He kissed the tears away. He sat down on the sofa with Michelle in his lap and curled her into his chest. “Sara has a quick, hot temper. She loses it, and it’s over. She’s sorry that she was so brutal with you. She was frightened and upset and the media was hunting her. She’s had other problems as well, that you don’t know about. But she’s ashamed that she took it all out on you, blamed you for something you didn’t even do deliberately.” He lifted his head and smoothed the long, damp hair away from her cheek. “She wanted to apologize, but she’s too ashamed to call you.”
“That’s why?” she whispered. “I thought I would never see her again. Or you.”
“That would never happen,” he said gently. “You’re part of us.”
She bit her lower lip. “I sold you out...!”
“You did not. You sold out a mercenary named Angel, someone you didn’t know, someone you thought had perpetrated a terrible crime against innocent women and children,” he said simply. He brushed his mouth over her wet eyes. “You would never have sold me out in a million years, even if you had thought I was guilty as sin.” He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “Because you love me. You love me enough to forgive anything, even murder.”
The tears poured out even hotter. She couldn’t stop crying.
He wrapped her up close, turned her under him on the sofa, slid between her long legs and began to kiss her with anguished hunger. The kisses grew so long and so hard and so hot that she trembled and curled her legs around the back of his, urging him into greater intimacy, pleading with him to ease the tension that was putting her young body on the rack.
“If you don’t stop crying,” he threatened huskily, “this is going to end badly.”
“No, it isn’t. You want to,” she whispered, kissing his throat.
“Yes, I do,” he replied deeply. “But you’re going to need a lot of time that I can’t give you when I’m out of control,” he murmured darkly. “You won’t enjoy it.”
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
He lifted his head. His eyes were hot and hungry on her body. His hands had pushed up the red shirt and the bra, and he was staring at her pert, pretty breasts with aching need. “I am absolutely sure,” he managed.
“Oh.”
The single word and the wide-eyed, hopeless look in her eyes broke the tension and he started laughing. “That’s it? ‘Oh’?”
She laughed, too. “Well, I read a lot and I watch movies, but it’s not quite the same thing...”
“Exactly.”
He forced himself to roll off her. “If you don’t mind, could you pull all this back down?” he asked, indicating her breasts. He averted his eyes. “And I’ll try deep breaths and mental imagery of snow-covered hills.”
“Does it work?”
“Not really.”
She pulled down her shirt and glanced at him with new knowledge of him and herself, and smiled.
“That’s a smug little look,” he accused.
“I like knowing I can throw you off balance,” she said with a wicked grin.
“I’ll enjoy letting you do it, but not until we’re used to each other,” he replied. He pulled her close. “The first time has to be slow and easy,” he whispered, brushing his mouth over hers. “So that it doesn’t hurt so much.”
“If you can knock me off balance, I won’t care if it hurts,” she pointed out.
His black eyes twinkled. “I’ll remember that.”
She lay back on the sofa and looked up at him with wide, wondering eyes. “I thought it was all over,” she whispered. “That I had nothing left, nothing to live for...”
“I felt the same way,” he returned, solemn and quiet. “Thank God I decided to make one more attempt to get through to you.”
She smiled gently. “Fate.”
He smiled back. “Yes. Fate.”
“Where are you going? Come back here.” She pulled him back down.
He pursed his lips. “We need to discuss things vertically, not horizontally.”
“I’m not going to seduce you, honest. I have something very serious I need to talk to you about.”
“Okay. What?”
She pursed her own lips and her eyes twinkled. “Cow abductions.”
He burst out laughing.
* * *
They were married in the Methodist church two weeks later by Reverend Blair. Michelle wore a conventional white gown with lace inserts and a fingertip veil, which Gabriel lifted to kiss her for the first time as his wife. In the audience were more mercenaries and ex-military and feds than anyone locally had seen in many a year.
Eb Scott and his wife, along with Dr. Micah Steele and Callie, and Cy Parks and Lisa, were all in the front row with Minette Carson and her husband Hayes. Carlie and her husband were there, too.
There was a reception in the fellowship hall and Jacobsville police chief Cash Grier kept looking around restlessly.
“Is something going on that we should know about?” Gabriel asked with a grin.
“Just waiting for the riot to break out.”
“What riot?” Michelle asked curiously.
“You know, somebody says something, somebody else has too much to drink and takes offense, blows are exchanged, police are called in to break up the altercation...”
“Chief Grier, just how many riots at weddings have you seen?” she wanted to know.
“About half a dozen,” he said.
“Well, I can assure you, there won’t be any here,” Michelle said. “Because there’s no booze!”
Cash gaped at her. “No booze?”
“No.”
“Well, damn,” he said, glowering at her.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“How can you have altercations without booze?” He threw up his hands. “And I had so looked forward to a little excitement around here!”
“I could throw a punch at Hayes,” Gabriel offered, grinning at the sheriff. “But then he’d have to arrest me, and Michelle would spend our honeymoon looking for bail bondsmen....”
Cash chuckled. “Just kidding. I like the occasional quiet wedding.” He leaned forward. “When you’re not busy, you might want to ask Blake Kemp about his wedding reception, though,” he added gleefully. “Jacobsville will never forget that one, I swear!”
* * *
Michelle lay trembling in Gabriel’s arms, hot and damp in the aftermath of something so turbulent and thrilling that she knew she could live on the memory of it for the rest of her life.
“I believe the chief wanted a little excitement?” She laughed hoarsely. “I don’t think anyone could top this. Ever.”
He trailed his fingers up her body, lingering tenderly on a distended nipple. He stroked it until she arched and gasped. “I don’t think so, either.” He bent his head and slipped his lips over the dusky peak, teasing it until it grew even harder and she shivered. He suckled it, delighting in the sounds that came out of her throat.
“You like that, do you?” he whispered. He moved over her. “How about this?”
“Oh...yes,” she choked. “Yes!”
He slid a hand under her hips and lifted her into the slow penetration of his body, moving restlessly as she accepted him, arched to greet him, shivered again as she felt the slow, hungry depth of his envelopment.
“It’s easier now,” he whispered. “Does it hurt?”
“I haven’t...noticed yet,” she managed, shuddering as he moved on her.
He chuckled.
“I was afraid,” she confessed in a rush of breath.
“I know.”
She clung to him as the rhythm lifted her, teased her body into contortions of pure, exquisite pleasure. “I can’t believe...I was afraid!”
His hip
s moved from side to side and she made a harsh, odd little cry that was echoed in the convulsion of her hips.
“Yes,” he purred. “I can make you so hungry that you’ll do anything to get me closer, can’t I, ma belle?”
“Any...thing,” she agreed.
He ground his teeth together. “It works...both ways...too,” he bit off. He groaned harshly as the pleasure bit into him, arched him down into her as the rhythm grew hard and hot and deep. He felt his heartbeat in his head, slamming like a hammer as he drove into her welcoming body, faster and harder and closer until suddenly, like a storm breaking, a silver shaft of pleasure went through him like a spear, lifting him above her in an arch so brittle that he thought he might shatter into a thousand pieces.
“Like...dying,” he managed as the pleasure took him.
She clung to him, too involved to even manage a reply, lifting and pleading, digging her nails into his hard back as she welcomed the hard, heavy push of his body, welcomed the deep, aching tension that grew and swelled and finally burst like rockets going off inside her.
She cried out helplessly, sobbing, as the ecstasy washed over her like the purest form of pleasure imaginable and then, just as quickly, was gone. Gone. Gone!
They clung together, damp with sweat, sliding against each other in the aftermath, holding on to the echoes of the exquisite satisfaction that they’d shared.
“Remind me to tell you one day how rare it is for two people to find completion at the same time,” he whispered, sliding his mouth over her soft, yielding body. “Usually, the woman takes a long time, and the man only finds his satisfaction when hers is over.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “And you would know this, how?” she began.
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes with a rakish grin. “Oh, from the videos I watched and the books I read and the other guys I listened to....”
“Is that so?” she mused, with a suspicious look.
He kissed her accusing eyes shut. “It was long before I knew you,” he whispered. “And after the first day I saw you, sitting in the road waiting for me to run over you, there was no one. Ever.”
Her eyes flew open. “Wh-what?”
He brushed the hair from her cheeks. “I knew then that I would love you one day, forever,” he said quietly. “So there were no other women.”
Her face flushed. “Gabriel,” she whispered, overcome.
He kissed her tenderly. “The waiting was terrible,” he groaned. “I thought I might die of it, waiting until you grew up, until you knew something of the world and men so that I didn’t rob you of that experience.” He lifted his head. “Always, I worried that you might find a younger man and fall in love...”
She put her fingers over his chiseled mouth. “I loved you from the day I met you,” she whispered. “When I stared at you, that day in town with my grandfather, before I was even sixteen.” She touched his cheek with her fingertips. “I knew, too, that there could never be anyone else.”
He nibbled her fingers. “So sweet, the encounter after all the waiting,” he whispered.
“Sweeter than honey,” she agreed, her eyes warm and soft on his face.
“There’s just one thing,” he murmured.
She raised her eyebrows.
He opened a drawer and pulled out an item that he’d placed there earlier. An item that they’d forgotten to use.
She just smiled.
After a minute, he smiled back and dropped the item right back into the drawer.
* * *
Sara was overjoyed. “I can’t wait to come down there and see you both,” she exclaimed. “But you’ve only been married six weeks,” she added.
Gabriel was facing the computer with Michelle at his side, holding her around the waist, his big hands resting protectively over her slightly swollen belly as they talked on Skype with Sara in Wyoming. “We were both very sure that it was what we wanted,” he said simply.
“Well, I’m delighted,” Sara said. She smiled. “The only way I could be more delighted is if it was me who was pregnant. But, that will come with time,” she said complacently, and smiled. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t be at the wedding,” she added quietly. “I was very mean to you, Michelle. I couldn’t face you, afterward.”
“I understood,” Michelle said gently. “You’re my sister. Really my sister now,” she added with a delighted laugh. “We’re going to get a place near yours in Wyoming so that we can be nearby when the baby comes.”
“I can’t wait!”
“Neither can I,” Michelle said. “We’ll talk to you soon.”
“Very soon.” Sara smiled and cut the connection.
“Have you ever told her?” Michelle asked after a minute, curling up in Gabriel’s lap.
He kissed her. “We did just tell her, my love...”
“Not about the baby,” she protested. “About Wolf. About who he really is.”
“You mean, her gaming partner for the past few years?” He grinned. “That’s a story for another day.”
“If you say so.”
He kissed her. “I do say so. And now, how about a nice pickle and some vanilla ice cream?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You know, that sounds delicious!”
He bent his head and kissed the little bump below her waist. “He’s going to be extraordinary,” he whispered.
“Yes. Like his dad,” she replied with her heart in her eyes.
And they both grinned.
* * * * *
In November, from Harlequin HQN,
don’t miss Sara and Wolf’s romance in
WYOMING STRONG
by Diana Palmer.
Available in stores and through e-tailers
wherever books are sold.
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE EARL’S PREGNANT BRIDE by Christine Rimmer
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Chapter One
Genevra Bravo-Calabretti, princess of Montedoro, heaved the lightweight ladder upright and braced it against the high stone wall.
The ladder instantly tilted and slid to the side, making way too much racket as it scraped along the rough old stones. Genny winced and glanced around nervously, but no trusty retainer popped up to ask her what she thought she was doing. So she grabbed the ladder firmly, righted it and lifted it, bringing it down sharply to plant it more solidly in the uneven ground.
Breathing hard, she braced her fists on her hips and glared at it, daring it to topple sideways again. The ladder didn’t move. Good. All ready to go.
But Genny wasn’t ready. Not really. She didn’t know if she’d ever be ready.
With a very unprincesslike “Oof,” she dropped to her bottom in the dry scrub grass at the base of the wall. Still panting hard, she wrapped her arms loosely around her spread knees and let her head droop.
Once her breathing evened out, she leaned back on her hands and stared up at the clear night sky. The crescent moon seemed to shine extrabright, though the lights from the harbor below obscured most of the stars. It was a beautiful May night in Montedoro. She could smell roses, faintly, on t
he air.
A low moan escaped her. It wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. She ought to be out with friends in a busy café or enjoying an evening stroll on her favorite beach. Not dressed all in black like a lady cat burglar, preparing to scale the wall around Villa Santorno.
Useless tears clogged her throat. She willed them away. She’d been doing that a lot lately, pulling herself back from the brink of a crying jag. The worry and frustration were getting to her. Not to mention the hormones.
She didn’t want to do this. She felt ridiculous and pushy, in addition to needy and unwanted and more than a little pathetic.
But seriously, what choice had he given her?
“I am not going to cry,” she whispered fiercely as another wave of emotion cascaded through her. “Absolutely not.” With the back of her hand, she dashed the moisture from her eyes.
Enough. She was stalling and she knew it. She’d dragged that damn ladder all the way up the hill. She wasn’t quitting now. Time to get this over with.
Gathering her legs under her, she stood and brushed the bits of dry grass and dirt from the seat of her black jeans. The ladder was waiting. It reached about two-thirds of the way up the wall, not quite as far as she might have hoped.
But too bad. No way was she turning back now.
She put her foot on the first rung and started to climb.
A minute later, with another low moan and a whimpery sigh, she curled her fingers around the ladder’s highest rung. The top of the wall seemed miles above her.
But she made herself take the next step. And the next. Until she was plastered against the wall, her hands on the broader, flatter top stones, her black Chuck Taylor All Stars perched precariously on that final rung.
“Bad idea,” she whispered to the rough stones, though there was no one but the night to hear her. “Bad, bad idea....” Right at that moment, she wished with all her heart for the superior upper body strength of a man.
Her wish was not granted. And there was nothing to do but go for it or go back. She was not going back.
TEXAS BORN Page 19
