by Nicole Casey
7
Emma
I awoke in a strange bed, though that wasn’t an unusual occurrence lately. I had only begun to adjust to sleeping in my own home when I’d—temporarily—moved into Ryan’s. And even if I couldn’t clearly remember every moment of the night before, I would have known without opening my eyes that I wasn’t in my new room; I was in Ryan’s bed. The irresistible scent of him lingered on the bedding and I breathed in deep to take in more. I let it out in a rush, wondering what the hell was wrong with me.
After the way, he’d gotten angry after that first night, what on earth had compelled me to venture down the same road—the very next night? But then, last night had been different. It was like he couldn’t get enough of me, and that sent a thrill coursing through my veins.
Before I could decide whether to chastise myself any further, I heard light footsteps sounding down the hall toward the bedroom—Ryan’s bedroom. I was in Ryan’s bedroom, and I knew I just wasn’t lucky enough for Abby to walk right past.
The door swung open seconds later, confirming my assertion. She came bounding into the room and crawled up on the bed. “Did you have a sleepover with daddy, Emma? My old friend, Jenny, she had a sleepover at her grandma’s house.”
“Oh, no, Abby…I just…” How on earth was I supposed to explain what I was doing in her father’s bed?
Before I could figure out an adequate cover story, she patted my arm and looked up at me with sympathetic eyes. “Did you get lost, Emma? It’s OK, ‘cause it’s a big house. Come on, silly, I’ll show you where your room it.”
She started to tug on my arm, and if I hadn’t been painfully aware of my state of undress before that moment, it rose to the forefront of my mind as the sheet covering me started to slip down. I yanked it back up, frantically trying to remember where exactly my clothes had ended up. Had I had them on when we’d stumbled into his bedroom? No damn it, I clearly remembered then that they’d come off somewhere in the hallway. Now, what was I supposed to do?
And if the past few minutes hadn’t been bad enough, Ryan appeared in the doorway then, looking in the room with warring emotions crossing his features. He looked amused at my current predicament, but the tightness at the corners of his mouth told me he wasn’t pleased that Abby had found me in here either.
“I found Emma, daddy. Look, she got lost and ended up in your bed,” Abby said, though the declaration seemed unnecessary given that she was sitting right next to me.
Covering her mouth then and speaking in an overloud whisper to her father—presumably, to avoid my hearing the secret—she added, “And I think she lost her clothes, too.”
Blushing profusely, I patted the girl’s head, “If you’ll just turn around for a minute, sweetheart…” I figured my best choice was to wrap the sheet around me, but since it seemed to be tucked in at the bottom of the bed, I was going to have to yank it out first.
“Oh, it’s OK. Remember, daddy said it’s OK if you don’t wear a shirt,” Abby told me brightly as if that solved all my problems.
Could this morning get any worse? Fortunately, Ryan stifled a laugh and took pity on me. He called to Abby, holding out his arms, “Come on, kiddo. Let’s go check out what’s for breakfast while Emma gets up.”
“OK, but you’re not gonna try to make pancakes again, are you? ‘Cause I think those things are just too tough for you,” she said as she hopped down from the bed and scurried across the room. ”Don’t feel too bad. There are lots of things I can’t do yet, too. Maybe Emma can help you. Like yesterday, I couldn’t tie my shoes, but then Emma showed me how, and now I can,” Abby exclaimed, her eyes lighting with enthusiasm over her new topic.
“Wanna see?” she exclaimed as she started down the hall, no doubt darting off ahead of Ryan in search of a pair of shoes to tie.
He looked back at me, and I could see the heat flaring in his eyes despite his cool exterior, and I wasn’t certain if I wanted to hide deeper under the covers or tear them off and watch the fire blaze hotter. But he turned away then and followed his daughter down the hall, making the debate moot, and leaving me to scurry down the hallway wrapped in a bedsheet in a mad sprint for my own room.
Once dressed, I reluctantly made my way downstairs to breakfast, but if I’d have worried any awkwardness would linger between us, I would have been mistaken. Ryan was calm and cool. He spoke politely to me but paid me no more attention than he would have afforded any casual acquaintance. In the minutes I’d been gone, it seemed his interest in me had cooled.
I had no idea what to make of the change in behavior. Was that it? He’d had his fill and was ready to move on? But I didn’t want to move on. At least, not yet. I held no illusions about what this was—sex, plain and simple. But it was Pandora’s box; so long as it was something I’d never experienced, I didn’t really know what I was missing. But now that I’d had it…I wanted more.
I spent the entire day engaged in activities with Abby, and while the little girl’s pleasant company helped some to keep my thoughts at bay, they turned to them inevitably over and over again. I kept waiting for Ryan to say something, to do…something, but he didn’t.
At least, he didn’t until Abby was fast asleep. I heard a knock at my bedroom door just moments after I’d left him with her to tuck her in. And with just one look at him when I opened the door, I knew why he was there even before he strode forward and lifted me clear off the floor. And if there could somehow have been any doubt remaining, it fled the moment he laid me down on the bed and tore the dress I was wearing right off me. He was naked in a flash, and I couldn’t help but stare at his exquisite naked form. He was chiseled muscle everywhere; a broad torso that tapered to his hips; powerful thighs; and his shaft was rock hard, jutting out proudly and making my mouth water.
His cock sheathed in a condom seconds later, he towered over top of me, and I knew with absolute certainty I was already ready for him. Without a word, he thrust inside me, but I could tell by the way his muscles quivered that he was holding himself back, forcing himself to go as slow as he could.
But I’d gotten caught up in his urgent desire, and I didn’t want slow. I wanted hard and fast and deep. So, I wrapped my legs around his hips and drew him in deeper. He looked down at me with a question in his eyes, and I nodded. Yes. God yes, this is what I wanted.
“God damn it, Emma, you feel so good,” he whispered as he increased his pace.
Time ceased to exist as he thrust inside me over and over again. I had no idea if seconds had passed, or minutes, or even hours. I was conscious of nothing but the man and the way he was driving my body higher and higher. I was so close, teetering on the brink when he leaned down and I felt his lips against my neck. And then I felt more—suction, and then his teeth. He wasn’t hurting me exactly, he was…oh god, there was no way to describe it. But all at once it was too much, and the spring that had coiled tight inside me sprang loose, releasing wave after wave of exquisite pleasure from my core.
Before I’d even begun to come back down, he thrust hard once more and then stilled; and his groan a second later sounded like pure ecstasy.
A moment passed, and then one more, and then he withdrew and rolled next to me. I wasn’t sure what to do, but it felt entirely natural when I rolled toward him and laid my head against his chest. He wrapped his arm around me and his fingers drew light, lazy circles down my back.
And why at that precise moment, I’ll never know, but a thought came to me then, and I knew it couldn’t be put off any longer. I was supposed to have set the record straight long before then, and if I left it any longer, it would grow into something more than a little misunderstanding. It was time.
“Ryan, there’s something I have to tell you.”
His hand stilled in the middle of its path. “This isn’t the part where you tell me you used to be a guy, is it? Since as much as I hate to admit it…I’m not sure I’d care.” He laughed and resumed the light caress along my skin.
Well, if he could handle that,
this should be a breeze then, I thought wryly, and then propped my elbows up on his chest so I could look at him.
“The other day when you came next door, and you found me in the garden…” Jeez, it was such as stupid thing to have wound up in this big misunderstanding. “The thing is…I’m not really a gardener. I didn’t know how to tell you that. I know I should have set the record straight right away, but I wasn’t sure what to say. And then after—the next day—you opened your front door in that towel…” My voice trailed off as I remembered the image clearly.
He didn’t say anything, but his hand continued its path, and that had to be a good sign, didn’t it? If he was rip-roaring angry with me, certainly he wouldn’t still be caressing my body and making me ache for another round.
“So, if you aren’t the gardener,” he started, his voice still just as calm as it had been. That was definitely a good sign. “What were you doing there? Do you wander into people’s gardens often?” he asked, warring notes of amusement and perplexity in his tone.
“Um, just mine,” I replied, figuring that would tidy up my explanation nicely.
“Yours? You mean you live in the house next door?”
“Well, I suppose at the moment, I live here,” I tried to joke, “But yes, up until just a few days ago, I lived there.”
“And you just didn’t know quite how to tell me?”
“Exactly. Well, that and I found you incredibly distracting,” I confessed honestly, though a prickle of heat warmed my cheeks.
“OK,” he said all of a sudden, so easily that I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved. I waited for him to say more, but it seemed no more words were forthcoming.
“OK? Just…OK?”
“Did you want me to say more? Get mad, maybe? It seems to me that it was a simple misunderstanding. If anyone should be feeling bad about it, it’s me, Emma, not you. I mistook you for the hired help. But if it’s any consolation at all, I thought you were the most incredible looking hired help there ever was,” he laughed ruefully. “But I get why you didn’t set it straight right away. And you have now, so I don’t see any reason to get angry.”
“Oh.” I’m not sure what I expected, but I suppose I’d been mentally preparing myself for something…more—not that I was complaining.
“And if I happened to have you so frazzled you couldn’t think straight…well, I’m not going to complain about that,” he said a split second before his hands settled under my arms and he pulled me up on top of him.
8
Emma
It was perfect. Well, as perfect as any casual fling that was confined to late night rendezvous could be. We kept our distance from each other during the day, always amicable but nothing more in front of Abby. But once she was in bed, neither of us could keep our hands off each other. We fell into bed—or onto the sofa…the floor…in the shower…or anywhere else that suited our needs—within moments of tucking Abby in for the night.
Ryan had had to spend some of his daytime hours at his office in the city, and every once in a while he’d come in late. But I was ready for him the moment he returned, and he’d seemed only too eager to strip every bit of clothing off me—on the rare occasions I was still wearing clothing when he walked in the door—and bury himself deep inside me. It was always like that; we were too eager and too desperate for each other to take our time at first. But then, once that first orgasm had helped to take the edge off, it was different. I’d tasted every part of his body and felt his lips on every inch of mine. And while I wouldn’t exactly call myself an expert yet, he taught me exactly how to drive him wild—and I’d figured out how to drive him to the brink, only to hold him there, drawing out what should have been seconds to minutes and increasing the intensity of his orgasm tenfold.
It was one of those nights when he’d been stuck at the office late, and after waiting for a full hour after I’d tucked Abby into bed, I decided to go for a swim in the indoor pool. I’d deliberately skipped the swimsuit and was doing languid, naked laps, waiting for his inevitable return.
And I waited…and waited. Though I’d been taking it easy, my muscles had begun to grow tired and I’d left the pool, wrapping a towel around my body and wandering through the quiet house. But still, he hadn’t returned. I was just about to pass by his office door when I noticed light seeping through where it had been left open a crack.
“Ryan?” I called peeking inside, but not expecting an answer.
But there he was, sitting behind his desk with a stack of papers in front of him.
“Yeah?” he said without looking up.
“Sorry. I thought you were still out.”
“No. I got home a while ago, but I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on.”
“Oh, OK,” I said, closing the door and trying not to feel the sting of rejection. After all, the man was in charge of a multi-billion dollar corporation. He couldn’t be expected to have every night free.
So, I wandered back up to my room and sat down at the edge of the bed. It was silly, really. It made perfect sense. And yet, in that brief exchange, I’d gotten the impression something was very wrong. He wasn’t just busy—he was avoiding me. But that made no sense. I was probably just blowing an innocent situation out of proportion. Clinging to that explanation, I laid down and let my mind wander as sleep began to tug me down. Tomorrow night—I’d see that everything was just fine then.
But tomorrow night came, and it wasn’t fine, at least not in my opinion, nor the opinion of my body that had been newly awakened to the pleasures of sex with a man who was insatiable. Or, he had been. He came home an hour before Abby’s bedtime, and my body had begun to hum in anticipation of what was to come. But five minutes after we’d tucked her in, he was at the front door and on his way out for a business dinner. I tried to wait up for him, but hours passed and I fell asleep on the sofa and never heard him come in. I woke up there by myself the next morning.
Day after day, his evening had become occupied with work or other engagements. Was that it? He’d gone from being unable to keep his hands off me to keeping as much distance between us as possible. I’d known it had to come to an end eventually—neither one of us had talked about this being anything other than what it was—sex. And I knew he had no interest in romantic entanglements, so it should have come as no surprise, but I wasn’t done. I hadn’t come anywhere close to having my fill of Ryan Cade.
I figured I didn’t need to wonder where he was going when he left the house in the evenings. He hadn’t said it, but if he’d had his fill of me, that meant he’d moved on to greener pastures. “Out” likely meant he was out with another woman. I hated the flash of jealousy that grabbed hold of me at the thought. I had no right to it, I knew that, but I felt it nonetheless. And that it was time for me to do what he’d apparently done already—accept that this was never going to be anything more than a short-lived fling and move on.
I didn’t wait up for him that night, or the next, though I couldn’t stop thinking about him no matter how many times I told myself it was over. I was pathetic, that was the only way to explain it. Ryan had been able to enjoy sex without getting himself tangled into wanting to draw it out longer. Why hadn’t I been able to do the same? Because he’d been my first? I couldn’t refute the possibility, but I knew myself well enough to think it an unlikely probability.
The truth was, as much as I hated to admit it, that while I craved Ryan’s body constantly, I wanted more than just his body, too. And since that just wasn’t possible, it was a good thing I’d realized it before I’d let myself fall in too deep. Perhaps his backing off had been a good thing, even if it didn’t feel like it at the moment. I fell asleep clinging to that thought, but I woke up abruptly sometime later. I had no idea what had woken me, but since I was hot and slick to the touch, it wasn’t hard to figure out what kind of dream I’d been having.
I pushed off the covers and got up, pacing back and forth across the room to try to dispel the restlessness that had settled over me, but it w
asn’t enough. I slipped on my silk robe and opened the bedroom door, intending to pace the long hall, or maybe even go for a swim if that wasn’t enough either.
But he was right there, standing in the hallway outside my room, bare-chested and with a look on his face that I couldn’t figure out if it was more aroused or tortured. I wasn’t left to wonder long though. A groan escaped his lips and he lunged for me, but he didn’t stop once he reached me. He wrapped his arms around me and continued to step further and further into my room, forcing me to take a step back for every step he took forward. He didn’t stop until the backs of my knees pressed up against the mattress.
“God damn it, Emma, I can’t stop wanting this, wanting you. I can’t get you out of my head,” he whispered in a ragged voice before he captured my lips beneath his in a kiss that took my breath away with its intensity.
I didn’t notice that he’d yanked off my robe until I felt the cool air wafting in from the window against my naked skin, but I didn’t have time to take notice of it for long. He pushed me down on the bed and unzipped his fly, his massive cock springing free and making my thighs clench together against a desperate ache.
But he pried my legs open and moved between them, pulling my ass toward the edge of the bed and plunging into the hilt in one, smooth thrust. He didn’t slow to let my body adjust to his girth like he usually did. Instead, he withdrew and drove back in, and I smothered the loud moan I couldn’t contain with the back of my arm.
I couldn’t move; I couldn’t draw him in deeper—not yet. I focused on making my body relax around him as he thrust in hard and fast, holding onto my hips to keep my body from sliding further up on the bed with his powerful thrusts.
