The Proviso (27 page)

“I never thought of it that way.”

“You were too afraid of being labeled selfish.” She
snickered. “Just like Rearden. Galt had no such issues.”

“Ouch and touché,” he murmured as he kissed her.

She grinned wickedly against his lips. “Seems to me
somebody got his themes and characters messed up. Good thing I
picked you, huh?”

He chuckled. “That surprised me.” They kissed for
long moments, their tongues playing, not expecting it to lead
anywhere. “And it meant a lot to me. Thank you,” he whispered.

“There was no other choice. I posit,” she murmured
between kisses. She could kiss this man forever and not get enough.
“That it’s much better to be open about who you are and not get
what you really want than settle for something not quite what you
wanted in the first place.”

“Tell that to a zealous twenty-one-year-old freshly
returned missionary who’s one big raging hormone and being exhorted
at every turn to do his duty, get married, and procreate.”

Giselle said nothing for a moment for their kissing,
then, “I see your point. What happened to you between then and
now?”

“I got tired of doing the right things for the wrong
reasons with the wrong woman and getting my ass kicked by life.
Tonight, I’ve done the wrong thing for the right reason with the
right woman. And I don’t intend to get my ass kicked again.”

Giselle smiled and ran her fingers through his hair.
He kissed her again and she tried—again—to take it away from him.
He chuckled and upped the ante, refusing to let her, which left her
breathless and thoroughly aroused. Again.

“‘If I’m asked,’” she whispered, placing her palms
on either side of his face, stroking his skin with her thumbs and
watching him as she quoted, “‘to name my proudest attainment, I
will say: I have slept with Hank Rearden. I had earned it.’”

He laughed wryly. “You really do like Rearden better
than Galt, don’t you?”

“He had real depth. He was the most noble character
in the book.”

* * * * *

25:
CONTROL ISSUES

“How the hell should I know when she came in last
night and why is it my business?”

“You live with her!”

“So what? She’s got a mother and it’s not me. She
pays me rent. That’s how the roommate relationship works.”

“What do you mean, you’re not her mother? You act
like her mother and mine, too, come to think of it.”

The low rumble of two men arguing in another room
brought Bryce slowly to consciousness, though he never forgot where
he was or why he was there or the woman he was with or every single
thing he’d done to her. And oh, the things she’d done to him. His
head dropped back on the pillow and he smiled.

In the taking, the giving is inherent.

Why had he not read it that way to begin with?
You were too afraid of being labeled selfish . . . Just like
Rearden. Galt had no such issues.

He had to admit she’d nailed his ass to the wall on
that, but she’d said “Kenard” without hesitation when asked to
choose.

I’m in love with you.

He sighed with a sudden feeling of deep, deep
contentment—something he had never felt with Michelle, not even on
their wedding day.

Sunlight seeped through the cracks of drawn blackout
drapes. The two of them were uncovered, the duvet long since
abandoned on the floor. Giselle apparently still slept, her back
spooned tight against his ribs as she sought warmth, her head on
his outstretched arm, her breast filling his palm, his thumb
absently caressing her nipple. Her hair spread across his chest and
tickled his skin. He lay spread-eagled, his other hand fondling her
silky curls, bringing them to his nose for sniffing (vanilla),
turning their conversation and their sex over in his head, reliving
it, waiting for her to awaken. To start all over again.

“Look, if you’re so worried, go look in her room and
see if she’s there.”

Bryce didn’t know exactly what was going on, but it
sounded like it could get ugly when determined footsteps on the
hard wood got closer and closer. The door swung open and the two
people he least wanted to see at that moment burst in and stopped
cold.

“Gi— Holy shit.”

Knox looked like he had been hit in the head with a
two-by-four, staring at Bryce, his mouth hanging open. Taight, on
the other hand, looked very pleased.

“Get out,” Bryce snarled, and Taight hauled Knox
back and closed the door with a salute.

“Oops,” Giselle muttered against his arm.

“Did you bring me back here specifically to make a
point to Knox?”

“I have no points to make to Knox and Knox has a
woman. Sort of. Maybe. Which you know very good and well. I brought
you back here because it was the closest available bed.”

Bryce started to laugh, but that gradually declined
when Giselle turned over. He immediately felt he needed to further
explore her breasts and other body parts that he had neglected last
night.

And the hole in her right hip.

“Before we do this again,” she sat up and announced,
“I need to pee and brush my teeth. That is the first thing I do
every single morning, without fail, and in that order.”

“Fair warning: I’ll follow you and fuck you in the
shower.”

Her eyes opened wide and she looked down at him,
grinning like a child at the possibility that she would get exactly
what she wanted on Christmas morning. “That would be sublime, thank
you.”

“Oh, now you’re just making fun of me.”

She arose with great care and groaned at every slow
step she made toward the bathroom. “You have got to be kidding me,”
she breathed as she stopped, bent over, and massaged the muscles on
the insides of her thighs. He grinned, totally satisfied with his
night’s work. She looked back at him then and smirked. “I would
never make fun of a man whose idea of sweet nothings is ‘I want to
fuck you, Giselle.’”

“I wouldn’t be with a woman who wouldn’t find that
romantic.”

Finally she disappeared into the bathroom. Once he
heard the sound of a faucet and then the brushing of teeth, he
decided that it would be a good idea to do the same.

With no embarrassment on either of their parts, they
went about their business in the bathroom, glancing at each other
in the mirror. She broke out a new toothbrush from her
dentist-office stash and said, “Now mine won’t be lonely
anymore.”

He turned her toward the mirror and wrapped his arms
around her to look at their nude reflection. She smiled, her eyes
soft and dreamy as she leaned back into him and watched him inspect
her.

“I like that you shave,” he murmured, dragging his
fingertip along her bare mons.

“I don’t,” she whispered. “It’s lasered.” She
laughed again when his mouth dropped open. “Shaving’s a bitch and
waxing hurts.”

Her body was perfect. She was much shorter than his
wife had been; in fact, she could fit under his chin. She was
muscular yet curvy, unlike Michelle, who had been neither muscular
nor curvy. Giselle’s breasts were bigger than he’d expect on a
weightlifter and he was oh, so grateful for that. Her ass was
reasonably tight but nicely rounded. She had nice hips, though the
right one sported a larger bullet hole than the one in her
shoulder.

He caressed it with his thumb, studied it in the
mirror, along with others, he saw now. Old scars, slashes here and
there. “What’s this?” he murmured as he traced a long, thin gash on
the outside of her right thigh with a finger.

She smiled. “A knife wound.” His eyes widened a bit
and his cock stirred as he met her gaze in the mirror. She
continued, “You don’t make black belt without a few injuries. I
think that one took sixteen stitches.”

“Black belt,” he breathed. “That explains the
bodhisattva, the meditation. Most people pray.”

“Meditation is silent, a quest for emptiness.
Praying is a conversation. They each serve their purpose.”

He said nothing for a long while as he traced her
body, her scars, with his fingertips. “This one?” he asked when he
found a very old, very odd-shaped scar under her left breast that
he would have missed had he not been looking so closely.

She pursed her lips and remained silent for a few
beats and then, “Glass bottle. Sebastian and I were out collecting
one night and the debtor had arranged an ambush.”

He smirked. “What happened?”

She hesitated again. “Let’s just say he paid us what
he owed us. Eventually. We didn’t know where he got the money and
we didn’t care.”

With a finger, he made a sweeping motion around it,
then around again. Visions of his own all-American boyhood flashed
through his mind: football, surfing, church, Boy Scouts, suburban
school. He compared it to the vision of her girlhood of guns,
ghettos, and back alley collections and—

“That’s
fuckable
,” he finally breathed and
she laughed.

“I wouldn’t be with a man who didn’t find a few war
wounds attractive.”

No, nothing fragile or breakable about this
woman.

“You’re perfect.”

“Mmmm, so are you.”

“No. We’re Beauty and the Beast, is what we
are.”

She scowled. “I don’t see you that way. Whatever you
think about the way you look? Ditch it. Only my opinion counts and
I think you’re perfect.”

“You didn’t see me before the fire and I have no
pictures.”

“Before the fire, you were married.”

“And about a week away from being divorced.”

“Because you were miserable.”

“And because she wasn’t you.”

“You didn’t know me then.”

“I feel like I’ve known you forever,” he murmured,
dipping his head to nibble and taste the crook of her neck, licking
the mark he had given her. “You are so familiar to me, it’s like we
met long ago. Giselle, I’ve spent two years thinking of you, what
it would be like to be in bed with you, what you must have in that
warrior’s soul of yours.”

“You had a six-month head start on me, then.”

They watched each other carefully for a long moment,
then Bryce kissed and nibbled at her ear. “I don’t know when I fell
in love with you, Giselle, but I don’t remember a time when I
wasn’t.”

She turned her head then and caught his mouth in a
kiss he didn’t care about taking away from her.

“You bit me,” she breathed into his mouth.

“I did,” he whispered back. “You’re mine. I want
every male in the world to know that.”

“Mmmm, I like that. But don’t think I won’t give
back as good as I get.”

“Counting on it.”

* * * * *

26: O
FORTUNA

Sebastian had gone home after spending the day with
the delectable Miss Logan and painted like a man possessed,
following the heavy percussion and extravagant voices of
Carmina
Burana
that resounded throughout his massive studio.

He scowled in irritation when Giselle came
clattering in the door overhead until he realized by the sound of
the footsteps that she had someone with her—a man. There was only
one man she’d bring into this house and for only one reason, so his
irritation died as fast as it had flared.

Sebastian continued to paint, the erotic music loud
and heightening what was happening above his head, thereby
informing what happened on his canvas. It wasn’t long until her
cries could be heard over the pounding music every time she came.
Snapped out his funk by his thorough delight at her sudden and
unexpected debauchery, Sebastian laughed out loud.

It did occur to him he should probably have the
place soundproofed, especially if Kenard became a regular overnight
guest. Yeah, it was funny tonight, but by tomorrow, Sebastian would
be seriously annoyed. On the other hand, it would shock him
speechless if she
didn’t
move out of Sebastian’s house and
into Kenard’s soon. Within the week.

That might suck a bit. He liked having her around,
kinda like a cat without the litter box.

He continued to paint long into the night and after
all the noises above him had ceased, until he was distracted by the
sound of Knox letting himself into the house and then coming down
the stairs to his studio.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sebastian barked,
angry at the interruption.

“It’s eight o’clock in the morning and you look like
shit,” Knox shot back. “I came to talk to you about Eilis Logan.
And where’s Giselle? Her car’s not out there.”

Sebastian grinned. “Giselle is just fine, I do
believe. What do you want to know about Logan?”

“Can she be rescued?”

He pursed his lips while he cleaned his brushes and
knives. He’d had no idea he’d painted the night away, although he
did admit that what he’d painted was particularly exquisite, once
he stepped back and looked.

He didn’t answer, but led the way upstairs to the
kitchen to fix himself some breakfast. Knox rooted around in the
refrigerator, then sat down at the conference room table and ate
part of a leftover steak to temper the orange juice.

“You’re a shithead, you know that?” Sebastian said.
“You could’ve just told me she had all that art to begin with, and
I would’ve taken the receivership without you having to hammer away
at me. Why do you have to do everything the hard way?”

“You don’t seem to mind that when you dig yourself
into a hole and you need me to pull you back out.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll be sure to tell Congress you’re
the biggest weapon in my Fix-or-Raid arsenal. Happy now?”

“Ah, recognition for my genius at last.”

“Madness, not genius.”

“And always with a method. Eccentric hermit money
brokers have no room to talk. Are you going to sell her art?”

“Absolutely. With the sale of the eight Fords alone,
she’ll be almost halfway out of the red. I’m still in shock that
she’d keep them while her company went deeper and deeper—and who
knows what other treasures she’s got stored away somewhere. I’m
shocked she didn’t clean house. She’s so top-heavy that building
should be leaning like Pisa. And why hasn’t she taken her company
public? She’s got two great products that she hasn’t put on the
general market . . . why? Her marketing sucks. Nothing makes
sense.”