When he opened the door and stepped out on the landing, all he could see was a sheet of black rain falling directly before him.The security light was off.He reached back inside and flipped the light switch, clicking it on then off again, The power was out.
The porch was damp beneath his bare feet, but it felt good to be concentrating on something besides sex.He combed his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath.The lack of electricity explained the sultry temperature inside the apartment, but it didn’t excuse the sluggish flow of blood through his veins.That blame lay with the woman who’d interfered in his dream.
A soft mist blowing off the rain drifted into his face.He looked up.The small overhang under which he was standing offered little shelter, yet it was enough for him to get by.Right now, he couldn’t have walked back in the apartment and minded his own business if his life depended on it.The dream was too real.She’d been too willing and so soft and he’d been halfway inside her and going for broke when something…call it conscience, call it reality, had yanked him rudely awake.Now he was left with nothing but a sexual hangover, an ache with no way of release.The muscles in his belly knotted and he drew a deep breath.
“Ryder?”
He groaned.She was right behind him.
“What’s wrong?”she asked.“Is something wrong?”
“Go back to bed,” he said harshly, unwilling to turn around.
A hand crossed the bare surface of his back on its way to his shoulder.He pivoted, and she was right before him.
Humidity draped the fabric of her gown to every plane, angle and curve, delineating a fullness of breasts and a slim, flat belly.Sticking to places on her body it had no business, taunting Ryder by the reminder of what lay beneath.
His fingers curled into fists and he took a deep breath as he reminded himself that she was bruised and battered and didn’t deserve this from him.“Are you all right?”
“I just woke up and you were gone and I thought…” Her voice trailed off into nothing as she waited for an explanation that didn’t come.
Silence grew and the rain continued to fall.
Casey sensed his uneasiness but did not immediately attribute it to herself.They were still strangers.There was so much they didn’t know about each other.This mood he seemed to be in could have come from a number of reasons.And then suddenly the security light on the pole beyond the apartment came on.Although it was instantly diffused by the downpour, it was more than enough by which to see.
Dear God.It was all she could think as she shrank from the wild, hungry need on his face.
The moment she moved, he knew that he’d given himself away.Because he couldn’t go forward, he took a reluctant step back and walked out into the rain before one of them made a mistake that couldn’t be fixed.
Shocked by his sudden departure, Casey cried out, but it was too late.He was already gone—lost in the downpour, beyond the sound of her voice.
Ryder didn’t remember getting down the stairs.It was the rain that brought back his reason and calmed a wild, racing heart.Warm and heavy, it enveloped him—falling on his face, on his chest, down his body.
He began to walk, his bare feet sometimes ankle-deep in the runoff.He walked until a tree appeared in his path, then another, then another, and he realized he’d walked into the forest at the back of the estate.He paused at the edge, aware that he could go no farther in the state he was in, and found himself a place beneath the outspread limbs of an old magnolia.
Rain sounded like bullets as it peppered down on the large, waxy leaves above his head.But the longer he stood, the more the sound reminded him of hail.He drew a deep, shuddering breath and then cursed.It had hailed on them the night of the crash.
He closed his eyes, remembering the dead weight of holding his father’s lifeless body in his arms.Someone moaned and as he went to his knees, he knew it was himself that he had heard.Pain shafted through him, leaving him smothered beneath a familiar cover of guilt.
“Ah, God, make this stop,” he cried and then buried his face in his hands.
Back at the apartment, Casey stood on the landing, staring out at the night, anxiously watching for Ryder’s return.The urge to go after him was strong, yet she stayed her ground, well aware that it was her presence that had driven him away.
Mist dampened her hair and her gown, plastering both to her face and her body and still she waited.Finally, she bowed her head and closed her eyes.“Dear Lord, help me find a way to make this right.”
And the rain continued to fall.
Some time later, it stopped as suddenly as it had started—turned off at the tap with nothing but a leak now and then from a low-hanging cloud.
* * *
Ryder came up the stairs in a bone-weary daze, weary from lack of sleep and from wrestling with the demons inside himself.His bare feet split the puddle at the top of the landing and he walked inside without care for the fact that he would be dripping every inch of the way to the bath.
When he closed the door behind him, the cool waft of air that encircled his face told him the air-conditioning was back on inside.That was good.He’d had enough of close quarters to last him a lifetime and the night wasn’t even over.
He walked quietly, so as not to disturb Casey’s slumber in the other room, and was halfway across the floor when her voice stopped him in his tracks.
“I’m sorry,” Casey said quietly.“Very, very sorry.I asked too much of you and you were too much the gentleman to tell me so.”He heard her shudder on a breath.“I humbly beg your forgiveness.”
