Pink Satin

Chapter Eight

Ryan automatically locked the door behind them. His eyes skimmed the corner motel room, noting water-blue carpet and furnishings, the small balcony where draperies stirred restlessly from the ocean breeze, the king-sized bed. He saw, yet paid little attention.

His eyes weren’t about to leave Greer for very long.

She’d parted the drapes and flung open the glass doors of the balcony the minute she stepped into the room. Their silence was immediately broken by the distant crash of surf, the faint scream of a gull on the beach.

They hadn’t spoken during the short time it had taken Ryan to check in or during the climb to their second-floor room. He hadn’t said anything because he couldn’t. Right or not, fair or not, he hadn’t wanted to give her a chance to change her mind. Knowing that grated against his conscience, but nothing could stop the pulse, the beat, the flow of desire he felt for her.

She turned from the balcony, her bare feet making no sound on the carpet as she stepped back into the room. Lashes shuttered her eyes, those beautiful, vulnerable, soft brown eyes…

Her hair had dried in soft wisps, and her face was in partial shadow, half as fragile as cream, half shaded a muted gold. The room had that dusty stillness of late afternoon. The feeling of life focused around Greer, the texture, look, scent of her.

She raised her eyes to his, and he heard the tiny sound of her breath catching. Her eyelids closed, then opened. Slowly, she reached behind her neck to undo the straps of her halter top. Ryan didn’t breathe. The straps fell forward, revealing the smoothness of her neck and throat and a hint of swelling white flesh. She reached behind her again. The room was so silent he could hear the sound of her unlatching the clip at the back. The top fell, for a moment trailed in her hand and then slipped to the floor.

Though her skin had long been sun-dried, the suit had still been slightly damp. Her nipples were tiny, puckered, chilled. Her breasts were virgin-white next to her tan, all smooth, firm flesh, impossibly soft. She stood tall, just slightly shivering, looking at him. He still couldn’t move. He’d dreamed of her exactly like this, not just the nakedness but the beauty of her, the pride and softness, her sensuality, her vulnerability.

“Ryan-”

“Come here,” he murmured, but he was the one to take the four steps to her. Taking her had been the only thing in his head moments before. That fierce primal desire hadn’t diminished, but it had gentled. Now he reached out not to claim but to reverently touch, and not her body but her face.

The pads of his thumbs brushed along her cheekbones; his fingers whispered into her hair; he smoothed her eyebrows, traced the line of her chin. Her bare breasts were less than an inch from his chest; he didn’t move that inch. He wanted all of her. But slowly. He didn’t want to miss…anything.

Brown eyes met his. “Ryan? What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“Nothing. Nothing at all, love.” Did he look too grave? He smiled for her.

“There was, though. You were upset while you were checking in.”

“A little.”

“More than a little.” The very smallest smile curled her lips. He hadn’t realized until that instant that her smile had been missing. “You were about to belt the desk clerk when she looked around for our luggage. And you looked even more irritated when you signed in.”

He drew in a breath, admitting quietly, “I hate motel rooms. And especially…for you. The woman said nothing. But if she’d even looked at you sideways-”

“You were afraid it bothered me, checking into a motel for the express purpose of making love?” She tilted her head, as if determined to see the hidden emotion in his eyes. “I think it’s rather exciting, actually. Deliciously illicit. Wanton. All that stuff.”

“All that stuff,” he echoed faintly, and teasingly shook his head at her. She had the look of an innocent virgin testing out those words for the first time, but that wasn’t what moved him. It was Greer, worrying about his feelings more than her own. “Go ahead,” he whispered. “Tell me the place doesn’t matter.”

“The place doesn’t matter.”

“Nothing matters,” he agreed, “except you.”

His mouth lingered an inch from hers and then dropped, centimeter by centimeter, until his lips touched hers and sank in. To his surprise, she was suddenly trembling all over, and when her bare breasts grazed his chest, she breathed against his mouth in a hollow gasp.

He could feel her pulse quicken along with his own. Her skin warmed; so did his. She was already part of him. The only thing left was the claiming.

Blood beat in his throat in a steady dull throb. He discovered that her lower lip was irresistible. And that the shell of her ear could keep him entertained for hours. That her throat was softer than warm cream, that her nipples were infinitely sensitive to the slightest touch.

She kept trembling. Such fire…he’d never expected such fire. Where he wanted nothing more than to savor and linger over each new discovery, Greer was clearly impatient. He would have smiled, had there been time.

Her lips trailed feverish kisses over his face and neck. Her hips moved tantalizingly against him. When he stopped with ragged breath to look at her, she reached up for his mouth again. When his hands skimmed inside her suit bottom, she barely gave him the chance to take it off her before she pressed herself length to length to him, her eyes closed and her whole body still fiercely trembling.

He gathered her up, pushed back the bedspread and placed her on the pillows. For one stark instant, he caught a glimpse of something dark and haunted underneath the sensual glaze in her eyes. Then she raised her arms, urging him down to her.

He dropped his suit and slid onto the bed next to her. She instantly enfolded his body, her hands feverish, her long legs curling invitingly around him. The male animal in him could no more have held back a response than stopped breathing, yet the speed with which she was asking to be taken was not what he wanted. For her. “Easy,” he whispered. “Let me love you, Greer. Let me just…love you.”

She went still so suddenly he almost smiled. With exquisite care he bent his head to the swell of her breast, capturing the small tight peak with the swirl of his tongue. Leaving it moist, he played with the other, while one hand stroked her flat stomach, learned the roundness of her hip more intimately. His lips trailed down to her navel, believed it virgin, and let his tongue do a lazy, thorough deflowering. Her skin…nothing had ever tasted as good as her skin.

His own was burning. He had never wanted a woman as much, but the process of knowing her this first time could easily have taken him years. He would not have guessed her nipples were so sensitive. He could not have known that she would tremble, that her eyes would take on such darkness, that her fingers would curl and uncurl on his skin… There were a thousand things he needed to know if he was to be a good lover for her. There was no way he could have known any of them ahead of time. Knowing a woman as a lover was different from knowing her in any other sense.

Every instinct told him to be careful, slow, gentle, because she was Greer, because she had taken a very long time to accept the love that was growing between them…every instinct except that primal hardness pressed against her, which teased unmercifully when she writhed against him. And when his fingers slowly dipped between her thighs, Greer moved, her hands pushing him away, her pelvis cradling his in unmistakable demand. “Easy,” he whispered.

Easy? Greer thought in despair. Suddenly nothing was easy. What had been natural and wonderful moments before was going desperately wrong. Still, she whispered, “Now, please, Ryan.”

“Not yet…”

“Yes. Please. Please…”

She knew what he wanted. Every womanly instinct told her he wanted a seductress, an uninhibited lover who took and gave pleasure with ease. And for a while, she’d almost believed she could be that woman for him.

When they kissed in the pool, incredibly powerful emotions had surged through her. The feelings hadn’t diminished when they’d come up to the room. When she removed her top, she’d felt proud of her body for once, proud to offer herself to him, glad that she felt no shame in wanting him.

Those emotions had been as real as the lush surge of desire she’d felt when bare skin had touched bare skin, as real as the love she felt for him. But old ghosts had intruded from nowhere. From an awareness that it had been a long time since she’d been with any man, that she might be awkward. From an awareness that the tepid sexual relationship she’d shared with her ex-husband was not the sort that Ryan would settle for, that he would not be fooled. And inside, deeper, she still bore the scars of an adolescent girl who’d fought the sexual side of her nature. She’d had to, to survive.

Her present sexual feelings were confused by the memories. Greer had a sudden terrible need simply to be held, to explain, to tell him she needed to go slowly, that she was uncertain. But she couldn’t ask that. Ryan would surely feel contempt for a twenty-seven-year-old woman who wanted only to be held.

She was trying so hard to be a cream-lace-on-pink-satin kind of woman, but she couldn’t stop trembling. Pleasing him mattered so much. She loved him. Too much.

“Greer?”

She heard the question in his voice, but she could also feel the beat, the warmth of him pressed against her belly. “Now,” she whispered. “Don’t slow down, Ryan. Not for me. Please…”

She felt a slight hesitation in him and wound her arms tighter around him, whispering something, she didn’t even know what. Her body arched, her fingers whispered over his skin. With a low groan, he slid into her, surging deep, filling the yawning hollow inside her.

Her eyes closed in sheer unexpected pleasure. For a moment, all the ghosts went away. He felt…wonderful. She felt different, the way she’d felt earlier in the pool, high on the touch of him, high on his warmth and those incredibly powerful surges she felt when she was near him. For the first time, she glimpsed something huge, special, secret, inextricably linked to the woman in her. Her body was about to burst from some elusive force that was just out of reach but so close…

“So beautiful,” he murmured. “Your skin, your taste, the look of you. Come with me, Brown Eyes. Come with me…”

She wanted to. She so desperately wanted to. But she was also terribly afraid Ryan wanted something from her…that just wasn’t there.

The sun had gone down. Dusk filtered in. The tide splashed in the distance, a lazy, early evening tide, a lulling, rhythmic murmur that never ceased.

“Greer?”

She opened one sleepy eye.

“What on earth are you doing way over there?” Ryan inquired mildly. His voice was groggy with sleep.

He reached out one long arm and tugged her closer to his bare warmth. She didn’t tell him that she’d assumed he would prefer no contact after lovemaking. Her ex-husband had always wanted to be left alone afterward.

Ryan had other ideas. He fussed with her arm until it was tucked under his waist, then lay down again and dropped a leg over her to bring her closer yet. She would have smiled at all his engineering, if she’d been less tense. As it was, she made her body go languid…and that wasn’t so hard to do.

His chest was warm, his hand soothing a caressing stroke up and down her back. Her cheek fit perfectly in the crook of his shoulder, and she sighed, not able to stop loving the warmth of his arms around her. Not trying.

“Are you going to tell me what all that was about?” he whispered lightly.

“Pardon?” her eyes blinked open on the vein in his neck.

“I was just curious about whom I was making love to.” He leaned over to press a kiss, first on her forehead, then on her nose. Blue-grave-blue-eyes focused on her startled brown ones, though there was a faint, even gentle, smile on his lips. “You worked very hard to cheat yourself,” he whispered. “I’ve been trying to figure out why for an hour, and I can’t. You’re going to have to give me a clue.”

“I don’t-what are you talking about?”

He said nothing, just continued to press another series of kisses down the side of her face, into her neck. When she stiffened, his arm tightened. Except for that, his touch was petal soft.

“You weren’t…pleased?” she whispered hesitantly. “Ryan, it’s been a long time since I-”

“I know that.” He raised himself up on one elbow and started stroking her hair back from her forehead, over and over. “Would you look at me?” he whispered.

Her lashes fluttered open.

“You’re my Greer again,” he murmured. “Now you’re my Greer again. A little shy, though you don’t like anyone to know that. Sensual as a kitten who wants to curl up in the sun. And certain things…certain things were you, weren’t they, Brown Eyes? Your breasts are extremely sensitive. You like the lightest touch. And you’re a born hedonist, my lady. You like to be rubbed; you like the feel of skin against skin. No. Open your eyes.”

His tone was light, but she obeyed him because there was something else in his voice as well.

“I failed you, Brown Eyes. Not the other way around,” he said quietly. “Pretending isn’t the way, though, honey. What bothers me is that you felt you needed to.”

She suddenly couldn’t possibly meet his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said lightly, slipping out of his arms, trying not to hurry, trying to ease away from him as if the only thought in her head was to take a languid stretch after lying still so long. “I’m starving,” she announced. “Do you realize what time it must be? And it’s getting cold.”

She crossed the room to push the balcony doors closed. Her heart was trying to trip over itself. Ryan was silent behind her, at least for a moment.

“I’ll order up a meal,” he said finally. “Since you’re suddenly that hungry.”

“No.” She turned to him with a brilliant smile and then reached rapidly for her swimsuit. “I have to go home.”

“No, you don’t. Tomorrow’s Sunday. We can stay all of tonight and tomorrow as well.”

“The cat,” Greer said regretfully. “I can’t leave him, Ryan. There’s no one to feed him. Really, I have to go home.”

She slipped on the bottom of her swimsuit, then turned away as she put on the halter, her fingers all thumbs, slippery, clumsy. Only when she was covered again did she steal another look at Ryan.

He was still lying there on the bed. One of his legs was bent at the knee, he’d pushed both pillows behind his head and he appeared as unaware of his nakedness as she was of how naked she suddenly felt. His eyes were on hers, spears of blue that pierced her skin, her mind, her heart. He was trying to guess…things. Things she didn’t want him to know.

Had he found her wanting? Did he find her wanting? And if he did, that was nothing less than what she should have expected. Greer felt a sudden disastrous urge to cry. Not a tear here and there, but a burst of them.

Slowly, Ryan sat up, and then stood, still watching her. She was acting as if this were a one-night stand, for which he would have shaken her…if she’d been anyone but Greer. Greer was an irrational, damnably incomprehensible, totally illogical woman, but he could sense that she was ready to burst into tears and that to push her was to risk losing her.

He considered slamming his fist into the wall, and put on his swimming trunks instead. He didn’t have the least idea what had gone wrong for her. Maybe it was the motel. Maybe it was too soon. Her ex-husband?

It was there, between them. Wanting. Love. Caring. All of the things that mattered. Ryan would have slain dragons for her, but Greer didn’t let anyone slay her dragons for her.

They drove home in silence, stopping for hamburgers along the way. Greer curled up on the seat next to him, wrapped in a towel as if she were cold, even though the night air was muggy and he was waiting-needing-to reach out and hold her. Halfway home, he gave in to the blasted impulse, reached an arm around her shoulder, and tugged.

She settled willingly with her head on his shoulder for the rest of the ride. Whatever her emotional state of mind, the tension in her body gradually dissolved. He flicked on a bluesey CD e, because she’d clearly liked R &B… He played it low, and over the miles felt her body ultimately relax in sheer exhausted sleep.

At home, he switched off the ignition and sat in the car holding her. His arm was stiff, folded around her. He wanted to leave it there. The night was pitch-dark except for the apartment’s floodlight. A ray zigzagged across Greer’s cheek, her shoulder, one bare white breast that her swimming top couldn’t hide, not in that position. Desire stirred in him, a deep, powerful desire to make love to her again.

And a second time she wouldn’t get away with pretending. A second time he would send her over the edge, whether she wanted it or not. A second time he’d listen to his own instincts, not to the messages she sent him. He wasn’t a psychologist and didn’t want to be. He cared less why Greer had behaved the way she had than that he’d been blind enough to let it happen, when he’d wanted to ensure that their lovemaking was good for her. There would be a second time. Earthquakes and hurricanes wouldn’t stop there being a second time.

But not, unfortunately, this evening. He opened the car door. She murmured. He got out first, still leaning over to hold her so she wouldn’t fall, and then lifted her legs out, snaking his arms around her waist.

“Did I fall asleep?” she murmured groggily.

“No.” For the first time in hours, he smiled. Greer was limp lettuce, draped over his shoulders, her bare toes grazing the ground and her eyes still closed. Ryan slammed the car door. “Where’s your key, love?”

“Flowerpot.”

“Pardon?”

She waved an arm in the general direction of the moon. “Flowerpot.”

He gathered she kept an apartment key in that wrought-iron urn in the hall. He’d figured out a while back that it was her urn and geraniums anyway. And if he’d known she’d pick such an obvious place to put a spare apartment key, he would probably have throttled her.

It didn’t seem the time. She kissed his neck as he walked in. Both of her arms stayed loosely draped around him. Her feet marginally obeyed the learned impulse to walk. He simply lifted her up the steps.

“I’m awake,” she announced again at the door.

“Good,” he murmured as he opened it, keeping her propped up with his other arm. “Because we’re about to have a small discussion, Greer.”

The cat leaped at them in the dark, meowing furiously. Ryan switched on a light, nearly dropped his leggy bundle in the process and with a sigh, picked Greer up in his arms.

“Truce,” she murmured. “Hungry.”

“And since we’re having this complicated intellectual discussion,” Ryan whispered, making his way with her through the dark hallway, “I thought I’d mention that I’ve taken over your crank caller, sweet. All arguments are worthless. Don’t bother.”

“Mmm.”

He meant to place her gently on the bed. It ended up as more of a flop than a gentle laying down, but Greer didn’t seem to mind. The faint light from the living room was enough, once his pupils adjusted to the dark. “I thought you’d see it my way,” he whispered soothingly, as he tenderly peeled off her swimsuit. “You’ve been afraid too long, Greer. And you’ve had reason to know fear in these last months. But I’ll be damned if you’re going to be afraid of me. And I’ll be doubly damned before I sit still and watch you take on the entire world alone again. And don’t argue.”

He sensed rather than saw her eyes blink open. “Ryan?”

“Go back to sleep.”

“What are you do-”

He tossed the suit on the floor. Before she could blink, he’d folded her in her sheet and blanket. He hesitated then, his palm close to her cheek, the need to touch her one last time irresistible. His fingers trailed the line of her cheekbone, brushed into her hair. “You want me to stay, Greer?” he whispered.

There was silence. Amazing, how much physical hurt he could feel, just like that, just that sharp and searing.

His hand dropped and he straightened.

The cat was waiting for him in the hall. Swearing silently under his breath, he foraged in Greer’s kitchen cupboards until he found the cat food, then filled Truce’s dish. The cat attacked the first bite as if starved, looked up and promptly wound himself around Ryan’s legs with a thunderous purr.

Warmth clearly rated over hunger. Ryan petted the cat, crouched on Greer’s kitchen floor in the semidarkness. At that moment, the feline struck him as remarkably like Greer. Greer, too, craved warmth, physical contact, touch and affection. And denied the existence of hunger. The very natural hunger that was an extension of affection, as natural as breathing.

The cat wasn’t interested in his comparison. For fifteen minutes, Ryan stroked Truce, until he was finally sated enough to bounce soundlessly back to the food bowl, purring like a Mercedes. Ryan straightened. “Why do I get the impression that you’ll be on the foot of her bed within five minutes of my leaving here?” he murmured dryly, and then moved toward the door.

He spotted the phone en route, silently took it off its hook and placed a couch pillow over it. The cat, fool that it was, followed him. “Go back and eat,” he ordered it quietly, “and then you go right ahead and sleep with Greer. I’m warning you now, though, that your days are numbered.”

The cat didn’t seem impressed.

He let himself out of the apartment, crossed the hall and stuck a key in his own lock. “I’m talking to cats now,” he muttered dourly. “That woman has a lot to answer for.”

Soon, his mind echoed silently.