Pink Satin

low, vibrant tone. “Did he scare you? Or…hurt you?”

“No, nothing like that. I…” Greer lifted her head to stare at Ryan. If she could just stop feeling so terribly disoriented… Ryan looked exhausted. Taut furrows of strain aged his features; lines seemed embedded on his face that hadn’t existed days before. His striped shirt was wrinkled; he was wearing suit pants but no coat. He was beautiful. And she was so desperately glad to see him that she could hardly think of anything else. Confusion suddenly darkened her eyes. “You’re over the flu? I was so worried.”

A fleeting look of surprise and almost humor touched his eyes and then his eyes skimmed past her and around the room. His jaw clenched when he saw the covered dinner cart, and his arms first tightened, then soothed. She felt the gentle sweep of his hand, pushing back her hair, combing through it. “Would you mind not worrying about me for the moment?” he murmured.

He planted a single kiss on her mouth. A firm kiss, which seemed to bring a troubled world back into focus again. And when he lifted his head, she found herself inches away from clear blue eyes, blue like ice, blue like fire. “You knew!” she whispered suddenly. “When you just asked me if I was scared, I…how could you possibly have any idea what just happened?”

“I’ll explain everything in a little bit. Just tell me what did happen first.”

He didn’t let her go. He moved her determinedly away from the door, but he kept an arm around her shoulder, and he paused more than once to press his lips on her forehead, her neck, anywhere he could reach. His hands went to her waist, lifting her.

She’d thrown the blanket on the bed. He took it, covering her even as he half carried, half propelled her down onto the pillows. He reached down to push off his shoes, and then came to her.

“I was so frightened…” Her voice seemed to be coming from miles away.

“Yes.” He wound his arms around her and just held her. If he could have wrapped her up in his body, he would have. She’d stopped trembling, and there were suddenly tears.

“I have never in my entire life behaved like such a fool.”

He didn’t contradict her. He didn’t do anything to stop the tears or to still the suddenly frantic rush of words. He slid his arm under her waist, covered her again with the blanket and lay down next to her.

“You don’t understand,” she said frantically.

“Tell me.”

“We were getting along so well. We never had. I thought if I tried to be more understanding-and it was working. I mean, he made sexual remarks all the time, but I never paid any attention. He knew I wasn’t interested in him; he had to know.” Images flooded her mind and then receded. “I don’t see how he could possibly have misinterpreted anything I’d said or done.”

“Greer…”

“No. It must have been my fault.”

“It was not your fault,” he said emphatically.

“It was. So stupid,” she said incoherently. “From the time I was a kid…you can’t possibly understand. I just hated it. I grew up faster than the other girls; they all resented me, but the boys started getting interested in me. Dammit, that’s where it all became so confused, and it wasn’t something I could talk about with anyone. I didn’t want all that attention just because I filled out a bathing suit.” She looked at Ryan fiercely, through blurred eyes.

His thumb gently brushed away that film of tears.

“I figured it was my fault,” she said softly.

“Nothing,” he repeated, “was your fault.”

“I figured I’d invited it. So I stopped…feeling. It was supposed to be a protection, only it didn’t protect me at all. I swear I never felt anything for Ray.”

“I know that, love,” Ryan murmured.

“This evening,” she said. “You can’t possibly know how I felt. It seemed as if something inside me snapped when he grabbed me. I don’t know how to explain. He didn’t hurt me. He didn’t even touch me intimately. But after blaming myself for so long, I realized suddenly that I wasn’t responsible. Except for pretending Ray wasn’t a problem. I’d pretended that as long as I didn’t feel anything, I was safe. If I’d just opened my eyes, I might have seen what was coming…”

He grasped the essence of her pain. It took a long time, because she wasn’t talking coherently and because the source of her pain had never been clear to him before. It wasn’t just Ray she was talking about, but herself and the whole gamut of pent-up feelings she’d experienced: She resented being desirable. She’d run an emotional gauntlet all her life because she was sexually attractive to men who were too insensitive to care about her as a person. She’d felt she had to separate love from sexual feelings.

For the first time in his life, he felt helpless. He’d taken off from work for the past few days, using the excuse of flu, but the virus hadn’t actually kept him in bed. He’d been a busy man. He’d been determined to find out the identity of her caller, and he’d accomplished exactly what he’d set out to do, but the only thing that mattered now was Greer. He had to be careful; in no way must he hurt her more.

He listened awhile longer and then leaned over her to switch out the light. Her voice had faded to an exhausted murmur, dropping off completely when darkness covered them. No matter how tired she was, he knew she wasn’t even close to sleeping. He could feel the tension in her body even through the covering blanket. And his eyes didn’t have to adjust for him to find her mouth in the darkness.

His lips pressed gently, insistently, on hers. His tongue stole between her teeth, filling the moist hollow of her mouth, infusing her with his taste, his warmth, his love for her. His hands swept along her back, outside the blanket that covered her, and he could feel her whole body suddenly grow still.

“Ryan-”

“You don’t want this,” he murmured, guessing her words before she said them.

“I just…”

“Want to know something, love?”

He raised himself up on an elbow, releasing the buttons of his shirt as he looked down at her. Greer could barely see him in the shadows, but she had a fleeting feeling that he’d catch her if she tried to run. “What?”

“I want to hold you more than I want to make love to you. Now, that hasn’t happened often since I met you,” he whispered wryly, but there was no smile on his mouth. Just those bright eyes of his burning on hers in the dark. “But we’re going to have to make love, Greer. Not for me, love. In fact, I think we’ll just forget all about what I want or need. This one’s all for you, and you need to understand that ahead of time.”

“Ryan-”

“You are beautiful, Greer. Your feelings are beautiful, too, and it’s time you believed that. Actually, it’s a perfect time, because you’re absolutely sure you’ll feel nothing, aren’t you? You aren’t in the mood; you’ve been frightened to death; and maybe you’d even like to curl up in a corner, honey, but that’s not the way.”

His shirt dropped to the floor in a gentle whoosh. His belt followed. Greer swallowed. “That’s just it,” she said hesitantly. “I really…not now, I-”

He pushed aside the blanket and drew her to him. Blood pulsed in the vein in her throat, in her temples. He was bare from the golden slope of his shoulders to the iron wall of his chest. The room was not so dark now. Her eyes had adjusted, and faint city lights glowed through the windows, illuminating the distinctive shape of a man looming over her.

A very determined man. A few hours earlier, another very determined man had tried to hurt her, but the association was entirely different. This was Ryan. There could never be a comparison. She felt weak inside, unable to stop him or even try, yet suddenly a thousand times more vulnerable than she’d ever felt with Ray or any other man. Ryan’s chest with its mat of hair pressed against her as he leaned closer, his mouth claiming hers, stealing her breath, stealing her will to think.

At first her lips only reluctantly returned the pressure, and then, suddenly, fiercely molded themselves to his, her throat arched back to ensure that the bond wasn’t broken. When he heard the sudden, uneven rhythm of her breathing, he slowly raised his head. His eyes searched hers. Without looking down, he gently undid the buttons of her robe, from her throat down to her thighs. Just as gently, his hands parted the material. She felt air on her breasts, an awareness of her nakedness, a catch somewhere deep inside her.