Liberty (9 page)

“Because you stole Lexy from me.” He smiled, but Ryan could see the hard look in his eyes. Georgie really did have something for Lexy. He didn’t like that.

“You never had Lexy.” He was certain about that.

“No, but I saw her first,” he said sharply. “It don’t matter. I wouldn’t want to be saddled with Lexy anyway. Not with that smart mouth of hers. Besides, I like raising hell with you. Come out with us tonight. We’ll get that memory working.”

Before Ryan could respond a knock was heard at the door. A curvy blonde in a tight T-shirt and even tighter jeans stood there. She smiled at him and not the smile that one friend gives to another, but a smile that was entirely more intimate. This woman was another forgotten memory.

“Hey, Ryan.” Her thick Texas accent oozed with sweet syllables. “I almost didn’t believe the rumors.” She nodded at Georgie in acknowledgment. “You look real good. If I didn’t know any better I would say you’re a different person.”

Maybe this woman was smarter than she seemed.

“He almost is,” Georgie chimed in. “He don’t remember nothing. He don’t like fixing cars and he won’t come out with us.”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”

“It’s me, sugar. Gloria.” She looked hurt. “Everybody calls me Glory. We’ve been knowing each other for years.” She paused and ran her baby blue eyes all over his body. “We’re real good friends. You don’t remember me?”

“Are you friends with my wife?”

A beat of irritation crossed her pretty face. “No, Lexy and I don’t run in the same crowd.”

“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Georgie said slowly, lifting his larger body from the relieved chair. “You got a lot of catching up to do.” He took his leave.

“You really don’t remember me?”

“I don’t remember anybody. Not even my wife.”

A look crossed Glory’s face that he couldn’t read. “You were always crazy about Lexy,” she said in a quiet voice. “How is the old ball and chain?”

“Beautiful.”

Her big baby blues searched his face, looking for something he knew she wouldn’t find.

“You should take Georgie’s advice and come out tonight. I’ll be there. Maybe I can jog your memory.”

* * *

Ryan stood in the doorway of Lexy’s bedroom, watching her for a moment. He had come home early from work, needing to talk to her. Meeting Glory unsettled him. A dozen more questions popped into his mind about who this woman was to him. She seemed to know him better than most. He couldn’t ask the men he worked with in the shop. He couldn’t count on his so-called friends for truthful answers, so he came home to her.

She must have fallen asleep just after her shower. The brush she used on her damp hair lay discarded on the bed beside her. She had worked till 2:00 a.m. last night at the Calloway, and then spent all day today working in the library. He hated that she worked so hard to keep them afloat. He could understand it if she loved him—or Ryan Beecher—but he couldn’t understand her busting her ass for somebody who clearly didn’t care about her.

He was going to make it better for her, he promised himself. He had taken steps toward her security. Lexy would never be without choices again.

He studied her in her sleep—her breath slowly going in and out, her chest rising beneath that ratty bathrobe. Her honey skin looked so soft, so touchable. How could any man mistreat her?

He barely knew Lexy and yet he wanted to be with her. He lusted after her. He craved her touch, her kiss, her scent on his skin. But she didn’t want him. No, that wasn’t true. She wanted him. He felt it in his bones. It was in her touch, the way she kissed him. The memory of the little moans she made when their lips touched made his cock grow hard at the most inconvenient times. He wanted to take care of all her needs but she didn’t trust him. Not that he blamed her. The man everybody told him he was, was scum. He needed for her to see that he wasn’t the same man she married. Which was hard to do because when he looked in the mirror he saw Ryan Beecher, too.

She awoke with a start, and gasped, fear filling her eyes.

“Shit,” he cursed. He never meant to frighten her. “I’m sorry. I came to talk to you but you were sleeping.”

“I’m sorry.” She sat up, holding her bathrobe tightly around her. “I’m not used to large men hovering over me while I sleep.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She nodded, wrapping her arms around her, trying to protect herself from a threat that wasn’t present.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again. Thoughts of what her husband must have done to her churned his stomach. He didn’t want to think about it—there was no point. He couldn’t kill a man who was already dead.

“It’s okay,” she said, but the tension didn’t leave her shoulders. “Did you need something?”

“Yes.” He walked toward her. “I’m going to get in that bed with you.”

She looked up at him with those slanted eyes, the wheels turning in her head, thinking, wondering if she should keep him away. He wouldn’t be sent away yet.

“Move over.”

“No sex.”

“Okay.” He climbed in next to her, wanting to collect her in his arms. But she wasn’t ready for that yet. “You’ve been avoiding me, Alexa.”

Ever since he met her in the supermarket that day she had been avoiding him, using work, exhaustion, anything as an excuse to stay away from him. She couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I have been,” she finally admitted. “A little.”

“I don’t want you avoiding me. I miss you.”

“You miss me?” She turned over and put those pretty, exotic eyes on him. “You’re full of it.”

“Usually, but not today.”

He was sent here to this small Texas town for a reason. God was playing some cruel joke on them, and if He wasn’t, He’d better have a damn good reason for cursing Ryan with a woman who drove him insane.

“You’re home early. Are you feeling okay?” She reached out and gingerly touched the scar on his face. He captured her hand and gently kissed the backs of her fingers.

“I’m fine.” He was in pain but in a place she was not ready to soothe. He wanted to kiss her again. He dreamed about it. His mind often wandered to those few times she had let him get close enough to her. His nights were painful, with his manhood straining against his boxers, begging for relief. It was made even more painful since he knew she was right across the hallway, that he could bring her so much pleasure if only she would give him a chance.

She frowned, her gaze intently studying him. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right? You’ve got a funny look on your face. Are you sure it’s not your head?”

“Relax.” He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “I just came to talk to you.” He wanted to do more than talk—he wanted to run his hands all over her curvy body and feel her naked skin on his.

But he couldn’t. Not yet.

“We’re broke.”

She blinked at him, her slanted eyes still sleepy. “You had to wake me up to tell me something I already knew?”

He ignored her dry tone and went on. “I need to know why we are broke. We both have full-time jobs. This place can’t require that much upkeep.”

“Georgie.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s a dreamer. First it was alpacas and then it was mail-order junk. He always had something that he swore was going to make you rich fast.”

“Please tell me I didn’t believe him.” Nobody, not even the old Ryan could have fallen for that.

“I don’t think so, but Georgie was your best friend. I think you felt like you owed him.”

“Did he save my life?” he asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

“No.” Her pretty mouth quirked up in the corners in a slight smile.

“Why did I owe him?”

She turned away from him, unable to meet his gaze.

“What, Lex?” He touched her face, turning it toward him so he could see her beautiful dark eyes.

“It doesn’t matter. It was years ago.”

He stroked her cheek with his thumb, willing her to trust him. “Tell me.”

“Georgie has—had a thing for me. I met him before you. He used to hang out at my job and try to get me to go out with him, but I didn’t like him. And then you came along and you didn’t hit on me. You just talked to me and I thought you were so handsome then. So when you asked me out, I said yes. I don’t think he has forgiven either one of us for that. He thinks you stole me from him.”

“I didn’t steal you. Georgie never had a chance. Did he?”

“That’s not what Georgie thinks. We married so quickly, and I think he thought it would fall apart. And when it didn’t, he became more...” She stopped speaking and looked up at the ceiling again.

“Say it,” he urged her.

“He never made it a secret about wanting me.”

Ryan tensed. That day in the hospital came rushing back to him. Georgie ogled his wife’s body. He put his fat, spitty lips on her smooth skin. That look of lust in his eyes was unmistakable.

“What do you mean?”

“Before you left he would...” She trailed off. “He would touch me and sometimes you would act like you didn’t see.”

Ryan swore.

“You always stopped it before it went too far.”

“I’ll kill him.” Nobody got to touch his wife. Not even Ryan. He would slowly tear Georgie limb from limb.

“Don’t get all worked up. He hasn’t touched me since you joined the marines. I think you might have warned him.”

“Warned him! If he touches you again, he’s dead. No warnings. You’re
my
wife.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I’m your wife, but sometimes you don’t sound like my husband.”

He cupped her face in his hands. She looked wary for a moment, but just for a moment. “I’m not him, Lexy. You know it, don’t you?”

She shut her eyes. “I’m not sure what I know anymore.”

He wasn’t going to win this fight. He didn’t have to win. He just wanted her.

“Lexy. I want to kiss you. Do you want me to?”

“Yes,” she choked.

“It’s not wrong to want to kiss me. It’s not wrong to want to be with me.”

“But you say you aren’t my husband. And if you aren’t, then you have no right to me. I am somebody else’s wife.”

He sighed heavily. She had a point. “Right now I am your husband. What do you want to do?”

“I want to go shopping.”

“What?” He shook his head in disbelief.

“You need new clothes. Can we go?”

“We can go shopping later. Let me kiss you now.”

“I need to brush my teeth.”

“You brushed them this morning.”

“But I ate raw onions for lunch.”

He gently stroked her face with the backs of his fingers. “Raw onions. Raw sewage. I don’t give a shit.”

“That’s gross.”

He saw the moment she gave up her fight.

“I’m going to kiss your neck.”

“Okay,” she consented and lay very still, shutting her eyes as if she were bracing herself.

He placed his nose in the crease of her neck, rubbing it along her smooth skin so she could get used to his touch. She smelled good, not like the perfumed necks he was used to but clean, like soap and shampoo and skin. It was Lexy.

“I really hate my clothes, Lex,” he told her as he kissed her under her right ear. “Why does one need twelve Budweiser T-shirts?”

“Because, sweetness, you get one free when you buy fifty twelve packs.”

“Mmmm.” He ran his nose along her throat, and like a good girl she tilted her head up so that he would have free access to her silky skin. “You smell so good,” he muttered as his kisses grew a little longer, hotter, wetter. “I hate beer.”

She moaned, “You’re a whisky man.”

“No.” He nipped her with his teeth. “But I could get drunk off of you.”

“Beautiful words, honey, but I’m still not going to have sex with you.”

“Deny, deny, deny. I won’t stop trying.” He delivered a particularly scorching kiss to the spot on her neck that all women seemed to have.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” She unconsciously leaned into his kiss.

“The marines.”

“Oh, I forgot,” she moaned again. “You boys must get lonely in Iraq.”

“You’re such a smart-ass. I don’t know why I want you so much.”

“We all want what we can’t have.” She grinned up at him and his heart stopped beating. It had been days since he had seen her smile, and now that it had reappeared it warm his insides. “I hate that I find myself liking you.”

She sat up. Her expression tortured. Her confusion was palpable.

“Why
are
you still here, Lexy?”

She shook her head, silent for a long moment, as if weighing her words. “Because for now I have to be.”

That wasn’t the truth. She could blame it on him if she wanted to but he could take care of himself. Her presence here baffled him. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would stick around to be mistreated. She could have left him years ago. There had to be something he was missing.

Or maybe a little part of her knew that he wasn’t her husband but some other man who had come to take his place. Maybe she wanted what he could give her even if she was too afraid to admit it to herself. His hand slipped down to stroke her thigh.

She jumped, but instead of pulling away he stayed there gently touching her. She was naked beneath her dowdy bathrobe. All he had to do was pull the tie open. One tug and he could see all the creamy smooth skin he imagined at night.

“Hands above the waist, mister,” she said with a catch in her voice.

“Okay,” he agreed easily. He slid his hand up her thigh to her hip. His fingers made wide lazy circles. She relaxed under his caress. After long minutes of touching he moved his hand to her trim waist. He stroked the skin there with his thumb over and over until she was sighing with pleasure.

“Is that better?” When she nodded he moved his touch higher and higher until it reached the underside of her breast. He stroked her naked skin, pulled her nipple between two of his fingers, gently plucking it until it was hard and ready to be suckled.

“Ryan...” She stiffened slightly. “Please don’t touch me like that. I can’t think when you do.”

He didn’t want her to think. He wanted her to feel.

“Tell me what you want from me.” He was learning that in order to touch her he would have to relinquish control. In a past life he would have never agreed to it, but she was different. He would wait for her.