Sweetened With a Kiss (9 page)

“We’ll get married at Christmas. You can decorate as many Christmas trees as you want. Just no construction paper, please,” he had told her, kissing her then, and she had just stood there like an idiot thinking all her dreams had come true. Looking back, she now knew the kiss had been restrained. And he’d been way too quick to walk her back up to the party that had suddenly morphed into an engagement party with champagne everywhere.

Everyone had known but her. And no one had questioned her agreement. What if she’d said no? But he hadn’t actually asked her, had he? He just said
we’ll get married
and she’d smiled like a little fool. She cringed as the sweet memory lost a little luster. How could she have been so gullible? Now she understood why Jared had avoided her for most of that week prior to the party. And when he danced with her at the party, he’d just cut her off when she’d tried to tell him it was what she really wanted. “You know where to find me when you need me, Jen,” he’d said, then gone back to play with the band again.

“You know, you never asked me if I wanted to marry you,” she said.

Blue eyes narrowed on her, but his expression didn’t change.

“Were you afraid I’d say no?”

“You’re feeling better,” he announced, changing the subject.

“Yes, actually much better.” She felt steadier and clearer than she had in a long time.

“Good,” he said, “Change. Office.” And he was out of the room before she could say anything else.

She knew she was right. He hadn’t asked her because he hadn’t been sure she would say yes. And he just hadn’t wanted to risk her saying no. Maybe he couldn’t read her mind after all.

Even an hour later, riding in the passenger seat of the Range Rover on the way to Sellers Tower, she was surprised at how good she felt. Her skin felt light. Everything was sharper. Brighter. Like the sun had come out from behind a cloud. She had no idea why finding out that she’d been in the accident made her feel better but it did. Because it was the truth, she guessed. And it explained so many things.

She rested her head back against the leather seat and watched him drive. She’d never let herself look at him for this long at one time before, but now her eyes drank him in. There wasn’t much left, in the hard angles of his face and the unbearably sexy hollows under his cheek bones, of the beautiful boy she’d grown up with. But every line was familiar. The angle of his jaw was more refined. But there was strain around his eyes. He looked tired. He looked worried.

Worried? Jen shivered as she identified the unfamiliar expression she’d seen flickering around his face in the last twenty-four hours. It took her breath away. Stefan was worried. If she hadn’t seen it for herself...

“If you keep looking at me like that, we won’t make it out of the parking garage.” he told her. She smiled to herself. She was starting to believe that he didn’t see a child when he looked at her now. And she was still reeling from that whole prom–dress-cotton-candy comment, and the fact that he had not been sure she would say yes if he had bothered to propose on her birthday. The idea that Stefan wasn’t one hundred percent in control of things was disturbing, but it was also exciting.

“You didn’t have to bring me, you know,” she said. “I actually feel better than I have in a long time.”

As soon as he cut the engine, he turned in his seat. “I can’t think straight when you’re out of my sight. And I need to think straight today. So you are going upstairs with me, and we aren’t going to argue. And you aren’t going to start up about not marrying me. Got it?”

“Got it,” she echoed, a strange little thrill curling up inside her. She leaned forward and brushed her fingers across his face. He covered her hand with his and leaned into the caress, pressing his face against her fingers and sending hair line cracks running all over her belief that he was not in love with her.  He cared about her.  She had no doubt about that.  But he wanted to marry her because he felt responsible for her, responsible for the company their fathers had built. He didn’t want to risk losing control of STI.  She understood that, had proof of it. It was just so hard to believe it when she was with him, especially when her heart looked for every possible excuse not to believe it.

STI occupied the top three floors of Sellers Tower in the New Orleans business district. Stefan’s office was spartan, to say the least. He had a desk, with a big chair behind it and a couple of chairs in front of it. There was nothing on the walls. No other furniture.

“Come here often?” she asked.

“Not if I can help it.”

“Well,” she looked around. “Lizzie is better at this than me, but I think you have room in here to put a treadmill or elliptical machine if you want. You could mount a small flat screen there.” She stopped. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He smiled. “Because you’re a genius.”

She smiled back. She understood him much better than he realized. “You don’t want to be up here because you feel trapped. You just need to make the space yours. I know you don’t really like to run on a treadmill but it would be better than...”

Her words trailed off into the heat of the sudden kiss that caught her completely off guard. So much so that she wound her arms around him without thinking and kissed him back. All those little curling sizzles she had been feeling suddenly flared hot all through her. She moved closer as his fingers curved around the nape of her neck. And it just seemed to go on forever. Especially since when he tried to lift his head to end it, her arms tightened around him and pulled him back down to her.

He shuddered, then went completely still. His fingers closed around her wrists to pull her arms back down. She actually cried out in protest when he broke away from her and stepped back, his chest heaving as he tried to drag air into his lungs.

And she really just couldn’t help herself. The harsh words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Will you stop trying to protect me!”

He laughed, sounding almost strangled. “Protect you?  That’s a joke. You
need
protection from me, Jen. I have no business being around you.” That last bit came out so savagely that she shrank back. “I can’t keep my hands off you for fifteen minutes in a row.”

“But I don’t want you to keep your hands off me,” she said softly.

He stared at her, his eyes wild. “Don’t say things like that to me, I’m warning you.” He turned his back on her and headed towards the desk.

“What? Things like I’m not a little girl?” she flung at him and he stopped in mid-stride but didn’t turn around. “Or, that I’m not a fragile butterfly that you’re going to crush? Or that I know what it’s like to feel trapped in a glass box?”

He still stood there, tension coiling him tighter and tighter. And she was doing that to him, twisting him into knots.  She’d had no idea she could do that to him and the knowledge was heady.  It made her reckless, so she just couldn’t help herself when she pushed harder.  She wanted to grind that protective instinct into the dust and she might never get another chance.  So she went for it. “Or maybe, that I can still feel your hands and your mouth on me and I like it so much I’m burning up. And it hurts like hell when you stop touching me.”

And then he was coming for her. She fought a smile. Fear and excitement swirling up inside of her. She actually laughed out loud when he slammed into her and walked her back up against the wall. Stefan unbound. Finally.

He unleashed himself on her full force, crushing her mouth, effortlessly lifting her off her feet. He caught one of her legs and pulled it up around his waist and Jen forgot how to breathe. He pushed against her until she was in no doubt how much he wanted her, while, the entire time, his mouth devoured hers. She loved it and she wanted more. If she lived a hundred years she would never get enough of him.

And maybe because it raged so hot so fast, he suddenly eased off the kiss, but he didn’t move her. She moved her hips just so and loved his swift intake of breath. “I will strangle you if you don’t stop moving,” he ground out.

She pressed her mouth against his jaw, the stubble prickling against her sensitive lips and rasping across the tip of her tongue. He groaned and she just could not stop herself from raking her teeth down his neck. How could anyone taste so good?

“I’m serious, Jen. Be still.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “Like this?” She rocked against him. “Or this?” She moved just a shade differently. He didn’t just want her, she realized. He needed her. She could feel it rippling through him, making her feel indestructible.

“You’re playing with fire,” he told her, pinning her harder so she couldn’t move.

She leaned forward and kissed his forehead this time. Then she lowered her mouth to his and ran her tongue along his bottom lip. The groan that came out of his throat almost didn’t sound human. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder. She tightened her leg around his waist. “Stefan,” she whispered against his ear. “Look how hard you’re holding me. Your hands are nearly white around my wrists. And I’m not close to breaking.”

He covered her mouth again. This time it was slower, deeper, and made her forget the whole world. He swept into her mouth, the kiss turning hungry and stoking the flames licking through her body, threatening to rage out of control. He made several attempts to lift his head, but each time she bit at his mouth, or slid her tongue across his until the kiss turned savage. When he finally broke it off, he turned his face sideways and Jen opened her mouth against his temple, then smiled when he shuddered. “Not here,” he was pleading with her now, his voice ragged. “Just, not here, like this. I don’t want our first time to be in this damned office.”

The raw sincerity in his voice resonated through her. She didn’t want that either. She’d actually forgotten where they were. She nodded and other than her arms around his neck, she didn’t move until he gained some control back. But it was hard for her too, because he was burning hot and she ached to move against him.

He loosened his hold and groaned as he let her slide down his body. He kissed her one more time before separating himself from her, taking at least two layers of her skin with him, leaving her raw and shaky.

“You might need to think about a sofa too,” she suggested. “It could come in handy.”

He almost laughed at that. She watched him put some distance between them. His hands were still shaking. She liked that. She was getting to him.

“You are driving me crazy on purpose,” he told her. “Don’t think I don’t know it.”

Her heart was beating so fast that she was sure it would fly out of her chest. All that delicious hope was in full bloom. “Is it working?”

He swung back around to her. She could see he had one of his comebacks ready, and she watched it die on his lips. He looked like he was seeing her for the first time. A spark ignited. He shook his head, and closed the distance between them. “Make me understand,” he asked her, closing his hands on her shoulders and lowering his head to meet her eyes. “Make me understand why you don’t want to be my wife.” The words sounded like they had been wrenched out of his chest.

She shrugged, trying to turn away from him. “Why
do
you want to marry me?” she asked, unable to meet his eyes.

“Seriously?” he asked, voice all low and quiet, but, this time, flat. Ice started to form between them. “I am so tired of this.”

The nerve endings on her body burned then froze. She took a step back, gasping at the unexpected sharp edge of pain that sliced through her. She watched him walk out the door. More doors opened then closed in a distant part of the office. She stood there a few minutes then sank down to the floor. She pulled her knees under her chin and held them with her arms, resting her forehead on her knees.

Part of her had been clinging to some desperate hope that Madlyn had been wrong and that the things Madlyn had said to her that night were motivated by jealousy. Jen closed her eyes. She should have known better. Madlyn Robicheaux was never wrong, and frankly had nothing to be jealous of. And why shouldn’t Madlyn want her to know the truth? If Jen’s brother hadn’t been killed, Robert and Madlyn would have married.

She’d pointed that out to Jen at Rogan’s birthday party seven months ago when Jen had slipped outside to get some air. “I’m not your enemy, Jen. I never have been,” Madlyn had told her, when Jen had refused to acknowledge her when she approached. “We would have been sisters if Robert had survived.”

Jen had finally looked at her. “What do you want?”

“I just want to help you,” Madlyn had said, reaching across the table to cover Jen’s hand. Jen had watched her so closely for any signs of insincerity, and while she had no doubt Madlyn was a grand master of deception, she couldn’t detect a shred of dishonesty in her that night. “You need to think very hard before you marry him, Jen. He cares about you. Just not the way a man loves a woman he wants to marry.”

Jen had pulled her hand away and clasped it into her other hand in her lap as Madlyn spoke her deepest fears out loud.

“Has he really kissed you yet?”

The weight on her chest had started pressing down harder on her and she could only stare at Madlyn. It was all true. All those sweet good night kisses came back to haunt her and the fairy tale started to unravel. Madlyn was right. She had stared down at the diamond flashing on her finger, and for the first time it didn’t take her breath away. “But why would he marry me if he didn't want me? It doesn’t make sense.”