She still couldn’t quite believe that she had managed to escape him. After all her previous struggles it had seemed almost too easy. Or was she only free because Ryan had decided to let her go?
The question tormented her, as did her distressingly vivid memories of the scandalous night as his sexual play-thing. She could conveniently blame the pills and alcohol for initiating her outrageous behaviour, but she had a sneaking suspicion that they were the tools with which she had subconsciously sought to lower her inhibitions to the point where she could act on her desires without feeling guilty afterwards.
If so, it hadn’t worked!
The first thing she had been aware of when she had woken the next morning had been the pulsating throb of her left hand. The pain had been as bad as in the first few days after the injury. Had she rolled on it in the night? Why hadn’t her fingers been safely taped up?
Her heavy eyelids had fluttered open and she’d frowned for an instant of total bewilderment at the morning sunlight streaking across an unfamiliar ceiling. Her mouth had tasted dry and cottony, her head had felt oddly achy, and so had...
Oh, God! Through the pain it hit her: where she was, what she was doing there...
Her heart jerked in fright as she turned her head, but she was alone in the wide disordered bed, her long black hair streaming across the indentation in the pillow beside hers. Alone and naked under the white cotton sheet, her body feeling bruised and tender in all sorts of incredibly intimate places.
And no wonder! She snatched the sheet to her throat, a burning blush enveloping her as splintered images of wild, passionate excess danced in her head. What had begun as a primitive act of possession had very quickly become a prolonged orgy of mutual self-indulgence, shorn of any pretence of reluctance on either side. Ryan had seemed possessed of a superhuman stamina and an infinite capacity for invention that had shocked Jane to the core, even as she had boldly responded to the irresistible challenge of proving that she was more than a match for his devastating expertise. She had done things for him, to him and with him that she had never dreamed of doing with any man, let alone with Ryan Blair!
She was suddenly conscious of the open cu
rtains flooding bright, white light across a tangle of male and female clothes on the floor, and the sound of running water shutting off behind the closed bathroom door. Panic surged to a peak. Oh, God, maybe she could sneak out of the room while he was in the bathroom? She rose on her elbows, but even that slight movement made her hand throb sickeningly and she sank down on the pillows again, groaning at the sight of her freshly swollen fingers.
She let the back of her fiery hand rest very gently down on the cool sheet beside her pillow. The painkillers had worn off with a vengeance and she realised how foolish and downright dangerous it had been to take double the prescribed amount. Not only had she risked an overdose, but she had masked the warning signs that might have told her she was doing more damage to her hand.
Oh, yes, she had been a complete and utter fool all round! Jane flung her other arm over her eyes to block out the harsh light of day. In the condition that she was in it would take an age for her to dress herself again. Unless she wanted to scuttle out of the hotel wrapped in a sheet there was no avoiding the impending confrontation. She groaned again, furious with herself for being so weak and pathetic.
‘If you’re feeling stiff and sore I suggest you try a hot shower,’ came a darkly mocking drawl from the bathroom doorway. ‘It’s worked wonders for me...’
Jane tensed, instantly defensive, and fought a fresh stirring of pain that wasn’t entirely physical. She didn’t want to look at him but she couldn’t resist a peek from under the shadow of her arm.
Thankfully Ryan had knotted a white hotel towel around his hips, although it rode low enough for her to see the black, curling hair thickening at the base of his hard belly. His tanned skin was glossed by beads of water, indicating that he hadn’t bothered to dry himself before leaving the bathroom. His wet hair was spikily uncombed and without a razor his chin was blue-black with heavy regrowth.
He looked thoroughly tough and disreputable as he sauntered towards the bed, and Jane stifled another groan of mingled pain and self-disgust, her arm clamping back down over her eyes.
The bed depressed heavily beside her and she felt the heat of his hard thigh settle against her sheet-covered hip. ‘You may as well come out from hiding, Jane,’ he said drily. ‘I’m not going to conveniently fade away just because you refuse to look at me.’
She bit her lip, clinging to the illusion of privacy as she felt him pick up a lock of her long, wavy hair and begin to play with it. God, when she thought of the way she had reacted to him during the night! After that first, frenzied explosion Ryan had turned out the light, and in the fevered darkness it had been all too easy to relinquish what remained of her inhibitions. No wonder he wanted to gloat!
‘Jane?’ He tugged on her hair and his impatience became tinged with malice as she continued to shelter under her concealing arm. ‘I can’t believe a woman who brazenly sells her sexual favours is shy, so perhaps this provocative pose is supposed to tempt me into doing this...’
She felt a light twitch at the top of the sheet and whipped her elbow down to anchor it in place, exposing herself to the penetrating blue gaze that she had been trying so hard to avoid.
His hard mouth curved with satisfaction. ‘Good morning,’ he murmured, with a pointed politeness. Her hair was a gypsy tumble and most of her make-up had worn off, the smudged remains of her eyeshadow and mascara giving her eyes a sunken look of sleepy sensuality that was much sexier than the artificial gloss of the night before.
His eyebrows rose as she failed to respond and he bent over to brush his lips teasingly against her sealed mouth, bracing his hands on the pillow on either side of her head. He was almost leaning on her swollen hand, half concealed by the overhang of the pillowcase, and Jane’s whole body clenched in terror at the idea of more pain. His expression darkened as he took in her tight-lipped pallor and an angry pulse created a tic at his temple.
‘Regrets, Jane?’ His eyes skimmed down her tented body and back up to her frozen face. ‘I’m afraid it’s too late for those. I told you there would be no going back. You made your bed last night and now you’re lying in it.’ He staked another claim with his mouth, an insolent kiss of ownership.
‘And you can take that martyred expression off your face, because we both know it’s a damned lie—a woman doesn’t have screaming multiple orgasms unless she’s enjoying herself. At least you can stop worrying whether I’m going to ask for a refund. You were the consummate professional, darling—worth every cent!’ He sat back, flicking his hands off the pillow with a careless motion that knocked against her hidden wrist.
Jane’s eyes dilated in their smudged sockets and the blood seemed to rush away from the surface of her skin, leaving it icy cold...except for her hand, which felt as if it were being pierced by white-hot needles. Physical pain became indistinguishable from mental anguish, and a choking moan slipped past her clenched teeth. But not the tears; she would fight the tears until her last breath!
‘Dammit, Jane, don’t think you can soften me up by—’ Ryan broke off, frowning as he saw the glitter at the corner of her eyes. His eyes shifted and he blanched, leaning forward to draw the edge of the pillow back from her crabbed hand. He swallowed. ‘My, God, Jane—did I do that?’ he said in a devastated whisper. ‘Your finger—it looks as if it’s dislocated...’
He tentatively touched the shiny, swollen skin and Jane let out another explosive whimper. He snatched his finger back as she drew her hand to her chest and hunched around it like a wounded animal.
‘I know I was rough with you last night but I know my own strength—I didn’t think I was actually hurting you,’ he said shakenly, his face twisting into a rictus of self-disgust. ‘For God’s sake, why didn’t you tell me? I can’t believe I could hurt you that much without realising it—’
Considering how mercilessly he had tried to hurt her in every other conceivable way it was strange that he should react with such intense revulsion at the idea of causing her physical harm, Jane thought miserably, but there was no mistaking that his horror was genuine. His peculiar sense of honour at work...
It was tempting—very, very tempting—to torture him with a lie but, unfortunately, she was in too much pain to spare the energy to torment anyone else.