Wanting What She Can't Have

Nine


Several hours later he was surprised at the sense of satisfaction he felt while recording the number of bottles of Pinot Noir he’d spent the better part of the day labeling. This wine was his best yet. While he was probably only looking at four hundred cases in total, he was sure that they would be integral in helping to establish his Benoit Wines label. If he could continue to ensure the same quality, and better, year after year, his reputation would be made.

The sound of the winery door creaking open surprised him and he looked up to see Alexis walking through the tasting room toward his small office. The late afternoon sun was weak, yet it still struggled through the windows as if determined to bathe her in shades of golden ocher. His body responded accordingly, again stirring to unwelcome life. His pulse beat just that bit faster, his gut clenched just that bit tighter.

She was alone, a fact that immediately put him on the offensive—the easiest way, he’d found, to cope with this unnerving awareness of her each time she was within a few meters of him.

“Where’s Ruby?” he asked, his voice gruff.

“She’s having a playdate with Jason over at Matt and Laura’s. I’ll pick her up in an hour.”

“An hour?”

Raoul raised an eyebrow, his mind filling with all manner of things he could enjoy with Alexis in the space of sixty minutes. Just as quickly, he tamped those visions back where they belonged.

“Yes, the kids seem to get along in as much as they can socialize at this age. And, anyway, it’s good for her to get out of the house. I said I’ll do the same for Laura one day next week. I hope you don’t mind. I’m sorry, I probably should have discussed it with you first.”

Alexis seemed determined to justify herself to him. Was that what he’d reduced her to? Someone who constantly felt they had to make apology for their actions? He knew Matt and Laura well, he trusted them implicitly.

“If you think it’s best for Ruby, it’s fine. Did you want me for something?”

“I wanted to see if you’re planning to have dinner with us tonight. If not, I’ll put yours in the warmer.”

“The warmer is fine.”

She sighed, and the sound acted like a torch to touch-paper.

“What?” he demanded.

She shrugged. “Nothing.”

“No, you sighed. There’s something bothering you. What is it?”

“Well, if you must know, I’m sick of you avoiding me, avoiding us. Is it because we slept together or is it something else I’ve done?”


He was about to refute her accusation but, in all honesty, he couldn’t.

“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, that’s all,” he muttered.

“Wrong idea? Oh, like romance and candles?” Alexis laughed. It was a brittle sound that plucked at something deep inside him—made him feel unexpectedly ashamed for putting that sarcasm in her tone. She was the kind of woman who deserved both romance and candles—and more.

There was a cynical twist to her mouth as she continued. “Don’t worry, Raoul. I know where I stand. I don’t care so much for myself, but your withdrawal and your mood this week has been really bad for Ruby. Whether you like it or not, she’s your daughter. When are you going to accept your responsibilities toward her?”

He bristled. “She’s fed, isn’t she? She’s clothed and sheltered. What else does she want?”

“Love. Your love.”

He got up from his chair and pushed a hand through his hair. “She doesn’t need me. She has you, she has Catherine. I make sure she has what she needs, it’s your job to provide it.”

“It’s not enough, Raoul.”

“It has to be. That’s all I have to offer her.”

“I disagree.”

“Really? You think you know me better than I know myself?”

“I think I know what you’re capable of, and this ice-man act isn’t you. It isn’t the real Raoul Benoit.”

“Oh, and just who is?” he answered scathingly.

She stepped forward until she was directly in front of him—so close he could feel the heat of her body. It was as if his own sought and craved it, as if deep down he longed for her warmth. He pushed the thought away. It would be a cold day in hell before he ever admitted to needing someone again. Alexis held his gaze as she lifted a hand and put it on his chest, over where his heart suddenly did a double beat at her touch.

“He’s the man inside here. The one you won’t let out. I don’t know why you’ve felt the need to lock him away the way you have, but it’s time to let him out. Don’t you think he’s done enough penance now? Don’t you think you deserve to live your life?”

He pushed her hand away but the imprint of it had already seared through his clothes and into his skin. She had that effect on him. She could get beneath the layers and slide deep inside.

“Penance? You think that’s what I’m doing?”

“Sure. What else would you call it? It’s as if you’re punishing yourself for something you had no control over. You didn’t kill Bree. You weren’t responsible for what happened to her.”

He spun away from her, determined to make sure she wouldn’t see the way that the anguish her words had wrought reflected on his face. She was wrong. So very wrong.

“Raoul?” she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He shrugged her off. He didn’t want her touch, her comfort.

“I was responsible,” he said in a dark low voice. “My expectations killed Bree. I failed her.”

“That’s not true.”

“If I hadn’t been so determined to have a family, to fill the rooms of that house up the hill with our kids, she’d still be here today.”

“You can’t know that. Besides, that was her dream, too. In her letter she told me she was prepared to do anything, risk anything, to have a family with you. The aneurysm—”

“She died, Alexis, and it’s all my fault!” he shouted, his words echoing around them.

* * *

Alexis looked at him in shock. He really truly blamed himself for Bree’s death.

“It happened, Raoul. It wasn’t something you or she could control or quantify. Not even the doctors could say if or when the aneurysm could bleed out.”

“I know, it was a time bomb. But you know what the kicker is? I didn’t even know it was there until it ruptured. She never told me about her condition or the risks to it from her pregnancy. She kept it a secret, hiding it away from me. If I’d have known, if I’d have had the slightest inkling that her health would be compromised by her pregnancy, I would have taken steps to make sure it never happened.”

“But that would have been taking her choice to have a family away from her,” Alexis protested. “She wanted your child.”

“I wanted her.”

His voice was bleak, so sad and empty and filled with loss. Alexis didn’t know what to do. What he’d just told her explained so much—his withdrawal from society, his reluctance to have anything to do with Ruby. Which brought her full circle to why she’d come to talk to him today.

“You can’t blame Ruby. She doesn’t deserve that.”

“I don’t,” he answered simply.

“How on earth can you expect me to believe you when you can’t even stay in a room with her for more than five minutes, let alone spend any time alone with her?”

Raoul rubbed a hand across his eyes and shook his head. “It’s not what you think. I don’t blame her. I just can’t let myself love her.”

His words struck her like an arrow through her heart. “How can you say that?” she gasped, shocked to her core.

“Because it’s true. I can’t love her, I won’t love her. What if I lose her, too?”

“What if she lives to be a hundred years old?” Alexis countered.

“You don’t understand, she was born prematurely, she was seriously ill for the first month of her life—”

“And she’s overcome all that, she’s a fighter. She’s a strong, healthy growing girl and she needs her father—not some coward who’s prepared to pay everyone to take over his obligations!”

Raoul stood up straighter at her accusation—anger flaring in his hazel eyes, making them seem more green than brown, standing out even more as his complexion paled. “You’re calling me a coward?”

Alexis stood her ground. “If the cap fits.” She shrugged with feigned nonchalance. Right now she was worried she may have stepped over the mark. But it was too late to back down. Besides, she wasn’t about to break the momentum now that they were finally getting to the heart of his issues. “Let’s face it, you can’t even bring yourself to talk about what we shared last week, about our night together. Instead you’ve been snapping and snarling at me for days, when you haven’t been avoiding me altogether. What’s wrong, Raoul? Can’t you admit that what we did, what we had together, was good? Do you not believe you even deserve even that?”

“No, I don’t!” he shouted. “It’s a betrayal.”

“Of Bree? As hard as it is, as cruel as it is, she’s dead, Raoul. You’re living—although not as if you’re alive. She wouldn’t have wanted you to do this, to cut yourself away from everyone and everything that mattered to you both, especially the daughter you both wanted so badly.”

“So what are you saying, that I should jump into bed with you at every opportunity, pretend I’m alive?”

“If that’s what it takes,” she said quietly.

He moved up to her, grabbing her upper arms in his strong hands. Even though he vibrated with anger, his hold was still gentle. She knew this was the real Raoul Benoit. This man with such passion in his eyes that even now, after her goading, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

“And if I said to you that I want you now, what would you do?”

Alexis calmly looked at her watch and then back at him. “I’d say you have about forty minutes. Is that enough?”

“For now, maybe,” he growled.

In the next breath he was kissing her and she thrilled to his touch. Their night together had only made her want more. His last words about taking her birth control had made her believe that he’d come to her again, but instead he’d been so aloof this week, so filled with latent anger. If releasing that anger was what it took to prize him out of his ice cave than that’s what she’d do. She’d make him so mad he made love to her every single day. Anything to bring him, the real him, back again.

She shoved her hands under his sweater and scraped her nails across his belly. His skin reacted instantly, peppering with goose bumps. He backed her up until she felt the hard edge of his desk behind her thighs, and bent her backward onto its hard surface. Immediately, his hands were at the waistband of her jeans, tugging at the button and releasing the zipper. He yanked the denim down her legs and cupped her through her lace panties.

The instant he touched her she was on fire. Wet with longing and burning up for what would come next. His palm bore down on her *oris, the firm pressure bringing her nerve endings to life. She tried to open her legs wider but was restricted by her jeans pooled at her ankles. Somehow, she toed off her shoes and kicked the offending garment away, spreading herself now for his invasion.

As he moved between her legs, she wasted no time unsnapping his jeans and pushing them down, her touch now hungry for the feel of him. She slid one hand under the waistband of his boxers, pushing the fabric away and freeing him, her fingers closing around the velvet coated steel of his erection. Already his tip was moist and he groaned against her as she firmed her grip on him, stroking him up and down, increasing and releasing her pressure as she did so.


Raoul slid a finger inside the leg of her panties and groaned again as he encountered her skin.

“So wet, so ready,” he murmured before pulling her underwear down her legs and dropping them on the floor.

Then, his hands were back. He cupped her again, this time inserting a finger, then slowly withdrawing it, his thumb working the swollen nub of nerve endings at her core, stoking the intensity of the fire that burned so bright inside her.

With his other hand he pushed her sweatshirt up higher, exposing the plain cotton bra she’d worn today. For a second she wished she’d chosen something more beautiful, more enticing, but when he unsnapped the front clasp and lowered his mouth to her breast she went beyond caring.

His teeth grazed first one nipple, then the other. Her skin was so sensitive to his ministrations she screamed softly, lost in the spirals of pleasure that radiated through her body.

More, she wanted more. She guided the blunt head of his penis to her opening and let go when he took over control, sliding his length within her so slowly she thought she might lose her mind. His thumb never stopped circling her *oris and she knew she didn’t have long before she’d come apart, but she wanted this to be about him, as well. About what they could share together.

She clenched her inner muscles and felt him shudder against her. Her hands coasted up his abdomen, stroking his chest and skimming his nipples before tracing back down again to his hips.

Raoul kissed a hot wet trail from her breasts to her throat, then along her jaw to her mouth, capturing her lips again with his caress. Subtly, he increased the pressure of his thumb and Alexis couldn’t hold back another second. She gave herself over to the ever-increasing waves of pleasure that consumed her, that thrilled her to heights she’d never felt before with another man.

She clamped around him, again and again as her orgasm built in intensity until she lost awareness, was oblivious to the thrust of his hips and the ragged groan of completion that rent from his body as he climaxed inside her.

It could only have been minutes later, but it felt much longer, when Raoul stirred and withdrew from her.

“Stay there,” he said, his breathing still ragged.

She didn’t even want to open her eyes, she was so filled with the delicious lassitude that bound her in the aftermath. “I don’t think I could move if I wanted to,” she admitted, a note of wonder in her voice.

A rusty sound, almost like a laugh, came from where Raoul was adjusting himself back into his clothing. He left the room and she heard the sound of running water from the small restroom off his office, then he was back with a warm, damp towel in his hands. He wiped her carefully, his touch sending off little shocks of sensation to remind her of what they’d just shared.

“You don’t have to do that, I can take care of it,” she protested, pushing herself up onto her elbows.

“All done already,” he answered, leaving the room again.

She slid off the desk and reached for her panties, pulling them up legs that felt about as strong as overcooked spaghetti. But she felt compelled to move fast, to be dressed before he came back into the room.

His face was impossible to read when he returned and Alexis mentally braced herself, uncertain of what would come next.

* * *

“We need to talk,” Raoul started, and he saw her pale before him, her eyes widen.

“Wasn’t that what we were doing...before?”

He made a movement with his hand, brushing aside her words. “We need to discuss us.”

“Us? What about us? Do you want to stop...?”

Her voice trailed away as if she couldn’t quite find the words to define the exquisite pleasure they’d enjoyed together. But he had no such difficulty. It was what it was. Just sex. Period. It could never be anything else and she needed to know that.

“No. But I want to be clear going forward that it is only sex between us, Alexis. It will never be, and can never be, anything more than that. You want me to be alive. Fine, I’ll be alive—with you—but it won’t be anything more than this. I want us to be sexual partners, no strings attached. Can you accept that?”

He watched her carefully for her reaction. If she looked uncomfortable about this in any way, if the idea made her unhappy because she wanted more from a partner or because she secretly harbored feelings for him that she thought might be reciprocated, he hoped it would show on her expressive face. But for once she remained a closed book to him. A faint nod of her head the only acknowledgment of what he’d just said.

“Are you certain, Alexis? Because if you can’t, we stop now. I don’t want you to be under any illusion that we’re going to fall in love and have a future. I’m never going down that road again. I did it once and I can’t trust anyone that way again.”

She caught her full lower lip between her teeth, the sheen in her eyes a telltale giveaway. A shaft of fear sliced through him. She wanted more. Of course she did. It was in her nature to love, to nurture. It was only natural she’d want the same in return. She was the kind of person who always put others first, the one others turned to when in need. But he didn’t want all of that from her—couldn’t accept it, couldn’t give it to her in return.

“Can I have some time to think about it?”

“If you need time to think about it, you obviously have questions. If you have questions, or doubts, then we should probably forget the whole idea.”

He could see her weighing his words. Before his eyes she changed. Her eyes cleared and the expression on her face hardened. She drew herself up to her full height and looked up at him. Then, to his surprise, she gave a brief nod and spoke.

“Yes, I accept.”

“Yes?”

He barely dared to hope she was giving him the answer he desperately wanted to hear.

“Yes, I’ll be your...” she hesitated just a barest moment “...your sexual partner.”

“No strings attached.”

The clarification was important. Vitally so.

“Agreed, no strings attached.”

“And you’ll keep taking your pill. I don’t want there to be any mistakes. If you’re not happy with that I’ll take care of protection myself.”

Maybe he should be using condoms as well anyway. You could never be too safe.

“I’m still taking my pill. I don’t plan to stop, so don’t worry. Is that everything you wanted to discuss?”

Hell, no, it wasn’t.

“Just one more thing.”

“And what might that be?”

“Our sleeping arrangements. I can’t stay in your room.”

“That’s okay, I can sleep just as well in your bed—if you want me there all night, that is.”

Did he? Of course he did. The idea alone had him hardening again.

“I do,” he admitted, his voice roughening with mounting anticipation and desire.

She drew in a breath and then slowly released it. “Is that all?”

He nodded, suddenly unable to speak.

“Fine, I’ll go and collect Ruby, then.”

He watched her through the window as she left the winery and walked up the hill to the house, feeling as if something vital had changed between them and not for the better. But he didn’t doubt that he’d made the right decision. He was just happy that she’d agreed. When he turned back to his work he didn’t stop to question how right it had felt to hold her, or how desperately he needed to lose himself in her softness again. And again. All he wanted to think about was that, from tonight, he could.