An Arranged Marriage

by Peggy Moreland

  Her touch became greedy, setting nerve endings on fire as she swept her palms over his back. Her fingers stilled midway down, and he stiffened, remembering too late the ugly scars that traversed his spine. He felt the change in her immediately, tasted it. The hesitation. The curiosity. Knew the revulsion that would follow. Fisting his hands against the mattress, he heaved himself up, forcing her arms from around him and their mouths apart. He rolled from her and to his feet.

  Though the lighting was dim—a circumstance he was now grateful for—he sensed the question in her eyes even before she found her voice.

  But the word “what” was all she managed to get past her lips.

  He snatched his shirt from the floor and shrugged it on, turning his back to her. “An old injury,” he said gruffly.

  He heard a rustle of movement behind him, felt her hand alight on his back, and he stiffened, his fingers freezing on the button he was frantically trying to close. He detected a tremble in her touch. A hesitation. Revulsion? he thought again.

  “Clay?”

  He stepped away, breaking the contact. “This was a mistake, Fiona,” he said, his voice taut with anger. “I should never have let it go this far.”

  “But, Clay—”

  “I said it was a mistake!” he shouted, then strode for the sitting room and slammed the door between them.

  Hours later Fiona lay on the round bed, alone, the covers pulled to her chin, her eyes wide and unblinking. A chill lay beneath her skin and iced her heart. She’d never been rejected by a man before. She’d rejected plenty, sure, but she’d never been on the receiving end, had never experienced the devastating humiliation of being the one scorned.

  She caught her lip between her teeth, as she remembered the anger in Clay’s voice before he’d slammed the door between them. He’d been mad. Furious! But why? What had she done? One minute they were locked in an embrace that even now, as she thought of it, made her pulse leap. The next he was pushing away from her.

  A mistake, he’d called it. But was the mistake hers? If so, what was it? Kissing him? Wanting him as badly as he’d seemed to want her?

  She closed her eyes against the tears that burned. And, oh, how she’d wanted him. She still did. Even after he’d rejected her. She’d never tasted such passion in a man, never had one make her want with the fervency she had wanted Clay. She’d offered herself freely to him, returned his passion with one she was sure rivaled his own.

  And he’d left her, slamming the door between them, telling her it was a mistake.

  But where was the mistake? she cried silently. She went back over her every move, reviewing her every word, mentally reenacting the scene from the moment he’d first kissed her until he’d pushed her away.

  Her eyes shot open wide.

  The scar, she remembered. Right after her fingers had bumped over the narrow channel of scar tissue on his back, he’d shoved her away. Was he self-conscious about the imperfection? she wondered, remembering how quickly he’d grabbed for his shirt and put it on. And, too, the day before, when he was working on the fence and she’d suggested he’d be cooler without his shirt, he’d refused to take it off. That was it, she told herself. It had to be. He was afraid she would find the scar a turnoff.

  She threw back the covers and scooted from the bed. Well, she wasn’t some frail little ninny who shrank in fear from something as trivial as a scar. A scar was nothing but a thickened layer of skin, a souvenir of sorts from an old injury. On some men, if not too severe, they even added character to an otherwise uninteresting face.

  Determined to prove to Clay that his scar didn’t bother her, she headed for the door. That she was naked didn’t concern her. For what she had planned, clothing of any sort would only be a hindrance.

  Twisting the knob slowly, she eased the door open a crack and peeked into the sitting room. He had pulled out the sofa bed to sleep on. She saw the shape of his body beneath the covers, his back to her, his face turned to the far wall. From the rhythmic sound of his breathing, she knew he slept. Which was in her favor, she told herself as she tiptoed across the room. If awake, he’d probably send her away before she had the opportunity to seduce him.

  Lifting the edge of the covers, she slipped underneath, then scooted close to his back. After listening a moment to make sure he hadn’t awakened, she placed her fingers at the nape of his neck and trailed them down his spine, until she found the scar. She was surprised to discover that it stretched from just beneath his left shoulder blade and ran in a jagged line to his waist. Emotion tightened her throat as she realized how much pain an injury of this magnitude must have caused him. With tears burning her eyes, she leaned to press her lips to the slender rope of flesh.

  He stirred at her touch, and she jerked back, holding her breath until he stilled again. She waited a second longer, just to be sure he was asleep, then snuggled against his back and curved an arm over his waist.

  Positioned as she was, she knew immediately that he was nude, which was, again, to her advantage. It also made her painfully aware of his buttocks. She’d noticed before how muscular his buttocks were, but there was a huge difference between observing his backside clothed and feeling it bared against her abdomen. Every nerve ending in her body seemed to have snapped to attention, their antennae tuned to the spot where their bodies met.

  Easing her legs down the length of his, she was reminded how much longer his body was than hers, how much more muscled. And hairier, too, she thought as she drew her toes up the back of his leg. She pressed her face against his back, suppressing a giggle at the tickling sensation.

  And his scent, she thought, her amusement fading as she became aware of it. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Pure male with just a hint of soap lingering on his skin. Without conscious thought she ran her fingers over his chest and stomach, her touch light.

  He shifted, pressing his buttocks more firmly into the bend of her body. After a moment he laced his fingers through hers, and settled again with a sigh, holding her hand against his chest.

  She lay still as death, her eyes wide, her heart pounding like a symphony of bass drums. Heat spread slowly through her womb and out to every extremity. She was aroused. With one single move of his hips he’d shot her back into her earlier state of arousal. But, more, he’d touched the deepest region of her heart by drawing her hand to his chest and holding it there. She could feel the soft thump of his heartbeat against her palm, marveled at its steady rhythm, all but melted at the comforting warmth that seeped into her hand.

  When she was sure she could draw a breath without sobbing, she pressed a trembling kiss to the center of his spine. She barely had time to move before he was rolling over and gathering her into his arms. Murmuring words she couldn’t understand, he found her mouth, then closed his lips over hers with a shuddery sigh. His kiss turned passionate, painfully so, and bespoke a familiarity between them, an ease she knew only too well didn’t exist. But she responded in kind, opening her heart and offering him all the emotions that welled up inside.

  Was he awake? she wondered even as she wrapped her arms around his neck and drew his face closer. Or was he locked in some dream in which he thought she was someone else? She closed her eyes, refusing to consider the possibility, and held him more tightly. “Clay?”

  That one word was all it took to break the spell.

  A groan rose from deep in his chest, one filled with such pain, such need, she couldn’t separate the two. Pulling away from her, he rolled her to her back and dropped his forehead to her chest. “No,” he moaned. “This is wrong. A mistake.”

  “Please,” she begged, stroking his hair with her hand. “I want this. You.”

  He lifted his head and she nearly wept at the despair she saw in his eyes.

  “Please,” she said again, bringing a hand to cradle his cheek.

  She felt the tension that arced through him, drawing his body taut, sensed the urgency wound up inside him, watched the passion slowly burn the despair from his eyes.
With his gaze on hers, he curled a hand around a breast and brought it to his mouth. His teeth scraped her nipple and she inhaled sharply, shocked by the sensations that rocked her. As the sensations settled low in her womb in an aching knot, she released her pent-up breath on a ragged sigh. Before she could draw another breath, he was lifting himself above her and forcing her legs apart with his knee.

  Panicking, she said, “Clay, wait. I—”

  Before she could explain, ask him to go slow, he thrust inside her, his hips slamming against hers. She gasped, digging her nails into his shoulders as pain ripped through her, leaving a trail of red-hot fire that exploded behind her tightly closed eyes.

  His body turned to stone over hers.

  She sensed his shock, understanding it.

  “You’re a virgin?”

  She heard the disbelief in his voice and turned her face away, not wanting him to see her tears, her embarrassment. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  He pushed back to look down at her. “Hell, yeah, it is. With your reputation, I would’ve thought you had slept with a dozen or more men by now.”

  She snapped her head around to glare at him. “For your information, I prized my virginity too much to give it away to just any man.”

  She saw the surprise flare in his eyes, the slow dawning as he realized what she’d inadvertently confessed. Furious with herself, she shoved angrily at his chest. “Get off me.”

  He caught her hands in his, gripping her fingers so tightly with his that her struggles to escape him were thwarted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She looked away, too embarrassed to meet his gaze. “I—I tried.”

  He dropped his forehead to her chest. “Oh, God, Fiona.” He groaned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I swear. If I had…”

  “What?” she demanded angrily. “How would your knowing I was a virgin have changed anything?”

  He lifted his head to look at her, and she gulped at the regret, the guilt she found in his eyes.

  “I would have been more gentle with you. I wouldn’t have hurt you. I swear I would never have hurt you.”

  “But it’s always painful the first time. I was prepared for that.”

  He tightened his fingers around hers. “It doesn’t have to be.” He shifted to lie beside her, still gripping her hand. “There are things a man can do to prepare a woman. To make it easier for her.”

  She sniffed, unsure whether to believe him. “What things?”

  He inched closer and released her hand to splay his across her stomach. His fingers were wide and strong, but gentle as they kneaded her flesh.

  “Things,” he said again, his face now only inches from her own. He began to move his hand in slow, languid circles around her navel, each one larger than the one before. He brushed her lips with his. “Things like this,” he whispered, and opened his hand over her mound.

  She stiffened instinctively.

  “Relax,” he murmured. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She closed her eyes and forced herself to focus on his voice, allowing the soothing cadence of his words and the gentle pressure of his fingers to melt the tension from her body. He moved his hand lower, pushing two fingers along the narrow channel that led to her sex. She shivered, even as heat speared her center and turned it molten. She felt the pressure of his thumb against her opening and her legs jerked reflexively.

  “Clay…”

  She heard the panic in her voice and was shamed by it.

  “Shh,” he soothed, his lips a whispered caress on hers. “It’s okay. It’s just your body responding to my touch.” He nuzzled her nose with his. “You’re wet,” he whispered as he circled his thumb in the moistness. “Can you feel the warmth?”

  She nodded, afraid to open her mouth to reply for fear she’d beg. Even though she dreaded the pain, she wanted him inside her.

  She caught his cheeks between her hands and brought his face to hers. She gulped at the passion in his eyes, the heat. “I think I’m ready,” she said, her voice trembling.

  He smiled, but shook his head. “Close. But not close enough.”

  He dropped to his back and drew her over him, arranging her knees on either side of his hips. With his gaze on hers, he shaped his hands over her breasts and gently squeezed. He chuckled when her eyes went wide. “Amazing, isn’t it?” he said. “I touch you here—” he raked a thumb across her nipple, then dragged his hand down her stomach and slipped it between her legs “—and you feel it here.”

  She bucked as he molded his hand over her mound, her sex throbbing wildly beneath the exquisite pressure of his fingers. His smile softening, he curved a hand behind her neck and drew her down. She thought he intended to kiss her and gasped when, instead, at the last second, he dipped his head and caught her nipple between his teeth. Need twisted in her womb, a rope stretched to its limits, as he suckled, gently at first, then more greedily.

  She clamped her knees at his hips, gasping. “Clay, please,” she begged.

  He rolled, turning her beneath him, and wedged his knee between her legs, spreading them apart. Holding himself above her, he smoothed a hand over her damp brow, his gaze on hers. “You’re in control,” he told her, and took her hand and guided it to his sex. “Nothing happens until you’re ready.”

  Hesitantly she curled her fingers around his length. Her eyes widened as she encountered its size and turgidity. Determined to go through with this, she gulped back her fears and slowly drew him to her.

  He joined his hand with hers. “It’ll help if we moisten it a little.” Smiling at the question in her eyes, he dipped his fingers into her moistness, then rubbed what he’d gathered down the length of his shaft.

  Shifting slightly, he braced his hands at either side of her head. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  She gulped again and nodded, then lifted her hips. She closed her eyes as the tip of his sex pushed against her opening. Then, taking a deep breath, she lifted her hips higher, and he slid inside. She tensed, waiting for the pain. When she felt only pleasure, she opened her eyes to look at him in surprise.

  Brushing a lock of hair from her forehead, he lowered his hips, pressing her back against the mattress. “See?” he said. “It doesn’t have to hurt.”

  Thinking it was over, she stared, wondering what it was that people found so fascinating about sex. Personally she found the whole act rather anticlimactic. Trying her best to hide her disappointment, she nodded.

  But instead of rolling off her, as she’d thought he would, he caught her hands and dragged them up the sheets to pin them above her head. “And now comes the good part,” he told her.

  “What? But—” Her breath caught in her throat as he pressed his hips against hers and pushed deeper inside. Heat shot through her, stealing her breath and scorching her throat. Her body responded naturally, instinctively, opening for him, then closing around him. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted, needed more. She lifted her hips, straining against the hands that held hers.

  But instead of pushing even deeper, giving her what she wanted, he began to slowly withdraw. She vised her knees at his hips, trying to hold him inside. Still, he withdrew. Just when she was sure he intended this as torture of the cruelest kind, he surged forward, and his hips slammed against hers. She arched, rising to meet him, her back bowed, her body straining toward the pleasure.

  A sob filled her throat as he slowly withdrew only to plunge again, each thrust faster and deeper than the one before. Nearly crazy with desire, she raced with him, matching him stroke for stroke. Pressure built inside her, seeming to push at her from every direction until she feared she would smother beneath its weight.

  When she was sure she would die if he didn’t do something to help her, he rammed his hips against hers one last time. With his head thrown back, his teeth clenched, his fingers gripped tightly around hers, he held himself rigid above her, his body a quivering arch of steel molded in the soft satin curve of hers. A low guttural growl rumbled deep inside him, slipped p
ast his clenched teeth. The sound of it, the glorious pressure of his body against hers, set off an explosion inside her, a blinding burst of sensation and color that seemed to sweep her up and toss her high. She closed her eyes and held tightly to his hands, riding the wave of pleasure to its peak.

  As if from a distance, she became aware of the slow melt of his body against hers, the warm, slow rush of his breath at her ear. Choked with emotion, she tugged her hands from his and flung her arms around him, desperate to hold on to the euphoric feeling that filled her.

  He curved a hand around the side of her head and turned his face to her cheek. “You okay?”

  A smile bloomed inside her and spread slowly across her face. Turning her head to meet his lips, she whispered, “Perfect.”

  Clay awoke first, just before daylight, opening his eyes and slowly bringing Fiona into focus. She lay facing him, sharing his pillow, one hand curled into a fist beneath her cheek, the fingers of the other splayed loosely across his chest. Her legs were drawn up, her knees tucked into his groin. For a moment he simply stared, remembering.

  A virgin, he thought, still unable to comprehend how that could be. She’d had hundreds of boyfriends. Maybe thousands. Yet she’d said, in so many words, that he was the first man she considered worthy of losing her virginity to.

  He blew out a shuddery breath as the significance of that confession settled over him.

  A virgin, he thought again, and covered the hand she held against his chest, weaving his fingers through hers. And she’d chosen him, Clay Martin, as her first lover. Why? he asked himself, suddenly curious. He wasn’t as wealthy or as suave as the guys she must’ve dated over the years. And he sure as hell hadn’t done anything to endear himself to her.