CLAIRE was tired. Weak. Aching to give in to the fatigue that plagued her on too many levels to count. She’d relented and let Sally in for a few hours, after the girl had planted herself on her doorstep bellowing about getting the police involved if Claire didn’t open up and prove she was still alive.
She’d opened the door and braved Sally’s shock and outrage at finding her still in the pajamas she’d slept in the night before, eyes swollen and hair knotted in some unholy mess.
“That rat bastard did this to you!”
And then Claire had been forced to explain that Ryan was not, in fact, a rat bastard. But that they were through regardless.
Sally had sat with her, quietly for a while, and then listening when Claire talked. She’d brought some gourmet soup and reheated it while Claire showered, refusing to go until half a bowl had been consumed.
And then she’d been alone again. The way she’d wanted it. Except alone, there was nothing to prevent her mind from revisiting all the moments she’d allowed herself to go astray. All the opportunities untaken, where she might have held herself apart but instead gave in to the feel-good temptation of what Ryan offered. And with each passing hour it worsened.
She wanted to go to sleep, but somehow the idea of lying in that bed where Ryan had held her was too much to bear. Eventually, her eyes closed and her head rested against the arm of the couch and she gave herself over to the bliss of numb.
Three hard raps sounded at her door some time later, jolting her to her feet as she grasped the panels of her robe together in a disoriented rush. For an instant the fog of confusion kept reality at bay, but then another bout of knocking had the here and now slamming securely into place.
Ryan.
He’d said he was on his way, but that was before she’d told him it was over. He shouldn’t have come, but even as she thought it, her heart gave an unsteady lurch toward the door.
“Open up, Claire.” The words came low and rough through the wood panels dividing them, warning her he was a man past patience. After a flight that was at minimum five and a half hours, plus whatever it took to make that flight happen, he’d have to be.
Throwing the lock, she’d barely turned the knob when he’d pushed the door open, caught her hip and backed her down the hall, kicking the door closed behind him.
Gasping at the unexpected contact as much as at the sight of Ryan’s haggard features, she clutched at his sleeves for balance. “What are you doing here? I told you not to come—”
“I heard you,” he said, releasing her into the corner as he jerked free of his coat at the small closet.
Her heart was racing, her throat tight from too much emotion over too many hours. “Then why?”
Ryan turned a caustic smile on her. “Come on. Like you really don’t know?”
Her head shook in willful denial.
“Closure,” he answered, jerking his tie to loosen and then starting on the buttons down his shirt. “What we’ve been after from the start.”
“No,” she whispered in strangled protest.
His fingers stilled at the fourth button, his dark eyes narrowing on her as she stared at the wide swath of tanned skin and smattering of crisp hair already revealed.
“‘No’ what?” he snapped, planting a hand on the wall beside her head. Closing her in without touching her at all.
His voice lowered, dangerously softening. “It’s not closure? Or closure wasn’t what you were after? Or ‘no,’ don’t stop until I’ve got you wrapped around me, giving up my name on a scream?”
Her breath rushed out at the angry, seductive taunt, leaving her without response.
Taking her silence for the victory it was, Ryan adjusted his stance, lowering his head so his words fell warm and wet against her ear. “Can you leave it like this, Claire… Unfinished?”
The fists that had balled at her sides were now pressed against the hard plane of his stomach.
Unfinished.
She didn’t want that. Not for herself. Not for Ryan.
“I need more, Claire…” Running a light finger down the side of her neck, he followed the silk lapel of her robe to the vee where it met its partner. Hooked the panel and steadily drew it back to expose the swell of her bare breast. “…than just another empty phone call.”
Cool air collided with her oversensitive skin. And then the slightly callused pad of Ryan’s thumb brushed the turgid peak of her nipple, pushing a pleading whimper past her lips.
Satisfaction growled against her ear as need spilled heavy and warm through her center.
And then both his hands were on her. Cupping the growing weight of her breasts, one sheathed in silk, the other bare. Silk and rough skin contrasted in sensual harmony, pulling at the needy place in her core. “Give me tonight.”
“Tonight,” she moaned, arching into the teasing abrasion, begging for more. Her own hands clutching convulsively at the sides of Ryan’s shirt. She needed this. Maybe more even than he did.
Ryan’s hand wound into the hair at her nape, coaxing her head back so that she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “I need to say goodbye. Don’t you need it, too?”
Staring up at him, her throat tightened and suddenly she was blinking back the sting of tears.
“Yes,” she whispered tentatively, moving her hands to his face. Then more boldly allowing her fingertips to trace each beloved feature. To memorize them. The sharp blade of his nose. The high ridge of his cheekbones, the thick fringe of his lashes.
Ryan’s eyes closed, the tension in his body seeming to leak out with the weight of his sigh…and then gathered again as something new. Something different. Hungry.
The hand in her hair tightened, slowly pulling her head back so that she was open to him, exposed, waiting for his kiss.
Eyes drifting over the offering he’d made of her, he drew an even, controlled breath. “When I hold you tonight, I’m going to know it’s the last time. I’m going to take my time over you.”
As if to emphasize the point, he bent his head to her mouth and licked a slow path around her parted lips, then slid his tongue between, filling her in increments until a shudder of aching anticipation racked her captive frame and a needy groan chased his painstaking retreat.
“I’m going to make you wait, Claire.” Another rough stroke of his tongue into her waiting mouth followed by the scrape of his teeth across her jaw, neck and that decadent spot beneath her ear.
Hands skating to her hips, he braced her for the steely length of him rocking against her. “Make it last. There won’t be a single inch of you I haven’t tasted…touched.”
Desire churned within her, turning her breath to shallow pants. Hands fumbling between them, she worked the remaining buttons down Ryan’s shirt. Wrestled with his belt and fly until he caught her wrists within his hand and led her back down the hall. In her bedroom he stripped them both naked, then followed her down to the bed. “God, Claire, I need to make you mine one more time.”
Claire closed her eyes as Ryan’s body pressed down on her. The first moments following making love were always a decadent torture. That bit of time when he gave in to the bone-deep muscle fatigue resulting from the total attention he showered on her body. His reckless collapse. Her fingers would trail a light path over the broad terrain of his back, circling one way and then the other as she encouraged him to linger a moment longer.
But tonight was different. She clung to the broad, powerful shoulders of the man she loved, knowing with each second that passed they came closer to that final goodbye. She wanted to savor the weight of him against her. Wanted to remember the heavy beat of his heart and the dampness of his skin. The hold so secure she couldn’t escape if she tried.
But too soon he pushed to an elbow and rolled to his side. A warm hand slid down her back as deep brown, contemplative eyes met hers. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Her lips trembled as she tried to smile for him, somehow convey that he had been right. That she’d needed this goodbye too. That she felt right about it. Only, the muscles of her face rebelled, refusing to bow or stretch into a lie they didn’t feel.
These were the final seconds of what she’d once dreamed would be forever.
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be the end, Claire. This last week has been nuts, but think about what it was like before that.”
She was. They had been too good not to want more of. Too good not to wonder if it could last. Salty emotion clogged her throat as she began to force the words she didn’t want to speak from it. “Neither of us were looking for forever. Just an affair, because we’d tried marriage and…look where it left us. Right?”
It was as close as she could come to asking him for the words they’d stopped saying nine years ago. The promises that everything would be okay. That they could make it through.
As close as she would allow herself to come to believing in maybe.
His hand stilled, then resumed its repetitive stroke as he leaned in, pressing his lips to her brow. “Right.” A tight breath filled the space between them, then, “Just say it.”
Closing her eyes, she swallowed past all the wrong words that kept pushing to get free.
Shaking her head, she whispered, “I don’t know how.”
All she knew was that her heart was breaking with every savage beat and she was terrified she’d already let herself fall too far. That she’d never be able to piece herself back together.
Ryan cupped her cheek and, tipping her face to his, brushed the thick pad of his thumb across her tear-streaked skin. A wry smile twisted his lips. “No one should go through a divorce without having their heart shredded, right? Even if the heartbreak is almost a decade old, signing away that promise of a life together should make it fresh. It shouldn’t be easy.”
“No. It shouldn’t. It isn’t.”
His lips met hers in a gentle clasp. Held as he gathered her close for one final embrace in a marriage of fools.
And then it was over.