Seven Reasons Why

by Neesa Hart

  “August?” It was Chip.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked him. Zack’s tongue traced a wet path along the line of her collarbone.

  “Lucas won’t give me back my bear.”

  August’s eyes drifted shut. “Tell him I said to.”

  “Are you coming home?”

  “Not tonight” Her back arched when Zack gently bit her shoulder.

  “But why?”

  “Because—” Zack’s fingers began prying the receiver from her hand. “Because I’m spending the night at Zack’s.”

  “Can we come over?”

  She would have laughed, except that Zack’s hand had closed over her breast. He wrested the phone from her. “Go to bed,” he said into the receiver.

  “But I want my bear.” August heard Chip’s whine. She gave Zack a skeptical look.

  “Then tell Rafe to get it for you. He’s good at that.” He hung up before Chip could ask another question.

  With a playful smile, he pushed her jacket from her shoulders. Trapped as she was against the bed, the jacket held her arms tightly against her sides. “Think we’ll get through the night without another crisis?”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it. I thought you said your brothers could handle it.” His eyes, she noted with a little shiver of pure anticipation, were studying her with definite calculation.

  “They can,” he muttered, as he bent his head to rub his lips on one of her eyebrows. “They’re just a little out of practice.”

  As if on cue, the phone rang again. August gave him a disgruntled look as she wiggled her arm free. “Promises, promises.” She picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

  “August?” This time, it was Bo.

  “Yes, Bo?”

  Zack gave her a wicked smile as he levered off the bed. “Be right back,” he muttered.

  She watched him retreat from the bedroom as she told Bo there was nothing she could do about the fact that his cartoon sheets weren’t clean. Tonight, he’d have to sleep on white ones.

  Zack wandered down the hall, snapping off lights with a strange sense of contentment. His body felt deliciously heavy and warm as he contemplated the night ahead. Despite his misgivings that he’d manipulated August, he felt better than he had in years. Even the ever-present pain in his leg seemed to have subsided.

  He paused en route to the kitchen to check the fax machine he’d brought with him from New York. Quickly, he scanned the fax Margie had sent him that afternoon. The contents confirmed his suspicions. A stab of guilt told him he should discuss it with August tonight, but he pushed aside the notion. He wouldn’t muddy the waters tonight with unnecessary explanations. Once she was securely bound to him, then they would talk, but now, he needed her the way he needed oxygen.

  It wasn’t as if he’d failed to give her ample opportunity to leave, his conscience argued. No, she’d come to him, willingly. She’d agreed to be his wife. The idea left him feeling a strange sense of undeniable security. His wife. He contemplated the words as he moved through the house. For the first time in months, years, maybe, the yearning in his soul seemed to have eased. The cloying feeling of panic that had threatened to overwhelm him since the day he saw Joey Palfitano nearly let his own child be killed had abated. In its place was a bone deep satisfaction. August Trent needed him, enough to become his wife.

  Instinctively, he sensed that the physical commitment they’d share tonight would hold deep meaning for her. She wouldn’t give it lightly. Tonight he’d ensure that she was fully and completely his. Then nothing else would seem as threatening.

  Zack proceeded to the kitchen, where he fetched a glass of ice water, checked the locks, then switched out the porch lights. He heard the phone ring twice more as he completed his rounds. With a quiet sense of elation, he climbed the stairs as he listened to the rich sound of her voice instructing Lucas to give Chip his bear.

  He found her seated on the side of the bed, looking flustered. “Problems?” he asked as he set the glass of ice water down on the bed stand.

  “They’re wild,” she told him. “They’re going to give your brothers fits.” The troubled look in her eyes was echoed in her frown. “I think I’m going to have to go over there.”

  Zack shook his head. With a firm hand at her shoulder, he pressed her back against the pillows. “No way.”

  “Zack, they’re going nuts. What are we—”

  He cut off the question with a hard kiss. When the phone rang again, she pushed at his chest. “Told you.”

  His fingers snatched the receiver from her. “What?” he snapped at the caller.

  Miguel’s rich baritone laugh echoed on the phone line. “Problems, amigo?”

  Zack smoothed the crease from August’s forehead, with his thumb. “Interruptions,” he told his brother. “The only problem I’ve got is that my three brothers can’t control four little boys.”

  “We can control “em. We just thought maybe you needed a little help.”

  “I’m unplugging the phone,” Zack said.

  “What if we have an emergency?”

  “Yell out the window.” He gave the phone cord a hard jerk, and it snapped from the wall outlet. “There. Free at last.”

  “Don’t you think—” August started to say.

  Zack covered her mouth with his hand. “No. They’re going to be fine. Nothing is going to ruin this night.” Briefly, he thought of the fax in his back pocket, and then he muttered, “Nothing,” as he lowered his head to kiss her again.

  August allowed herself to slip back into the sensual haze he so swiftly created. Zack’s big body moved over hers with an unexpected grace. Every touch left her skin tingling, wanting more. He stripped off her suit jacket, and the feel of her silk bodysuit suddenly seemed too confining against her breasts. “Zack,” she whispered. “Please touch me.

  With a low growl, he lowered his head to her breasts. The feel of his mouth through the silky fabric had her clinging to his wide shoulders. He laved at her nipples until they ached. With long, bronzed fingers, he rolled one stiff peak to a diamond-hard tip, while his mouth and tongue played with the other. When she felt close to bursting, he switched his attentions. On and on the playful caress went, until her body yearned for a stronger pressure. “Zack…” she pleaded.

  “Tell me what you want, querida?” he whispered against her flesh.

  “Suck them,” she said. The words shocked her. Never had she felt so bold. In her limited experience with men, she’d never felt this driving, urgent need. But Zack brought out a side of her that August didn’t even know existed. Her bodysuit clung to her breasts like a glove of wet silk. Her too-narrow skirt kept her thighs pressed together, heightening the pressure that was building there. Through the silk of her panty hose, she could feel the dampness. Zack made her feel at once feminine and powerful. His pirate’s eyes gleamed in the soft light as he met her gaze.

  “Ah, August,” he said. “Have you got any idea what you do to me?”

  She guided his head to her breast. Seconds before his lips closed on her, he murmured, “Close your eyes, sweetheart. Just feel this.”

  Her eyes drifted shut on a sigh as he took her nipple in his mouth. The gentle pressure wrung a moan from her throat. Zack’s husky growl tripped across her nerve endings. “The siren’s song,” he said. His lips skated across the rounded curve of her breast, nipped the valley between, then found her other nipple. “I think I’m addicted to that sound.”

  August clung to his dark hair. She’d never felt this engulfing, driving passion. There was something erotic and forbidden about lying on his bed, eyes closed, still partially dressed, while Zack visited this incredible pleasure on her heated flesh.

  “It’s grown warm in here,” he said.

  She wouldn’t be surprised if the windows were fogged. All she could manage was a slight nod. Vaguely, she heard the rattling of a glass beside the bed. Her fevered mind tuned out the sound. Zack’s hand had found the button of her waistband. With an expert twitch of his finge
rs, he released it, then slid down the short zipper. She arched her hips so that he could slide the skirt free.

  When a startling cold touched the tip of her breast, her eyes flew open. “What—what are you doing?”

  He was rolling an ice cube between his thumb and index finger. “You looked hot.”

  August gasped when he touched the ice cube to her throat. “Oh, Zack.”

  “Is that—” he sucked away the ice cold residue “—a yes?”

  “Yes,” she muttered, raking her hands down his back. “Yes.”

  Zack looked at her flushed face, the rapid rise and fall of her full breasts, and almost exploded. There had never been a woman, he was sure, not in the history of the universe, as absolutely desirable as August Trent. Had she lived in another age, she’d have had empires at her feet. Dressed in an emerald green silk teddy and white stockings, she lay stretched on his bed in a display of feminine luxury that had him hurting. His trousers had grown unbearably tight. His flesh felt sensitized. His mouth went dry. “Tell me what you like” he said, wanting to hear the exquisite sound of her voice, that voice that ripped away his long-practiced civility and made him feel so wild. “Tell me exactly what pleases you.”

  “You do,” she said, pressing a kiss to his naked chest. “Everything about you pleases me.”

  With a low chuckle, Zack ran his hand along the length of her body. “The feeling is mutual, querida.” He held the ice cube over her stomach. “Now let’s see what we can do about this heat problem.”

  With slow, precise strokes, he pressed the ice cube against her teddy. He moved it over her breasts, groaning when he saw them quiver. A tempting ridge of goose bumps dotted the upper curves. He licked at them while he moved the ice cube down the flat of her stomach.

  August’s hands moved beneath the waistband of his pants the same instant her stomach retracted at the touch of the ice. “Zack, I’m on fire,” she told him.

  “Is it cold?” he asked.

  “Ah…” Her breath came out in a gasp when he pressed the cube to the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs.

  “Cold here?” He slid the cube lower.

  “Or here?” The ice brushed the sensitive skin of her thighs. He flicked open the snaps that held her teddy in place so that he could peel away the damp silk. When he rubbed the ice cube against her most sensitive spot through the thin barrier of her panty hose, August’s hips jerked against his hand. “Easy,” he said. He used his other hand to strip away the silk stockings. “Easy, querida. Not yet”

  “Zack, I can’t stand—”

  He silenced her by pressing his lips to the flat of her stomach. Her flesh was cool and damp where the ice cube had traveled. Soft as a butterfly’s wing, her skin trembled beneath his lips and hands. In a smooth stroke, he stripped away the silk stockings. With one hand, he bunched her teddy under her breasts. August’s hands had begun clawing at his back. When his tongue stabbed into her navel, her nails scored his flesh.

  Zack slid one hand beneath her buttocks. “Hold still,” he told her. “Open up for me.” When he pressed his hands to her thighs, they drifted apart. Zack kissed each thigh, then the wet center of her body.

  From his vantage point between her legs, he watched, entranced, as the peach flush stole up her flesh, flooded into her face. Her eyes were closed in pleasure, her lips slightly parted, her body laid bare before him. Never in his life had he felt this need to own, to possess, a woman. Gently, he parted her most intimate place with his large fingers. August moaned when she felt the pressure. Using one long finger, Zack eased what was left of the ice cube, now a tiny frozen ball, into her sleek passage.

  With the earthy cry of a seductress, she climaxed around his hand. His head jerked up to watch. With her head thrown back against the pillows, her hands clenching his shoulders, her full breasts trembling, her body convulsing around him, she was the most beautifully feminine thing he’d ever seen. His body was, at once, aching and rockhard.

  Her eyes drifted open on a gasp of surprise. “Zack,” she said. “I want…” Her voice trailed off when an aftershock rippled through her.

  He gave her a quick kiss. “I know.” With a quick tug, he pulled the sodden bodysuit over her head. It dropped to the carpet with a soft plop. Swiftly he rolled to his feet. His hands shook as he stripped away. his trousers and briefs.

  At the first sight of his bare legs, August rose to her knees with a soft cry of alarm. Her hands pressed gently on the ragged scar that striped his left thigh. It snaked through the dark hair in a menacing path of pink flesh. “Oh, Zack. Your leg.”

  His eyes fluttered open. “It’s not my leg that needs your attention, August. I hurt other places.”

  She met his gaze, found herself hypnotized by the desire in it. When she reached for him, he groaned as her hands closed around him.

  The sound enflamed her. She suddenly couldn’t touch him enough, feel him enough. His taste and scent surrounded her. Inside, her body still quaked around the rapidly disappearing ice cube. It created an urgency in her that yearned for him. Her hands encircled his length; whisper-soft skin covered steel. His voice was low and guttural as he murmured endearments. Spanish, English, they mingled on his lips.

  When he jerked open the drawer in the nightstand, August reached inside for one of the foil packets.

  “Querida, I can’t stand much more of this.”

  “Me either.” With shaking hands, she rolled the condom onto him.

  Zack toppled onto the bed with her, pulling her over him. August’s thighs straddled his hips. The strong muscles in his legs tightened beneath her legs. Her fingers threaded through the crisp hair on his chest, found his flat nipples. With a sigh of utter surrender, she sank onto him.

  “Querida,” he groaned. “Hold tight.” His hands clenched at her hips, guiding her up and down in a piercing rhythm. When his teeth closed on her nipple, she cried out as he brought her to the edge. Her name, loud and gruff, ripped from his chest as he pressed into her with a final, mind-stealing stroke.

  Chapter Twelve

  Long minutes later, as Zack felt his breathing begin to return to normal, he swept a hand up the naked expanse of August’s back. She lay sprawled on top of him, her silky red hair tickling his chin, her smooth flesh still pressed intimately to his.

  His wife.

  The knowledge brought sure, deep satisfaction. Just as he’d expected, she was a deeply passionate woman. And she was his. August needed him.

  “Zack?”

  He wasn’t sure he had the energy to respond. “Hmm?”

  Her fingers trailed a featherlight path up his arm. “I didn’t know it could be like that”

  Primitive satisfaction pounded through his blood. “Me either.”

  She crossed both hands on his chest, then pillowed her head on their cradle. Passion still clouded her stormy green eyes. Her hair lay in a riot of tempting curls around her flushed face. “Don’t tease me,” she said. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  August shook her head. “You don’t have to say that. I’m sure there have been women who—”

  With a heavy sigh, he cupped her face in his hands. “Querida, you say the damnedest things, you know that?” His fingers traced the line of her jaw. “The last thing in the world I want to think about is other women. I’ve got all the woman I want right here.”

  She gave him a tentative smile. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that you have some level of comparison, and I don’t.”

  It took him a long moment to absorb the incredible. “August, are you saying what I think you are?”

  “You’re the first,” she admitted. “You’ll be happy to know you made it worth the wait.”

  Tenderness, and something else, something slightly barbaric, swept through him. He pulled her more fully across his chest. “I wish I’d known,” he said.

  “Do you mind?”

  Didn’t she know, he wondered, what the soft admission had done to him, for him? “No, quer
ida. I don’t mind.” He rubbed his dark hands on the curves of her shoulder blades. “In fact, I’d have to say I’m a lot more pleased than any modern male has a right to be.”

  “Oh.” Her gaze dropped to his throat. “I’m glad you weren’t disappointed.”

  He muttered a soft expletive. “You must have known I wasn’t disappointed. Any better, and I’d have probably had a heart attack.”

  August was quiet for long moments. He wished he knew what she was thinking. He had grown accustomed to her ready sense of humor, her quick wit. “August, I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  She raised her head too look at him. “No. Of course not.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “You’re so quiet.” The more serious side of her seemed more volatile to him, more unpredictable.

  “I was just wondering why you left New York.” she admitted.

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I told you. After the accident, I needed the recovery time, and Jansen wanted someone to look into the situation here in Keegan’s Bend.”

  “Hmm.” She turned her head to look at him again. “That’s not what I meant. You could have gone to your family. You could have just taken time off from your practice. But you didn’t. You came to this little remote place on the whim of a client. Why did you do that?”

  “Jansen paid me five figures. It wasn’t exactly a whim.”

  “Don’t you have any idea why it was so important to him that you come here?”

  Unbidden, the memory of the fax he’d received from Margie intruded on his lazy contentment. He tried to justify to his conscience the thought that Jansen had paid for the information, had the right to see it before August. Technically, Zack could face sanctions if he even discussed it with her before giving it to his client. But his conscience wasn’t listening. Guilt, as subtle as a locomotive, was threatening to rip a canyon-size hole in him. Ruthlessly, he thrust it aside. Now was not the time. “I have some ideas,” he told her, hedging. “Nothing concrete.”