I Do, I Do...For Now (Harlequin Love and Laugher)

by JoAnn Ross

  13

  “OH, NO!” Sasha shrieked. And then let loose with a torrent of passionate Russian.

  “I suppose we could have used some cooling off,” he admitted, raining short, laughing kisses over her wet face. “But this is ridiculous.”

  She was laughing, as well, as she kissed him back. “No matter what Ben Houston said, I do not think I am your good luck charm, Mitch. In fact, I am beginning to worry that I bring you bad luck.”

  “Never.” He stopped laughing long enough to frame her face between his palms and hold her smiling gaze to his. “Although I was too dense to realize it at the time, Sasha Mikhailova Cudahy, I’m beginning to think the day we got married may just have been the luckiest day of my life.”

  Oblivious to the water streaming over them, soaking her carefully created hairstyle, melting the makeup she’d spent so much time on, ruining her new, ridiculously expensive dress, Sasha was suddenly frozen to the spot. Her wide eyes, still laced with lingering desire and laughter, swept over his handsome face, studying him intently.

  “I believe you mean that,” she said finally.

  “You believe right.” He traced her parted lips with his thumb, remembering their taste, and imagined what they would feel like skimming their way all over his naked body. “And although I’ve tried to play by the rules of our agreement, sometime between when I walked into the bedroom and saw you looking like every male’s midnight fantasy and when those damn sprinklers went off, I realized that I can’t do it.

  “I want to make mad, passionate love to my wife.”

  She flung her arms around his neck and clung to him. “Oh, yes!”

  LATER, WHEN SHE TRIED to recreate the evening, wanting to tuck every golden moment of it away in her mind the way a teenage girl might save an orchid prom corsage or a bride might preserve her lace-and-satin wedding dress, Sasha would realize that she had absolutely no memory of leaving the resort and driving back home to Mitch’s apartment.

  But somehow they must have managed it, because the next thing she knew, he was scooping her up into his arms, the same wonderful way he had in the casino, and was carrying her through the front door.

  “I only had one glass of wine with dinner,” she said, afraid he might think her uncharacteristically sexy behavior was due to too much alcohol. “I am not drunk. Like in Laughlin.”

  “I know.” He looked down into her soft, lovely face and saw not the ruined makeup she’d so painstakingly applied, but her tenderness, her love.

  My woman. The thought ricocheted through his mind as he kicked the door shut behind him, managing somehow to latch the chain lock. “But it’s an old American tradition for a groom to carry his bride across the threshold.”

  He kissed her, a long, deep, moist kiss that left her head spinning even more than it had after all the champagne in the casino.

  “I think I like this tradition,” she managed when the blissful kiss ended. “Very much.”

  “You and me both, darlin’.” Taking her mouth again, he carried her into the bedroom. They fell on the bed together, rolling over the mattress, arms and legs tangled, hands lighting flames on anxious bodies that had waited too long for fulfillment.

  “I have dreamed of this,” she managed, her mouth feasting on his as hungrily as he was eating into hers.

  Even as she confessed her erotic secret, Sasha knew that it wasn’t the same. Because as thrilling as those sensual dreams had been, they didn’t come close to this aching reality.

  Somehow, Mitch managed to yank the wet dress over her head without tearing it, then, with greedy hands ripped the brief strapless bra away as well. When he took her breast in his mouth, a surge of fire shot through Sasha like a flaming brand. The wooden bed frame groaned as she bucked upward, raking her hands in his hair, pressing him deeper into her burning, yielding flesh.

  She cried out in wonder when Mitch’s teeth captured a rigid tip, biting down in a way that sent the first wave crashing through her. Desperate to touch him as he was touching her, she tugged his shirt out of his slacks and began fumbling with the front of his pleated and starched shirtfront.

  “I can’t...” Her voice trembling, she swore in Russian when it looked as if the unfamiliar jet studs were going to defeat her.

  “Here.” The single word exploded on a torment of shared frustration. “Let me.” Heedless of the rental cost, Mitch tore the shirt open, sending studs flying across the room. Then he pulled her against him, crushing her breasts against his chest, their mouths feeding ravenously again as they rolled over the bed, kicking off shoes, ripping at clothes, demanding, offering, taking.

  Pillows tumbled to the carpet and went unnoticed. Mitch swore as they tangled in the bedspread, managed to rip it from beneath her and throw it in the direction of a nearby chair.

  Here was the fire he’d warned her about playing with earlier. The glorious conflagration she’d been longing to experience. His hard, taut body was like a furnace, the flames licking higher and higher, and he pressed her deeper and deeper into the mattress, making her glow from the inside out. His mouth burned into hers, sending tongues of flame flickering across her damp flesh, heating her degree by treacherous degree.

  My woman. The refrain repeated over and over again in his mind, like a bridge from a never sung yet strangely familiar song. Mitch had promised himself that he’d be gentle; had vowed to be tender. But as the waves of fire scorched through his mind and the billowing smoke blinded him, for the first time in his life he felt the need to conquer. To possess. To claim his bride for his own, for all time.

  The heat was unbearable. When he pressed his palm against that secret place between her legs where damp warmth flowed, she gathered up handfuls of crumpled sheet.

  “Oh, please,” she gasped as his mouth replaced his hand, sending white-hot flames licking through her blood. Another wave of ecstasy swept outward from that ultrasensitive core like wildfire, leaving her gasping and panting. And, unbelievably, wanting more.

  “I need you, Mitch.” If begging was what was necessary to end this torment, Sasha would beg. She would crawl. Or scream. Whatever it took. She couldn’t wait any longer.

  Calling out his name, she dragged his mouth back to her hot avid one and wrapped her legs around his hips in a viselike grip. “I need you,” she repeated raggedly. “Now.”

  Filled with a fierceness that frightened him, Mitch braced himself on his elbows and looked down at her, his blue eyes dark and savage. “Sweet heaven, I need you, too.” He moved his bips forward, pressing against her, rekindling hot glowing coals that he had no intention of allowing to cool. “And that scares the hell out of me.”

  Before she could answer, before she could tell him that the enormity of her love for him was frightening to her, as well, he plunged into her with a force just this side of violence. Her body shuddered as he broke through the virginal barrier, taking her innocence while bringing her a pleasure that overwhelmed any fleeting pain. Loving him as she’d never dreamed of loving any man, Sasha twined her arms around his neck and opened for him—lips, mind, body, heart.

  It was like being enveloped in molten satin. Hot and smooth and unbearably erotic. Mitch began to move, slowly at first, then faster, his strokes harder, deeper as he drove her, drove them both, into the inferno.

  She cried out his name on a gasp of pleasure an instant before his own ragged shout tore from his burning throat.

  My wife. With that last coherent thought, Mitch flooded into her.

  They lay together, arms and legs entwined, Mitch’s mouth buried into the fragrant flesh of her neck, enjoying the soothing afterglow of passion. As impossible as it seemed, every nerve ending in Sasha’s body was still tingling, making her feel more alive than she’d ever felt in her life.

  “I’m sorry.” His words vibrated against her damp skin.

  “Sorry?” The odd tone in his voice made her look up at him with curiosity. “What could you possibly be sorry about?”

  “You were a virgin.” He’d
known that, but his need for her had scorched the knowledge from his mind.

  “Yes. But surely you knew that.”

  “Of course I did. Which is why I should have taken you with more finesse.”

  Finesse. Such a pretty word. Such a polite, civilized word. For something that had been in no way even remotely civilized.

  “I think it was perfect. Just the way it was.” She took his hand in hers and pressed it against her still-pulsating body. “Feel what you have done.”

  Inner eruptions exploded against his palm. “I did that?”

  “I do not see anyone else in this bed.” She was bathed in a golden glow that made her smile. “That was the most special thing that has ever happened to me.”

  He combed his fingers idly through the dark curls between her thighs, loving the way her jet pupils were already expanding with renewed desire.

  “To me, too.” Although her body’s instinctively sensual response to his stroking touch was making him hard again, Mitch was afraid that to take her again, so soon, might cause her pain. So he managed, just barely, to restrain himself. For now.

  He ran his hand down her side, from her breasts to her thighs. “Did I mention that I love those stockings?”

  “Not in words.”

  She cuddled against him, thinking that as wondrous as his lovemaking had been, this settling down, talking period afterward was nearly as enjoyable.

  “But I could tell you found them appealing,” she said, feeling that delicious desire building all over again.

  “What was your first clue?” He toyed with the elastic band holding them up. “The fact that I looked as if I was on the verge of exploding when you pulled that seam-straight-ening stunt.”

  She giggled softly. “I suppose that was unfair. But I wanted you to think of me as a sexy woman.”

  “If that was your intention, sweetheart, it sure worked.” He slipped his fingers between the stocking and her warm flesh. “But it was also unnecessary, since I’d already decided that you were pretty damn sexy the first time I saw you in that bubblegum-pink uniform.”

  She laughed again, a soft shimmer of sound that slipped silkily into his blood. “That was such an ugly dress.”

  He wasn’t going to argue the point. It was, after all, true. “Which is why it’s so amazing you could look so good in it.” He smoothed the stocking back up her thigh with both hands, then sat back on his haunches, enjoying the contrast between her smooth ivory thighs and those long dark stockings.

  “How did you manage to wear these with that short skirt, anyway?”

  “Katie taught me a trick.” She was totally vulnerable, lying there, naked, her legs spread, open to his gaze. She would have expected to feel embarrassed, but as his fingers trailed seductive little circles on the sensitive flesh on the inside of her thighs, she experienced instead feminine pride that her husband would find her so appealing.

  “She said that if I bought the larger size...” His stroking touch was causing renewed desire to pool inside her. “If I bought the larger size they would go up higher on my leg... Mitch!” She began to tremble as he touched his lips against that still-tingling flesh. “How do you expect me to answer you if you keep distracting me?”

  “Sorry.” His rakish grin, as he looked up at her, said just the opposite. “Am I a distraction?”

  “You know you are.”

  “Serves you right.” When his teeth nipped at that ultra-sensitive nub, a ragged moan slipped from between her ravished lips. “After the way you tried to seduce me.”

  “I did not try.” She grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head again and gave him a blatantly female, unmistakably satisfied look. “I succeeded.”

  He laughed, as he was meant to. “Touché.” He rocked forward and brushed his mouth against hers. Sweetly. Tenderly. As if they had all the time in the world. “There’s an old American saying,” he murmured. “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

  “I do not think I know that one.”

  “It means—” his fingers slipped smoothly into her slick heat “—I think it’s only fair that this time I seduce you.”

  Her lips curved beneath his. “I am so happy that I married such a fair-minded man.”

  Twining her arms around his neck, Sasha invited her husband to take her back into the mists.

  Which he did. Again and again. All night long.

  WHILE MITCH MANAGED to catch some much needed sleep, Sasha crept quietly into the kitchen, determined make him a proper American breakfast. “What could be more American than waffles?” she asked herself as she took the box from the freezer.

  There was just one little problem. She’d ruined the toaster last week by filling it with foam. Never one to let small obstacles defeat her, she turned on the oven and put the frozen squares onto a cookie sheet.

  She’d just put the cookie sheet on the oven rack when the phone rang. Before she could answer it, she heard Mitch’s voice coming from the bedroom.

  “Yeah?” he grumbled, irritated by having been roused out of a dream where he was making love to Sasha beneath a waterfall.

  “Mitch? Did I wake you?”

  Mitch tensed at the familiar voice. “Actually, you did.” He glanced up at Sasha, who was standing in the bedroom doorway, clad in a froth of silk and ivory lace, looking downright delectable.

  “This isn’t a real good time.” When she entered the bedroom, a beam of sunlight rendered the sheer gown nearly invisible. Mitch sucked in a sharp breath. “How about I call you back later?”

  “Actually, I wanted to talk with Sasha, anyway.”

  “What about?” Mitch asked suspiciously.

  Meredith laughed at that, a low, sultry laugh that didn’t affect him nearly as much as Sasha’s light, musical one. “Don’t worry, darling, I’m not going to share female war stories with your bride. I just want to talk to her about our interview.”

  “Interview? What interview?”

  “Oh, dear. I take it you don’t know.” She paused. “Well, if your wife hasn’t discussed it with you, I’m certainly not going to say a thing. Could you just put her on the phone?”

  He held the receiver toward Sasha. “It’s Meredith Roberts. Something about an interview.”

  “Oh, yes!” She took the phone and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Hello, Meredith. Your station is running it?”

  “Monday and Tuesday nights. In segments at six and ten o’clock.”

  “That is very good news! I appreciate this very much, Meredith.”

  “I told you, it’s a good story. The kind of touchy feely thing people want. Thanks for giving me the exclusive.” Her message delivered, the reporter hung up.

  “I didn’t know you’d given Meredith an interview,” Mitch said.

  “I was going to tell you—” Sasha handed him back the receiver “—but I didn’t know if the station would run the story, so I waited. Besides, you were at work so much last week, and I was at the school, and then I made the decision to tell you after the banquet, but—”

  “Afterward, I was distracted.”

  “Yes.” Sasha watched the desire rise in his eyes and felt a similar heat begin to glow inside her. “Meredith says there’s a chance the networks might pick up my story.”

  “That could be a help.” He ran his hand down her tousled hair, over her bare shoulders. “Maybe someone will see it who knows your father.”

  “That’s what Meredith said,” she agreed breathlessly as his caressing touch made her feel as if she was going to melt.

  It was amazing. Mitch had thought his obsession for this woman was born of sexual frustration. But he’d taken care of that little problem last night. And each time they’d made love, he’d been left wanting more. As he still did this morning.

  “I missed you,” he said, pulling her against him.

  “You were sleeping.”

  “Ah, but I knew you weren’t beside me. Where you belonged.”

  He touched his mouth to her silky s
kin. “I take it this is one of your shower presents?”

  “Yes. Do you like it?”

  “Sweetheart, like doesn’t even begin to come close.” He untied the satin ribbon lacing the front of the gown together. “It’s just too bad I’m going to have to take it off you.”

  As he nuzzled his face between her silky breasts, Sasha combed her hands though his thick hair and fell back against the pillows as that delicious, enervating heat began to spread through her bloodstream.

  “You’re making my head spin,” she complained on a long, shuddering sigh.

  “Good.” He cut a wet swath up her throat to her mouth with his tongue. “Let’s see if we can make the rest of you spin.”

  Of course, he could. And, in turn, Sasha did the same to him. Bathed in the benevolent golden glow of a desert morning, they spent a long leisurely time pleasuring each other, pledging vows with words and bodies and hearts. And it was glorious.

  He could spend the rest of his life right here, Mitch decided much, much later as he lay steeped in this woman who’d come to mean so much to him in so short a time. She was lying in his arms, her head nestled against his shoulder. From her slow, soft breathing, he realized she’d fallen asleep.

  He could use some more sleep, as well. But his mind wouldn’t rest. It was too filled with Sasha—her scent, her feel, her taste.

  Mitch had never been much for introspection. He’d always lived for the moment, which for the first twenty-seven years of his life, had suited him just fine. But now he realized that falling in love was even more dangerous—and more exhilarating—than running into a burning building.

  He pressed his lips against her hair. When she smiled, and stirred and wrapped her arms tighter around him, he felt a sense of rightness he’d never felt before. Closing his eyes, he drifted back to sleep.

  MITCH WAS AWAKENED by a siren’s blare echoing through the room. He was out of the bed like a shot, reaching automatically for the clothes he always kept within arm’s reach, and cursed when they weren’t there.