‘You did,’ she said quickly. ‘After the judge pronounced us——’
‘That wasn’t a kiss, Hannah, it was a formality.’ His breath warmed her cheek as he bent his head. ‘Let me show you what a kiss should be,’ he said, and his mouth descended on hers.
She made a murmur of distress and turned away from him. ‘What are you doing?’
He clasped her face in his hands. ‘No more games,’ he said huskily. ‘Not now.’
Hannah’s throat constricted. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Grant. Please——’
His mouth was cool and soft as it silenced her, moving with slow assurance against her lips. She struggled and he moved back, taking her with him, until he was leaning against the wall and she was gathered closely in his arms.
‘Grant,’ she said, ‘don’t.’
‘Kiss me,’ he whispered. His tongue slid along the seam of her lips. ‘It’s all right now, Hannah, you can let go. It’s all right, darling.’
She could feel the heavy beat of his heart against hers, feel the heat of his body. He was warm, like the sun blazing down on the white sand, and he smelled like the sea, clean and salty and powerful. Her heartbeat quickened, then began to pound. She felt as she had in that one dizzying instant when he had taken her hand and drawn her forward to the altar hours ago; she felt as if she were melting, as if she might fall to the floor in a boneless heap unless she had the steadying support of Grant’s arms…
‘You’re not made of ice,’ he whispered, ‘no matter how you try to pretend.’ He bit gently at her lip. ‘Open to me, Hannah, let me taste you.’
‘No. Grant, no. You can’t!’
‘I can, damn you,’ he said with a rough passion. ‘You’re my wife!’
His wife. His wife.
The words beat through her, sang in her blood, and she swayed in her arms as he gathered her even closer to him, holding her so tightly that she could no longer tell where her body ended and his began.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered. His hands threaded into her hair and he tilted her face up to his. ‘I love the way you look when I touch you, Hannah. Your eyes get all smoky, your mouth turns soft…’
‘Grant,’ she said in a breathless whisper, ‘Grant, listen to me. We can’t—I don’t want——’
She caught her breath on a long-drawn-out sob as he bit lightly at her neck. Her head fell back and he whispered her name as he kissed her throat.
‘Yes, you do,’ he said thickly. He caught her mouth with his. His tongue slipped between her lips again and she gave a moan of pleasure. ‘You want this,’ he said, and he slid his hands down her body, his thumbs just brushing her breasts before they settled at her waist. ‘And this.’ He caught her and lifted her against him, so that her loins were cradled against the hard arousal of his flesh.
‘Grant,’ she said frantically, ‘Grant——’
‘That’s what you do to me,’ he said in a soft, urgent whisper. He took her hand and brought it between them. ‘Do you feel that, Hannah? It’s for you, darling, all for you.’
She whimpered as he gathered her into the curve of one arm and traced the outline of her body with his fingertips, then cupped her breast. His thumb moved, and she felt her nipple spring erect to seek his touch.
‘Oh,’ she whispered, ‘oh…’
Stop him, she told herself, stop him now, before it’s too late. Stop him before this goes too far and there’s no turning back.
His fingers were at her throat, opening the buttons that ran down the front of her dress.
‘Beautiful,’ he said softly, when he finally eased the pink silk off her shoulders. He bent his head and kissed the swell of each breast rising above her white lace teddy, and a tremor of almost unbearable excitement went through her. ‘Now it’s your turn,’ he said, and he drew her hands to his shirt.
No, she thought, no, I won’t do it. But her fingers were already skimming lightly down the soft cotton, trembling as they undid the buttons, and then she tugged the shirt free of his trousers and slipped it back on his shoulders.
‘Touch me,’ he said, and she put her palms flat against his chest, closing her eyes as she felt the silken kiss of the dark, lightly curling hair, the warm heat of his muscled skin.
‘I knew it would be like this,’ he said fiercely, and the words raced through her blood.
Yes, oh, yes, she had known it, too. She had always known it. She’d wanted him from the beginning; what was the sense of denying it? And he wanted her, she knew that, she’d known it all along. All the talk of contracts and babies was only window-dressing.
This—the magic, the flashfire that was always waiting to blaze into life, that had always threatened to overwhelm them—this was the only thing that meant anything. Her breath caught as Grant kissed her deeply. Desire, thick and hot, moved through her veins.
He groaned softly as she touched him, as she discovered the long, hard lines of muscle in his back and shoulders. Liquid heat built low in her belly. This was reality, and, if she had been foolish enough to think she could live with Grant without giving in to it, her only comfort was that he had been the same kind of fool.
Her head fell back as he swung her up into his arms and carried her through the sitting-room to the bedroom beyond, and he captured the sound of her surrender in his mouth, returned it to her in the whisper of her own name and the heat of his breath as he kissed her. He let her down beside the bed slowly, so that her breasts brushed his chest, her belly grazed his, and he drew back the curtains. Then he gathered her to him again and kissed her, over and over, as if he could never get enough of her mouth. She reached up and clung to his wrists as his hands cupped her face, drinking from his mouth as he drank from hers.
‘Tell me you want me,’ he said.
His face was almost lost in shadow, but she could see his eyes, glittering with desire. You can still stop, a little voice within her whispered urgently; there’s time.
But his mouth fell on hers again, and when he lifted his head she was beyond reason, beyond anything but the wildness building with each tick of her heart.
‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Oh, yes, Grant. I do. I always have.’
He laughed softly and triumphantly as he shrugged free of his shirt. With deft fingers, he undid the rest of her dress and it fell to the floor like the petals of a pink rose.
‘We’re going to be incredible together,’ he said softly. ‘I knew that from the first time I touched you.’
A smile trembled on her lips. ‘Did you?’ she whispered, cupping his face in her hands as he had cupped hers, letting her thumbs follow the curve of his high cheekbones, letting her fingertips learn the sweet, hard lines of his mouth while his hands curled around her hips.
He caught her finger between his teeth and sucked on it, then bit lightly on the soft pad of flesh below her thumb.
‘Yes.’ He pressed his open mouth over her breast and she cried out softly as his teeth closed lightly on the hardened nub of flesh rising just beneath the white lace of her teddy. ‘After I left you that first night, I almost came back.’
Hannah smiled and buried her face against his throat. ‘I wouldn’t have let you in.’
‘I’d have kicked down your door and taken you anyway,’ he said huskily.
She felt herself quickening at his whispered words. ‘I’d have fought you.’
Grant laughed. ‘Not for long.’
Colour stained her cheeks. ‘Why didn’t you?’ she whispered. ‘Why did you wait all this time?’
‘I don’t know.’ He drew her to him. ‘Maybe because I was never sure if I wanted to kiss you or kill you,’ he said with a little laugh as he bore her down into the soft depths of the bed.
‘And now you are?’
‘Yes.’ He drew down the strap of her teddy and kissed the flesh beneath. ‘Why would I want to do anything but make love to you, now that I’ve got you sweet and warm in my bed?’ He gave her a long, slow kiss. ‘I wondered, Will she give hers
elf to me because she wants to, or will she be a cold stone performing the terms of the contract?’
Hannah’s smile faltered. ‘What?’
Grant ran his hand the length of her body. ‘I have my answer now, don’t I, sweet?’ He bent and kissed her mouth. ‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘oh, yes.’
‘Grant?’ Hannah struggled back against the pillows.
‘Don’t talk now.’ He growled softly as he nipped at her throat. ‘Give me your hand,’ he whispered, ‘and——’
‘No. Grant, please.’ She pushed at his shoulders, and he went still. ‘What did you mean about—about me being a cold stone performing the terms of—of the contract?’
He rolled to his side and looked down at her. ‘What?’ He gave an exasperated little laugh. ‘Hell, I wasn’t taking notes.’
She sat up, suddenly painfully aware of how abandoned she must look in nothing more substantial than a white lace teddy, with her hair tumbling around her shoulders and her lipstick smeared, and she reached for the bedspread and tried, as best she could, to drag it to her chin.
‘What did you mean?’ she insisted.
‘Hannah——’
She drew in her breath. ‘The contract doesn’t give you the right to—to take me to bed, and you know it.’
‘My God, woman.’ He gave a relieved laugh. ‘Are we going to have a discussion of legal niceties here? OK. Technically, I suppose you have a point.’ He reached out and caught her wrist. ‘Our marriage licence does that. Now, come over here, and——’
Hannah slapped his hand away. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Grant. Nothing gives you the right to—to—’
‘What’s the problem here, Hannah?’ he said, his voice suddenly cold and flat.
She stared at him. ‘The problem? The problem,’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘is that you seem to think you had the right to—to do what you were just doing.’
‘What I was doing,’ he said, his eyes locked on her face, ‘was making love to my wife.’
‘You mean, you were trying to seduce me.’
His brow furrowed. ‘Forgive me,’ he said in a soft, dangerous voice, ‘but I don’t quite see the distinction.’
Hannah gathered the bedspread more closely around herself. ‘We agreed there’d be no—no sex between us, but you——’
‘What the hell are you babbling about?’ Grant rolled to the edge of the mattress, got to his feet, and slapped his hands on his hips. ‘How did you expect to have this baby, Hannah? By going out to look in a cabbage patch, or waiting for the stork to drop one into your lap?’
Her face coloured. ‘The way we agreed, of course. Artificial insemination, Grant. We said——’
The rude, harsh sound of his laughter roared through the rooms. She felt a flush of shameful colour rise under her skin and flood her face as he laughed and laughed.
‘Let me get this straight,’ he gasped. ‘You thought—you really thought—that I’d agreed to—to make love to a test-tube?’
‘Yes: Angry tears rose in her eyes. ‘Yes, of course. That’s what you said. That’s what we discussed. We——’
His laughter became a snarl of rage, and Hannah cried out as he grabbed hold of her and dragged her across the bed.
‘You thought I’d agree to put a ring on your finger, give you my name—hell, give you my child—and do it all without ever touching you?’ he said through clenched teeth.
Hannah grimaced as she tried to wrench free. ‘That was our deal.’
‘No.’ His lips drew back from his teeth. ‘No, Hannah, it was not our deal. What kind of woman are you?’
‘Not the kind who sleeps with a man because she’s—she’s signed a scrap of paper!’
Grant’s face twisted with fury. ‘You make that sound like a morality lesson. But what kind of morality is it that makes you think it’s better to conceive a child in a test-tube rather than in a man’s arms?’
‘That was your idea, not mine. You’re the one who proposed it!’
He grabbed her shoulder as she started to turn away. ‘No, I did not! What did you plan on telling our child when it was old enough? That it was conceived in a glass dish?’
Hannah swung her feet to the floor. ‘Get out,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘Do you hear me, Grant? Get out of this room!’
‘With pleasure.’ He stalked to the door, then swung around and faced her. ‘Tomorrow——’
‘Tomorrow, you can start the annulment proceedings.’
‘No.’
‘Why not? You’re the attorney, not I.’
‘No annulment.’ His nostrils flared. ‘And no divorce. Not until you’ve conceived my child.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious.’ A cold smile angled across his mouth. ‘No?’
‘You can’t hold me to—to a piece of paper that says that——’
‘Try me.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she whispered, her eyes riveted to his stony face.
‘You’ve agreed to stay married to me until we conceive a child—or until our agreement expires.’
‘But that’s—that’s three years,’ she said desperately. ‘No court would—would hold me to such a thing.’
Grant’s eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps not.’
‘Well, then——’
‘Get a lawyer and challenge the agreement, if you don’t like it.’
‘I couldn’t afford the cost of—’
‘No. You couldn’t.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘Especially when you add the risk of me winning the countersuit for punitive damages and costs.’
‘What damages? What costs?’
‘The emerald on your finger. Every piece of clothing in those very expensive pieces of luggage. The mental cruelty I’ll have suffered because of your breach of contract.’ He smiled. ‘I can be a very convincing victim, Hannah, a wealthy, successful man who wanted an heir and was duped by a beautiful woman into signing an agreement——’
‘No one would believe that,’ she said, her voice shaking.
‘—an agreement she now refuses to honour.’ He laughed softly. ‘Hell, think of the legal ground we’d break! The case could take years.’ His smile vanished in the blink of an eye. ‘And could cost millions.’
‘You bastard!’ Hannah had gone white. ‘You know I can’t——’
His smile was smug. ‘Then you’re stuck, aren’t you, darling?’
‘I’ll—I’ll tell everyone about you,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘I’ll tell them what kind of man you are, that you’re blackmailing me——’
‘Try it—if you can get anybody to listen. My guess is that they’ll be too busy laughing.’
“They’ll laugh at you, too, Grant. Have you thought of that?’
‘Ah, but that’s the difference between us, sweetheart.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks of me, remember?’
She stared at him in horror as he walked slowly, almost insolently, to the bedroom door, and then she shrieked his name and flew after him.
‘You can’t do this!’
He turned and pulled her into his arms. ‘There’s only one way out of this,’ he said roughly, and he kissed her, not with passion but with rage. When he was finished, he flung her from him so that she fell back against the wall. ‘Think it over. When you reach a decision, I’ll be waiting.’
‘Never,’ she screamed as he strode into the sitting-room. ‘Do you hear me, Grant? Never!’ She reached out and slammed the door shut. ‘Never,’ she whispered, and then she threw herself on the bed, rolled on to her belly, and sobbed her heart out.
CHAPTER NINE
NIGHT came at last, and Hannah fell into an exhausted sleep, never stirring until morning when the freshening wind snatched at the bedroom shutter and slammed it against the window-frame.
‘Grant?’ she said, scrambling up against the pillows.
Her whisper was greeted by a silence that was only broken by the pounding beat of her heart. A quick gla
nce assured her that the door between the sitting-room and bedroom was still closed. After a moment, she threw aside the blanket, pulled on her robe, and padded to the balcony.
The breeze, fragrant with the scent of the sea, blew her hair back from her face as she opened the door and stepped outside. Hannah sank down into a wicker rocker, tucked her feet up beneath her, and laid her head back.
How beautiful this place was. The sun was a golden disc in the blue sky; the beat of the sea was like the whisper of the planet’s heart.
Paradise, Grant had called it. Yes. That was what it would seem to the other honeymooning guests who slept safe in each other’s arms. Hannah smiled bitterly. It was a pretty safe bet that no other couple in the hotel had spent the night as she and her groom had, lying cold and apart, separated not just by a wall but by an anger so great it bordered on hate.
Hannah shuddered. A few short weeks ago she’d been content with her life. If it had no emotional highs, neither did it have any terrible lows. She’d had a good job, an apartment of her own—things that might not seem like much but were more than enough to satisfy her needs.
Now—now she had nothing. No job, no home, certainly not the warm, sweet future she’d let Grant convince her lay ahead.
She choked. No. That wasn’t quite accurate. She had something, all right, she had Grant’s wedding-band on her finger and his promise—his threat—that he would not let her go until she had lived up to their agreement.
And she would never do that. Never.
She dropped one bare foot to the floor and set the rocker in motion. How could he ever have thought she’d agreed to the sort of marriage he’d described? Only a woman with no self-respect would go to a man’s bed night after night knowing that he wanted her for no other reason than to fulfil the terms of an impossible contract, knowing that he felt nothing for her except his need for a woman’s body.
Not that she wanted him to have feelings for her. Hannah stood up and padded softly to the balcony railing. She certainly had none for him, unless you counted the insane sexual need for him whenever he touched her, and last night’s ugly scene had eliminated that forever.
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