Authors: Patricia Burroughs
“Then you can’t consider staying any longer.”
“You know better than that,” she snapped. “I always planned on staying longer.”
“Good. Then it’s all settled.” He closed his hands on her shoulders and spun her to face him. “Get freshened up, and we’ll go out to a four-star restaurant.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
He grinned. “This is what I’ve been waiting for. We’ve accomplished everything we can with the annulment procedure. Now I can set about giving you that vacation you came for.”
“What?” she gasped. “What are you talking about, for Pete’s sake?”
“I want to, Mrs. Carruthers.”
So simple, those words, yet they sent chills rippling down her spine despite the warm hands that clasped her shoulders.
“Don’t call me that!”
“Don’t take everything so seriously. Let’s go out and have a good time. That’s what you came here to do.” He chucked her under the chin, his tone playful; her reaction to his casual touch was anything but.
And suddenly it was there, that electric awareness sizzling between them that she had managed to ignore all day. She lowered her gaze to the place where his hand touched her.
His fingers slid a fraction of an inch, then, as if it were a great effort, he slowly pulled his hands away. “I think I’ll take your advice and check out the terms of the inheritance.”
“Will four weeks be long enough?” she asked, striving for a normal tone.
“Knowing the legal system, I doubt it, but it’s worth a try. In the meantime,” he said as he shoved his hands in his pockets and trained his eyes on the open window, “if you have no suggestions for dinner, I have an idea.”
“I never said I was staying.” She, too, stared out the window, at the building across the street, the clear azure sky above it, at a pair of pigeons that fluttered near the windowsill.
“You have to stay for dinner.” He pulled a hand from his pocket and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re not leaving before morning anyway.”
“But a four-star restaurant?”
“It’s your vacation, and I’ll give you anything you want,” he told her. “But I did have a preference of my own,” he said, suddenly angling toward her in a smooth, elegant turn. “But no matter. Whatever you wish is my—”
“What do you want?” she asked flatly.
“There’s this great little seafood place in Tahoe.”
“Tahoe? Lake Tahoe?”
“It’s not that far. We can rent a car, it’s a beautiful drive, and after all—”
“I don’t want to.” She turned away from him, saw the bed and turned quickly back to face him again. If she could only get that darned bed out of her mind.
“Then...what do you want?” he asked.
He took a step closer. For a moment her mouth was too dry to speak. “I—I don’t want a thing.”
“But you do, don’t you?” he murmured. “I think we both want something, and it doesn’t have anything to do with food...which is exactly why I think we need to go to Tahoe.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, her pulse fluttering as he took another step toward her, closing the gap between them. He reached out and gently slid his fingers down her temple, dragging more strands of hair loose. He rubbed them between the smooth pads of his fingers, and the effect of his movements, his touch, his nearness, was hypnotic. She couldn’t move. She didn’t want to.
“We’d better go to Tahoe. Or sight-seeing. Or shopping. Something—anything—to keep us busy, shouldn’t we? We’ve got two days ahead of us, two days to fight this attraction....”
“Not if I’m leaving in the morning,” she said.
“No.” Again he dragged his fingers from her temple to her jaw, lingering a bit near her ear, where he traced an erotic pattern. “I don’t know why you came into my life, Kennie Sue Ledbetter. I don’t know what the fates had in mind for us. But I sure as hell intend to find out.”
“I don’t believe in fate,” she said flatly.
“Luck?”
“Or luck.”
“How about Kismet?”
She shook her head.
“I’m a firm believer in all three.” Again that smile tugged the corner of his lips. “I’ll believe enough for both of us.” His lips brushed hers, and for one heart-stopping second...she believed.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Alex whispered, his breath warm in her ear.
She gave a nod that was almost imperceptible, but she didn’t bother to deny it. His lips found the pulse at the base of her neck and painted a trail of fire up that tender, slender column, grazing her jaw, then coming back to recapture her mouth. Never had she felt anything like what this man could do to her...and now she knew why things hadn’t worked out with Rusk or with anyone else. It was as if her body, her soul, knew what her mind couldn’t. She had been waiting for this.
His kiss was a consuming force, draining her of reason yet igniting her. His lips moved against hers, exploring, tasting, and willingly she accepted him. How could she not? Even though she hadn’t realized it, she had been waiting, and now she was filled with the startling awareness that there was no reason to wait any longer.
She wasn’t fighting; that her reluctance had melted into acceptance was a tangible thing between them. Her lips parted, her tongue stroked, and after a moment’s surprised pause, Alex, too, deepened the kiss, sending eddies of warm, sweet honey flowing through her veins. Strange, but his kisses always seemed to taste of ambrosia, she thought headily, her senses reeling at the newness, the completeness of these feelings.
He dragged his mouth from the corner of her lips to her neck, sizzling across her collarbone as he nudged the collar of her blouse open wider. She shivered, arching with the quivering sensations of his lips, the tip of his tongue, and the path he was exploring, lower, lower, first brushing, then caressing the soft swell of her breast. She slid her fingers into the glossy waves of his hair, kneading with the pulse of the passion he was stoking within her. His lips swept lower and found the lacy edge of her bra, and she gasped as his teeth gently grazed her skin, then nipped and tugged the edge of the fabric and cool air washed over her exposed nipple, coolness that was quickly replaced by his moist warmth, first by a gust of his breath, then by his lips teasing the tip, then by his tongue lathing it with sweet moisture.
But as her body strained toward him, a voice she didn’t recognize as her own whispered one word. “No.” She pushed at his shoulders; she felt tom between anguish and relief.
At first her refusal didn’t seem to register with him. Then he pulled away. “What did you say?”
“I said no,” she moaned even as her fingers refused to stop trailing through his hair.
“That’s what I thought you said,” he rasped, his impassioned gaze clouded with confusion. “Then why is your body saying yes?”
She quickly dropped her hands and tried to catch her breath, tried to adjust her clothing. “Because it wants to—I mean, I want to. There’s nothing in the world I want more right now than to make love to you.” She swallowed, then forced herself to continue. “But it’s so complicated.” She bit her lower lip. “We can’t, because we’re married.”
He dropped his hands to his side, his expression incredulous. “Because we’re married?” he echoed in disbelief. “Well, I never expected your reasoning to be reasonable.”
“But it is reasonable!” she said.
“Kennie,” he moaned, “it’s just a piece of paper!” And before she could respond, a low, wry laugh seemed to erupt from deep within him. “It’s been years since I used that line on a girl, only the circumstances were reversed.”
As his golden laughter washed over her, Kennie realized she was trembling. “You aren’t angry with me?”
“Of course not,” he assured her, though he didn’t seem able to restrain a wistful glance at the satin sheets. But with admirable aplomb, he recovered. “I’m frustrated as hell, but I’m not angry.”
“I know you think this is silly, but where I come from, marriage is a serious thing. People don’t enter into it lightly.” She felt her cheeks burning. “I’ve already behaved like a fool, and this would only make things worse.”
“Not worse.” He shook his head slowly. “Believe me, not worse. Anyway, you heard the lawyer. Consummation is not an issue.”
“Maybe it isn’t to the state of Nevada, but it sure as heck is to me!”
“All right,” he said reasonably, and she knew true panic. Alex Carruthers was deadly when he was reasonable. “What you’re telling me is that if we...made love....”
She almost swayed at the sound of it.
“...That somehow, that would be an affront to the sanctity of marriage. In your opinion.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“Then are you also saying that if we weren’t married....” He paused, and she knew what was coming, and he let the pause stretch out tantalizingly, his gaze dragging over her until she thought she might dissolve under the impact of it. “If we weren’t married, you would allow me to love you?”
Love? How casually he tossed that word about. What he was talking about was physical. Lust. Not love.
Wasn’t it?
He was obviously waiting for her to answer. Her sensible self knew exactly what to say. But another, more impulsive self was coming to the surface all too often these days, and it insisted on the truth. “Yes,” she admitted, raising her chin.
“I see.”
She waited for him to get angry or perhaps to laugh at her or maybe...just maybe try to change her mind.
His voice reedy, breathy, he said, “There’s always Tahoe...” She knew what it must have cost him to utter those words.
“Tahoe,” she whispered, and saw the dark disappointment flicker in his eyes. They could keep up the frenetic pace of denial, bank these fires that were frightening yet oh-so-alluring in their intensity.
He was waiting for her to say something, to say the words that would release them to fulfill this bizarre fantasy....
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I KNOW EXACTLY what you’re doing,” Kennie said.
“Do you, now?” he said, and for once, she could see the strain behind his smile.
“Oh, and you do it so well,” she muttered.
“What, pray tell, am I doing?”
“You’re trying to convince me that what you want is what I want.”
He raised his palms to her, his expression suitably innocent. “Have I pressured you in any way?”
“Do you ever?” she drawled.
“Kennie, I don’t know what you’re babbling about, but I can assure you—”
“No dice, Mr. Carruthers. I’m onto you. The reason you’re so effective at convincing me to bend to your will is because you never seem to be convincing me at all. You are reasonable. You go out of your way to accommodate. And somehow I end up doing exactly what you wanted me to in the first place!”
All hints of playfulness faded from his expression. “I’m so disappointed in you, Kennie. For a minute there I thought you really understood.”
“I do understand....” But her voice wavered under the directness of his gaze. She stiffened, blinked twice, gave her head a toss. “You’re not going to get away with it this time. You can’t convince me to do anything against my will. I won’t allow it!”
“But of course.” His voice was taunting, as was his gaze. “My dear, you never have.”
“How can you say that?” she cried in disbelief. “Since I met you, I’ve done crazy things! Dangerous things! I married you, for Pete’s sake!”
“And you didn’t want to?”
“How can you ask?”
“Kennie, look me in the eyes and tell me that you didn’t want to go to dinner with me that first night.”
“I was crazy to agree to—”
“Tell me you did it against your will, Kennie. Tell me you didn’t want to go.”
“Oh, all right. I wanted to go. Are you satisfied?”
“Tell me you didn’t want to stay the rest of the night. Tell me you wanted to go back to the airport.”
“You know better than that.” She glared at him, her fists on her hips. “But that doesn’t prove a thing. Just because you want something doesn’t make it right, and somehow you always manage to make me forget that.”
“I’ll let that pass for the moment.” He paced a few steps, his hands plunged deep into his pockets, his brow furrowed, and he looked for all the world like a prosecuting attorney gathering his wits, readying himself to pounce. Slowly, he spoke. “Whose idea was it for me to stay here again last night?”
“Aha!” She shot forward, her slender finger waggling an accusation at him. “You think you’re going to skip the biggie, don’t you? You think I’m going to let you ignore the wedding!”
He stopped pacing and stood staring down at her; she met him with a triumphant smile. “Dream on, buster. There’s no way you’re going to convince me that it was my idea to get married!”
“That’s the big question mark, isn’t it?” he said.
“I don’t remember, if that’s what you mean, but I certainly didn’t, I mean, I would never have suggested such a thing.”
“Would Kennie Sue Ledbetter of Tahoka Springs, Texas, ever allow herself to be talked into anything she really didn’t want to do?”
“Never!”
“See, then?”
“But I’d been drinking,” she reminded him.
“So now she’s going to blame it on demon rum.” He rolled his eyes.
“Well, of course I am! I sure as hell wouldn’t have married you sober!”
“But—”
She braced herself for the long-awaited pounce.
“Rum or not, would you have done it against your will?”
“I—I don’t—” she stammered.
“Kennie, would you have married me if you didn’t want to?”
Her lower lip trembled with anger. The breath seemed caught in her chest, and the only sound that came from her throat was a frustrated growl. Hands clenched at her side, she fought the impulse to swing and instead whirled away from him, stalked to the bed, grabbed a pillow and hurled it at him. “You did it! I can’t believe you did it!”
“Did what?” he asked, maddeningly unperturbed by the pillow that glanced off his shoulder and landed at his feet. “What did I do?”
“You somehow managed to make me believe I married you because I wanted to! And I know I didn’t!”
“All right,” he said blandly, reaching for the pillow. “You’re right. You didn’t.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Why should you care? The important thing is, do you?” He ducked as she sailed another pillow at his head.