The Price of Honor (12 page)

“Tim, remember this is just an opportunity to get your feet wet at a bigger show against stiffer competition. You have nothing to lose. You're not out there to win. If you place, great, but that's not your goal today. Your goal is to do your best and get as clean a round as you can. Focus on the basics. Remember what we talked about when we walked the course this morning. Keep your eyes on the top rail and you'll be fine.”

Tim gulped and nodded. “I'll try, Megan. I don't want to let you down.”

“This isn't about me. This is about you showing yourself
what you can do. You have the ability and a good mount. All you need is practice. Nobody's expecting perfection. Least of all me.” She gave him two thumbs-up.

Looking only slightly less tense, he nodded and turned toward the show ring behind the other equestrians. Rocky, eager as always to get to the course, had to be reined in. Megan stared after them, wishing, yearning to be in that saddle.

“Giving him five new mounts in a show of this caliber is too much too soon for him.”

“He will learn.”

“Not if you sour him on riding first.”

“If that happens then he was not born to be a competitor.”

Xavier grasped her elbow and steered her toward the stands. He easily carved a path through the crowd. The attendee's apparel ranged from designer to denim with some of the women wearing wide-brimmed hats worthy of the Queen Mother or Kentucky Derby. Megan's clothes fell somewhere in the middle. Translation—nothing special. Just like her.

As promised, Xavier led her to front-row seats, center ring—the best vantage point in the house. No surprise since Xavier never did anything by half-measure even on short notice. But getting these seats couldn't have been easy or inexpensive.

Megan perched on the edge of her chair, trying to acclimate herself to being on the wrong side of the fence. She wasn't used to being surrounded by people, conversation, food and movement. Riding? Yes. Standing ringside and assessing her competition? Absolutely. But sitting still in the stands? Hard to do when her heart pounded faster than the horse and rider cantering past her toward the starting line.

She could smell the arena dirt, the flowers that decorated
some of the jumps and the chlorine in the water filling the Liverpools. All normal. But the overpowering perfume of the lady to her left, the bourbon stench from the man on Xavier's right were out of place in her mind. The last two hammered home that this wasn't where she belonged or where she wanted to be. Xavier took her hand in his, his thumb sweeping back and forth across her palm, yet another distraction, one that agitated a beehive in her belly.

The rider approached the first jump. Megan caught herself counting strides, leaning forward and putting her weight on the balls of her feet as if she were in the saddle. Embarrassed, she abruptly sat back and shot a quick glance at Xavier. She caught him watching her instead of the horse and rider.

Satisfaction glimmered in his eyes.
Satisfaction?
The emotion seemed out of place. He gave her fingers a squeeze. “You miss the competition.”

Nothing like stating the obvious.
But she wouldn't give him the pleasure or ammunition of agreeing. “Observing from the sidelines provides an opportunity to study the riders and horses I'll face next year when I return to competition.”

As soon as she said the words, another thought registered. She could also use her time to identify the riders with young children—few though they may be—and then she could approach them to see if any of them might be interested in sharing a nanny while they were on the road during the show season.

She'd work something else out for Monday through Wednesday when she was at the farm. Maybe Nellie, the Sutherland Farm housekeeper who'd all but raised Megan and Hannah after their mothers' deaths, would be interested in watching the baby part-time.

Hold that thought.
Megan could subtly ask questions and
gather information as long as she didn't reveal why. She wasn't ready to have the news of her condition traveling the gossip grapevine fast on the heels of Xavier's engagement announcement and her relocation—especially not after Prissy's revelations this morning. People would talk about his past lover and his future wife and might rightly connect the dots of her baby's paternity.

Any fiancée worthy of the title would—
should
—come winging across the ocean to defend her turf if she heard her husband-to-be had a baby on the way with another woman.

Megan had a better chance of convincing Xavier to break his engagement if his beautiful, blonde, perfect fiancée wasn't around to muddy the waters.

The sound of a rail clattering down and the heat of Xavier's rock-solid thigh beneath their joined hands shocked Megan with the realization that she hadn't been paying attention. She tugged her hand from Xavier's and forced herself to concentrate on the horse and rider completing the course.

She had to get her head back in the game and weigh the odds of Tim and Rocky besting this entry. There was so much to learn from sitting in the stands. All she had to do was keep the big French distraction beside her from derailing her concentration.

She managed to maintain her focus through the next two riders, then the announcer called out Tim's name and Rocky Start. Megan's heart bounded wildly. Funny how much more nervous she was watching her horse than riding him. She leaned forward, clutching the edge of her seat as Rocky and his rider entered the arena and cantered toward the beginning of the course. Tim looked as nervous as she felt when he paused then backed Rocky two steps. He nodded to the judges, waiting for permission to begin. The
gelding pranced uneasily in place, obviously picking up Tim's agitation. A lump rose in Megan's throat.

And then horse and rider were off. Xavier's palm curved over Megan's shoulder. He leaned forward until his breath teased the hair by her ear and she shivered, darn it, her reaction to him one that she couldn't turn off.

“Say the word,
mon amante,
and you can return to competition next season unencumbered.”

She glared at him, missing Rocky's approach to the first oxer. Xavier was offering her the simplest solution. Give up her baby and her life could return to “normal.” But she wasn't interested in her old version of normal anymore, and she'd never been the type to take shortcuts or the easy way out. She wasn't going to start now.

Then she noticed the cunning, watchful expression in his eyes and a lightbulb of understanding switched on. The devil was using her strategy against her.
He
was trying to show
her
what she'd be missing if she continued on her current path.

The nerve of him. That's why he'd paid the exorbitant entry fees for her horses, reserved a five-star hotel room, bought the designer apparel for her and ordered her favorite foods. It had nothing to do with her mattering to him and everything to do with him trying to manipulate her into giving him what he wanted. Her baby.

Well, he'd have to be smarter than that if he planned to get the best of her. She was in it to win it. Her life and her child's depended on her coming out on top.

Second place was, after all, the first loser.

 

Tonight would be different, Megan vowed as she pushed away from their late-night, postshow feast.

Tonight she wouldn't lose control or forget her objective.

Tonight she would bring Xavier to his knees—sexually speaking—but keep her emotional distance.

And then maybe leaving him all warm and sated in his bed wouldn't hurt so much.

She rose, stepped away from the table and slowly undid the side zip of the dress he'd given her for tonight's event, this one a rich ruby-red and strapless. The garment slid to the floor, leaving her in the sexy red bustier bra and panties and beaded scarlet do-me heels.

Without taking his eyes from her, Xavier leaned back in his chair and reached for his tie, loosening the knot and sliding the silk free in a slithering swish. He looped the end of the tie around the middle. Odd. And then she realized he was tying a slipknot. Why?

“You're going to wrinkle the silk.”

“The cleaner will take care of it.” He repeated the procedure on the opposite end of the fabric and stood, holding the double loops in one hand. Slowly. Deliberately. He stalked in her direction, like a tiger preparing to pounce.

Her heart pumped wildly. They had never played games of restraint. Was that his goal? Gulping, she backed one step, then two. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing to pleasure you.”

She turned and headed toward his room. He caught her fingers, pulled her close and twirled her the way he had on the dance floor at tonight's cocktail party.

The silk tie skimmed down her spine, cool and smooth against her bare skin. It settled at her waist. A loop encircled one wrist, then the second loop captured the other, tethering her hands by her sides. Adrenaline rushed through her system caused not by fear, but excitement. “Xavier—”

“Do you trust me, Megan?” His dark green gaze probed hers.

“Of course I do, but I—”

His mouth covered hers. The kiss was deep and seductive, potent and lethal to her vow to remain detached. His lips plied her mouth and their tongues tangled. Warm palms buffed her ribs, waist and hips then cupped her bottom and pressed her closer.

She tried to free her hands to touch him, but she couldn't. Pulling only tightened the restraints. The loops weren't painful and weren't cutting off circulation. But they might if she continued to fight them.

She had to get control of this situation. Planting a stiletto in the carpet, she attempted to steer him toward his bedroom—hard to do without hands. When the shoulder nudges failed, she shuffled toward the sitting room sofa, and when that didn't work, the table—any horizontal surface where she could leave him after the sex. Anywhere that wasn't her bed where she would retreat to lick her wounds in solitude later.

She felt him smile against her mouth, and then he bent and scooped her into his arms. She couldn't wrap her arms around his neck to hold on and therefore didn't dare struggle in case he dropped her.

He carried her into her bedroom and deposited her on her feet beside the turned-back bed. This wasn't going at all the way she'd planned.

“The condoms are in your room,” she protested. “Let's go there.”

“We don't need them. I enjoyed being inside you last night with nothing between us.”

A swoop of desire rocked her belly. “Untie me and let me touch you.”

“Later.” His mouth steamed the side of her neck a split second before his teeth lightly grazed her skin just below her ear.

She gasped then when he released her bra and cradled
her breasts, thumbing the tips into tight knots that tangled her insides even more. She moaned involuntarily.

“Xavier, I need to touch you, too.”

“You are touching me.” He cupped her elbows and shifted his torso against hers. The placket of his shirt gently abraded her taut nipples and his cold belt buckle pressed her stomach—a sharp contrast to the hot length of his arousal below. He shoved his hands into her panties, his palms blazing against her cool buttocks as he cupped and caressed her, then he eased the lacy garment down her legs. It pooled at her ankles, leaving both her wrists and ankles captive. She kicked the garment away, and in the process, her shoes.

His hands skimmed, brushed, stroked and plucked, sweeping away her love-him-and-leave-him strategy with effortless ease. Damn him. Her muscles quivered and hunger welled within her.

Focus. Remember this is about sex. That's all he thinks he wants. And that's all you're going to give him. This is not about the way he gets into your head or the way he finds every magical erogenous spot on your body and plies it until you want to beg him to relieve your pent-up desire.

But damn, he does it so well.

He lifted her and laid her on the bed. The weight of her body sank into the plush mattress, pulling the slack from the tie under her and truly anchoring her hands to her sides. She couldn't lift her fists from the bed.

He leaned over her, still fully dressed, and took her mouth again, hard and fast, then moved on to her neck, her ears. He inched ever so slowly to her breasts, tormenting her with his soft lips, his hot tongue, and then her personal weakness—his raspy chin.

Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
She silently pleaded with him to get this over with before she cracked. But he lingered,
sipping, laving, nibbling gently and then just rough enough to send a sharp arrow of hunger shooting through her. Her toes and fingers curled.

Maintaining her mental distance was the only way to get through tonight without losing another chunk of her soul. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to recall the jumps on this afternoon's course, tried to replay Tim's approach to the ones he'd knocked down and figure out where he'd gone wrong. The lead changes, the strides, the horse drifting to one side or another.

A rattling sound distracted her from her mental movie. Before she could identify it, shocking cold coated her left nipple. Her body jerked and her eyes flew open. “Wh-what is that?”

But she knew. Ice. Xavier circled her aureole with the freezing cube, then replaced it with his scalding hot mouth. A guttural sound rumbled up her throat. One of surprise. One of enthusiastic approval. One of desire more potent than anything she'd experienced previously. She couldn't have held back the sound if she tried. They had never played this game before, either. And ohmigod she liked it.

He repeated the icy/hot process on the opposite breast and she shuddered. So good.

Focus, Megan. Focus.

On what?
her distracted brain asked.

On the slow glide of the ice cube between her breasts and then down her midline. On the cold circle he drew around her navel. On the melting rivulets running down her sides. On the icy drip trickling over her hottest spot.