Wed To A Stranger?

by Jule McBride

  She’d never had a one-night stand. Nor would she ever again. But only Nathan could help her forget her painful past—even though he would never be a part of her future. Tonight she was ready to say goodbye, to let David go.

  Kiss me, she thought.

  And then he did. He kissed her without touching her. Kissed her with eyes that trailed lovingly over every inch of her. And when his warm mouth finally covered hers, it was as if one long, lazy trail of heat kept curling from the smoking gun of his lips.

  Fritzi’s open-mouthed whimper betrayed how much she craved the embrace he withheld, and he answered with a soft moan, deepening their kiss. Warmth licked inside her mouth like the tongues of flame behind her—flickering in her tummy, darting to her limbs.

  But Nathan’s lips alone were touching her—not his hands or arms or chest. Only those excruciatingly warm lips that seared her to her very soul. The next move was hers. And Nathan was demanding a display of her trust.

  Like rising smoke, Fritzi’s arms drifted upward of their own accord. They rose the way heat rises—and then they curled decisively around his neck.

  Nathan caught her then, tight in his arms. There was no turning back now. And no wanting to. His large, strong hands splayed on her back, unsnapping her bra through her blouse, and the instant her breasts swung free, he crushed her hard against his chest.

  With that one gesture, she forgot everything: That Nathan had come from nowhere and would return to nowhere. That soon he would become like David—nothing more than a phantom who had ghosted through her life only to haunt her dreams. Some day she might find the man she knew she deserved—the man who would stay with her and Malcolm forever. But not tonight. And in this harsh landscape of frigid ice and fearful darkness, at least Nathan’s vibrant energy could warm her for a moment.

  Yes, she thought hazily. I’m coming back to life after a long year. It was a painful rebirth, but she relaxed against Nathan, and he pulled her ever closer, enveloping her until she shut her eyes tight—just feeling him, letting him kiss her hard and deep. Letting him deftly undress her—tugging the blouse from her waistband, unzipping her jeans and shoving them over her hips, down to her knees. As his hand slid inside her panties to touch the nub of her desire, she leaned against him, the denim of his jeans feeling rough against her bare upper thighs.

  The kisses he rained on her mouth became agonizingly gentle then, and yet each kiss was like a blow—cracking open her shell, forcing her to come out of that deep, dark cave she’d climbed inside when David disappeared.

  Nathan brought her right to the light—and to the brink. Then he pulled her onto the floor, slipping off both their shirts as they slid onto the bearskin rug. In the firelight, Nathan’s chest glowed a deep bronze; glistening lights caught in the fine, curling hairs that arrowed toward his jeans.

  His mouth was slack. Splaying his hands on her lower belly, he slid his palms upward with torturous slowness, then cupped her bare breasts. He loved them with his hands—squeezing them over and over, wetting his fingers and lightly brushing their hard, aching, pebbled tips until they swelled against his rough fingers. Fritzi was powerless but to arch toward him, and yet she was trapped—her jeans were still around her knees and she could barely move.

  And she definitely wanted to. Because Nathan’s mouth suddenly followed where his hands had been. The heavenly heat of his speared tongue drenched her breasts, and a warm, honeyed drizzle seemed to break over the hardened tips that became harder still as he suckled them.

  Shutting her eyes tight, Fritzi pressed a tight fist to her mouth. Lord, it had been so long, she’d forgotten how a man could feel. Forgotten the tenderness of a strong hand sweetly cupping her mound, of a fiery tongue’s slow, circular path around her nipples, and the shock of that insistent heated length of a man pressing so urgently against her thigh.

  Sure she’d burst, she bit her lip and stifled moan after moan against her fist. Then, with her free hand, she bravely reached for him, tangling her fingers in his hair, urging him to her mouth again for the kiss that would never end.

  Instead, Nathan went lower still, kissing her belly, stripping away her jeans and panties, while her needy hands fumbled for his zipper, just touching folds of denim, not really helping him undress. Maybe not even trying to, but just touching him.

  Then he found her mouth again, just as his pants gave and his legs went free. Everything felt like silk—her quivering legs and backside sliding across the soft fur rug, his luxurious hair teasing her aching breasts, the bare skin of his thighs gliding over hers. Then hard and silken, the ready length of him slid between her thighs.

  Fritzi could no longer think clearly. Nathan kissed her, exploring her with his mouth, until something elemental possessed her, a need so urgent that she arched toward him. Only then did he enter her. His long, slow thrust ripped right through her, taking everything—her remaining sense of reason, her heart.

  Fritzi wrenched her head away, but Nathan’s thumb found her mouth, grazed her lips, then pressed between them. As she suckled the thumb, she felt lost to him, lost to a world of sensation of which she’d never even dreamed.

  “There now,” he whispered, groaning softly as her shaking knees opened wider for him. His hands. molded over her hips and thighs, then he gently lifted her knees higher, curling them over his shoulders, so the clammy, damp backs of her thighs pressed his chest, making her utterly helpless, powerless but to wrap her ankles around his neck and accept his everdeeper thrusts.

  “I need you,” Fritzi whimpered.

  “I know you do,” he whispered simply.

  Over and over, he took her right to the teetering edge of oblivion. He rocked her against him—until she was begging him, crying out for it. They were locked in an embrace so tight that air didn’t pass between them. There was no pride or embarrassment or consciousness. There was absolutely nothing left.

  Just him.

  And her need for him. She didn’t know how she would keep this man. Only that somehow she would. Because now she could never let him go.

  They came together.

  Fritzi shattered completely, bursting into bright light and pure energy. And when she returned, Nathan was still buried deep inside her—all the way in—his strangled sighs coming again and again with his own climax. She clung to him, their bodies throbbing, pulsing together—until she was no longer sure what was her or what was him.

  There were no barriers left between them, she thought. Not even skin or bone or their own bodies. They were soul to soul.

  And that’s how she knew.

  Even as the waves of love washed her clean, currents of fury and pain surged through her. “Damn you, David,” she gasped against his shoulder. “I know it’s you.”

  Chapter Ten

  She had called him David.

  Nathan’s chest was slick with sweat, his heart hammering. He was still buried deep inside the velvet softness of the woman he thought of as his wife. And it was very definitely the wrong time for an argument.

  Oh, he should have known he could never get away with this. But then that was his problem. He was always pushing the envelope. By rights, he never should have dared even cross paths with Fritzi Fitzgerald, much less fallen in love with her.

  Fritzi shoved his shoulders with surprising strength, then sprung to her feet. As she slid on the slick fur rug and twisted her ankle, Nathan both winced as if the pain were his own and drank in her glorious body—the full breasts and hips he’d just caressed, the dusky rose of her naked skin in the firelight and the tangled, gleaming russet hair that licked her shoulders like flames.

  Cautiously rising to his feet, he watched Fritzi swoop her clothes, from the floor. Forgetting her underwear, she thrust her legs into the jeans, then snapped the blouse unevenly, leaving the tails askew. When she threw him his balled-up jeans, he caught them against his stomach, gave them a hard shake, then stepped into them.

  Fritzi was hobbling around, switching on all the lights—both the lamps and overh
ead. When the whole room was stark with bright white light, she spun around.

  “Now—” her voice was murderous, her chest still heaving from their lovemaking “—let’s get a good look at you.”

  Loving her had been such sweet relief; Nathan was still breathless, his skin still smelling of her. For the first time in a year, he was complete, the burden of his anger and loneliness lifted. “Please,” he managed to say, “couldn’t you just give me a minute?” Only after he’d said it did he realize he should have voiced a denial and said he wasn’t David Frayne.

  “A minute?” Her sarcasm cut right through him. “What’s a minute—when you so kindly gave me a whole year to think you might be dead?”

  The skin of Fritzi’s face was flushed red from his loving. But everything in her expression said she wished he was dead. And that she was still considering killing him. “Oh, please,” she continued, her voice as haughty as it was breathlessly raspy. “You just take your time.”

  It was enough to break his heart. He’d imagined this reunion so many times—her soft smile, her open arms, how she might run across a flower-filled field somewhere, her red-rimmed eyes brimming with tears. But now her mouth was nothing more than a thin, bloodless line. Desire and wild abandon had already been replaced by dangerous fury. And her eyes, which had turned to blue crystal ice, took aim and shot straight to his soul like poisoned darts.

  “My God,” she suddenly whispered. “It really is you.”

  And then she simply stared. Was Fritzi looking for the man who’d shared her bed a year ago? A man with love handles and sandy brown hair and oversize glasses. A cautious man who neatly folded his newspapers and carried umbrellas on cloudless days. Her murderous eyes held a thousand questions. And finally chose one.

  “Who operated on that face of yours?”

  He told himself to do what he’d always done—lie. But he was unable to bear the pain in her eyes. Or the fury. His heart swelled or his chest squeezed tight—he wasn’t sure which. He stepped toward her, his breath catching.

  “You stay right there,” she said.

  But he kept going. He felt the heat of her wellloved body and smelled her musky scent before he even reached her. When he caressed her face, she flinched as if he’d slapped her. Sighing, he flicked off the lamp on the rattan table.

  “Guess you would like it better in the dark.”

  Maybe she was right, he thought, remembering how moments ago nothing more than soft firelight and his fingertips had danced on her naked skin. He fought it, but his voice remained husky with need. “We don’t need every light on in the living room.”

  “You don’t.”

  Vaguely, he wondered just what she thought she knew about him. “What?” he managed to say with calculated restraint. “You think I need darkness for all my nefarious evil doings?”

  “I don’t know what you need.”

  You, Fritz, All I ever needed was you. She’d roused his fiery passion just moments ago—but now she was starting to stoke his fury. He’d sacrificed everything for her and Malcolm. And this was all the thanks he got. The sudden menace in his own voice shocked him. “Maybe I don’t need anything.”

  “Or anyone.” Fritzi clutched the table, her accusations coming in a rush. “You let me think you were dead or in danger! No wonder you believed everything I said about getting married in Arlington. And that I was a good teacher. You didn’t even seem surprised that I might know how to use a gun. I can’t believe I actually thought you were some government agent, sent here to protect me. I bet Nathan Lafarge isn’t even your real name, no more than David Frayne—”

  Something in his eyes stopped her. Because he’d sworn to not even think that name. Too much mortal danger was bound to follow in its wake.

  They stared at each other for a long moment. Stark desire flashed in Fritzi’s eyes. Then it vanished. “Oh, my beloved foreigner,” she spat out.

  So she’d known what the name meant. He wasn’t proud of it, but he had to fight the urge to use his body to intimidate her into silence. He wanted to hold her until the anger left. Or maybe simply to hold her. His voice turned terse. “I chose the name intentionally. In my line of work, I—”

  “Let me guess,” she interjected caustically. “Fuller brushes? Encyclopedias door to door? Maybe you came here to sell me Amway.”

  It was crucial that he keep his emotions in check. A show of his own rage could ruin everything. So could giving into the impulse to wrap her in a viselike grip and kiss her. It was probably a mistake, but they were together again. And Nathan was terrified of losing her. “I was going to say I haven’t made many friends—”

  “And that it’s no wonder?”

  Anger uncoiled within him, but he kept his voice even. “At times I’ve felt like a foreigner. A stranger. Cut off, alienated, destined to be alone. All right?”

  “All right?” She slumped against the table as if she’d just been punched. “No, it’s not all right!”

  Somehow, he hoped she’d keep circling the real issue. At this rate, she’d never ask him who he really was. “Look,” he said gruffly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” she gasped. Her hand shot across the tabletop—and the hairs on his neck actually rose as her fingers closed over the revolver. Her icy eyes said he’d better start talking—fast. “Sorry?” she repeated.

  Nathan’s lips parted in shock. Moments ago, Fritzi’s legs and arms had been twined around him, wrapped so tight he’d thought she’d never let him go. “Could you really point a loaded firearm at me?”

  Fritzi’s unladylike snort of derision was an answer in itself. “Under the circumstances? Absolutely.”

  “Oh, Fritz,” he said in censure.

  “Nathan or David or whoever you are,” she shot back.

  Cold fury was knotting in his gut. Especially since she now raised the gun, pointing it at his gut. After all he’d sacrificed, didn’t she owe him the benefit of the doubt? “Did it ever occur to you that I might have a few of my own complaints?”

  “What? That you’re not nearly as pretty as you used to be?”

  He was better-looking now and she knew it. He fought the urge to wrestle the gun from her grasp. “I did have some surgery.”

  She gaped at him. “No joke.”

  Her eyes flicked over him, seemingly taking inventory of all the differences—the changes to his bone structure, the return to his natural color hair, the weight loss. The loss of both colored contacts and glasses, the lenses of which hadn’t been prescription. It was too early to tell who Malcolm would most resemble, but maybe she was thinking about how the baby shared Nathan’s dark coloring. Was it Nathan’s imagination or did her fingers flex on the.38, as if itching on the trigger?

  “So, what’s your complaint?” she said.

  The tone was so argumentative that Nathan figured she was looking for a good reason to shoot him. Even a bad one. Somehow, he kept his voice calm. “What about the fact that you would have made love to another man?”

  Tears welled in her eyes—but they were from fury, not sentiment. She blinked them back as if the last thing she meant to do was cry. The gun wavered wildly in her hand. “You’ve sure got gall. You left me. Then you come here, pretend to be a stranger. Insert yourself into my life, scare the hell out of me and—”

  “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you.”

  Betrayal was written plainly on her face. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

  He imagined telling her the whole truth—how she’d run to his arms then, hold him tight and forgive him. His voice turned husky, unmasking his emotion. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re my wife.”

  The wrath in Fritzi’s eyes was a testament—to her love and to how much his leaving had hurt. A cynical smile twisted her swollen, well-kissed lips.

  “Oh,” she said with unsuppressed rage, “am I?”

  Not technically. “In the eyes of God.”

  “Yeah, but what about by the laws
of the District of Columbia?”

  Nathan ventured another glance at the gun—and realized her fingers had loosened on the trigger. He considered covering the scant distance between them, since she had a way of crumbling when he kissed her. His tone gentled. “Fritz, things have touched our lives…things about which you have no knowledge.”

  “Feel free to enlighten me.”

  “Can’t you trust me because you love me?”

  She looked stunned. Her fingers tightened on the gun again. “You think I love you?”

  “I know you do.” At least Nathan had thought so a second ago. And moments before, when her needy cries and whimpers had rained down around his ears. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “I don’t even know who you are!”

  “My real name is Nathan Lafarge.”

  “I don’t care what your name is. I just mean you’re not the man I married. Or thought I married.”

  He realized only one thing could restore Fritzi’s peace of mind—the truth. “When we met….”

  Fortunately, Fritzi suddenly put down the gun. She crossed her arms and waited.

  “I was carrying false papers in the name of David Frayne,” he continued, eyeing the gun and blowing out a soft sigh of relief. “I’d only meant to use the documents for a few days. But I continued to see you; so I kept the papers. They wouldn’t pass muster if we really filed for a marriage license. And you wanted a ceremony….”

  He expected her to ask why he was using an assumed name. Instead, she stared at him as if he were a stranger. “Where did the minister and witness come from?”

  The dead calm in her voice scared him more than her previous outburst. He waited for her to pick up the gun again. When she didn’t he said, “I hired them.”

  “Hired them?”

  Nathan nodded. He would have done so even if the Frayne documentation had been in order. He hadn’t wanted Fritzi connected to that name, for her own safety. “I bought the marriage certificate.”