Free As You Wish by Belle Maurice Page A

scrubs and a blue terry cloth robe, Ryan leaned against the sink. He had left a mug steeping on the table with the milk and the sugar bowl beside it. She had taken her hair down. Ryan’s gut tightened at the sight of those golden strands spilling over her shoulders. She’d washed off her makeup too.
    She sighed. “Thank you, Ryan. You have no idea how much I needed this.”
    He shrugged, not trusting his voice. His hands ached to gather her silky hair and let it slip through his fingers. He wanted to kiss her scrubbed cheeks. To feel her satisfied sigh as he held her in his arms.
    He shouldn’t be here.
    She sipped her tea and closed her eyes, savoring it. Her long lashes lay on her cheeks like errant sunbeams.
    “How was your date?” Ryan asked to shake himself.
    Patricia’s face twisted. “Hard to say. David and I grew up together. Our parents used to joke about how easy it would make things if we got married when we grew up.”
    “You aren’t going to marry him, are you?” Ryan’s hands balled into fists. She couldn’t marry David. Couldn’t she see the cruel set of his jaw? Or the possessive glint in his eyes when he looked at the house? If she’d known him for so long, how could she not know what kind of a first-class jerk he was?
    “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
    “How complicated can it get? Either you love him or you don’t.”
    Patricia sighed. “For some people, that would be all they’d need. I’m not that lucky.”
    Princess, Ryan thought. Spoiled princess who thinks all her problems are worse than everyone else’s just because they’re hers.
    The phone rang, breaking into his thoughts. Before he could pick it up, Patricia had lunged around the table and grabbed it.
    “Oh, hello, Dr. Radesku. What can I help you with?” She nodded into the receiver, chewing her lips. “I thought you were going to do it tomorrow morning.” Ryan heard a strident, accented voice leaking past her ear. She glanced at him. “I’d really like to be there, but I had something planned for tomorrow afternoon… I know I don’t, but— All right. Thank you for letting me know.” Patricia hung up the phone. “Mrs. Magyar’s surgery has been moved to tomorrow afternoon at two thirty.”
    “If you can’t see me tomorrow, we can reschedule.” Ryan clenched his teeth. He didn’t want to reschedule. He wanted her tomorrow afternoon in the walled garden.
    He just wanted her.
    “I’d rather—” She sighed and reached for him.
    Without thinking, Ryan drew her into his arms. If he had been thinking, he never would have crossed the threshold tonight and gotten tangled up in her crisis. Instead he held her tight against his body while her arms reached up to twine around his neck.
    Her lips sought his, teasing open his mouth. Acting instead of reacting. Ryan waited while she explored him. She had never forced herself on him, and he’d never given her the opportunity. Her needy aggressiveness caught him in a vise of desire.
    Shuddering with a sudden, explosive need, he wrapped his hands around her slender waist. She moaned. Her fingers tangled in his hair, sending an electric sizzle across his skin. The length of her soft body pressed into him. She shifted up on her toes, dragging herself against him with a piercing thrill. Her left leg wrapped around his as if she planned to unbalance him, trying to pull him down on top of her on the kitchen floor.
    He shouldn’t be here.
    “Patricia.” He pulled his mouth away from hers, trying to create some space between them, but even gravity seemed to drag him closer to her. “Patricia, wait.”
    “Why? I don’t want to wait. I want you,” she moaned. “Please don’t leave me alone tonight. I’ll do anything.”
    His body had a Pavlovian response before his brain could slip into gear. The bed was close; the kitchen table was closer. His entire body throbbed with an almost irresistible need to be inside her. But he shouldn’t even be in the house. “You