“Oh...yes,” she managed in what sounded like an absolute moan of pleasure. She arched up helplessly, wanting something else, something more.
He noted the hard peaks pressing at the front of her shirt and smiled to himself as he started working at buttons.
She wanted what he was doing, but she looked worried.
“Mandy’s bringing up lunch soon,” he whispered against her mouth as he got the buttons apart and slid his hand inside, slowly, under the frilly little bra she was wearing.
She arched, shivering, as he touched her very gently. Her eyes searched his.
“I’m not playing,” he said huskily. “It’s no game.”
She shivered again.
“You belong to me,” he breathed against her mouth as his ground into it. “You’re mine, Meredith. My own...!”
She held on for dear life as he took her into realms of pleasure she’d never dreamed of, oblivious to the pain of her injuries, due to the painkillers she was still taking. While she was loving the hunger of his mouth, it shifted abruptly and found its way inside her blouse, under the bra that he’d unclipped while he was kissing her. His lips curved over her bare breast and he suckled her, hard.
She arched and cried out. The pleasure was so sweeping that she shuddered as his mouth fed on the soft flesh with its hard crown. He moved closer, pressing his hips against hers with helpless need, careful even in passion to spare her his weight by resting on his forearms.
She felt the hardness of him with wonder and a little fear. He seemed not quite in control, and she knew she couldn’t stop him. She didn’t want to stop him. She loved him.
All at once, he moved away from her, his eyes lingering helplessly on the pretty, taut little breast with its rosy hard crown and the faint red marks his mouth had left on her. “Oh, God,” he whispered.
He sat up and shivered, groaning with the denied hunger. His body was in torment. He managed to get to his feet and walked over to the window, looking out at the fenced pastures beyond the house. He was trembling with unsatisfied desire.
“I’m sorry,” she said, upset by his reaction. She put her bra and blouse back in place. He looked devastated. “I’m so sorry, Ren.”
“I’ll be all right,” he said, his voice calming. “It was my fault. It was too much too soon. You just got out of the hospital.” He winced. “Did I hurt you?”
“Oh, no,” she said softly, and managed a smile. “I’m still on painkillers,” she explained. She could still taste him on her mouth. He was heaven to kiss.
He drew in another deep breath and finally turned back to her. He didn’t look angry, she thought, surprised. In fact, he was smiling like a man who’d won the lottery.
“So much for worrying that you’d never forgive me.” He grinned.
She didn’t understand what he was saying.
“We’re volatile together,” he said, searching her eyes. “I love it.”
She relaxed a little, laughed self-consciously. “So do I.”
“When you’re back on your feet,” he said softly, “we have decisions to make.”
She bit her lower lip. “Ren, I’m old-fashioned...”
“Not a problem, sweetheart.”
“But...”
The door opened and Mandy walked in with a tray of oyster stew and a cappuccino. “I made your favorite coffee, too,” she told Merrie. “Mr. Ren, I’ve got a nice steak and salad for you and the Avengers downstairs.”
He grinned. “Thanks, Mandy.”
“You’re most welcome. Here you go, sweet girl.” She put the tray, with legs, over Merrie’s legs, noting without comment her swollen lips and flushed cheeks. “Eat it while it’s hot.”
“Thank you,” she told the housekeeper.
“You’re my baby,” Mandy said gently. “I have to take care of you.”
“I’ll go downstairs and eat. Then I’ll be back,” Ren told Merrie. He smiled possessively.
“Okay,” she said, smiling with breathless happiness.
He chuckled as he left the room.
*
HE WAS BACK after they’d both had lunch. But before he could talk to her, say what he’d planned to say, there was a commotion downstairs.
Ren got up from the side of her bed and opened the door, listening.
“...told you, you can’t set up shop like that,” Barton was telling someone. “We have security already.”
“Well, now you got more,” came a deep, gravelly voice. “Where’s the kid? And I want to see more of her work. She’s good!”
There was an audible sigh. “She’s upstairs.”
“She do those?” the voice asked. “Nice work!”
Ren imagined they were looking at the two paintings whose frames Meredith and Sari had unstraightened in the hall downstairs.
There were loud footsteps. A couple of minutes later, Mikey came in, followed by a large, imposing man with a scarred face who had a lionish look about him. His face was broad with chiseled lips and wavy dark brown hair threaded with silver. He looked like a wrestler. He was big, threatening. He had black eyes, like Ren.
“You the kid?” he asked Merrie. He smiled, relaxing the hard, threatening look on his face.
“I’m Meredith Grayling,” she said.
“Tony. Tony Garza,” he introduced himself. “I guess you know him.” He jerked a thumb toward Mikey.