Sapphire (10 page)

Unfortunately, she had nothing to put on but the revealing robe. She cast an appraising eye at Adam’s closet and thought about raiding it, but that seemed overly familiar. Ha. As if anything between them could be overly familiar after everything he’d done to her last night, which she’d finally begged for. Still, she shrugged into the robe and padded barefoot downstairs.

She found him in the breakfast nook, surrounded by bay windows that opened onto a wide deck and the ocean beyond. He wore that black robe and sipped coffee while reading the business section. He looked tousled and sedate, neither a sated predator nor the fierce lover from last night.

He glanced up, though she thought she hadn’t made a sound, and surveyed her.

“Good morning. Would you care for coffee, Taylor?”

“I can get it for myself if you’ll point me in the right direction.”

“Cups are in the cabinet by the sink, carafe is on the counter.”

She found a heavy ceramic mug, filled it with coffee and nothing else and drifted back to the breakfast nook. Cuddling the mug in her hands, she surveyed the seating options.

“Care to join me?”

With a sigh, she sat as opposite him as she could manage. “What I’d like is to find something to wear and get home.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Just like that?”

“I have things to do.”

He set down the newspaper and sat back, bringing his coffee with him. Giving her a considering look, he shook his head as if to clear it. “I debated, you know, whether it would be better to be there when you awoke or if you’d prefer to wake alone. Clearly I made the wrong choice.”

“No, you were right. I was glad to have some time alone to clean up.”

“And to build your walls again.”

Taylor set down her mug in irritation. “We had sex. That doesn’t mean that you’re my boyfriend or that we’re going to live happily ever after.”

“Is that what it was?” He raised an eyebrow, his voice silky smooth and dangerous.

“Okay, it was really kinky sex, and now I’m battered, bruised and I feel like something that washed up on the beach.”

He threw back his head and laughed.

She contemplated how satisfying it would be to hurl her mug at him. Instead, she stood. “Fine. Amuse yourself at my expense. I’ll raid your closet and call a cab. You can just put my clutch by the door.”

“Taylor, you barely have a mark on you. Don’t you think I would have checked?”

She gaped at him. “While I was…”

“You’re a sound sleeper.” He got up and came over to her. When she flinched back from his hands, he tucked them in the pockets of his robe, his face serious. “I made very sure, before, during and after, not to injure you in any way. And to check you afterwards. I’ve had the best training and I take that very seriously.”

“Well, I do ache.” She sounded churlish even to herself.

“I’d maybe believe you minded the residual of last night if you didn’t look more radiantly gorgeous this morning than ever.”

Damn him for seeing how good she really did feel. Despite a few aches, she felt more alive, more relaxed and sated than she ever remembered feeling.

Adam touched her cheek and she startled.

“If I had a do-over,” he said quietly, sliding his hand into her hair, “I’d have stayed in bed to watch you sleep, like I wanted to.”

He circled his other arm around her waist. She put her hands up to his chest, to hold him off, but the feel of him under her hands only reminded her of last night.

“I’d have you wake up in my arms, so you’d start your day with this.” He dropped a soft kiss on her mouth and she melted a little, her strange irritation fading away.

“Sweet, sweet, Molly,” he murmured against her mouth.

She went rigid.

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, pushing away.

He let her go. “She’s part of who you are.”

“No, she’s a part of who I
was.
” Taylor tightened the ridiculous robe around herself. “That’s an important distinction. Molly was a stupid, helpless little girl. Now I’m grown up. People change, Kirliss. There’s nothing wrong with being a strong person.” She stalked over to retrieve her coffee.

“Then why didn’t you legally change your name?”

Why hadn’t she? She’d worn pigtails back then. Back when her mom helped her get ready for school, she’d pull Molly’s hair into fluffy red poofs on the sides of her head, or braid them, tying them off with ribbons that matched her outfit. On the playground, the boys would yell “Oh
golly
, Molly!” when she walked by. “Molly Lollipop” was another perennial favorite. Silly kid jokes. Why they’d stung so much, she couldn’t say.

Later, her mom was so rarely home in the mornings, or still in bed sweating out the hangover with whatever guy she’d brought home instead of going home with, that Molly would just brush it. That was worse, red stuff standing around her head like a Brillo pad.

“Little Orphan Molly” hit just a bit too close to home.

So, by the time Taylor was thirteen, she’d saved enough money from babysitting to pay for a salon consult. The stylist told her to grow her hair long, to tame the curl. She learned how to condition it, make it relax. She learned how to cook decent food for herself. Her mother had been only too happy to turn over grocery shopping to her responsible daughter. By the time Taylor entered high school, no one knew who foolish, dumpy Molly was.

She shrugged, deliberately nonchalant. “Why bother? You’re the only one who finds it interesting. I have no idea why.”

He leaned against the counter, studying her. “It’s a crack in the shields.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You already got into my panties, you can let it go now.”

“You’re one of the sharpest women I ever met, Taylor. I know you’ve heard me say that’s not all I want.”

She laughed and went to wash out her mug. “What? Should I be calling my BFF now and cooing over what ring you might give me?”

She glanced over her shoulder to see that his face had hardened. She dried the mug carefully and replaced it in the cabinet.

“Leaving no trace of your presence behind? You probably wiped out the bathroom sink too.”

As a matter of fact, she had.

“Don’t worry, darling.” She patted his cheek. “We’ll always have the library.”

He seized her wrist. The thrill, stronger now that she knew where he could take it, how she could come apart, tore through her, but she kept her face impassive.

“Stay with me today,” he nearly growled.

“Is that an order?” She kept her voice light. “Will I be tied up?”

“Do you want to be?” He tugged her closer, close enough that her peaked nipples grazed his chest through the thin silk. Her heart tripped a beat. He nuzzled her cheek when she turned her face away, like a beast sniffing her scent. “You can always ask me to, you know.”

“What I want,” she gritted out, “are some actual clothes so I can go home and get on with my day.”

“Your day seems be going quite nicely to me.” Not releasing her wrist, he fondled her breast through the silk. Her sex clenched, suddenly hot and wet. He backed her up to the table, so the sharp edge bit into the bottom of her tender buttocks. He released her wrist and tugged open her robe, feasting his eyes on her naked body. “And you haven’t had breakfast yet.”

He edged her up onto the table, spreading her thighs and moving between them.

“It’s nearly noon.” She tried to sound tart, but it came out as a pleasured gasp when he bent his dark head to suckle her breasts. The need rose up, edgy and greedy, as if she hadn’t been thoroughly sated the night before.

“Brunch, then.” He threaded his arms under her back inside the robe, holding her so her spine arched and thrust her swelling breasts up to the morning light.

She clung to his shoulders, glad to be able to sink her nails in as he sent the blinding sensations racing through her. He lifted his head, gave her a wicked grin and plunged into her.

Her body clenched, delirious with the fine-pointed pleasure. She let her head fall back and wrapped her legs around his hips, riding the clean masculine strength, his penetration filling her more than the wild arousal of the night had allowed.

He draped her over the newspapers, peeling her nails from his shoulders, taking her wrists in his hands and pinning them over her head. His robe had come apart to show a tanned slice of his chest as he pumped into her, eyes brown-shadowed in the midday light boring into her.

“This isn’t nothing between us, Taylor.” He punctuated the words with thrusts that shattered her reason. “I won’t let you make it be.”

With a feral sound, he came, pounding her groin, mercilessly driving her up and over, so that she lay dazed and wilted when he withdrew. She gazed up at the bright sunshine, not quite sure what had just happened.

Aware that she was still lying there, thighs spread and most of her naked to the world, she leveraged herself up to find Adam returning to her with a soft cloth, his face set in that inscrutable mode.

She took it from him and scooted off the table, hoping her legs would hold. He took her elbow to steady her.

“Let me make you breakfast.” He said it like an apology.

Taylor studied him. He looked unaccountably boyish now, not much like the feral man who’d just fucked her senseless on the breakfast table.

“Adam, what is this?”

“A kitchen. People cook and sometimes eat here.”

“I’m serious.”

“Unfortunately, Taylor, you’re not.” He strode into the kitchen and pulled out a skillet with a sharp crack. “You just want to play your games with me and leave. No messy details. No consequences. Rebuild your ice palace and live in its sterile comfort.”

“I thought last night was about
your
games.”

“I told you—last night was about you. You’re refusing to see.”

He drizzled olive oil into the skillet, crushed a clove of garlic and tossed it in. Taking her same mug from the cabinet, he filled it with coffee and nothing else and brought it to her.

She took it, cupping the comforting warmth. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

He crouched down in front of her, so their eyes were level. “Here’s the deal. I want you to spend the day with me. I want to feed you breakfast, take a long walk on the beach, then lie on the deck here in the sun and drink beer, then cook some steaks on the grill. I want to spend time with you.”

“That wasn’t part of the original deal.” Taylor’s voice shook slightly, surprising her.

“You and I both know that the original deal was simply a pilot project. I’m proposing the next level. Let’s explore some other potential business areas.” He brushed her knees with a soft touch. “Say yes.”

“Your garlic is burning.”

With a mild curse, he sprang up and went to rescue the garlic. He ended up dumping out the charred bits and starting over.

Taylor nursed her second cup, thinking of those porn-for-women jokes. There he was, wildly handsome, in a black silk robe, making her an egg-white omelet with veggies and fresh herbs, exactly what she would have made herself. Why was she hesitating?

Probably because he’d pried her open, making her scream with pleasure at the most degrading acts. That might have something to do with it. He’d called her life sterile and, if she was honest with herself, it was. She liked it that way. Clean. No surprises. Nothing to make the neighbors call Social Services.

“You haven’t answered,” he remarked.

“I’m thinking.”

“Always a bad sign for me.”

“Yes, I’m sure you prefer your submissive bimbos not to think.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

“Maybe I have appointments today.”

He shrugged. “Cancel them.”

“Difficult, when my phone is held hostage.”

He pulled open a drawer, extracted her clutch and brought it to her along with the steaming omelet. Sitting opposite her in the nook, Adam dug into his half of the omelet with relish.

Taylor checked her visual voicemail. Several messages—all work-related, of course. Suddenly she was sorry she’d looked. She thumbed the phone off and set it aside. The omelet tasted hot and savory and perfect. She’d never had breakfast with a man the morning after, much less one the man cooked. Of course, she’d never before stayed for the morning after. Instead of awkward, there was something kind of lovely about it.

“I’m not walking on the beach in this robe,” she pointed out.

He grinned at her, a wash of genuine pleasure crossing his face. “We’ll find you something.”

His jeans were too big for her, so they hung a bit loosely. He handed her the blue lace panties, which he’d rinsed out and dried in the sun on the deck. Apparently he’d gone in to pick up the detritus of their all-night session in the library, a fact that relieved her in an odd way.

She hadn’t really wanted to face it in the light of day.

Between the oversized blue jeans, the plaid flannel shirt and the sweatshirt he gave her, she felt like those girls in college who wore their boyfriend’s clothes around. It had seemed stupid then, but now she indulged herself, smelling him on the clothes. She understood the romance of it.

Then he came in, fastening the buckle of that black leather belt. Blood rushed up into her head. She had screamed when he lashed her with it. Cried and begged for more. He caught her eye with a slow smile, as if he heard her every thought.

“See?”

To remind her of what passes between you in the darkest, most intimate moments.

Like she needed reminding.

Taylor stuck her hands in the roomy jeans pockets and studiously looked away. Then he was cupping her face, plumbing her depths with a soft, searching kiss.

“You are indescribably beautiful when you blush,” he whispered.

She looked up at his gold-flecked eyes, something in her bleeding through the cracks he’d opened.

“I’m out of my depth, I think.” She said it like a confession.

He smiled, almost sad. “Everyone of us is, darling. You’re just starting to realize it.”

They took the steps down from his deck, wending their way down the steep hillside to the beach below. Taylor went carefully in her bare feet, but the sun-warmed sand felt good on her soles. The double layer of shirts he’d given her broke the cool wind off the ocean.