Line of Scrimmage (10 page)

She had never fully appreciated the hold she had over him. He’d often suspected she was waiting for him to grow tired of her
and move on to one of the ever-present groupies who followed the team from city to city. But he’d never grown tired of her.
If anything, he had grown so dependent on her that when she left him he’d been completely lost without her.

He had told himself at the start of his ten-day campaign that he would do anything it took to get her back. But today he’d
discovered he had limits, and now he wanted to shoot himself for showing her that she rendered him defenseless. Somewhere
in the course of discussing the son they had lost, the anniversary they had missed, and the life they had shared, the stakes
had gone up. Ryan was even more convinced that if she left him for good he wouldn’t survive it.

Chapter 10

THEY COOKED HOTDOGS IN THE FIREPLACE AND OPENED a bottle of red wine. After he polished off his third hot dog, Ryan pushed
the sofa closer to the fire. Just six feet from the fireplace, the cabin was freezing. Susannah snuggled under a heavy blanket
and picked up her book to read by the firelight. Ryan reached for his guitar but stuck his feet under the other end of her
blanket.

“Do you take requests?” she asked with a smile after she listened to him for a long time.

“Depends on who’s asking.”

She chuckled.

“What do you want to hear?”

“Anything by The Eagles.”

He played a song she hadn’t heard before, called “No More Cloudy Days,” that was all about second chances and new romances.

“I like that,” Susannah said softly.

“You’re supposed to be reading.”

“I’d rather listen to you. You’ve gotten really good.”

“I’ve had lots of time to practice.” He played “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” which he knew was her favorite song by The Eagles.
The concert continued with a slice of “American Pie,” a bit of Toby Keith, and ended with a blast of Kiss that had her howling
with laughter.

“Hot dogs and Kiss,” she said, recovering from the laughing fit. “Just another night with my millionaire husband.”

He kept his eyes fixed on her as he continued to strum the guitar, singing along to a tune of his own creation.
“She called me her husband, so I have to believe, she
loves me enough not to leave. She looks at me with eyes
so blue, and I love her more than I ever knew.”

He was three feet from her, but he touched her everywhere. “Maybe you’d better not quit your Sunday job after all,” she said
in a dry attempt to hide her true feelings.

“Are you implying my dream of a second career as a songwriter is a nonstarter?” he asked, feigning offense.

“Pretty much.”

“You liked it.”

She shrugged with pretend boredom. “It was all right.”

Laughing, he put down the guitar and tunneled under the blanket to her end of the sofa. He popped out and rested his head
on her leg. “Read to me.”

“You’ve already read it,” she reminded him.

“I can’t remember. Come on. Read it to me.”

“All right. If you insist.”

He shifted onto his good side, and Susannah combed her fingers through his hair absently. Absorbed in the story, she didn’t
notice when he released the bottom two buttons of her denim shirt. Her words got stuck when he pressed his lips to the skin
he had uncovered.

“Keep reading,” he whispered as he opened two more buttons and kissed her breasts through her bra.

She clutched a handful of his hair. “Ry . . . What’re you doing?”

“I was listening to you read, but then you stopped.”

“I can’t read when you’re doing that.”

“Doing what?”

Overwhelmed by him, she was gentle but insistent when she pushed him away. “Let me up. I want to get changed.”

He sat up slowly, favoring his injured side.

Susannah dashed down the dark hallway to the guest bedroom and made quick work of changing into a flannel nightgown and heavy
socks. She was shivering by the time she went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. No more than five minutes
later she returned to find that Ryan had inflated the air mattress they used on the rare weekends when they invited friends
to join them at the cabin.

“Come on, blue lips,” he said, lifting a blanket.

She grabbed her book as she lay down on the mattress.

He layered the blankets on top of her. “Good?”

She nodded. “Thanks,” she said through chattering teeth.

“There should be enough hot water for a quick shower,” he said when he finished building up the fire.

“Get that bed warmed up for me.”

Susannah planned to read but found she was too cold to do anything but burrow deeper under the covers. Over and over she relived
what he’d said earlier:
If you make
love to me and then go back to him, you’ll ruin me. You’ll
ruin me.
Since she still didn’t know if she was ready or able to reconcile with Ryan, she was fearful of getting too close to him until
she decided for certain. Still puzzling it over, she dozed off. She woke up when Ryan His lips came down on hers and crawled
in with her wearing only a pair of sweats. Since he usually slept nude, the sweats were a major concession to the cold.

“It’s really coming down out there,” he whispered as he curled around her. “We might be stuck here for weeks.”

“All part of your evil plan,” she said with a yawn. He felt so good and so warm that she put her arm around him and discovered
the tape was gone from his ribs.

“You unwrapped them? Can you do that?”

“It was starting to itch.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“Now it’s more like a toothache than a heart attack.”

“Did it really hurt that much?”

“Worse than anything ever has . . . except for losing you, of course.”

“Cute.”

“You think I’m kidding.”

She found his eyes in the amber light and discovered he wasn’t kidding. “Ry,” she said with a sigh.

He brought her even closer to him and kissed her.

“We can’t,” she said. “What you said earlier . . . I haven’t decided anything yet, and until I do . . . I don’t want to hurt
you.”

“About four seconds after I said that I decided I’m willing to risk it.”

“But what,” she stammered. “What if . . . ”

“What if it never stops snowing and we’re stuck here forever?” He trailed soft kisses on her neck. “What if?

What if? How about we talk about what
is?”

“And what’s that?”

“Well, let’s see.” He sprinkled kisses on her face, seeming to avoid her mouth on purpose. “There’s you, and me, and this
dark, cold cabin, and this nice fire. It seems silly to let all this atmosphere go to waste, don’t you think?”

As she listened to him, she caressed the rippling muscles on his back. His lips hovered over hers, but she turned her face
away. “Wait, Ry.”

“What, baby?”

“I just don’t want you to think if we, you know, do this, that it means . . . ”

“All it means is we want to make love. You’re still my wife, Susie.”

“But I’m also—”

“Don’t say it.” His eyes were dark and fixed on her.

“Do
not
say that.”

She reached for him.

His lips came down on hers and swept away any final doubts that she was exactly where she belonged. Everything about him was
familiar, yet new, too. This wasn’t the same man she’d wanted to divorce. He wasn’t the same man she had decided she could
easier live without than try to live with. Which Ryan would she get if she agreed to stay with him? That uncertainty still
nagged at her. But when he reached for the hem of her nightgown, sat her up, and swept it over her head, she ceased to think
of anything but him.

“Oh, Susie, is that from the EpiPen?” he asked, smoothing his hand over the fist-sized bruise on her thigh.

She trembled from both the chill and the heat of his gaze. “Yeah.”

He replaced his hand with his lips. “I hate that I did that to you.”

“You saved my life. I think I can forgive you for a little bruise.”

“It’s a
big
bruise.”

“It’s nothing compared to all of yours.” She ran her hands over his arms. “Are you comfortable up there?”

“No.” He took his lips on a trip to her inner thigh.

“I’m very uncomfortable, and you’re the only one who can fix it.”

Her giggle turned to a gasp. “Ry . . . ”

“Hmmm?”

“Oh,
God,
” she moaned when he nudged her legs apart. She had forgotten what it was like to make love with Ryan—the all-consuming passion,
the endless pleasure. Or maybe she hadn’t really forgotten but rather locked the memories away somewhere deep inside where
they couldn’t be easily found as she built a life without him.

He teased her with his tongue, dragging it on a sensuous trail over one inner thigh and then the other.

Susannah’s legs quivered, so he rested them on his broad shoulders.

“What do you want?” he whispered against her thigh.

The feel of his soft lips against her skin made her crazy. “You.”

“Where?”

She lifted her hips. “You know.”

He kissed his way closer. So close . . . “No, I don’t.

You have to tell me.”

She had also forgotten the way he liked to talk to her when they made love and how much he enjoyed getting her to say things
she would never say any other time.

Nuzzling at her core, he said, “You can’t have it until you tell me you want it.”

“I want your tongue,” she whispered.

“Where?”

Her face burned with embarrassment, but desire burned brighter. “In me. On me. Everywhere.”

“We’ll get to that.” He ran his finger over her slickness. “Oh, you’re so wet, Susie. So hot.”

Susannah shuddered, and her gasp sounded more like a sob by the time it broke free of the lump in her throat. She cried out
when he slid two fingers deep into her. “Ryan!”

“Tell me.”

Feeling like she was outside of herself watching someone else, she let her legs fall open in surrender.

“Move them,” she whispered.

He kept his fingers torturously still. “How?”

At any other time, Susannah would have died of embarrassment. Right now, she cared only about the throbbing tension between
her legs. “In and out.”

His fingers twisted, ever so slightly. “Fast or slow?”

“Fast,” she panted, raising her hips to beg for more. “Fast.”

“When we were apart, I dreamed about this,” he whispered against her thigh as his fingers moved in and out of her. “I dreamed
about how wet you always got for me and how you smell.” Keeping up the steady movement of his fingers, he burrowed his nose
into the soft blond hair on her mound and took deep breaths. “And how you taste . . . so, so sweet.” He replaced his fingers
with his tongue.

She came instantly, crying out as she pushed against the gentle but insistent thrusts of his determined tongue. When she would
have retreated into recovery, he wouldn’t let her.

“Do it again,” he whispered, his breath hot against her sensitized skin.

“I can’t,” she whimpered.

“Yes, you can.” Clutching her bottom in the palms of his big hands, he held her in place and set out to prove her wrong.

“
Ryan!
” she cried the instant a second orgasm, this one even more powerful than the first, sent her flying into orbit. Trembling
and weak, she floated as the aftershocks rippled through her.

He lowered her legs from his shoulders and entered her with a swift thrust of his hips that brought her soundly back to earth.

She gasped and struggled to accommodate his width and length.

For a long, breathless moment he was still. “Susie,” he whispered in her ear. “How have I lived without you, without this,
for more than a year?”

With her hands on his face and tears in her eyes, she brought him to her for a deep, soulful kiss as he began to move. When
she sensed his injuries were bothering him, she carefully eased him onto his back and straddled him. Bringing the blankets
up and around them, she teased him by refusing to grant him entry.

Growling, he held her hips still and surged up and into her. Once he was back where he wanted to be, he reached up to comb
his fingers through her hair. “I love you, Susie. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.”

“Do you? Do you really?”

She nodded, tossed her head back, and rode him with abandon, steeped in the thrilling sensation of being filled by him, consumed
by him.

He cupped her breasts and ran his thumbs over her nipples, lifting her into yet another climax. “Ryan,” she panted, looking
down at him with eyes that she was certain were glassy with passion and what might have been shock—that it was still possible
to feel this much . . . so much . . . even more than before.

“
Susie,
” he moaned. “God, don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

She leaned back, took him deeper, took him all the way.

“This reminds me of the first night we ever spent together,” Ryan said much later as they lay facing each other. “Do you remember?”

“Of course I do. We were in that fleabag apartment you rented off campus.”

“There were no fleas,” he said with indignation.

She laughed at the face he made. “I was expecting something pretty fabulous, since you were supposedly this
big star.

”

“I
was
a big star and the apartment
was
fabulous. At least it was until we moved in. I remember clearing the other guys out and scrambling to clean the place up before
you got there. I’d spent months trying to get you into bed, and I didn’t want anything to mess it up. Of course I didn’t expect
the bed to break . . . ”

Susannah laughed until she cried at the memory. “As I recall, it didn’t slow us down any.”

“Just like the cold hasn’t slowed us down tonight.”

She turned her face into the pillow. “Stop.”

“You’d think we were out to beat our own record.”

“Ryan . . . ”

He laughed at her discomfort. “Is it just me or is what was always amazing now extraordinary?”

“It’s not just you,” she said softly.

“Maybe it’s because we appreciate each other more after being apart for so long.”

“That’s not it. Although that might be part of it.”

He reached out to twirl a lock of her hair around his finger. “Then what is it?”

“It’s what I tried to tell you was missing before. The way we talked today, about stuff that really matters . . .

It’s made me feel connected to you in here,” she said with her hand over her heart.

“I get it now, Suze. I really do. I know what I had, what I lost, how I felt without it.” He brought her hand to his lips.
“Do you know I still look for you in the stadium where you always used to sit? Whenever we scored this season, I’d look for
you, wanting to share it with you. It was like losing you all over again every time I looked for you and you weren’t there.”