The Man to Be Reckoned With (14 page)

He frowned as her palm pressed against his chest, as if it wanted to confirm the thunderous roar of his heart. The intimacy of the gesture swelled inside him. “What do you want, butterfly?”

“That whole night that you promised me.” Stepping back from him, she tugged the zipper of her dress down. With an elegant sensuality that sent lust rollicking through him, she pulled the fabric down, revealing the plump globes of her breasts, pushed it past her hips.

The dress pooled at her feet and she slowly kicked it away. Leaving her voluptuous body in a strapless bra and a thong.

He stepped back from her, only by the skin of his teeth. He couldn't be near her and not take what he wanted. He was painfully aroused, every nerve in him strung to breaking point. It didn't help that he'd had two drinks when he never drank, and now he had a simmering buzz in his head. “No.”

She reached him before he could draw another breath. “Yes.” She had somehow unbuttoned his shirt and now her palm rested against his hot skin, every line and ridge of it leaving an imprint on him. “You don't have to worry, Nate. I know precisely what I want and what I'll be getting. And come tomorrow morning, I'll bid you goodbye with a smile.” Bending, she pressed an openmouthed kiss to his chest, flicked his nipple with her tongue.

Lust slammed at him from every direction.

With a punishing breath, he realized he couldn't send her away. She had come back here, hadn't she? She wanted him, and she owned her desire in a way that reduced him to nothing but heat and hunger.

Maybe with her he would always be weak. With the one woman who needed him to be honorable, strong, maybe he would always be this man who needed more than life had given him, who would always be reduced to the lowest denominator there was of him. Who wanted a few more stolen moments, a few more kisses...

It was exactly as he had feared.

Wasn't that why she was so dangerous to him?

All his armor, all his rules flew out the window when it came to her. She had brought forgiveness into his life. For a few weeks, she had banished the loneliness that was a part of his very bones now. She had brought him peace.

And tonight, it wanted pleasure, hers and his, and it wanted all of her, all night.

So he kissed her. Swallowed her soft gasp. Tasted her with hungry strokes of his tongue, learned her all over again. Drank from her until he was heady with lack of air. He was greedy, he was hot and he didn't grant them both even a breath.

His throat ached; his chest hurt at the sweet taste of her. Her touch, as her fingers wound around his nape, branded him. Her body coiled around his, stamped him forever, owned it, even if she didn't know it. Her breasts grazed him, the taut nipples rasping against his chest like tight buds driving him out of his skin.

And in that minute, he knew he would never again know the touch of another woman, the taste of another woman, the embrace of another woman. His breath harsh, he pressed his forehead against hers, the words rising through him like a tornado that couldn't be contained.

Because, as he had realized all those years ago, it wasn't the fact that his heart didn't work that was the problem. It was that it wanted more than it could ever handle in a lifetime. And all the needs and wants he had suppressed to live his life came rising to the fore when it came to Riya.

Everything he had done, everything he had achieved, felt so small compared to this moment when he couldn't say the words he most wanted to say. They burned on his tongue, fighting to be freed, weighed down on his chest, choking him.

He longed to tell her how much he loved her, how she had forever marked his heart, how she had brought forgiveness to his life, how she had, even if it was only these few minutes that he allowed himself, made him feel.

How alive he felt when he was near her, how much he wanted to grow old with her, how much he wanted to be the one who would protect her, cherish her, love her.

Their teeth scraped, their tongues tangled. Their breaths mixed and became one. They became one.

The bed groaned as they fell onto it, devouring each other. He pushed his fingers up her thighs until he found her core. Only made sure that she was ready for him. Rubbed the swollen bud there. Let her soft moans surround him.

And she matched him in his hunger, giving as good as she got, digging her teeth into his chest, and there was nothing left in Nate but the desperate need to possess her.

He pushed her legs apart roughly in a frenzy of need. Undid his trousers. Tugged her thong out of the way. Holding her gaze, he entered her in a deep thrust that spoke of his desperate hunger rather than finesse.

Her wet heat clamped him tight, and Nate clenched his jaw to keep the words from spilling out.

Her legs wrapped around his hips; her spine bucked off the bed. She groaned and scratched his biceps with her nails as he pounded into her, only the haze of his approaching climax driving him. He touched the swollen bud at her core, glistening with moisture, calling for his touch.

She exploded around him and he thrust harder, faster, riding the wave of her release, forever changed by her.

His chest still expanding and contracting, he gathered her in his arms and rolled, until she was on top of him. But this time, she shied her gaze away from him and he wondered if she was bracing for his caustic words again. Cursed himself for changing her.

Running his fingers through her silky hair, he pressed a kiss to her temple. Tasted the sweat and scent of her skin. She was all around him, and it was the one place Nate never wanted to leave.

It was a place of belonging, it was home, it was what he had always wanted in the corners of the heart that he had ruthlessly locked away.

Now, when his heart had found the woman it couldn't have but wanted with so much longing, he knew he would never again look at another woman as a man did.

Because he, Nathaniel Ramirez, apparently was a one-woman man. And he resigned himself to it.

If he couldn't have her, he didn't want anyone. With the realization came desperate need. Tugging her toward him, he pushed her onto her stomach. Breathlessly waited to see if she would protest. Turning her face toward the side, the minx smiled at him. “I'm yours tonight, Nate. To do with as you please.”

With a hand under her body, he tugged her up until she was on her hands and knees. Splaying his palm on her lower back, he kissed along the line of her spine. Found the bundle of nerves that was already wet and slick for him.

He plunged his fingers into her and stroked the swollen tissue, a guttural sound escaping him. Felt the shudder that racked her. Bending down, he licked the rim of her ear. “Do you want me to stop, Riya?”

“No, please, Nate. Don't.”

And that was all he needed. Holding her hips, he thrust into her. Felt stars explode behind his eyes, felt his body buckle at the waves of sensation.

There was no gentleness left in him. No honor, no control. Only excruciating love for the woman beneath him. It took him every ounce of will he possessed to wait for her before he let his climax take over his body.

Pulling out of her, he turned her face to find her mouth.

* * *

The spasms of her climax still rocking through her, Riya shivered, a cold dread pooling in her chest. With his explosive lovemaking, Nathan imprinted himself onto every inch of her, and she felt as if she were drowning in the wake of it.

“Did I hurt you, Riya?” Dragging her close until her skin was slick against his, he pressed his mouth over her temple in a reverent touch. Laced his fingers with hers so tight that a stinging heat rose behind her eyes.

Flushing, Riya shook her head.

“Please, Riya, look at me.”

“I'm fine. I just...I think I should go now.”

With panting breaths, Riya willed the panic and pain rising through her to abate.

She had meant to say goodbye, thought doing so would give her closure. How could she have left without his touch, his kiss, without feeling his tightly leashed control fray around her one more time? Without feeling the closeness she felt when he made love to her, without feeling the raw edge of his emotion seek her, need her? It was the one time she felt cherished, loved, the one time she felt as though she mattered.

And now she had only dug herself deeper.

She couldn't break down now. If she did she would only end up begging him for another second, another minute, another hour. Of him holding her, kissing her, losing himself in her, of wondering if just another night would make him want her, of eviscerating hope that he would ask her to come with him.

Because another night or a hundred of them wouldn't change him, wouldn't make him care for her. Just as she had a sinking feeling only a lifetime with Nathan would be enough for her. And she couldn't let him see how much he had hurt her. She couldn't bear it if he told her in ruthless words that she was naive and a fool and that he had warned her.

Pushing away from him, she wrapped the sheet around her nakedness. Picked up the dress she'd discarded in such passion. Padded to the bathroom and splashed water over her face. Swallowed the sharp knot in her throat and sucked in a deep breath.

Even the silky glide of the dress over her skin felt like too much sensation to her hyped-up senses.

Keeping her spine straight, she walked back into the bedroom. Instantly her gaze sought and found him, standing at the French doors, looking up at the sky. It was the darkest of the night, just before dawn. He turned just as she found her clutch.

“Riya, before you go, I know someone in Bali who can—”

“No. I don't want your help. I'd like to get going now,” she said, and walked toward the door.

He didn't move or speak. Only stared at her, with that utter stillness of his. His gaze devoured her, a maelstrom of emotions in it.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, and turned the knob.

But something in her wouldn't calm down. Adrenaline spiking through her, she felt as if she were standing on a cliff.

“Are you ever coming back, Nathan?” When his mouth tightened, she hurried. “Not for me, don't worry. I know that in the scheme of things I matter very little to you. But for Robert, are you ever going to come back?”

She wished he would lie, wished she could believe him if he did.

“No.”

Her stomach lurched, like the time it had on that fantastic ride with him. Only this time, he wasn't going to hold her through it. He was going to let her fall and shatter.

“Dad knows that I won't return.” He closed the distance between them, something shimmering in his gaze. “Riya, my leaving has nothing to do with you. Don't make this harder than it has to be.”

His words were a soft whisper, but the blaze of emotion in his eyes was unmistakable. And the evidence of his emotion birthed her anger, and it flew through her, an anchor in the drowning storm of hurt and fear.

“Has it become that easy for you, Nathan? Have you become that much of a bastard? Or are you just blind to what you have become?”

His chin reared back as though she had pummeled him with her fists. “I've always warned you that—”

“I know that you have Long QT syndrome like your mom. I know that you fainted and almost died when you were thirteen. I know that that night in the lounge, you almost fainted again. I know that you've cut out every ounce of emotion to survive, that you don't want to go...” Her voice broke. “...go like your mother did. But do you believe you're truly living your life, Nathan?”

“Get out, Riya.”

Riya smiled through the tears blurring her vision. They had come full circle. “No, I won't. You pushed the truth on me when I wanted nothing to do with it. You made me hurt, made me feel so much for the first time.”

“I already know my truth, butterfly. I've lived with it for more than a decade.”

“You think you've conquered your weakness, but you're hiding behind it. You think love makes you weak. You think it'll rid you of your control, leave you at its mercy. You think it will leave you with nothing but fear for yourself and for the ones you love... But you're not your mother, Nathan.

“When I think of what you've achieved, the depth of your generosity...you've allowed yourself everything but happiness. How is it courage if you let it dictate how you live your life? How is it life if it has to be without love?

“You pushed me out of my comfort zone. You made me realize what a sterile life I'd built for myself. When my mother told me about you, I was devastated. I was so scared, Nate. In that moment, if I could erase ever knowing you, I probably would have.”

He moved then. Grabbed her arms and hauled her to him. It was like being pulled into a whirlpool of roiling emotions. Like being sucked into the heart of a tornado. “If it scared you so much, then why did you come?”

“I came to say goodbye,” Riya said, losing the fight. “I fought the fear that was roiling through me and came to see you. I came despite it, Nathan.” She pressed a kiss to his jaw and released the words that she was courageous enough to speak. She knew now he would always plan to leave. But it didn't have to be today. “Tell me not to leave. Ask me to come with you.”

Tugging her hands away, he let her go and stepped back. And Riya knew he was putting her out of his mind. “One day, you'll thank me for not taking you up on your offer, butterfly. One day when you find the man who'll love you forever, you'll be glad I left.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Three months later

R
UNNING
A
HAND
through his overgrown hair, Nathan waited as the cardiologist checked his heartbeat. It was always hard for him to sit still and even harder when it was this routine checkup.

His chopper was waiting on the roof of the hospital in a remote area of the island of Java. He had stopped seeing world-renowned specialists a long time ago. From day one, he had accepted that there was nothing to be done.

The doctor, who was seeing him for the first time, examined Nathan with warm brown eyes. “You're in remarkably good shape for a man with your condition, Mr. Ramirez,” he said in perfect but accented English. “But I guess you know that. Just keep doing what you're doing.”

Nathan nodded and thanked him.

“Your next checkup is in—”

“A month,” Nathan finished for him.

Thanking the doctor, he was buttoning up his shirt when his cell phone rang. Seeing the face of his virtual manager, he switched it on. “Yes?”

Jacob sounded wary. “Those papers have come back unsigned again.”

Nathan caught the fury that rose through him. It wasn't Jacob's fault. It was that manipulative minx's. What the hell kind of game was she playing? Why was she bent on tormenting him? “From where?”

“From Bali again.” So she still hadn't returned. “And there was no reply to our lawyer's question about what she wants.”

It had been the same for the last three months. He would send the papers to her and she would send them back, unsigned. Without a reply.

Nathan clenched his teeth, the emptiness he had been fighting for months sucking him in. “Find her number for me.”

A few minutes later, Nathan punched in her number and waited. His heart leaped into his throat, his pulse ringing very much like the peal of the phone on the other line.

“Hello?” her voice came across the line, and his stomach lurched. Just hearing her voice was enough to drive him into that crazed, out-of-control need to see her, to touch her, to hold her close, to wake up to her face.

“Hello?”

Stepping back from the sunshine, Nate leaned against the brick wall. Took a deep breath. “Why the hell aren't you signing the papers, Riya? What do you want now?”

The line was silent for a few seconds. And her face popped up in his mind's eye, her expression stricken as she had left him that night.

“I... Nate, how are you?”

“I'm alive, Riya.” He heard her gasp and ignored it. At least now there was no need to pretend. “And if I weren't, you would be the first one to—”

“Bastard.”

This time, he laughed, chose again to ignore the cutting pain packed into the single word. “Cut the theatrics and tell me why you're refusing to sign away the estate.”

“I decided that it should be mine. That I don't want to part with it, after all.”

Disbelief roared in his ears. And he let a curse fly. “Have you finally decided to listen to your mother, then?”

“I figured it was mine every which way it counted,” she continued smoothly, as though he hadn't just insulted her and
this thing between them
, as though she wasn't tying him up in knots.

“And how did you come to that impossible conclusion?”

“Robert, who's my father as far as I'm concerned, deeded it to me with love. I'm strong enough to accept my right over it now. Of course, that's thanks to you. And more than that, I figured it was mine because it belonged to the man I love with all my heart.”

He felt as if a fist had jammed up into his chest. He couldn't breathe as her words sank in. There was no hesitation in her voice. “You've lost your mind,” he said, pushing the words out through a raw throat. “Gone over the edge.”

“Actually it's the opposite. I've realized that my happiness is in my hands. Not Jackie's or Robert's or even yours. That I have to believe that I deserve love. That I have to risk pain to fight for it.” Now she didn't sound that put together. “Admit it, Nate. If I asked you for it right now, you wouldn't fight me. You wouldn't deny me.”

His butterfly was getting reckless, coming into her own. Despite the ache in his heart, he smiled. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you love me.” She waited, as though she wanted him to feel the full impact of her outrageous announcement. “You can put thousands of miles between us, you can cut all connections from me, you might never even see me again. But you think about me all the time. That estate, that massive fortune of yours, that faulty but generous heart of yours...they are all mine.”

“You sound very sure, Riya.”

The sound of her laugh pierced through him. “I think I know you as well as I know myself now. I realized that I won't ever have to work a day in my life again and still live like a princess. Because one of the richest and the most wonderful man in the world...I belong to him now. How's that for security, huh?”

She sounded confident, even brazen, but he could imagine the tears in her eyes, her hands fisting at her sides as she forced the words past that beautiful mouth. “But the thing is, I would rather risk my heart for another moment with him than have all the security in the world.” He heard her suck in a breath. “That estate is the best waiting place for me when I come back.”

With every word she said, she was twisting his insides, unraveling him. And beneath his rules, his honor, his revulsion for fear, Nate saw something else. As if he had been sitting in the dark all this time, mistaking his cowardice for his guts.

He asked the question he knew he shouldn't. “Waiting for what?”

“For you to come home.” The ache in her voice was as clear as the ache in his own heart. “For you to come back to me.” And she was crying and unraveling, right along with him, even though there were thousands of miles between them.

He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, a stinging heat prickling behind them. Her words gouged a hole through the emptiness he felt. “That's never going to happen, butterfly. You're wasting your precious life. You want a stable life with a steadfast man who'll be with you for the rest of your life, remember? Me? I could be gone any time.” His own cheeks were wet now and Nathan didn't feel ashamed or afraid, only ache.

“Yeah, well, you ruined all my plans for my life, Nate. Now I want something else.”

“Yeah? What?”

“A decade, a year, a day, or even another moment with the man I adore. With the man who showed me how to live, and love. With the man I'll love for the rest of my life.”

He heard her grasping breath, the catch in her voice. Heard her tear-soaked voice as if she were looking at him with those beautiful brown eyes.

“I love you, Nate, with every breath in me. I have been a coward all my life. I was a coward even that night. I let you walk away. But not anymore. I deserve happiness and so do you. My life is empty without you, Nate.”

How he wanted to believe her; how he wished he had the courage to be the man she deserved. Because that was what he was lacking. Not the robust heart, not a body that would live for a century. But the courage to grab the love she offered, to trust her love and his, to risk his heart.

Whatever it was that was holding him back now, protecting his heart, this was fear.

He was in that moment he had dreaded his whole life. Fear and pain. And yet it was of not seeing Riya ever again, of not waking up to her, of not seeing her wide mouth split into a smile at the sight of him, of not holding her tight until they couldn't breathe.

“I'm waiting for you, Nate.” She was crying now, in soft sobs and broken words. And the pain that caused him was more than any he had ever felt, hurt deeper than any other fear that he didn't want to feel.

“I think I'll always wait for you.”

And then she hung up.

* * *

Riya sank to her bed in her hotel room, her breaths coming jerkily. Grabbing the edge of the T-shirt she had taken from Nate that night, she buried her face in it. Every inch of her was still vibrating at hearing his voice. Her fingers hurt with how tightly she had fisted them, how she wanted to touch him, feel his arms around her.

Had he known that she was falling apart? How much it had cost her to say what was truly in her heart, even knowing that it might never change his mind? How big a risk she had taken by binding herself to him, by giving him her heart?

But to this new Riya whom he had brought to life, nothing less than what she wanted, what she deserved was acceptable.

Without him, nothing in the world meant anything to her.