The Proviso (25 page)

“He was a loan shark,” Bryce breathed. Giselle could
feel the awe in his voice and she smiled. “So that’s how he made
his money.”

“He’ll tell you it’s because he’s never
borrowed
money in his life.”

“Good point.”

“So my mother thinks that Sebastian taking me in
hand so early has left me completely unmarriageable. Add in his
blatant promiscuity and all she really expects of me is to stop
sleeping with Knox.”

He laughed. “Well, I know you’re not unmarriageable
nor sleeping with Knox, so why haven’t you married?”

“I have a philosophy: If I can’t have exactly what I
want, I go without. I didn’t have anything left after my fire. No
clothes, no money, no furniture, no credit, no—” She caught the
flash of pain on his face and stopped. “Well,” she murmured, “you
know more about that than I do. So I decided to go with that and
stay as uncluttered as possible. I still don’t have much. I choose
my jewelry, my perfume, my clothes, based on my opinion of its
worthiness to be in my bedroom and I have very stringent criteria.
I choose my men the same way.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Men?”

“That’s my point. There aren’t any, haven’t been any
and it’s not just because I’ve been a good Mormon woman saving
myself for a temple marriage.”

“So what are you looking for?”

“Hank Rearden,” she said, clipped,
hopinghopinghoping he’d get that.

He gaped at her for a moment, aghast, then his eyes
half closed and he purred, “Really.”

She breathed a sigh of relief then, because he did
get it, and she wouldn’t have to get into details. “I see that name
rings a bell.”

“Indeed it does.” His mouth pursed, and Giselle
waited for him to continue. After a moment, he speared her with
those eyes. Oh! Those eyes! “Do you have
any
idea what that
really means?” he asked slowly, making it very clear to her that he
did know what it meant.

“I think,” she said, her words measured, “I may have
a clue now. What does it mean to you?”

He studied her, then murmured, “It’s everything I
need to know about who you are and what you want—and no, you don’t
know the first thing about it. But you’ll learn.”

And I’m the man who’s going to teach you.
Tonight.

It hung in the air as heavy as if it’d been said and
Giselle felt drugged, shot up with adrenaline and passion. Her
heart thundered. “Would you really have taken me home that night,
even thinking—?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said, immediate, sure, his eyebrow raised.
“To stake my claim.”

Giselle remained silent for a moment because she
didn’t want him to know what that had done to her. “What about your
temple covenants?” she asked carefully.

He shrugged. “I spent my entire life doing what I
was supposed to do, what I was told would make me blessed and
happy. Not only was I miserable in my marriage, I wasn’t even
blessed enough to keep my children. I hated everything about my
life, hated myself for trying to be exactly what I wasn’t. I have
nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

Giselle swallowed and looked down, fiddling with the
napkin she still held, because that was a terrible, terrible
conundrum.

Bryce said nothing for a long, long while and when
finally she raised her gaze, she found him staring at her
speculatively. He sat relaxed, his elbow on the arm of his chair,
his cheek resting on his fingertips.

Finally he opened his mouth and rasped, “I followed
you up the stairs and down into the tunnel.”

Giselle pulled in a soft, deep breath, her eyes
widening at the second reference pulled from
Atlas Shrugged
,
when the heroine lured her would-be lover down into a train tunnel,
where they consummated their relationship.

She could feel the heat gathering within her, that
same heat she’d had when she had lain on the ottoman with him,
under him, at his mercy. She bit her lip and continued to stare at
him, and he her.

“Galt,” she whispered, and then he smiled again:
slow, easy, wicked.

“That’s right. Do you remember when Francisco tried
to explain to Rearden the parallel between money and sex?”

“Yes.”

“He said, ‘The man who is proudly certain of his own
value will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he
admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer—because only the
possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an
achievement.’”

His face was inscrutable and Giselle couldn’t give
name to what went on inside her body. She never, ever wanted it to
stop.

He stared her down with those brilliant green eyes,
and Giselle swallowed, unable to do anything but breathe in long,
soft strokes and bite her bottom lip. She could feel his mouth on
her neck, her shoulder, down her arms. She could feel him inside
her, stroking her, but he was sitting across a table from her and
she’d never known a man inside her. He effortlessly seduced her
with mere words.

Bigger than me, huh? I can pick you up and toss you
over my shoulder.

Yeah, a lot of guys could do that. No one’s ever had
the balls to try.

Bryce Kenard did—and he’d succeeded.

To stake my claim.

She was his. She knew it.

He knew it.

Bryce went on quoting Rand, his voice growing more
hoarse with each word until he couldn’t vocalize some syllables.
“‘Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you
his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and
I will tell you his valuation of himself.’”

Giselle swallowed and said the only thing she could
think of. It came out in a whisper. “Why Galt?”

“Galt was superior to Rearden. In. Every. Way.”
Bryce didn’t smile, didn’t drop his gaze, didn’t do anything else
while he watched her struggle with what he’d done to her, continued
to do to her with each word that dropped from his tongue.

Suddenly, he threw his napkin down on the table and
stood in one rapid sweep of movement, growling, “Let’s go.” Once
he’d dropped a pile of cash on the table, he held his hand out to
her.

Giselle looked at his hand, then up at him, his face
serious and intense. If she allowed him to pull her out of her
chair, the last shred of whatever speck of virtue she had left
would slip away from her. She hesitated for a moment, but then
placed her hand in his and let him draw her up on her feet.

They emerged from the cool air into oppressive heat
and humidity. Here, there was no cooling off once the sun went
down, such as she’d come to appreciate when living in the heart of
the Rocky Mountains. The air here didn’t wash clean and crisp as it
did in Provo Canyon, in Utah Valley; instead, it was moist, heavy,
ripe, fecund.

Like Giselle.

He let go her hand and said nothing. She chose the
direction they went on purpose, toward her home, the one she shared
with Sebastian.

It was a little past midnight on a Saturday morning
and she worked the situation over in her head. She looked up at
him, but he didn’t return her look. He simply strolled along,
looking ahead. She knew his reasoning: He wanted to give her the
opportunity to think and say no without any more coercion or
seduction.

She halted him once so she could balance herself on
his arm to slip off her heels and loop them in her fingers, to walk
barefoot. It was a convenient excuse to touch him, to feel his
strength under her hand.

Giselle shouldn’t have hesitated to say no thanks.
It’d been drilled into her from puberty that one didn’t put oneself
in situations where temptation could take hold. He knew that as
well as she did. Yet she found herself curiously without conflict
about saying yes.

Everything she’d ever wanted had come true for her:
The shared faith, culture, language of Mormonism, regardless that
neither of them exemplified its teachings; that could be rectified.
The shared philosophies of Rand, of excellence, money, sex. The
shared political ideas and common goals and higher education.

But they were
strangers
and Giselle had a
problem with that. He wanted her. He wanted to conquer her, to take
her. She wanted him to. The thought both thrilled and terrified
her, because no man had ever had been able to keep her off balance
until this one, and she couldn’t decide if she wanted to get back
on track.

On the other hand, Knox had vouched for him. He
would know what kind of man Bryce Kenard was and wouldn’t send her
with a man who didn’t live up to his standards.

It took a long two blocks of silence before Bryce’s
patience ran out. He stopped abruptly, gripped her arm, and yanked
her around tight to his big body, his mouth in her ear, hot, raspy,
pounding:

“I want to fuck you, Giselle. Hard and fast. Once,
twice, a thousand times. I wanted to fuck you at Leah’s funeral. I
wanted to fuck you the night we met. I wanted to fuck you at the
museum. I’ve wanted to fuck you all night tonight. For two years I
haven’t thought of anything
but
fucking you. Do you
understand me?”

* * * * *

24:
HAMMER OF THE GODS

He released her as suddenly as he had captured her,
arms wide, stepping back. She trembled and drew a shaky breath as
she stared at him, sober, wary. She’d known the evening would boil
down to this decision, but not like
that
.

She throbbed from the intensity of her arousal.

This was audacious and strong, the first salvo in
his declaration of war on her strength, her will. She respected it,
responded to it. Her shoulders stiffened and her chin rose in the
air, ready for the challenge.

“We’ve spent a whole, what? maybe half a day total
with each other, if that?” she finally said.

“Yes.”

“This would be very stupid.”

“Yes.”

“If we do this, it’s done and there’s no going back.
I lose my virginity, you break your covenants. That’s possible
excommunication for me, but an absolute certainty for you.”

“Yes.”

For a few minutes more she stared at him and then
finally made up her mind. She spoke, her voice hard and her eyes
narrow.

“You don’t get the luxury of fucking me and leaving
me in the morning. You know the protocol as well as I do, so you
don’t get a pass. You stay with me until we’re mutually sick of
each other or we decide we can’t live without each other.”

It was his turn to stare at her while he thought.
After what seemed forever, he nodded. “Done.”

After one moment more of staring at him, attempting
to suss out any deceit or ulterior motives, she turned and
continued toward home, he beside her. A few feet later, she
snatched his hand to pull him into a run toward her house.

By the time they had reached the front door, they
were out of breath and he crushed her between his body and the
front door for a scorching kiss, his fingers wrapped in hers
against the door over their heads.

She needed this—brash and bold, powerful and
brilliant, exotic and hot-blooded—and oh! how he wanted her.

Giselle broke his kiss, turned and punched her code
into the keypad by the door, then opened it when it clicked.
Thundering percussion and operatic voices hit them when they
entered the house; the music shook the walls and the floor.

“What
is
that?”

“
Carmina Burana
,” Giselle breathed. “Let it
wrap around you and fill you.”

“Where’s it coming from?”

“Downstairs. Sebastian’s working.”

Leading the way to her bedroom, she closed the door
behind him. Then, suddenly unsure, she dropped her shoes and just
stood there, wondering what was next.

Not for long. Bryce knew exactly what to do.

There was no mindless fumbling for buttons and such.
In one smooth move, he slipped her jacket off, ripped the dress
zipper down her ribs, slid the straps off her shoulders, and let
the dress fall to the floor.

His gaze swept down her almost-nude body to see the
holster and weapon he surely must have felt when he’d grabbed her
and propositioned her. She bent to it and he growled, “Leave it
on.”

Giselle couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t
believe she would get exactly what she’d always wanted from a man
who would not hesitate to give it to her. And then some.

Leave it on.

She’d never imagined such a thing in her whole
life.

Bryce deftly unhooked the front of her strapless bra
and let it fall to the floor while lifting her so that he could
suck on her nipple. Giselle went limp. Her back arched and her head
dropped back.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he said, rough,
demanding, and she did that. He pressed his cock up into the V of
her legs, stopped only by two or three layers of fabric. “Feel
that?”

“Yes,” she whispered, barely able to think, much
less talk.

“You want it?”

“Yes.”

He lowered her just until her mouth was level with
his, her arms wrapped around his neck. One big hand cupping her
ass, he pressed her tight to him so she couldn’t forget how hard he
was. The other big hand cupping the back of her head, he pulled her
to him for a kiss.

It was nothing like any kiss she’d ever had, even
from him: hungry, hot, wet, nasty. He demanded her submission. His
tongue teased her lips and tongue mercilessly. He sucked her soul
right out of her. He
devoured
her and she ached in ways she
didn’t know she could ache.

Bryce carried her the two steps to her bed and
abruptly dropped her. She caught herself on her elbows, her legs
spread wide. She looked up, up, up at him, this enormous man who
wanted to fuck her and had told her so outright.

Giselle gasped when he bared his chest for her and
couldn’t help but bite her lip, then watch as his hands undid his
trousers. She stopped breathing when he revealed his long, hard
cock and he let his pants slide down his legs.