On the Ropes (14 page)

His heart stuttered, but he pushed away his ego and went to her. He’d known, really, that there had to be some impetus beyond him, but had hoped it wasn’t true.

He sat at her left, and she stared into the sandy cups.

“When I was four, my mother and I were involved in a hit and run. The other vehicle was a big pickup truck and drove off without too much damage. It came careening through an intersection and T-boned our little sedan. My mother and I were both taken to the hospital. I had some bruises and sprains, but my mother was worse off. In fact, I didn’t see her again. I didn’t know if she survived much longer. Until recently, I didn’t know anything else about her. My father arranged for me to fly to Bermuda, and I lived with him, my stepmother, and my half-siblings until I was eighteen.”

“You never heard from your mother at all?”

She shook her head. “I’m not even certain she knew where I was, but she probably figured it was for the best because she couldn’t take care of me, anyway. I learned recently that she had pretty extensive paralysis. Even now, she’s wheelchair-bound.”

“Why didn’t you want me to know that?”

“That’s not the part I didn’t want to talk about. The hard part was that I wasn’t treated particularly well by my father or his family. At best, I was an accessory. At worse, I was
that whore’s
daughter. They fed me and clothed me, but, they didn’t love me like my mother did.” Her voice took on a waver at the end. The lawyer part of him said that she was open now—that she’d spill everything he wanted to know if only he asked the right questions. That part in him that used to be a watchful kid too afraid to talk told him that if he pushed too far, he might learn everything there was about her, but he’d also test her tentative trust of him.

He didn’t want doubt.

He just took the cups from her, set them atop the grill cover, and held her hands.

They shook inside his.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Big or little. Your call.”

She seemed to ponder that. Her forehead crinkled even more and lips parted, but no words came out immediately.

“Big or little,” he repeated in a whisper.

She nodded. “I’m…I’m afraid to go see her. I’m afraid she’ll be broken and I’ll pity her. I’m afraid I won’t recognize her. I’m afraid she’ll be angry that I never called, never wrote.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Jan.”

“She might not think that. She may think that I had choices, when I didn’t. I didn’t know anything. I had to hire an investigator to track her down.”

“When are you supposed to see her?”

“Soon. I mean, I don’t know. There’s no set day, but I’ve been told she’s being moved soon, so I’d like to try before that. Right now, she’s close. Just outside of Richmond.”

“And being here—with us—was meant to be a sort of warm-up for you.”

“When you put it that way, it sounds awful, but it is the truth.”

“I see.”

He got up and paced in front of the door, tapping the bottoms of the cups together percussively. He felt used. She’d needed someplace to wait out her anxiety while she found her courage. Maybe she’d warmed up to him a little, but that was because she’d just needed someone to talk to.

He could appreciate that, but it burned like a motherfucker.

A year. A fucking year, he’d been holding out for her—the one who’d said
no
.

Well, as far as he saw things, she was still saying no, but now just in a different way.

“I hope she’s doing well,” he said as he slid the door open. And he meant it. He always said what he meant, even when he couldn’t say what he really wanted to.

“I’m going to go shower the sand off my feet,” he called from the mudroom. He tossed the cups into the recycling bin and heard the door close in the kitchen.

“I’ll do the same. I’ll use the guest bathroom.”

“Fine. Lock that door, will you? Meg and Seth will come up from the parking pad.”

He walked past her without waiting for her response and held his swears in check until he’d reached the master bathroom.

“Fuck.” He gave the side of the deep jacuzzi tub a resounding blow with his foot, and did it again. “Fuck!”

He wasn’t the kind of man who’d chase a woman who didn’t want him. For that matter, he wasn’t even the kind of man whose ego would be irreparably bruised by rejection. But, he
was
the kind of man who knew a good thing when he saw it. Jan sure as shit wasn’t easy. That was what made her so,
so
good for him. He’d never have a deficit of attention where she was concerned, but for the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to do.

Had no plan.

Janette didn’t know if it was typical for Stephen, but the moment his head hit the pillow, he was dead to the world. His sleep seemed to be instant and deep—the kind of rest that would keep him sheltered from the world around him even if a drum line practiced five feet away or a bomb exploded just down the beach.

He was either seriously exhausted or had a genetic flaw that in other eras might have made him the victim of Darwinism.

She settled into the bed with him for the first time, wearing two-piece pajamas that left pretty much everything up to the imagination. She’d packed little negligees and nighties, and had felt silly while doing it. Justifiably, it seemed, because Stephen apparently had no intention whatsoever of touching her.

She wished he would. Her mind kept flitting to thoughts of him in his boxing gloves, pounding a punching bag. Sweat slicked his shirtless torso and his dark red hair fell into his eyes as he landed powerful blows. Strong. Unexpectedly dangerous. Sexy as hell.

She wanted him to pin her against the ropes, but in a different kind of fight. She wanted her skirt hiked up, panties yanked off, and her legs wrapped around his body while he thrust into her. She didn’t want her fighter to strategize his offense, but to not think—just fuck. Uninhibited fucking, right there in the corner. They could probably both use it.

Sighing, she rolled onto her belly and tried not to think of his proximity while her body throbbed with such need. He was so close, and yet so far away.

Dead to the world, while her skin ached for him.

She didn’t recall closing her eyes, but when she opened them again, the room was brighter, but not as bright as it should have been.

Overcast.

The digital clock read 8:00. The storm must have been moving in. And, damn, they’d slept ten hours like a couple of losers.

Well,
she’d
slept ten hours. He was still asleep in these same supine pose he’d taken at bedtime. Maybe he was taking something to sleep? That would have made sense for a vacation. Lots of folks at the resort had complained to her that they just couldn’t sleep because of the unfamiliar surroundings. Janette, however, had never slept better.

The house was quiet. Either the Rozhkovs still slept, or they were silent morning people. Though, with Toby in their midst, she doubted that.

Not ready to get up, she pondered the bedside amusements. Paperbacks piled into the basket between the bed and nightstand.

Not in the mood to read
.

The remote control on top of the stand.

I don’t want to wake anyone up.

Or she could just lie there until Stephen woke, in case he wanted her.

She sucked her teeth at that.
I won’t hold my breath.

She kept waiting for him to do something, but he refused to lose control.

Maybe she could, though. She was damned ready to.

She scooted over and gently pushed his hair out of his eyes. It was such an unusual color. She hadn’t really understood what
auburn
meant until she’d seen him at the resort. It managed to be both red and brown at the same time, though calling it either would have been a woefully inadequate description.

Tucking it behind his ears, she pondered. If they had children, what color would their hair be? Meg’s was red, so she assumed one or both of his parents had red hair. Janette’s own hair was dark brown like her mother’s, but with her father’s finer texture. She’d always thought her mother’s tight spirals were lovely. The way they sprung back like pen coils when Janette pulled them. Her mother would be so patient with Janette on her lap. She’d let her twirl and tug to her heart’s content, sometimes until Janette had fallen asleep there with her small fingers tangled in her mother’s hair.

Her heart suddenly felt very hollow. Like it was pumping nothing and only going through the motions of beating, because everything went numb.

She drew her hand back from Stephen’s face, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Why did good memories of her mother cripple her as severely as all the bad ones? She should be clinging tight to those warm things and letting them shelter her from the bad ones but didn’t know how.

She hadn’t let herself learn how. She’d been too busy binding it all up and shoving it into a trunk in her mind. When it tried to climb out, she sat on the lid.

Repression, a shrink would probably call it.

She was sick of it.

Sick of letting it leach into every part of her life and pull her down with a nagging guilt when she could be allowing herself joy.

Pleasure.

She reached for Stephen’s face again, but this time turned his head toward her.

His eyes moved behind closed lids, and then they opened. He blinked several times as if to put her into focus. His lips parted, and before he could speak, she kissed him.

It had been reflexive, and somewhat experimental. She didn’t know if it was meant to seduce or just distract. His lips were soft and supple, and the fresh stubble on his chin added a titillating reminder of his masculinity to the experience.

He looped an arm around her waist, pulled her closer, and whispered, “What time is it?”

“A little after eight.”

“Mmm.”

She kissed along his jaw and he rubbed his eyes.

She pulled back. “Do you not find me enticing?”

“What makes you think I don’t?”

“I don’t understand how you can share a bed with me and not want to touch me.”

“If I don’t touch you, you assume it’s a lack of desire and not an exhibition of my self-control?” He threw back the covers and pointed downward. His boxer briefs had tented admirably at the crotch. “I didn’t wake up like that. That’s all you.”

“Then what is your resistance? Is it that you don’t want to have sex with your family in the house?”

“You assume they’d be able to hear us. They wouldn’t unless they were standing in that hallway.”

“Then, what? You can’t tell me you’re saving yourself for marriage. I get the sneaking suspicion that ship sailed a long time ago.” Not that he’d want to marry her, anyway.

His tired eyes narrowed. “Maybe I don’t think you need sex right now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“For one thing, it means I don’t want to have casual sex with you.”

She sat up.

Hadn’t Meg said something about that? Janette closed her eyes and racked her brain. What had she said?

“Jan…” He planted his hands on her hips and yanked her down.

Flat on her back again, she opened her eyes and found him straddling her lower legs.

“I want to be clear about something,” he said. “I really like sex. I’d really like to have sex with you. But if I do, it’ll be when I’m certain it means something to you.”

“What?”

“Just listen.” He gripped the elastic waist of her pajama bottoms and tugged them down along with her panties. “I don’t want to be your vacation fuck. And I don’t want to be that man you fuck because you’re trying to forget things—because you’re under a lot of stress.”

He wadded her bottoms and tossed them onto the floor. Then, he bent her knees, spread her legs farther apart, and settled on the bed beneath her ass.

“I don’t want to be a forgettable screw or just a warm body any man could fill in to be. When I do fuck you, I want you to know that no one else can do for you what I can, and that you won’t
want
anyone else to even try.”

She felt as though she should make some retort, but didn’t know what or even why.

And when his tongue traced a searing line down her slit, she forgot what it was she should be feeling so indignant about altogether.

“Normally, right about now, I’d tie you up,” he said on a pause. “I’ve got different kinds of rope. Some silky, some rough. I’d probably use the softer stuff on you. Maybe I’d tie your ankles to your wrists and put a spreader bar right here”—he touched the insides of her ankles—“to keep you from squirming too much while I teased you.”

“You think I’d let you?”

His tongue plunged into her slit and he gave her clit a teasing tug.

She moaned.

He murmured, “Mm-hmm,” against her.

His fingers went where his tongue couldn’t and probed deeper inside her. He alternated thrusting and scissoring, all the while tormenting her engorged button with unforgiving flicks of his thumb.

“You’d grow to expect it,” he said. “Maybe you’d get to the point where you won’t be able to come unless you’re restricted someway. You won’t want to give up what you think is mine to give you.”

“You’re a little nuts.”

“Am I?”

His fingertips fluttered deep within her against that tender place her own hand couldn’t reach. Her toes curled against the bed and teeth grated as he stoked her closer to combustion.

“You like the idea of me and Derrick taking you at once, don’t you? Does that turn you on? Well, it’s not gonna happen. I only share women I don’t want to keep.” He slid in another finger, stretching her to her brink, and she grabbed his hair.

“Fuck you,” she said.

“I won’t take that personally. I know you just want to come. You’re wound so tight.” He sped the thrusts of his fingers and flicked at her clit with his other hand.

She pulled his hair harder and saw stars when he slid out of her and gave her pussy a swat.

“Let go of my hair,” he said. His voice was so calm that he could have been doing some sedate thing like asking his secretary to order lunch.

She let go.

“Put your hands over your head and hold them there against the pillow.”