Spur-Of-The-Moment Marriage

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “Want me to stop?” he whispered as he deepened the kiss and slipped his hand inside to cup the soft curve of her breast.

  Gillian moaned as his fingertips closed over her nipple, massaging it into a point. The pleasure was almost unbearable as everything around her went soft and fuzzy except the hot, hard pressure of his mouth. She knew all the reasons why they shouldn’t consummate this marriage, yet she had the urge to surrender completely to his tender touch and slow, sensuous kiss. “Yes. No. I don’t know….”

  “Well, while you’re thinking about it…” He stroked his way down her spine, his caressing fingertips every bit as sure and sensual and somehow comforting as his kiss. “Think about this.” He spoke as his tongue moved across her lips. “And this.” His lips moved to her breast as his thigh moved between hers, easing her legs apart, as he moved to possess her the way only a husband could.

  Heat curled high and low. She felt her back arching off the bed even as his hands found her, too. Heavy and warm, they splayed across her skin, slipped across her abdomen, moved lower still.

  For long glorious moments she gave herself up to the tension building inside her. For so long she had wanted to forget, and now she was. His kisses, his touch, the warm sensuality of their embrace combined to wipe out everything sordid and ugly that had gone before.

  It had been so long since she had been touched, held…so long since she had let herself want, she thought as a new wave of heat and longing washed over her.

  What was it Max had said? she wondered as she felt herself spinning into oblivion. Reach out with both hands and grab the happiness that is Waiting for you. That, she thought fiercely, her mind made up, was what she was going to do tonight. They might only be married for a couple days…their union might only amount to a fling, but right this moment they were husband and wife and she was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

  Cisco hadn’t planned for this to happen. He hadn’t expected to do anything but protect Gillian and help her find a way out of whatever trouble she was in. But now that she was here, cosseted in his arms, now that she beginning to confide in him, he found he had a different agenda entirely. He wanted to take the kind of risks he’d never yet dared and make Gillian his own in every way that counted. He wanted to offer her the safety and security her previous life had lacked. Not just for tonight, but for the entire forty-eight hours and beyond….

  The fact they were playing into Max’s matchmaking plan bothered him a little, Cisco thought as he continued to kiss and caress Gillian with a slow deliberateness that was as tantalizing to him as it was to her.

  He did not like being manipulated into anything, even if it was allegedly something that was destined to be. But deeper than his concern over Max’s bold machinations was his hunger to know everything about her.

  Gillian had cloaked herself in mystery, and that mystery extended to the way she responded to his kisses, with a sweet, demanding need that soon burst into flame. With the way she touched him, so sweetly and tenderly. And with the way she opened herself to his possession, letting him take charge, then surprising him again as she arched up wantonly to meet him, thrust for thrust.

  She embraced him like a woman who had been too long without affection…without closeness of any kind. But that was ending, he decided as he deepened his strokes and urged her on to soaring heights. And it was ending now.

  Because Gillian wasn’t alone any longer, and neither was he. They had each other, and they had this. And for the moment, he thought as his heart pounded and there was no more holding back, this was enough.

  Gillian pulled him closer, holding him tight against the softness of her breasts, her response honest and uncompromising and unashamed.

  He felt her tremble as she reached the frenzied acceleration to climax, felt her draw him into the whitehot pleasure of it all, and then he, too, was freefalling into oblivion, shuddering with release, and plummeting over the edge.

  CISCO HELD HER until the trembling stopped and their breathing finally slowed, then moved back to look into her eyes. Rushing into a love affair was definitely not his style, but what the heck, he figured. The two of them were old enough, and adult enough, to be able to handle it.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Gillian murmured in a stunned voice as she ducked her head shyly and stroked her hands across his chest.

  “Can’t believe what?” Cisco asked, still holding her close.

  She sighed serenely as she wreathed her arms about his neck and continued to snuggle in his arms. “I do feel safe when you hold me like this.”

  Cisco felt a deep satisfaction, too, at simply being with her this way. A satisfaction Max would have gloried knowing about. Irritated, Cisco pushed the disturbing thought away. Max was his mentor, friend and father figure all rolled into one, but he was not doing any of this to please Max. Nor had he done it because Gillian needed saving. He had made love to her because it had felt right. It was as simple and honest and uncomplicated as that. “Maybe Max is right. Maybe we do belong together long-term,” he told her.

  Without warning, the troubled light was back in her eyes.

  “Cisco!” she exclaimed, distressed. “You can’t believe that,” Gillian whispered back, studying him even more intently.

  It was almost as if, Cisco thought, she were searching for the trap in his words. Wanting…needing…to comfort her once again, Cisco framed her face with his hands and tilted her face up to his. “All I know for certain is that I want you,” he told her victoriously, deciding for now to stick with the fact they were sexually compatible. “It’s as simple and complicated as that.”

  “Yes, it is,” Gillian agreed in a soft, serious voice, surprising him once again as she leaned up and warmly and seductively pressed her lips to his. “Because heaven help me, Cisco Kidd, I want you, too.”

  Chapter Six

  “You know, as warm and cozy as that was, I don’t think we should sleep together again,” Gillian said first thing the following morning as she extricated herself from the rumpled covers on the sofa bed.

  Given Gillian’s skittish nature, Cisco had half expected she might pull back from their newfound intimacy, once they faced the light of day. “Why not?” he asked casually as he watched her shrug into his pajama top and button up the front.

  Gillian began to look a little panicked as she finished her task and pivoted away from him. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s too intimate.”

  “Too intimate,” Cisco repeated, remembering how warm and pliant her mouth had been beneath his.

  “Yes.” Her emotions under tight control once again, Gillian raked a hand through her auburn hair. While Cisco scrambled around for his pajama pants, she headed for the kitchen and came back with a tall glass of orange juice for each of them. Their fingers brushed as she handed him the glass. “The lovemaking was great, I won’t deny that—”

  “Good,” Cisco said, because he wasn’t about to deny that, either.

  Gillian pressed the rim of her glass against lips that were still swollen from his kisses. She met his eyes in a forthright manner, then shrugged as she explained matter-of-factly, “I just hadn’t anticipated the way waking and finding myself in your arms would make me feel.”

  Or the way she would look now, Cisco thought, all soft and tousled and warm. Not to mention well loved. Unhappily, the physical and emotional wellbeing that came from two heated lovemaking sessions and several hours of contented sleep were obviously not what she was referring to.

  Cisco rolled to his feet and moved forward languidly until they stood toe-to-toe. He looked down at her. “And how exactly does sleeping with me make you feel, Gillian?” he asked gently, aware it was all he could do not to put his juice glass aside, take her into his arms again and kiss her doubts away.

  Gillian sighed and looked even more skittish as she backed away. “Like we’re really married.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Cisco gave her a cocky grin that belied the hurt in his words.

  “Everything,�
� Gillian declared with a rush of emotion that surprised him as she turned and headed for the bathroom, Cisco trailing her. “Because our marriage isn’t a real one, Cisco. It’s a business arrangement.” She looked at herself in the mirror and frowned.

  All too aware of how little she had on beneath his pajama top, and how little it would take to persuade him to make love to her again, Cisco reminded her, “Businesslike is not a word I would use to describe the way you were acting last night.”

  A fiery blush deepened the color across her cheeks. Gillian avoided his glance completely as she busied herself checking out the supply of shampoo, soap and toothpaste on the medicine cabinet shelves. “You know as well as I do what all that was about.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. Cisco remained in the open bathroom doorway. His eyes searched hers. “I’d be interested to hear your version.”

  Gillian blew out an exasperated breath, looking supremely irritated he was forcing her to spell it out for them. “It had obviously been a while for me since I’d…well, you know—”

  “Made love. And it had been a while for both of us, Gillian,” Cisco corrected gently, not bothered by that at all. What was bothering him was the soft movement of her breasts beneath the pajama top and the sleek sexiness of her bare legs.

  He’d barely been awake ten minutes and already his whole body was aching to possess her again, and his heart…well, to his chagrin, that was in no better shape.

  To his amazement, it didn’t seem to matter she was pushing him away with both hands, now that she’d had time to think about the new turn in their relationship. He only knew he was drawn to her as he had never been drawn to anyone else. And that was something he feared was not going to change no matter how this spur-of-the-moment marriage of theirs did or did not work out.

  With a deep bolstering breath, Gillian picked up the hairbrush on the sink and, facing forward, began to run it through her hair. “The fact of the matter is we both wanted what happened last night to happen,” Gillian continued determinedly, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “And so it did. And now that it has, and our…basic curiosity about each other has been satisfied, it won’t happen again.”

  Just when he thought he understood her, she threw him for a loop. “You really think that’s what last night was about, just satisfying our curiosity?” Cisco echoed, shocked. He’d never been accused of being overly sentimental; it surprised him how much the hours they’d shared had meant to him. Furthermore, in his view, curiosity had had very little to do with what happened. It had been about passion, desire, attraction, needing each other—and about a shared loneliness that went soul deep.

  Her composure intact, Gillian lifted her slender shoulders in an insouciant shrug. “That, and maybe getting rid of the leftover adrenaline simmering in our veins,” she told him practically as she finished restoring order to her wildly curling mane of red hair.

  Laying the brush down, she turned to face him once again. “You have to admit we were both pretty pumped, after I pulled a gun on you. But that won’t happen again, either. So we shouldn’t have anything to worry about during the next thirty-six hours.”

  Or anything else that would prompt them to fall recklessly into each other’s arms, Cisco figured she meant. And though that should have been as much a comfort to him as it was to her, as he was no more prone to indulge in reckless love affairs than she, it wasn’t. Time was passing much more quickly than he had imagined it would. He couldn’t deny at first he had wished the forty-eight hours would hurry up and pass. Now he was wishing he could slow down the clock. Draw out each and every minute. And that had little to do with the truth he was trying to whittle out of her and everything to do with wanting to spend time with her.

  Wise or not, he wanted to make love to her again. Not hotly and passionately, as he had last night, but slowly and tenderly this time. Afterward, he wanted to cradle her in his arms and hold her close. He wanted her to fall asleep in his arms, and be happy about it—instead of skittish—when she woke again and found herself in his arms.

  She shrugged as if that ended the conversation. “Anyway, as they say, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. So if you don’t mind…” She picked up the toothbrush he had lent her the night before and put toothpaste on it.

  Her indifference was no more convincing than her bravado had been, but for the heck of it, Cisco decided to play along anyway.

  “Of course there were other reasons, as well, why that happened last night, don’t forget,” he said, reminding himself sternly of the real reason he’d let Max push him into this marriage. So he could get close enough to Gillian to really help her. He opened the linen closet to get two fresh towels and a washcloth for her.

  “Really,” Gillian countered as she accepted the linens he handed her. “And what would that be?” she asked, then went back to brushing her teeth.

  “Making love with me was a pretty effective way to change the subject away from the nightmares you still have about your dangerous past.” Cisco put toothpaste on his toothbrush, too.

  Gillian stiffened indignantly as she rinsed her mouth. “I did not seduce you as a way of changing the subject, Cisco Kidd!”

  Finished, Cisco rinsed his toothbrush and put it back in the holder. “Nor did I seduce you last night” He met Gillian’s eyes in the mirror, wondering if she knew how sexy she looked clad in the oversize pajama top. “It was a mutual combustion of heat and passion that brought us together,” he finished smugly.

  Gillian’s cheeks flushed. “Not to mention the fact that I was shaken up by a nightmare about my past”

  “A past you still haven’t told me much about,” he. pointed out, glad she had brought that up.

  Silence fell between them, more telling than any lies, or the upset way she had reacted when Pete Lloyd had appeared to recognize her at the wedding. Gillian glared at him as she turned on the warm water and lathered up a bar of soap. “I told you everything I could,” she declared hotly as she began to wash her face.

  “Everything?” Cisco echoed, his expression hardening as he watched her cover her face with silky bubbles. “I don’t think so, Gillian.” As an attorney, he had learned when a client was holding back, and Gillian was still holding back plenty. But he also sensed she had revealed far more to him than she normally did. And that it bothered her that she had confided in him even as much as she had.

  Gillian shrugged, again making light of what had just happened between them the previous night. She bent over the sink, the pajama top riding high on the backs of her slender thighs, as she splashed warm water on her face. “If you’re expecting any more ‘true confessions’ from me, Cisco, you’re going to be waiting an awfully long time,” she told him succinctly as she blotted her face dry. “Because day or night, I have nothing more to say to you on that subject.”

  Ditto for the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he thought, as she flattened a hand on his chest and directed him out of the bathroom. “I do, however, need to borrow something besides your pajamas to wear.”

  “Guess you can’t go around in my pajamas all day.”

  “Guess not,” she agreed dryly.

  “Nor would a wedding dress do.”

  “Right again.”

  Cisco strolled to his closet, followed by Gillian. “Knowing Max, more clothes for you—probably ranching duds—are on the way. In the meantime, you can have your pick of my shirts. This blue one here—” he handed her one in pale blue “—might look nice.”

  She held it up to her, noting as she did that it came down to midthigh on her. “It’ll be fine. I’ll just roll up the sleeves. About pants of some sort—”

  “I’ve got some workout shorts with a drawstring waist.” He plucked them out of his bureau. “Think these will do?”

  Gillian held up the soft gray jersey to her, noting the hem fell just above her knee. “Yes, thank you.”

  “White crew socks to go with your sneakers.” Cisco handed her a pair of those, too. “But I don’t have any lingerie.”
Nor would he mind if she continued to go without.

  But alas, he realized quickly, that also was not to be. “Relax. I’ll hand-wash my unmentionables while I’m in the shower. They’re mostly lace anyway, so they’ll only take a minute to dry if you have a hair dryer I can use.”

  Cisco swallowed. “The dryer’s in the drawer next to the sink.”

  “Thanks.” Gillian slipped back into the bathroom. A split second later, the lock turned. The shower began to run.

  Knowing he’d better find something to busy himself with while she was in the shower—if he didn’t want to get aroused all over again, just thinking about her standing naked under the spray—Cisco went into the kitchen, made coffee and poured himself another glass of juice. For the first time he wished he knew how to cook something—anything. And that he kept some sort of food, other than a few beverages, in his apartment.

  He was finishing his first cup of coffee and thinking about whether they should go to Pearl’s for breakfast or hit the supermarket for supplies, when the phone rang. Cisco picked up on the second ring.

  “Hey, Cisco!” Trace’s teenage son Nate teased. “How does it feel to be famous?”

  Cisco grinned, kicked back in his chair and wondered what mischief Trace and Susannah’s four boys were in now. “What are you talking about?” Cisco asked.

  “USA Daily. Parts of the Monday edition of the newspaper are already posted on the Internet.”

  Cisco knew there’d been several journalists at the wedding. “Let me guess,” Cisco drawled, already switching on his computer and logging on to the Internet. “They wrote an article about Max being alive after all, and mentioned me as the attorney who carried out Max’s wishes and arranged all the shenanigans.”