Sandra Brown - Ricochet

Saying nothing more, she went into the bedroom and soundly closed the door behind her.

He awoke to the sound of birds chirping somewhere close. It was still early. The sun wasn’t fully up. He rarely woke up in time to see a sunrise, but he’d gone to sleep unusually early. After trying to wrestle his way through his jumbled thoughts and conflicting emotions, he’d given up and allowed his eyes to close. That’s the last thing he remembered. His sleep had been deep and dreamless.

He threw off the light quilt and stood up, stretching to work the cramps out of his muscles. He thought about going for a run while it was reasonably cool, but decided he wasn’t awake enough yet. He would wait awhile and then go. After Elise was up.

The bedroom door was closed, as it had remained since she’d disappeared through it last night.

He pulled on his jeans. He used the bathroom and conscientiously put the seat down. He wondered what people did at this time of the morning if they hadn’t been called into work or they weren’t exercising. Reading the newspaper? Watching the morning talk shows? He didn’t have a newspaper and he didn’t want to disturb Elise by turning on the TV.

Coffee. He would make coffee and go light on the amount of grounds.

But in the midst of the process, his hands fell still. He stared out the window above the sink. The water was calm this morning, almost like glass, undisturbed save for the small wake of one lone fishing boat.

Why had he become so mad at her last night? If Elise had been successful at collecting evidence against Laird and Savich, would he have acted like a jerk and condemned her as he had? Or would he be lauding her courage, commending her for making such a tremendous sacrifice to her personal happiness?

Was he actually blaming her for failing at what he himself had been unable to accomplish? With all his training and advanced degree, with the support of the police department behind him, he hadn’t brought these criminals to justice, either.

And he hadn’t denied himself a personal life in order to do it. Elise had.

But he hadn’t been so much angry as jealous. That’s what it boiled down to. He’d become angry because he couldn’t stand the thought of her with Cato Laird. With any man. Except himself.

He didn’t think about it, he just left the paper filter and the empty carafe on the counter and walked to the bedroom door. Without hesitation, he opened it.

She was lying with her back to him. When the door hinge squeaked, she raised her head from the pillow, then rolled onto her back and looked toward the door. Seeing him, she came up on her elbows. “Is something wrong?”

“No.”

She glanced toward the window. “What time is it?”

“The sun’s not quite up.”

“Oh.”

And then there was silence except for their breathing while they stared at each other across the dim room. Duncan walked to the side of the bed. She smelled of warmth and sleep. She was wearing the new pajamas she’d bought yesterday. Under the thin cotton tank top her breasts lay soft.

His voice a harsh whisper, he said, “Did you fake it?”

For several moments, she looked at him with dazed puzzlement, then her eyes cleared with understanding. “Yes.”

His heart plummeted.

“Every time while I was married.” She gave a small shake of her head, adding huskily, “But not with you.”

He dragged in a deep, restorative breath. Never breaking eye contact, he unbottoned his jeans and pulled them off, then stepped out of his boxers. He pulled back the light covers and got in beside her, stretching out above her, trapping her head between his hands.

He lowered his forehead to hers, resting it there, inhaling her scent. “You’re married to him.”

“Legally. But I’m not his wife.”

She angled her head and touched her mouth to his, tentatively. He made an inarticulate sound of surrender and sank into the kiss. His fingers burrowed in her cropped hair, but the passion was tender, not turbulent.

For a long time they kissed, sometimes deeply and wetly and sexily, sometimes just the mere brushing of their lips. Eventually he raised his head and gazed down into her face, now flushed with more than sleep.

“Let me…” She pushed him away so she could remove her tank top and matching shorts, then pulled him back down to her. Skin to skin, they sighed with pleasure as his mouth melded with hers once again.

His sex was hard, probing her middle, and by the time the lengthy kiss ended, they were restless, wanting more. He levered himself up so he could look at her. She was the stuff of dreams. He brushed his fingertips through her pubic hair, trailed them around her flat navel, up to circle her breasts before settling on one.

He gently reshaped it, then took her nipple into his mouth and made love to it. She covered his hand with hers in a gesture of offering, while her other hand cupped the back of his head and held him close. He was guided by her sighs, told what she liked by her soft groans, and learned what she best responded to when her hips came off the bed and she gasped his name.

He kissed his way down her torso and nuzzled the delta between her thighs. Sliding his hands beneath her hips, he scooped her up toward his face and pressed it into the soft hair. He spoke her name, God’s name, love words, swear words.

Finally, his lips damp with her, he raised himself above her, and kissed her mouth as he sent his penis deep into her. He thought he had remembered. He hadn’t. It was better than memory. From tip to root, she gloved him. Snug and hot. Woman. Elise.

When he started to move, he pressed one of her thighs toward her chest to increase the friction and her pleasure. Her fingertips caressed the small of his back, lower over his butt cheeks, flirted with the crevice, driving him mad.

His strokes grew faster, deeper. He wanted to hold back, make it last. But his climax was racing toward him. He slid his hand between their bodies, applied his fingertip to her in tight, slippery circles.

Her body arched. She called his name and clutched him to her.

He emptied himself into her, thinking: How could anything that felt this right, this perfect, possibly be wrong?

They lay face-to-face, heads sharing the pillow. His penis was limp in her hand, but each time her thumb glanced the tip, it sent a frisson of sensation through his entire body.

“I couldn’t fight it anymore,” he said.

She gazed at him a bit sadly. “Will I be something you regret?”

He hugged her closer, whispering into her hair, “No. No. No matter what happens, I’ll never regret this.”

They kissed. When they pulled apart, he said wryly, “I had my nerve coming to you this morning after what I said to you last night. Why didn’t you tell me to get the hell out and leave you alone?”

“Because you might have.”

“You didn’t want me to get the hell out and leave you alone?”

“Shamelessly, no.”

They exchanged affectionate smiles. His hand was cupped between her thighs. He squeezed gently. “It’s not only about this, Elise.”

“No?”

He gave a negative motion of his head. “Maybe the first time I saw you, yeah. But even after discovering who you were, and thinking I’d probably never see you again after that awards dinner, you stayed in my mind. You haunted me. The night Trotter was shot, I realized why, and it was more than the obvious. You looked…solitary. Alone. Sad.”

She touched his cheek.

“Here you were, a rich lady of leisure, with a handsome, influential husband who worshiped the ground you walked on. It didn’t make sense to me why you would look so unhappy and…Jeez, I just realized the right word. Afraid. You looked afraid. And, even though I was investigating you for a possible crime, my first instinct was to help you.”