Third Chance (4 page)

Ryan wanted to kiss that bit of sparkle, but the vibes Emma was putting off weren’t conducive to romance. Everything about her body language screamed discomfort and tension. Instead of sitting in the chair next to hers, he took a seat on the wide, oversized bench of the covered porch swing. It was actually more like a rocking futon than a swing, but it was comfortable as hell and he’d always found it soothing to sit out here and watch the water.

“Come here, sweetheart.”

It took Emma a moment to drag her eyes from the water to Ryan and his heart ached as her lower lip trembled. “Okay.”

Ryan drew her onto his lap as best he could while not pissing off his arm, then sighed when Emma wrapped herself around him and burrowed her face against his neck. For a long while they sat like that, swaying gently on the swing while Emma nuzzled into Ryan and he returned the favor, gently petting her until she eventually relaxed. She was tracing the edge of the tattoo on his biceps when she finally broke the silence.

“It makes me sick.”

“What does?”

“The idea that someone was watching me, intruding on all my private moments, spying on me. It is such a horrible, terrible feeling of violation, and I hate it. Hate how
weak
it makes me feel, how
dirty
.”

The loathing in Emma’s voice struck Ryan like a physical blow, and he tried to swallow back the shadows of guilt that panged through him at the thought that he’d violated her privacy as well by spying on her at work, even though his intent was nothing but good.

Helplessness and frustration at his inability to fix this mess had him tightening his hold on her. “You are not dirty. You are everything that’s good in this world.”

Emma sucked in a quick breath, then let it out with a shuddering sigh. “This is such bullshit.”

“It is.” Ryan kissed the top of her head then rubbed his lips against her forehead. “But I promise I’ll do everything I can to catch this asshole.”

The soft press of her body began to stir feelings in him that went well beyond the desire to comfort her. In an effort to not come off as the world’s biggest asshole, Ryan eased his hips over to the side and tried to will his semi-hard dick to calm down. Unfortunately, Emma wiggled right back, and his semi- became a full-on erection.

He knew she noticed because her breath caught and she tilted her face up to his with a small smile. “Good to see you’re making a recovery. How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” He gritted his teeth when she began to run her fingernails over the skin on his thighs that was exposed by his shorts.

When her clever fingers slipped beneath his shorts and began to caress his inner thigh close to where his balls were drawn up tight, a tingle raced from the base of his spine to his cock. “Fuck.”

A moment later, Emma’s lips met his in a searing kiss that was all wet heat and hunger. Her fingertips were so close to his erection now that Ryan swore he could feel the heat of her skin, and it took a great deal of self-control to keep from thrusting into her touch. The breeze blew a strand of Emma’s hair across his face and he lost himself in the glory of her, in the sheer perfect fit of their bodies as they tasted and teased each other. When Ryan stroked his hand over her shoulder and down Emma’s back she shuddered sweetly for him, but when he began to edge her shirt up she froze, then shoved herself off him so fast that she almost stumbled and landed on her ass.

“What the fuck?”

She took one step away, then another, a look of panic and confusion twisting her normally calm features. “I can’t. Please, I can’t.”

With that, Emma turned and fled into the house and Ryan followed hot on her heels, determined to find out what the hell was going on. He followed her as she darted past the kitchen, then into the study. Once there, she drew the thick curtains closed with harsh jerks and began to cry.

“Fuck, Emma, what’s going on?”

To his surprise, she rounded on him not with the sadness he expected, but rather with anger.

“This is bullshit! I was out there, kissing you, feeling good and enjoying you, then all of a sudden my brain decided to remind me that he could be watching me right now, watching us. That this beautiful private moment was possibly being witnessed by the man who tried to kill you. That I’m not safe, that no one is safe, that—”

The hysterical tone in Emma’s voice was reaching a high pitch that alarmed Ryan, so he shut it down the best way he knew how, by kissing her with everything she had. He ignored the angry twinge in his shoulder as he gathered Emma to him, his good hand grasping her by the back of her neck as he kissed her over and over, seducing her mouth until the stiffness of fear had left her delicious body, until her hands were roaming his stomach then tugging at the waistband of his pants. The moment Emma’s clever fingers reached beneath the band and stroked his cock, Ryan moaned low and deep.

“That’s it, Mistress, take what you want.”

She cupped his balls and gave them a gentle squeeze that had him flexing his hips and rocking into her touch. “You’re mine, aren’t you, Ryan? Mine to do with as I wish, mine to play with, mine to control?”

The tremble in Emma’s voice on the last word managed to penetrate the fog of lust clouding Ryan’s mind. Of course, for a woman like Emma, the loss of control that came with being stalked must be torture. Suddenly, he knew what he could give her that no one else could, what he could do to fight her demons. He could give her complete control.

With that in mind, he took a step back then went to his knees, his eyes locked with hers. “All of me, Emma. Every drop of blood, every beat of my heart, every breath in my body belongs to you, because I trust you to take care of it.”

She closed her eyes and a few tears escaped, trailing down her cheeks while she took in a deep breath. “Oh, Ryan. Come here.”

Ryan shuffled to her on his knees and was rewarded with a hot flare of desire chasing away the shadows in Emma’s eyes. Instead of ordering him to do something to build the arousal between them, she took a step closer and gently rested his head against the divine softness of the cradle of her hips and lower belly. For a moment Ryan tensed, wanting to be the one to comfort her, to take care of his Emma, but then he realized that she needed to reassure him, that she needed him to let her do this.

As soon as Ryan laid his head fully against Emma and gave her more of his weight, she let out a soft, shuddering sigh and began to stroke his head where his dark hair had grown long enough to almost be past the prickly stage.

“Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “Thank you for being there for me and thank you for letting me stay at your house. I don’t know what I can do to repay—”

He not-so-gently bit her hip, startling a squeak out of her. “I don’t want to hear about you repaying me. I love you. This is what people who love each other do.”

She sighed, then scratched her nails lightly over his head. “Ryan—”

“Can you cook?”

“What?”

“Can you cook?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Good, then if you want to repay me, cook dinner four nights a week. My housekeeper handles the other three and when I get busy with work sometimes I forget to eat, so I just grab whatever crap is on hand or skip dinner entirely. I can’t do anything more complicated than boiling spaghetti and throwing a can of sauce on it, so if you could cook for me that would be a big help.”

Ryan’s housekeeper actually cooked all of his meals and made sure his freezer was stocked with dinners he could just defrost and eat, but Emma didn’t need to know that.

“Ryan, I can’t just laze around the house all day.”

“You don’t have to. Use that time to look into school, or send out your resumé. I want to help you achieve everything you’ve dreamed about, Emma. I want you to be happy. Please.”

Once again she sighed, but when Ryan looked up at her the light, the warmth in Emma’s gaze sent a hard bolt of affection through him, making his breath catch.

“It’s too much.”

Knowing that Emma was going to argue with him, Ryan decided to let it slide for now. He had plenty of time to convince her that life with him would be so much better than without him, if she would just give him a chance. The scent of the light floral fabric softener she used filled his nose as he pressed his face closer to her softness, the feeling of coming home intensifying until he was clinging to her. Underneath her ball-busting strength she was still human, still vulnerable. He swore that he would do everything he could to make sure that her stalker was found and dealt with so his Mistress didn’t have to waste one more moment fearing for her safety.

Chapter Three

Two and a half weeks later

Emma stood three steps away from Ryan’s deep kitchen sink with an empty wineglass in her trembling hands. Fear had her rooted to the spot and she struggled to draw in a full breath as the sunlight streaming in warmed skin below the hem of her knee-length, flowing white skirt. Panic tried to claw at her, to make her flee the room, but she tried to damndest to think past the rapid beat of her heart and focus, really focus on the window over the sink. A normal, everyday window that looked out over Ryan’s beautifully landscaped back yard down to the glimmering edges of the water.

Nothing nefarious out there.

It was a calm, lovely, peaceful late-afternoon scene, a view that wouldn’t look out of place in one of those high-end home-and-garden magazines, but to Emma, it represented nothing but danger.

Someone could be out there, right now, waiting for her, watching her, hoping that she’d come close enough to the window so
he
could see her.

On some distant level, she knew this pulse-thundering fear was all a product of her messed-up mind trying to cope with the trauma of finding out someone had been stalking her, but that didn’t make the need to flee and hide any less real. It took all of her iron will to take another step forward, the pink nail polish that Ryan had painted on her toes last night sparkling in the light. Her palms began to sweat, and she really hoped she didn’t drop the wineglass from her now-numb fingertips.

Anger flared within Emma, anger over her own weakness, over her inability to just get over it. People had been through a lot worse than she had and gone on to live normal, paranoia-free lives. Unfortunately, no matter how strong she tried to be, her anxiety over someone watching her whenever she left the house had now intensified to the point where she was no longer comfortable even in the home when the curtains were open. All Emma could imagine every time she looked out was how vulnerable she was, how someone could be watching her right now with a pair of high-powered binoculars, watching her slowly fall apart over the simple task of putting an empty wineglass in the sink.

Taking the last two steps to cross the floor to the counter took a monumental effort, and Emma had to close her eyes to keep her darting gaze from searching Ryan’s land for a hidden threat. Logically, she knew there were four well-armed, well-trained men patrolling the property at all times who were all in communication with each other, and if she needed them, all she had to do pick up her phone and they would be there in an instant. So far, Emma’d been able to resist the urge to call them about every bush that trembled with the movement of birds or animals and every tree branch that swayed in the wind, but that didn’t mean her overactive imagination didn’t insist that her stalker was trying to find a way to her.

“Emma?”

A little scream escaped her at the deep rumble of Ryan’s voice and the wineglass slipped from her fingers, shattering into a million glimmering fragments when it hit the bottom of the sink.

“Shit!”

She reached down to pick up the shards, but Ryan was there before she could touch one, grasping Emma’s wrist and pulling her hand away from the counter.

“Careful,” he whispered as he drew her back into his arms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

An involuntary shudder raced up Emma’s spine, then she clenched her jaw, both taking comfort in Ryan’s solid presence and battling with the need to shove him away from the windows. If she’d become paranoid about her own safety as a result of the attack, she’d become insane about keeping Ryan safe. The urge to protect him was so strong that Emma couldn’t fight the need to drag Ryan a few steps deeper into the kitchen, out of the direct line of sight of the windows. She didn’t resist when Ryan gathered her to his chest and placed his lips against her temple, the soft linen of his pale-blue shirt contrasting nicely with the deep-charcoal dress pants he wore. He’d spent some time in his office today with Justan, and she’d handled his absence okay for most of the time, but the last few hours had been hard, and she’d ended up drinking half a bottle of wine in an effort to calm down.

Over the last two-and-a-half weeks, Ryan had done everything he could to make her feel safe and welcome in his home. He’d showered her with love and affection, bought her a tablet and a two-hundred-dollar gift card to an online bookstore so she wouldn’t get bored while he was at work, and had generally spoiled the hell out of her. As if that weren’t enough, Justan came by every other day to check on her, and annoy the hell out of her. That man knew how to push her buttons, but Emma’d never failed to notice that once he got her snarking back at him, a satisfied look would come over him. It didn’t take a mastermind to figure out that he was baiting her to snap her out of her dark mood.

It also didn’t hurt that Ryan’s place was roughly eight times the size of her crappy apartment, and filled with beautiful things and comfortable furniture.

Ryan made his home so safe for her that she didn’t want to leave it…ever.

Fuck.

“I’m so glad you’re home.”

“I’m glad I’m home too, sweetheart, but when I came into the kitchen you looked as if you’d seen a ghost. What has you so spooked? Did the police give you some new information?”

“No. Officer Daniels called to say that it looks as if everyone in my building is cleared from being my stalker. They’re moving onto my work now, and he wants to come over to talk to me sometime in the next few days about the case.”