Part 14 (1/2)
”Just like here, without you,” she whispered back. Her arms tightened around his neck and she moaned as she kissed him hungrily. ”Can we go to bed together?” she asked boldly.
He stiffened. His cheek slid against hers as he rocked her. ”I want to. You don't know how much! But you and I need to start again, at the very beginning. Holding hands, going to movies, out on dates...that sort of thing.”
She jerked in his arms. He couldn't be saying... But she lifted her head and looked at him, and it was very apparent that he was saying it. He was talking about a commitment. What kind she couldn't guess, but she didn't care. Having him home again, having him want to be with her, that was all that mattered.
She said so. He looked as rapt and wondering as she felt, as if her feet wouldn't even touch the floor when she walked.
”I used to dream about going on a date with you,” she confessed.
”I had some dreams of my own. You made most of them come true in Paris,” he murmured and kissed her flushed face. ”Don't be embarra.s.sed about it. It was the sweetest loving I've ever known.”
”Yes, but you've known a lot,” she worried.
”Neither of us has known that kind,” he emphasized. His eyes kindled. ”And in several ways, you were virginal. Remember?”
She did. Her body trembled in his arms as the memories came back full force.
”I hate myself for bringing that up,” he groaned when the words aroused him. He got up quickly and put her down. ”I'm sorry, but I've got a problem.”
She leaned back against the desk, delighted that he did, because it was proof of how easily she could stir him. Her eyes were dreamy as they watched him. ”But we can't do it again?”
He shook his head. ”Not yet.”
”Eventually?” she persisted.
He chuckled. ”Eventually neither of us will have a choice. But we've got a lot to learn about each other.”
”Can you spare the time?” she asked mischievously.
”I'll make the time,” he a.s.sured her. His pale eyes narrowed. ”I'm going to take very good care of you, Miss McKenzie.”
”You make it sound as if I need to be looked after,” she mused.
”Don't you? Honest to G.o.d, you're as thin as a spaghetti strand-vermicelli, at that.”
”I was pining away because you were gone,” she said, making a joke of it when it was the truth.
He figured that out easily enough, and smiled faintly. ”I'm back now, and I'm not going away again. So you don't have any excuse to starve yourself.”
”Just don't offer me bacon. Yuuuck!” She made a face. ”G.o.d knows why, but it makes me sick.”
He thought about the tiny thing that didn't like bacon, and his heart swelled. He couldn't tell her just yet that he hated bacon, too. His son or daughter had obviously inherited his taste already.
She didn't cook him bacon that night. Instead she baked a ham and made potato salad and homemade rolls to go with it, rounding off the meal with pecan pie, which was his favorite. Jean teased her about it, but Ivy didn't protest this time. She was so happy that she seemed to glow.
Ryder ate seconds of everything, the first food he'd really wanted or tasted in weeks. He'd lost a couple of pounds himself. His eyes swept over Ivy's radiant face with pure possession, lingering on her soft mouth. She was wearing a simple, oyster-white dress with a colorful burgundy patterned scarf-one he'd seen before-and it did something for her. He loved the way she looked in it.
She approved of him, too. He had on a white s.h.i.+rt with a tweed sports coat and dark slacks, and looked handsome enough to make her heart turn over.
After dessert, Jean-sensing new undercurrents-volunteered to do the dishes and chased Ivy and Ryder into the living room, tactfully closing the door between the two rooms with a grin.
”Cupid in a cotton ap.r.o.n,” Ryder murmured his approval.
”Except for lack of a bow and arrows,” Ivy agreed shyly.
”Good thing she doesn't know about Paris, or she'd probably break it over our heads, honey,” he said. His pale eyes smiled down at her, liking her shyness. He reached out and drew her gently to him. ”No heavy stuff,” he promised as he bent his dark head and his breath whispered against her parting lips. ”Just kisses this time, little one. We don't want things to get out of hand.”
”Yes, we do,” she whispered, moving closer to him.
He chuckled and kept her hips away from his with insistent hands. ”Yes, we do,” he agreed reluctantly. ”But not here. Not tonight.”
She slid her arms under his and pressed her cheek to his thin white s.h.i.+rt, feeling his heart beat hard and heavy under her ear. His body was warm and strong, and it was pure delight to hold him. ”I haven't slept,” she said involuntarily as she stared at the fireplace across his chest. There was a fire in it, because the electric heaters weren't enough to keep the old-fas.h.i.+oned house warm. The fireplace wasn't very efficient, but it did warm the small living room. And the fire was beautiful to look at.
”I haven't slept well, either,” he confessed. ”It wasn't other women. It was missing you in my arms at night. I got used to holding you until dawn.”
”Shh,” she cautioned, glancing worriedly toward the kitchen door. ”Mama might hear you, and we don't want her to beat us.”
”Dead right, we don't,” he chuckled against the top of her head. His arms contracted. ”But you missed sleeping with me, too, didn't you?”
She nodded. Her eyes closed and she sighed. He made her feel so feminine. It was nice to be able to lean on a man for a change. Ben had leaned on her, almost constantly.
”You've gone quiet. Why?” he asked.
”I was thinking about Ben. About the way he depended on me. I was thinking,” she added when she felt him stiffen, ”how nice it is to lean on you.”
He relaxed again. ”There's something you don't know about Ben,” he said. ”Here, sit next to me, Ivy. Before we go any farther together, you've got to know it all.”
She moved off his lap, because he looked, and sounded, worried. He sat down next to her on the worn couch and clasped his hands behind his head as he spoke.
”Ben's father was killed in a wreck, because I sent orders for him to go out to a construction site and bring back some paperwork for me. He found a bottle of Scotch I kept in my desk drawer, and he was heavily intoxicated when they cut him out of the car.” He didn't look at her. Not yet. ”That was when Ben's life fell apart. It was why he started drinking. So you see,” he finished heavily, ”I'm partially responsible for every problem you had in your marriage.”
She sat very still for a minute, thinking about her own guilt and the way her mother had made her face it. Ryder hadn't faced his own. She had to help him do that. She could, now, because she was finally free of her past.
Her hand reached out and touched his, stroking it gently. ”n.o.body is responsible for anybody else's problems,” she said quietly. ”Ben drank supposedly because of his father's death, but he had a choice, Ryder. We all have choices, and sometimes we make the wrong ones. Ben did. I did. Now I have to go on living, and so do you. Looking back won't help. All the regrets in the world won't change one single second of what happened.”
He scowled, staring pointedly at her.
”Mama helped me sort out my own guilt,” she explained simply. ”I got through it. I failed Ben, but he didn't have to stay with me and he didn't have to drink. Those were his choices.”
He twined her fingers around his. ”I've carried that around for a long time. It's been between us.” He studied her hand. ”I thought you might blame me.”
She smiled. ”No. I don't blame you for anything. Except dragging me home from Paris before I got to see the Eiffel Tower,” she clarified, grimacing at him.
He laughed softly, feeling free. ”My G.o.d, I did, didn't I? I'm sorry, honey. I wasn't thinking too clearly about then.”
”Why did we leave so suddenly?” she asked, confident enough now to ask the question.
”Don't you know?” He lifted her across his lap and let her head fall back into the crook of his elbow. ”We wouldn't have been able to stop. We'd have had each other all day, every day, from then on, for as long as we stayed there. We had Jean when we came home, to save us from ourselves. We still do.”
”Yes, but with Kim Sun gone, there's no one in your house,” she said slowly.