Taming the Fire (15 page)

“Don't make me have to bind your ankles too.” He ran his palm up and down her leg. “Though apparently, I like doing that, so maybe I'll do it anyway.” He squeezed her thigh, knowing the Ryan in the DVDs would be rougher, but her skin was so smooth, so soft… he didn't want to bruise her. Not even to spank her like he'd threatened.

Dammit, what was wrong with him? His body was willing—his cock was hard as a steel pipe—but his brain was screaming that this was all wrong.

Fury shot through him as the last eight months came crashing down on him. According to Itor, he was a cruel, abusive, amoral scumbag. He'd lost Ulrika. He'd lost his memory. He'd lost his fucking mind.

He had to get it back. The only way he could think of doing that was to do what he supposedly used to like, and if that meant bondage and pain, then so be it. Besides, the anticipation of being inside Coco's hot little body gave him all the inspiration he needed.

Roughly, he shoved her skirt up and practically drooled at the sight of her tight pink boyshorts. He'd never seen anything so sexy. The soft cotton outlined the hills and valley of her sex, and when he pulled her thighs apart as far as he could between his legs, the tiny pearl of her clit pushed up against the fabric. He nearly groaned. Fucking her wouldn't be enough. He wanted to taste her, to make her scream while he tongued her deep and hard.

No
.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. That wasn't how he used to work. He made women suck him while they were bound. He fucked them while they struggled against their bonds. He never went down on them. At least, he hadn't in any of the videos. Oh, they came… they always came, but only while being fucked by his dick, or a dildo, or the handle of a flog.

That was how he'd play it with Coco. Maybe the rough stuff would spark a memory.

“You ready, little thief?” He reached into his jacket pocket and removed his Ka-Bar Mule. The folding knife flipped open with a soft scrape of metal that nearly drowned out Coco's sudden breath. “Hold still… I don't think I'm into blood play.” He winked. “But I'm willing to find out.”

Contrary to his words, he carefully slid the flat of the blade inside the leg opening of her boyshorts at the hip, and with two flicks of his wrist, he cut them away, and then it was his turn to feel the catch of his breath. She was beautiful, all open to him, her slit glistening through a soft, thin veil of dark curls.

His hand shook as he closed the knife and slipped it back into his pocket, next to the condom he'd stuffed in there earlier. He flipped the packet onto the floor next to her and released his straining erection. It kicked free of his fly as if it couldn't wait to get inside her, and yeah, no more playing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had sex, because he hadn't been with a woman since he lost his memory.

“Please don't do this.” She tried to jam her knees into his groin, but he pinned her legs with his while rising up to cover her.

“You'll love it,” he growled, and took her breast in his mouth, sucked it through the thin fabric of her blouse. No bra. Nice.

It took a moment to realize that the fight had gone out of her. She lay there beneath him, trembling, a tear squeezing between closed lids.

He should be getting off on her anxiety. Fuck. Now he was really pissed. “Dammit, Coco, what the hell is wrong with you? You're not some fucking nun I abducted from a convent. You're a goddamned criminal wanted by several international agencies. So don't give me the innocent little flower act. Are you upset because I didn't spank you first? Shove a gag in your mouth? Because all that can be arranged.”

She turned her head to the side and shook even harder. Seeing red, he grasped her chin and forced her to face him. “Look at me.” When she didn't open her eyes, he raised his voice.
“Look. At. Me
. What is your deal?”

Her eyes popped open, and his heart took a dive. Pain swirled in them, pain and sadness and fear. “I just… I didn't want to… to…”

“To what? Spit it out.” His words were harsh, but his voice had lost its edge. Appropriate, since he'd lost his erection too.

“To lose my virginity this way,” she whispered.

A sucker-punch of oh-shit hit him right in the gut. “You can't be,” he rasped. “Ah, fuck…” He trailed off, because he believed her, and oh, man, what had he been about to do?

I'm a virgin. Do you still want to meet me?
The words flashed in his mind, but not in his ears. In his memory. Typewritten words on a computer screen.

Where had that come from?

“Ryan… please…”

Rattled to the core both by what he'd been about to do and the strange, broken fragment of memory, he scrambled off her, panting, his head spinning. With clumsy fingers, he released her from the cuffs and then got as far away from her as he could. “God, I'm sorry, Coco. Shit, I'm sorry.”

She stared at him like he'd grown a snout, but he had to give her credit: she calmly tugged down her skirt and then tucked her legs beneath her to sit quietly. She didn't move away, but then, where could she go?

M
EG GAVE HERSELF
credit, knew she appeared much calmer than she was. She could still feel the heavy weight of the bonds on her wrists—the delicate undersides showing a pattern of blue-black braceleted bruises. She rubbed at them with the opposing thumbs, as if they were mere smudges she could get rid of and thought about how close she'd come to being violated.

“I'm sorry—I hurt you. Shit.” Ryan ran his hands through his hair. They shook. “You can go, Meg. I'll call you a car—get you a plane back home where I found you.”

“That wasn't home.” She wondered if he would've gone through what he'd planned if she hadn't announced her virginity. In her near-panic, she'd noted a hesitancy, but since she'd never gone quite as far with any guy—not even close—she could've just been missing the signals.

I'm a virgin. Do you still want to meet me?

Do you know what a turn-on that is, to know I'll be the first—the only—guy to have ever touched you, the only guy to ever make you come?

“Meg, look, I don't know what I was thinking. I mean—fuck, this is hard to explain. But that guy who just did that to you—it wasn't me. It's supposed to be, but it's not.”

He wasn't making sense, but he was contrite. Completely and utterly devastated too, by the look on his face.

None of this made any sense. “I stole from you. You're angry…”

“No.” He shook his head hard. “That's not it. I'm supposed to like that stuff… and I don't. I was supposed to get turned on by hurting you. And I was turned on—fuck, I was turned on. I wanted to have sex with you—but not like that.” He lowered his head into his hands. “You should go. You need to go.”

She certainly wasn't going to argue, and moved quickly to grab her bag. Her feet were still asleep and she ignored the pins-and-needles pain as she headed to the exit.

She was out the door when she heard the heavy thud, turned from habit and saw Ryan on his hands and knees on the floor holding his head in his palms.

Go
, she told herself fiercely.

Ryan groaned and she dropped her bag and walked back to him. She sank to the floor next to his prone body and spoke softly. “Ryan…”

He was unresponsive, his fingers digging into his scalp, his eyes screwed shut—his face bearing the obvious mark of severe pain.

“Ryan,” she tried again. “What's wrong? Is it a migraine? Is there medicine I can get you?”

He still didn't answer.

“Ryan, look, maybe I should call an ambulance—get you to a doctor.”

With that, his hand shot out, circled her wrist with an iron grip. “No doctor.”

“But you can't move. Shit.” She looked into his eyes, darkened with pain, the pupils dilated. “Tell me what to do.”

“There's nothing… just have to lie here until the pain goes. Old injury from some bad people.”

She needed to leave this place and the man who'd almost raped her. But he'd stopped himself. Hadn't hurt her.

The guilt of what she'd done to him—of what he'd become over the past five years—overwhelmed her. “I'm staying with you, then.”

“Don't. Get out of here. I may be a bigger bastard than I think I am.”

“Somehow I don't think so. Does this happen a lot with your head?”

“Yes.” He lay down on the floor of the plane and began to rub his temples. “For as long as I can remember. Which is only the past eight months.”

Wait a minute. The man had amnesia?
Suddenly it made sense now, the way he hadn't been able to remember her or anything about the stolen money.

“What happened to your memory, Ryan?” She rubbed his head where he'd been clutching it and he groaned in appreciation.

“It hurts there—always hurts right there,” he mumbled. “They told me it was a traumatic brain injury. I was in the hospital for a long time—almost didn't make it. Docs tried everything to get my memory back but I've only got the past eight months.”

“Who are you? What do you do for a living now?”

His eyes were focusing better, the pupils smaller. “It's better you don't know. You don't want to mess with the people I mess with.”

“I think I already have,” she murmured.

“You might want to stop, then.”

“You were really going to let me walk away just like that, after all the money I took from you?” she persisted.

“I don't know what you did to me. I don't know what anyone's done to me. Don't know if I've got a mother or where I grew up or if you really took money from me or some other guy named Ryan. Fuck, I don't even know if my name is Ryan Matthews or not.”

“It's Ryan Malmstrom,” she said. “At least, that's what you went by before.”

He repeated his last name, over and over again, as if testing its fit. “How do you know this—any of it?”

Her throat tightened. “I stole money from you.” She wanted to keep the intimate details of what had happened between them to herself for the time being. The fact that he didn't remember that part was both humiliating and a relief. Soon enough, he'd remember dumping her—and she'd have to admit she stole the money because he'd hurt her. “I'd tried several times before to take money from you but I was never able to crack your code.”

“How long ago?” He was no longer on the floor, but rather in front of her on his knees now. “Please, this is important.”

“The first time we met was almost six years ago. I took the money a year after that.”

“Can you tell me anything else you remember about me then? Anything I told you?”

You told me you loved me—that I was special. That you were going to make me call out your name when I came with your cock inside of me
.

She drew a deep breath and tried not to let her voice shake. “You told me… you said you would kill me with your bare hands if we ever met in person.”

R
YAN PACED
the length of the plane, Meg's words ringing through his aching head.
You said you would kill me with your bare hands if we ever met in person
.

Had he meant it? Probably. The Itor files he'd read had painted a gruesome picture of his life, his job, his hobbies, and the photos attached to the mission reports had confirmed it. He was a violent criminal with no conscience.

She'd planted herself in one of the seats, but he had no idea why. He'd said she could go. For her own safety, she should go. Before he hurt her.

“I might be able to help you,” she said, and he whirled around, mid-stride.

“Why? Why would you want to help me after I kidnapped you, bound you, and then practically…” He couldn't say it. “Just go.”

“And that will help both of us, how?” She tossed her head and gave an imperious little sniff he shouldn't think was cute but did. “You don't know who you are, and I don't know where we are.”

“We're in London.” He sighed. “I had a job. Fucked it up.” He felt in his jacket pocket for the remote to Ulrika's collar. It was about time to check on her again. “Just be quiet for a minute, okay?”

She shrugged and flipped open her laptop. “Whatever.”

Ryan kept one eye on her computer screen to make sure she wasn't e-mailing the police—or her brother—for help, as he turned on the remote. Instantly, his vision filled with the interior of a vehicle. Rain on the windshield. The guy who had been at the club was driving.

Ulrika was staring out at the road… the M3. They were on the move. A road sign showed the distance to Winchester. So they were heading west. Time for Ryan to get moving.

He flicked off the remote, wincing at the twinge of pain behind his eyes. Ever since the accident, he felt pain whenever he used his electrokinesis. But then, maybe he experienced pain before as well.

“I need to rent a car,” he said. “I'll drop you off wherever you want.” She didn't answer, just kept her fingers and gaze glued to the laptop, where she was playing a game of solitaire, and on the verge of winning.

“I never had the patience for that game,” he muttered.

She looked up, her eyes glittering with impending victory. She looked a little bloodthirsty, and he realized she must have one hell of a competitive streak. Sexy. “I know.”