The Proviso (41 page)

Bryce continued to lick and suck at her ear, her
throat, her chin, her shoulder, her collarbone. Giselle panted and
she felt suddenly empty. She gasped over and over again with the
adrenaline that coursed through her, hot, loose, and clean.

His breath came short and fast, too. His mouth
trailed up her neck and again nestled in her ear.

She couldn’t stand the emptiness anymore. She had to
feel him inside her, moving, filling her, emptying her, emptying
himself inside her. She turned then, rising above him to her knees.
She stared down at him, he whose green eyes gleamed as he stared
right back at her.

She leaned down and in to kiss him, which he took
away from her again to direct and command her. She sucked in a
long, sharp breath and broke the kiss, standing to take off the
shorts she wore. His large shirt still hung from her shoulders,
over the bra that also hung.

“Take off your clothes,” she murmured, hard, her own
voice commanding. “I want to fuck you, Kenard.”

“No,” he returned as he swung around until both feet
were on the floor. He lifted his hips and ripped open the button
fly of his jeans, letting his cock free. She stared at it, at him,
wondering what he meant, what he wanted from her.

“You. Get naked,” he demanded, fast and harsh. “Me?
Not so much.”

“No,” she snapped. “You get me like this or you
don’t get me at all.”

His eyebrow rose and his mouth twitched, then began
to stretch in a smile. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed her
shirttails, jerking her so she fell on top of him, between his
legs. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, his fingers
cradling her head and forcing her to kiss him.

“Climb up here and spread your legs,” he muttered
against her mouth. “Sit. Down.”

She could feel his cock against her belly. She
didn’t know how much longer she could play this game before she
gave in. In this game, winning was losing; losing was winning. She
could play it for the rest of her life and not get tired of the
uncertainty of winning or losing. This erotic tug-o-war was
something she’d never really thought she’d get and she would enjoy
every second of it.

“I’ll do it when I’m damn good and ready to,” she
whispered against his mouth and he broke the kiss to laugh.

“You’re baiting me.”

She raised her eyebrow. “And you like that.”

“I’m stronger than you.”

“Prove it.”

He did. He ran his hands over her shoulders, down
her back, until he cradled her buttocks in his big hands. His
shoulders bunched under his shirt as he jerked her up and spread
her legs. She gasped and bit her lip, closing her eyes when he
positioned her, then dropped her on his cock, filling her. Hard.
Giselle’s head back, she cupped her breasts and panted.

“
Now
,” he said, lazing back into the couch
and lacing his hands behind his head, his face smug. “You may fuck
me.”

The feel of his jeans on the tender skin of the
inside of her thighs, the visual of his body fully clothed and hers
nearly naked—it was almost enough to make her come, but she wasn’t
interested in moving. She just wanted to feel him filling her,
stretching her. She rocked a little bit, ground a little bit, but
apparently it wasn’t enough to satisfy him.

“Giselle,” he said warningly, “move.”

“I decided,” she said between breaths, between her
rocking and grinding, “to fuck myself
on
you.”

That was when he grasped her hips, sat up and stood
all in a flash, forcing her to wrap her legs around his hips and
her arms around his neck, or fall. In three strides he had her
against a smooth wall, her head thumping back against the plaster,
one hand cupping her buttocks, the other wrapped around her wrists,
pinning them to the wall far above her head.

She came with his first thrust and matched him in
every one thereafter until he came, hard, inside her and filled her
the way she wanted to be filled.

“I guess,” he said as he kissed her jaw and neck
between breaths, letting go of her wrists, “that’ll teach you to
sass back at me.”

Giselle chuckled. “Yes, I intend to do more of
that.”

He laughed then, a great, rolling laugh that made
him move inside her. She came again unexpectedly and she clung to
him, crying out, as he laughed and laughed.

“Keep fighting me, Giselle. Keep fighting me.”

* * * * *

39:
THE STRENGTH IN YOUR HANDS

Bryce had arisen before she awoke. She smiled as she
grabbed his pillow and sniffed deeply. Once she had showered and
dressed, she went downstairs to find him.

She couldn’t and the house was quiet. Then she heard
water running, possibly from a garden hose, and the sounds of
squishing and metal on metal. She followed it out the back door to
the long veranda and saw Bryce, clad in short denim shorts and
steel-toed boots, most of his body exposed. His back to her, he
mixed mortar in a wheelbarrow with a hoe. Nearby were two pallets
of flat stones.

The muscles of his back and arms bunched and
unbunched under all those beautiful battle wounds. So. He was a
stonemason in his free time. She leaned against the column of the
porch, her arms crossed, and just watched him work.

He never turned around, never saw her watching him
while he worked the cement and sand and water, and she wondered if
he used this to exorcise some demons or frustrations. Troubled
then, as if she had peeped at something private, she went back into
the house to see what she could see and make herself useful.

She knew he had lemons because she’d made the
hollandaise sauce with juice she’d squeezed. She found some
strawberries to puree and use as sweetener. They’d sweeten it
enough for her, but probably not enough for Bryce, so she poured a
quart of the lemonade for herself, then dumped a cupful of sugar
into his jar and hoped she’d estimated well enough.

When she finally went outside with the glasses, she
saw him scoop mortar with a trowel, having begun his project while
she’d made the lemonade. He barely glanced up at her before
finishing his first course. She sat down on the top step of the
porch and sipped her lemonade, watching him heft stone with one
hand, slap mortar on it with the other, set precisely, and then tap
gently, patiently, until satisfied it lay perfectly.

No wonder his hands were so rough, so calloused. No
wonder he could lift her so easily and put her wherever he wanted
her.

Her arousal crept up on her as she watched him twist
and lift, set and level stone. She studied his hips and his ass and
the outline of his cock where it nestled in his groin, all covered
by a mere scrap of very tight, very revealing denim. She took a
long look at his musclebound legs that disappeared into white
socks, then the brown high-top boots. She sighed when she thought
of what that body could do to her and had done to her and what more
she’d like for it to do to her. What she wanted to do to it. She
couldn’t stop staring.

He was beautiful. And he was hers.

Now, for the first time, she actually studied how
much of his body was burnt, scarred, and grafted over. She couldn’t
imagine what kind of physical pain he’d suffered, much less
heartache over the loss of his family and the legal battles that
had loomed in front of him at the time.

She remembered the transcripts she’d read, the
criminal trial of the electrical contractor whose work could most
generously be described as shoddy and the city codes officer who’d
passed the wiring—for a price. He had recounted every excruciating,
horrifying detail for two juries.

How he had pulled three of his four children out of
his burning house, one dying in his arms from smoke inhalation and
the other two just days from death. How his oldest child, Emme, had
preceded him out and had fallen through the floor just in front of
him. How it had taken him every ounce of strength to keep himself
and his beloved cargo from falling into the same hole and to find
another way out. How his wife had died somewhere else in the house.
How he had been discharged from the hospital a year later, about as
perfect as they could make him, then arrested and charged with
arson and five counts of first-degree murder.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked quietly,
shaking her out of her reverie. He stood at the foot of the stairs,
one hand holding a trowel and the other wiping the sweat off his
mouth.

“You. Your body. Your fire.”

He grimaced as he climbed up the stairs and swung
himself around and down to sit beside her. He picked up the glass
meant for him and chugged most of it. “Thank you.”

“Too sweet?”

“Mmmm, coulda used a little more sugar.”

“I have a hard time gauging that. I haven’t
consciously had refined sugar in five years.”

“What about all that chocolate you licked off my
cock?”

“Food consumed during sex doesn’t count. Everybody
knows this.”

“Oh
really
?”

“Yes, besides, all that protein I swallowed canceled
it out, like pizza and diet Coke.” He burst out laughing then and
she smirked, happy that he was happy. “You didn’t tell me you
worked stone,” she said once he’d calmed a bit.

He shrugged. “Physical therapy. Plus, it’s the only
thing my dad and I did together that we both enjoyed. It’s
something of him I can hold onto.”

“You really loved him.”

“Yes. He was kind and gentle with everyone. He was
very proper. I don’t think I ever heard him raise his voice or
curse. My dad was the perfect example of what a Mormon man is
supposed to strive to be. Everyone loved him. Somewhere in my gut,
I always knew I was never going to be anything like him, but I
tried.”

“Knox said you were a very good father.”

“It’s different with your kids. They’re small,
helpless. The only thing I knew I’d do different from my dad was
not to expect them to be someone they weren’t.”

Giselle said nothing for a long while and neither
did he. “You know, good LDS men come in a lot of different
personalities. Take my bishop, for instance. He owns a construction
company and he’s kind of rough and gruff. He and I have very, ah,
interesting
conversations at times.”

Bryce slid her a look. “About what?”

“Um, well, I have a tendency to say what I think,
which occasionally doesn’t go over well with a few people in the
ward and they complain. He tells me I need to stop ruffling
people’s feathers, but then he asks me what I actually said to
ruffle those feathers and that’s when the theological games
begin.”

“Uh oh.”

“Exactly. He can be a real hard ass. At least, he is
with me sometimes. Now, maybe it’s just because it’s me that he
doesn’t see a need to go the kind’n’gentle route. But he doesn’t do
kid gloves very well even when he should. He hurts a few feelings
himself occasionally.”

Bryce pursed his lips and then said, slowly, “I’ve
never met a bishop who could be classified as a hard ass.”

“Takes all kinds. That’s my point.”

“I just can’t visualize that. My dad, he— He
wouldn’t have approved of a bishop like that.”

“Bryce,” she said hesitantly, “are you really okay
with this? With us not being married first?”

“I
wanted
it this way, Giselle. Are you
having regrets?”

“No, but you seemed so wistful about your dad that I
wanted to check and make sure.”

“What would your bishop say about us?”

She sat for a moment, quiet, her mouth pursed.
“Well, he knows me and he knows how much I’ve struggled being
single and attempting to be chaste—and for how long. He knows how
many other women in the church have the same problem. And before
you and I had sex, I never thought about how much
worse
it
must be for the divorced women and the widows.” She paused. “So,
yeah. For all he jumps down my throat for spewing unpopular
opinions, he’d understand. He wouldn’t like it, naturally, and the
hard ass in him would feel obliged to mete out some punishment, but
he’d understand.”

Bryce glanced at her then. “He would? Really?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“But would he understand your porn collection?”

Giselle gasped and shoved at him when he laughed at
her. “Cut that out. It’s not porn. It’s
literature
that
happens to be a little erotic.”

“Uh huh. He doesn’t know, does he?”

She flushed and buried her face in her drawn knees
when he laughed so hard he started to cough. Once he’d calmed a
bit, he tugged at her until she looked at him. He smirked at the
smile she worked to contain, but couldn’t. “I love teasing you.
Would you and your
literature
move in with me some time
today or tomorrow?” His amusement seeped away until only intensity
remained. “I need you here with me, not just in my bed, but here,
all around. Your clothes, your jewelry, your perfume, your stuff.
Your presence. I need to know you want to be with me, that you want
this to be your home. I feel like if you go home, you won’t come
back, that this was all a dream. Please,” he added, as if it pained
him to say it, as if he hated begging but would do so if only she
would stay. The pleading and pain and need had grown evident in his
face.

Giselle saw the man inside the warrior, who needed
her, who still ached and bled, no matter his protestations to the
contrary. She laid her palm atop the scars of his face and caressed
him. “You hurt.”

He hesitated. “Sometimes.”

She needed to know. “Were you hoping I could heal
you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I can’t heal your pain, Bryce,” she whispered. “I
can only promise that I’ll do my best to make you happy in the here
and now, in the future. I can’t take away what’s done, but I will
listen when you need to talk and I’ll snuggle with you when you
hurt. That’s all I can promise you.”