Affair of Honor (12 page)

When she finally closed the book on the last page late that afternoon, she had to admit that Justin Murdock had given his readers their money’s worth. She wondered how many would realize he’d given them something more, too.

“Finished?” Ryder asked softly, closing his own book.

Brenna nodded, her chin resting on her folded arms, which were, in turn, propped on her drawn-up knees. She stared thoughtfully across at the opposite side of the lake. “You tell a great adventure tale, Ryder, but you’ve probably been told that any number of times.”

“I like hearing it from you,” he admitted. She wasn’t looking at him but she could feel the faint smile.

There was a short silence and she knew he was waiting for her to go on. “Lots of violence in the story,” she mused, knowing she was stepping around the main issue.

“There are certain conventions to be followed in writing that kind of tale,” he pointed out dryly. Brenna sensed he was well aware that she was going to have to take her time working up to the important aspects.

“Are the love scenes part of the ‘conventions’?” she heard herself ask and immediately could have bitten out her tongue. She sat very stiffly as she awaited his response.

“They aren’t love scenes,” Ryder murmured. “They’re sex scenes. And, yes, they’re one of the things the reader expects. I told you once I’m selling sex along with the violence and intrigue.”

Her head swung around sharply as she turned to stare at him. “But they
were
love scenes!” she protested.

“Why do you say that?” he asked blandly, but there was a flicker of hungry curiosity deep in the silver gaze as he watched her frowning features.

“Because, aside from wanting each other, Hunt and Cass learn during the course of the story that they need each other. What they have together isn’t just sex, Ryder. Good lord! Why am I telling you that? You’re the one who wrote the scenes!”

“Go on,” he urged. “I’m fascinated to hear the way a professor of philosophy analyzes a sleazy pulp novel. How can you say the sexy parts were love scenes, though? Never once during the whole course of the story does Hunt tell Cass he loves her.”

“And she never gets around to telling him that she loves him, either,” Brenna finished on a note of complaint. “You could have put that in on the last page, Ryder. I mean, it was obvious they were deeply in love by the end of the book, anyhow.”

“There was nothing mushy or sloppily sentimental about how they felt toward each other.”

“You think love is sloppy and sentimental?” she queried, aware of a sense of disappointment.

“My readers would!” he retorted with great conviction.

Brenna laughed at that and turned back to look at the lake as she contemplated another thought. “I like the ending,” she finally said simply. “I liked the fact that they both realized they wanted something else out of life and had the courage to go looking for it.” Hunt and Cass had both decided to get out of the hard, dangerous profession they had chosen. At the conclusion of the story they had mutually agreed to quietly resign and find another life for themselves, one they could build together.

“You didn’t find Cameron too much of a male chauvinist?” Ryder taunted gently.

“Well, strictly speaking, he certainly was in many respects,” Brenna said. “I mean, he was always stepping in to handle the rough stuff because he didn’t trust Cass to be able to do it. No, I take that back. He stepped in to do the bloody work because he didn’t
want
her to have to do it. He simply used his lack of trust in her commando training as an excuse. He was trying to protect her from finding out how devastating it can be to kill another human being, wasn’t he? And to shield her from danger.”

“Yes.” Ryder spoke the single word very softly.

“Definitely a male chauvinist. He was also aggressive, cynical, ruthless, and dangerous. But I liked him,” Brenna whispered, staring very hard now at the opposite shore. “I would have trusted him to the ends of the earth. He was a man of honor and integrity, even if he did make his own rules. Or perhaps he was that way
because
he made them,” she added with a sense of wonder. “How much of yourself did you put into Hunt Cameron, Ryder?” she asked very steadily.

“Beats me,” he retorted smoothly. “I think I’ll leave that for you to decide.”

She didn’t look at him as she mulled that over. In her trained, analytical brain some unavoidable conclusions were beginning to form. Brenna wasn’t at all sure she liked them.

They revolved around the fact that she really had wound up admiring Hunt Cameron and the code he lived by. Like Cass in the story, she found herself attracted to the strength and integrity in the man even though she periodically became thoroughly irritated with his methods and manners. And Brenna was honest enough with herself to realize that her feelings for Ryder were in danger of paralleling those of the heroine in
Quicksilver
for the hero. The knowledge was frightening. It washed over Brenna like a cold wave and automatically she raised the first defense she could find.

“You didn’t have to hit Damon this morning!”

As if he could read her mind, he followed the non sequitur immediately. “You belong to me now, Brenna. There’s no way on earth I could let another man get away with striking you. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”

Brenna absorbed the impact of the quiet, forceful statement, knowing the truth behind it. Ryder lived by his own code. He felt she had given herself to him last night and he would protect what was his. But, as with Cass in
The Quicksilver Venture
, Brenna felt a need to protest his autocratic assumptions. Ryder was not the right man for her! She needed and wanted someone like Damon Fielding…

But she knew even as she repeated the words to herself that the reason she had hurled accusations at Fielding that morning was precisely because he had fallen far short of her ideal. She had wanted him to defend and protect her in an uncompromising manner.

It wasn’t that she wouldn’t or couldn’t take a stand on her own behalf. Brenna knew she was fully capable of defending herself. But an undeniable part of her had wanted the man she was contemplating marrying to prove himself totally on her side when the going got rough. She had wanted to know that she was the most important thing in his life and that he would not make compromises when it came to protecting her.

All of which was totally unfair, she reasoned deliberately. Damon had tried to protect her in his own way. He had logically advised her to think of her career and her future first, rather than the injustice of the moment. His method was the right approach.

But Ryder would have gone to war for her.

And gotten them both kicked out of the college, Brenna reminded herself ruefully.

On the other hand, something in her knew the line had to be drawn somewhere. Logical compromise was all well and good, but each individual had to decide just how far he or she would go before saying that the limit had been reached. In that moment of self-understanding and analysis, Brenna acknowledged that Damon would go a great deal further than she would when it came to compromising for the sake of a career. How much further?

Before she could explore that question, though, another matter had to be dealt with. Talk about drawing the line somewhere! She was most definitely going to have to do exactly that with Ryder Sterne. Every instinct warned that the attraction she felt for this man was dangerous in the extreme. She realized now, after having read
The Quicksilver Venture
, that his appeal was all the more hazardous because it wasn’t simply physical. A very elemental part of her sought the straightforward, utterly unyielding, fiercely independent strength in him. But it was all wrong to find those qualities in this man! She dared not let herself admit that she could give herself completely to a man who was not of the intellectual and academically sophisticated world in which she lived. She had worked so hard gaining entrance to that particular world! It was a kind of heresy to even contemplate the notion that she could fall in love with someone who did not share it with her.

Fall in love! No! Brenna’s chin lifted and her amber eyes flared gold as she turned her head to fix Ryder with a condemning stare.

“I do not belong to you, Ryder. Not in any sense of the word. We…we only went to bed together last night, we didn’t pledge our love, for heaven’s sake!”

He put down the thick philosophy text and leaned forward to capture her face between his palms. The silver in his eyes was a banked flame. Brenna sensed impatience and an equal determination to control that impatience radiating through the lean, hard body.

“I, like my readers, am not interested in sloppy, sentimental words such as ‘love.’ Please don’t use them to cloud the issue. We want each other, Brenna, and we need each other!”

“How can you say that?” she pleaded. “We don’t
need
each other! Not in any meaningful way!” But she heard the lie in her own words and was desperately afraid he would see it. A part of her
did
need him; needed his honor and passionate way of living by his own code.

He studied her face searchingly. “Lady, I have spent the day reading the works of the men and women you admire. Shall I tell you what I’ve learned?” Ryder didn’t wait for the answer. “You are a member of a profession that is not afraid to ask questions. The most incredible questions! The questions your predecessors have asked were so fundamental that they literally opened up the areas of human knowledge. They are the questions that are the foundation of science and mathematics and ethics and communications and logic. My God, woman! If you are going to follow in the footsteps of such people, surely you must find the courage to ask a few personal questions of yourself!”

“Such as?” she challenged tightly, her pulse racing as she met the will and the power in him.

“Such as what you want out of life! Such as what you want out of a relationship. Such as what you need from a man and what you’re capable of giving in return.” His voice deepened, becoming as deceptively soft and gentle as silk. “Such as why you made the decision to invite me into your bed last night.”

“I didn’t! I…” Brenna closed her eyes against the accusation she sensed in him. “All right, so I did. That’s all there was to it, Ryder. I don’t know what it is you want from me!”

“You,” he told her gently. “All of you. And I want exclusive rights. If I ever find your precious Dr. Fielding touching you again I’ll take him apart. I mean it, Brenna. I warned you last night that when you gave yourself to me it would be completely.”

“You can’t blame me for not understanding how…how completely you meant!” she argued, aware even in frustration and anger how much her body longed to call off the battle. It would be so blissful to simply go into his arms and forget the past and the future. But the need to resist his challenge was just as strong. Brenna knew better than to succumb to the repressed streak of recklessness in her own nature. She could not trust that side of herself; she was sure it would lead to disaster.

“Don’t pretend you misunderstood me,” he admonished with a wry quirk to his lips, his features softening. “I just finished the chapter on the philosophy of linguistic analysis! Even if I hadn’t read it, I would still, as a writer, have a great respect for the power of language, lady. And I know my words last night were very direct and to the point.”

“This isn’t a joke, Ryder,” she protested, sensing the flash of humor in him. “You’re trying to push me into a full-scale affair and I won’t be driven like that!”

He shook his head once in denial. “I’m not pushing, Brenna. I keep telling you I’m willing to wait.”

“You say that and then turn around and make all sorts of demands!”

“You gave me the right to place those demands,” he said evenly.

“No!”

“What are you going to do? If you choose to run, I think you know by now that I’ll come after you. If you stay here and work things out, I’ll give you some time in which to come to terms with yourself and the situation. Take your choice.”

Anger surged to life in Brenna. In part it was directed against herself for even being tempted by this man, but she aimed it at him, nonetheless. With a swift movement she pulled herself free of his hands and leaped to her feet, the tension in her stiffening every line of her body.

“How dare you presume to give me such choices, Ryder Sterne! No one, especially no man, has that right! I’ll do as I damn well please and I sure as hell don’t intend to let myself get boxed into a corner by you. Your conceit and arrogance are amazing! Do you really think I’ll let myself be used by you for an affair this summer? Someone to provide a little light relief after a hard day’s writing?”

At her words his jaw tightened and his silver eyes became narrow and assessing. Brenna knew she was running a risk but she couldn’t seem to stop. She was feeling trapped both by the events of the morning and by the bonds Ryder was attempting to place on her. Her instincts were telling her to fight while there was still some chance of freeing herself. But when Ryder got almost lazily to his feet to stand in front of her, another instinct jerked into awareness. This one instructed her to be prepared to run.

“You know damn good and well that I’m not looking for a ‘little light relief,’ as you put it,” he stated coolly. “If I were, I wouldn’t have told you that I was willing to wait politely for another invitation to your bed. Use your head, lady, and stop looking for flimsy excuses to attack me.”

“What sort of excuse should I look for?” she tossed back flippantly. “Something tells me you’ll label all my excuses flimsy!”

“Oh, you’ve got some good grounds for being afraid of me at this point,” he drawled dangerously. “I represent a threat to your whole way of life.”

“The only threat in my life right now is the one to my career!”

“You’re wrong, Brenna. That’s the easy one to handle. I’m another kind of threat altogether and you’re going to find me a lot tougher to deal with.”

“You’re beginning to sound like the character in your novel,” she spat furiously. Her temper was raging and she didn’t seem to be able to bring it under control. Too much had happened to her today, and somehow Ryder seemed the focus of all the problems she faced.