was known for its brilliant sunsets. Sunrise could be a full-blown religious experience, as well. The colors painting the sky this morning rivaled any Ry had ever seen as he stood, fully dressed in jeans, flannel shirt and boots, staring out the kitchen window listening to the coffee perk. But the canvas of brilliant apricots, golds and lavenders splashed along the eastern horizon were lost on him. His mind was full of Carrie.
The red of her hair, the dusky brown of her sensitive nipples, the creamy ivory tone of her skin…especially the skin covering her belly and the inside of her silky thighs. His senses were steeped in the scent of her, in the sounds she’d made when he’d made love to her, the uninhibited joy she’d discovered in her sensuality.
Everything about last night had been incredible. Everything about her had been wonderful.
And everything had been wrong.
Jaw clenched with self-condemnation and guilt, he swore under his breath and called himself ten kinds of fool. He never should have started with her, but once he had, he hadn’t been able to stop. Inexperienced, untutored, virginal…even one of the three words that had applied to her should have been enough to make him put on the skids. Combined, there was more than enough reason to curb his baser instincts. But with Carrie, what should have been deterrents were unbelievable turn-ons. She’d been so hungry to know…so willing to learn…so incredibly responsive to the slightest touch.
Inexperienced, untutored, virginal. Now she was none of those things. He’d taken them all away from her.
With movements of automation, he reached for a mug, filled it, then resumed his study of the breaking dawn. And tried to figure out where to go from here.
By the time he heard her soft footsteps on the terra-cotta tile of the kitchen floor a few minutes later, the time for figuring was over. He knew what he had to do.
He turned slowly, schooled his face into a blank sheet of paper…and felt his heart hit the floor when he saw her.
He wasn’t sure where she’d found that shirt; it was old and blue and soft from many washings. And it had never looked like that on him.
She was all long, golden legs and demure smiles…and when she lifted a hand and shoved her hair from her face, revealing that Whelan cowlick that entranced and fascinated him, it was all he could do to keep from marching her backward toward his bedroom and tumbling her onto the mattress covered in tangled sheets and the scent of her.
He knew what she wanted. A “hello lover” smile. Open arms. Reassurances that last night was as wonderful for him as she obviously felt it was for her.
And she deserved all of that and more. But all he could manage was a grim scowl and what he felt was the right, if not the best, resolution to atone for his mistake. “We need to get married.”
Eight
Carrie felt liquid and languid and pretty darn pleased with her new status as an experienced woman when she eased out of Ry’s bed that morning. She stretched, and smiling at the memories, ran her hands gingerly over some wonderfully tender spots. It was then she realized all her clothes were in the living room.
It was a long way to walk birthday-suit naked on the morning after the most incredible night of her life. She shouldn’t be shy…not after the things they’d shared. The things they’d done. But even as she stood there, knowing Ry could come walking back into the bedroom at any moment, even knowing he knew her body more intimately than she did, she felt a warm flush of color creep through her blood and heat her skin.
His closet seemed like her best option. She snagged the first shirt she found, held it to her face and breathed in the scent of clean and Ry. As she slipped it on, she figured she should probably worry about her hair, but just then the only thing she was worried about was catching Ry before he left the house to start his workday. She needed to see his face. Look into his eyes and find the same love and longing she felt for him.
So when she walked into the kitchen and saw him standing there facing the sunrise—his broad shoulders wrapped in dark flannel, his lean hips tucked into work-worn jeans—her heart did that little stutter step it had been doing for years whenever she saw him. Only, this time she knew why it fluttered so. He was her lover. And he’d made her feel things she’d never dreamed possible.
Something must have alerted him to her presence. His shoulders tensed in the moment before he set his coffee mug on the counter. When he turned, she was smiling…feeling a blood-quickening mix of sweet anticipation and morning-after uncertainty. An uncertainty that grew when his beautiful face remained a mask of unreadable emotions.
She touched a hand to her hair, nervous suddenly and not knowing why.
Until he spoke.
“We need to get married.”
She stared at the mouth that had been soft and sensual and needy in the night. This morning it was set in a hard, tense line—yet still, some part of her brain waited for the Good morning, lover. Last night was fantastic. I can’t get enough of you. Let’s start all over again.
But this was no lover’s face meeting hers. This was a face set with bleak resolve and there was nothing—nothing in his eyes, nothing in his stance—that said one word about love.
“I’m sorry?” she said, certain she must be seeing this wrong, must have heard him wrong. Certain her ears were still ringing from the incredible rush of her last orgasm and garbling the reception to her brain.
He swallowed thickly, looked beyond her to some spot on the wall that held his rapt attention. “We need to get married,” he repeated with grim determination.
Grim. With a capital G.
Need to get married.
She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
And why aren’t you saying something like I love you. I want to marry you. I’ve been a fool to have denied my feelings for so long.
But he wasn’t saying any of those words. In fact, he wasn’t saying anything at all. And the longer he stood there, stone-faced and stoic, the clearer it became that he wasn’t thinking those words, either.
Everything that had felt soft inside her hardened. Everything that felt full to bursting with love deflated like a blown tire. And the optimist in her that had clung to notions of romance and happily ever after finally knuckled under to defeat.
“Need to get married? Need to?” she repeated, incredulous, suddenly seeing what was happening here.
She’d thought he’d made love to her because he was in love with her. The sad truth was she had practically forced him into it. She’d cried all over him. For Ry, a man who couldn’t stand to see anything or anyone in pain, it was like an open invitation to make it all better.
And being a man, he’d done what any man would do when a woman blubbered all over him. He’d given in to his physical urges and his helplessness over her tears and tried to make everything better. With sex.
Now he was sorry.
Now he was playing the martyr.
They need to get married. Not because he loved her. Because he’d ruined her.
God. She couldn’t believe it.
She couldn’t believe she could continue to be so stupid where this man was concerned. And there was no way she was going to humiliate herself again by letting his motives reduce her to tears. She’d done more than enough crying, thank you very much.
“We don’t need to do anything,” she informed him firmly and, turning on her heel, stormed out of the kitchen. She had to get out of here. She had to get out of here now.
She was hunting up her clothes, jerking them on piece by piece when he walked into the living room.
“Carrie, listen.”
“Oh, I am