More Than Words: Kissed By A Muse #3 (10 page)

Leigh gasped as his words hit her right in the heart and his lips slanted against hers, stealing her breath. She asked herself what her parents would think, or what Scarlett or Anne would do, and a strangled noise escaped her chest- a combination of ecstasy and hope as she kissed him back like a good heroine ought to.

Ryan

The journey across the river was a brief one, for Imogen’s second home was only a few hundred feet off the embankment, and Ryan used the time to study Leigh’s face, finding that he’d become as dependent on her joyous reactions to new things, as a crack addict to blow.

She seemed to forget his intentions and focus on the mist instead, extending her delicate hands and trying to catch tendrils in her palms while her excited breaths created more clouds around her lips. She was cold and so was he, but not once did she complain and Ryan’s hands gripped the oars tightly, rowing faster despite the light ache develop in his wrist under the cuff.

The mist broke around the house and Leigh squealed, turning so sharply in the boat to gaze over the bow that the small dinghy rocked dangerously, making her giggle and apologize. He didn’t want her apologies though- he wanted only to enjoy her widening eyes and parting lips as he rowed them directly into the little covered boat dock, which was little more than an extended eave of the tiny bungalow.

‘Oh my gosh!’ Leigh’s hands curled around the edge of the boat and Ryan grinned, delight flowing off her and flooding him. She clapped her hands together and then kissed her tented fingers and Ryan remembered feeling the exact same way when Imogen had first brought him there.

The island was small- so small that there was nowhere to stand that wasn’t covered by the foundation of the tiny house except for four square feet of yard in the rear, which boasted one scrawny hemlock and a clothesline. It had a porch, which actually hung over the edge and was supported by stilts that had been driven into the riverbed, and when Ryan steered the boat into the covered dock, the mooring was right by the front door. It looked both odd and romantic, like an image lifted from a storybook and true to form, Leigh was losing her mind over it.

As Ryan tethered the boat to the wooden post, he realised that he meant the words he’d said to Leigh more than he’d meant anything. He loved her so much it hurt. The fact that only three days had lapsed since they’d first met didn’t detract from the power of that sentiment- only served to enhance it.

Ryan climbed out of the boat and turned to extend a hand to her, pulling her onto Imogen’s porch smoothly, loving how nimble and sure-footed she was. ‘How have you been single for this long?’ he asked her,  crouching beside the boat and fishing out his lantern and the shopping bags he’d brought along.

‘I told you, I’ve just never really connected with anyone,’ she said simply, taking the battery-operated lantern from him and stepping back onto the porch so that she could hoist it above her head and illuminate what he was doing. ‘Gosh, this place is just… I have no words.’

Ryan seriously doubted that. ‘Maybe not an absolute connection… those are hard to find.’ Ryan wiped his sweaty brow with his shirtsleeve and ducked under her arm so that he could open the front door. ‘But there have to have been crushes and boyfriends and stalkers and-’

‘There were plenty of those.’ Leigh’s voice was reverently soft as she stepped up behind him, and her words shook slightly from the cold. ‘But if I liked them as a person, I wasn’t physically attracted to them. And if I was physically attracted to them… I’d end up despising them.’

Ryan glanced at her over his shoulder, feeling irrational jealous rising inside him. ‘Translation; you go for good boys with bad boy looks?’

Leigh’s nose crinkled in embarrassment. ‘That might just be it. Yeah I guess I like your look- I’ve always been partial to classic cars and dark hair and a well placed piercing or tattoo and ripped jeans and…’ Leigh’s eyes slid down his shoulder and he felt it as keenly as if she’d stroked him with a heated hand. ‘I’m sorry, what?’

Ryan chuckled and turned away, fishing the keys to the cabin out of his pocket and poking them into the door, glad that it was dark because he was sure that his cheeks were on fire. ‘You were talking about your predilection for bad boys…’

‘Ah… yeah-no. Not bad boys. I can’t handle the stink of pot. I can’t handle men who drink bourbon and don’t wash their clothes. I won’t date a guy who needs me to drive him everywhere and I don’t have sex. So even if there had been a nice, Aussie boy back home with your look and your domestic, well-mannered, relatively-sober mindset- I wouldn’t have been able to get his interest because a: I wouldn’t have been in a bar to begin with and b: I wouldn’t put out so ipso facto we wouldn’t have lasted beyond a date or two anyway…’ She sighed. ‘So I ended up dating guys like Bruce, who are perfectly nice or perfectly boring or a perfect combination of both and exactly what my mother wanted for me. It never went anywhere and though a few tried to keep it going, my lack of interest eventually killed their interest. So here I am… single with an incredibly uninteresting dating history.’

Ryan smiled and swung the door open, relieved that her explanation was devoid of any great loves. He wanted to be her only storybook romance, and learning that it was feasible to be Leigh’s everything made his heart race.

If I never get my memories back, she could sort of be mine too, couldn’t she?

‘Ryan?’ Leigh shuffled in behind him. ‘Are you okay? You just went really quiet.’

‘I am, I’m just thinking about what you said.’ Ryan deposited the bags to the side of the door, took the lantern from Leigh, and once she’d shut the door behind her, led her to the couch by hand. ‘Just wait here for a second while I get the fire going, okay?’

‘Okay. Wow- this place is so tiny. Even smaller than my place, but so cozy!’ She sighed. ‘Australian architects need to find some romance, don’t you think? All those orange brick flats, and wooden boxes on spindly legs… really, I’m embarrassed.’

Ryan chuckled. ‘They’re practical and cheap and made to suit the weather, that’s all.’ He had already stocked the fire when he’d come the weekend before to get the cabin ready for the holidays and now, he knelt and flicked his lighter against a grey smudge of balled newspaper.

‘Yeah well, for me- romance means taking the time and imagination to be impractical, even when the easy way would get the job done faster.’

‘So, if I want to woo you, I should be making this fire by rubbing two sticks together?’ he joked. A small flame burst to life within the furnace and he moved his zippo flame twice more, lighting it in two different places.

‘Nah- a fireplace is about as romantic as it gets, as it is.’ Leigh stepped forward beside him and held her palms up to the fire as it blossomed all over and crackled hungrily. She gave him a sexy, sidelong smile. ‘But I’ll bet you could make a fire that way. Musicians are patient by nature- and dexterous. Learning all of those chords, reading music, waiting for that big break…’

Ryan felt his love for her in every cell of his being and was desperate to drag her back to the woods, make her a man fire and serenade her by it. ‘Do you want to know what I was thinking before?’ Leigh nodded, her smile expectant, and so he went on. ‘It sort of amazes me how alike we are. We’re two blank slates, really.’

‘Hmm…’ Leigh regarded the fire with a skeptical expression. ‘Except your slate was wiped clean because you did something drastic, whereas mine is blank because I’d never dare do anything truly impulsive.’

That’s what you think.

Ryan took her hand, stood, and whipped the dustsheet from the couch, sitting down on it and pulling her with him and onto his lap. ‘That’s because you were waiting for me…’ he whispered, then brushed his lips against hers. ‘You’re well-behaved, freshly showered and romantic musician…’

Leigh hummed gently against his lips. ‘Is that who you are?’ she asked, cupping his face so that she could look into his eyes. There was just enough light for him to see the gleam of excitement and anxiety in hers. ‘Romantic and well behaved? I thought you brought me here to seduce me?’

‘I can’t be all of those things?’ he asked softly, running his hand up her calf while the other cradled her back, keeping her upright. Her tights were chilled and silky, her muscles tense beneath her clothes- and the prospect of warming her up and feeling the tension drain from every part of her made his blood rush to his head.

‘No,’ Leigh whispered. ‘You either respect me enough to accept the fact that I want to wait to have sex on my wedding day, or are predatory enough not to give a shit.’

‘Hmm…’ Ryan stopped moving his hand, and buried his face in her neck, breathing her in. ‘In that case…’ Ryan rolled, catching her head in his hand, and her free hand with his fingers twisted between hers. He slammed their intertwined fingers back against the couch and curled his tongue around hers, silencing her cry of fright before nibbling on her lower lip and whispering:

‘Marry Me.’

Ten

L
eigh gasped in shock as she swallowed Ryan’s breathy request, her scalp tingling like he’d jabbed her finger into an electric socket.

‘Oh!’ She breathed, turning her face away from his kiss as he bore down on her. ‘You did NOT just-’

Ryan’s hand found her knee and hitched it near his hip, then rocked his weight towards the back of the couch, keeping it pinned there. ‘Oh, I did.’ He spanned her fingers between his and brought them to his mouth, suckling on the tip of her ring finger and making her chest constrict when she saw the smoldering look in his azure eyes. ‘And I meant it every bit as much as I meant it when I said: I love you, Leigh.’

Leigh stared at him, flabbergasted. She didn’t believe that he meant that yet either, so what the hell was she supposed to do with a proposal? ‘Marry you?! We’ve known each other-’

Ryan snarled and pinned her hand above her head again, stretching her out so that she had no leverage to squirm away. ‘Enough of this time bullshit, okay? I fucking LOVE you. I want to marry you. And if I have to kiss you until you’re too exhausted to stress about the nitty gritty details again, then that’s what I’ll do!’ True to his threat, Ryan ducked his head and parted her lips with his tongue.

Leigh groaned in exasperation to have him silencing her with his passion again, but she was defenseless against said passion, and so her defeated mouth took his assault with both resignation and desire. Ryan’s tongue whipped circles around hers, and it really was like being beaten into submission. With every lap, her body weakened and her lips grew lazier until she was lifting her face to his to grant him more access.

God how can I say no to all I want? I want him, God I want him! If I was only stupid enough to believe that he could truly want me, I could be as foolishly happy as every other woman who has ever fallen in love with a man out of her league before. Maybe it would only last a day, but what a day that would be!

After what could have been three seconds or ten minutes, Ryan seemed to sense his victory and settled into her, his snarl becoming a growl and then a purr, then a growl again when her body started to overheat and melt beneath him and her own tongue began to mirror his aggression.

‘Fuck, you taste so good…’ Ryan’s tongue tickled the roof of her mouth, making her lift her face to chase him back and then he switched gears by suckling on her lower lip the way she liked and then, moving his free hand to her jaw, tilting her face up so that he could begin to make love to her mouth with his again; slowly and sensually. Leigh moaned, and ran her hand up his back, perfectly content to stay as they were for as long as she was able- so long as he didn’t push her too far or demand too much.

And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like-

‘I love you…’ Ryan whispered the words and she gasped as he finished the song in her head against her lips. He misinterpreted her shock for acceptance and began to kiss her with more abandon, his mouth nipping at her chin and jaw, then sending spikes of pleasure down her neck and along her collarbone. ‘Marry me,’ he whispered the words into her cleavage, and then bent and murmured them against her lower stomach, where her top had ridden up. ‘Marry me, Leigh… say yes.’

Leigh squirmed as he kissed her everywhere her body demanded it. She knew she had to speak up and tell him the reasons why she couldn’t say yes, but she could barely breathe let alone protest. Hands clawed at her pants and they slipped away, and Leigh’s heart began to pound hard enough for her to feel it in her head as intensely as her chest.

This is getting out of hand and fast! If I don’t do something soon…!

‘Marry me…’ Fingers curled around her tights, shredding them and then shoving them down and out of the way, and the kiss of the smoky, warm air and his breath against her now bare skin made her melt even more rapidly. ‘Marry me…’ fingers slipped into her panties and rubbed her where she had grown slick and tight and she cried out, kicking off her own shoes so that her legs would be free to wrap around him. ‘Dammit Leigh! Say yes!’ Leigh opened her mouth to say yes, but he kissed her again and she forgot what question she was responding to- only that she was supposed to say no, because saying yes would feel so fucking good and no human being could expect to cope with that level of euphoria. Everything afterwards would suck- she’d never know happiness again if she was greedy enough to believe that she could have all that he was offering her and face no repercussions.

But there will be repercussions! Even if he means everything he’s saying now, he’s out of his mind with lust! If I let him inside me, and take out the urgency from his affections, what will be left after?

‘We can’t get married!’ she choked out, though her poor heart was ready to give up the fight against him- to believe the lie. Hot, large hands slid up her waist and hoisted her shirt up and over her breasts. ‘We need more time before we- Ohhhhh...’ Her words dried up as Ryan began to ravage her cleavage with his teeth and lips and tongue. He nuzzled under the edge of her pale pink, lacy cups and pulled her straps off her shoulders with his teeth while those dexterous hands she’d just been admiring got her beaded top over her head and sliding off her hands. ‘Ryan… oh!’ She strained against him when he caught her wrists with one hand and reached behind her, un-hooking her bra with the other. Her bra grew slack and her breasts tingled in the ecstasy of being freed from the binding garment. The blood rushed to them, circulating sweetly and the sensation woke up Leigh’s brain as it did her senses. She was almost naked under a man whose romantic nature was masking what they were both feeling; utter desperation for each other. What they were feeling could be for real, but the circumstances were too tentative to hold. Ryan was trying to build a great romance with her and that was wonderful- but he was doing so on top of hundreds of tiny, sensitive tectonic plates that could shift again at any second, as they had been since they’d first met, and swallow them into an abyss.

Leigh would be okay with not being a virgin anymore after that earthquake occurred- but she wouldn’t survive a broken heart of that magnitude, and being married to a man like that only to lose him would shatter her. Being the romantic she was, she wanted nothing more than to believe him and lose herself in the fantasy, but she needed either time or a sign from the heavens before she even contemplated adding ‘Weaver’ to her already ridiculously long name.

Ahem! Add ‘Weaver’ hmm? Think, woman! How can he give you a name he doesn’t legally have? No library card means no marriage license or wife, comprende? This is an act to get you into bed- a fantastic one, no doubt- but a ruse all the same!

‘Leigh, honey… please…’ Ryan pressed kisses all over her chest and began to work his way up to her mouth again, his breathing so erratic that it jolted all of her senses apart until they couldn’t find one another. ‘I need you to say yes! I need to know you feel this too!’

Leigh closed her eyes to hold back tears. Her beautiful, romantic, scheming man! Oh, how she wanted to be his, and her hers! ‘I feel it,’ she whispered, opening her eyes and staring into his. ‘But I can’t say yes, Ry. I can’t marry you- logically it’s just not viable and emotionally, neither of us is there.’

Ryan’s face fell, and his hand slipped from her wrists. ‘You don’t want to be with me?’

Leigh almost burst into frustrated tears. ‘In every way I can be…’ her voice wobbled, and she trailed her fingers down the sides of his perfect face. ‘Which is why I want you to make love to me.’ She reached up and kissed him chastely, the wobble working its way into her limbs as she gave in the ground she’d been holding for so long. ‘Make love to me, and we’ll see what we have after.’

Ryan sucked in a breath. ‘No!’ He shook his head, rearing up and staring down at her with eyes bright with accusations. ‘That’s what you think this is? That I’m asking you to marry me so I can get you into the sack?’

Leigh winced. ‘No…’ she bit her lip, not sure how to explain her complex feelings without insulting him. ‘I just don’t think you’d be asking if we had already… I…’ she blushed and looked at the cuff around his wrist- the one concealing the bandage. ‘You’re trying to be a gentleman and that’s so wonderful but-’

A hand gripped her chin and yanked her head up, almost savagely. ‘This has nothing to do with being a gentleman. You have something you need, and I have something I need- they both happen to be the exact same fucking things- so say yes already so we can have everything!’ He kissed her fiercely, making her whimper and kiss back just as passionately, hoping that his arousal would outweigh his offense.

Kiss me! Take me! Just please god, don’t break me!

But he tore his mouth away from hers and groaned into her hair, breathing haggardly. ‘Don’t,’ he panted. ‘Don’t fucking push me Leigh. I’ll take you now and make you agree to become my wife after- the order doesn’t really matter to me. But it’s the sentiment that counts- you need to give yourself to me because you trust me, not because you think I’m playing you right!’

‘But your memories-’

‘No memory in the world can compare to the ones I already have of you.’ He rocked up, dragging her with him, and forced her to straddle his hips and meet his gaze. ‘I’m in love with Leigh Dallas-Hone and not a woman whose name I don’t even know.’

‘But you don’t know my name!’ she whispered piteously, framing his jaw with her hands and watching his eyes bulge. ‘That’s just one more problem! How can two people who don’t even know each other’s real names know anything about what it takes to make a marriage work? And how can I believe the words: ‘I love you, Leigh,’ or ‘Marry me, Leigh’ from a man who I don’t even know well enough yet to have confessed that that’s not even my name?’ She nodded towards his cuff. ‘And what the hell is going on there? Ryan I don’t know anything about what it takes to make a person leap off Niagara Falls or cut themselves when they’re overwhelmed, but I do know that throwing yourself into another romance without testing the waters first is just reckless!’

‘What do you mean, I don’t know your name?’ Ryan’s eyes were wide. ‘I’ve seen your passport a few times now!’

‘I had it changed when I was eighteen,’ Leigh confessed, pressing her face into his hands to shield herself from his blazing eyes. ‘It had always been an issue at school and I didn’t want it to carry on once I started looking for work so I dropped it and made my middle name my first name instead…’

Ryan pried her hands away from her face. ‘Are you serious? I can’t believe you haven’t told me, given everything I’ve gone through over my own damn name!’

Leigh nodded in miserable agreement. ‘I know and I’m sorry. It’s just that... well, most people back home know it, so there’s not much I can do about that, so when I have a chance at a blank slate, like you said before with strangers- I leave it out of conversation because...’

‘Because...?’ He made a face. ‘Leigh you don’t honestly believe that having a dull name like Meg or a crazy one like Sunflower Bohemia actually changes who you are, do you?’

‘It doesn’t change a damn thing for me,’ she said, lifting her chin. ‘I love my name. But unfortunately, it makes people treat me like even more of a baby than the bug eyes and the blonde hair and the five feet of nothing I am…’ she bit her lip and looked into his eyes. ‘Can you imagine what it was like being all that, and having the moniker of ‘Honey’ to boot?’

Ryan sucked in a breath, his hands tightening around her biceps. ‘Your name is Honey? Like in the song?’

Leigh lowered her lashes. ‘Honey-Leigh Dallas-Hone.’ She cringed, as she always did when forced to say the whole thing out loud. ‘I was named after that song. Apparently it was playing on the radio in the hospital when I was born, and mum and dad took it as a sign so-’ she stopped talking when Ryan lifted his wrist to her gaze and tore the cuff off it, his fingers tearing at the bandage until it fell away as well revealing the fresh black markings that had been engraved into his slightly red and swollen flesh. They were in Greek, like the last, but there were more letters in two lines, smaller and smeared with blood and black dust.

‘W-what does that…’

‘I got it this afternoon,’ Ryan said softly, his eyes trained on hers, bright with conviction. ‘It says: Property of my Honey. If lost, return to Honeybee 7926.’

Leigh’s mouth fell open. ‘What?!’ She couldn’t believe it! ‘You put my username on your arm for ETERNITY?!’ She stared up at his face, wondering if he really was crazy. ‘Why would you do that?!’

Ryan smiled fondly down at his wrist. ‘So that if I ever relapse… I could Google you…’ his eyes moved back to her face, and the adoration within them was as clear as the diamond facets in his eyes. ‘… and get back to where I know I belong.’

Leigh’s heart cracked open, and she knew it would never, ever be closed to him again. ‘Ryan you…’ her eyes spilled over and she laced her fingers through his hand, kissing his knuckles. ‘7926 spells Ryan on a keypad…’ she bit her lip when his eyes widened. ‘Those numbers are right through my life. My ATM codes, my passwords, on all of my usernames I…’

Ryan swallowed, as though he too were choking on the beauty of the serendipity between their lives. ‘So I’ll have my own name on me, as well as yours?’

Leigh nodded, turning his hand so that she could look down at the tattoo again. ‘Yeah… yeah I guess you will.’ Leigh leaned down and kissed his skin, then lifted her eyes to his. ‘You are all sorts of incredible, do you know that? I can’t believe you did this!’ She wiped at her eyes but that didn’t shift any of the crippling emotion within her chest. ‘All because you read my review?’