As You Wish (20 page)

“Yes. Why?”

“You’ve been quiet. Are you sure you don’t want to go inside where it’s warm?”

“I’m very warm. You made me wear a turtleneck under my wool sweater, remember? It’s August under all these clothes.”

He frowned and reached up to adjust her turtleneck higher on her throat.

Patricia slid down off the wall into his arms. Pressing her lips to his, she tasted the sweet cherry candy he’d been eating to stave off his cough. He sat back on his heels, allowing her to wrap her legs around his waist. One of his hands rested on the small of her back, keeping her secure against his hard chest. The other hand slipped under her hair to cup the back of her head. She shivered at the easy way he cradled her. So safe, so cared for. Her tongue parted his lips. He felt so soft and warm while she explored him. A breeze blew around them, carrying the scent of the last roses mixed with the falling leaves.

“Do you want me?” she murmured, brushing her open mouth across his cheek. His light stubble scraped her lips, unexpectedly titillating.

“Always,” he groaned. The proof of his statement pressed between her legs. He buried his face in the curve of her neck. The heat of his mouth on her sensitive skin racked her with pleasure. She tilted her head to allow him to taste her more. Shifting elicited a groan, but she had no idea which one of them had made it.

He leaned back onto the grass, drawing her down on top of him. She ran her hands up his chest, burying her fingers in the thick cable-knit. “Ryan,” she whispered.

He looked up at her with steady dark eyes. “Yes, Mistress.”

Chapter Thirteen

Her breath caught at this new nickname and what it might mean. “Am I your Mistress?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

She bit her lip. He looked helpless beneath her. The change was intoxicating. Was this how she looked under his control? So utterly willing and tensed for his every word. “Would you obey my commands?”

“I already do, Mistress.” He slid his hands up her legs to cup her buttocks; then he pulled her along the length of his erection.

She moaned at the powerful sensations ripping through her. “Would you make love to me now if I told you to?”

“I would carry you inside the house and make love to you right now, Mistress.”

“Why not here?”

He smiled. “It’s cold, and I serve my Mistress’s pleasure.”

She shivered. His Mistress’s pleasure. She lay on his chest, kissing him. Lost in the heat and sweetness of his mouth and the strength of his arms around her. Everything collapsed to the circumference of his embrace just as it always did when she was with him. She heard the wind in the trees and felt the heat of the sun on her back.

“Patricia,” Ryan hissed.

She blinked, trying to jerk upright, but he held her tight. “What is it?”

“Mrs. Haddix is here.”

Patricia dropped her head, even though she was well below the level of the three-foot wall around the garden. Then she heard it. Not the wind in the trees, a car on the drive. A door slammed.

“I’ll stay here until you get her inside,” Ryan whispered. “She’ll think you were just sitting in the sun alone after being sick all week.”

“Okay.” Patricia started to get up. She heard Mrs. Haddix at the door now, but Ryan didn’t let her move. “Ryan, you have to let go.”

His gaze caught her as firmly as his arms. “I’m on top tonight.”

Her mouth went dry. Tonight. He would come to the house and take her back under his blissful control. She nodded, and his arms fell away, allowing her to get to her feet. “Oh, Mrs. Haddix, that was you. I must have dozed off.” Somehow she sounded normal. She climbed over the wall without falling.

“Call me Judith, my dear. What were you doing out there?”

What had Ryan said? He had handed her a perfect cover story, and she’d forgotten it already. “I was just sitting in the sun. I haven’t been out of the house all week.”

“Oh, you poor dear. I didn’t realize you’d been quite that sick, though your doctor did say you were on bed rest for a week.” Judith frowned. “Is that a rose caught in your hair?”

Patricia reached up. The rose Ryan had given her had fallen from behind her ear and twisted in her hair. “Yes, it’s—the gardener gave it to me.” She tried to pull it free. Now she looked foolish.

“Here. Let me.” Judith reached up and extricated the flower. “Isn’t it lovely? You know, I must say that garden hasn’t looked so nice since your grandmother died. Oh and look, he trimmed off all the thorns. Isn’t that sweet?”

Patricia reclaimed her flower. It would have to be dried so it could join the others in the hatbox upstairs. “Shall we go inside?”

* * * *

Ryan stared at the sky, listening to the musical sound of Patricia’s voice until the door closed. He knew what he had to do. He had to go to his little caretaker’s cottage, pack a bag, and find the next available flight to the farthest possible place away. Alaska. Siberia. Antarctica.

He also knew he couldn’t do it.

A week spent caring for her had snared him more securely than chains. When he’d called her Mistress, he’d meant it but had no idea. She’d never had to submit to anyone the way he had all his life. She didn’t know what it meant to be controlled and manipulated. To her it was a game. One that got her all hot and bothered, that she would beg him for, but a game. Just like when he made her call him Master.

A game he didn’t think she was strong enough to play yet. She hadn’t bounced back from her cold as quickly as he had, but that could be because she’d fought it until it had overwhelmed her. Now that the cold had started to relax its hold, she wanted him to overwhelm her.

He’d knelt at her feet and offered her his very soul, and she didn’t even realize it. If she had realized, she probably didn’t care. She didn’t move in the same air he did. She had everything she wanted. All her problems were her own doing: the masquerade ball, the other charities, David. It was all her own doing.

Ryan dug his fingers into the grass, pulling up clods of earth. She was as bad as Angela. Worse. Patricia had tricked him, switching from slave to master. She only looked for her own pleasure, and then when she got bored, she’d ditch him for some pasty-faced mop handle like David because he could wear a suit well.

Ryan climbed to his feet. He would need some time to prepare for their session tonight. The roses could wait.

* * * *

Patricia paced the first floor hall. Ryan could be coming any time. For the past week, he’d shut the gates and set the alarm system at sundown, and then he’d checked the house doors. Before that it had been after eleven when he’d set everything. Had he decided to go back to his old pattern?

In addition to not knowing when he would come, she didn’t know what to expect. He’d only said he would come to the house after he locked up. She still wore the jeans and sweater she’d been wearing in the garden this afternoon, with her hair down for him. Would he finally take her to the dining room as he’d promised? Or would they go somewhere else in the house? Would he take utter control of her body or goad her into begging for his touch? Would he tease her into a frenzy, or would he possess her immediately?

Wandering down the hall to the music room, she looked inside, wondering if he would use his own key to get into the house and surprise her again. She supposed she should be alarmed by the idea that he could walk in whenever he liked, but couldn’t summon the spirit for it. He never used the keys to raid the refrigerator or her bedroom. He wasn’t that kind of person. Even before she’d had to talk him out of quitting while she was sick, she’d trusted him. Besides, he already had the keys to something far more valuable, and he hadn’t abused those.

Patricia walked to the other end of the hall and peeked into the dining room and the library. If she married David, she would have to give him keys to the house. That thought unsettled her. The house was furnished in antiques. He would be able to come and go as he pleased, and he could take things out of the house. That was all backward, to trust the caretaker and not the man she would be marrying.

She groaned and rubbed her temples. Marrying David.

She had to accept the idea that she would be marrying David. Suitable, ambitious, respectable. He could be president. He fit the Whitmer mold better than she did. Probably better than her father did. Her grandfather had been the last great Whitmer. And David wasn’t so awful. A little obsequious, but that might change once they were married. She had to talk to her lawyers about a prenuptial agreement. Could she include a clause about Ryan in that? At least to assure him a job. She couldn’t be married to one man and sleeping with another, but she had promised Ryan that their…activities wouldn’t endanger his job. David would hate it, of course, but he would just have to live with it. Patricia thought she would hate it too. Seeing Ryan every day and knowing she couldn’t touch him.

The doorbell chimed.

Patricia tripped on the hall rug getting to the door.

Ryan stepped inside, smiling darkly. “Hi, honey, I’m home,” he said in a deep, promising tone. He kissed her cheek and turned away to set down the bag he’d brought and take off his black wool suit coat.

Patricia stared in wonder as the black wool slid off his broad shoulders to reveal a charcoal-gray suit. It appeared to have been tailored to him, shaping his perfect body into something, not better, but differently perfect. She could see herself walking through the doors of Firenzi’s on the arm of this man. She could even see the other women on the street turning to watch until the door closed behind them.

He turned back. One side of his mouth lifted to a cool smile. “Clean up nice, don’t I?”

Patricia nodded, unable to speak. Her mouth was dry with a greater desire than she’d ever felt. When had she been sick enough to lie next to him and just sleep?

He folded his arms. “Go upstairs and take off your clothes, then get the comforter off your bed and meet me in the library.”

“Not the dining room?” she asked. She could already see herself making love to him on that big table. Her body temperature approached its boiling point. The commanding sight of him in a crisp suit made her knees shiver.

“What did I say?” he asked.

“The library.”

He stared at her for a moment as she stood spellbound in front of him. “I’m getting impatient.”

Patricia jumped. As she hurried up the stairs, she heard him chuckling. In her bedroom, she tore off her clothes and left them on the floor. She snatched up the comforter and wrapped it around her shoulders. Her body was too warm with the promise of Ryan to be cold, but even with the comforter, she felt naked. She had to take the stairs carefully so she wouldn’t trip over the edges of the comforter. The pause lit a flame of uncertainty in her belly. The shiver only added to her desire.

As she approached the library door, she listened for him. She couldn’t hear him moving in the room. Anticipation knotted in her belly. Was he standing behind the door ready to grab her when she walked in like he had in the garden? Or was he staring out the window the way he had been in the music room the night after the garden? Or did he have some other greeting in mind for her tonight?

She pushed the door open. He sat in a chair beside the fireplace. He’d lit a fire while she was upstairs and drawn the curtains. There was no other light in the room. The firelight played across the ceiling and the walls, catching on the bottle of wine and the one glass he’d set on the table behind the couch.

“Don’t stand there, Princess,” he said without looking at her. “Come here and close the door behind you.”

Patricia did as he commanded. She pulled the comforter tighter around her shoulders. He watched her with hooded eyes until her knees started to shake.

“Spread the blanket on the floor in front of the hearth.”

Patricia glanced at the floor. If she gave up the blanket, she would be naked. Desire and shame licked at her. She allowed the comforter to slip off her shoulders into a puddle on the floor. The expression on his face didn’t change, but she felt herself being inspected. When his gaze returned to hers, she leaned down to pick up the comforter and smooth it at his feet. When she finished, she stood on the far side, waiting for his next command.

“Pour me a glass of wine and serve it to me on your knees.”

The wine was open, for which Patricia was very happy. She doubted she could manipulate a corkscrew tonight. She filled the glass and carried it to his side, sinking to her knees with grace that would have impressed her childhood ballet teacher, if her childhood ballet teacher could have gotten over the shock of seeing her student on her knees serving the caretaker. Patricia lowered her face to hide this fresh flood of delicious shame.

Ryan took the glass, switching it to his other hand so he could toy with her hair. “I had thought about making you lay at my feet and touch yourself until you climaxed for my entertainment. Then it would be my turn. You’ve already demonstrated your ability to climax repeatedly for me.” He sat watching the fire.

Patricia glanced at the fluffy white comforter spread on the floor. Her breath shortened until she thought she’d never take another deep breath.

“But I saw the look in my little submissive’s eyes this afternoon.” He hooked his fingers under her chin, bringing her gaze up to meet his. “I think she liked her taste of power. Didn’t she?”

Patricia licked her lips. She couldn’t lie to him. For a moment this afternoon, she’d felt the thrill of his being at her whim. She’d been drunk with the easy power he’d offered her. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

Ryan traced beneath her lower lip with his thumb. “Good girl.” He dipped his finger into the wine and pressed it against her lips.

Patricia closed her eyes, drawing his finger into her mouth, sucking off the sweet Merlot, and rasping her tongue across his thick calluses. She loved the way those calluses felt on her skin.

He pulled his hand away from her, replacing it with his lips. His palms played down her ribs to her waist. He lifted her off the floor, drawing her across his lap, never breaking the soft insistence of his tongue between her lips. She slid her fingers under his suit jacket, relishing the crispness of his white shirt. Supporting her with one arm, he palmed her breast, releasing another flood of longing. She arched up, hungry to have more of him. He leaned back, leaving his hand over her breast with her nipple caught throbbing between his fingers. “You are always so eager for me, Princess. I can’t decide if you’re oversexed or undersexed.”