A Marriage To Fight For

by Raina Lynn

  Pure need hummed in her veins, and she prayed none of it showed on her face. Giving an exaggerated perusal of his body, she drew her brows down in a heavy frown.

  “What!” he demanded.

  “Your skin is awfully dry. Let me get some lotion, I’ll take care of it.”

  His eyes flew open, horrified. “Don’t you dare.”

  Better and better, she crowed soundlessly. She forced what she hoped was a hurt look. “Come on, Garrett. You’re sitting through my documentary. The least I can do is give you a proper rubdown.” She tugged at the snap on his jeans fly. “Strip and roll onto your stomach.”

  His glare darkened.

  “Oh, come on,” she groused. “We’ve been doing this for months. Stop acting like a sacrificial virgin.”

  The muttering under his breath told her quite clearly that he wasn’t amused. Why he complied at all, she didn’t quite understand, but neither did she argue. The moment he was settled, she unprofessionally straddled the backs of his thighs and got busy. For once, it was wonderful to run her hands over his body. With a little luck, this time the sexual purgatory would end. Garrett’s body was a visual and tactile feast. As she rubbed the heavy cream into his back, sides and shoulders, his olive skin took on a sheen that was a delight for feminine eyes. But when she came to the scars, she had to squelch a shudder.

  Two were bullet holes. When he’d been a patrol officer, he’d been shot once while simply pulling over a motorist. The other time he’d been trying to defuse a domestic dispute. In her mind’s eye, she saw the knife scar on his left collarbone, where he’d been stabbed while wrestling a man high on PCP.

  Lastly, in the small of his back was the bright pink surgical scar, a memento from the plane crash. He had been coming home to her, yet she’d almost lost him, almost lost the only man she’d ever loved. What would the future hold if she couldn’t get him back? Could they build something where they’d both be happy?

  Sexually, Maggie wanted him more than she ever had in her life. Her instincts as a therapist screamed his impotence had to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. What if I push this and am wrong?

  “I’m going to ask one more time, Maggie Jean. What are you up to?” His suspicion and vulnerability tore her up. Before the divorce, he would have given her one of his most demanding stares and kept after her until she confessed all. Now he was defensive, remote.

  “I’m watching a movie,” she muttered.

  “Bull. You’re not watching that thing any more than I am.” He rolled over beneath her, still thigh to thigh. The wary bitterness dared her to level with him.

  Blood pounded through her veins. She wasn’t sure how to answer. Deceit had never been part of their relationship until now. Surely the cause was just. Her mouth went dry, and she floundered for words, her mind blank. Tentatively, her hands came to rest on his chest.

  Then risking it all, she stretched out on top of him, nose to nose, hip to hip. Panicked anger flared in his eyes, but before he could speak, she placed her hand over his mouth. “I love you, Garrett, and I need to be with you tonight. Whether we have sex or not doesn’t matter. Hold me.”

  His eyes hardened to sapphire ice, and he pulled her hand away. “It matters to me. What are you trying to do? See for yourself just how harmless I am?”

  Maggie covered his lips with her own, pouring all her love into that kiss. His lips were hard and unyielding. The rejection hurt, but she kissed him again, gently brushing the tip of her tongue against his closed mouth.

  Savagely, he jerked his head away. “I should have stayed at RPI. Go back upstairs.”

  Defiantly, she propped her elbows on either side of his head. “Garrett, I understand what you can’t do, but we can still kiss, hold each other, and whatever else your inventive imagination can think up.” She sharpened her gaze. “Now stop being a pain in the backside.”

  Glaring, he took hold of her rib cage as if to lift her off him. Neat trick with one arm bandaged up. Then she kissed him with everything she had. With deliberate slowness, she caressed his throat and shoulder, the heavy pulse point along his neck driving her wild.

  Just as she began to lose hope, a hard tremor rippled through him. His lips softened beneath hers, and his arms imprisoned her in a passionate embrace. In a frenzy of motion, she found the bedroom door locked, two sets of clothes littering the floor and herself back in his arms.

  He nuzzled her breast, the feel of his lips against her skin so sweet it was nearly pain. Gripped by a power beyond her control, she reached for him. He stilled, covering her hand with his.

  “It’s no good, babe,” he whispered brokenly.

  She gave him a challenging look. “Does it feel nice?”

  His face darkened. It was as close to a blush as she’d ever seen him. “Yeah, babe, it’s always good when you touch me.”

  She grinned seductively. “Then stop complaining and kiss me.”

  A self-conscious chuckle rolled from his chest, but she’d gripped him in the same fine madness that enslaved her, and they teased, tasted and caressed, driving each other into a frenzy of sensation and loving. After thirteen years of marriage, Garrett knew how and where to touch, and far too soon Maggie felt reality shatter into a kaleidoscope of color and sensation too intense for mere flesh.

  “No!” she groaned as wave after wave hit. “Not yet.” It had been too many years of lonely nights to hold back.

  He hushed her with gentle murmurings and held her as she writhed in his arms. The storm passed, and she lay quiescent, spent but only half-satisfied. Paradise alone wasn’t right.

  “Don’t tense up on me, babe,” he murmured. “You’re the one who wanted it this way.”

  Refusing to think about his bitter undertone, she sought out his lips once again. His hands wandered at will, and she once again began the climb to infinity, but made an interesting discovery. From the staggering disbelief on his face, he’d just noticed the change in his body, too. The low predatory chuckle that rolled from her lips was thick with female power.

  Okay, my love. You’re arbout to get a lesson you won’t soon forger. Taking advantage of his stunned immobility, she straddled his hips, taking him deep inside. Their bodies shuddered in response, and his disbelief transformed into heartrending relief.

  He didn’t have the motor control to move effectively, but she was far from impaired. Slowly, seductively, she established the rhythm. They’d made love in this position countless times before, but she’d never been the one in control. He’d always had a sixth sense about what she needed and when, and she’d always been content to follow wherever he led. Not now.

  She felt his hold on her hips attempting to guide her, but she brushed his hands aside. The feminine predator was fully aroused, and she had no intention of relinquishing a fragment of the authority she’d established.

  His initial shock finally passed. A primal groan rolled from his throat. He tried but couldn’t match the pace she’d set, but it didn’t matter. His body tensed with building need for release. No longer willing to take a passive role, Garrett took hold of her hips and ground her against him. Her second peak overtook her so quickly that she cried out as much from surprise as passion. Garrett’s own release came with the explosive force of a man ripped apart from within. Her joy complete, she collapsed against him, reveling in his erratic breath that puffed against her hair and in the heavy throb of his heart. She kissed the sweat-slick skin, and they floated slowly to earth.

  Time swirled by unnoticed in the quiet lethargy. Eventually, she settled against his side, wrapped securely in his arms. Words would have been invasive as the echoes of their lovemaking reverberated around them, healing wounds new and old.

  We’re in step again, she thought muzzily. Nothing can stop us. She drifted toward sleep, content.

  A light tension in Garrett’s body kept her from anything deeper than a light doze.

  She didn’t want to notice it, but what started out as a niggling suspicion that he might be upset became a full K
laxon alarm as his hand ceased its gentle roaming over her bare back, his breathing shallow and far too even.

  She hated herself for asking, but the words were out before she could stop them. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Terse, without inflection. Twenty years of loving him allowed her to translate it into “I’m furious, and we’ll talk when I calm down.”

  Maggie knew a confrontation right now was a mistake. Their healing was too new, too fragile. She desperately needed to hang on to the closeness for just a few minutes more, and she couldn’t accept that it was gone.

  Keep your mouth shut, Hughes, she warned herself. No good ever came of a discussion where either of you was mad enough to chew paint off the walls. “Garrett, I asked what’s wrong?” Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Worse, she sat up to face him.

  His jaws were locked, the cords in his neck stood out, and his gaze shot fire. Passion had nothing to do with it. She’d seen him angry countless times, but she’d never seen him a breath away from cold-blooded murder.

  Involuntarily, she recoiled from the elemental danger. “What is it?”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow.” He spoke through his teeth. “Right now, I think you’d better go up to your room.”

  Let it go, Hughes. Now obviously isn’t the time. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Good night, Maggie Jean.”

  That fried it. “I don’t think so, Garrett. This is my room—our room—and I plan on spending the night right here.”

  “Our room.” he repeated in a low hiss. His expression twisted into a mask of betrayed rage. “So it is. And who else has been here?”

  The question bewildered her. “What?”

  He sat up abruptly, grabbed her upper arm and yanked her toward him. The savagery was so unlike him that it more startled than frightened her. Maggie was eye to eye with him, his gaze slicing into her as if trying to cut out the information he sought.

  “Garrett, I don’t understand.”

  “This was our bed, Maggie! Who else have you brought here?”

  The accusation hit her like a hammer blow. Her jaw sagged open, and she shook her head helplessly.

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m the only one? That you lived like a nun for the past four years?” He snorted in disbelief.

  His grip had tightened with each word, and she tried to twist free.

  “You’re hurting me.” Maggie had never thought to say those words to him and couldn’t believe she’d had to say them now.

  He stared down at his powerful fingers wrapped around her delicate arm and let go as if burned. He didn’t apologize, but the horror on his face said it more eloquently than words. Maggie got up from the bed, putting a safe distance between the two of them. Garrett’s big body trembled with the force of reining in his temper. He wouldn’t look at her.

  “Garrett?”

  He shook his head as if trying to make her voice, as well as her presence, disappear.

  “What makes you think—?”

  “Go!”

  Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes. “You’re the one who always wants to talk—”

  “Get out! Now!”

  Confused, hurt and embarrassed, Maggie pulled on the emerald satin nightgown and backed toward the door, unable to take her eyes from him. How could her first attempt at seducing Garrett—the only man she’d ever been to bed with—back—fire so badly? Realizing she needed distance as badly as he did, she fumbled with the door and fled down the darkened hallway.

  The door slammed behind her with enough force to rattle the windows. Listening to her retreating footsteps, Garrett trembled with jealousy, his fist knotted at his side. He should have been prepared that she’d led her own life since the divorce. He’d thought he was.

  To make it worse, he’d physically hurt her. No matter how angry he’d been before, he’d never even come close to harming her. The fact that it had been an accident did nothing to remove the vile taste in his mouth.

  Unanswerable questions reverberated through his mind. All during their marriage, he’d always taken the lead in their sex life. Never once had she hinted that she wanted a more dominant role. If she had, he certainly wouldn’t have turned her down. But that was then.

  Who had taught her what she’d done tonight? That seduction—complete with all the little body signals that said she wasn’t too sure about what she was doing—was too perfectly executed for this to have been the first time she’d tried it out. It wasn’t just that. Nothing she’d done was like her.

  A small voice in the back of his head told him he was being irrational. The life she’d lived without him was none of his business. He should be ecstatic that he’d made love to her again after their being apart for so long, that he’d been able to make love to her. But the heart scream that Maggie, his Maggie, had been with another man drowned it out.

  He turned off the TV, but he didn’t sleep much that night.

  Saturday morning, he rose at dawn. Maggie had already left. A note on the refrigerator said that she had a bunch of paperwork to finish and would probably work all day.

  Grinding his teeth, Garrett translated that as “I don’t want to deal with it right now, so I’m running. Don’t bother to call because I won’t pick up the phone.”

  The jealousy that had ridden him all night settled in for the duration, and he couldn’t concentrate on even a simple task like fixing coffee. Who was it? Someone at work? His mind raced. Carl Sapperstein? He’d seen them together often enough, even having lunch in the courtyard the day he apologized for the furlough disaster. He did a mental replay of all the times he’d seen them talking. No, there’d been camaraderie beyond the employer-employee relationship, but no sexual undercurrents that he’d picked up on.

  Garrett conquered the coffeepot as Rick sauntered into the kitchen. He snagged a whole-grain-and-fruit breakfast bar and a jumbo glass of milk, his body language radiating tension.

  “What did you and Mom fight about last night?” Rick asked around a crunchy bite, his expression guarded. His green eyes, so much like Maggie’s, were bright with apprehension.

  “What makes you think we had another argument?” Garrett flipped the switch on the coffeepot.

  Rick’s lip curled in disgust. “A fight’s the only time Mom ever slams a door that hard.” Then the teen added softly, “Is everything okay?” The childlike insecurity caught at Garrett’s heart. More than anything, Rick wanted his family back together, even though he’d been told that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Your mother was very generous in giving me a place to stay, but divorced people living under the same roof can get sticky.”

  “So you’re really going to move out in another week?”

  Garrett’s heart filled with compassion. “There were never any other plans.”

  Rick barely acknowledged the truth, shrugging his shoulders. As a ploy to cover disappointment, it failed abysmally.

  Once Rick left for work, Garrett went into the garage and took to his exercises with insane fervor. It kept his mind off Maggie and their son.

  The garage phone rang. He glowered at it. Putting an extension out here had been another of the conveniences Maggie had installed for him. A nice thought, but in practice, all it did was remind him that if the phone rang while he was in the garage, he couldn’t get in the house fast enough to answer it.

  “Hey, big brother,” came Blake’s cheery voice. “Desi’s not contagious anymore and Ash still hasn’t come down with it, so we’re going on a picnic. Would you and yours like to come? As long as you’re not in close contact with Ash if she does break out—like if you were living with us—you should be safe.”

  “Thanks for the invitation, but Maggie and Rick are already gone.”

  Temptation needled him. His brother had assured him he’d kept watch over Maggie and Rick after the divorce. He’d already said Maggie hadn’t dated much, and Garrett had been content with that—until now. Even as he opened his mouth, he knew he was out of line, but he couldn’t seem to
get hold of himself.

  “Blake, I need to ask you a tough question, and I need a completely honest answer.”

  The low whistle on the other end of the line was subdued. “Why do I feel like I’m about to get dropped into a snake pit?”

  Garrett snorted. “You always did have good instincts.”

  “Thanks.” Blake sounded cornered but willing to get it over with. “Fire away.”

  “Before I came home was Maggie serious about anyone?”

  “Is that all?” He sounded irked. “I told you. She dated a few times, but no involvement that I know of.”

  “Few,” Garrett hissed. “How many is few, and who were they?”

  “Garrett, what’s gotten into you? You sound like a hardnosed cop interrogating a suspect. Don’t I get to hear your rendition of the Miranda rights first?”

  “Stop clowning around. Who did she see?”

  “Okay,” Blake grumbled in disgust: “Number one, I’m not clowning around. Two clowns in one family would be excessive, and you’re handling the job quite nicely. Number two, to my knowledge the most she dated anyone was twice. Mag just isn’t the singles-scene type.”

  Garrett wanted to believe, wanted to plead temporary insanity—which he strongly suspected was the case—but he couldn’t. In his mind’s eye, all he could see was a shadowy, faceless man putting his hands all over Maggie’s body, and her letting him. “Who was he?”

  “Officer Hughes, may I ask what my client is being charged with?”

  “Pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

  “What’s obvious is that you’ve got a hornet up your hind end over Maggie’s nonexistent love life. Want to explain why?”

  “No.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Before Garrett had the chance to reply, Blake said he’d call later, then hung up. More than anything, Garrett wished his brother was right. He’d gladly grovel for Maggie’s forgiveness if he was wrong. But one thing stuck in his mind that he couldn’t dismiss. Maggie had denied nothing.