Unlikely Lover (19 page)

He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that an invitation to be seduced?”

She swallowed again. “I don’t think I quite know how to seduce you. So I think you’ll have to seduce me.”

His smile widened. “What about precautions, little temptress?”

She blushed to her toes. She hadn’t expected resistance. “Well,” she began, peeking up at him, “can’t you take care of that?”

His white teeth showed under his lips. “No.”

Her blush deepened. “Oh.”

He tossed his hat onto the hall table and went inside the room, gently closing the door behind him. “Now, come here.” He drew her in front of him, holding her by both shoulders, his face gentle and almost loving. “What do you think I want, Marianne?”

“You’ve made what you want pretty obvious,” she replied sadly.

“What you think I want,” he corrected. His eyes went over her like hands, enjoying the exciting glimpses of her silky skin that he was getting through the gossamer-thin fabric of her gown. “And you’re right about that. I could make a banquet of you in bed. But not tonight.”

She turned her head a bit, looking up at him. “Are you too tired?” she asked innocently.

He grinned. “Nope.”

None of this was getting through to her. “I don’t understand,” she said softly.

“Yes, I gathered that.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a box. It was black and velvety and small. He opened it and handed it to her.

The ring was a diamond. A big, beautiful diamond in a setting with lots of little diamonds in rows encircling the large stone. Beside it was a smaller, thinner matching diamond band.

“It’s an engagement ring,” he explained. “It goes on the third finger of your left hand, and at the wedding I’ll put the smaller one on your finger beside it.”

She was hearing things. Surely she was! But the ring looked real. She couldn’t stop staring at it.

“You don’t want to get married,” she told him patiently, her eyes big and soft. “You hate ties. You hate women. They’re all deceitful and greedy.”

He traced a slow, sensuous pattern down her silky cheek, smiling softly. “I want to get married,” he said. “I want you to share your life with me.”

It was the way he put it. She burst into tears. They rolled down her cheeks in a torrent, a sob broke from her throat. He became a big, handsome blur.

“Now, now,” he murmured gently. He bent to kiss the tears away. “It’s all right.”

“You want to marry me?” she whispered unsteadily.

“Yes,” he said, smiling.

“Really?”

“Really.” He brushed back her hair, his green eyes possessive on her oval face. “I’d be a fool to let go of a woman who loves me as much as you do.”

She froze in place. Was he fishing? Was he guessing? Did he know? If he did, how?

“You told me this afternoon,” he said gently, pulling her to him. “You offered yourself to me with no strings. You’d never make an offer like that to a man you didn’t love desperately. I knew it. And that’s why I stopped. It would have been cheap, somehow, to have our first time on the ground without doing things properly.”

“But…but…” she began, trying to find the right words.

“But how do I feel?” he probed softly, touching her lips with a faintly unsteady index finger. “Don’t you know?”

His eyes were telling her. His whole face was telling her. But despite her rising excitement, she had to have it all. The words, too.

“Please tell me,” she whispered.

He framed her face and lifted it to his darkening eyes, to his firm, hungry mouth. “I love you, Marianne,” he breathed against her mouth as he took it. “And this is how much…”

It took him a long time to show her how much. When he was through, they were lying on the bed with her gown down to her waist, and he looked as if he were going to die trying to stop himself from going the whole way. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Lillian had guessed what was going on and was trying to knock the door down.

“It’s bedtime, boss,” she called loudly. “It’s late. She’s a growing girl. Needs her sleep!”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I need at all,” Marianne said with such tender frustration that Ward laughed through his own shuddering need.

“Okay, aunt-to-be,” he called back. “Give me a minute to say good-night and I’ll be right out.”

“You’re getting married?” Lillian shouted gleefully.

“That’s about the size of it,” he answered, smiling down at Mari. “Aren’t you just overjoyed with your meddling now?”

“Overjoyed doesn’t cover it,” Lillian agreed. “Now, speaking as your future aunt-in-law, come out of there! Or wait until supper tomorrow night and see if you get fed! We’re going to do this thing right!”

“I was just about to do this thing right,” he whispered to Mari, his eyes softly mocking. “Wasn’t I?”

“Yes.” She laughed. “But we can’t admit that.”

“We can’t?” He sighed. “I guess not.”

He got up reluctantly, rebuttoning the shirt that her darting fingers had opened over a chest that was aching for her hands. “Pretty thing,” he murmured, watching her pull the gown up again.

“You’re pretty, too, so there,” she teased.

“Are you coming out, or am I coming in?” Lillian was sounding militant.

Ward glowered at the door. “Can’t I even have a minute to say good-night?”

“You’ve been saying good-night for thirty minutes already, and that’s enough,” she informed him. “I’m counting! One, two, three…”

She was counting loudly. Ward sighed at Mari. “Good night, baby,” he said reluctantly.

She blew him a kiss. “Good night, my darling.”

He took one last look and opened the door on “…Fourteen!”

Mari laid back against the pillows, listening to the pleasant murmur of voices outside the door as she stared at her ring.

“Congratulations and good night, dear!” Aunt Lillian called.

“Good night and thank you!” Mari called back.

“Oh, you’re very welcome!” Ward piped in.

“Get out of here,” Lillian muttered, pushing him down the hall.

Alone in her room Mari was trying to convince herself that she wasn’t dreaming. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done. He was hers. They were going to be married. They were going to live together and love each other and have children together. She closed her eyes reluctantly, tingling all over with the first stirrings of possession.

Chapter Twelve

T
he next morning Mari was sure it had all been a beautiful dream until she looked at the ring on her finger. When she went down to breakfast, she found a new, different Ward waiting for her.

He went to her without hesitation, bending to brush a tender kiss against her smiling lips.

“It was real after all,” he murmured, his green eyes approving her cool blue knit sundress. “I thought I might have dreamed it.”

“So did I,” she confessed. Her hands smoothed hesitantly over the hard, warm muscles of his chest. It felt wonderful to be able to do that, to feel so much a part of him that it no longer was forbidden to touch him, to look at him too long. “Are you really mine now?” she murmured aloud.

“Until I die,” he promised, bringing her close against him. He sighed into her hair, rocking her against the powerful muscles of his body. “I never thought this would happen. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to love or trust a woman again after Caroline. And then you came along, pushing me into indoor streams, backing me into corners about my business sense, haunting me with your soft innocence. You got under my skin that first night. I’ve spent the rest of the time trying to convince myself that I was still free when I knew all along that I was hopelessly in love with you.”

She burrowed closer, tingling all over at that sweet, possessive note in his deep voice. “I was so miserable in Atlanta,” she confessed. “I missed you every single day. I tried to get used to being alone.”

“I shouldn’t have propositioned you,” he said with a sigh, lifting his head to search her eyes with his. “But I still thought I could stop short of a commitment. God knows how I’d have coped with the conscience I didn’t even have until you came along. Every time Ty Wade was mentioned, I got my back up, thinking how he’d changed.” He touched her face with wonder in his whole look. “And now I know how and why, and I think he must have felt this way with his Erin when he realized what he felt for her.”

She sighed softly, loving him with her eyes. “I know I felt like part of me was missing when I left here. It didn’t get any better, either.”

“Why do you think I came after you?” he murmured dryly. “I couldn’t stand it here without you. Not that I admitted that to myself in any great rush. Not until that rattler almost got you, and I had to face it. If anything had happened to you, I wouldn’t have wanted to live,” he added on a deep, husky note that tugged at her heart.

“I feel that way, too,” she whispered, searching his eyes. “Can we really get married?”

“Yes,” he whispered back, bending his head down. “And live together and sleep together and raise a family together…”

Her lips opened for him, welcoming and warm, just for a few seconds before Lillian came in with breakfast and knowing grins. Ward glowered at her.

“All your fault,” he told her. “I could have gone on for years living like a timber wolf but for you.”

“No need to thank me,” she said with a big smile. “You’re welcome.”

She vanished back into the kitchen, laughing, as Ward led Mari to the table, shaking his head with an exasperated chuckle.

* * *

The wedding was a week later, and old Mrs. Jessup and Belinda had come home just for the occasion. They sat on either side of Lillian, who was beaming.

“Nice girl,” Belinda whispered. “She’ll make a new man of him.”

“I think she has already.” Old Mrs. Jessup grinned. “Spirited little thing. I like her, too.”

“I always did,” Lillian said smugly. “Good thing I saw the shape he was getting in and brought her out here. I knew they’d be good for each other.”

“It isn’t nice to gloat,” Belinda reminded her.

“Amen,” Mrs. Jessup harrumphed. “Don’t I seem to remember that you introduced that Caroline creature to him in the first place?”

Lillian was horrified. “That wasn’t me! That was Belinda!”

Mrs. Jessup’s eyes widened as she glared past Lillian at the restless young woman on the other side. “Did you?”

“It was an accident,” Belinda muttered. “I meant to introduce her to Bob Whitman, to get even for jilting me. Ward kind of got in the way. I never meant for her to go after my poor brother.”

“It’s all in the past now anyway,” Lillian said, making peace. “He’s got the right girl, now. Everything will be fine.”

“Yes.” Old Mrs. Jessup sighed, glancing past Lillian again. “If only Belinda would settle down. She goes from boyfriend to boyfriend, but she never seems to get serious.”

Lillian pursed her lips, following the older woman’s gaze to Belinda, who was sighing over Mari’s wedding gown as she walked down the aisle accompanied by the organ music. She’d have to see what she could do….

The wedding ceremony was short and beautiful. Mari thought she’d never seen a man as handsome as her Ward, and when the minister pronounced them husband and wife, she cried softly until Ward kissed away the tears.

Lillian, not Belinda, caught the wedding bouquet and blushed like a schoolgirl when everyone giggled. The guests threw rice and waved them off, and Mari caught a glimpse of tall, slender Ty Wade with his Erin just on the fringe of the guests.

“Alone at last.” Ward grinned, glancing at her.

“I thought they’d never leave,” she agreed with a wistful sigh. “Where are we going? I didn’t even ask.”

“Tahiti,” he said with a slow smile. “I booked tickets the day after you said yes. We’re flying out of San Antonio early tomorrow morning.”

“What about tonight?” she asked curiously and flushed at the look on his face.

“Let me worry about tonight,” he murmured softly.

He held her hand as he drove, and an hour later he drove up to a huge, expensive hotel in the city.

He’d reserved the bridal suite, and it was the most incredible sight Mari had ever seen. The bed was huge, dominating the bedroom. She stood in the doorway just staring at it while Ward paid the bellhop and locked the door.

“It’s huge,” she whispered.

“And strategically placed, did you notice?” he murmured with a laugh, suddenly lifting her clear of the floor in her neat white linen traveling suit.

“Yes, I did notice,” she said huskily, clinging to him. “You looked so handsome.”

“You looked so lovely.” He bent to her mouth and started walking. “I love you to distraction, did I tell you?”

“Several times.”

“I hope you won’t mind hearing it again frequently for the next hour or so,” he murmured against her eager mouth and laid her gently down on the bed.

Mari had expected ardor and passion, and she had experienced a tiny measure of apprehension. But he made it so natural, so easy. She relaxed even as he began to undress her, his hands and mouth so deeply imprinted on her memory that she accepted them without the faintest protest.

“This is familiar territory for us, isn’t it?” he breathed as he moved back beside her after stripping off his own clothing. “Up to this point, at least,” he added at her rapt, faintly shocked visual exploration of him. “But you know how it feels to have my eyes and my hands and my mouth on you. You know that I won’t hurt you. That there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

She looked back up into his eyes. “I couldn’t be afraid of you.”

“I won’t lose control right away,” he promised, bending slowly to her mouth. “Give yourself to me now, Mari. Remember how it was on the ground, with the rain soaking us, and give yourself to me the way you offered then.”

She felt all over again the pelting rain, the sweetness of his hands, the wild fever of his mouth claiming hers in the silence of the meadow. She reached up to him, suddenly on fire with the unaccustomed removal of all barriers, physical and moral, and she gave herself with an abandon that frankly startled him.

“Shhh,” she whispered when he tried to draw back at the last minute, to make it gentle, to keep from hurting her. But she reached up to his hips and softly drew them down again, lifting, and a tiny gasp was the only sound she made as she coaxed his mouth back to hers. “Now,” she breathed into his devouring lips. “Now, now…”