by Nora Roberts
“Yes?”
“Mr. Boldari is here, Dr. Jones. He wonders if you have a moment to see him.”
Ryan. She nearly said his name aloud, pressed her fingertips to her lips to keep the word in her mind only. “Would you ask him to wait, please.”
“Of course.”
So he was back. Miranda rubbed her hands over her cheeks to bring color back into them. She had her pride, she thought. She was entitled to her pride. She wasn’t going to rush through the door and throw herself into his arms like some moonstruck lover.
He’d been gone nearly two weeks, and not once had he called her. Oh, there’d been contact, she thought as she hunted up her compact and used the stingy mirror to smooth her hair, to add lipstick. Memos and telexes and e-mail and faxes, all sent by some office drone and signed in his name.
He hadn’t bothered to ease away kindly when he was done with her. He’d had his office staff do it for him.
She wouldn’t make a scene. They still had business, on several levels. She would see it through.
He wouldn’t have the satisfaction of knowing she’d needed him. Had needed him every day and night of those two weeks.
She steadied herself, unlocking a drawer to lay the latest fax on a pile of others. They’d been coming in daily now, some only a line or two, others rambling like the one today. The printout of the e-mail was with them, though Lost1 had never contacted her again.
She locked the drawer, pocketed the key, then went to the door.
“Ryan.” She sent him a polite smile. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Please, come in.”
At her desk, Lori shifted her eyes from face to face, cleared her throat. “Should I hold your calls?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. Would you like some—”
She never finished. As she closed the door behind them, he pressed her back against it and crushed his mouth to hers in a fiercely hungry kiss that battered against the wall she’d so carefully built.
Fisting her hands, she kept her arms at her sides and gave him nothing back, not even the passion of resistance.
When he drew away—his eyes narrowed in speculation—she inclined her head and shifted aside. “How was your trip?”
“Long. Where did you go, Miranda?”
“I’ve been right here. I’m sure you want to see the final design. I have the drawings. I’ll be happy to take you down and show you what we’ve finished so far. I think you’ll be pleased.”
She moved to the drawing board and began unrolling a large sheet of paper.
“That can wait.”
She looked up, angled her head. “Did you have something else in mind?”
“Entirely. But obviously that can wait as well.” His eyes remained narrowed as he crossed to her, as if he were seeing her for the first time and taking in all the details. When they were eye to eye, he cupped a hand under her chin, slowly spread his fingers over her cheek.
“I missed you.” He said it with a hint of puzzlement in his voice, as if he’d just solved a complex riddle. “More than I intended to, expected to. More than I wanted to.”
“Really?” She stepped away because his touch left her shaken. “Is that why you called so often?”
“That’s why I didn’t call.” He dipped his hands in his pockets. He felt like a fool. And there was a nervous flutter in his stomach that warned him a man could experience emotions more alarming than foolishness. “Why didn’t you call me? I made certain you knew how to reach me.”
She tilted her head. It was an odd and rare sight, she thought. Seeing Ryan Boldari uncomfortable. “Yes, your various assistants were very efficient in giving me your whereabouts. As the project here was proceeding on schedule, there wasn’t any reason to bother you about it. And since you seem to have decided to handle the other area of business on your own, there was little I could do about it.”
“You weren’t supposed to matter quite so much.” He rocked back on his heels as he spoke, as if trying to find his balance. “I don’t want you to matter this much. It’s in my way.”
She turned aside, hoping she was quick enough to keep him from seeing the hurt she knew flashed into her eyes. Anything that potent, that keen, had to show. “If you’d wanted to end our personal relationship, Ryan, you could have done it less cold-bloodedly.”
He laid his hands on her shoulders, then tightened his grip, spun her angrily around when she tried to wrench away. “Do I look like I want to end it?” He dragged her toward him, covering her mouth with his again, holding her there as she struggled for freedom. “Does that feel like I want to end it?”
“Don’t play with me this way.” She stopped fighting, and her voice was shaky and weak. She could despise herself for it, but she couldn’t change it. “I’m not equipped for this kind of game.”
“I didn’t know I could hurt you.” As his anger drained, he rested his brow against hers. The hands that had gripped her shoulders gentled and skimmed lightly down her arms. “Maybe I wanted to see if I could. That doesn’t say much for me.”
“I didn’t think you were coming back.” Desperate for distance and the control she hoped came with it, she eased out of his arms. “People have a remarkably easy time walking away from me.”
He saw now that he’d damaged something very fragile, and something he hadn’t recognized as precious. Not just her trust in him, but her belief in them. He didn’t think or plan or calculate the odds, he just looked at her and spoke. “I’m halfway in love with you. Maybe more. And nothing about it is easy.”
Her eyes went dark, her cheeks went pale. She laid a hand on the edge of her desk as she felt her balance shift. “I—Ryan . . .” No amount of effort could catch any of the words spinning around in her head and form them into coherent thought.
“No logical response for that, is there, Dr. Jones?” He stepped to her, took her hands. “What are we going to do about this situation?”
“I don’t know.”
“Whatever it is, I don’t want to do it here. Can you leave?”
“I . . . Yes, I suppose.”
He smiled, brushed his lips over her fingers. “Then come with me.”
They went home.
She assumed he’d want to go somewhere quiet, where they could talk, sort through these emotions that were so obviously foreign to both of them. Perhaps a restaurant, or the park, since spring was dancing prettily into Maine.
But he’d driven up the coast road, and neither of them spoke. She watched the land narrow, the water, quietly blue in the midday sunlight, close in on either side.
On the long rocky beach to the east, a woman stood watching a young boy dance in the playful surf and toss bread crumbs to greedy gulls. The road curved just close enough for Miranda to see the wide, delighted grin on his face as the birds swooped down to snag the feast.
Beyond them, the soft red sails of a schooner held the wind and cruised snappily southward.
She wondered if she’d ever been as innocently happy as that young boy, or as confidently peaceful as the schooner.
On the sound side, the trees were dressed in that tender green of April, more haze than texture. She loved that look the best, she realized, that delicate beginning. Odd that she’d never known that about herself. As the road climbed, the trees stirred, swaying under a soft spring sky laced with white clouds as harmless as cotton.
And there, on the edges of the hill where the old house stood, was the sudden ocean of cheery yellow. A sea of daffodils, a forest of forsythia, both of which had been planted before she was born.
He surprised her by stopping the car and grinning. “That’s fabulous.”
“My grandmother planted it all. She said that yellow was a simple color, and it made people smile.”
“I like your grandmother.” On impulse he got out, walked to the verge, and picked her a handful of the yellow trumpets. “I don’t think she’d mind,” he said as he climbed back inside and held them out.
“No, she wouldn’t.” But she foun
d herself wanting to weep.
“I brought you daffodils once before.” He laid a hand on her cheek until she turned her head to look at him. “Why don’t they make you smile?”
With her eyes closed she pressed her face to the flowers. Their scent was unbearably sweet. “I don’t know what to do, about what I feel. I need steps, I need reasonable, comprehensive steps.”
“Don’t you ever just want to stumble, and see where you fall?”
“No.” But she knew that’s exactly what she’d done. “I’m a coward.”
“You’re anything but that.”
She shook her head, fiercely. “When I step into emotional territory, I’m a coward, and I’m afraid of you.”
He dropped his hand, shifted position so he gripped the steering wheel with both of them. Arousal and guilt churned in his belly. “That’s a dangerous thing to tell me. I’m capable of using that, taking advantage of that.”
“I know it. Just as you’re capable of stopping by the side of the road and picking daffodils. If you were only capable of one of those moods, I wouldn’t be afraid of you.”
Saying nothing, he restarted the car, drove slowly up the curved lane and parked at the front of the house. “I’m not willing to shift back and make it only business between us. If you think that’s an option here, you’re mistaken.”
She jolted when his hand whipped out, gripped her chin. “Badly mistaken,” he added, and the silky threat in his voice had her pulse pounding with panicked excitement.
“However I feel, I won’t be pressured.” She put her hand to his wrist and shoved. “And I keep my options open.”
With that said, she pushed the door open and got out of the car, missing his lightning grin. And the heat in his eyes.
“We’ll see about that, Dr. Jones,” he murmured, and followed her up the steps.
“Whatever our personal relationship, we have priorities. We need to go over the plans for the exhibit.”
“We will.” Ryan jingled the change in his pocket as Miranda unlocked the front door.
“I need you to give me more details on what you expect to happen when we have everyone together.”
“You’ll get them.”
“We need to talk all of this through, step by step. I need to have it organized in my mind.”
“I know.”
She closed the door. They stood staring at each other in the quiet foyer. Her throat went desert dry as he stripped off his leather jacket, watched her.
Like hunter to prey, she thought, and wondered why that sensation should be so damn delightful. “I have a copy of the design here. Up in my office. Here. All the paperwork. Copies are upstairs.”
“Of course you do.” He took a step forward. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. Do you know what I want to do to you, Dr. Jones? Right here, right now.” He stepped closer, stopped just short of touching her though he could feel the urgent need for her pulsing in every cell.
“We haven’t resolved anything in that area. And we need to deal with business.” Her heart was knocking against her ribs like a rude and impatient guest banging at a locked door. “I have the copies here,” she said again. “So I could work on them when I wasn’t. . . there. Oh God.”
They leaped at each other. Hands tugging and fumbling with clothes, mouths bumping, then fusing. Heat spewed up like a geyser erupting and scorching them with steam.
She dragged desperately at his shirt. “Oh God, I hate this.”
“I’ll never wear it again.”
“No, no.” A shaky laugh trembled out of her throat. “I hate being so needy. Touch me. I can’t stand it. Touch me.”
“I’m trying to.” He yanked at the trim paisley vest she wore under her tweed jacket. “You would pick today to wear all these damn clothes.”
They made it to the base of the stairs, stumbled. The vest went flying. “Wait. I have to—” His fingers dived into her hair, scattering pins as they curled in that rich mass of red.
“Miranda.” His mouth was on hers again, oceans of need cresting in that one bruising meeting of lips.
He swallowed her moans, his own, fed on them as they tripped up another two steps. She was tugging his shirt out of his waistband, struggling to drag it down his arms, gasping for air, sobbing for more as finally, finally her hands found flesh.
His muscles quivered under her hands. She could feel his heart pounding, as wildly as hers. It was just sex. It solved nothing, proved nothing. But God help her, she didn’t care.
Her starched cotton shirt caught on her wrists at the cuffs and for a moment she was bound by it, thrilling, helpless as he shoved her back against the wall and feasted on her breasts.
He wanted a war, vicious, primal, savage. And found it in himself, in her feral response and demand. His fingers rushed down, unhooking the mannish trousers, sliding over her, into her so that her hips pushed forward. She came brutally, choking out his name as her body quaked from the shock.
Her mouth streaked over his face, his throat, her hands dug into his hips, tore at his clothes and drove him mad. He plunged into her where they stood, driving her hard against the wall, driving himself deeper and deeper.
She clawed at him now, her nails raking down his back. The sounds she made, primitive groans, wanton cries, throaty whimpers, called to his blood. When she went limp, he lifted her by the hips, blind and deaf to everything but the mindless need to take, and take and take. Each violent stroke was a possession.
Mine.
“More.” He panted it out. “Stay with me. Come back.”
“I can’t.” Her hands slid off his damp shoulders. Her mind and body drained.
“Take more.”
She opened her eyes, found herself trapped in his. So dark, so hot, the deep gold glittering like sunburst and focused only on her. Her skin began to quiver again, little jolts of need that shimmered at the nerve endings and spread. Then those jolts turned to aches, raw, pulsing aches that turned each breath to a senseless moan. Pleasure had claws, and they ripped at her, threatened to tear her to pieces.
When she screamed, he buried his face in her hair and let himself crash.
It was like surviving a train wreck, Ryan decided. Barely surviving. They were sprawled on the floor, bodies tangled and numb, minds destroyed. She was lying across him, simply because they’d gone down that way—her midriff over his belly, her head facedown against the Persian runner.
Every few minutes, her stomach would quiver, so he knew she was still alive.
“Miranda.” He croaked it out, realizing suddenly his throat was wild with thirst. Her response was something between a grunt and a moan. “Do you think you can get up?”
“When?”
He laughed a little and reached down to rub her bottom. “Now would be good.” When she didn’t move, he growled, “Water. I must have water.”
“Can’t you just push me?”
It wasn’t quite as simple as that, but he managed to extract himself from beneath her limp body. He braced a hand on the wall to keep his balance as he walked down the stairs. In the kitchen, he stood naked, gulped down two glasses of tap water, then poured a third. Steadier, he started back, his smile spreading when he scanned the scatter of clothes and flowers.
She was still on the floor at the top of the steps, on her back now, eyes shut, one arm flung out over her head, hair a glorious tangle that clashed with the deep red of the runner.
“Dr. Jones. What would the Art Revue say about this?”
“Hmm.”
Still grinning, he crouched, nudged the side of her breast with the glass to get her attention. “Here, you could probably use this.”
“Mmm.” She managed to sit up, took the glass in both hands and downed every drop. “We never made it to the bedroom.”
“There’s always next time. You look very relaxed.”
“I feel like I’ve been drugged.” She blinked, focused on the painting on the wall behind him, and stared at the white bra that hung celebrationally
from the top corner of the frame. “Is that mine?”
He looked back, ran his tongue over his teeth. “I don’t believe I was wearing one.”
