The Glass Shoe (12 page)

Not that very much happened, Amanda reflected, unsure if she was glad or bothered by that. The awareness between them hovered, occasionally creeping nearer at odd moments, but Ryder had made no effort to take advantage of it. Other than very casual and somewhat offhand touches, he kept his distance, and if that was difficult for him he didn't show it.

He was, she admitted, silently, a surprisingly comfortable companion. He was shrewd as well as intelligent, humorous, and appeared completely satisfied to play a game of cards or trivia or to read a book in her company.

She looked at him, not thinking very much now. Outwardly he was the prince of fairy tales—tall, dark, and handsome. Inwardly, of course, he was as complex as real people always were, filled with shades and layers. She was just beginning to know the inward man, beginning to recognize his mood by the tone of his voice, the set of his lips, or the shade of his eyes.

I've stopped falling, she realized suddenly. I've landed.
Landed in love.

The phrase was peculiarly the right one. She felt as if she had indeed been falling, breathless and half frightened, the drop ending with a sudden thud that was definite. And that was, she thought, the way love happened. One fell over the edge of caution, helpless to stop it, bewildered by the inevitable force of the thing.

And landed.

It had been a long time since she had thought she was in love, and that had felt different.
More—what?
More dreamy, more complacent.
At nineteen, falling in love brought complacency, the gratification of knowing that you were just like everyone else, about to become one of a pair, half of a couple.
The reassuring knowledge that you were walking steadily down the right path of life.

Filled with expectations.

It was different, she thought, at twenty-eight. Complacency had become uncertainty. There were many paths, no "right" one, and all of them bumpy. There was the memory of pain, of shattered illusions, and the awful knowledge that people could hurt each other so dreadfully, especially lovers.

Amanda looked at him and told herself fiercely to expect nothing this time. To be grateful for his desire that was for her and not her possessions. To let
herself
feel these unfamiliar, exciting feelings without the murky shadow of expectations hanging over her.

Ryder looked up suddenly, meeting her gaze, and his own eyes were dark. He knew, she realized, that she'd been watching him. He had felt it.

"The book's not holding your attention?" he murmured, the lurking intensity in his voice now.

She managed what she knew was a strained smile. "No. I've already guessed whodunit." They were both reading—or had been reading—murder mysteries.

He continued to look at her for a long, steady moment. Then, very deliberately, he closed his book and leaned forward to place it on the coffee table. He took hers from her suddenly nerveless fingers and placed it there as well. Then he got to his feet and grasped her hands to pull her up.

"Ryder—" She didn't know what she was going to say, but a gentle finger over her lips stopped the unformed words.

In a casual tone with only a hint of tension, he said, "I think this has gone on long enough, don't you?"

She couldn't answer with words. His mouth covered hers, parting her lips with insistent demand, and the thrust of his tongue made the strength flow out of her legs in a rush. She felt herself lean into him, her body instinctively seeking his, and her arms slid up around his neck. The sudden explosion of heat inside her burned intensely, jerking a moan from her throat and making her shudder.

His deep, shattering kisses were a kind of possession, stark and raw, bringing all her senses vividly alive. The arms around her held her tightly, but she moved to be closer, fitting herself more intimately into his hardness. Her aching breasts flattened against the solid expanse of his chest, and she stood on tiptoe in an effort to be even closer as the burning hunger inside her flared.

An odd, rough sound escaped Ryder as he raised his head at last. Without a word he lifted her completely into his arms and carried her from the den. It occurred to Amanda vaguely to tell him that she was perfectly capable of walking, but the point didn't seem that important. She'd never been carried in a man's arms before, and was both surprised and disturbed at how vulnerable it made her feel.

Her weight seemed not to bother him at all as he carried her up the stairs to the second floor and her bedroom. The lamp on the nightstand was burning; she'd left it on when she had gone earlier for a book. The room was warm. Ryder closed the door behind them with a kick and carried her to the side of the bed before setting her on her feet. But then, pausing only to strip the covers back, he lifted her again and lowered her to the bed.

Amanda didn't try to deceive herself into believing she wasn't eager for this.
For him.
She loved him and she wanted him, and nothing else seemed to matter. Her arms went around his neck as he joined her on the bed, her mouth instantly responsive to the hunger of his.

He kissed her in that slow, shattering, absorbed way, as if lovemaking were only that, as if it were a completion instead of a preliminary activity. There was a dim astonishment in her that something she had always thought relatively simple and casual could, with Ryder, be so overwhelming.

But it was only a prelude, a beginning, and the building desire in them both demanded more. Ryder's lips left hers at last to move slowly down her throat, and one hand began unfastening the buttons of her flannel shirt. The heavy material was swiftly
opened,
the shirt somehow pushed off her shoulders and tossed aside. She felt his warm, hard fingers slipping beneath her back to unhook her bra, and then that was gone as well.

Ryder had been struggling to hang on to his control, but when the scrap of lace covering her breasts was gone he very nearly lost it. She was beautiful, just as he'd known she would be, and the sight of her round, firm breasts, the pink nipples tight and hard, sent a jolt of pure hunger through him. He lowered his head and drew one hard bud into his mouth while his hand moved to surround the other breast, his thumb rasping gently over the nipple beneath it.

Amanda gasped wordlessly, her body arching in a helpless response. The shock of pleasure was instant, spreading outward from deep inside her in ripples of sensation that stole her breath and clouded her mind. All her conscious awareness was focused on what he was doing to her. The erotic suction of his mouth was a caress that her body responded to with a wildness she couldn't begin to control. She was burning and couldn't be still, her head moving restlessly, her legs shifting, pressing together in an instinctive attempt to ease the throbbing ache that kept getting worse, stronger, until she thought she'd go mad with the awful tension.

She was so wrapped up in the sensations, so totally involved in her awakened body, she automatically lifted her hips when he unfastened her jeans and pulled them and her panties off.

"Amanda." Her name was a husky murmur, and his hot gray eyes were fixed, intent as he looked at her.

Caught in the desperate hunger he aroused in her, Amanda reached for the buttons of his shirt, frantic to tear away the last barriers between them. He helped her, his movements as jerky as her own. Clothing was thrown to the floor carelessly, blindly. When he was as naked as she, Amanda felt a primitive stab of excitement, a jolt at the realization that he was beautiful.

His power when clothed had been an understated thing, more a matter of broad shoulders and lithe grace than of muscular strength. But the muscles were there, hard and well-defined, rippling under his bronze skin with every movement he made. His broad chest was covered with a mat of thick black hair that arrowed over his flat stomach.

He was big and strong, his lean face taut and his eyes blazing with a hungry fire. She thought dimly that it would be easy to be afraid of his stark male power, to be wary of his unhidden need. But her own need was alive in her, and she felt no fear.

Ryder moved one hand to her quivering stomach and rubbed gently while his mouth caressed her breasts. He felt her fingers dig into his shoulders, heard the shaken moan of pleasure escape her, and another thread of his control snapped. She was so responsive... No barriers now, no elusiveness. The fire in her almost burned him, but he held his own raging desire in an iron grip.

There was something more than desire driving him, and he was dimly aware of it.
Something almost primal, a fierce need to bind her to him in some immutable way so she would unquestionably belong to him.
He didn't probe that need, he just accepted it. This was the way it had to be between them, an instinctive obedience to a force beyond knowledge or understanding.

This was right.

He couldn't get enough of her, couldn't stop touching her, learning her. His hand slid lower over her belly, settling over the soft copper curls and probing very gently.

Amanda thought she might have stopped breathing because there was no room in her lungs. She was filled with ragged tension screaming in every nerve ending. She felt his touch, and her own fingers gripped his shoulders frantically as her body responded wildly. Instinct demanded that she open herself to him, and with a shudder her body obeyed as her legs parted. She felt a burst of raw, hot pleasure as he stroked her gently, and a moan jerked from her throat. The fire inside her was burning out of control, and she couldn't hold herself still, couldn't think,
couldn't
do anything except give in to the blind, primitive drive toward release.

It seemed to last an eternity, tension spiraling until she could hardly bear it, until it seemed her body couldn't possibly contain the force of it, and then her senses shattered. A cry tore from her lips as pleasure washed over her in throbbing waves. She was hardly aware of the gasping sobs that escaped her as she lay trembling in the stunned aftermath of that explosion.

Her eyes opened slowly, almost blind at first but then focusing on his taut face. And the ebbing tension began building again. Now she was conscious of an empty ache inside her, a hunger for him that hadn't been satisfied. The searing heat of his kiss sent wildfire rushing through her.

He widened her legs and moved between them, still kissing her deeply. His hands were stroking her body, hard but gentle. Very slowly he eased into her, lifting his head to look down at her. He heard the sharp intake of
breath,
saw her eyes widen and then seem to lose focus, to go soft and dreamy and absorbed. It was the most wildly arousing thing he'd ever seen in his life, sending a jolt of pure raw craving through him.

He groaned harshly, half closing his own eyes as she lifted her hips tentatively to take more of him. His entire body was aching, rigid as he fought the urge to bury himself in her. This slow possession was tearing him apart, but it was an unbelievably sweet agony. Her body accepted his with silken heat, sheathing him completely as he pushed slowly inside her.

"Ryder," she murmured throatily, her arms around his neck now as her body cradled his fully.

Ryder gritted his teeth as a hoarse sound rumbled in his chest. The threads of his control were snapping, urgency building in him until he could no longer fight it. Almost frantically he began moving, feeling her take fire again. She was holding him, her soft little cries and throaty moans deepening his own taut pleasure. The strain of having held himself back so long had
him
on the ragged edge of exploding until rawly sensual tremors like nothing he'd ever felt before rippled along his spine.

He was deep inside her when the hot inner contractions of her pleasure caught him wildly in a stark caress, and he heard her wordless whimper even as a rasping groan tore free of him and his own tension snapped with a blind intensity that shuddered through him.

Amanda came back to herself with the small, stunned feeling of someone who had totally lost control for the first time in her life. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, but definitely an unfamiliar one. She considered it briefly,
then
pushed it away to be dealt with, if necessary, later. In the meantime, she also felt totally exhausted, completely boneless, and warmly happy.

Ryder moved suddenly, rolling over so that she was on top of him. "What took us so long?' he murmured, his voice still a little husky.

Amanda felt vaguely shy as she returned his gaze, but the expression on his face was both reassuring and slightly annoying. She didn't know which emotion to choose. He looked utterly satisfied, more than a little arrogant, and quite definitely possessive.

She cleared her throat softly.
"My fault?"

"Well, you told me to slow down. Scruples," he said in a considering tone, "can be hell, can't they?" Then, without giving her a chance to answer, he added, "Are you coming back to Boston with me?"

Amanda blinked. Hope rose in her, but she pushed it back down fiercely. He hadn't said a word about caring for her, she thought, so it wasn't entirely clear what he meant by that question.
Nothing to encourage hope.
"Why do you ask?" she ventured.

Ryder moved again so that she was lying on her back beside him while he raised himself on one elbow. A slight frown drew his brows together, and his eyes became very intent. "Why do you think?
Because I'm due to leave here in a little over a week."

Determined never again to be shattered by unfulfilled expectations, Amanda had very carefully not allowed herself to think of the future. Resolutely she clung to that decision. It was safer. "I have a job to do here, you know," she said mildly.

"Are you suggesting one of us commute?" he asked in a dry tone.

"That wouldn't be very practical."

"Then my money's on Boston. Amanda, I have a company there. So do you."

She shivered unconsciously, more uneasy than cold, but Ryder immediately drew the covers up over them both.