“Greer.”
“Hmm.”
“You’re not going to sleep yet.”
Ryan watched her open one sleepy eye, lift her head to look at him vaguely and then let her cheek flop back onto his chest.
“Ryan. I am asleep. You make a very good mattress,” she murmured.
“Thank you.”
“Am I cutting off your circulation?”
“Sweetheart, you cut off my circulation around three hours ago.”
“You should have said something.”
“Why? I want you just where you are.” His palm trailed a lazy path down her bare spine. “Now, don’t drop off again. We have unfinished business.”
The woman sprawled across his body like an abandoned waif had been exactly the sensual lover he’d known she could be. Actually, she’d proved an incomparable hedonist. She loved touching, and being touched.
But she certainly didn’t wake up easily. Even when his finger trailed up her side and she jerked away from his tickling, all he got was a momentary dour scowl and a sleepy yawn. “Business,” she echoed vaguely. “Actually, we do have business, don’t we? You never did say how you happened to be here. How you knew about Ray, why you drove all this distance-”
“Not that kind of business. We can talk about all that tomorrow. I meant important stuff.” Locking his arms around her, he rolled her over and stole the pillow from behind her head, tossing it on the floor.
Her eyes looked up at him disbelievingly. “You can’t still have the energy.”
“I didn’t hear you say it.”
“Say what?”
“I want to hear you say how beautiful you are. I want you to say, ‘Ryan, I am a very sexy lady and I’m not embarrassed about it.’” His lips brushed hers fleetingly. “You are beautiful, you know.”
“Ryan.”
“The thing is, I need to know that you feel beautiful about yourself.”
She parted her lips and then hesitated, her eyes luminous on his, fully awake. “It was you,” she whispered. “It’s the way you make love to me, the way you make me feel.”
He shook his head. “Nice. Not good enough, but nice.” His palm cupped her breasts, then slipped down her stomach to the parting of her thighs. She responded immediately, her arms sliding around him, pulling him closer. “Are you going to say it for me?” he whispered.
“I can’t say something like that. I’d sound like an egotistical maniac.”
He sighed. “In some ways, you’re an extremely slow learner. You’ve obviously completely missed what I was trying to teach you. We’ll have to try again.”
“Will we?” she asked wryly.
“And you’re not going to get any sleep tonight until you tell me how beautiful you are.”
“I haven’t gotten any sleep so far. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of difference,” she whispered wryly.
She was wrong, she discovered very quickly. Ryan had made love to her in ways she’d never thought of, seeking ways of giving her pleasure that had left her breathless, and tearful, and exultant. Her body seemed to belong to someone else. She was sensitive where she hadn’t known she was sensitive, responsive in ways she’d never believed she was responsive.
He hadn’t once claimed his own satisfaction. In some mystical way, as he knelt over her, as he probed that core of her in the timeless way of man and woman, she looked into his eyes and knew he still wasn’t claiming her for his own pleasure.
She forgot the thought for a minute. He felt infinitely good inside her. She shuddered everywhere, within, without, all over, as he slid in and out in a slow, lazy rhythm. A rush of sweet yearning started to build, and his rhythm changed, quickened, feeding the greedy sensuality he’d taught her earlier.
“Tell me,” he whispered.
He lifted her closer to him, his palms on her bottom encouraging a deeper fit. He filled the hollow inside her, a hollow that seemed to reach as far as her heart.
She’d already discovered he was a man without mercy, but this time she also discovered that Ryan could be a heartless tease. The pleasure he’d given so freely he now withheld. He touched with love and he touched with tenderness, one moment claiming her as a pagan would claim his captive after battle, the next soothing her with a sensual serenade in which his movements were the rhythm and his whispers were the melody. He urged her to feel. Everything.
She felt. Everything. And he would completely withdraw just when she was certain the pinnacle loomed before her. Her body grew as slippery as his, feverishly hot, yet the man refused to yield control.
“Tell me,” he whispered.
“I’m beautiful,” she hissed desperately.
“Exquisite.”
“Exquisite.”
“Incomparably sensual. And loving it.”
She gathered she was supposed to repeat that, too. She raised her head, sealed his mouth closed with her own and sent her fingernails running down his spine.
After that, there wasn’t much talking.
Chapter Twelve
“So you have the right to press charges, ma’am.” Greer stared in confusion at the polite uniformed officer standing in front of her with his hat in his hand. “I still don’t understand,” she said uncertainly.
Bright sunlight was pouring in the windows of Grant’s office. It was one o’clock on Friday afternoon. Grant was sitting behind his desk, looking at her, and Marie was pacing by the windows, furiously trying to send some message to Greer with hand motions.
“The most he’ll likely get is a fine. Nuisance calls are only a misdemeanor. Also, nobody seems to have seen him since last night. I’m not saying that he’s necessarily skipped town, but his place looks pretty empty of clothes and other personal things. We can probably track him down, but we need to know for sure whether or not you want to press charges. Miss?”
Greer saw Marie frantically nod her head, but she pushed her hands in the pockets of her dirndl skirt and leaned back against the wall. “No,” she said quietly.
Grant rose from his chair to escort the policeman out a few moments later, then closed his office door on the way back in. “Sit down, Greer,” he suggested.
Gratefully, she sank into the chair closest to his desk. Her legs felt numb. Actually, her whole body felt numb. “I can’t believe Ray was the one who made those calls,” she murmured. “I just can’t believe it.”
The whole morning had been disastrously confusing, partly because she’d had very little sleep. Ryan had had none at all; he’d left the hotel in Charlotte at five to drive back to work. She couldn’t drive back with him; there were still a few ends to clean up from the trade show, and she had her car besides. Ray had disappeared, but she hadn’t expected to walk into work this afternoon and discover he’d been fired. And before she’d had the chance to level a single question at Grant, the policeman had called from the lobby. She was still trying to absorb one shock, and then there was another.
Marie bounced in front of her, jangling bracelets dancing on her wrists as she pointed a scolding finger at Greer. “When I think of what that man put you through,” she said viciously, “I could kill him. And you. You should have immediately called us after what happened at the trade show. And pressed charges.” Still clucking like a mother hen, she whirled behind Greer to her husband’s credenza, immediately bringing back a cup of hot tea for Greer.
Greer put both hands around the warm cup gratefully, took a single sip and set it down. With haunted eyes, she stared at Grant. “I made him lose his job?” she said quietly. “I can’t seem to get any of this straight. He actually told you what happened in my hotel room? And he admitted the truth about the phone calls besides?”