Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (29 page)

Cougar sighed heavily before saying, “You shouldn’t lead with your chin like that. It just dares a man to say stupid things like every whore was once a virgin.”

Clearly, Mara had never even considered that. For a moment, she just stood there frozen. Only her big eyes betrayed any movement by blinking rapidly.

Cougar got the impression she was crying, though Lord knows why he thought that. There wasn’t a drop of moisture in sight.

“Then there is no way I can prove I’m not a whore,” she said.

“No. There isn’t.”

Mara stared over Cougar’s right shoulder at the barn wall. “It never occurred to me that you would think that way.” There was the light of accusation in her voice. “I never would have come had I suspected. No wonder you didn’t want to send Nidia away.”

“Oh Hell!” Cougar swore, slapping the hat he was holding against his thigh. How the hell was a man supposed to hold onto his side of an argument when his woman looked at him like that? “I don’t think you’re a whore, and I didn’t send Nidia away for the exact reasons I told you. I don’t want her. I never wanted her.”

“You don’t have to lie.”

“I never lie.” He might hedge the truth a time or two, but an outright lie was not a sin he indulged in.

“She was very clear about her job duties.”

“I bet she was.”

Her chin came up and her gaze shifted further to the left. He slid his finger along the slide of that chin and pulled. He managed to pull her face around, but not her gaze. He sighed. “Look at me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Tough.”

As he expected, that brought her gaze flying to his, resentment tightening her lips.

“You can’t order me around.”

“Yes, I can, and what’s more, you like it.”

She sucked in a fast breath. He cut off her retort, with the truth. “At least when we’re private.”

Her mouth rounded in shock before sliding shut on a tiny desperate, “I don’t.”

“You do.” Of that he was sure. “You get hotter than campfire when I give you private orders.”

Tight lines of shock faded into hollows of despair. As if some horrible flaw had been revealed. “I bet you never talked to Emily like this.”

“No.” He hadn’t talked to Emily at all. Not in any real sense. “I also didn’t kiss her like I do you, or moan when she touched me. And I certainly never, ever left a sick horse to someone else’s care just so I could take her walking in the moonlight.”

The disbelieving snort with which Mara interrupted him flicked him on the raw. He stepped forward again, crowding her against the building. “The only woman I’ve wanted in the last year is you.” Her eyes popped wide and that defiance she led with dropped to good old-fashioned caution as he added, “And that’s to the point of obsession.”

Mara swallowed hard. “Obsession?”

“Yeah.” He let his chest relax into hers. “Obsession. As in, I get hard at the mere possibility that I might see you. As in, I keep speculating over and over at night how hot and tight you’re going to be around my cock when I finally take you, until there’s no hope for sleep.”

The bald statements raised twin flags of color in Mara’s cheeks. “Oh.”

“Is that all you can say?” Cougar growled, catching her elbow before she could fall off the crate as she leaned sideways. “Oh?”

“What would you like me to say?” Mara asked, trying to shake off his grip. “It never occurred to me that you would want me.”

Instead of letting go, Cougar used his leverage to pull Mara close enough that he could feel the heat of her body, enjoy her scent. Damn, she was potent. “How could you doubt it?”

“Have you looked in the mirror?”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“Any woman would want you.”

“I’m only concerned with you.”

“Why?”

He cupped her cheek in his hand. “We’re married. It’s my duty to make you happy.”

Her whole expression snapped closed. “Oh.”

He would never understand her. “Why did you come, Mara?”

She looked like he’d broken her favorite toy, but she answered him.

“I came because I feel safe with you, and even though you think of me as a duty, when Brad kissed me that one time, all I could think of was how much I wished it was you.”

It was his turn to blink. He hadn’t expected such honesty.

She snatched her hat out of his hand. “Now, I’m cold and would like to go inside.”

She pushed him aside and headed for the house, her pride around her like a shield. Cougar watched her go, his smile broadening with each step. So his wife thought he only thought of her in terms of a duty? How could she be so far off the mark? He settled his hat back on his head and strolled in her wake. He’d hurt her and he had to fix that, but the reason she was hurt, well, correcting that mistake was going to make tonight one hell of a good time.

* * * * *

Fifteen minutes later, Cougar let himself into the kitchen. The entire house was quiet. Only one lamp flickered on the table, causing Cougar to smile at the small consideration. The woman was too nice for her own good.

He hung his coat up on the peg before dousing the light. He’d built this house. Navigating through the dark proved no problem. When he reached the correct door, he turned the handle only to discover it locked. He heard a startled gasp, and knew Mara was within. He shook his head at her efforts and pulled the key out of his pocket.

Mara sat straight up in the bed at the sound of a key turning in the lock. Moonlight streaming in through the window gave plenty of light to see the doorknob turning. So much for locking the door. She pulled the quilt up under her chin as the door swung inward and went for a bluff.

“What are you doing in here?” she demanded.

Cougar leaned against the doorjamb in that nonchalant pose Mara was fast becoming familiar with. “I was looking for my wife.”

He had no right to look so damned masculine leaning in the doorway, moonlight slanting off his high cheekbones and jet black hair as it fell over one shoulder, teasing her with what would never truly be hers.

“Why?” she asked.

Cougar slid the first button of his shirt from its hole. His right brow cocked in gentle mockery. “Because it’s time to go to bed.”

Two more buttons slid free before Mara found her voice and then it wasn’t much. Just a squeaky breath of sound that betrayed her nervousness. “I think I misled you down by the barn,” she began, the words picking up momentum as Cougar’s shirt dropped in his wake, and he moved to her side.

The fly of his hip loving denims was about a foot from her face if she cared to turn her eyes to the left. She kept them firmly straight ahead. “I really don’t think we know each other well enough to… I mean, I don’t think the time is right…”

His pants hit the floor. “Oh my God!” was an instinctive betrayal of her shock. How could she have forgotten?

Even in her peripheral vision, his cock was huge. The thick shaft hung between his legs, stretching down his thigh, too large and heavy to remain upright without support. Certainly too large to fit in her body.

“You flatter me.” The modesty in his words was as false as his laughter was genuine.

Mara gave up all hope of subduing her panic when Cougar sat down beside her on the bed and pulled her into his side. With her head anchored in the hollow of his shoulder, she could hear the thundering echo of her heart, and tasted the metallic taint of fear in her mouth. He was her husband, she told herself. It was his right to take her. It wasn’t her right to protest, but she found herself doing it anyway.

“I know you can do this,” she whispered before clearing her throat and trying again. “I know it’s your right.”

“Shhh…” he pulled her down beside him. She went because she didn’t have a choice.

Before she hit the mattress, she was shaking her head. “I can’t shush, because I need to tell you something.”

“Mara,” Cougar began, but she cut him off.

“I’m sorry I led you on outside. I can’t do this. I’m scared. Scared to death to be your wife.”

Cougar reared up over her on one elbow. His hair fell forward, brushing her cheek in what was becoming a familiar caress. From this angle his chest was incredibly broad and the delineation of muscle was clear, leaving her in no doubt of his strength. Hating herself for her weakness, she closed her eyes tightly and forgot about breathing altogether.

He didn’t say a word. He just kept staring at her and with each passing second, the silence got more oppressive. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and bit down to keep from blurting out anything more. She wouldn’t beg, no matter what, she wouldn’t beg. Just when she thought she would scream from the tension clawing her apart, he spoke.

“Open your eyes, Mara.”

Mara shook her head. “I can’t. I promise not to fight, but please don’t ask me to do that.”

“I’m not as ornery as you think,” he said. He smoothed his finger across her lips, pulling the lower one free of her teeth. “I just thought it was time we started getting used to each other. Maybe letting our marriage take on some normal routines.”

“Like sex?” If her tone was a touch sarcastic, he had no one but himself to blame. A man didn’t climb naked into bed just to sleep.

Air hissed out between Cougar’s tightly clenched teeth.

“Not sex,” Mara corrected hastily.

“Eventually,” Cougar admitted. “But right now, I thought we’d try things like sleeping together.”

“Naked?” The arch of her brow left him in no doubt of her skepticism.

Cougar shrugged. “I always sleep this way.”

Mara’s cheeks burned as she kept her gaze locked on his. “I don’t.”

Cougar’s smile was almost tender, slipping under her defenses. “You do now.”

Mara gasped as she realized the hand that had been stroking her cheek was now unashamedly undoing the tiny buttons down the front of Dorothy’s borrowed nightgown. “Stop that.”

Not only did he ignore her order, he took full advantage of her supine position.

“Admit it,” Cougar laughed as she threatened to strike his wounded side. “You’re embarrassed as hell, but you’re not afraid.”

Mara glared at him as the button over her belly button sprang free despite her best efforts to keep it fastened. “What difference does that make?” she grunted as she lunged to save the next button. She should have saved her energy because Cougar paid her no mind. Instead, his hands skimmed up under the loose cotton to her shoulders before sweeping down her back and bringing the material with them. Twisting up the excess material in one hand, he very effectively trapped Mara’s arms in the heavy folds.

“All the difference in the world,” Cougar replied, his eyes heating to molten gold as his attention focused on her nipples stretched by the cold air to long points. If she could have, she would have covered them with her hands.

“Lord, you’re beautiful,” he complimented huskily.

He sounded like he meant it, and that hurt, because she knew it couldn’t possibly be true.

He lightly circled the left peak. “Do you think these beauties are up to satisfying me?”

“I don’t know,” Mara squeaked out, deathly afraid she knew what was coming, but on some level, wanting it. Wanting to be beautiful for once. Just once. To someone.

“I think it’s time we found out.”

She searched Cougar’s face for some sign of hesitation, but all she could find was a near violent passion that gave birth to a pathetic hope. As if someone like him, someone so uncompromisingly masculine, could find something to admire in her. She’d be a fool to let down her guard now, but she was going to. She knew she was going to because she’d waited forever for this moment. Her sob of dismay at the surge of pleasure that shook her when Cougar delicately tested the resiliency of one nipple brought his eyes up to hers. The heat there had her hands twisting to get free.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Cougar reassured her. “I’ll stop if you want me to, but,” he cut off her immediate protest, “if I promise to touch nothing but here,” he circled both breasts in a skating figure eight of his finger, “would you let me?”

She’d let him do anything he wanted tonight. She was that pathetic.

Mara slid her lower lip between her teeth, took a breath, and came to a decision. She could live in fear forever or she could trust Cougar and see where this would lead. “Can I touch you, too?”

His whole body froze a heartbeat before he answered, “Yes.”

Mara’s teeth sank deeper into her lip as she met his heavy-lidded stare. “Good.”

His smile was a sexy lift of one corner. “Very good.”

“Thank you.”

She thought he’d go immediately for her chest, but instead, he stroked her hair, her cheek, her neck, following the sweep of her collarbone out to the shoulder.

“Relax,” he ordered when he reached her elbow.

“I don’t think I can,” Mara managed between short panting breaths.