by Cherry Adair
His hands itched to reach out and touch her, instead he shoved them into his pockets as he remembered the sweet weight of her plump breasts in his hands.
He hadn’t been able to erase the memory of her taste on his tongue or the scent of her from his mind.
He felt Tory’s eyes on his back as he moved restlessly about the room, picking up a small china dog and putting it down again. His throat felt thick as he struggled—for the first time in his life—to put what he felt into words. Words that she would understand. Words that she would believe.
Tory watched him circle the small room like a caged panther. His limp was slight, but if she closed her eyes for a moment she could still see what that gunshot wound had looked like. She bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying out.
His black wool overcoat was open, showing the long length of his legs, and she dragged her eyes away from the tight jeans.
Marc picked up a silver frame. “Your grandmother?”
Tory nodded. What was he doing here? She itched to touch the silky darkness of his hair where it lay against his collar. He had on a subtle, very masculine cologne; it teased her senses and made her long to bury her face against his neck.
She desperately wanted him to hold her.
Flicking on the lamp beside her, she sat on the overstuffed sofa, pulling a needlepoint pillow into her lap to keep her hands busy.
The soft lamplight cast half his face in shadow, hiding the pewter of his eyes and delineating the rigid line of his mouth—the mouth that had brought her so much pleasure. He looked so good, his tall body softened by the open coat. But she remembered with aching clarity the feel of his hot, naked skin against hers.
The way his hands were stuffed into his front pockets pulled his jeans tight, and she had to swallow hard as she dragged her gaze upward to rest on his face.
His tanned skin in the middle of winter meant he’d been somewhere sunny. “You went back to Marezzo, didn’t you?” She couldn’t keep the accusatory note from creeping into her voice, her eyes skimming the small white scar on his forehead where he’d been branded by the bullet. She felt sick to her stomach.
“The job had to be finished.” He circled the room again before coming to sit beside her.
She wanted to run her palms over his body to check for any more damage. She pressed her hands between her body and the cushions on the sofa. It wasn’t any of her business if he wanted to get shot. She dropped her eyes to her lap.
She started when she felt his finger under her chin. Her eyes wide, she drank in one last look at his beloved face. There were lines of strain beside his mouth, lines of exhaustion and a look of…longing? Which she didn’t try to decipher. She closed her eyes.
“Will you look at me, Tory?”
She opened her eyes reluctantly, and he filled her whole vision. More powerful than any memory. It hurt, Lord, how it hurt. She bit her lip. She didn’t want this last look to be blurred by tears.
“God, I missed you.” His tone was husky as he cupped her face. She couldn’t help the way her neck seemed to lose all strength as she leaned her head against his strong hand. His thumb stroked her cheek.
“I missed your snippy humor.” His fingers slid to the lace collar at her throat. “I missed your sweet smile after we made love….” His hands opened the top two buttons of the silk blouse. Tory used a shaky hand to hold his marauding hands still against her pounding pulse.
“I missed the way this stubborn little chin tilts up…just so.” His eyes were dead serious. “I missed that hidden fire that blazes out of control just for me.”
“Don’t,” she said shakily, her heart throbbing. She knew that hot look. She’d dreamed of that look. But he wasn’t for her. “Don’t touch me. Please.”
He didn’t listen. He opened two more buttons until he got what he wanted. A vee of bare, silky skin. Parting the fabric, he reverently touched the gentle swell of her breasts above her very utilitarian white cotton bra. Tory shivered.
“You love me,” he said with utter conviction, his eyes on her face. Blood drained from her head, leaving her weak and shaken. It was pointless trying to deny it.
“It doesn’t matter.” She pulled the throw pillow up against her chest, trapping his hand against her skin. “I’ll get over it.”
“I won’t.”
Her head shot up as she looked at him in disbelief. Surely he hadn’t implied…?
“I love you, Victoria Jones.”
“Since when?” She pushed his hands away and tried to do up buttons but they slipped between her nerveless fingers.
“Since I saw a sleepy woman spitting fire at me in my library that first day. Since I tasted these sweet lips, since I touched you, since…forever.”
“That’s sex, not love.”
“That’s what I thought at first, too. Marry me, princess. Marry me, and I’ll show you how much I love you, in so many ways. You’ll forget everything else.”
“I can’t. I’ll never be able to forget what you do for a living.” Tory said no even as she gave in to the temptation. She touched him back, drawing her fingers across the rough skin of his jaw to gently touch the scar on his forehead. “Every time you went away, I’d know…I can’t live with that….” He took her hand, pressing a hard kiss into her palm. She curled her fingers inside his.
Her chest rose and fell. “I’d be terrified, especially knowing what really happens in your job when you go on an assignment. I wouldn’t ask you to change for me. And I don’t think I can change enough for you.”
She shuddered as he touched her fingers with his warm tongue. “I’m used to being safe, I like things predictable.” She tried to pull her hand away from the erotic feel of his mouth. “I don’t like to take chances, Marc. It frightens me.” Her eyes filled as she looked at her lap. “I’m sorry, but I’m too old to change now.”
Marc laughed softly. “You’re definitely not a coward. You are the bravest woman I know.”
“No, I’m not.”
“How many women do you know who would save a man’s life without a second thought?” He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “How many women do you know who would go through what you went through and not come back a basket case?”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Because I know you, Victoria Jones. I know that you have the inner strength and the emotional fortitude to do what you have to do. You didn’t fall apart.” He dropped a tender kiss on her forehead. “And God only knows, you had every reason to come unglued on several occasions.”
His lips moved to her temple, to touch the throb of her pulse.
“Life isn’t as simple as debits and credits. There’s no neat predictability, where all the columns are totaled and neatly balanced, like your ledgers. If life was as rigid as your accounting books, we would be bored to tears.”
“Bored, but safe,” she said as his lips skimmed her eyebrow. “I’d know where you were and when you’d be home.”
Marc took her face between his hands. “I could get run over by a truck, sweetheart. Nothing is ever totally safe.”
“But the law of averages is that much higher when you’re being shot at.” Her voice shook and she cupped his strong hands against her cheeks, holding them there tightly. “I’ve always hated what Alex did, and that was just a nebulous fear. Now I know and it’s so much worse.”
She felt his breath fan her face as he leaned down to silence her very effectively with his mouth. He tasted of mint and Marc—a flavor that she’d been yearning for for weeks. He drew her shoulders closer, deepening the kiss.
When he eventually broke away, he whispered against her skin, “We’ll work this all out. I promise.”
She’d seen him furiously angry, blindingly focused, playful, and tender, but she’d never seen such seriousness in all the time that she’d known him. There was even a small spark of…what? Fear? But that was impossible.
Marc had never been afraid of anything in his life. Had he?
“I had better tell you the whole story,” he said. “After Krista…after Krista, I made myself believe that I was happier, safer alone.”
“Oh, yes. Let’s not forget the perfect Krista. Would you have—”
Marc gently placed a hand over her mouth. “Shh. Let me put Krista to rest once and for all. Tory, when I told you that Krista had died, I omitted telling you one of the most salient points. I was sleeping when an assassin broke into our room. I thought that Krista was beside me and I shot to kill. But the hit ‘man’ was Krista. I was the one who shot her.”
“Oh, God. Marc…”
“When I turned on the light and saw her, I convinced myself that it had been a mistake. I frantically rushed her to the hospital. She was pregnant, Tory. I—”
“Don’t do this to yourself. None of it matters now—”
“I went straight from Mexico to the ranch. And stayed there for two years. Alex was the one who told me that Krista had been the would-be assassin. He had proof.” Marc pulled the leather tie out of his hair, scraping it back from his forehead with both hands. “Do you understand, Tory? I hid on my ranch for two years like some guilt-ridden fool, thinking that I had killed that innocent woman. That I had killed my child. For two goddamned years I’d allowed myself to wallow in guilt. I’d enjoyed my misery. And then your brother came and blew my life to hell with the truth.”
Tory took his hands in hers. She was filled with pain. His pain.
“When I heard that Lynx had been killed, I really lost it. For the next six months I was worthless. I refused to go back into the field. I should have been with Lynx. I’d trained him, and he’d come to me for help. I refused him. The guilt and remorse I felt at his death incapacitated me. I fell apart. No man should collapse like a damned cream puff, but that’s what I did.
“And then you came into my life and I wondered just what the hell I thought I could offer a woman like you. A burned-out mercenary? After I got back from Marezzo the second time and went to my ranch, I was missing you like hell and I finally realized that the solitude I had built around myself was nothing more than a jail. I might not deserve you, Tory, but I sure as hell need you. Tell me you missed me half as much as I missed you.”
Missed him. Yearned for him, ached for him. Her voice was whisper soft. “Yes.” She looked into his eyes. “Yes, I did. I’m so sorry that you were betrayed by someone you loved. I love you more than life. I would never betray you. But I have to be honest. Your job scares me. I know what it’s like when you have to dodge bullets.” She touched the scar on his forehead. “What if this had been two inches lower?”
“It wasn’t.”
“But it could have been.”
“I retired,” he said roughly. “I’m just a rancher that loves you. Come back to Brandon with me, Tory. I promise you a life filled with love and sunshine.”
“I don’t want to have you remind me for the rest of my life that it’s because of me that you no longer do—”
“I’m not just doing this for you. After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve had enough. I need to move into the light with you. I can’t live without you, sweetheart. Please, say yes.”
He didn’t give her a chance to answer. His mouth dropped to hers in a kiss so tender and poignant that it brought tears to her eyes. The familiar taste of him made her ache.
A shudder went through him as he pulled her closer, plucking the pins from her hair. His mouth moved in a slow dance across her face as he combed his fingers through her hair until it lay silky and loose down her back.
“Retired? Really?” she asked dreamily, feeling the delicious sensation as he lifted her hair at her nape.
“Really,” he assured her. “I’d be thinking of you and then I’d get hard and I’d think to myself, ‘Forget her.’ But I never could.” He smoothed the long hair over her shoulder, his eyes almost charcoal as they held the emerald of hers.
“I’m here to take you back with me. I can’t live without you, Tory. Not for another day. I want you, need you to share all my tomorrows.”
Tory stretched up to wrap her arms around his neck, his hair deliciously cool between her fingers. He deftly dispensed with the buttons on her blouse, tugging it out of the waistband, the hand behind her neck drawing her forward. He managed to part both blouse and jacket buttons, and then his fingers were at the front clasp of her bra, and she felt the cool air on her naked breasts.
Logic deserted her, falling away as his hand skimmed her breasts, weighing, teasing until she pressed closer.
His mouth against her throat was mobile, the hot, hard, questing pressure of his teeth making her shiver deliciously. He drew the fabric aside as he moved to take one aching peak into the cavern of his mouth.
He pressed her back against the soft pillows, his hard chest pinning her in place. His fingers slid beneath the heavy fabric of her skirt, up the length of her leg, smoothing along her thigh until he came to the moist heat of her through her panty hose.
His groan was muffled by the pressure of her mouth. He traced her lips and teeth with his tongue, as his hand slipped beneath the silky fabric to the smooth skin at her waist. Tory felt the withdrawal of her hose only dimly. Aching to be closer, she ripped at the buttons of his shirt.
Her hands were clumsy as she struggled to slide both his shirt and coat out of her way. It was impossible with their upper bodies melded together. Leaning her face against his chest, she felt his muffled, frustrated laughter.
With a low sound from the back of her throat, she lifted her face, starving for the taste of his lips again. It had been so long since she’d felt the fire of his touch. She couldn’t get enough. As he loved her with his mouth, his palm covered her engorged nipple, rubbing and teasing until she shifted restlessly on the cushions. She looked up at him.
“Marc…”
“Tell me what you want, my love.”
She saw the smoky pewter of his gaze, felt the strength in his arms as they wrapped around her. There was no doubting his love. She dropped her head to his naked chest. He smelled musky and sexy. “Anything. Everything. You,” she whispered, her arms sliding up around his neck and holding him against her pounding heart.
He lifted his head, his hand cupping her stubborn little chin. “I love you more than life itself, princess. Come back with me. We’ll raise cattle and babies….”
He buried his face in the fragrance of her hair, more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. Waiting for her answer was a thousand times worse than getting shot.
“You’re mine,” he said fiercely. “Tell me what you want from me, and if it’s within my power I’ll make sure you have it.” His voice shook and he felt her arms come up to encircle his shoulders.
“You,” she whispered brokenly against his forehead. “Just you. Safe and whole and…loving me. That’s all I want.”
“I’ll give you all that and more.” His mouth sealed hers with the vow. “We’ll have the wedding at the ranch….”
He picked her up and carried her toward the bedroom. Tory kissed the corner of his mouth. “Yes…”
“I have a chauffeured limo waiting downstairs and the plane is fueled and ready….”
Her lips moved to his throat. “Fine.”
Marc closed his eyes, his hands stroking down her back. He said with a mock sigh, “I guess the driver can wait.”
Tory looked up into warm gray eyes. “The driver can come back tomorrow.”
“Maybe the day after.”
“Tomorrow,” she said firmly, pulling him down onto the bed with her. “I’ll be temporarily done with you by then. You’ll need time to recuperate for the wedding.”
He didn’t…but she did her best.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1217-0
THE MERCENARY
This is the revised text of the work that was first published by Harlequin Enterprises Limited in 1994.
Copyright © 1994 by Cherry Wilkinson
Revised text copyright © 2008 by Cherry Wilkinson
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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