Finger Prints (21 page)

“Carly, are you sure?” he asked. The faint tremor in his limbs was telling. She realized that she hadn’t been alone in the frustration of the drive. He touched her face tentatively, tracing her features with an unsteady hand, nervously smoothing her hair back from her cheek. “I know I’m probably rushing you, but I want you so badly.” He hesitated. “Frightened?”

“A little,” she whispered.

“That makes two of us.” He took a broken breath. “You know that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”

Her breath came in short gasps. Not even the cold night air could check the flow of heat suffusing her limbs. Her body was hot and alive, aching for Ryan’s. The height of her own arousal was as frightening as anything—and they’d barely begun! She never dreamed she could feel this way. “I know.”

“We’ll take it slow, okay?”

When she swallowed and nodded, he brought her to his side and led her to the door, where he left her for an instant to lean toward an old oak swing suspended from the porch overhang. “They said they’d put the key on a nail.” His hand searched the back of the swing. “Here it is.” Then the door was open and he led her inside, where she saw that the glow that had beckoned came from a warm fire blazing in the hearth.

“Oh, Ryan,” she exclaimed softly, “this
is
beautiful.” They were in a small living room. A cushiony sofa and two equally soft chairs stood on either side of the fireplace. Before it lay a thick area rug.

Placing the most promising whisper of a kiss on her neck, Ryan slid her coat from her shoulders. “Let me go out for the bags,” he breathed against her skin. “I’ll be right back.”

Not daring to look behind, Carly stepped toward the fire. Its warmth filled the void where Ryan had been, yet without him by her side, she couldn’t help but have a moment’s unease. Although she’d sworn she wouldn’t get emotionally involved with any man, she’d done it. She was here, in an isolated cabin in the woods, with Ryan, and despite everything that told her she was courting trouble, she couldn’t help herself. It was almost as though the loneliness she’d suffered over the past months had been nothing more than a preliminary to needing Ryan. Almost….

She heard the trunk of the car slam shut, then Ryan’s footsteps on the stairs, the porch. The cabin door closed, a bolt clicked. She wrapped her arms around herself, terrified in that instant of what she was about to do, half wishing she was back alone in her apartment where everything was safe and secure and predictable.

Then Ryan came up from behind and slid his arms around her, and she knew she didn’t want to be alone. She wanted to be with him more than anything in the world. His body was her safety, his arms her security, his warm breath by her ear as predictable as his gentle words.

“Don’t be frightened, babe. We’ll do it right this time. Eyes open. No dark shadows.” Slowly he turned her, speaking with infinite tenderness. “I don’t know what it is that haunts you, but tonight is ours. I won’t let anything come between us.”

Carly felt herself captured and held. “Oh, Ryan,” she whispered, “You’re so good. So patient. I don’t want anything to come between us either.”

“It won’t. You’ll see. It’ll be as beautiful as anything you’ve ever known.” His deep voice quavered under the same restraint that held his body taut. Lowering his head, he sought her lips, kissing them slowly, then with greater urgency as her response to him burgeoned. He devoured every inch of her mouth, his tongue stroking hers, plumbing deeper for her essence. When he finally drew back, they were both short of breath.

He cleared his throat and cast a reluctant glance to the side. “They left us champagne, I think. Would you like some?”

She shook her head. She was high on Ryan alone, and the ache deep inside her demanded something headier than even the finest of bubblies.

“Carly,” he whispered, adoration obvious in his face, “Carly.” His hands caressed her back, bringing her even closer. He kissed her softly, lingeringly, once, then again. “What would you like?” he asked, seeming strangely to gain patience, knowing she was his at last.

At first Carly didn’t know what to say. The last time things had just…happened.

“Tell me, sweetheart,” he urged in a whisper. “I want to know what you like.”

She’d never been one to verbalize her feelings when it came to making love. But everything with Ryan was so different. And her need was so great.

“I like it when you touch me,” she responded in a shy voice.

“Like this?” he asked, moving his hands on her back.

“Mmm.” But she wanted more; the quickening of her breath told him so. His hands roved farther, caressing her shoulders, sliding down her sides to her hips and her thighs, inching upward and inward.

“Like this?”

Her answer was a soft moan. He watched the pleasure on her face, felt the way her body arched into his, and though her hands gave no caress but simply clutched his shoulders for support, he felt more aroused by the minute. Not that he’d started out cold; the heat had been building for hours, no,
days
. The evening’s festivities with Carly by his side had been a potent aphrodesiac, the two-hour drive further intoxicating. Knowing what was coming, wanting it, needing it, yet being forced to sit and suffer simply thinking about it mile after mile, had been a sweet torment on which he now took revenge.

“Let me take your dress off,” he whispered.

Her pulse leaped, and she nodded, her gaze held steadily by his as he put several inches between them and worked slowly at the buttons, then the belt of her silk dress. His eyes dropped as he slid the fabric from her shoulders and let it slither to the floor. She was wearing a lacy slip that outlined her curves, clinging to her pert breasts, her slim waist, her gently flaring hips.

“So lovely.” His voice was a thick murmur as he took in all before him, and it was Carly’s turn to be aroused by her lover’s pleasure. His fingers slid over the silken fabric, moving upward from her thighs to span her waist, then cup her breasts. His thumbs rolled over their crests until her nipples strained outward. Shaken by a jolt of raw desire, Carly bit her lip and moaned, letting her head fall back and her eyes close as she sagged forward against him, her legs suddenly useless.

But Ryan refused to let passion claim her so easily. “Carly,” he whispered, “look at me.” He had to repeat it before she complied, her eyes dazed and heavy lidded. “You like that?” His thumbs continued their devastating caress.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered.

“What else, babe? What else would you like?”

Breathing shallowly, she struggled to concentrate. There was one thing she wanted badly. “I’d like you to undress,” she heard herself say, and would have been appalled at her forwardness had it not been for the rasping shudder that shook Ryan’s body.

“God, Carly,” he cried, wrapping her in his arms, crushing her hips against his hardness, “you’re so special!” He’d said it before; he couldn’t say it enough. There was an innocent passion about her that nearly drove him mad. Sensing an imminent loss of control, he stepped back and took several deep gulps of air before shrugging out of his jacket and tugging at his tie.

Deprived of his support, Carly sank to her knees on the thick rug, mesmerized by his every movement as though he were a god—more and more with each piece of clothing he removed. Tossing his tie carelessly onto the chair, he attacked the buttons of his shirt and threw that too aside. She had only time enough to begin to marvel at his broad, hair-strewn chest when his hands went to the buckle of his belt, then the fastening of his pants and its zipper. He’d stepped out of his shoes in time to thrust the pants from his legs, taking his socks off with the swoop. Then he stood before her in nothing but a slim pair of briefs that did nothing to hide the turgid rise of his sex.

Carly held out her hands then and he came to her. With a strangled sigh, she buried her face against the lean plane of his stomach and held him tightly, tightly, her breasts cushioning his tumescence. She ran eager hands over the taut muscles of his buttocks and down the backs of his thighs, aware of the throbbing against her and incited by it.

If she’d been worried about unwanted thoughts intruding as they’d done once before, her fears were unfounded. Her mind was filled with Ryan, to the exclusion of all else. His masculine scent filled her nostrils. The feel of his hard muscle delighted her hands. She pressed warm kisses to his waist as her fingertips ventured beneath the band of his briefs. Then, with the boldness of one possessed not by the ash-strewn past but a very fiery present, she slowly drew the fabric down his sinewed legs, discarding it at last and sitting back on her heels to look at him.

He was magnificent, proud in his maleness. Trembling, she tipped her head back to meet his gaze. As she did, she touched him, her fingers encircling his rigidity, stroking his shaft of straining silk.

“Sweet Jesus,” he choked, closing his eyes for an instant, then looking down at her again before grasping her arms and tugging her roughly to her feet. “God, Carly, this was supposed to be slow.” His fists were bunching up her slip. “But you’re unbelievable.” She raised her arms and the slip went in the direction his own clothes had gone. “Slow,” he gasped. “Slow and easy.” His hands were anything but as they fumbled with the catch of her bra and stripped the gossamer fabric from her flesh. Holding her firmly against him, he slid his hands into her panty hose, exploring the texture of her femininity for an instant before peeling the silk from her limbs. When she was naked too, he clutched her to him and buried his face in her neck. Then, muscles trembling in anticipation, he lowered them both to their knees.

His hands framed her face, holding it away from him. “Slow…and…easy.” He repeated the litany once more, though to no avail. He was clearly at the end of a tautly held rope, but no more so than Carly, who was so abundantly aware of his nakedness against her that it was all she could do not to attack him. “Carly….”

“I need you, Ryan,” came her whispered plea. Her arms wound around his neck, her body arched into his.

“I can’t hold…babe…I need….” His mouth was inches from hers, his breath catching. He slid his hands down the backs of her thighs and drew them apart, lifting them over his own spread ones. “Lord, I don’t…think I can wait….”

She felt his hardness and sucked in a tiny cry. “Don’t wait! Don’t…wait!” In one breath-stopping moment as she settled onto him he thrust deeply; her cry of ecstasy merged with his in echo of their bodies, now one.

They stayed very still then, savoring the sense of filling and being filled. Carly whimpered her pleasure; Ryan held her all the more tightly.

“You feel…so…good.” He managed a throaty rasp. Angling her body the slightest bit back, he caught her gaze, then let his own lower to the spot of their mating. Carly’s followed and she experienced an overwhelming sense of rightness. Their skin was, oh, so close, his hair-spattered, hers ivory smooth. With his sex buried deep inside her, their fit was snug and perfect.

He pressed her bottom still closer, then slid his hands up her sides until his thumbs grazed the rock-hard tips of her breasts. Sucking in a hard breath, she closed her eyes, felt herself falling backward, landing ever so gently on the rug with Ryan above her, his face reflecting her own dire need. She flexed her muscles and began to move under him. Bowing his back, he withdrew nearly completely, then thrust more deeply than he had before.

“That’s it, sweet…more…yes, ahh, yes….” His urgings brought her to the wild edge of sanity. The flame was lit; the heat burst forth. This time, though, Ryan was at the center of the flame and Carly had nothing to fear. Ever hotter she burned, spurred on by Ryan’s impassioned movements. She arched and strained, craving more and more of him. He gave her everything she wanted and then some. When at last her body exploded into brilliant fragments of ecstasy, he gave a hoarse cry and arched a final time into his own mind-shattering climax.

The spasms seemed endless, a timeless sharing of rapture. When, after long moments of suspended delight, Ryan finally collapsed against her, they lay together in the sweet aftermath of heaven. Their hearts pounded, their limbs were drained of the power that had driven them so fiercely moments before.

He moaned, his breathing ragged. She ran her hands over his damp skin, holding him to her, reluctant to release him even when he levered himself up to gaze down at her.

“You’re beautiful, babe. Do you know that?”

She shook her head and blushed, still unable to speak. Not so Ryan. Sliding off to her side and gathering her to him, he propped himself on an elbow.

“That was magnificent. A first.”

She knew what he meant and said as much through the eloquent fingers she lifted to his face. He caught a wandering one in his mouth and nipped at it. His eyes were the richest of browns, toasting her with their warmth. Then, he slowly mouthed three words. “I…love…you.”

Her own eyes widened, first in joy, then in fear. It was the latter that took momentary control. With her breath lodged in her throat and her expression one of stunned denial, she shook her head, but Ryan was fast to hold it still.

“No, no. Don’t fade out on me, Carly. I won’t expect anything from you. I just need you to know. That’s all.”

“But you can’t…” she breathed feebly “I can’t….”

“It’s all right,” he soothed, his eyes worshipping her with the love he’d professed. A soft smile broke through the darkness of his beard. “Don’t say anything. Just know what I feel. Okay?”

It was his expression, so deep and filled with adoration, that stifled her fear. In his arms she felt safe and protected and, yes, loved, as she’d never felt before. For the moment she couldn’t think to question that love or to brood on its ramifications. The here and now were far too precious. Very slowly joy spread through her, bringing a soft smile to her lips.

“Okay,” she whispered. As Ryan relaxed back on the rug, she closed her eyes and nestled against his chest. Gradually the heartbeat by her ear steadied and her own pulse slowed.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he murmured, deep in thought, hypnotized by the low flicker of flame in the hearth and the sacred warmth of the woman in his arms. He shifted her gently to better hold her. “I had it all planned. We were going to sit by the fire and talk, drink a little champagne and usher in the New Year simply enjoying each other’s company.” He looked down at her. “Because I do. I do enjoy your company.” When she propped her chin on his chest and sent him a chiding look that said she’d caught him with his hand in the cookie jar, he had the good grace to blush. “I mean, sure, I wanted to make love to you, but if you hadn’t wanted to we could have just lain here all night and I would have been happy.”