Taste of Lacey (21 page)

He paused in the middle of his task and gave her a hard look. “Strip.”

She unzipped her skirt and shed her top and bra. As she was about to push down the thong that was virtually useless because it was soaked, he stopped her with another harsh command. “Leave it.”

She lowered her hands to her sides.

“Is my pussy wet?” He advanced toward her. That disloyal part of her anatomy had started pulsating as soon as the command had left his mouth when they were on the phone. “Lie on your back and hold your knees against your tits,” he ordered in a rough, throaty tone.

She climbed onto the bed and did his bidding, so turned on her legs quivered, and her breath came in short pants.

When she looked up, his eyes were dark and stormy, and the muscle in his jaw twitched. A handwritten note couldn’t express his anger any clearer. One hand held his magnificent cock dripping precum. He used the other to finger her thong. Slow and with deliberate pressure, he pushed the fine material from side to side and let it grate over her throbbing clit.

“Do you try to piss me off, or can you simply not help being so fucking stubborn?”

“Mmm,” she moaned but couldn’t think for the spasms of pleasure shooting from her clit to her extremities.

He ripped off her panties before continuing his rough trek over her sensitive flesh with his nimble fingers.

“Don’t ever do that shit again. Is that clear?” The forceful words penetrated her ears, but she was so hot she couldn’t form an adequate response. She might have been strong enough to avoid his phone calls and to reach some clarity about her life, but she was weak when it came to his dick. Having it was no longer just a want or desire; it was a necessity. She ached for it. Was about to shed tears if she didn’t get it.

“When I call, you answer. I know you, and your phone wasn’t too far from your side. You were avoiding me.”

“Rye—”

The next thing she knew, he was on her, plunging into her slick opening, his dick as rigid as a railroad spike. She could swear she saw the moon and the stars, and they all looked like Rye. It was pure Heaven. Peering over her heaving chest, she whimpered when she saw his hard length resting in her slit.

She couldn’t lie still. Giving in to an uncontrollable urge to move, she joined in his dance and rejoiced when he sank into her all the way. She countered every thrust with a swirl of her hips, straining to capture the heat building like an inferno. The pleasure was so sharp Lacey couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even release the scream trapped in her throat. All she could do was wrap her legs around Rye’s lean waist and shove her aching center toward him.

He rode her pussy savagely, taking but at the same time giving. A mere conversation could not convey the level of emotion communicated by their writhing bodies. Need, want, hurt, and desire were all expressed in the most elemental of fashions, their actions the epitome of pure fucking. Nothing about Rye’s deep, frantic strokes resembled sweet lovemaking. The hoarse, fierce demands he made as he kneaded her ass had little to do with making sure she crossed the finish line and everything to do with dominating her. Of course after several stinging, erotic swats of his palm to her butt cheeks, she came anyway. Every pleasure cell in her body rose to the surface, and he stroked it. As she floated back from delirium, violent shudders racked his body, and she felt his cum spill high into her womb.

Trembling and out of breath, he gathered her limp form next to his.

“Rye, I—”

“Go to sleep, Lacey,” he said, his voice low and weary. “Later, we’ll talk about the fact that you don’t trust me.”

* * * *

The tension between him and Lacey was thicker than cold butter. When prompted, she spoke in a dry monotone, which irritated the hell out of him. He’d agreed they should keep their promise to attend a one-night-only performance of Ally’s sister’s ballet troupe. The intense bedroom session had made him slumber like a hibernating bear, but she awoke him with just enough time to get ready and leave.

After the show, they went backstage to congratulate Ava, and when Ally and her boyfriend, Micah, wanted to stay longer, Rye directed Lacey to the exit. As they made their way out of the packed theater lobby, he grimaced when a petite brunette smiled and waved at him. Great. Just what he needed.

“Hi, Rye,” came the cheerful greeting.

“Hi. This is my girlfriend, Lacey. Lacey, Charlotte.”

His gut lurched when Lacey extended her hand with a strained smile.

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing? I can see why Ryder is so smitten.” Charlotte pressed into him for a hug. It was a struggle not to jerk away. “Good seeing you,” Charlotte said before joining several other patrons.

The ride back to the brownstone was quiet and tense. By the time they stepped into the living room, his frustration reached all the way to China. His ire grew when Lacey took off her earrings in short, terse motions before she flung her purse in the closet.

“Is it possible to go anywhere in this city and not run into someone you’ve fucked, plucked, and/or sucked?”

Well, hell
. The low blow stung, immobilizing him. “Lacey, don’t look for trouble where there is none. Charlotte and I dated years ago. She was just saying hello.”

She arched one silky eyebrow. “Really? You must have talked to her recently, because she knew about me,” she pointed out. “I am so
fucking
tired of your women, Ryder.”

He was taken aback by her ferocity. He’d known a storm was brewing, but hadn’t expected such a large explosion. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”

“And I didn’t know you went for older women,” she continued.

“She’s in her late thirties, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“What would have happened if I hadn’t been there?”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Obviously her motive was to fuck you—again. She was handing you the opportunity. You tell me.”

He exhaled. “I can’t believe this shit, Lacey. Nothing happened. You were there. You saw the whole thing. What is this about?”

She kept right on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I was thinking maybe you’d take her up on her super friendliness and then sweep it under the rug like it never happened. Just like you did Natalie’s little antics. You lost your damn mind when you found out I had a friend over for dinner, but you haven’t said a word to me about having your arms around another woman. I saw the pictures.”

“Damn it.” He ran his hand through his hair, hoping the motion would help calm his nerves. “Nothing happened with Natalie or with anyone else if you can manage to believe me.”

“Believe what? We haven’t even talked about it!” she shrieked. “Why does everyone think I’m a child who can’t handle anything unpleasant? I’m not delicate. I will not break at mere words.”

He took a breath and fought hard to keep his cool. “No, but you also don’t have to fight every battle by yourself. I know you won’t break, but why can’t you allow me to take care of you?”

“Like you took care of Natalie? Like you would have taken care of Charlotte?” she asked with serious attitude just short of a neck roll.

Rye closed his eyes and tilted his face toward the ceiling. He needed strength. His strides full of purpose, he went to the hallway off the kitchen where he typed a few commands in the laptop on the desk. Within seconds he accessed his work e-mail and displayed a string of messages between him and George Hanover. Lacey followed him, looking over his shoulder. Her surprise was obvious when she learned Natalie had received a temporary assignment at the company’s architecture division in Canton, Ohio.

Lacey frowned once she finished reading. “How’d that come about?”

He sighed. “Too many things at the conference didn’t make sense. I laid into Paula for the change in my schedule, the pot was stirred, and she got IT and security involved. It seems Natalie was busy scheming. My phone wasn’t dropped in water; she pretended it was so she could get your information. She also made duplicates of my room key and had a coworker she’d been sleeping with take pictures of her and me. The ones she sent you.”

“It still doesn’t explain why they looked so intimate or why you had your hands on her.”

“I let her have my jacket when she said she was cold. I danced with her just like the rest of the guys danced with her and the other female engineers—no big deal. It looked intimate because the picture was snapped when she hugged me to thank me for the dance. She was stupid enough to document everything in the notes section of her phone, including her encounters with you. She embarrassed George and caused the other employee who already had two strikes to lose his job. George is a good man and my boss of fifteen years. He asked me to keep this quiet, so I did.”

“Couldn’t you have told me a little of this? Especially since you knew she sent those pictures to me?”

“Because I expected you to trust me. Would you have believed me without the e-mails as proof? And since we’re talking about keeping secrets, you didn’t bother to tell me Natalie threatened you. I had to find out from Hanover’s IT techs.”

Lacey sucked in her breath. “You had other things on your mind this afternoon when you got home besides talking, remember? Plus, it’s possible Natalie could have been bluffing. For the record, I do not believe you slept with her.”

He couldn’t help his scowl. It was better than exposing his heart, which was taking a beating. “But you believe with a little more ‘motivation’ I could have?”

“Yes,” she confirmed without hesitation.

“So you think I want to fuck every woman I see?”

“No. But I can tell when a woman wants to fuck you,” Lacey retorted, eyes flashing angrily. “Like the woman at the ballet or the park or the grocery store. Or every damn place we go. Kyle is right. You can’t change how easily getting women comes to you, and I shouldn’t expect it.”

He exhaled forcefully, and the effort seemed to burn his lungs. The pain of realizing Lacey’s lack of faith in him was overwhelming. “Are you kidding me? You’re holding me responsible for what
might
happen, even though I’ve shown you how much I want
you?
Need
you?
I need you, Lacey. You should know that by now.”

Lacey shook her head in several slow passes, her face a stony mask. “We’ve already lasted longer than you normally do with your women, which is only months. How long before the itch comes back and you decide to scratch it? Maybe that’s why you don’t mind the travel aspect of your job; it gives you the perfect excuse not to put down roots. I know it and you know it. We’ve been in denial.”

He was stunned. The words tumbling from her beautiful lips couldn’t be real. In total recall, he replayed his conversation with George Hanover yesterday. The one giving Rye official approval for the new technical training department he’d develop and manage—at home in Atlanta. His new position came with a set schedule and little travel. He didn’t share the news with Lacey. She was looking for a way out, and he wouldn’t be reduced to using this new development to beg her to stay.

“I never took you to be a coward, so come out with it,” he bit off.

“I don’t see how this can work,” she said. She crossed her arms in front of her chest as if erecting a barrier. “It’s not only the legions of women that concern me. I’m worried about how our being together is changing my entire life. I rarely spend time with my family or my friends anymore. There’s a true distance between my mother and me, and it hurts. I’m obsessed with charging my phone every second of every day because I’m paranoid about missing a call from you when you’re working in places where they have to pump sunlight. My brother has lost his best friend. For the first time in my life I want to physically harm people just for looking at you. I don’t even recognize myself these days.”

Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this
, he wanted to shout, but the words were stuck around the lump in his throat. With a few sharp phrases, everything he imagined they would build together splintered and was swept away as effortlessly as toothpicks in a tornado.

He cleared his throat and forced words through clenched teeth. “I didn’t realize you were so miserable.”

“And I become more miserable every time I’m confronted with some woman from your past who also wants to be your future. How am I supposed to handle this on a daily basis? I have a company to run and people to manage. I don’t have the time or energy to deal with your castoffs,” she said, further twisting the knife in his chest. “In fact, I wonder now if it was a mistake to stop using condoms. That was a huge step for me, and we probably should have kept that safety precaution in place. Just in case.”

The second cut was equally as devastating as the first, but this time at least he expected it. He supposed he’d get used to the pain at some point. That was a long way off. Now he was mad as hell. She wasn’t the only one who didn’t have time for this.

“Because I can’t keep my dick in my pants, right? I guess you have a point. Heaven forbid I expose you since I’m so likely to stray,” he said; then he fished his keys out of his pocket and ran the opening of one around the ring, in quick, repetitive motions.

She stood in the same spot where she’d been since they came through the door, still looking gorgeous in her formal gown.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked in a small voice.

“Making this easy for you,” he muttered, walking toward her. He stopped when he was close enough to see the golden striations in her chocolate eyes.
Goddamn she was beautiful
. Ignoring the searing pain of disillusionment under his ribs, he extended the cold, metal key toward her, and in a seemingly automatic reaction, she closed her fingers around it. Jaw slack, she looked up at him like he’d handed her a snake.

“The last thing I want is for you to be miserable. And ‘for the record,’ I never asked you to stay away from your friends and family, or to be glued to the phone. And because Kyle is sulking like a selfish child, I lost my best friend too. All I wanted was you, and I thought we were in the same place. I was mistaken.”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Maybe you’re right. Perhaps you know me better than I know myself. Maybe I can’t settle down and build a life with one woman, but guess what, Lacey? I’m damn sure going to try. I want to build my dream house on the lake, spend evenings swinging on the porch, and plant roots so fucking deep they’ll last forever. I want what your parents have and my parents have, and I’m going to keep looking until I find the woman who wants the same, who’s not afraid of losing control. Someone who trusts me. But don’t worry. I have no intention of bothering you with my problems anymore. Hell, it’s still early. I just might find her tonight,” he said before turning and walking out the door.