“Ah, but you’re wrong, love.” Mike moved closer; his fingertips caressed her cheek as he tilted her face up to his. “The next thirty days are for you to learn the freedom in submitting to me. But after they’re up, I’m not leaving.”
Lyssa stumbled backward, retreating from his hold. “No, you said—”
“I said I wouldn’t touch you if you could say you didn’t love me after our thirty days are over. And I won’t. But nothing you say or do will make me leave you.”
Her heart thundered in her chest as he lifted her left hand. “You’re making a mistake,” she told him, desperate to quash the anticipation that stirred to life as he carefully wound a pale gold string around the base of her ring finger.
The warning was useless. He’d never believe her. He never had in the past.
A sigh escaped her as he leaned forward. She squished her eyes shut, and Lyssa forgot to breathe as Mike’s lips settled, butterfly soft against hers and he whispered, “I promise I’ll never leave you, baby. I love you.” His lips left hers and pressed against the decoration he’d placed on her hand. “Not quite right,” he muttered.
She blinked against the burn of tears as she opened her eyes and found him contemplating the thread on her finger as if debating something. “What isn’t right?” she asked, confused and terrified at the same time that he’d finally decided to listen to reason.
“The color.” He tapped the gold string. “You’re going to have to have more than just a plain gold band when we get married. Doesn’t offer much of a warning to other men that you’re taken.”
Lyssa’s gaze dropped to the simple length of thread wrapped around her finger. The gold was slightly darker than the light tan she’d developed over the summer. She tried to ignore the inner voice that disagreed with Mike. A plain gold band would be sufficient since there wasn’t another man she’d ever want except him.
She shook off the desire to plunge headlong into the fantasy of marriage, but she couldn’t bring herself to remove the bit of cotton. Instead she curled her hand into a fist, trapping the thread in place. Temporary as it might be, she’d take what she could before Mike left her for good.
Chapter Seven
Lyssa planted her hands on her hips and wrinkled her nose in frustration. The outfits spread across her bed ranged from a formfitting cocktail dress to casual slacks and silk tunics. Never in her life had she been in such a dither over what to wear for a man. Mike hadn’t confirmed when he would arrive, but she knew he would come with luggage in tow.
When he’d rolled out of her bed this morning—and left her limp as a damp washrag sprawled across her sheets—with a promise to call, Lyssa figured there would be a phone call. One. Singular. Instead she’d gotten one every hour or so. Some were done to ask questions about items he was thinking of bringing over, while others were simply Mike calling to tell her three simple words: “I love you.”
Her body ached, and her panties grew wet at the thought of him strolling through her door again. Thirty days as his lover, playing the submissive opposite his dominant, was sure to satisfy the strongest of her desire for him. After the thirty days, she’d have to tread carefully around the man. She stuffed her hand in her pocket as soon as she realized she’d begun rubbing the spot where Mike had twined string in a makeshift ring the night before.
Never mind that she’d tucked the thread ring into the keepsake box on her nightstand. Fantasies of spending the rest of her life with him were one thing. Reality was something completely different. No one stayed with her, she reminded herself. Not even Mike. It was inevitable that he would leave again. And when he did, she’d have to start working on the family she wanted to fill the hole his leaving would create.
Wiping her damp palms down her jean-clad thighs, Lyssa chewed on her bottom lip and scanned the clothes covering the bed. Sex with Mike was one thing she knew she did well. She’d use these next thirty days to store up memories for all the years when she’d be without him. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her. Here she was craving the role of the submissive when everything in her had to assume the role of dominant in order to protect her heart from the pain she knew was likely.
“Life is such a bitch,” she grumbled. She started to reach for the peach raw silk tunic with mandarin collar and matching wide-legged trousers when the doorbell rang.
Cursing at the lost opportunity to impress him when she greeted him, Lyssa hurried down the hall and opened the front door. The sight of Ben and Vance on the porch, a grocery bag of food in Ben’s arms and a six-pack of beer in Vance’s, made Lyssa recall what day of the week it was—Taco Saturday.
“Did you tell him?” Ben asked.
Lyssa leaned against the door and glared up at her friend. “Good afternoon to you too, Ben,” she grumbled. Leaving the door open behind her, she headed into the kitchen to begin the preparations for the Saturday taco lunch she always shared with her neighbors. Both men followed her, closing the door behind them.
“Ben’s in a bit of a pissy mood, love.” Vance squeezed her shoulders in a one-armed hug before pulling open the refrigerator and setting the beer he’d brought on the shelf inside.
“I am not in a pissy mood,” Ben denied.
As she tried to move past him, Ben stopped her. Hips resting against the counter, he held her still in front of him and watched her closely. Lyssa squirmed beneath his gaze.
“Did you tell him?” Ben asked again.
“Tell him what?” Lyssa knew it was silly to try to play dumb, but rehashing this same argument held little interest for her. Not with Mike likely to arrive any minute.
“About losing the baby.”
Ben allowed her to shift out of his hold as she moved to the refrigerator to gather the ingredients for lunch. “Why would he care about that, Ben?”
“Because it was his.” Vance answered her question, drawing Lyssa’s gaze as she moved toward the stove.
“What—How—” she stammered.
Vance settled his hands onto her shoulders. “Ben told me what happened. It makes perfect sense that the baby you lost four years ago was Mike’s, considering he’s the only man you’ve been involved with in years.”
“That doesn’t mean he’d care about what happened.” Lyssa shrugged off Vance’s touch. She focused her gaze on setting the skillet on the burner before she turned on the stove. “I mean, look at how many men are out there who don’t—”
“You never even gave him a chance,” Ben argued. “How could he tell you how he felt when he never knew about it?”
“When should I have given him a chance to decide?” Lyssa glared over her shoulder at both men as she crumbled the hamburger into the warming skillet. “He was gone. He left after Mattie and Bryce married, and I didn’t see him again until Mattie’s collaring ceremony. I’d already lost the baby by then. What good would it have done to tell him?”
She’d never told Ben about the visit Mike had made to her home three months after their siblings married, the night Mattie ended up locked in a closet at the Club. Nor had she told him about Mike standing her up on the date she’d intended to tell him that she was pregnant; she’d miscarried merely days after realizing he’d chosen a model over her. By that time, Mike had been in England with some exotic-voiced woman—Lyssa cut the thought off before it could form.
Guilt was hard enough to swallow every time Ben suggested she confess to Mike about the baby she’d lost. It would be ten times—a hundred times—harder to deal with if Ben knew the visit from Mike had started off as a simple attempt to see if there had been consequences to the hours they’d spent together. If Ben knew that Mike had actually asked if she was pregnant during that second wild, irrational evening, he’d be suspicious. If he discovered she’d lied that night and told Mike she wasn’t pregnant, she’d never hear the last of her friend’s speeches about integrity and honesty.
She blamed the heat suffusing her face on the warmth from the stove. Hopefully both of the men with her would think along similar lines if they spotted her pink cheeks.
“There is such a thing as the telephone, Lys.” Ben’s comment pulled her from her thoughts.
“Yes. And he could just as easily have contacted me if he’d wanted.” The inner voice whispering to her about the lie grew louder as she continued to deny the attempts Mike had made to coax her into a relationship after their night at the Club. Or the overtures she’d shrugged off for the twelve years she’d known the younger man. She moved to the sink and rinsed off her sticky hands. Wiping them on a dishtowel, she looked at Ben. “Why should I be the one to make the first move? To try to contact him when it was so obvious he couldn’t have cared less.” She’d tried that too, only to have another woman answer his phone.
“You don’t know that.”
Lyssa nodded. “If he cared, he would have stuck around.” She swallowed as she remembered the bitter words she’d exchanged with Mike the few times she’d seen him before Mattie’s wedding and following the night he’d stood her up on their only date. “If he really cared about me, he wouldn’t keep running off to those godforsaken stretches of land where everyone is trying to kill each other.”
Or ogling sexy young models
. The jealousy that always rose at the thought of Mike pursuing one of those models stirred to life. The memory of the woman who’d answered Mike’s cell phone the second time Lyssa had given in to temptation to tell him about the baby rose up again. The woman’s exotic accent stirred images of a Nubian princess, her dark skin a sharp contrast to Mike’s as they twisted against each other while making love.
Lyssa’s stomach churned even now at the thought of Mike taking the other woman to the room he’d shared with Lyssa at the Club after the masquerade. Of him bringing her to San Diablo and making Lyssa face her replacement in Mike’s bed, in his affections.
“I can’t speak for Mike, but I would want to know.” Vance’s voice broke into Lyssa’s musings, pulling her back to the discussion.
“Know?”
“Whether you’d had or lost my child, I’d want to be there. I’d want to do whatever necessary to help you.”
“And if you didn’t know? If you found out years later? How would you feel? Would you forgive the woman? Or would you hate her—resent her having stayed silent?” Lyssa’s heart slammed against her ribs. Anxious to hear Vance’s response, she was concerned his answer would be the same as the ones she imagined Mike would have if she revealed her secret.
“It would depend.”
She stirred the simmering meat but glanced over her shoulder to read the intensity of Vance’s expression. “On what?”
“The reason I wasn’t told. How long she’d kept the truth about the baby from me.”
A shudder traveled through Lyssa as she processed Vance’s comments. Knowing Mike the way she did, there was little doubt in her mind that he would resent her not telling him about their child. He would feel betrayed, even resentful, that she’d lied to him. She shook off the spinning thoughts and glanced at Ben. “What about you?”
“I’ve been telling you for years you needed to let Mike know.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Ben didn’t hesitate. “I’d want to know.”
It hurt enough dealing with the fact that she hadn’t been able to protect the tiny life that had been entrusted to her. To think how angry Mike might feel about her keeping the information about its loss from him only increased the unease, the guilt filling her. “Would you expect to be part of raising your child if you found out about it?”
“Yes.” Both men answered at the same time, their tones firm.
The knot in her belly grew.
* * *
Anticipation stirred in Mike’s groin as he strode up the steps onto Lyssa’s porch and knocked on the door. The small gym bag David had filched from his apartment two days earlier was weighted down with toys he was sure his woman would enjoy. He’d forgotten it in his truck the night before. After gaining her agreement yesterday afternoon, Mike had stayed the night with her. Only the need to check on his business had drawn him away. He had thirty days to convince Lyssa he was the man to master her body and her heart.
The half grin on his lips disappeared when Lyssa’s door swung open and Ben Murphy stood facing him.
A tense moment passed between them until Lyssa’s voice broke the staring match. “Ben? Is that Mike?” she asked.
“Yes,” Ben called back. He motioned Mike in and closed the door behind him.
Mike left the bag on the floor beside the entrance and followed Ben through the living room and into the kitchen. Vance stood slicing vegetables while Lyssa stirred something in a pan on the stove. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail. A loose pair of jeans and an oversize sweatshirt hid the generous curves of her body.
He’d been irritated when the two men had tried to interfere with his claiming of her at the Club. To see them in her house casually sharing cooking duties with her twisted the jealousy inside him. It was a unique and disturbing feeling. Mike disliked it. Nor did he appreciate the apparent ease his woman felt around these men.
“Is it because I was coming over, or do they live with you now?” Mike asked.
“Excuse me?” Lyssa turned a confused look on him.
“Are you suddenly getting cold feet, Lys? Is that why you’ve decided to keep your guard dogs close?”
“It’s Saturday, Mike.” Her tone suggested he should understand the significance of the day.
“So?” He failed to see how the day related to the presence of two men. Especially after he’d already punished her for breaking his first rule—no other men.
“Taco Saturday,” Vance explained as he grabbed the package of cheese Ben tossed at him. “Saturdays we do tacos here. Wednesday night is steaks on the grill at our place.”
“Taco Saturday?” Mike watched Lyssa place a cover over the pan and take the package of tortillas from Ben. The friendly smile she gave the other man only increased Mike’s annoyance. “How long have you three been sharing Taco Saturdays and Steak Wednesdays?”
“Four years,” Vance answered. “Ben and Lys let me join them after Ben and I hooked up.”
“And what if I don’t like tacos or steak?” Mike asked, his gaze focused on Lyssa. Perhaps he hadn’t made it clear that his rules didn’t pertain to merely having sex.