Authors: Jo Goodman
The silence was powerful. For long moments Ryder only stared at her. The word "liar" lay on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't like the taste of it. As far as he could see there was nothing for her to gain by lying to him and perhaps a great deal to lose. "You deceived me," he said deeply.
She tried to shrug it off, but her cheeks were warmer than they had been a moment ago.
"For the second time," he added.
Now Mary's eyes dropped away. "I remember," she said.
"Did you think I wouldn't mention it?" he asked. "You took some pleasure in pretending to be something other than you were the first time we met."
"I took some pleasure in being mistaken for being me," she corrected softly. Mary glanced at him. "I don't expect you to understand, but it's the truth." Honesty compelled her to add, "And yes, I did enjoy your discomfort when you found out what I was."
Ryder remembered that quite clearly. If he closed his eyes he could see her sitting on the warm rock by the watering hole, clutching her knees to her chest, her posture protective but her smile completely smug. Uncertain of his reaction, she was not looking quite so confident now. Her bright eyes were faintly anxious, and there was no smile. Only the way her arms were crossed in front of her was familiar.
"Find something to wear," he said finally. "I don't care what." He turned, picked up a lantern, and left the chamber.
Mary stared after him, unable to call him back, uncertain if she wanted to. When his light vanished in the corridor, Mary bent slowly and picked up her habit. She folded it carefully and placed it in the trunk. Her clothing options were limited. She had the cotton shift and undergarments she had worn beneath her habit and she had his extra shirts and pants. Mary slipped the shift over her head and pulled on the drawers. She used one of Ryder's heavier shirts as a jacket, rolling up the sleeves until the cuffs rested partway between her wrist and elbow. Her stockings and shoes were not as warm on her feet as Ryder's socks, but Mary decided the less she wore of his, the better. His curt order that she should get dressed hadn't precisely been an invitation to share his belongings.
Mary shook out the blanket she had worn and laid it over the other blankets on the bed. She smoothed the edges and pressed out the wrinkles with her hand. She wondered if he would make her wear it when they slept again. Her hand trembled slightly. Perhaps this would be the night he would tell her to sleep in nothing at all.
* * *
Mary yawned widely. Belatedly she raised her hand to cover her mouth. The book she had been pretending to read slipped from her other hand and fell closed in her lap.
"Perhaps you should lie down," Ryder said. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the chamber, several maps from the trunk unrolled in front of him. He hadn't bothered looking up.
"Aren't you tired?" she asked. It was impossible to know the passing of time with any certainty, but Mary suspected it was already very late in a day that had been interminably long. Ryder had stayed away for most of it, and though Mary didn't know what business he had had outside the cavern, she had felt as if she were being punished. She was tempted to say as much when he finally returned, but nothing in his manner invited conversation or comment. He had eaten his meal in silence. Afterward he had knelt in front of the trunk, emptying it of everything until he could lift the false bottom and retrieve the maps. He hadn't even glanced in Mary's direction to see if she was interested or irritated by the trunk's hidden treasure. It was as if she had ceased to exist in any way that was important to him.
It didn't make sense.
Mary dropped her book back in the basket and stifled another yawn. She stood, her fingers and toes curling as she tried to stretch without bringing attention to herself. She was careful not to disturb Ryder's maps as she stepped around them, but the hem of her shift slid across his knee when she passed. The tug on her shift stopped her in her tracks. She turned and looked down. Ryder was holding a handful of her shift in his fist.
"Yes?" she asked. The contrast of his skin against the white fabric, the intensity of his grip, held her focus. Suddenly Mary found it difficult to draw a breath. He didn't say anything but the pull on her was inexorable, as real as if his hand had twisted in her shift and yanked her down. She felt her knees give way and then she was sitting beside him. His gaze shifted from his hand to her face, and the cool gray eyes studied her with a predator's awareness. Mary held herself very still. Even when his hand released her shift, she felt very much his captive.
"I'm not tired," he said after a moment.
"Oh." Mary had forgotten that she'd asked.
"I wanted to be." His hand was raised, and it now rested on the curve of her neck. When his thumb made a slow pass across her skin, her pulse jumped beneath it. "Why did you tell me, Mary?"
She swallowed. His fingers lifted and drifted across her cheek. He touched her ear and tested the texture of her hair at her temple.
"Is this what you wanted?" When she didn't say anything, his hand closed over the back of her neck and he drew her closer. "Or this?" His head bent and his mouth touched hers, lightly at first, a mere whisper of warmth against her lips. "This, then." The pressure this time was more deliberate. His hand tightened, held her steady, and his mouth closed over hers. He felt her try to draw in a breath, but it was his air she drank. Her lips were soft, the space between them narrow. He widened it with his tongue, the touch tentative, a mere taste. The sound she made was small, almost a whimper. Ryder did not mistake her response for arousal alone. He could sense her fear.
Instead of withdrawing, he deepened the kiss. His fingers wound around her hair and kept her close while his tongue explored the sweet recesses of her mouth. He leaned his weight into her gradually so that she was eased to the cool stone floor with hardly any awareness of how she had gotten there. His body unfolded beside her, stretching until one of his legs had captured hers. It was only then that he raised his mouth. The centers of her eyes were dark and vaguely unfocused. Her lips were parted and faintly swollen, richer in color than they had been before the kiss.
"My God," he said huskily. "You've never even been kissed before."
Mary was surprised by her own indignation. "Yes, I have," she said a little sharply.
"Oh?" He kissed the corner of her mouth, nibbled along the length of it. Her lips parted again, and he teased her with his tongue before he asked, "Who?"
"Jordan Reilly."
Her answer had come too quickly to be a lie, yet Ryder suspected there was something she wasn't sharing. He lowered his head and kissed her hard, wringing an arching response from her. Her breathing was quick and shallow when he drew back, and of their own accord, her hands had come to rest lightly on his shoulders.
"He was eight," she admitted after a moment. "I was only—"
She never finished. Ryder's mouth slanted across hers and Mary felt his urgency whip through her, lashing her with his heat and hunger. There was anger as well, and it was less easy to understand. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. The weight of his body against her was unfamiliar, but she accepted it. Her arms eased around him and her fingers threaded in his thick, inky hair.
Ryder broke off suddenly. He pulled away from Mary's grasp and sat up. "You'd let me, wouldn't you?" he said harshly.
Mary sat up. Confused by the accusation in his tone and a little wounded, she flushed. Still, it was not in her to deny the truth. "Yes," she said simply. "I would."
"Why?"
She didn't answer the question. Instead she asked, "Why does it make you angry?"
Ryder's smile was grim and humorless. "I didn't know you realized I was."
"I could..." She hesitated. "I could feel it in your kisses. I'm inexperienced. Not naive." She drew in her breath and said again, "So why are you angry?"
Sighing, Ryder got to his feet. He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not angry with you," he said. "You haven't done anything except make me want you, and you did that a long time ago." He shook his head slowly. "I shouldn't have brought you with me. It was a mistake to think I could keep my hands off you."
Mary stood. Ryder was already turning from her when she asked quietly, "Why do you want to?"
"One doesn't miss what one hasn't had."
"That isn't true," she said. "I know."
Ryder turned around. "We're not talking about the same thing," he said. "Not at all." She wanted to satisfy her curiosity. She had no idea of the need that was driving him. "Go to sleep now. I have work to do."
She almost reached for him, but she sensed he would push her away. She walked past him, careful not to brush him, and went to the bed. Drawing off three of the blankets, she tossed them in Ryder's direction; then she lay down. He put out all the lanterns except the one he needed for reading the maps. "I still have all my clothes on," she told him a shade defiantly.
Ryder leaned over the maps. Without looking at her, he said pleasantly, "Shut up, Mary."
* * *
Knowing only that something had changed, he came awake suddenly. He was on his feet in the next moment as he sensed Mary's absence from the chamber.
She stood in the arched entrance holding a bucket of spring water in one hand and a lantern in the other. "Did you think I left?" she asked curiously.
Ryder raised one hand to the back of his neck and rubbed. Tension seeped out of him slowly. "You did leave."
"Only to get some water." She hung the lantern inside the entrance and carried the bucket over to him. "You were sleeping very soundly. I made a racket and you didn't stir once."
"Liar."
It wasn't said unkindly, and Mary didn't take offense. "All right," she admitted. "I
was
quiet, but you have to admit you only just missed me. I've been gone at least two minutes."
"So long," he said dryly. It bothered him more than he cared to admit. If she had wanted to, she could have gone quite a distance in two minutes. "Why didn't you try leaving? Aren't you still anxious to get away from here?"
Mary set down the bucket. "I thought about it," she said. "I think about it a lot. But I find myself in something of a predicament. If I try to go you would probably drag me back, and then you would make me sleep with nothing but a blanket again, right next to you, and then we would both have a hard time sleeping. Probably we would kiss, and maybe even more than that would happen, and you would blame me for that, thinking I planned it all—heaven knows, I've given you good reason to think that—so it did not seem to me I'd be able to convince you otherwise and—" She paused to take a breath. "And there you have it. There just wasn't any sense in trying to get away."
He was staring at her, fascinated. She was laughing at him, he knew she was, but there was no smile on her lips and only innocence in her forest green eyes. "Is that right?" he said softly.
She nodded serenely and turned to go. "Would you like some breakfast?" she asked. "I thought I'd—"
Ryder caught her hand and pulled her back. She was brought flush to his body in a swift movement. His arms circled her waist quickly, trapping her. "What if I changed my mind?" he asked. "I did a lot of thinking, too."
Mary blinked. Her face was tilted toward his, and it seemed his mouth was very close. "You did?"
He nodded and bent his head. His lips touched her just beneath her ear. "I've decided..."—Ryder's mouth grazed her cheek—"the next time..."—he kissed her temple—"you leave this chamber"—he traced the edges of her parted lips with his tongue—"I'll drive a spike in the stone and chain you to it." His hands closed around her waist as he set her from him.
Mary was still feeling the edge of his tongue on her mouth. The words registered slowly. She wavered on her feet a little unsteadily as a sweet ache swept through her.
"Now don't flirt with me anymore," he said. "I can make you hurt a lot worse than you can make me." Ryder only hoped she would believe him.
* * *
It was something of a standoff for two more days. Ryder spent very little time inside the chamber, and he never offered to take Mary out again. When they were together their conversation was cool and polite. They studiously avoided any subject that could be construed as personal and were careful not to touch. Mary slept alone on the stone pallet of blankets while Ryder made his bed on the floor.
It was a satisfactory arrangement for neither of them. On the third morning Ryder was finally prepared to announce there would be a change. He placed his hand on Mary's shoulder and shook her awake.
"Go away," she said sleepily.
"Get up."
"Why?" It was a good question, she thought. Why bother getting up at all when there was little to make one day different from another.
Ryder almost repeated what he thought about her taking issue with his orders and then thought better of it. "Because we're leaving."
That got Mary's attention. "Leaving?" She sat up and threw her legs over the side of the stone loft. "Leaving the cavern, you mean?" she asked eagerly.
He nodded and let his hand drift away from her shoulder.
"Where are we going?"
"A day's walk from here."