The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011

by Catherine Mann

  The bed was wide and high and covered in a luxurious white silk duvet that had already been turned down for the night. A mountain of pillows were stacked against the black iron headboard. Adam carried her with quick steps, right to the edge of the bed. Then he set her on her feet, grabbed the edge of the duvet and tossed it heedlessly to the foot of the mattress.

  Gina’s knees went a little wobbly, so she locked them just to make sure she didn’t do anything totally stupid like topple over. In the semidarkness, Adam’s chocolate-brown eyes looked nearly black as he stared down at her. His mouth was thin, tight, as if he were holding on to the ragged edge of control.

  Well, she didn’t want him controlled.

  She wanted him wild and eager and spontaneous. Biting down on her bottom lip, Gina lifted her hands to the front of his shirt and undid the rest of the buttons. While he stood there, unmoving, she pushed the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, to drop to the floor. Then she let her hands slide across his hard, warm chest. Felt the soft brush of the dark hair that whorled across his tanned skin. Felt him flinch when her thumbnail stroked the tip of one flat nipple.

  He grabbed her waist, his hands big and hard and strong. Then he yanked her close, holding her to him so that she felt the thick ridge of his arousal. Looming over her, he stared into her eyes and Gina felt the heat of that gaze fire up her insides like a match to a pool of gasoline.

  His mouth came down on hers with a fierceness she hadn’t expected. His tongue parted her lips and she opened for him, inviting his exploration. Their tongues twisted together in a heated dance that was only a prelude of things to come. Gina’s breath caught in her chest and her head began to swim.

  Her body alive with sensation, she groaned from the back of her throat when Adam’s hands slid up to cover her breasts. He stroked her, causing the lace to rub across her already sensitized nipples with a delicious friction that heated her core and drove her to the edge of madness. Each touch was a fire. Each touch only made her want the next. Each stroking caress tautened the tension already coiled inside her.

  When he tore his mouth from hers to lick and nibble his way down the length of her throat, Gina tipped her head back to give him more access. His mouth was a wonder. His hands at her breasts a lovely torture.

  Then he shifted position, lifting his hands to the thin, ribbonlike straps of her nightgown and he slid them down over her shoulders. Gina shivered a little at the cool glide of his fingertips against her skin, then shivered harder as he pushed the nightgown down and off to puddle at her feet.

  The desert wind was cool as it brushed into the room and danced across her skin, but Adam’s gaze kept her too warm to notice. He looked her up and down, then looking directly into her eyes, he lifted her again and dropped her onto the mattress.

  She bounced once, then settled back against the backdrop of pillows, a lavender scent drifting to her like a lost memory of summer. Her center, hot and aching, had her shifting on the smooth, cool sheets, looking for the release her body already clamored for.

  Gina watched as Adam stripped quickly out of his clothes. Her mouth went dry when he was naked and her gaze dropped down to the incredible, hard length of him.

  Gina forced herself to relax, ordering her legs to loosen and the hard knot of worry to dissolve in the back of her mind. She’d known him her whole life practically. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Knew that even if he didn’t love her, he would take care of her.

  Then he was moving over her and her brain shut down. All she had the strength to focus on were the sensations rippling through her body in relentless waves. His hands, his mouth, his body, lavished attention on her. Every inch of her felt alive and tingling.

  He closed his mouth over one nipple and Gina nearly leaped off the bed. His lips and tongue and teeth tormented her until she whimpered and shifted beneath him, trying to get closer. Her hands slid up and down his broad, muscled back and her short, neat fingernails scraped over his skin.

  He groaned against her and Gina’s hips rocked into him. She lifted one leg, trailing the sole of her foot along his leg, desperate to touch him. To feel all of him.

  “You smell incredible,” he whispered, moving his mouth from one nipple to the other.

  Gina made a mental note to buy more of the citrus/flowery body lotion she preferred.

  She stared up at the moonlit ceiling above them and stared blindly as shadows shifted and waved against the pale lemon paint. Her breath struggled in and out of her lungs. Her body burned and when he moved lazily and she felt that hard, thick length of him rub her core, she gasped and arched higher. “Adam …”

  “I know,” he whispered, lifting his head to look into her eyes.

  She met his gaze with a dazed look, and saw the wildness in his eyes. Gina took his face between her palms and drew his head to her. She wanted to kiss him. To feel that connection of want and desire build between them. To have his body atop hers, his heartbeat thundering in time with her own.

  The kiss seared them both. Heat and passion trembled in the air and Gina put all she had into it. She gave him her heart in that kiss, whether he knew it or not. She poured the feelings she’d so carefully banked for years into that one instant of mouths and hearts blending and when she felt him shift, positioning himself between her legs, she kissed him even harder.

  She wanted his mouth on hers when he entered her and so she moved with him, spreading her thighs, lifting her hips while at the same time keeping her lips firmly attached to his. His tongue swept across the inside of her mouth as he pushed his body into hers.

  He lifted his head, looked down into her eyes and held perfectly still, allowing her body to adjust to the presence of his. Gina groaned, digging her head into the mound of pillows behind her. She wriggled her hips, lifting, shifting, feeling him slowly sink deeper within and as he claimed her, inch by inch, she felt her body stretching to accommodate him.

  “Oh, my …” She let out a breath on a sigh and looked up at him smiling down at her.

  She smiled, then gasped as he rocked his hips, pushing higher within.

  He eased back, sitting on his haunches, scooping his hands under bottom, lifting her hips a little, pulling her body down harder on his. “We’re just getting started.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  His thumb stroked the hard, hot nub of flesh at her center and Gina’s back arched high off the mattress. Her hands scrabbled for something to hold on to and her fingers curled into the silken sheets beneath her. It didn’t help; she still felt her world swaying and tilting weirdly around her as he moved, withdrawing only to plunge inside her again.

  His fingers continued to rub and stroke her most sensitive spot, until Gina was writhing in his grasp, twisting her hips, unconsciously drawing his body deeper into hers. Too much, she thought. It was all too much. She couldn’t handle so many sensations. So much pleasure. Surely there was a saturation point where her body would simply dissolve and her mind become a puddle of goo.

  And then he showed her differently. Reaching for her, he took hold of her waist and lifted her off the bed, settling her down on his lap, so that his length was deep inside her. Gina looked directly into his eyes as he guided her in an easy rhythm that had her rocking on him, tantalizing them both.

  The wind slid into the room, and the scent of sage melded with the scent of their heated bodies and the bloom of sex. Skin met skin, breath intermingled and their sighs became a symphony of want and desperate need.

  Moving on him, sliding her body onto his, Gina found a magic she’d never expected. Her body quivered, her insides straining, reaching toward the release that built within. Her heart swelled, filling with the thrill of being a part of Adam at long last. And her mind raced with images she couldn’t allow herself to indulge in. Images of Adam’s eyes shining with love for her. Images of the two of them, together. Always.

  But even though a part of her mourned, she relished the feelings coursing through her. She looked into Adam’s eyes, lost herself
in those dark, dark depths and watched as passion ignited, firing sparks she knew she had brought him.

  Tension coiled tighter, tighter. Her body trembled. She held her breath and when she slid down his length one more time, the first explosion smashed into her.

  “Adam!” She gripped his shoulders hard, trying to keep herself stable in a suddenly wildly unstable world.

  “Let go,” he ordered, his voice a low rush of sound, scraping from his throat. “Let yourself go, Gina.”

  She did. She couldn’t help it. Didn’t want to try. Instead she gave herself up to the incredible sensations coursing through her. Riding wave after wave of tremors that continued to ripple through her long after that first tremendous burst had diminished.

  And when Gina thought she couldn’t take another moment, there was more. Adam dropped one hand to the spot where their bodies joined. Once again, he rubbed that tender piece of flesh that seemed to hold a store of electrical-like nerve endings. She jolted in his embrace and instinctively ground her hips against him.

  “Adam …” She whispered his name now, a sigh of pleasure.

  “Again,” he said, pushing her even higher than she’d been before. Her mind splintered, her body shattered and when she felt herself falling, she heard Adam groan and knew he was taking the fall with her.

  Adam’s heart was racing and his body felt more lax than it had in years. He turned his head on the pillows to look at the woman lying beside him. Her eyes were closed, and she lay, one arm flung back behind her head, the other reaching toward him across the wide expanse of mattress.

  Her skin was softer than the silk they lay on and her hair was a tumble of curls he couldn’t seem to touch enough. Her sighs, her pleasures, tempted him to take her again and again. Even now, he felt himself stir, his body already hardening for her.

  “You’re watching me.”

  “Your eyes are closed,” he pointed out. “How do you know?”

  “I can feel it,” she said and turned her head on the pillows to look at him. A smile curved her delectable mouth and Adam felt another jolt of desire slam into him. Maybe this bargain between them hadn’t been such a good idea after all, he thought, at the realization that in the last hour with her, he’d felt more than he had in the last five years.

  “Now you’re frowning,” Gina said, rolling to her side, unabashedly naked, her tanned, smooth skin nearly glowing in the moonlight. “No frowns allowed.”

  “Don’t know if I can accommodate that request,” he said.

  She sighed, pushed one hand through her hair, throwing the thick mass over her shoulder. “Adam, you don’t have to be worried.”

  “What makes you think I’m worried?”

  She laughed and the sound of it sang through the otherwise quiet room. “Please. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

  “Is that right?” Turning to face her, he went up on one elbow. “Then what am I thinking?” he said with a slight smile.

  She stroked the tips of her fingers across the sheet covered distance separating them and Adam wished she were touching him.

  “That’s easy. You’re worrying that you made a mistake by agreeing to this little bargain.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, more because he hated knowing that she could read him so well than anything else, but she spoke up again.

  “You’re worried that I’m building up romantic notions. Hoping you’ll fall in love with me.”

  He frowned harder, because damn it, she was right. He had been worrying about that, too. But he wouldn’t admit it. “Wrong. I know you’re not doing anything that foolish.” At least, he hoped not. “After all, this was your idea.”

  “True.” She smiled and rolled onto her stomach, coming closer to him. Close enough that he couldn’t keep himself from reaching one hand out to stroke the line of her spine, the curve of her bottom. And he wondered how in the hell she’d managed to get a tan all over.

  Shaking his head to get rid of the image of her stretched out naked in the sun, Adam asked, “Why?”

  “Why what?” She looked at him, her golden eyes shining in the darkness.

  “Why’d you offer me this bargain? I mean, I know you want a baby. I understand that. What I want to know is why me?”

  She stretched lazily, moving that tanned, toned body on the white silk sheets until blood vessels started popping in Adam’s brain.

  “Easily enough explained, Adam,” she said, glancing at him. “You wanted the land, so that gave me some leverage….”

  “Yes …” He wanted the rest of her reason.

  “And, I’ve known you forever, Adam. I like you. I think you like me—”

  He nodded. He did like Gina. He’d just never paid much attention to that fact over the years. She was younger than he was, so they hadn’t spent much time together when they were kids. Then, when they were grown, he’d had other priorities.

  “—it seemed like the perfect answer to both of our problems.” She lifted one hand to him and stroked her palm across his chest. Adam sucked in a gulp of air at the heat that instantly shot through him. “And … I think the two of us will make a beautiful baby.”

  A slice of something cold and dark cut through his mind at those words. He’d once made a vow to never have another child. To never open himself up to that kind of risk again. But this was different, he reasoned, so he pushed those thoughts into a corner of his mind. He’d made this bargain and he’d honor it. The child he and Gina made between them wouldn’t be a part of his life. He wouldn’t know it. Love it. Or lose it. In fact, best to not think about it at all.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered and Adam cut her a look.

  “About what?”

  “Talking about the baby I want must make you remember your son.”

  Adam froze. He felt his features tighten and everything in him go hard and still as glass. Memories jumped into his mind, but he refused to acknowledge them. He turned them off as easily as punching the remote button aimed at a television. He’d had a lot of practice.

  He wasn’t open to talking about the son he’d lost five years before and they might as well get that straight right up front. “I don’t talk about him. Ever.”

  Her eyes went soft in sympathy and Adam resented it. He didn’t need her feeling sorry for him.

  “I understand.”

  “You couldn’t possibly,” he told her.

  A silent second or two passed before Gina said, “Fine, you’re right. I don’t understand. I hope I never learn the kind of pain you experienced and—”

  He caught her hand in his and gave it a hard squeeze. Just enough to get her to stop talking. How the hell had they gotten onto the subject of his lost family anyway? Wasn’t their bargain supposed to be about sex, plain and simple? “What part of ‘I don’t talk about it’ didn’t you get?”

  She pulled her hand free of his, pushed herself up on the bed and leaned in close to him. Staring into his eyes, it looked as though she were searching for something, some sign that there was warmth hidden somewhere inside him. Adam could have told her to not bother looking.

  After a long moment, Gina leaned in even further and kissed him, briefly, softly. “I get it, Adam. The subject’s off-limits.”

  “Good.”

  “I don’t want to talk anyway.” Gina stroked his cheek with her palm and drew his head closer to hers.

  “That’s good, too.” At her touch, his body heated and was instantly ready for her again. He’d been too long without a woman, that was all. He’d been a damn recluse for five years, with only the occasional, temporary woman to ease needs that couldn’t be denied any longer.

  That explained why his response to Gina was so overwhelming. It was just biological, that was all. It wasn’t about her. It was about sex. Need.

  And when she moved into him, he kept telling himself that, even as he inhaled her scent, drawing it deep inside him. Even as he twisted his hand into her hair, letting the silky feel of it slide over his skin. Even as he took her mou
th and tasted the sweetness that was Gina alone.

  He couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow anything else.

  She tried to roll over in his arms, but he kept her on her stomach and shifted enough that he could trail kisses along the length of her spine. Such soft, honey-brown skin. Such long lines and rich curves. He heard her sigh and felt her tremble as his left hand swept down to stroke her bottom. He glanced at her, saw her eyes closed, her hands fisted in the bank of pillows.

  “Adam …”

  “We have all night, Gina,” he said and suddenly knew that he wanted every moment of the night. He wanted her over him, under him. He wanted to taste and explore every glorious inch of her and then he wanted to start all over again.

  Fire erupted in his blood as she moved on the sheets and he knew he had to have her. No more thinking. No more worrying about tomorrow or the day after that. For now, he would waste no more time with her.

  Flipping her over with a quick twist, he grinned when she smiled up at him and lifted her arms in welcome. He slid into her embrace, covering her body with his and when he entered her, she arched her hips to take him completely. To hold him deep inside her heat. And Adam closed his mind to everything but her.

  They moved together in a rhythm that left them both breathless. Bodies sang, minds emptied and when the first flash of release slammed into Gina, Adam held on to her, watching her eyes, dazzled with pleasure as he surrendered himself to the glory waiting for him.

  Seven

  Thanks to Esperanza Sanchez, Adam’s longtime housekeeper, Gina was pretty sure she’d gained five pounds in four days. The older woman was so happy to see Adam married again, she hadn’t stopped cooking all week. And every time Gina tried to help out in the kitchen, straighten up the living room or even to dust, she was shooed out of the room and told to go spend time with her new husband.

  Not as easy as it sounded.

  Esperanza was determined to see that Gina felt at home. Even if Adam was a little less than welcoming. Staring into a full-length mirror in the bedroom she now shared with Adam, Gina wasn’t looking at her own reflection so much as at the gigantic bed behind her. That was the only place she felt as though Adam was glad to have her in his home.