work in his shops. He donated to charities. He lent his presence to events that helped raise awareness for things like homelessness and poverty and victims of domestic abuse. Ty was a good man and he was giving back to the community that had helped him make it to where he was today. She’d read the mission statement for his company: To promote healthy living for people of all ages through conscientious planetary management, exercise, and best-practices business. He was poised to take his message globally. He cared.

  That was who Ty was. He cared. About people the environment, the planet, and dare she hope… her?

  She’d never forgive herself if she didn’t stay to find out.

  The most heavenly aroma greeted them when Ty opened the door to the suite.

  “What’s that?”

  “I figured we’d work up an appetite while we were swimming so I took the liberty of ordering dinner. I remember you saying you like chicken Marsala. Is that okay?”

  She loved chicken Marsala. She’d treated herself to it on her birthday eight years ago before she’d met up with him at that party, and still treated herself to it every year. Looked like this year was no different.

  But yes, it was. This year Ty had treated her to it.

  She fell a little bit more in love with him.

  “Thank you. Yes, I do love… it.” She sucked up the word you. Not the time.

  “Do you want to get out of those wet clothes?”

  There was a loaded question… “I don’t have anything else to wear.”

  “How about a robe? They’re in every bathroom and it’s not like we have to stand on ceremony here. Take a quick shower and put it on.”

  “A quick shower?” Not if he joined her.

  He swallowed. Yeah, quick. I’ll use my bathroom. We don’t want the food to get cold.”

  Frankly she could care less if the food got cold, but it was so sweet of Ty to think of her like this that she didn’t want to ruin it. She’d already screwed up their night together; she owed him not to do it again.

  After all, he’d remembered her favorite meal. That had to mean something, right?

  ***

  Dinner was an exercise in portion control: of both the meal and her passion for Ty. She couldn’t help it. He’d put his robe on, too, and it was so romantic sitting across from him at the table on the terrace, with the breeze rifling through his sexy curls, the flames from the candles on the table sparkling in his eyes, and the soft, twinkling lights threaded through the trees and bushes all around them, like a fairy tale she never wanted to end.

  He touched her just enough to keep her off-balance, but not enough to make her forget where she was and what they were doing—too bad she didn’t know what they were doing. Some sort of dance, circling the dance floor, tapping their toes to the beat, the rhythm thrumming through them, but never taking that first step.

  It was driving her nuts. All she wanted to do was wrap herself around Ty and let him take her like they’d both wanted out in the ocean.

  “Penny for ’em.”

  She looked up from where her fork was fiddling with a mushroom. “Sorry?”

  “Your thoughts. You were so engrossed I have to know what I’m competing with.”

  “You,” she answered before she thought about it.

  “Huh?”

  Oh, great. Nothing like laying it all out there on the table. Of course with all the other laying out she’d already done for him, what was one more?

  But those other times had been physical. This was… emotional.

  She took a deep breath. This could be her last shot with Ty. She’d taken the plunge before but hadn’t followed through and she’d wondered every day since. She didn’t want to live like that anymore. Fate—and her persistence—had given her another chance; she couldn’t blow it.

  She set her fork down. “You, Ty. I’m trying to figure out why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why this. Why here. Now. Why me.”

  Ty looked at her long enough for her to start to squirm. And it wasn’t because of her hormones, though they were definitely interested.

  He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “You’ve got excellent taste, Kyle. Dinner was awesome.”

  She’d agree with him on that if she weren’t so tied up in knots. Tied up in Ty. God, what had she been thinking to say that to him? This was just a one-nighter. A great one-nighter, but she was crazy if she thought it could be anything more. It wasn’t her last shot—it was no shot. Ty was a world traveler. Rich, hot. He could have anyone. Today—tonight—it was about closure for him. Closure she was more than willing to give so she’d better stop reading more into this than there was.

  He set his napkin on the table. “I think chicken Marsala is going to be my meal of choice every August 5 from now on.”

  “August 5 has some significance for you?” Because it was her birthday, because they’d been together the first time. And the second…

  “It could.” He pushed his chair back and held out his hand. “Want to go make some significance?”

  Not quite sure how to take that—and wanting to find out—Kylie placed her hand in his and stood.

  He intertwined his fingers with hers and brushed his other hand over her hair. “I like your hair like this. Untamed, a little wild.” His voice dropped. “Sexy.”

  She was never going to blow her hair dry again.

  She tugged the curl behind his ear. “I could say the same thing about you.”

  “That I’m sexy?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Seriously. You don’t need my help to get a bigger ego.”

  “Not a bigger ego, no. Something else on the other hand…”

  A shiver snaked down her spine. “Yes.” She nibbled her lip, knowing exactly what she was doing when she did it. She could tease, too. “Let’s go take care of that, shall we?”

  His eyes flared and he shot to his feet. “Oh, yes, Ms. Drayton. We most definitely shall.”

  He led her to the master suite and opened the double doors—

  And shocked the hell out of her.

  Kylie couldn’t move. “What in the….?”

  Yellow roses everywhere, filling vases on the bedside tables, the dresser, the coffee table in the seating area, with petals strewn across the white carpet and king-sized bed.

  “Ty?” She looked at him and for the first time, really saw what was beneath that sexy, devil-may-c
are grin he showed to the world. The vulnerability, the uncertainness, the hope…

  “Happy Birthday, Kylie.”

  He knew it was her birthday. She hadn’t told him. Not today, not eight years ago.

  “Your favorite flower is a rose, but I couldn’t find out which color, though it’s not red. So I picked one. How’d I do?”

  “How… How did you know?” He’d stolen her breath again and this time it had nothing to do with anything physical between them.

  “I asked. The first time I saw you in our econ class, I had to know who you were.”

  “We didn’t have econ together. I had econ sophomore year.”

  “So did I.”

  “We had a class together back then? Why don’t I remember?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “That’s the question I’ve been asking myself for years. You didn’t notice me. And you were the first girl I’d noticed who didn’t. You intrigued me. I had to find out about you. So I asked.”

  “But you never said anything.”

  He looked away. “Guys worry about getting rejected, too, you know.”

  “You? No one’s ever rejected you.”

  He looked back at her and his eyes were that dark green color she loved. “You did, Kylie. That entire sophomore semester and then that night before graduation. I was hoping that… well, that you’d wanted to start a relationship, but you said yourself it was all about sex.”

  “But… Ty…” Oh God, she’d really screwed this up. She had to fix it. He was trying so hard with the dinner and the flowers and baring himself to her. “I left because you meant too much to me and I didn’t think I’d meant that much to you. I didn’t want to lose the fantasy to the reality. It was me—my fears, my insecurities. My feeling unworthy.”

  “Unworthy? Kylie, my God, you’re perfect.” He slid his hands up her arms and squeezed her biceps. “I knew where you were those first few years after graduation. I was waiting for the right moment to contact you. Then I opened my first store, and you were with Bill by then. I thought you were happy. That you’d moved on and that night had meant more to me than it had to you. I let you live your life because you obviously didn’t need me in it.”

  “Oh, Ty, no.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. His heart was thudding. “I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you senior year, but I didn’t work up my courage to do anything about it until that night.” Oh, God. She’d said love. She’d told him she loved him.

  He turned to stone in her arms. “You… you loved me?”

  She tossed her hair back and looked up at him, taking the leap at last. “Yes.”

  “Then why…”

  “Why didn’t I say anything? Come on, you’re Ty Nicholson. Every girl wanted you; there was practically a sorority named after you because of all the girls who wanted you. Who was I? Just one more face in the crowd.”

  He cupped her cheek then and the hardness melted from him. “You were—are—the most beautiful face in the crowd and I don’t just mean physically. Though, yes, that, too. But I saw you, Kylie. That’s why I wanted to get to know you that next morning. I should have gotten to know you before taking you to bed, but let’s be real. We were twenty-two and I’d had a thing for you for three years. And there you were, warm, and willing, and wet for me. Hormones took over. But I had every intention of getting to know you. Of dating you and courting you and, yeah, seducing you again and again because you got to me, Kylie Drayton. You were the woman I wanted, the only one I saw, and after you left, I didn’t care about any of the others. All those women you’ve seen me linked with over the years? They were to forget about you because I couldn’t have you. You didn’t want me.”

  “But I did.”

  “I don’t mean physically.”

  “Neither do I.” She cupped his face. “I’ve been in love with you for years. I’ve followed your success, and when I found out you were guest-lecturing I convinced my boss to let me interview you. Not because I thought this would happen, but because I wanted to see you again. To see if I still felt the same way. To see if you remembered me; if that night had meant anything to you.” She traced his lips. “And it did, didn’t it? You’ve never forgotten.”

  “How could I when you wouldn’t let me? You’ve haunted me every day of the past eight years and when I got that request for an interview and found out you were working there, well, I…” He smiled. “I called in a few markers. Threw my weight and my name around. I wanted you to do the interview. I had to see you again.”

  “You…” She stepped back, unsure if she should be thrilled or appalled.

  “Don’t be angry. You’ve been in the business; you know how these things work. I told my publicist that it was you or no one, and your publisher went along with it.”

  “But he never told me.”

  “Because I asked him not to. I wanted you to do it because you wanted to, not because I demanded it. If you’d refused, I would have done it with someone else, but I wanted you to have the ability to turn it down. Then I’d know how you felt.”

  “You mean how I feel.”

  He met her gaze. “What are you saying, Kylie?”

  She threw her arms around his neck. “I’m saying, Ty Nicholson, that I loved you back in college, that I’ve never gotten over you in the intervening years, and today, tonight, everything, what you just said, it only seals the deal. I’m still in love with you.”

  It was amazing how she was able to give the man who could have anything the one thing he couldn’t buy, and the smile on his face was payment enough.

  He reached over to the vase and pulled out a rose. He touched her forehead and traced it down the curve of her nose, over her lips, curving over her chin and tickling her throat, all the way down to the V of her robe where he tapped the petals against her heart.

  “Want to know why I chose yellow?” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “That song. The one about tying a yellow ribbon around the tree to come back to the one you love.” He tapped her heart, three times. Each one accompanied by a word.

  I.

  Love.

  You.

  “Yellow, Kylie. My favorite color for a rose is yellow. Say you’ll stay. For good this time.”

  She took the rose from him, sniffed it, and tapped his heart those same three times. “I will Ty. Forever.”

  Loving Ty was the best birthday present ever.

  The End

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  The scarf tightened on her wrist. Debra flexed her fingers against the satin sheets and smiled at her dream.

  Then another scarf tightened on her other wrist.

  This was no dream.

  She opened her eyes. She was on her stomach on their bed. Naked.

  Jack tied the other end of the scarf to the headboard. He was naked, too.

  “Ah, good. You’re awake.” He trailed those sexy little kisses that turned her to fire from her wrist to her shoulder, lingering over the sensitive skin at the back of her neck. “I didn’t want to start without you.”

  She shivered when he slipped away to walk around the edge of the bed, then shivered again when he gripped her ankles.

  With the sun streaming through the wall of windows that overlooked the valley beyond, her very sexy, very playful husband drank her in with his deep brown eyes and smiled that smile that could turn her inside out. There was nothing like waking up to an amorous Jack.

  “Nik?”

  Her name, said in that whispered tone, sent shivers through her. She could imagine Max saying it like that as he thrust inside her.

  Her pussy clenched. She was so tired of being alone.

  And then his hand moved that tiniest of inches upwards.

  She closed her eyes for a second. Was it just by chance he’d moved it there? Or… was it not?

  Before she could
talk herself out of it, before she could convince herself that it wasn’t the smart—safe—thing to do, she turned in his arms. She’d been safe and smart with Kevin and it’d gotten her nowhere.

  Max’s eyes widened, but Nicole didn’t stop. She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “You, Max. I want you,” just before she kissed him. With tongue and heat and wet and every bit of frustrated desire and yearning in her body.

  Sweet god of gods, he kissed her back, his other arm sweeping around her, his drink tumbler cold and hard against her bare back, and his tongue demanded entrance to her mouth, his lips curving over hers. One hand slid down to her ass and there was absolutely no question in her mind that he wanted her. The ridge beneath his pants was like a steel bar, he wanted her so much.

  Moisture seeped between Nicole’s thighs then, and she had to move. Needed some pressure. Some friction. Some Max.

  There was a half-naked man on her sofa, and, damn, he looked good. Especially since he was—

  Oh wow. Jerking off.

  Heather Pelton ducked back behind the doorway. Rock must be having a really good dream. She could hear his balls slapping his thigh, hear the soft grunts picking up speed, the heavy breathing that said he was enjoying it—

  No way he could sleep through that. Which meant—oh, God, did he know she was there?

  Heather’s face scorched her hands. She hadn’t looked that long. She’d seen what he was doing and—

  Okay, so maybe she’d watched just a little longer than was polite. But was it polite to jerk off on your landlord’s living room sofa?

  The tempo picked up. He was making no attempt to stop what he was doing. And she was making no attempt to move away.

  Rock was hot. Her best friend’s brother, he was seven years younger than her forty. Too young for her to be imagining holding his dick in his hands—not that she had to imagine it since it was in his hands.

  Oh, God. What was wrong with her? Just because the last dick she’d seen had been her ex-husband’s as his secretary had gone down on him five years ago didn’t mean she had to come at the site of Rock’s.