As You Wish (21 page)

Patricia pressed her face against the stiff fabric of his jacket.

“Poor baby. I think she’s embarrassed.” Ryan stroked her pink cheek. “I think it might be because something else is bare.” He squeezed her buttock. “And here I was about to give her what she wanted.”

Patricia’s body tensed. She wanted him. All she wanted was him.

“Tonight, I’m going to allow her to please me because I think she needs a little reminder of who’s the master here.”

Greedy desire filled his gaze. His breath was shallow, and his arm trembled.

“I won’t even make you beg tonight, Princess, but you’ll have to make it up to me.” He touched her lips. “You know how much I like that pretty little mouth of yours.”

“What should I do, Master?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something. I think first you should take off my shoes.”

Patricia crawled out of his lap. She didn’t know what to do with him. She untied his black dress shoes, which she hadn’t noticed until now. He’d completed the image with the usual careful attention to detail. His body was powerful and muscular from hard work. The perfection of every inch of him made her want to explore him with her hands and mouth, but the cool assessment in his gaze made her want to close her eyes with ecstasy.

She set aside his socks and let her hands slide up his legs. As she moved, he drew a deep breath and his jaw twitched. After she unbuttoned his jacket, she laid it aside before reaching for his shirt. He hadn’t worn an undershirt, and her fingers brushed his sun-bronzed skin as she worked. His hands flexed on the arms of the chair as she pulled the tails free of his pants to open the last buttons.

“Is this a good start, Master?”

“It is.”

She picked up one of his hands to open the cuff and held his palm against her mouth. His fingers curled against her cheek. She laid his hand on the armrest and picked up the other hand to open the cuff. Pressing her open mouth to his other palm, she traced circles on it with her tongue until he groaned. She suppressed a smile as she splayed her fingers against his chest and rose on her knees. “Is this good, Master?”

“Yes it is, Princess.”

She thought she heard a shiver in his voice. She could feel the heavy beat of his heart under her hand. His fingers trembled as he reached out to cup the back of her head and guide her face to where her fingers rested. She pressed her lips against the taut muscles of his abdomen.

“You’re being a good girl tonight,” he murmured.

She rested her hand on the top of his thigh so her thumb brushed against his erection. She leaned in, swirling her tongue across his skin. When her mouth slid across his nipple, he gasped.

“A very good girl.”

“Thank you, Master.” Patricia applied her fingers to his other nipple while she continued to taste and tease him with her hot mouth until he shuddered under her touch. The combination of helplessness and power made her ache both to have him inside her and want to hold him in her control forever.

He pushed her away. “Go put another piece of wood on the fire.”

Patricia crawled backward until she could turn over and struggle to her feet. She felt overwhelmed. Even more than before. More than the first time when he’d commanded her to suck him, when she’d feared she’d given herself to a man she didn’t know. And the second time when she’d rushed to his mastery.

And in the garden when she’d sensed he was so close to losing control.

She picked up a piece of split wood and dropped it on the flames. Her whole body shook. This time she felt him teetering on the edge. That had to be why he’d pushed her away. He’d needed a moment to gather himself. And she’d brought him to that edge.

You may not love me like I love you, she thought, but you want me more than you can stand. She turned back.

He sat in the chair with his shirt open, smirking at her, back in control of himself. “I thought you might be getting cold. Come here.”

Helpless, she walked back to him and knelt at his feet. Her palms were sweating. She still tasted his skin on her lips.

“Are you going to finish your task?” he asked, as if he weren’t tormented to the edge of his senses.

Patricia looked up. Despite his tone, his gaze was hungry, and his hands clutched the arms of the chair almost hard enough to rip them up. She reached for the black leather belt on his pants. Her fingers didn’t want to obey, and it took several tries to get the buckle unfastened. The button on his pants presented another challenge. She couldn’t trap it between her fingers long enough to slide it through the buttonhole. She was considering trying to bite the thing off when Ryan brushed away her fingers.

“Poor distressed princess. She can’t even open a button.” He opened it, and paused, blocking her access to him. “Look at me, Princess.”

She obeyed.

His thumb brushed at something on her cheek. “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said sarcastically. “Do you want me to take care of the nasty zipper too?”

Humiliation scorched her cheeks. She clutched her hands in her lap, fixing her gaze on the floor under the chair. She’d been wrong. He didn’t want her more than he could stand. He was having a normal male reaction to an offered female. Simple biology. And he was tormenting her.

“Princess?” Ryan leaned forward, reaching for her. “Patricia?”

She turned her face away.

“I’m sorry. I was too harsh.” He knelt beside her, pulling her into his arms and stroking her back.

“Let me go.” She pushed away from him and then leaned back into his arms. “Do you want me?”

“More than words can express.”

“No. Do you want me? Not just any woman who was willing to crawl for you, but me? Me, Patricia.” Her face was streaked with tears, but her body still screamed for him. Even if he said no, she would want him. But he wouldn’t say no, he would lie first. He was a man, and he would lie to get sex if necessary. It was his biological imperative.

And she didn’t care. “Don’t answer that. Please, let’s just finish. Let’s just—”

“Patricia. Cease.”

She heard the word the way he meant it when he called it a safe word. It brought every part of her to a shuddering halt. For a moment, she feared inertia would send her mind spinning into space. She stilled, waiting for him to speak.

He held her tight against his chest, stroking her hair for a long time before saying anything. “I’m sorry, Patricia. I was too harsh, and you weren’t ready. I never should have agreed to this session in the first place.”

“But I wanted it.” Patricia sobbed. Tomorrow she had to face the hospital and David and the rest of her life. She needed this tonight.

“We all want things we can’t have,” Ryan snapped. He leaned down and picked up the comforter, wrapping it around her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Don’t treat me like a child.” She hugged the blanket around her and tottered to her feet. “I’m an adult. I’m a doctor, for God’s sake. I survived internship.”

“I know that, but you’ve also been very sick, and I don’t think you’re completely well yet.”

Before she realized it, Ryan had picked her up and carried her to the couch, holding her in his lap. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face into the curve of his neck. “I wanted you so much.” She sobbed.

“You have me, Princess.” Ryan kissed her temple.

“You aren’t going to stay with me tonight.” She knew he wanted to get back to normal. At least as normal as things had been. He’d only stayed before because she was sick, and then because he was almost too sick to walk as far as the kitchen.

“People would talk if I moved in with you. And I don’t think David would like it much.”

Patricia bit her lip. David wouldn’t care. If she got him into the White House, David wouldn’t care if Ryan slept in her bed as long as they were discreet. If only there were some hybrid of David and Ryan. Someone with David’s respectability and ambition and Ryan’s perfect ability to understand and master her.

“I’ll take you upstairs and sit with you until you fall asleep, and then I’ll take care of all this. We can see how you’re feeling in a few days.”

“Ryan? Do you want me? Really want me?”

Ryan lifted her chin to meet her gaze. His eyes looked dark and pained. “Sometimes, Princess, I want you more than I want to breathe.”

Chapter Fourteen

Patricia sat at a table in the hospital cafeteria with a cold cup of coffee at her elbow, sorting through notes and updating her PDA. She felt like herself again. All her patients had survived her absence, many of them asking after her health. Confirmed bachelor Mr. Petrivich was even dating Bruce’s widowed grandmother, and Mrs. Magyar had talked to one of the nurses and discovered that the hospital would pay for her to go to nursing school if she promised to work there for a time after graduation. And her husband had been around the hospital so much that someone on staff pointed out an open position in Operations. They were better off without her.

Then she’d gone home to find her mailbox filled with the last roses but no black invitation. Ryan had rectified that last night, appearing at her door at sunset with a bottle of wine for a short but satisfying impromptu session in the library.

“Can I join you, or is this table occupied by all your imaginary friends?”

Patricia glanced up.

Bruce smiled.

“Oh, hi, Bruce. Let me clear you a space.” She shuffled papers out of his way. “I have so much to catch up on. Thanks for taking my call and dealing with my patients.”

“No problem. Besides, I think I got the best end of the stick with your patients. My grandmother is acting ten years younger. She actually leaves the house and does stuff, allowing my mother to not have to kill her.” Bruce fidgeted with his napkin. “And Harold is a good guy.”

“He is a very nice gentleman.” Patricia sorted notes, waiting for Bruce to tell her what was on his mind. Bruce was reserved. Only around Rita did he become rash and impulsive. Rita had that effect on people. Patricia knew he wanted to talk about something by the way he wasn’t eating his lunch.

Bruce started shredding his napkin. Given a few more minutes, his chicken potpie was going to gel into an inedible mass. It was barely edible hot. She continued entering information and waiting. He had to crack. He always cracked. Today, he was taking his time about it.

“Bruce! What is it?” she snapped, unable to stand the sight of the confetti his napkin had become. A few more shreds and he’d have reduced it to subatomic particles.

“Do you think Rita would marry me?” Bruce burst out and pursed his lips as if he wanted to call back the question.

“Rita De Soto?” Patricia asked. “Of course Rita De Soto. Who else have you been sleeping with off and on for the past four years?”

“It’s just that I love her so much,” Bruce moaned. “But after her parents’ ugly divorce and her brother’s ugly divorce, she’s the anti-marriage poster child. I want her to be mine, and I want to be hers. I don’t need her to change her name or anything I just—I just…”

Patricia thought he might start crying, but his words reverberated through her. She just—just too, and so far all she’d managed to do was act like a madwoman and offer her house up for a charity ball she never wanted to host. “You want to be sure.”

“Yes.” Bruce picked up his fork and started attacking his potpie. “Is she sleeping with anyone else? You can tell me. I can handle it.”

“She hasn’t told me if she is.” Was Ryan sleeping with anyone else? She’d never asked, and she wasn’t sure she had the right to know. Really, the only person she knew he wasn’t sleeping with was Rita, and that’s because Rita would have told her in vivid detail.

“Then she must not be. She tells you everything.” Bruce’s tone sounded accusatory. He put a bite of potpie in his mouth and swallowed, grimacing. “Do you think she’d marry me? Crap, here she comes. Pretend we were talking about something else.” He shuffled Patricia’s papers. “Hi, baby, Trisha and I were just talking about my grandmother’s new boyfriend.”

“Isn’t that a trip?” Rita asked, setting down her tray. She’d chosen a salad and iced tea. “I brought her in to translate for him, and they hit it off. Do you think they’re having sex yet?”

“Rita, it’s my grandmother,” Bruce protested, all evidence of his turmoil hidden.

“So? I think it would be great. I want to be eighty and still getting it on.”

Patricia collected her papers. The image of Ryan’s hard body driving against some sultry brunette floated in front of her eyes. Would he make her obey him too? Or would it be the other way around with her? Or did he not need any kinky tricks to be attracted to her? Did he love her?

“I like to think they spend all their time talking,” Bruce said.

“Sure, horizontal conversation.” Rita smirked. “Speaking of which, what are you doing tonight?”

Bruce grinned. “I hope I’m going to be having a discourse with you.”

“Discourse, intercourse, it’s all so similar.” Rita stabbed a lettuce leaf. “So, Trish, you’re having this big party; do we get to come? I’ve never been to a bona fide charity ball before.”

“If you like. Do you want me to have one of the bedrooms opened up so you can stay the night?” She noted how Rita referred to herself and Bruce without consulting him. Rita might object to the legal part of marriage, but she seemed to already be in the lifestyle part.

Rita’s eyes lit up, and she grabbed Bruce’s arm. “Oh, that would be fabulous. Would you really?”

“You’ve stayed at the manor before.”

“I know, but this time there’s a ball, and I get to play princess.”

Patricia heard her name called from across the room. David was weaving through the tables with a bouquet of red roses. Ryan’s roses, she recalled, were all different colors. They were drying on a table in the front parlor where they wouldn’t be disturbed, and she needed to find another hatbox.

Rita pushed her plate away. “Well, I’ve lost my appetite.”

David kissed Patricia’s cheek. “I didn’t know you were back to work until someone called me just an hour ago. I knew that buffoon wouldn’t give you my message.”

“What message?” Patricia asked.

“I called while you were sick and told that gardener of yours to have you call me when you got better.” David sat in the last chair. “Did you get my flowers?”