‘No—go away!’ she gulped, dragging an arm across her eyes. Surely he wouldn’t dare break it down? But at least, if he did, she knew the noise would bring Peggy swiftly to the rescue.
His voice lowered and she felt a little bump against the back of her skull that suggested he was resting his forehead against the polished wood. ‘Jane? What’s the matter? Are you crying, sweetheart?’ She could hear him reining in his angry impatience. ‘Look, let me in. I don’t want to hurt you—I just want to talk...’
She gulped back her tears. Sweetheart! How could he call her that? Her heart was as shrivelled as an old boot and it was his fault!
‘Well, I don’t! Go away! Or—or I’ll scream over my balcony for your mother!’
Silence on the other side of the door. Jane smiled a watery, humourless smile. She pressed her ear to the wood and still had it there when she heard a scraping sound coming from the open glass door to her balcony and rushed across just in time to see Ryan launch himself in a flying leap from the narrow rail of the next balcony, at least two metres away. In the darkness he seemed to hover like a sinister avenging angel before swooping earthwards.
Jane screamed as his landing foot hit her rail and slipped off again, but the forward momentum of his upper body carried him over the barrier to crash on his haunches in front of her.
‘Are you crazy? You could have been killed!’ she shrieked angrily as he bounced to his feet, her hands moving helplessly over his arms and heaving chest as if to reassure herself that he was real.
‘Nah...a broken leg or two at the most,’ he said, with infuriating macho insouciance, capturing her wrists and pulling them around his thick waist.
Her heart was still pounding like a freight train. So was his, she realised as her breasts were crushed against the hard wall of his chest. ‘You could have been killed,’ she repeated shrilly, almost paralysed by the thought of losing him.
‘Would you have cared if I’d crashed to my doom?’ he murmured, his hands sliding up her long, trembling back. ‘Maybe you might have thought I deserved it...’
She shuddered, burying her head in the damp front of his shirt, her voice muffled with horror. ‘What a terrible t
hing to say.’
‘I know... we’ve both said some pretty horrible things to each other in this love/hate relationship of ours, haven’t we? That’s why I think you’re right—we shouldn’t talk, talk only gets us into trouble—and, besides, actions speak louder than words...’
And, so saying, he eased back so that he could slant his hands over her shoulders and hook his fingers into the straps of her wet swimsuit, tugging them gently down her arms to bare her breasts to the soft night air, the whiteness of her body accentuated by the contrasting band of black fabric.
The only protest she could summon was a sigh of longing as he bent to moisten the tight twin peaks.
‘Shh...’ He smothered her choked murmur with his mouth and picked her up, carrying her across to the soft bed and collapsing down on it backwards so that she sprawled on top of him. He reached out and turned on the bedside lamp without breaking off the kiss, and as the familiar, addictive taste of him began to saturate her senses Jane gave herself up to a primitive world of all-consuming passion, devoted to the physical expression of the love that she was too afraid to put into words.
She helped clumsily as Ryan wrestled his shirt and her swimsuit off, throwing them to the floor and tugging her thighs astride him so that he could cup her naked bottom and move her against his undulating hips in a way that made her squirm with pleasure and plead for more. He was about to give it to her when a sharp rap at the door froze them in the midst of their glorious, erotic abandon.
‘Jane—are you all right in there? I thought I heard a scream?’
Jane reared up on her elbows, looking down in shocked embarrassment at the face of the man beneath her. Ryan’s hard features were blurred by reckless passion, his mouth bitten red by her feverish kisses, his eyes glittering chips of blue diamond fire.
‘Yes.’ She tried again, her panicky voice louder as she responded to Peggy’s anxious call. ‘Yes...but it was nothing—I’m fine...’
There was a pause, and then a quiet, ‘Are you quite sure?’
She could feel the tension that gathered in every straining muscle of the powerful body that supported her as Ryan waited for her answer. For her choice.
‘Yes—yes, I’m sure,’ she said starkly. ‘You don’t have to worry, Peggy...thanks.’
She felt a wave of joy sweep over her at the fierce exultation that ripped through Ryan’s expression. As they heard his mother’s soft footfalls retreat down the stairs his hand slid around the nape of her neck and slowly applied pressure.
‘She knows you’re in here with me,’ she whispered, when her mouth was an inch away from his.
He grinned wickedly. ‘Good, then she’ll know not to disturb us until morning!’ He nipped her lower lip, and their mouths eagerly clashed again as he tipped her body sideways onto the bed while he pulled off the rest of his clothes. When he was gloriously nude he lifted her back on top of him, uttering a guttural groan as the soft thicket between her legs caressed his belly and a moist, creamy warmth settled over his aching groin.
Long minutes of heated bliss followed, until Ryan finally caught her desperately seeking hands and rasped, ‘No—let me do it...you’ll hurt yourself this way...’
He turned her gently over onto her back, extending her arms out to her sides so that her wrists draped over the edge of the bed and bracing the soles of her feet flat against the bed on either side of his knees. Then he positioned her hips and, with his eyes fixed on her flushed and excited face, entered her in slow, steady increments until he was buried to the hilt. They both groaned as he withdrew and began the process all over again...establishing a slow, sensuous rhythm of measured thrusts that progressively accelerated until they were both wrenched to a breathless peak of explosive ecstasy, their voices mingling in hoarse cries of frenzied rapture.
Afterwards, as they lay in a satiated tangle of sweaty limbs, Ryan kissed her wounded hands reverently, each in turn. ‘If we’re this good now, imagine how much more intense the pleasure will be when you can use these again!’
‘I guess this means we’re having an affair after all...’ Jane’s smile was tinged with tristesse.