Only Tyler (17 page)

She shuddered. “No, Tyler. Please. God,” he was making her beg.

“Still want me to leave?” he asked again.

“I want… I want…”

“This?” he asked and slipped his finger between her lips.

“Yes…” but more. She writhed on the bed. Every nerve ending pulsed in time to his touch. She spread her legs a little wider, silently pleading for his tongue. Her clit ached for the pressure and release only he could provide.

He ignored her voiceless appeal. Instead, he withdrew and used his now-wet finger to draw small circles around her breast, coating her nipple in her moisture. She grabbed the sheet in two fists as Tyler leaned over and licked it clean.

He hummed deep in his throat before raising his head and kissing her mouth.

She tasted herself on his tongue. While his mouth devoured her, his hand returned to her lower lips. God, they may have been apart for two years, but he hadn’t forgotten anything. He still knew where to touch her to make her shiver. How to kiss her to make her moan. He knew just where to put his tongue to make her scream, and when to withhold to make her squirm.

His hand made love to her from the inside, sliding through her slick folds, deep into her needy body and then out. Just when she thought the pleasure and the frustration might kill her, he broke the kiss, moved sinuously down the bed and finally finally fastened his mouth over her pulsing clit again.

She almost hit the roof. His mouth and fingers were the only things holding her down, clamping her to reality. They were also the only things sending her skittering through sensuous planes of pleasure. As his tongue seduced and his hand enticed, Katie found her grasp on reality lessening. Sensation took over. It sent her spinning into another realm, another dimension where pleasure dominated and love was free to flourish once again.

Several moments passed before the waves of bliss ebbed away and she could find the strength or the energy to open her eyes. When she did, she was rewarded with the image of a very smug Tyler. His chocolate gaze smoldered, dark with lust.

“So should I, Katie?” he asked.

“Should you what?” Her heart still hammered in her chest.

“Pack my bags. You know the full story now. Still want me to leave?”

“Jesus, Tyler.” Her voice was breathless, raspy. “What do you want me to say?”

“That’s easy ‘no’.”

“Please. Don’t do this now. Don’t let reality intrude yet.” She wasn’t ready.

If he forced real life upon them, she’d have to consider Steve. And if she considered Steve, she’d have to face the fact that she was an adulterous, two-timing bitch, engaged to one man and in love with another.

She just wasn’t ready.

“This is reality, my sweet. You and I are as real as it gets.”

“Nope, Tyler, this is reality.” She ducked down and in one neat move slipped her lips around the tip of his cock. She would not allow life to intrude. Not yet. She’d think about Steve later. Hell, she’d obsess about nothing else, she knew, but right now, it was Tyler she needed.

She needed affirmation of his health and affirmation of his love. She’d deal with the truth another time.

“Katie,” Tyler rasped. “You’re not focusing.”

She sucked him in a little deeper. Ran her tongue around his cock and focused with all her might. She focused so intently that by the time she took her next mouthful of air, Tyler’s hands were tangled in her hair, and his breathing was a confused mess.

“Christ, Katie” he groaned above her.

She loved how he filled her mouth, how his salty, male tang placated her hunger. She loved how he writhed beneath her and how he called her name over and over.

She massaged his testicles. Stroked him in the smooth area between his balls and ass, and listened as he hummed in his throat. Now was not the time to decide whether he stayed or left. It wasn’t the time to choose between Tyler and Steve. Now was the time to rediscover the love of the man who had stolen her heart seven years ago.

She laved him with her tongue, sucked him with her mouth and caressed him with her hand. Tyler didn’t fight her. He simply tightened his grip in her hair and gave her fair warning. “Do that any more, and I’m going to come.”

She did it again, and then a third time for good measure. When she did it the fourth time, he froze for a second before he let go, shooting his release into her mouth. He yanked at her hair, pulling the roots, but she held tight, taking in every last drop he offered. When at last he stopped bucking and pulsing in her mouth, she swallowed it all and licked his tip clean.

Then she collapsed beside him, as sated as he.

An indeterminate amount of time passed before they spoke again.

He stretched out on his side, resting his elbow on the bed and his cheek in his hand. She rolled over languorously and planted a kiss on his mouth, then on his cheek and down across his jaw. The light stubble on his chin tickled her lips, and she paused to touch her tongue to the five o’ clock shadow.

His sigh reverberated through his chest, and she lowered her head so she could nibble her way down his neck.

“Katie?” His voice was soft.

“Uh-huh?” The skin above his shoulder was warm, and she slowly rolled her tongue around it, sucking it gently into her mouth.

“Did you mean what you said earlier? That you’d have stuck by me if you’d known about the Huntington’s?”

She lifted her head to look him in the eyes. “Of course I meant it.

How could he think otherwise?”

“Even if I’d never done the genetic testing?”

She gave him a sad smile. “Whatever you decided to do, whatever the test results had been, I would have stayed with you if you’d given me the choice.”

“Why?” He looked genuinely confused. “Why stay with a bloke if you know he has a dodgy future?”

She stared at him, a little bewildered. “You really have no idea, do you?”

“About what?”

“About how darn much I loved you.”

He shook his head. “But we’d only been together a month.”

“It wasn’t just a month. It was a month and five years. I fell for you the first time we met, Ty. Every time I saw you after that, I fell a little bit more in love with you. God, I would have done anything to be with you.”

Anything. She tripped over her words and had to swallow hard. “I just thought you didn’t want me as much,” she ended on a whisper.

He cupped her cheek with his free hand. “Don’t ever think that. It just about killed me to leave you.”

“I thought I could make you stay. I figured if I loved you enough you wouldn’t go.”

“And I thought if I went, I’d be able to love you a little less.”

“I guess we both failed miserably at our goals.”

“I was the failure, Katie,” Ty whispered. “Not you.”

“Katie swallowed hard. “Thinking you might have an incurable disease hardly qualifies as failure.”

“But neglecting to tell you about it does,” he countered.

Katie tried to think of an appropriate response, but came up blank.

She chose silence instead. For a long while they lay side by side, neither of them speaking.

“Ty?” Katie said eventually.

“Yeah?”

Every bone in her body ached at the idea of asking her next question. She did not want to know the answer. But this wasn’t something she could ignore. The issue had plagued her since Tyler first brought up his risk of inheriting Huntington’s. Never mind Katie, Ty’s response might just provide Steve with an explanation he’d sought for two years. “Wh… what about your sister?”

Tyler’s shoulders stiffened instantly and his breathing slowed. He was silent for a long time.

Apprehension prickled her spine.

Finally he shook his head. “I don’t want there to be secrets between us, Katie. Not anymore, not after everything I kept from you.

But this answer isn’t about me. It’s about someone I love very dearly, and I have to respect her need for privacy. This whole experience it’s been a lot harder on her than it has on me and it totally fucked me up.

Whatever Pen has or hasn’t done with regards to the disease has been a profoundly personal experience. She’s not ready to delve into it with anyone, and it’s not fair for me to speak about it.”

She touched her hand to his brow. “Hey, I understand.” Or she tried to understand, anyway, but it was hard to justify his sister’s actions. In the same way Tyler’s silence had caused massive devastation in her own life, Penelope Bonnard’s secrecy had destroyed Steve’s happiness. “I’m just thinking about Steve…”

Tyler sighed deeply. “So is Pen.”

“Is that why she’d gone to London? So that Steve would never discover her risk? What…”

Tyler pressed a finger against Katie’s lips, effectively cutting off her question. “Don’t ask, my sweet. Please. Pen knows I planned on telling you about the disease, and she understood why I had to do it.

But she swore me to silence about her situation. I love you, Katie, and I promise there will be no more lies. But I have no choice with this one. I cannot discuss it further without betraying my sister.”

“You can’t break your sister’s confidence.” Of course he couldn’t.

The Bonnard siblings were incredibly close. Tyler would never let Pen down in that manner.

Katie lay back on the bed, almost more troubled than before. Ty’s unwillingness to answer her question complicated matters significantly.

Now, not only did she have no idea if Pen had inherited the gene, she was also left keeping another secret from Steve: Pen’s. It was not her place to explain the Bonnards situation to her fiancé. As much as she longed to tell him the truth no matter how tragic it might be only Tyler or Pen could take that responsibility.

Fierce pangs of guilt dug into her ribs. More secrets. Pen’s, Tyler’s and now hers: she’d slept with Tyler. How much more unfaithful could she be to her fiancé?

Still not ready to face her sickening transgression, Katie changed the subject. “You know, I’d wondered what happened to you in London, why you became such a daredevil. I couldn’t quite fathom your reasons for taking up a dangerous hobby like skydiving.” She laid her hand on his chest. “You did it because you thought you were going to develop Huntington’s, didn’t you?”

“Yep.” He shrugged. “I figured if I was going to die anyway, I might as well go out the way I wanted to. With a little dignity, a little pride and a lot of fun. I preferred the idea of falling to a sudden death than surrendering to a hideous illness.”

“Christ! What a choice. And the motorcycle?”

“It’s not dangerous,” Katie, he said in an I ve-told-you-a-thousand-times tone of voice. “Not if you know how to ride it.”

“It’s dangerous if you have an accident.”

“A car’s dangerous if you have an accident.”

“A motorcycle is more so.”

He smiled at her. “Okay, my sweet. If it makes you happy then I bought my first bike because it gave me a rush.”

“Nothing about the bike makes me happy.” She frowned. “Can I ask you another question?”

“Ask me anything. Just as long as it has nothing to do with Pen.”

Neither of them needed to voice the unspoken words.

“Why’d you do it, Ty? Why did you get involved with me if you knew you were going to leave anyway?”

His eyes turned black with memory. “Because once I knew I was leaving, I was safe.” He ran his fingertips over her face, as though memorizing it with his touch. “I could feel what it was like to be with you before I gave you up forever. I just wanted a taste of what my life could have been like.”

She stared at him, filled with an infinite sadness.

Then he smiled, and her stomach leaped into her chest. “Besides, any red-blooded male would be a fool to say no to you.” His voice changed, his tone deepening. “When you came to me in Noosa, I’d wanted you for too damn long. All I could think about was kissing you.”

He pulled her close, and kissed her. “Touching you.” He ran his hand down her arm and up her side.

“Making love to you.” He cupped her breast, groaning. “Christ, Katie.

I wanted to make love to you so bad.”

“I know.” She remembered sitting on the umpire’s seat, watching him dance his victory dance and knowing if she didn’t make love with him soon she would surely die from the lust.

He rolled onto his back. “After I left, I craved your body and your company. I’d lie in bed at night fantasizing about you. No other woman could even come close.”

A bristle ran down her spine. “There were other women?”

He turned to her. “You’re jealous?”

“No!” She looked down, studiously avoiding his gaze. Yes. She hated every one of those women. “Was there anyone serious?”

“There’s never been anyone serious, Katie,” he said quietly. “Besides you. There were warm bodies on cold nights. Company during the times I was most isolated. They… they helped ease the pain of missing you.

He brushed a strand of hair from her face. Well, for a while anyway.

The pain always came back afterwards. Always. No one could ever replace you.”

No one had ever eased Katie’s pain either. Until Steve. “I hate the idea of you being with anyone else,” she confessed.

He pressed his lips together in a thin line. “Now you know how I feel when I see you with Steve. Only it’s worse, because I know him, and I can’t fault you for being with him.”

For a few minutes they were both silent. Steve lay between them, his invisible presence as tangible as a concrete wall. Guilt nibbled at the edge of her subconscious, but she refused to acknowledge it. She’d concentrate on Steve soon, but not yet.

“You left me, Ty,” Katie said after an eternity. “I didn’t know why.

All I knew was that we loved each other, but you left me anyway. I was alone. For so long. God, the loneliness had been unbearable.” She stared upwards, studying the shadows that played on the ceiling behind the light. “I’d had enough of being alone. I wanted to be happy again.”

“And the only man you could find to make you happy just happened to be my oldest friend?”

The bitterness in his voice startled her, and she twisted to face him. “And my best friend. You voluntarily walked away from me,” she reminded him. “I didn’t think you’d object to my marrying a man I love regardless of who he is.” Her voice caught in her throat. “I didn’t think you’d object to my marrying anyone.”