The Last Groom on Earth (10 page)

“If you say so.”

“I say so. See, the thing is that this guy, Sir Leopold, has to rescue the good sorceress, Ermina, from, the wicked King Grilvag, who lives at the top of the highest peak of the Silver Mountains. But it’s a long way there, and the only way he can make it is to pick, up things along the way and put them in his knapsack. Later, when he needs to, he can use them or give them to someone in exchange for something.”

“What things?”

“Well, for instance, at the talking rock, Leopold can pick up a golden hammer. If you pay attention to the riddle the rock says, it tells you where to go. You go there, and there’s the hammer.”

Angela stood up and bent over the desk, using the mouse to maneuver the figure on the screen along a path. The rock spoke, and she glanced back expectantly at Bryce. His eyes had drifted to her derriere, which, in the position she was standing, was outlined prominently beneath her robe.

“Uh, Bryce…” Angela snapped her fingers.

Bryce turned his gaze back to her face, smiling sheepishly. “What? Oh.” He looked at the scene for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I got, uh, distracted. What did you say?”

Angela couldn’t keep from smiling as she touched the rock again and it repeated its words.

Bryce gazed at her blankly and started to shake his head. Then his eyes lit up. “Oh, wait, I see. Round age—the rings of a tree, right? And pages in a book-leaves. It’s talking about a big tree. And ‘grandfather of them all’—it must be the big one over there.”

“Exactly. So now we move Sir Leopold over to the tree.” She leaned over again, demonstrating with the mouse.

The figure walked in its stiff way across the screen to the tree, and a lively little piece of music came on. Sir Leopold looked up. A golden hammer glittered in the branches. Bryce glanced at it, but then his gaze was drawn inexorably back to Angela’s backside, so tan-talizingly close.

“Now you have to click on this button up here,” Angela went on. “That makes him touch what’s in front of him.”

Angela clicked, and the knight moved jerkily to recover the hammer and look at it.

Bryce stretched his hand down and put it on her leg, slowly sliding it up under her robe.

Angela jumped, giggling. “Bryce!” She turned to look at him with feigned outrage, but she could not hide the sensual warmth that lit her eyes at his touch. “Now pay attention.”

He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.” But his hand did not stop its upward journey until his fingers curved over her bare buttock. His eyes darkened sensually as he realized that Angela was naked beneath her robe.

“You’re not paying attention,” Angela said a trifle breathlessly as his hand caressed her bottom..

“I am,” Bryce protested. “I’m paying very close attention.”

“To the screen, I mean.”

“Oh. That. All right.” He turned his head to look at the monitor, but his hand did not stop its smooth caress. “Go ahead.”

Angela turned back to the screen and went on. “You have to put the hammer into his knapsack. You, uh, push the icon that looks like a…” She sucked in her breath as his fingers slid over the curve of her derriere and between her legs.

“Like a what?” Bryce asked in a low voice as his fingers gently probed the gates of her femininity.

“A bag. A drawstring bag.” Angela got out the words. She could feel the moisture pooling between her legs, inviting his further caresses.

“Okay. Now what?”

“Bryce…” she protested faintly, but she widened her stance, allowing his magical fingers easier access.

“Mmm-hmm?” He found and stroked the small nub of flesh that sent tendrils of electric pleasure through her. “Go ahead.”

Angela looked distractedly at the screen, trying to remember what she was doing. There was something very titillating about continuing with her demonstration while Bryce’s hand caressed her. “Well, you keep the hammer in your bag until you find something that looks like you could use the hammer—or trade it.” She drew in her breath sharply as his other hand shoved the back of her robe up and Bryce bent to kiss her hip. “Uh, I mean, you know, to get something you want.”

Bryce nipped gently at the soft flesh of her buttock, murmuring, “Like what?”

“Huh? Oh. Well, say, if you reach the Silver Mountains and run into a gnome, he’d like to have the hammer to use in mining the silver vein.”

“Why?” His voice was husky, his breath hot against her naked flesh.

“Why?” Angela repeated blankly. Bryce’s finger was stroking her rhythmically, slowly, making her feel swollen and achy. “Well, uh, that’s what the gnomes do. Mine. And he will let you pass if you offer him the—” She let out a groan as the heat knotted within her"-the-ah-”

She broke off, letting go of the computer mouse and grasping the monitor with both hands. “Oh, Bryce…”

“I get it,” he said hoarsely, gently increasing the pressure of his finger.

“But first,” Angela managed to gasp out. “Remember to save it.”

“Right. Save first,” he murmured as his mouth moved up her back. He reached around and jerked
loose the sash tying her robe. It fell open, and he cupped her breast.

Angela made an inarticulate noise as his hands and mouth worked on her, bombarding her with pleasure. She murmured his name, gripping the monitor tightly, as desire coiled and tightened in her abdomen, pushing her ever closer to the brink.

She cried out as he pushed her over that edge, tumbling her into a void of hot, black passion. For a moment there was nothing but him and the heat that seared through her, releasing and enslaving her all at the same time.

Slowly Angela drifted down from the heights of passion. She turned to Bryce, her face slack and glowing with sated desire.

“Oh, Bryce,” she whispered. “That was…” She groped for words adequate to describe the pleasure that had flooded her being.

“Wait,” he said with a wicked grin, reaching out and pulling her toward him. “It’s not over yet.”

“I
guess that’s true.” Angela smiled sensually as she reached out and took Bryce’s hands, pulling him to his feet. “Now I get to return the favor, right?”

Languid and sated, she looked forward to spending a long time arousing and satisfying Bryce. Angela could see that Bryce was already well aroused. That wasn’t nearly enough, though, for her. She wanted him to be as captured, as much on fire, as she had been.

She began to unbutton his shirt, trailing her fingernails down the skin as it was revealed. “You don’t look like someone who sits behind a desk all day playing with numbers.”

“I work out.”

“Mmm. No doubt that’s the practical thing to do.”

He smiled faintly. “No doubt.”

“It also looks very attractive.” Angela had finished undoing his shirt and she pushed it back and off his shoulders, revealing his wide chest.

“Why, thank you, ma’am.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. His eyes sparkled with humor, but behind that lay a hotter flame.

Angela slid her hands over his shoulders and across the hard thrust of his collarbone, then moved down his chest, following the line of dark hair to where it disappeared in the waistband of his trousers. She ran a fingertip along the edge of the waistband and moved back up his chest, caressing his ribs and teasing the flat nipples to life, tangling her fingertips among the curling hairs.

Bryce stifled a groan of pleasure as she explored his body, and Angela felt his manhood swell and press beneath her. His cheeks were flushed with desire. Stretching up, she kissed him, her tongue delving into his mouth, and as her lips played against his, her fingers roamed his arms and chest. Bryce slid his hands up her thighs, digging his fingers into her hips when a new onslaught of pleasure hit him. When at last their lips parted, Angela slid down his body to trace with her tongue the path her fingers had traveled over and around his masculine nipples.

Bryce tightened, making an inarticulate noise, and Angela looked up. “I’m sorry. Did I—”

“No,” he gasped. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

“But I have to,” Angela said. “or how would I be able to do this?”

Her lips left his nipple and traveled down the center line of his chest, gently tasting and teasing his skin. “Or this?” she added, pulling back and beginning to unfasten his trousers.

Bryce groaned and quickly moved to help her, sliding out of the rest of his clothes. They sank to the floor, and Bryce moved between her legs, slowly sliding into her. Restlessly Angela stroked his body with her hands as he began to move within her, thrusting in and pulling out again in long, teasing strokes.

Gradually his rhythm grew faster, and Angela writhed, sinking her hands into his buttocks and urging him on to completion. Then at last the pleasure burst within them, wild and glorious, so fierce that they cried aloud with it.

Bryce collapsed upon Angela, panting, and for a long moment they simply lay there, stunned by the power of their lovemaking.

Finally, in a dry voice, Bryce said, “Well. I understand now why the Concordia games are so popular.”

Angela chuckled, and somehow in that moment she was certain that she had fallen in love with Bryce.

Later that day Angela took Bryce out to her house on Lake Gaston. They had gone back to his hotel so that he could change into more casual clothes than the riverboat gambler costume he had worn the night be- fore, and he was dressed in jeans and a crisp white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. Though Angela had to smile at what Bryce termed casual, she thought he also looked unbearably handsome.

The sternness in his face had softened, and when he smiled at her, there was a warmth in his gray eyes that changed him. Angela wondered why she had ever thought him stiff and pompous.
Why hadn’t she realized that the cool remoteness was nothing but a facade, a front beneath which was a man capable of
laughing and talking and having fun, a man who made love with fierce emotion?
But she wondered, too, if it were possible to completely crack that shell around him, to make him forget probabilities and logic and plans and give himself up to loving her. If he did not, she knew, she was laying herself open to heartbreak.

It was a beautiful day to drive through the North Carolina countryside. Fragile-looking dogwood trees and bright red buds were in full bloom, and purple wisteria vines cascaded from a tall tree or twined around a fence. Their usual wet March had brought its typical reward.

About an hour later, as they neared the Virginia border, Angela turned off the highway. A few minutes later, she took a narrow gravel road. She pulled to a stop in front of a modern stone and wood house.

“Is this your place?” Bryce asked, looking around with interest.

“Yes.” Angela smiled. “But you haven’t seen the best yet.”

She led him inside the house and down the steps to the large common room. Almost the entire back wall consisted of glass, framing a breathtaking view of the lake. Outside, a stone patio provided an even closer look.

“It’s beautiful.” Bryce stepped out onto the patio, and Angela followed, sitting down on the low stone wall at the edge of the flagstones.

He sat down beside her, and she glanced up at him. “I always feel so much better when I come here. Peaceful and content, no matter how crazy the week’s been at work.”

“This is really your home, isn’t it?” he asked astutely.

Angela shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. I like my condo, but it’s more for convenience than anything else. I come out here every chance I get, at least a couple of weekends a month.”

“I can understand why.” Bryce looked around.

“Then you like it? Really?”

“Oh, yes. You’re right, it’s very peaceful. Soothing. I’m surprised you don’t live out here full-time.”

“You’re the first person who’s ever said that,” Angela said, a little surprised. “I’ve thought about it many times. I could do my work here, maybe go into the office one day a week.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“I think because I’d miss the people. I love the solitude here, and it’s great for working. But I’d get lonely. I like people, too. I’m used to talking to Kelly and Tim and all the others. I’d miss that. This way I have it both ways.”

Later, after a cold lunch on the patio, they took Angela’s boat out on the lake. They cruised around the lake for a while then returned and spent the rest of the afternoon on lounge chairs, watching the sun sink behind the lake and talking desultorily.

Angela, after telling a funny story about her sister and herself when they were young, looked over at Bryce and said, “You never say anything about your family. Here you know everything about me and my family; and I know hardly anything about you. Where did you grow up? What’s your family like?”

She knew that she was getting into delicate territory, given what her mother had told her about Bryce’s childhood, but she wanted to know more about him, to understand him.

Bryce shrugged and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes in the sun’s glare. “Nothing much to tell,” he said noncommittally. “I grew up in Charlotte.”

After a long pause, Angela prompted, “And…?”

“And what?”

“Your family,” Angela said in exasperation. “Do you have any siblings? What about your parents?”

“I have a brother and a sister. I’m the oldest.” He paused for a moment, and Angela thought he was not going to say anything else, but then he went on. “My dad left us. And my mother was a drunk.”

Angela went still. She could sense the ache in his carefully controlled voice, the pain that his closed eyes hid. “Oh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pry. My big mouth, you know—it’s always getting me into trouble.”

“It’s all right,” Bryce said, opening his eyes and sitting up. “It’s not your fault.”

He paused for a moment, looking out over the darkening lake, then said, “Life in our house was chaotic. Half the time I’d come home from school and find my mother passed out on the couch. No supper, the younger kids running around wild. It’s a wonder they never got hurt. She’d drink up my lunch money…or the grocery money. My father took off when I was eight. I guess he couldn’t take it anymore. But I was always furious at him because he didn’t take us with him.”

“Oh, Bryce.” Angela reached out and took his hand, squeezing it. “I’m sorry. How awful for you.”

The stiffness in Bryce’s body eased somewhat at her touch. “I suppose that’s why I was always so interested in order and precision.” He went on. “Numbers are wonderfully reliable. If you add this number to that number, it will always come out the same answer.
Things can be added and subtracted and divided, and you can be sure about it.”

“You wanted to make order out of the chaos.”

“Exactly. I kept trying to do it at home—keep Gail and Jimmy fed and going to school on time, our clothes ironed.”

“But you were just a child yourself! How could you be expected to do that?”

“I pretty much had to, or else the social worker would have taken us away from her, split us up. And however bad it was, that would have been worse. At least Mom loved us, in her own fashion…at least we were together.”

“So you were never really a kid.”

“I suppose not. You must think that that explains a lot about me.” He gave her a faint smile.

“I guess it does.” Angela tilted her head to one side consideringly. “It also makes you even more intriguing.”

“Intriguing?” His brows rose. “I wouldn’t have picked that term.”

“That’s because you’re the numbers guy.
I’m
the romantic one. This is my territory.”

“If you say so. But I think your claim to being a romantic may take a severe decline after being associated with me.” He turned to look back out over the lake. “Don’t picture me as some dark, sensitive hero straight out of
Wuthering Heights.
I haven’t spent my life brooding over my tragic past. I knew I wanted out of there, and I laid plans to do it. I worked and saved and went to college, all according to a timetable I’d worked out.”

“I bet you did.” Angela chuckled. “But that doesn’t make your past any less difficult or what you did any less admirable.”

“Admirable?” He quirked an eyebrow.
“You
think what I’ve done is admirable? I never thought I’d hear that from you.”

“Well, your field isn’t my kind of thing, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t find your raising your siblings and working your way through college and becoming a success admirable. I think anyone would.”

“Probably. I never felt admirable, though, I’ll tell you. Most of the time I just felt driven. I knew what I wanted, and I couldn’t get there fast enough.”

“But you wanted more than just money.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, or you wouldn’t have visited my family.”

He looked at her sharply. “Why not? They had everything I wanted—money, beautiful possessions, breeding, taste. All the time I was there I was soaking up knowledge.”

“I don’t think that was it, though—the reason why you came.”

Bryce paused, then said slowly, “In part. The Hewitts seemed to me to be the perfect family. I wanted to be like them, to talk and think and act like them. To not be the raw, unpolished,
hungry
kid I was. But I also wanted…to be a part of that family, not just to have those things and be ‘right’ socially, but to belong. To have a right to that kind of love, that kind of order and reason. I guess when you accused me of trying to take your place, I really was. I didn’t want to displace you, but I did want very much to be one of your family.”

“Oh, Bryce, I was such a stinker to resent you!” Tears began to form in Angela’s eyes as she thought of how lonely he must have been, how hungry and desperate for a normal family—and instead of understanding or helping him, she had been cruel to him.

Bryce smiled and pulled her into his arms. “You were just a kid. Besides, look at it this way—what could have been more like being a part of the family than having an annoying little pest of a sister?”

Angela smiled at him provocatively. “Well, actually, I’m awfully glad that I
wasn’t
your little sister.”

He grinned, and his hand curled around the back of her neck possessively. “So am I,” he said and bent down to take her lips in a passionate kiss.

They left the lake early Monday morning. They had planned to return to Raleigh on Sunday, but they were enjoying their time at the lake so much that they kept putting off their departure and finally decided to spend Sunday night there as well.

The pale light of dawn was creeping through the sky when Angela followed Bryce out to her car. “You drive,” she suggested; handing him the keys to the sports car. “I’d wreck us for sure.” She succumbed to a jaw-cracking yawn, adding, “I can’t imagine what I’m doing up at this hour.”

Bryce just chuckled and took the keys from her. “This is the best time of the day.”

He opened the small trunk of the Miata and stowed away their bags, whistling cheerfully. Angela cast him a jaundiced look and slid into the passenger side, nursing her cup of coffee.

Bryce settled into the driver’s seat and proceeded to adjust it and the mirrors to precisely the right position
for him. Then his eyes slid over the dashboard, locating the various switches and knobs that controlled the functions of the car. Angela watched him, smiling fondly.
How was it that Bryce’s precise ways had become so endearing?
She had always suspected that love made people insane, and now she was sure of it.

She wondered if he knew that she loved him—and what he would do if he did. Somehow she could not imagine Bryce Richards falling in love in just two weeks—or admitting it if he did. They had spent the weekend intimately, both physically and verbally, talking about any- and everything. Angela had poured out her feelings and thoughts to him, letting him glimpse more of her soul than she had ever shown anyone. She was certain that he was the man she would love for the rest of her life. But she wondered if Bryce could make such a quick, deep commitment. After all, it wasn’t at all logical to fall in love so quickly.

He had said nothing about love all weekend, and Angela, not wanting to scare him off, had kept her own feelings silent. She could handle that for a while. What worried Angela was that he might never feel for her what she felt for him.
What if the hard shell he had wrapped around his emotions could never be broken? What if he would never allow himself to do something as unreasonable as loving an emotional, impulsive, illogical person as herself?