DON’T think.
How could she? Rational thought and conscious decision were beyond her. Annihilated by the immediate, hard press of muscle and man—familiar and foreign all at once—and the harder press of Ryan’s mouth upon hers. Parting her lips beneath the crush of a kiss that was dominating and devastating and left her quivering, pinned between the wall and everything she shouldn’t want.
Oh, God, how long since she’d been kissed like this, since any man had gotten close enough to kiss her at all? She’d forgotten the ecstasy of it. Of Ryan. Hot and insistent, sliding into her mouth, stroking over her teeth and tongue.
Sharing the taste and texture of his need.
So good. It was so good, she didn’t want to think.
Except that wasn’t how she worked anymore. It wasn’t who she was.
So then what was she doing winding her arms around his neck and holding on as if she’d never let go, aching for more of that fleeting perfection she hadn’t experienced in so very long, and opening wider to the kiss she shouldn’t accept. All the while knowing the remnants of a marriage that never should have been lay cluttering the table behind them.
It was crazy, and yet, from the very first, she’d been weakening. Making excuses. Trying to deny the undeniable. She wanted him.
She wanted the taste of him in her mouth. The press of him over her body. She wanted what she’d thought she lost forever. She wanted it one last time. And she wanted it tonight.
One night.
Not enough time to get hurt or invest feelings that neither of them wanted or could afford.
Just long enough to set her free.
The breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding escaped in a rush. And then she was pressing into him. Arching her back so her shoulders braced the wall and her breasts rubbed his chest. Sucking at his lips and tongue, begging him for more.
His hands skimmed her waist, following the rise of her ribs until he’d covered the swells of her breasts between them, voicing his satisfaction with a deep rumble that filled her mouth.
Her hands fisted against his shirt as a needy plea escaped her. More. Everything. Please. Now.
Only then he stopped. His strong fingers shaped her jaw, tipping her face to the taut features of his. “Look at me, Claire. If there’s even a chance you don’t want this, stop me now.”
She could barely breathe for wanting him so badly. There was no stopping. Not now.
He must have read the answer in her eyes though, because his mouth slammed down over hers, his tongue plunging hard and deep, retreating and driving in again. Hoisting her from her feet, he pulled her thighs to his hips, fitting them together in a way that was almost perfect, before he backed her across the room.
She couldn’t get enough. Her hands were in his hair, pulling at his clothes, running over the muscles that bunched and flexed beneath the touch of her hands.
It shouldn’t be Ryan. She wished it wasn’t. Wished it had been any one of the decent men over the years who’d vied for her attention and walked away without success. But it wasn’t.
It was Ryan. Only Ryan who held that last elusive piece to the life she so desperately needed to rebuild. That piece she’d thought lost forever.
This had to be a mistake. Deep down, Ryan knew it was. It wasn’t possible to get this close to an inferno without getting burned, but the heat between them was so damn good. So hot. So out of control.
So beyond anything he’d had since before—
Don’t think about it. Not now. Not like this. Not when she was blazing in his arms, over his body, and threatening to turn him inside out.
His fingers splayed wide under her spread thighs, holding her close so she rubbed against his erection with every step. She was wet.
He could feel it through the denim of his jeans and the thin fabric of those sexy pants she had on.
Ryan moved by rote until the front of his thighs hit the closest available surface. The table’s edge. Divorce headquarters. Good enough.
He leaned Claire back, following her down as he swept an arm across the tabletop, clearing what had been a barely ordered mess to begin with.
They could sort it later.
Priority number one was the hellion with her legs locked around his hips, her hands jerking the buttons of his shirt free.
He had to get inside her. Had to take her.
Deep. Hot. Fast. Hard.
The primitive mantra hammered through his head as they fought the clothing between them, rocking in restless anticipation of a union that couldn’t come quickly enough.
Incoherent words of pleasure spilled from Claire’s lips in needy pants, punctuated by the upward tilt of her hips, a hungry openmouthed kiss at his neck and the desperate clutch of hands, unsettled and seeking, beneath his open shirt.
“I want… Oh, God…you don’t even know…so good…I need you…never thought…so long…”
A man’s ego could survive an eternity on words like that alone—if his head didn’t blow off first.
Fisting the gauzy fabric of a shirt that had been driving him to distraction all day, he wrenched it over Claire’s head. Her hair fell in a soft tumble around her slim shoulders, neck and breasts. Dark silk and creamy skin. A barely-there lace bra in shades of nude.
His palms shaped the firm swells, taking the jutting points of her erect nipples against them as raven strands slipped and teased over the backs of his knuckles in a lure he couldn’t ignore.
She was so fine. Pushing into his hands as her lips parted on a thready gasp.
Sensitive. Inviting. So damn responsive.
Echoes of her soft cries from a hundred different nights tightened his spine, demanded he test the memories against now.
Because it was different. This time it wasn’t about love or forever or anything but what they simply couldn’t deny a minute longer. He licked his lips and willed his brain to function. “We’re just taking a time-out here.”
Her legs tightened around his waist, pulling him into closer contact with all that wet heat. “A break,” she panted, nodding quickly, and Ryan felt himself going harder at her eager willingness to go along. They were on the same page.
“Just two adults indulging in an adult activity.” Curving two fingers into the scant cup of her bra, he caught her nipple. Savored the sweet hitch in her breath at his gentle tug.
“And that’s all?” No expectation, no demand, just the need to understand.
He held her gaze, lost himself in the depths of blue and let the truth wash over him.
“No.” Even if he could lie to himself, he couldn’t lie to her. “It’s more than that.”
“Closure.” Her lips held a trace of smile as if she was only just realizing it herself.
“Closure.” The idea resonated within him. The goodbye they’d never had. He rolled the tight bud, watching as her eyes smoked, her lids heavied and her head fell back, exposing the slender column of her neck. Beautiful. Wanton. Woman.
Claire.
Reaching behind him he unlocked her ankles and brought her legs around to the front, so he could strip her pants. His gaze raked hot and fast down the length of her. Lush curves and tempting hollows. And then she bowed up, squirming to unclasp her bra, pushing all that rounded, soft perfection toward him so there was no option but to lean over and take her into his mouth, close his teeth around her, and let his tongue circle the stiff tip until she cried out her broken plea, begging for more.
He yanked the last scrap of her lacy panties down the length of her legs. His hands circled her ankles and skated up her calves, catching behind her knees. Opening her to him.
Jerking at his fly with one hand, he stepped between her legs, ready—and froze.
Muttering a quiet curse, he sucked air into his lungs. Fought the tantilizing scent of her. And forced himself to meet her eyes. Eyes that were confused and hazed with heat and hurt.
“What? Please, don’t stop. This will be okay, Ryan. Just now, just tonight. Just don’t stop.”
“No, sweetheart. Condoms, do we need them?” He didn’t know how he’d gotten this far without thinking of them. Except with Claire he’d never used them. She’d been on the pill even before the first time for some regularity issues. And then she’d been—
“I won’t get pregnant.” If nothing else had told him how strong she’d become, the way she spoke those simple words would have. Not a flinch or flicker of the old heartbreak he knew was there. He wouldn’t give her time to think about it. Not now.
“Safe sex,” he answered flatly, refusing to acknowledge the pinch of discomfort he felt at voicing the necessary words. She might still be his wife, and he was relieved she had birth control taken care of, but they hadn’t really been married in more than eight years. And though he’d been diligent to the extreme about protection—
“Oh, right,” Claire answered, the flush across her chest and neck building darker than before, pushing into her cheeks. “Of course.” She nodded quickly, then shook her head before letting out a short laugh that wasn’t quite funny.
A quiet alarm began to sound from that part of him that was all instinct and gut. It wasn’t guilt in her eyes. It couldn’t be. They’d both had other lovers and they both knew it. So then what?
“Claire?” He brushed his thumb across the bare skin of her hip. Soothing rather than seducing. “You don’t need to feel uncomfortable about this. It’s not like I’ve been a monk.”
“I know. It’s just—”
“Dahlia.” It had to be. “Look, the stuff in the papers isn’t even close to the truth. Whatever you’ve read, it’s not true.”
Claire blinked up at him with those big blue eyes touching some part of him he didn’t want to deal with. “I mean, yes, we’ve been together on and off. But what they say about the other women…”
“The soccer player.” A woman from the U.S. Olympic team he’d been paired with…
“Before I met Dahlia. There have been a few women. Four. Two longer-term and two that were…very brief.”
Damn it, this was uncomfortable. He didn’t want to think about other women. He didn’t want to think about anyone but Claire. And what it was going to be like when he got inside her. But to do that, he needed to do this.
“What you said before about me being ‘off again’ with Dahlia, it’s just off. For over a month now. And for the record, I use condoms every time.”
If he’d been expecting the tension to be wiped from Claire’s face at hearing he wasn’t half the player the rags made him out to be, it didn’t happen. If anything, she looked more uncomfortable.
And then quietly she asked, “Are you waiting for me to tell you…my sexu—”
“No,” he choked out as jealousy snagged unexpectedly in his throat. He shut his eyes, trying to blot out the images that too quickly filled his mind. That was the last damn thing he wanted to hear.
“I know there’ve been other men.” All he needed to know now was whether he was going to have to beat the world speed record in a sprint to the market down on Avenida de la Playa or whether he took her hilt deep now.
Only, then he caught her expression—and the world around them ground to a halt.
Hell, he knew that face. The one that tried to hide the truth stamped so blatantly across it. She turned away with an awkward shift, averting her gaze. The woman who’d been bare and open to him without a second’s hesitation didn’t want him to see her eyes.
Catching her chin in his hand, he brought her face back to his. “There have been other men.”
The wince was almost imperceptible. Anyone who wasn’t looking for it—praying it wouldn’t come—would have missed it. But it was there.
No. He couldn’t be right about this.
Let his blasted gut and instinct have turned worthless overnight.
“Please,” she begged, trying to pull back from his grasp.
She couldn’t do this to him. Panic crawled up this neck as unwilling certainty settled over him.
“Tell me I’m wrong! Tell me there’s been someone else.”
Just the one! he silently roared. Give him something. Anything. But as her gaze held with his, he knew.
“Ryan—”
“No.” He jerked the clothes hanging half off his body back into place as memories of the past years accosted him with sickening force. He’d moved on…because she had. There hadn’t been any guilt. But now.
All this time. How could she—
He nearly choked. “Have you been waiting for me to come after you?”
“God, no!” It was worse than Claire could have imagined.
She reached for him, only to have her hand pressed away.
“Then what?” he demanded, anguish and accusation warring in his eyes. “How?”
The sincerity of the question, one she couldn’t believe he wouldn’t understand, sliced through her concern and compassion, exposing the old hurt she’d tried so hard to overcome. “How? How can you even ask? You were there. You saw me. What I was like. After we lost Andrew—” Images of his too-tiny body assaulted her, constricting her chest. Shaking her head, she forced air in and out of her lungs, refusing to give in to the dark emotions that threatened to swamp her when she delved too deeply into the old pain. “I was broken. To my soul.”
“I know you were…different.” He crossed to her, grabbing her arms and then setting her back from him as though to touch her was both necessity and beyond tolerable. “I took you to counseling. Yes, I knew. But all this time? I thought—I believed you’d—”
He jerked away from her, shoving his fingers through his hair as agony shone in his eyes. “Damn it, Claire, I saw another man leaving your apartment! Five in the morning. What the hell was that?”