Bridegroom on Approval

by Day Leclaire

  He came after her, moving with an easy, masculine grace that had attracted her from the beginning. He was everything she’d always wanted in a man, starting on the outside and working in to the very core of him. Tall, lean, devastatingly handsome, she couldn’t look at him without suffering from an overwhelming urge to touch him. He was also patient and sincere and honest. Not to mention kind. So incredibly kind. But there was something more. Something that touched her on a deeper level. His every word echoed with a depth of passion that precisely matched what raged in her own heart. How was that possible? How could two such opposite people be so perfectly mated?

  “Stop thinking, Hanna.”

  Humor momentarily overrode her concern. “It’s what I do best.”

  “It’s what you’ve been trained to do.” He stopped scant inches away, not touching her, yet wrapping her in the warmth of his presence. “I know you have a mind. I know you’re a smart, dedicated woman. But I also know you have a heart and soul.”

  A pained laugh broke from her. “Then you know more than I do.”

  “Why do you say that?” He leaned into her, drugging her with his essence. “What makes you think you aren’t capable of love?”

  She stepped back, determined not to be influenced by whatever spell he wove every time he came near. “I don’t trust love! It’s not real. You can have it safely in hand one day and the next morning the sun comes up and you discover love’s vanished with the night.”

  “Is that what happened?” His compassion threatened to undo her. “Did love vanish on you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “And you’re afraid that I’m going to disappear, too?”

  “I don’t want to wake up one morning and find you’ve left. I—” She fought for control. Where the hell had it gone? She’d always been able to summon it with such ease. But ever since meeting Marco, it had deserted her with alarming regularity “I don’t think I could handle it.”

  Still he didn’t touch her, just holding her with the warmth of his gaze. “There’s nothing I can say to ease your fears, innamorata. You know that, don’t you?”

  She nodded. Unfortunately, she did.

  “I can make all the promises in the world and they won’t be worth anything without trust.” He leaned his shoulder against the fireplace mantle and folded his arms across his chest. So he wouldn’t be tempted to wrap them around her? she couldn’t help but wonder. She could read between the lines. He was going to make her deal with this on her own, without exerting undue influence. “We haven’t known each other long, which makes it even more difficult. But I’m telling you that what we feel toward each other is rare. More rare than you can imagine.”

  “I suspected as much,” she confessed.

  “The problem is... Our relationship is forcing you to operate on instinct and you’re not accustomed to that.”

  “Not even a little.”

  “But trust comes from those instincts. Either you believe in me or you don’t. Either you trust what I tell you or you don’t. Either you listen to what your heart tells you or you allow logic and practicality to dictate your life.”

  “I want to believe you,” she whispered. More than anything, she wanted to trust Marco.

  “You can’t just want, you have to do it.” He did touch her then, gathering her face within his palms, his gaze so understanding it tore her apart. “There will come a day when you’ll be forced to make a choice between your head and your heart. Your head will tell you to doubt. To run. And that’s when you’ll face an irrevocable decision. You’ll have to trust. When everyone and everything around you is screaming for you to doubt, you’ll have to take that leap of faith. Make the wrong choice and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  She knew what he referred to. Already, a little voice was screaming for her to trust him, begging her not to ruin this chance for a happy future because the past had instilled fears she battled to this day. At the same time, the rational, sensible part of her flashed danger signals so loud, they drowned out that little voice. “And you expect me to go with my gut feelings rather than with common sense?”

  He smiled, a beautifully tender smile. “If you love someone, you trust them. It’s that simple and that difficult. If your love is true, you know the person you gift with that love will never do anything to deliberately hurt you. True love doesn’t disappear in the night, Hanna. It flourishes beneath the warmth of the sun and holds strong through the darkness of night.”

  “Haven’t you ever had doubts?”

  He inclined his head. “Of course. Life is strewn with pebbles and rocks and boulders. You know that as well as I. But I’d like to think that love can help you find a path over or around or through those adversities. When one person slips, the other is there to lend a hand. Haven’t you found, even during the most difficult days, that people are there for you? People who love you?”

  “Yes.” No question. The residents of Hidden Harbor had done that for her and more.

  “And aren’t you there for them in their time of need?”

  “I try to be.”

  “Don’t you see? We can have that, too, Hanna. Let me in. I won’t hurt you, I swear it.”

  He didn’t understand. “What if I hurt you?”

  “I’ll deal with that if it happens.”

  Her mouth twisted. “Don’t you mean when?”

  “I sincerely hope not.” He stepped back, his arms falling to his sides. “Come to me, Hanna. But come of your own free will. Come because you want me, because you choose to be my wife.”

  For a split second, apprehension held her in place. She had precisely two options: Marco or the life she’d led up until now. The utter simplicity of her decision hit her. She was wrong. There weren’t two options. There never had been. This man was the one she’d been awaiting all these years, the one she’d longed to find.

  She flew into his arms, surrendering to a need far greater than fear, to a passion that defied logic and sensibility, that couldn’t be charted or graphed or neatly entered into her schedule. Her feelings for Marco were sprawling and messy and fell outside all boundaries. Time had no meaning. Planning was utterly useless. It left her with one option. She went with her instincts, trusting where she’d never dared trust before.

  His arms enfolded her, holding her so close their heartbeats melded. The next instant, it was their lips melding, his life-giving breath becoming hers. “You could have had anyone,” she whispered brokenly.

  “You were the one I wanted. The only one I’ve ever wanted.”

  “Why?”

  “Whether or not you know it, you’re my soul mate, the one woman who completes me. Run, hide, deny what’s between us,” he said fiercely. “It still won’t change a thing. We were meant for each other. When you stood in line at the Cinderella Ball and looked at me over Donato’s head, you sensed the inevitable. And it terrified you. That’s why you hid behind your mask.”

  His perception devastated her. “I’ve always known what I was doing and where I was going. I think it was mapped out by the time I was four. But with you...” Her voice broke. “I don’t know anything.”

  “And it frightens you.”

  “Yes. I can’t see the path, Marco. I don’t know what to do next.”

  “Close your eyes.” He eased back, removing her arms from around his waist. “Do it, Hanna. Close them.”

  She trembled, confused by his request, more confused by the distance he’d put between them. “They’re closed.” And she was alone in the darkness, more alone than she’d ever been in her entire life.

  “Now reach out. I’m here.”

  And he was. Her hands collided with his chest and she gathering his heat in her palms. Slowly she lifted her fingers to his face, following the strong, masculine lines, learning the taut planes and angles of her husband’s features. She could picture them in her mind, with the analytical part of her nature. But touch gave them an added dimension, imprinting them on her soul.

&nb
sp; Ever so gently she traced his mouth with her thumbs. And then she lifted on tiptoe and traced the sculpted lines with her lips. Her hands drifted down his neck and slipped beneath his collar, exploring the corded muscles beneath. Buttons fell unresisting beneath her fingers and his shirt parted. Still she didn’t open her eyes, seeing more clearly with them closed than when they’d been open. To her utter amazement, her senses guided her, showing her the path she must take.

  Following the narrow line of hair that plunged downward over his abdomen, her hands slipped to the clasp of his belt at the same instant as her tongue slipped between his lips. He opened to her, urging her inward. And yet he still didn’t enclose her in his arms. He wanted to, she didn’t doubt that for a moment. The desperate tension building across his shoulders and chest told her as much. But she knew he intended for her to take the lead, to set the pace of their lovemaking.

  The rasp of his zipper vied with the harshness of his breathing. He tilted his head, his mouth plying hers with a fierce passion. He teased, he coaxed, he took, revealing his deepest desires with no more than that single kiss. He wanted her, he merely waited for an invitation.

  “Marco...” The air shuddered in her lungs as words deserted her. He’d always used the sweetest endearments when addressing her, why couldn’t she say something equally as sweet and lyrical in return? “I swear I’m going to learn Italian after this.”

  His choked laugh was her only answer. But suddenly she needed his hands on her, needed to be in his arms. With slow deliberation, she trailed her fingertips from the powerful expanse of his shoulders downward along an impressive array of tautly bunched muscles, all the way to his wnsts. Shackling him, she opened her eyes and wordlessly drew him into her embrace.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Positive.”

  “No regrets in the morning?”

  “Why? Because I made love to my husband?”

  His gaze turned molten. “I wondered when you’d get around to calling me that.”

  She started to answer, but found she couldn’t When she tried again, he stopped her words with his mouth. His hands landed on her shoulders and drifted relentlessly downward. Having received permission to touch her, he appeared intent on exploring every inch of her. No doubt she’d soon find herself thoroughly plucked—at least, she hoped so.

  Her clothing proved a barrier swiftly removed. Next, he tackled his own clothes, sparing a precious few seconds to finish what she’d started. At long last, she stood before him without any of her protective guises, utterly vulnerable. He must have sensed her apprehension. No doubt it was painfully apparent. Any number of factors could have clued him in—from her gritted teeth, to her rigid stance and tightly balled fists, to the tremulous give and take of her breath. Nudity didn’t lend itself well to artifice.

  “I’m sorry, Marco,” she said with a groan. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I want you, but—”

  “Shh. It’s all right. Close your eyes again,” he instructed gently.

  Her lashes fluttered downward, her trust absolute.

  “Now just feel.”

  He touched her, sculpting her breasts before dipping his head to take the crests, one by one, into his mouth. An entirely different tension filled her, explosive and desperate. Her breath quickened and she balled her fists deep in his hair, returning his caresses with unabashed fervor. He cupped her bottom, lifting her closer. He was sheer male, and she’d never been so vitally aware of being a woman, of being intensely desired by a man.

  “Please, Marco. Please don’t let it end.”

  “End? Don’t you know, amor mio? This is only the beginning.”

  He swept an arm beneath her knees and carried her to the bedroom. Moonlight filtered through the doorway leading onto the balcony, providing just enough light to see the bed—and to see the rose petals and downy feathers that covered the soft white sheet

  “Did you do this?” she asked, more deeply moved by such a romantic gesture than anything that had gone before.

  His expression remained impassive, as though awaiting her reaction, bracing himself for the possibility that she might be upset. “I wanted tonight to be special for you.”

  She didn’t doubt that for a minute. “It will.”

  He lowered her gently to the bed and followed her down. How could she have been apprehensive about making love to Marco? How could she have spent night after night hiding in her office instead of sharing moments like this? His weight pressed her into the sheets, the silken fluttering of feathers and flower petals stroking her back while her husband offered harder, hotter, more decisive caresses. The scent of roses mingled with a powerful, elemental odor, of man and woman and burning need.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, stealing kiss after delirious kiss. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Her head moved back and forth, feathers and petals twining in her hair. “I’m not sure I can promise the same.”

  “Let me worry about that.” His hand stroked downward, cupping her breasts, kissing them, driving the tips into hard, painful peaks. But it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.

  It took three tries to get the words out. “Please, Marco. Make love to me now. Don’t wait any longer.”

  “I fully intend to, sweet. But slowly.”

  “No!” She squirmed beneath him, the brush of feather and petal and hard, firm hands almost too much to bear. “Fast. Go faster.”

  “Easy, love. We’ll get there, I promise.”

  He palmed the back of her thighs, parting them. His fingers burned, eliciting a liquid warmth as he slipped inward. Touch built on determined touch, teasing her past mere arousal, driving her to a frenzy of need, a desperation for a completion only Marco could provide. She opened herself with utter abandon, lifting to welcome him in the most intimate of embraces. Gently he surged into her, filling her. And she knew that if she’d made love with any other man, it would have been wrong. There was a rightness to Marco’s taking, to this ultimate completion of their wedding vows.

  Then his lovemaking wasn’t so gentle, but hard and driven. She gave everything within her. And he was there for her, too, making that night the most unforgettable of her life. With each delicious thrust the tension built, her muscles tensing in anticipation. A release swept down on her, storming every last defense, glorious in its beauty and explosive in its relentless power.

  In that last instant, Marco covered her mouth with his in both benediction and promise. And in the calm that followed the storm, his words whispered between them, their conviction absolute.

  “I love you, Hanna. I always have and I always will.”

  And in that moment, he became her husband in fact as well as name.

  He loved her.

  Hanna wasn’t sure how many hours had passed since Marco had whispered that declaration. With all her heart, she wished she could offer a similar vow. But too much stood between them for her to make such an admission.

  Rolling onto her side, she slipped her leg over his thigh, her toes tangling with his. “Marco, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  He glanced at her, lifting an eyebrow. “Another secret, Hanna?”

  “Yes. And this time you don’t even have to use chocolate on me. I’ll tell you of my own volition.” Praying he wouldn’t hate her, she lowered her head to his shoulder, knowing his reaction to her confession would be instantly communicated to her. “It’s about the reason I attended the Cinderella Ball.”

  “Does it, by any chance, have something to do with the gentlemen sitting in your reception room when we first arrived in Hidden Harbor?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Did you marry me to stop your stepsons from matchmaking?”

  She cleared her throat. “The thought did occur to me.”

  “And since your five-year deadline to find a husband was fast approaching...?”

  “It seemed a logical move.” She traced the triangle of hair matting his chest. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn�
�t expect to find someone like you.”

  “That’s all right, sweet. I didn’t expect to find someone like you, either.”

  “Then, you’re not mad?”

  “No. As you said, you acted very...logically. Besides, I’d already figured out this particular secret.”

  “I thought you might have. But I also thought we should bring it out into the open, just in case.” She moistened her lips. “I have one more confession.”

  “Heaven help us,” he muttered. “What now?”

  “I don’t think logic has much to do with what’s happened since,” she admitted. In fact, it had absolutely nothing to do with her feelings for Marco. “I was going to pick someone like me. A charts-and-graphs type who wouldn’t cause any problems.”

  Laughter rumbled against her cheek. “Sorry, carissima. Have I been troublesome?”

  “I’ll survive.” She felt compelled to drop several totally illogical kisses across his chest. “But I thought I should be honest with you. Even though I was going to be very analytical about choosing a husband, I’m afraid I was seduced by a sweet-talking Italian Zorro. You might not fit into the lines of my various graphs. But I’m not sorry I married you.”

  “I appreciate that. I’m not sorry I married you, either.” He tumbled her onto her back, kicking aside their covers, totally comfortable in his nudity—and hers, too, apparently. “Any other secrets you’d care to reveal?”

  Not a chance! “Not right now, thanks.”

  “But soon?”

  No! “Maybe,” she replied cautiously. “We’ll have to see how it goes.”

  “You’re making this more difficult than it needs to be. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied.

  He scooped up a handful of feathers and rose petals and scattered them across her body. “Have you heard the story of the swan princess?”

  The abrupt change of subject caught her off guard, as did the whirlwind of silky caresses. “It’s a children’s tale, isn’t it?”