Affair of Honor (7 page)

“Probably,” Brenna agreed with a small smile.

“And a man trying to decide which path to follow is allowed the choice?”

“There’s always the doctrine of free will,” she acknowledged, amused.

He set down his teacup and removed the one in her hands. “Then I choose to kiss you and the hell with the risks.”

Brenna held her breath, her nerves tingling and alive as he swept her into his arms. She made no protest when his mouth came searchingly down on hers. She wasn’t certain in that moment that she
could
have made a protest. This was where the evening had been leading, and she knew she wanted to taste a little of what this man had to offer her senses. The urge to do so was overpowering.

The first thing she realized as he wrapped her against him was that the hunger in him was still leashed. She felt that hunger in the hardness of his body, knew it in the warmth of his mouth, but it was under control. A deep feminine instinct made her want to be the woman who could release and satisfy that hunger.

The knowledge shook her and the trembling in her slender frame seemed to seek solace from the rising heat of his passion.

When his lips moved persuasively on hers, Brenna lifted her arms to encircle his neck as she opened her mouth to him. His questing tongue surged inside with a reckless aggression that thrilled her. He explored the warm, wet secrets behind her lips with an arousing, exciting boldness that left her the hungry one.

She sank heavily against him and he accepted the weight of her, letting it carry them both backward until she was lying on top of him. When Brenna tried to catch her breath and her common sense, he tangled her legs in his own and held her head close.

“A little more,” he breathed huskily and she obeyed. Of their own volition her tender hands framed the rough, craggy planes of his face as she responded to the kiss. Her mind was whirling with the sensual pleasures that beckoned and seduced. He was altogether different, and she felt compelled to explore whatever it was he offered.

Their tongues met in an intricate dance of primitive courtship as Ryder flattened his palms along her back and began to stroke her in long, rhythmic motions. Unconsciously Brenna’s body arched into him in response, glorying in the lean strength awaiting her.

When she moaned, he drank the sound from her throat as if it were nectar and then he asked for more. Her small, muffled cry came once more, and this time he splayed his fingers across the curve of her hips and forced her gently against his thighs.

With that sensual contact Brenna was made fiercely aware of the thrusting, potent strength of his desire. The dazzling surge of excitement through her body suffused it with a warm flush that seemed to elevate her temperature. He wanted her and heaven help her, she wanted him! Never had it been like this. Never had a man fascinated and intrigued her in quite this way. She wanted to forget about the future and the past and do anything in her power to continue in this delightful plane of unreality.

“Ryder?” His name was a question and a plea on her lips as she lifted her head an inch to meet his eyes.

The tawny lashes rose, revealing the molten silver behind them. He looked deeply into her drugged and dream-filled gaze for a long moment.

“I told you on the dance floor that the choice would be yours tonight, lady,” he said with dark velvet in his words. “Just remember that I will hold you to your decision if you choose to take the risk.”

“What risk?”

“The risk of inviting me into your bed.”

Hearing it spelled out so bluntly sent a tremor through her but she managed not to lower her lashes in spite of the confusion she was experiencing. “What is the risk, Ryder? That you won’t stay long in my bed?” she provoked deliberately, ignoring the pain of that possibility.

His mouth crooked and he lifted his fingers to spear them through the sleek knot of her hair, dislodging the clip. “No, you little idiot, the risk you’re taking is that I will stay there. Don’t you understand, Brenna? I won’t let you go after I’ve made you mine. Hell, I might not let you go even if you back away entirely tonight!” he ended forcefully.

“What are you talking about?” she whispered.

“I’m talking about commitment, and the fact that you have to ask the question means it’s probably much too soon for me to claim you. It means you’re probably not thinking in those terms.” He twisted his hands through her unloosened hair and his mouth continued to smile gently even though his eyes were gleaming and largely unreadable.

“You want a…a commitment from me? That’s something of a switch, isn’t it?” she tried to ask mockingly and failed miserably. Her amber gaze was darkening with tension and the unknown aspects of the moment. “Isn’t it usually the woman who—” She broke off, unable to continue. Her crimson nails dug anxiously into the blue silk shirt.

“I’m not concerned with how it ‘usually’ is,” he rasped. “I’m only concerned with how it is for me and you. I want you, Brenna, but I’m willing to take the time to make it right for both of us. I’m willing to wait for you. I’m warning you that if you give yourself to me tonight, you won’t find yourself free of me in the morning. Do you understand now? I won’t play the part of a summer novelty for you to explore while you’re running around outside your ivory tower.”

“No! I never meant…”

He shook his head. “I know I represent a different world to you, and perhaps under the spell of the evening and your own curiosity you find yourself attracted. If that’s all it amounts to, you’d better back away from the flames before you get singed.”

“It’s not like that at all!” she proclaimed fiercely, the need to reassure him somehow more important than a close look at the truth. “Believe me, Ryder, it’s not like that…”

Knowing no other way to counter his accusation, Brenna caught his face once more in her hands and ground her mouth almost savagely down on his. She would not, could not, examine her options in the intellectual way she ought to. Brenna only knew that the night must not end with Ryder Sterne walking out her door.

Ryder’s arms tightened around her with rough gentleness as he slowly sat up against the pressure of her slender weight. He never broke the kiss but Brenna found herself cradled across his thighs, her arms wound passionately around his neck.

Then, in a surge of masculine power, Ryder was on his feet with Brenna in his arms. Still holding her mouth in the compelling mastery of his own, he started toward the stairs of the loft.

O
ne of Brenna’s high-heeled red sandals slipped off and fell on a step as Ryder carried her effortlessly up the stairs. She wasn’t really aware of the small loss, but the toes of her nylon-clad foot curled in a tiny gesture of gathering sensual tension. Ryder’s arms felt strong and secure about her, and she nestled against his chest in languid, delicious abandon.

At the top of the stairs he at last broke the enthralling, lingering kiss to lift his head and search her bemused, heavy-lidded expression.

“Tonight you’re a golden-eyed witch,” he told her huskily.

“And you?” she countered, touching the corner of his mouth with a fingertip. “What are you tonight?”

“Only a man. But one who wants you very much. Will that be enough for you?”

What was he asking? Brenna wondered distantly. Whatever the real question, she wanted nothing more than to reassure him.

“It will be enough.” Perhaps he was concerned that she would ask too much of him, demand more than he could give. Yet he had been the one who had talked of commitment. She didn’t understand but she didn’t want to get too involved in an analysis of the situation, either. Not now, not tonight. Tonight was a special place and a special time and she wanted only to exist within those borders. “Ryder, I’m not truly a witch. Only a woman. Will that be enough for you?” she heard herself ask a little anxiously.

“It’s all I want,” he whispered, his voice as deep and gentle as she had yet heard it.

He carried her to the bed and lowered her carefully to her feet beside it.

“Oh!” The small exclamation came as Brenna stumbled slightly against him and instinctively braced herself with palms splayed across his shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” He steadied her at once.

“My shoe.” She smiled in soft amusement. “I seem to have arrived with only one.”

“Playing at being Cinderella after the ball?” He eased her to a sitting position on the edge of the bed and went down on one knee in front of her.

“Only if you’re interested in the Prince Charming role,” she tried to say nonchalantly and was very much afraid she failed.

She didn’t feel nonchalant tonight. She felt elated, nervous, passionate, and high-strung. She felt a dizzying conglomeration of emotions but she didn’t feel at all nonchalant.

“No, I’m not quite right for that role.” Deliberately Ryder put his hand on her uncovered knee and slid it silkily down her calf to the foot that still wore a shoe. Slowly he began to unfasten the buckle of the tiny red strap. “I’m much more interested in undressing you than I am in finding you a slipper that fits. Tonight I’d make a lousy Prince Charming.” His mouth twisted in a wry self-mockery that touched her heart.

Instinctively Brenna threaded her hands through his hair and moved them slowly down to rest on his shoulders. An unbidden, feminine perception told her that he was asking obliquely for reassurance of her desire for him. How could she refuse? Tonight she wanted to give this man everything he asked.

He looked up at her from under the tawny lashes and she smiled tenderly. “Tonight you’re a perfect Prince Charming. Exactly as I always thought Prince Charming would be.”

Without a word he lifted his hands to pull her head down to his, and this time she knew from his kiss that the hunger she sensed in him was rapidly coming unbound. Why had he maintained it under such restraint? A man’s desire, she had always thought, was a relatively simple thing and certainly not something he bothered to conceal or control when the opportunity to indulge it occurred.

But Ryder was different and the quality of his desire was different. She felt a hunger that was not strictly sexual underlying it and knew a fierce joy at being the one who could unleash it.

When she moaned throatily under the impact of the spiraling kiss, Ryder lowered one hand to trace the distance from her shoulder to the tip of her breast. He drew in his breath sharply when he discovered the taut outline of her nipple and pushed her back against the quilt. He followed, coming down heavily beside her while he continued to move his thumb provocatively against the sensitive peak.

Brenna arched upward, seeking more of his touch, and whispered his name softly into his mouth. His hand went to the bright red sash that held the white dress low on her hip. It loosened magically beneath his touch. Slowly he continued to undress her, finding the fastenings of the eyelet dress while he buried his mouth at the pulsepoint of her throat.

“Oh, Ryder!”

Brenna’s head tipped back over his arm in silent supplication and surrender and her eyes shut tightly against the wonder of the moment. Everything was so perfect; he was so perfect.

“You’re so exactly right for me,” he grated in a velvet-gentle voice as the white dress slipped down to her waist and the curves of her breasts were revealed. Only the filmiest of lace and satin remained and the thrusting tips of her nipples were clearly outlined. “Small and sleek and sensuous.”

He found the center clasp of the demicup bra and undid it. When the lacy covering fell aside, he groaned as he began to trail a string of kisses from the base of her throat to the rose-tipped crests.

“My little lady cat burglar,” he whispered thickly as he stroked the length of her to her hips. “I wanted to do this the night you crawled through my window!”

“No,” she protested even though the excitement was flaming through her at his words. “You didn’t want me like this. Not then…”

“You still don’t know me that well, do you?”

But he gave her no chance to reply as he curled his tongue coaxingly around her nipple and traced a circle that made her breath catch in her throat. Her red-gilt nails sank into the shoulders beneath the blue silk shirt as she cried out.

Her response seemed to arouse him still further. In an swift, smooth movement he slid his palms down the curve of her hips, pushing the remainder of her clothing all the way to her ankles and off the bed. In one long, sweeping stroke she was suddenly and completely nude.

Brenna’s eyes opened to find him drinking in the sight of her as his fingers went to the buttons of the blue shirt.

“No, let me,” she managed, struggling to a sitting position and finding the buttons with fingers that trembled from passionate excitement.

The tawny lashes feathered his cheeks as he let his own hands fall aside. Ryder sat very still as she worked at the fastenings of the blue shirt. But when she slipped her palms beneath the open edges to find the curling hair that covered his bronzed chest, he muttered her name a little violently and caught her wrists.

“Brenna, my golden-eyed witch, you’ll drive me crazy if I give you free rein! I want this to last all night!”

“I’m the one who will go crazy if you try to make it last forever,” she protested huskily. “I… I
need
you too badly.”

She bit off the words, a part of her astounded by them. She had never truly
needed
a man in quite this way. This was different than mere affection tinged with sexual attraction. This was different than the time in graduate school when she had thought she was truly in love. This was different than the way she felt toward Damon. She needed Ryder Sterne and she ached to please him.

“Do you, Brenna?” he growled in his dragon’s purr. “Do you really need me?”

“More than anything else in the world,” she answered with an honesty that would have surprised her in another context. She lifted her lashes and the gold in her eyes met the silver in his. He groaned in satisfaction and a kind of relief. She knew in that moment that the strange hunger in him was finally and completely unleashed. He made no further protest as she fumbled with the remainder of his clothes.