Marked for Marriage

by Jackie Merritt

  “I was referring more to your not having a man in your bed than having one under your feet,” Noah drawled.

  “Oh, of course, you probably have a woman in your bed every night. How could I ever doubt it? And I’m sure you’re a magnificent lover and every female in Whitehorn is waiting in line for her turn to sample the great Dr. Martin’s technique.” Maddie curled her lip. “Give me a break. You’re just another man, and I don’t—”

  However she’d intended to finish that sentence Noah would never know, because he’d had enough of her smart-mouthed cracks. Maybe he should have run as fast as he could from Maddie’s room and this house, but he grabbed her instead, pulled her up against himself and covered her lips with his in a kiss of utter and total possession.

  It seemed to Maddie that her heart dropped clear to her toes. This was not how arguments ended! Arguments ended with vows to never speak to each other again and slammed doors. She should scratch out his eyes, and maybe she would if he ever got done kissing her!

  But, oh, my, it did feel so…so… Maddie’s thoughts drifted away as passion started sending waves of pleasurable yearning throughout her system. No one had ever kissed her in the same feverish, hungry way that Noah did, neither had she ever responded to another man as she did with Noah. She slid her arms up around his neck and kissed him back with all of the fire contained in her hot little body.

  When Maddie’s mood changed, Noah lost every connection with the real world. One thing mattered and only one, and he held Maddie’s face in his hands and kissed her eyelids, her nose, her lips, again and again. Then he again enclosed her in a fiery embrace and concentrated solely on her mouth, which was without a doubt the sexiest, most sinful mouth he’d ever kissed.

  Needing air, he broke their chain of kisses to grab a breath, and he gasped out, “You’re driving me crazy. Do you know that?”

  Maddie was breathing hard. “I know that I can say the same about you.”

  He looked at her long and hard, then said huskily, “Can you, Maddie, can you really?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, and traced the contours of his lips with her fingertips. “What’s this power you have over me, Doc?”

  “You’re kidding around again.”

  “Maybe so, but who started this and how should I look at it? You’re just fooling around, too, aren’t you? I mean, there’s nothing serious going on here, is there?”

  Noah’s jaw clenched for a moment, then he said gruffly, “That’s a pretty tough question.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?” Maddie murmured just before he kissed her again. She sighed and gave in completely. This time she wasn’t going to halt anything. She wanted Dr. Know-It-All to make love to her, and since it was the very first time she’d wanted sex with such fervor, she knew in her soul that it would be a very special event.

  So maybe this wasn’t remotely serious for either of them, but it was imperative. And since nothing had ever seemed so necessary before, Maddie saw no good reason to play coy about it.

  “Take me to bed,” she whispered.

  Noah was in no condition to refuse. Not that a refusal was lurking anywhere in his overheated brain. He was hard enough to break, and aching was part and parcel of that degree of arousal. Still, he was mindful of her injuries, and instead of swinging her up into his arms, as he would have liked to do, he led her to the bed. His eyes were hot and dark while he untied the sash of her robe and slid it from her shoulders.

  “You’re beautiful, Maddie,” he said in a hoarse, unnatural voice.

  “That’s nice to hear, even if it isn’t true.”

  “You’re even going to argue with me about that?” He clasped his hands on each of her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “Do you take umbrage with everything everyone says to you, or am I the unfortunate exception?”

  She returned his gaze without blinking. “That’s another tough question, Dr. Honey-Bear. Are you sure you want to delve into the answer right now, because I’d just as soon do something else. Later, of course, we can get ourselves into another lather and fight the night away.”

  Noah couldn’t help laughing. “If I’m a honey bear, then you’re my honey.”

  “Well, that’s debatable. Or let’s just agree for the time being that I’m your honey but that label isn’t a permanent fixture.” Maddie began unbuttoning his shirt. “You’ve had the advantage long enough, Dr. Way-Too-Handsome. I’m standing here stark naked and you’ve got on layers of clothing. Let’s get rid of it.”

  Noah felt happiness bubble up within him, a joyful excitement that included the desire racking his body but also encompassed a sense of youthful exuberance, which, he was positive, he hadn’t felt in years. He wasn’t old—thirty-five wasn’t old, was it?—but he’d been living as though anything fun, funny or even slightly enjoyable was ancient history. In spite of her larcenous streak Maddie was fun, and she was funny, even when she wasn’t trying to be.

  She was also sexy, brazen and comfortable in her own skin, and he particularly liked that she could stand naked before him without embarrassment. Grinning, he started helping her undress him.

  His rush to get naked didn’t surprise Maddie, but the devilish little grin on his face did. He was so stunningly handsome that Maddie’s head swam. People always said that beauty was only skin deep, and that might be precisely the case with Noah Martin, but it gave Maddie such pleasure to look at him that she really didn’t care—not at that particular moment, at any rate. Maybe she’d care in the morning, maybe she’d be sick-to-her-stomach sorry in the morning, but right then, doing her finest to rid him of every garment covering his buff, sexy body, she had neither wish nor will to bring this to a screeching halt.

  Noah threw back the covers of her bed. Together they lay down and then Noah pulled the covers over them. They snuggled and cuddled and kissed. Their desire grew with each caress, and Maddie couldn’t keep quiet to save her soul. At first her sounds were tiny whimpers, but then they changed to moans that became louder and louder until anyone in the house would have heard her.

  But considering the incredible sensations that Noah was arousing within her with his hand between her legs, she couldn’t help herself.

  “You…you know everything about…a woman…because you’re a doctor,” she gasped.

  “I think most men know what pleasures a woman.”

  Maddie almost told him that he was wrong about that, but she really didn’t want to invite any sort of discussion or even a comment about other men who might have shared her bed. But he was wrong. The men in her past—few as they’d been—certainly hadn’t known what Dr. Nimble Fingers did about a woman’s anatomy. How could a woman not love a man with Noah’s expertise?

  “Kiss me,” she whispered raggedly. “Kiss me and never stop kissing me.”

  Noah obliged her with a long, hot, wet and passionately hungry kiss. She might be very appreciative of his knowledgeable caresses, but her hand encircling his manhood was bringing him to the brink very quickly. This time he was better prepared, and he broke away from her just long enough to reach to the floor and into a pocket of his pants.

  Then he took care of business in two seconds flat and moved on top of her. Kissing her breasts, pacing himself as best he could so this would end as it should—he wanted her as satisfied as he knew he would be—he then kissed her mouth again. The sexy moans coming from deep in her throat increased the pressure building in his body. Sliding into her, joining their straining bodies intimately nearly finished him off, and he gritted his teeth and didn’t move a muscle to maintain some self-control.

  Maddie moved, though. She couldn’t lie still with him inside her. He filled her so completely, and her need for fulfillment was bittersweet agony.

  “Why did you stop?” she whispered.

  “Had to or it would have been over before it began.”

  “Oh…I see.”

  “I doubt it. Just believe that it’s been a while for me and let it go at that, okay?”

  “Hmm,” sh
e murmured, extremely curious about Noah’s statement. A man like him going without didn’t seem possible. Were the women in Whitehorn blind? They didn’t used to be. Maddie remembered her growing-up years very well, and Montana gals sure hadn’t been shy in those days.

  “Maddie, help me out here. Lie still, just for a minute or so,” Noah groaned.

  “I can’t lie still. It feels so good and I need…I need…well, you know what I need. You need the same thing, don’t you?”

  “You are driving me crazy! Yes, I need the same thing, but you’re not going to get what you need if I don’t take a short breather.”

  Maddie’s response to that observation was to slowly but steadily lift and lower her hips. “Sorry,” she whispered, “but I can’t help it.”

  Groaning, Noah gave up and began moving with her. “You are hotter than Hades,” he growled in her ear. “Hot and tight. Perfect…so damned perfect.”

  “You’re perfect,” she panted. “Big and hot and perfect. Oh, Noah, I—I’ve never…felt so much before.”

  He covered her chatty little mouth with his own and kissed her senseless. Himself, as well. When they reached the pinnacle and cried out, they each realized it had happened at the same time, something of a miracle for first-time lovers.

  In the afterglow of the most spectacular lovemaking of Maddie’s life, she lay in Noah’s arms. “That was very special for me,” she whispered after pressing a loving kiss to his chest.

  It had been special for Noah, too, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to say so. In truth he wasn’t entirely contented, not in the same way that Maddie was. Oh, he was sexually satisfied, immensely so, in fact, but he didn’t want Maddie thinking that what they’d just done together meant more than it did. She was acting all lovey-dovey and would probably swoon if he talked about how incredible it had really been for him.

  What he was, he finally realized, was confused, addled. He had absolutely no intentions of falling in love, planning a wedding, et cetera, et cetera—God knew that one turn at bat in that ball field was enough for any man—but he would bet anything that Maddie’s brain was full of romantic hearts and flowers, and that really concerned him. After all, Maddie was a country girl at heart, however much she’d traveled around because of her work.

  In spite of so much concern, he couldn’t deny that he’d connected with Maddie in a remarkable way. It would be damned tough to chalk this up to a one-night stand and never touch her again, especially when he already wanted her again. She was a sweet bundle of warm and pliable femininity all wrapped around him real cozy-like, and of course he wanted her again. The alternative was to get out of her bed, her brother’s house and Maddie’s life. If he stayed where he was, he was going to wear them both out.

  No, he thought adamantly, he wasn’t. He could never undo what had already occurred, but he was not going to compound one sin with repetition.

  Stirring, he untangled himself from Maddy, turned on the bed and sat up with his feet on the floor.

  Maddie lay there, wide-eyed and bewildered. She felt Noah’s emotional withdrawal in her heart, her soul, and it struck her painfully and without mercy that while their lovemaking had been perfect and beautiful for her, it had disappointed him. She had disappointed him. After all, what did she know about pleasing a man?

  “I—I’m sorry,” she whispered, misery in every syllable.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Noah said gruffly, and got off the bed to get dressed. He didn’t look at her while he yanked on his clothes and muttered, “I can’t believe my own stupidity. What in hell kind of fool have I become?”

  Maddie’s eyes got even bigger. “You’re angry at yourself? Why, for heaven’s sake?”

  He sent her a brief and granite-hard glance. “I took advantage of you, that’s why!”

  She sat up with a jerk. “That’s crazy!”

  “I fully agree.”

  “No, you’re deliberately misinterpreting what I said! I meant your attitude now was crazy, not…not what we did.”

  “Not we, me.”

  “You were crazy but I wasn’t? What are you trying to do, make yourself out to be some sort of villain because you made love to a willing woman?”

  “I made love to a child!”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m twenty-three years old!”

  “I didn’t mean a child in terms of age.”

  Maddie’s mouth hung open while she digested the worst insult of her entire life. She wasn’t good enough for Noah Martin, not intellectual enough or educated enough or sophisticated enough. Probably not pretty enough, either.

  “You jerk,” she croaked hoarsely. “Apparently you’d sleep with any woman. You proved it, so don’t look all shocked and victimized because I spelled it out for you. But then, after you’ve had your kicks, you start judging her, and I didn’t measure up, did I? With your nose-in-the-air, better-than-thou attitude, probably no woman measures up, so you’re a strictly screw ’em and leave ’em guy!”

  Noah felt sick to his stomach. Maddie might have a right to some anger, but she’d totally misinterpreted what he’d said, even while accusing him of misconstruing what she’d said. Actually he considered her country-girl charm vastly more desirable than the double-edged sword of sophistication with which women like Felicia skewered friends and enemies alike. But how did a man explain his kinder side to a hopping-mad woman whose blazing green eyes looked as though she’d love to destroy him on the spot?

  “Forget it,” he growled. “Just forget the whole damned thing.” Grabbing his socks and boots off the floor he headed for the door.

  “Which, I’m sure, you’ll have no trouble doing! But some of us humans have a heart, you cold-blooded rat!”

  Grim-lipped, Noah turned and looked at her. “Think about this. I could have led you on…and on…and on. Throughout the night without question and probably every damned day that you’re in town. But I couldn’t do it, not because of me, you ungrateful little witch, but because I didn’t want you hurt. Are you capable of understanding that concept? I’d bet a million bucks that you—after making love only once—were up to your eyeballs in dreamy, romantic, candlelit scenarios. Where in hell would you end up after a whole night of lovemaking?”

  Maddie forced herself to laugh, because it was either laugh or cry, for her. “You have an ego problem, Dr. Ain’t-I-Just-the-Cat’s-Meow-in-Bed. I hope you’re not laboring under the misconception that you were the best lover I’ve had, ’cause, Doc, it’s just not true. Oh, you were pretty good, but the best? No way. So, my advice is to get over yourself and stop thinking that you could have had me throughout the night.” Maddie forced another laugh. “Frankly, I was starting to get bored…and quite sleepy. You saved me the trouble of kicking you out of my bed without hurting your sensitive little feelings. Oh, sorry, I forgot. You don’t have any.”

  Lying down again, Maddie turned to her side with her back to Noah. “Please turn off the light before you go,” she said. It was her final shot because she was tightly scrunching her eyes to keep them from spilling tears, and she didn’t know how much longer she could fool Noah into thinking that she was tough and hard and as worthy an opponent as he’d ever run into. She was an independent soul, and she’d learned long ago how to take care of herself, but trading insults with a man she’d fallen pretty hard for—proving it to herself if not to him only minutes ago—hurt like the very devil.

  The lights went off, relieving some of Maddie’s anxiety, and then the room was completely silent, so Noah had apparently left quietly. She let the dam break then, and her tears drenched her pillow.

  Noah sat in the living room with his boots next to his chair. He hurt all over. Maddie had been cruel, and he might have deserved some of the things she’d said but not all of them. She didn’t know his past and she didn’t know that he hadn’t taken one woman to bed since moving to Whitehorn. To the contrary, she believed that he was a womanizer and would sleep with anything in skirts. Worse than that, she believed that he judged his bed partner
s. She was positive that he’d judged her and found her lacking!

  He sighed heavily, despondently. He might not have been jumping-up-and-down happy before meeting Maddie Kincaid, but he’d carved himself out a routine in Whitehorn that had seemed reasonably satisfying. Now he knew the truth. He hadn’t been contented or satisfied at all, and his celibate lifestyle had been a mistake—a very big mistake.

  Well, it seemed pretty clear that Maddie preferred he not be there in the morning, so he might as well go home and leave her be. She didn’t respect his efforts to help her, anyhow, so why was he bothering? Look how she’d blown off that appointment with Dr. Herrera.

  And she really had stolen his SUV, Noah reminded himself. She had more bloody gall than anyone he’d ever known, and why should he spend one second worrying about a person who not only didn’t appreciate anything he did for her but actually resented it?

  With another long sigh, Noah reached for his boots and pulled them on. It took a few minutes to gather his things and to put on his warm, outside clothing, but the moment finally came when he was ready to go.

  This time he would not leave a note. After switching off the lights he’d turned on earlier while waiting for Maddie to get back with his car—he’d come very close to finding a cop or deputy sheriff and demanding she be arrested, but he’d chickened out on that for Mark’s sake—he finally left. Fuming between house and driveway, he asked himself if Maddie had appreciated his generosity in not bringing the law down on her treacherous head and answered out loud, “Not one damn bit.” It irritated him still that she’d come waltzing into the house as though she hadn’t done a thing wrong.

  But he was worse than Maddie when it came right down to it. He was a sap and a sucker. When she got back he should have run, not walked but run, to his car and driven away as fast as he could under the icy conditions. Instead he’d hung around just aching to tell her off, and then when he had the chance to really give her hell he’d stupidly made a pass!