Affair of Honor (8 page)

“You’re beautiful,” she breathed in wonder as he finally lay naked beside her. With delicate, questing fingertips she traced the shape of him, moving across the contours of his smoothly muscled chest, down to the flat stomach and over the muscular shape of his hip.

Unable to resist, she bent to kiss the center of his chest as her hand clenched a little aggressively into the hard male buttock. Instantly his fingers wrapped themselves in her hair and he pulled her forcibly up to find his mouth.

“We’ll make the next time last,” he promised thickly against her mouth. “This time I’m not going to be able to play the gentleman!”

“Ryder!” His name was choked from her as, his hands still entwined in the depths of her bittersweet-chocolate hair, he moved, shifting her firmly onto her back. He sprawled heavily across her, his thigh pinning hers as he quenched his thirst at her mouth.

“I’m sorry, sweet lady,” he muttered against her lips as he held her face cupped fiercely in his excitingly rough palms. “I meant to play the gallant lover but I can’t. Not this first time with you. All I can think of now is making you mine completely and absolutely. Do you understand? I can’t be sexually sophisticated tonight and impress you with my charm and gallantry. I want you too badly!”

Brenna couldn’t answer. Her own passion was running too high and her senses seemed to swim. Her nails dug compellingly into his shoulders and she arched her hips against the pressure of his body. It was the only response she could manage.

It was enough. With a violently tender exclamation Ryder slid his palm over her breasts, down the small contour of her stomach, and found the tangled thicket below. He forced her legs gently apart with his knee and let his probing fingers discover the intimate secret of her.

When she writhed beneath him at the touch, he whispered her name hoarsely and pressed the hard strength of his body testingly against her thighs.

“Please. Ryder, please!”

“My God, sweet lady!”

He lifted himself, his shoulders looming briefly over her in the shadowy light, and then he settled himself along the length of her, fitting himself between her legs with a gentle aggression that sent shivers through Brenna’s nerve endings.

She reached up, clinging to him as if he were all that mattered in the world, welcoming him completely.

He came to her with a bold power that shocked her senses. Her nails raked the contour of his back and his name was a silent cry of desire and passion on her lips as he held her with a strength she couldn’t have defied even if she had been so inclined. Then he was surging against her body, taking it by storm and sweeping her along into a vortex of swirling color and sensation. Ryder Sterne made love as if he were staking a claim; tuning a fine instrument only to his personal touch; taming a wild creature. The experience overwhelmed and consumed Brenna’s senses.

He established a rhythm to which she responded at once. She locked her arms and legs around his driving body, thrilling to the potent, sinewy feel of him. When her nails dug deeper in a convulsive reaction, he nipped passionately at the smooth flesh of her shoulder. The small, tingling pain only served to heighten her awareness to new levels.

Together they spun through their own private universe, so tightly entwined they were as one as they made the sensual journey. When the coiling, flickering tension in Brenna’s loins began to flare out of control, she gulped for air and tensed in Ryder’s hold.

“Ryder! Ryder, darling!”

He must have heard the amazement and wonder and perhaps even an element of fear in her words as she faced the blazing conclusion of the trip.

“Let yourself go, lady,” he rasped. “Give yourself to me!”

As if his words were the last impulse her body needed to send her over the edge, Brenna went abruptly taut beneath him, and then the explosion took her in a series of tiny convulsions that swept her from head to toe.

“Oh, Ryder!”

As if he, in turn, only needed her finish to spark his own, Ryder swept into her body once more, filling her completely and holding her with total possession as he reached the end of his journey.

Long moments later Brenna stirred beneath the heavy male body still covering her own. At the hint of movement Ryder lazily lifted his tousled, tawny head from her breast and looked down at her, the faintest of smiles edging his mouth. The molten silver in his eyes had cooled to be replaced by a warm satisfaction that pleased Brenna. She had fed the hunger in him.

They stared wonderingly at each other in silence for a time, each absorbing the fullness of the moment, and then Ryder ducked his head briefly to drop a tiny kiss on her love-softened mouth.

“I know this is going to sound ridiculous in the light of events, but when I picked you up at your door this evening, I honestly had no intention of winding up in your bed later,” he confessed.

“Was it fate or free will?” she teased dreamily, playing with the perspiration-damp hair at the back of his neck.

“I don’t know and I don’t particularly care. It happened. That’s all that matters now.”

She opened her eyes a little wider at the forcefulness of the statement. “Are you upset about what happened, Ryder?” Please, no, she thought. She only wanted him to be happy!

“Of course not,” he drawled, his expression softening at once. “It was a little too soon and involved some risks because of that, but perhaps there wasn’t any other way it could have gone. You’re mine now, Brenna. I’ve waited a long time to find you, lady, and now that I have I won’t be letting you go.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not tonight,” she soothed, uncertain of his meaning and unwilling to press for clarification. The night was too precious.

He stroked back the dark hair from her damp forehead and smiled with incredible gentleness. “No, you won’t be going anywhere tonight.” Then he shook his head once in amused bafflement. “A professor of philosophy. How could I have possibly guessed?”

“Guessed what?” she prompted curiously, enjoying the soothing touch of his fingers across her brow. She wriggled beneath him contentedly.

“That I’d find the woman I wanted and needed, the one who understood about things like honor and the one who was capable of sending me out of my head with desire, on the faculty of some small college of which I had never heard. Hell, Brenna,” he added with a wry chuckle deep in his throat. “I finished college in the Marine Corps, and I can assure you there wasn’t much attention paid to subjects like ethics and philosophy!”

“A limited education?”

“A practical education,” he corrected with a small grin. He lowered his head for another nibbling kiss, drawing back with some reluctance. “Are you happy with the results of your seductive techniques tonight, lady?” he taunted lightly.

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me,” she murmured, drawing inviting little circles on his upper arms.

“Well,” he retorted deliberately, “I suppose it doesn’t much matter whether or not I manage to drag a confession out of you. It’s done. You’re mine.”

Brenna thought about that, aware of the determination in him and not quite comprehending his full meaning. He was a possessive man, it would seem. And tonight he possessed her. She didn’t want to think any further than that.

“Don’t go to sleep on me, witch,” he drawled humorously as her lashes lowered to her cheeks. “That first time was to settle the issue. Now that it’s settled, I’m going to take the time to make a good impression.”

Her mouth curved. “Is that a threat?”

“Just try to stay awake so you can applaud the performance, okay?”

He shaped her head with his fingers and lowered his mouth once more to hers. This time his kiss was slow and lingeringly passionate as he set about stoking the banked fires back to shimmering brightness.

Ryder took his time, as promised, moving over her languid body with finesse and an arousing strength that pushed aside the remnants of earlier passion and set about creating a new experience. She was stroked from breast to thigh, teased with sensitive fingers that knew exactly where to tempt and tantalize. And his kisses, she thought deliriously, his kisses were a sweet ravishment. He poured them without restraint across the roundness of her breasts, dropped them delicately onto the softness of her stomach, and branded them into the exquisitely tender skin of her inner thighs. Brenna had temporarily lost herself in his arms the last time. This time she thought she might never find her way back out.

When he came to her at last, enveloping her in his warmth, she never gave another thought to the prospect of being permanently lost. He flowed into her body and across it and there was no way she could have resisted. This time, when the shimmering conclusion approached, she gave herself up to it without any fear at all, welcoming the flames of surrender in the safety of Ryder’s arms.

When it was over he turned her gently on her side, pulled her tightly into the curve of his glisteningly damp body, and ordered her to sleep in the softest of whispers.

“Ryder, I feel like I’m floating.”

“So do I. Go to sleep, lady.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what I’m going to do and I can’t bear the thought of you lying awake staring at the ceiling while I’m snoring blissfully!”

“Oh, dear. Do you snore?” She chuckled.

“It’s a little late to worry about it. Tonight you’ve agreed to take the good with the bad.” He yawned, nestling his head against hers.

“Tonight’s almost over, Ryder,” she pointed out wistfully.

“There’s tomorrow to look forward to. Good night, sweet lady.”

“Good night, Prince Charming.”

He laughed sleepily and then he was asleep. A moment later so was Brenna.

She awoke the next morning in a warm, tousled bed, the down quilt snuggled close to her chin. Her first impression was that something was wrong.

Brenna’s eyes opened slowly to find the sunlight filtering brightly through the window cut in the peaked roof. It was late. But that wasn’t what was wrong. Her legs stretched idly and she became aware of a faint soreness in the muscles of her thighs.

Not an unpleasant sensation in and of itself, but it brought back memories of the night with alarming speed. Brenna struggled to a sitting position, glancing around her bedroom with a kind of fear. Where was Ryder?

It wasn’t his absence that seemed wrong, it was the possibility that he would step out of the bathroom or come up the stairs with breakfast at any minute that sent a wave of panic through her senses.

My God! What had she done last night? She must have been out of her mind! With heartfelt anxiety she tossed back the quilt and stumbled to her feet, chilled in the morning light. Shakily she reached for the fluffy, high-necked, saffron-colored robe lying across the foot of the bed. It was only as she belted it on that she remembered it hadn’t been there last night. Ryder had put it out for her. She stood very still for a moment, listening to the quiet sounds of the cabin. Then she began to relax slightly. He wasn’t in the house, she was certain now.

A bath, she thought grimly, that was what she needed first. The scent of him seemed to have somehow combined with her own. She made her way to the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

What the hell was the matter with her? Brenna demanded of herself in the mirror. Why was she so nervous this morning? So she had let herself be seduced by a mood and a man unlike any other she had ever known. What was so terrible about that? It wasn’t as if she had been unfaithful to Damon. Her relationship with Dr. Fielding hadn’t even progressed as far as the bedroom yet and she’d known him, worked with him, for months!

Which didn’t make her feel one bit better. Brenna looked away from the anxious expression in her own eyes, turned on the shower, and stepped underneath the spray with alacrity.

No, her relationship with Damon hadn’t gotten to the point her association with Ryder Sterne had reached in three days! With a shock of startled realization, Brenna knew that even if she were to know Damon Fielding another ten years, even if she were to go to bed with him every night of that ten years, her relationship with him would never be quite what she’d found with Ryder last night.

The knowledge made her catch her lower lip between her teeth, and another rush of panic seemed to tingle through her bloodstream. Why had she gotten herself into this mess? She closed her eyes at the thought of how Ryder had given her a chance to halt matters before it was too late.

But it had already been too late, even at that point. Somehow the culmination of the evening had been inevitable. Not a pleasant thought for someone who taught the ethics of responsibility and free choice! Brenna’s fingers curled into a small fist and she braced her forearm against the tiled wall of the shower. Leaning her forehead against her arm, she let the warm water pound over her while she tried desperately to think.

Over and over again she told herself that nothing all that devastating had happened. She had never been a promiscuous person and she needn’t condemn herself for succumbing to the incredible attraction Ryder had held for her last night. There had been very, very few serious romances in her life, she reflected bracingly. Surely a woman her age was allowed the mind-spinning excitement of a night like last night at least once.

She knew, though, that she was, in a sense, chastising herself to no purpose. It wasn’t that she felt guilty; it wasn’t that she felt as if she’d been disloyal to Damon, who certainly dated other women. There was no point in berating herself for any of the traditional reasons.

The real problem, the one that had to be faced, was that last night had been, in some indefinable way, an act of surrender. She had given herself to Ryder and he had taken possession.

What if he chose to retain that possession now that the night of passion had passed?

With that thought, the full truth surfaced amid the chaos of her thoughts and Brenna straightened away from the shower wall. Facing a truth with intelligence and dispassionate calm was something she was normally very good at.

Unfortunately the kind of truth she was usually compelled to face was of an intellectual nature that made no real impact on her emotions. This was of an altogether different nature and she swallowed unhappily at the implications.