As You Wish (5 page)

“Tomorrow immediately after work in the potting shed.”

She lifted the flower to her nose, careful not to prick her finger on its talon-like thorns. The scent was stronger and sweeter than she remembered, but most of the roses she’d encountered were from florists.

Like the ones from David that she’d left on the nurses’ desk at the hospital. The ones she hadn’t even bothered to sniff.

She unlocked the door and stepped inside, stopping to read the note again. A sharp stab of anticipation struck her. She had been a little hungry on the way home, but now she felt starved for something other than food. Where was Ryan working today? Would it bother him if she hunted him down?

Pulling off her suit, she found a pair of denim shorts and a pink tank top. Usually she reserved her tank tops for wearing under other things, but after yesterday, she felt racier than usual. She’d never had much carnal interest and always assumed she wouldn’t. Hot blood and sweaty lovemaking were for people like Rita and Bruce Scalia.

Ryan had shown Patricia something she didn’t know she possessed. Leaning against the wall, she peered out the window. Below there was a broad patio of gray flagstones with a reflecting pond in the middle. Beyond that, the city spilled down one side of the valley and up the opposite hill.

What she needed was somebody with David’s respectability and Ryan’s sensuality. Somebody who sent her flowers because he wanted her to have them, not because he wanted everybody to see what a great guy he was. Somebody who would take her to her favorite restaurant even if it wasn’t centrally located, or maybe cook a favorite meal for her at home without anybody seeing.

She looked down.

Ryan was working on the back patio.

Patricia ran down the stairs, trying to slow herself before she crashed through the back door without opening it. She skidded to a stop, grabbing the door frame to stop herself before pushing the door open and stepping outside.

Ryan sat back and stretched his shoulders, flexing. Then he wiped his hands on his blue jeans. “Is there something I can help you with?” It was the old Ryan, impervious and distant. She had hoped that would have changed, but he must have been serious about not changing their relationship outside their meetings.

“I got your note,” Patricia said. “I’ll be there.”

He nodded.

“What are you doing?” She clasped her hands behind her back, knowing it thrust her breasts forward.

“Weeding.”

She studied the expanse of stone. The patio stretched all the way across the back of the house between the shuttered ballroom and the formal dining room. He must have been working on it all day. A lot of work for one man alone. “Can I help?”

“You’ll ruin your hands.”

“Oh.” She turned her gaze down so she would stop staring at his face. She wanted to see that smile again, the devilish one that promised so much and delivered. “Would you like something to drink? I have lemonade.”

He frowned. “No thank you, Princess. Why don’t you go back inside?”

Her disappointment canceled out the thrill at hearing him call her Princess, leaving her flat and uncertain. She turned away, wondering how to fill the time until tomorrow evening.

“Princess,” Ryan called after her. “I forgot to write something in my note.”

She turned back. “Yes?”

“Don’t wear stockings.”

“Stockings?”

“You just wear a skirt like you usually do, but don’t wear any stockings.”

Delicious expectation coiled in her belly. She nodded. He didn’t stop her again as she walked inside.

* * * *

Ryan sat sideways on the mower, watching for Patricia’s car through the open door. Yesterday when she’d come out to talk to him, he’d had to force himself not to take her down on the stones and tease her until she screamed. That tank top displayed the perfection of her strong, feminine shoulders and the inviting globes of her breasts. Real breasts. He remembered them under his hands, and they felt nothing like the Tupperware bowls some women sported these days.

He remembered too much of how she felt under his hands.

He checked his watch to distract himself. She was late. Generally, she pulled into the garage between half past four and five, unless it was one of her twenty-four-hour shifts, and she hadn’t said anything about that yesterday. Just after five now. She’d probably had some kind of emergency. She could be there for hours.

Had to be something like that. He didn’t want to believe she’d rethought this—that her natural well-born dignity had kicked in and reminded her she was consorting with servants.

This time he had a blanket ready, draped over the edge of the potting table. The idea had come to him yesterday while talking to her.

He’d prepared to show her a peak she’d never experienced, and she was late. She was out with a bunch of other doctors having drinks and talking about whatever doctors talked about in their spare time: sick people, golf scores, stock portfolios. If she thought of him, she just felt a little ashamed that she’d let him handle her at all. She was probably trying to forget she’d let his dirty, blue-collar hands near her lily-white skin. Or she was telling her pals about the risqué little adventure she’d had on the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe he’d get some business out of it. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Going right back to being somebody’s entertainment. A plaything. A toy to throw away when a better one came along.

The smooth purr of her Saab reached him. He stood, ready to slip out of sight. His groin tightened. He crossed the room and leaned on the table facing the door. Her car door slammed, and the frantic clatter of her heels on the concrete made him smile. She wasn’t out trying to forget the day before yesterday. In fact, she sounded like she thought he’d be annoyed that she was late. He forced his mouth into an impassive line and folded his arms.

Patricia appeared at the door, still carrying her briefcase. Her gray suit was rumpled with the heat. “I’m sorry I’m late. One of my patients is having surgery tomorrow, and I had to spend some time with her and the surgeon so she wouldn’t be so nervous.” She set the briefcase inside the door and rubbed her hands on her skirt.

“I don’t care,” Ryan told her, but he did. She had stayed late with a patient so the woman wouldn’t be afraid of a surgery tomorrow. That made her a good doctor and a kind person. If his mother had had such a good doctor, would she still be alive? He shoved the thought aside. “You didn’t arrive as I asked.”

She reached up and touched her coiled hair. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot in the rush.” She started pulling out pins, dropping them on the floor in her haste to please him.

Ryan’s chest warmed. She wanted this as much as he did. Her slender hands trembled, and a blush colored her cheeks. Her aloof demeanor scattered on the floor with the bobby pins.

“Should I undress?” She reached for the buttons on her jacket.

“I’ll tell you what to do, Princess,” he said.

Her hands fell away from the buttons. She shivered.

He watched her becoming more in his thrall by the moment. Her breath came in short gasps, and her entire body trembled, shaking her hair into a smooth blonde ribbon down her back. She kept her feet pressed side by side like she was being inspected. Her folded hands, held at her waist, trembled. If he kept staring at her, she’d break without him ever touching her.

As satisfying as that would be, Ryan didn’t want to wait. “I don’t have much time for you today,” he snapped. “Come here.”

Patricia crossed the room unsteadily. She stopped just within reach. He smelled her heady desire. She was already begging with her eyes and licking her lips.

He grabbed her by the nape of the neck and dragged her against him. Her soft lips parted under his onslaught. She reached under his shirt; her small perfect nails scored his flesh. He hadn’t given her permission to touch him, but her tiny fingers on him thrilled him. He cupped his hand around her behind, pulling her tight against his hot groin.

“Look what you’ve done to me,” he growled, shifting his assault to her slim throat. “You’re going to have to deal with it, Princess. You can’t get off free.”

“No,” she moaned.

“You’re lucky I didn’t decide to punish you yesterday on the patio.”

“You should have.” She clawed his back.

Too much liberty. If he didn’t provide the discipline she wanted, she wouldn’t come back. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away. “Are you scolding me?”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, Master. I only—I… Please punish me whenever you choose.”

Ryan cocked his head to one side, trying to appear calm while fighting to control his desire. Clenching his teeth, he reminded himself that what a client said during the session wasn’t necessarily true outside the session. No matter how much he wanted it to be. He reached out and flicked open the buttons of her jacket. “I’ll keep that in mind next time you bother me, Princess.”

“Thank you, Master,” Patricia said.

Ryan smiled. That was a nice thought to dwell on right about now. “Take off my shirt.”

She had to stand on tiptoe and stretch to get the shirt over his head. He admired her body drawn out in front of him. After she had folded the shirt and set it aside, Ryan grabbed her hand and pressed it to his chest. Her eyes widened as her fingers sank into the thick tangle of black hair there.

“I want you to use that pretty mouth of yours to please me. You can start here.” He shifted one of her hands until her fingertip grazed his aching nipple. She held his gaze as long as she could while she bent to touch her lips to his chest.

Ryan sucked in a sharp breath at the shock of her warm lips on him. Spirals of pleasure spun through him. The rasp of her dainty tongue sizzled through his nerves. None of his clients before had ever given him this kind of pleasure.

He ran his hand through her silky hair. Her fingers strayed across his abdomen, raising butterfly tremors. She moved her mouth across his chest, lips and tongue tasting his sweaty skin. He groaned when she reached the other nipple.

Up in her room, she had a big bed. He wanted to lay her down in it and taste her this way until she was crazy with desire. He wanted to see her soft hair spread on a pillow beneath him as he rode deep inside her. To hear her calling his name in ecstasy and hold her afterward while their bodies cooled.

But she would only do that if she loved him.

This wasn’t love.

Ryan pulled her up to his lips again. Through the fabric of her blouse, he closed his hand over her breast. Her nipple strained against his hand. She moaned into his mouth, reaching for him. He pulled back.

“Bend over against the table.”

Patricia gawked at the table for an instant and then up at him before moving to obey. He pushed her forward until her hips rested against the padded edge. She stood on her toes with her pink cheek pressed against the rough wooden surface.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

She obeyed, resting her wrists on the small of her back, leaving her palms facing up.

“Did you leave your stockings off all day, Princess?” he asked, reaching for the hem of her skirt. A client. Nothing more. He needed to keep that in mind.

“Yes.”

“Good. It pleases me when you follow my orders.” He pulled the skirt up over her behind. Her panties were damp. He pressed his finger on the cloth between her legs, earning a strangled moan from Patricia. “I considered telling you not to wear panties too. Would you have gone to work without panties if I had told you to?”

She moaned again. “Yes.”

He leaned over her, resting against her body. His erection pressed into the delicious valley between her thighs. “You know what I’m going to do to you, don’t you?”

“You’re not going to spank me, are you, Master?”

Her voice carried enough of a tinge of fear that he smiled. The thought of turning her sweet rear end rosy had crossed his mind, but he had already decided he didn’t want to do that today. “Would you like me to spank you?”

“I… N-no. Please, Master. Do whatever you wish.”

Ryan shifted, grinding himself into her until she groaned. Her willing obedience made him horny as hell. “I have other things I should be doing now. I should be mowing the front meadow. Maybe I’ll leave you here while I go do that.”

She sobbed, no doubt picturing the wide expanse of the front meadow and the hours it would take for him to mow it. “If it pleases you, Master.”

Ryan stepped back before he lost it. He had her now. All of her. He rested his hands on the tense muscles of her buttocks. Her skin was smooth and soft. She wore the same kind of lacy bikini underwear she’d had on the other day. Did she wear this kind of stuff all the time, or had she worn it for him today? He ran his finger under the leg band. “I think I’ll mow the front meadow tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Master.”

Ryan smirked. This was probably the only time she’d ever thank him for not mowing. “We still have the problem of this scrap of lace being in my way. I think I can fix it.” He reached down and pulled open a drawer.

She wasn’t facing the sound, so she had to shift to see him lifting a pair of shears. Her eyes widened and then squeezed shut. She trembled as he stroked the cold metal against her skin before slipping it under the fabric.

He’d sharpened them this morning for just this purpose, and they cut through the material like a shovel through loose soil. “I suppose I could have just taken them off, but this was better, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Master.”

Ryan watched her as he opened his pants and located the condom. She held herself still but for an insistent shiver of anticipation. He spread her legs, listening when her shoes fell off, clattering as her feet lifted off the floor. Then he moved forward, pressing into her tight, hot channel. “Is this what you want, Princess?”

She moaned, arching toward him. Her delicate hands clenched into fists behind her back.

He drove into her. Small, helpless noises escaped her with every thrust. Her body tightened around him. He felt himself being pulled into her. She clenched her hands into white-knuckled fists, arching higher.

“Oh! Ryan!”