The Bridal Path: Sara (8 page)

“It doesn’t change anything,” she said with a touch of vehemence. “I want Three-Stars. I’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”

“Including making a pact with the devil?” he asked dryly.

“You don’t scare me, Jake,” she said, surprised by the certainty in her voice. He really didn’t frighten her, not nearly as much as he should have, given his coldhearted reputation as a love-’em-and-leave-’em ladies’ man. She’d seen exactly how kind and loyal he could be to the people he cared about.

“That’s your first mistake, darlin’. You should always be a little bit afraid of a man who controls what you want.”

“You don’t control it,” she shot back. “Not yet.”

“The papers your father and I signed yesterday say otherwise.”

Sara was so startled by the calm statement, she almost lost control of her horse. Dismay ripped through her. “You’ve signed the papers already?”

“You knew we were going to,” he reminded her. “It’s just a matter of getting the bank’s okay on the loan and setting a date for the closing.”

“That can’t be. We had a deal,” she protested. “I thought you were going to put everything on hold…”

“I never said that.”

“But I assumed… I thought we had a deal,” she repeated.

“We do. If by some crazy fluke you win the bet, I’ll sign the ranch over to you. If I win, there’s no paperwork involved. I keep the ranch and get you in the bargain. Don’t count on a big, fancy wedding, though. The very thought of it gives me the jitters.”

Sara wasn’t sure why Jake’s announcement about the paperwork came as such a shock. She should have known he wouldn’t wait for their contest to stake his claim on the ranch. Besides, what would he have told her father about the delay? The truth was certainly out of the question. Her father would go ballistic if he found out about the bet. No, realistically, Jake had done the only logical thing.

A chill washed through her all the same. Once the ranch was in his name, what would prevent him from reneging on their bargain? She believed deep down that Jake was an honorable man, but he was also a man who fought hard for everything he wanted. He wouldn’t walk away from what was his easily. And the one thing she had never doubted was that he wanted Three-Stars as desperately as she did.

“Maybe we’d better put our agreement in writing,” she said.

“Don’t you trust me, darlin’?”

There was an odd note of regret mixed in with the amusement in his voice.

“Somebody very wise once told me never to trust a snake not to turn on me,” she said.

“Good advice,” he agreed. “You draw up your little piece of paper and I’ll sign it.”

Startled, she stared at him. She’d expected more of an argument. “You will?”

“Why not? I don’t have anything to lose.”

“Except the ranch,” she reminded him.

He shook his head. “Sweetheart, it isn’t going to happen. You might as well make a trip into town and have a chat with the preacher. That way you’ll have a head start on planning that June wedding. What’s the waiting period for a license? Or we could get that now and get married right after you hit the ground.”

The shudder that swept through Sara couldn’t be blamed entirely on panic. An unmistakable image of an impending wedding night set off a fair share of the trembling reaction she had to Jake’s confident words.

He regarded her speculatively. “Unless of course, you’ve thought better of it and want to call the whole thing off.”

“Not a chance,” Sara said fiercely, refusing to be provoked into doing what he wanted.

One way or another she was going to have Three-Stars. If marriage to Jake was the only way she could get it, then she’d find some way to live with it.

A surreptitious glance in his direction made her pulse escalate. For some reason she couldn’t quite convince herself that having Jake Dawson in her bed would be a total calamity. Maybe it was time she found out for sure.

* * *

How the dickens did she do it? Jake stared across the fire at Sara and cursed his luck for the hundredth time that day. She was sleeping like an innocent babe, while he was tied up in knots.

Leave it to him to develop the hots for a woman as irritating and perverse as Sara Wilde. He’d been in a perpetual state of arousal practically since dawn. Surely a man could die of frustration after a day like that. Tomorrow didn’t promise to be one bit easier on his libido.

Meanwhile, Sara had been blithely acting as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Even his deliberate taunts about the inevitable loss of Three-Stars hadn’t stirred much of a reaction. She’d apparently concluded that the ranch would be hers one way or another and was satisfied with that.

He found her ready acceptance that she might have to marry him to get it a bit disconcerting. He was finally forced to face the fact that he’d gotten himself in way over his head with that impulsive counterbet. There was every chance in the world that he was going to be forced to marry her just to live up to his word.

What in God’s name had he been thinking?

He sighed heavily. The truth was he hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d reacted impulsively, something he seemed to do all too often where Sara was concerned. Lately his ironclad self-control flew out the window when she was around.

As he was contemplating the reason for that, the distant, plaintive cry of a wolf split the night air. Sara shot upright, which indicated to Jake that perhaps she hadn’t been sleeping quite as deeply or peacefully as he’d thought.

“What was that?” she asked.

He didn’t buy the startled reaction for a minute. “You’ve heard wolves before, Sara.”

“He sounded close.”

“You know how noise carries out here. I’m sure he’s miles away. Go back to sleep.”

“I don’t think I can.”

Jake regarded her suspiciously. “When did the sound of a wolf start making you nervous?”

Her gaze met his evenly. The firelight made her eyes glitter like brilliant jewels, the kind of gems that turned honorable men into thieves.

“I guess I’m just jumpier than usual tonight,” she claimed. “Would you mind if I moved to your side of the campfire?”

The soft plea put him in a hell of a bind. He might not believe her, but he couldn’t very well say no. He’d come off like a hard-hearted jerk. By the same token, saying yes was definitely tempting fate. That campfire was just about the only thing between him and a decision that would lead them both straight to disaster.

“Please,” she said softly.

“Come on over,” he said, his tone resigned.

Sara slid out of her sleeping bag and carried it over beside his. She spread it out scant inches from him, then wriggled back inside it.

With every shifting movement, Jake’s body hummed with awareness. He wanted desperately to slide in her direction, to cover her body with his, to claim her mouth again and prove to himself once and for all if it was sweeter and more enticing than any other mouth he’d ever tasted.

“Jake?”

Jake gritted his teeth. “Go to sleep, Sara.”

“I think I’d feel better if you’d hold me.”

Sweet heaven, she was going to drive him straight over the brink to insanity. There was no longer a doubt in his mind that she was doing it on purpose, too. Sara Wilde was definitely not the scaredy-cat she was pretending to be. She was one of the strongest, most self-reliant women he’d ever known. Somehow he had to remind her of that.

“Not a good idea, darlin’. Besides, you’ve been out here at night often enough to know exactly what to do to protect yourself. You don’t need me.”

“Oh.”

That single word was infused with a whole range of emotions— from disappointment to resignation. She sighed heavily.

Silence fell and Jake finally convinced himself that he’d had a narrow escape, but his honor was intact.

“Jake? Are you sure?”

He swallowed hard. “I’m sure.”

“Oh.”

Maybe it would have ended there. Maybe he would have clung to his fragile willpower for the rest of the night. But that damned wolf picked that precise moment to let out another plaintive howl that, indeed, sounded closer.

Sara was in Jake’s arms before he could form a coherent protest. She was warm and trembling and dangerously provocative with her arms tight around his neck and her face buried against his chest. Her warm breath fanned over his bare throat and turned his blood to liquid fire.

Jake sucked in a deep breath and framed her face in his hands. He leveled a look straight into her eyes. It was possible there was a touch of fear there, but what caught his attention was the blazing awareness, the hunger that surely matched his own.

“Jake.”

Her voice was whisper soft and filled with the same kind of longing that echoed what he was feeling. He tried one last time to steel himself against it.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he soothed and settled her in his embrace. Every inch of his body fought his attempt to pretend he was simply giving comfort.

Sara shifted slightly until their bodies clung together so intimately that Jake moaned aloud. The last fragile bit of self-control snapped. He moved so quickly that Sara gasped with surprise when she found herself on the ground with Jake poised over her.

“Last chance,” he murmured, his gaze fixed on hers.

She responded by pulling his head down until their lips met. Jake couldn’t have ignored the invitation then, if Trent Wilde himself had been threatening him with a shotgun.

The kiss quickly turned wicked and desperate. Even as he plundered her mouth with his tongue, even as he savored the sweetness, she was inartfully fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. Her touch on his bare chest made his pulse buck more wildly than any championship bull he’d ever ridden.

Why?
echoed through his brain time and again, until he shut off thought and succumbed to pure sensation. The skim of her tentative fingers over bare skin. The moist heat of her mouth closing over a masculine nipple. The silken tangle of her hair brushing across his chest. His entire body throbbed with need. He couldn’t recall ever feeling so much urgent hunger.

Counting backward from a hundred, he tried to disengage from the demanding sensations, at least long enough to be sure that Sara was with him, that her body was as ready as his.

It took only seconds to reassure himself. Her skin burned beneath his touch. When he slipped his fingers beneath the hem of her sweater and tugged it off, he discovered bare breasts. The nipples were hard even before he drew first one and then the other into his mouth.

As if from a great distance he heard the soft rasp of a zipper and realized that she was shucking jeans and panties. She bucked and moaned with pleasure when his fingers skimmed intimately over her, sliding deep into damp, welcoming heat.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please, Jake. Now.”

She was already fumbling with his belt buckle. Jake gently shoved aside her hands and finished the job, shedding his pants in one smooth motion. When he felt her touch on the hard shaft of his arousal, his heart slammed against his ribs.

Why?
The question taunted him one last time, but he didn’t wait for an answer. It was too late. Nothing could have kept him from taking what Sara so willingly offered. Nothing, perhaps, except a change of heart on her part.

He gazed into glittering green eyes and rubbed his thumb across lips swollen from his kisses. He’d warned her of who he was, just like he’d warned the others. Still, he asked one last time to be sure she understood what she was doing. He wasn’t sure if he asked out of honor or in the desperate hope that she would back away and save them both from making what was bound to be a terrible mistake.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked, curling a strand of red hair around his finger, then brushing it gently away from her face. “It’s not too late.”

His breath seemed to catch in his throat as he waited for her answer. If she said no, if she changed her mind now, he might very well hate himself for the rest of his life for asking. But that would be better by far than having her hate him for not asking.

All she said, though, was, “Please, Jake. Don’t stop.”

She opened herself to him then. Her hands on his hips guided him. When he would have sunk slowly, carefully into her, she took that option from him, arching her hips until they were joined fully, deeply.

Jake couldn’t recall ever fitting another woman so snugly, so perfectly. Nor could he recall a time when his movements had been so tormentingly slow, when the buildup of tension had been so exquisitely consuming.

When a howl ripped through the night air, Jake thought surely it must have been the wolf once more. Then he realized that the sound had come from him just as an explosive climax shuddered first through Sara and then with shattering intensity through him.

He closed his eyes, hoping that would shut out the emotions crowding through him, but it was a wasted effort. Something told him that Sara had claimed more than his body in the past hour. He was very much afraid she had claimed his heart and soul. The real shock, of course, was that he still had either one for her to claim.

Chapter Six

O
bviously she’d lost her mind, Sara thought with a fresh bout of embarrassment as she fought opening her eyes in the morning. There were fresh reminders of her middle-of-the-night madness.

Jake’s leg was settled across hers. He’d flung one arm possessively around her waist. His shadowed cheek rested against her bare shoulder. The intimacy was beguiling and confusing. When she thought of how she’d practically—okay, literally—thrown herself at him the night before, it was also humiliating.

Where had she gotten the notion that Three-Stars could be seduced away from Jake? Just because she’d proved he wanted her was no reason to assume he wanted her badly enough to sacrifice the home he’d dreamed of owning.

Not that he’d tried very hard to fight her off. He’d put up a token, gentlemanly resistance. It was probably more than most men would have under the circumstances, but he hadn’t exactly called a halt to the proceedings.

Which meant one of two things, she concluded. Either he’d been lusting after her as ardently as she’d been lusting after him or he was just the kind of male who never turned down such a generous offer of feminine companionship.