by Ann Major
He had to find a way to make Maddie see they could be a family.
* * *
The fundraiser was under way in the ballroom of one of Austin’s fanciest hotels overlooking Town Lake. Shifting masses of elegantly dressed people danced, drank and chattered as Maddie seized the opportunity to slip outside while Cole was surrounded by board members.
Maddie wanted to stay furious at him forever for the high-handed way he’d treated her ever since he’d stormed into Austin. In one afternoon, he had rid her of Greg and made significant advances toward winning his son’s affections. Tonight, with her on his arm, he’d easily worked the crowd, seducing most of the shelter’s board members and important donors with smiles and witty remarks.
Maybe she hadn’t sold as many tickets this year, but Cole had dazzled everybody who mattered when he’d produced a second check that was more than enough to pay the shelter’s expenses for a year…and ensure her job.
Leaning against the railing, she stared at the shimmering reflections in the dark lake. He was outmaneuvering her by making himself useful. He’d helped straighten her house; he’d called her alarm company and arranged for them to rewire the window as soon as she had the glass replaced.
The music stopped. When Cole’s voice came from behind her, she shivered.
“There you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“It’s the first minute I’ve had to myself all day.”
The music in the ballroom started again.
“Dance with me,” he whispered against her ear.
When his arm slid around her waist, her heart began to beat to the seductive pulse of the music. Then he swept her around and around in a series of expertly executed turns. As they whirled, the brilliantly lit buildings of downtown Austin flashed by. Soon, she was breathless and feeling lightheartedly reckless.
He made her feel young and almost happy. She’d never gone to prom or done much dancing. She wanted the music to go on forever, to dance with him always.
Was he good at everything? Oh, why did it have to feel so treacherously wonderful to be in his arms?
“You look fabulous,” he murmured even as his hot eyes scorched her skin.
His gaze admired her body in her tight red dress before he snugged her closer. Then the hard feel of his muscular body rocked her senses.
“Don’t hold me so close,” she whispered as she fought a losing battle against physical arousal.
“I want you,” he murmured, ravaging the softness of her mouth. “Just as you want me. Why did you wear a dress that skims your body like a second skin if you didn’t want to tempt me?”
She flushed guiltily. When she’d selected the dress tonight, she’d known she should have chosen something less revealing, but yes, she’d wanted to entice him.
At some point, they stopped dancing. When he lowered his mouth to devour hers, she didn’t fight because she didn’t have the strength. She wanted him, more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. Within dizzying seconds, he had her weak and clinging breathlessly.
“We’re going home, baby,” he said.
“The fundraiser isn’t over. I’m still on duty.”
“I’ll make your excuses,” he said in that supremely confident male way that could so annoy her when she wasn’t melting with desire.
Five minutes later, he’d made their excuses and they had exited the ballroom. Arms linked, he rushed her to his truck, which he drove with one hand while his other closed over hers with a fierce urgency that had her blood tingling.
Only when they were standing beneath the glare of her porch light did she come back to her senses.
“Good night,” she said without unlocking her door. “And thank you—for the check.” When he didn’t kiss her good-night and go, she said, “I can’t ask you to come in. Greg’s here, and Noah…wouldn’t understand.”
“No way am I letting you and Noah stay here alone after that break-in. I can sleep on the couch.”
“No!”
Then Greg opened the front door, and Cole stepped past her into the living room.
“Noah’s awake,” Greg said. “He had a dream about some witches in his closet, so I’ve been reading to him.”
“I’ll take over from here,” Cole said.
“No,” she began, but she was talking to his back. He was already striding down the hall.
Too tired to fight him, she thanked Greg. After he left, she went to the closet and pulled out a set of sheets and towels and two pillows and tossed them onto the couch.
Determined not to surrender to Cole, at least not tonight, she went to Noah and kissed his brow, promising that her kisses were magic and would keep the witches away.
Feeling too flustered to look at Cole, she crossed the hall to her own room and closed herself inside.
* * *
“One more story! Please! Please!”
“Good night, Shining Star,” Cole said as he closed their third book. “Sleep tight.” He leaned down and kissed Noah gently on the top of his head.
“If I close my eyes, would you stay here and guard the closet?”
“There aren’t any witches in that closet. Remember how we just checked.”
“The green one’s not there all the time. Just sometimes,” Noah stated matter-of-factly. “She looks sort of like an ugly, mean frog. She has snaky hair and big orange eyes. She comes up through a little hole in the floor. Then she grows bigger and bigger, while I grow smaller and smaller. When she’s crazy huge, she sneaks out….” Noah broke off, but his enormous eyes remained fixed on his closet.
“It was just a dream. Try not to think about her, okay?”
Cole lay down beside his son and put his arm around him. Shining Star’s black lashes lowered heavily to his tanned cheeks. It was amazing how calm and peaceful he looked when he was sleepy.
“Do you think my mommy’s pretty?” Noah whispered drowsily.
“Yes,” Cole admitted. “I do.”
But Noah didn’t hear him because he had succumbed to sleep.
Intending to stay with Noah for only a few minutes, Cole loosened his tie and the top button of his shirt. But the bed was soft and Noah was warm and cuddly. Within seconds, he was asleep, too.
Fourteen
In her own room, Maddie unzipped her sparkly red dress and stepped out of it. Naked, she stood in the moonlight, a strange restlessness consuming her. Burning for Cole despite her better judgment, she willed him to come to her. Even as her heart thundered, the house remained silent. Finally, she grew tired of standing all by herself in the silvery light and lay down.
Cole was everything she shouldn’t want. He was part of the miserable past she wanted to forget. He was arrogant and determined to force her to agree to his terms. How could a marriage to such a man succeed once their physical attraction died?
Slowly, her eyelids fluttered and she drifted uneasily to sleep. At some point she began to dream.
She was a little girl again, riding horses, happy she could roam far from the trailer and her mother. The trees were emerald-green, the sky a vivid blue. But no matter how glorious her ride, eventually she had to go home, and when she did, the faceless monster was there, barring the door when she entered, grabbing her wrists when she tried to run. She knew that if she didn’t get away, he would do the same horrible things to her he’d done before, so she clawed and kicked, but as always he bore her to the ground, and she began to scream.
Her own ear-splitting cries dragged her unhappily to consciousness. When she opened her eyes, moonlight and shadow played tricks on her imagination, causing her to sense a presence in her house even before she heard heavy footsteps in the hall.
Vernon? Was he here?
A mind-numbing fear gripped her. Scrambling across her bed toward the window, she searched for the lock while screaming for all she was worth.
* * *
Cole leaped to his feet at Maddie’s first piercing scream and was sprinting down the dark hall bef
ore her second. When he opened her door, she threw herself behind her bed, where she crouched in the moonlight.
“Vernon?”
Cole’s heart shredded. “No! It’s just me—Cole.”
“Cole?” Her dull, glazed eyes stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“I was with Noah, asleep down the hall,” he said. “You’re safe. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“You don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s capable of!”
As Cole crossed the room and sank down beside her, he was afraid he did. A terrible understanding took hold even before he pulled her shaking body into his arms. Had that bastard raped her?
“There, there,” he murmured.
“Hold me!” she whispered, her intake of breath sharp as she clutched handfuls of his shirt to draw him closer.
“Hey, hey, everything’s okay.” But it wasn’t. Not if his worst fears were correct. He wasn’t blameless if what he feared had happened. Far from it.
“No…”
He brushed her hair out of her face. “You’ve had a bad dream. That’s all.” He continued to murmur to her soothingly even as he cradled her in his arms, stroking her face and neck while his own conscience attacked him.
Instead of being so hell-bent on protecting his own reputation, he should have protected her.
“Just hold me, please,” she breathed, sensing none of his inner conflict. She hung on to him with a desperation that made him ache for what she must have suffered at Vernon’s hands.
Why hadn’t he seen that he should have done more to protect her? Why hadn’t the town seen that she was young and vulnerable and living in a dangerous situation? Suddenly he hated Yella, hated every individual who lived there who’d played a part in this, himself most of all. They’d sat in judgment of her and thus had left her defenseless. She’d hardly been more than a child.
“When…I heard you, I thought Vernon was really here. My dream was so real…I could almost smell him.” She began to shudder uncontrollably.
Cole caressed the nape of her neck. “He’s in prison, right?”
“Huntsville,” she murmured thankfully.
“So, it’s okay. You’re safe. You’re with me. I swear I won’t let him or anybody else hurt you ever again.”
“You promise?”
“Promise.” And he meant it. With every fiber of his being, he meant it. If only she’d give him a second chance, he wouldn’t let her down again.
His brow grazed hers affectionately. Then he pressed his nose to her nose, but somehow when he did it, their lips clumsily touched. His blood flamed. And because he felt so guilty, he hated the lust that drove him. But when he tried to pull away, she clutched him even closer.
She was so damn sexy with her huge eyes, her voluptuous breasts crushed against his chest. He inhaled the mingled scents of her shampoo and perfume and grew even harder. She was so soft and feminine, so ripe. When he felt her nipples tighten against his chest, he caught his breath.
It would be easy to slide her nightgown up and strip off his slacks, easy to take her when she was so open to him like this. But he hated himself too much for what he’d let happen, for what he’d willingly ignored. He didn’t deserve her trust or her love. He had to process what had happened and deal with his guilt. Somehow he had to get it all straight in his mind.
But when he would have withdrawn his mouth from hers, she clung, kissing him desperately.
“Stay with me?” she begged in such a seductive tone that his whole body jerked with fresh need.
“Not tonight,” he said hoarsely.
“Please….”
“Not after your nightmare about Vernon.”
Not after he’d bullied her all day, not when she was scared and vulnerable. “You go back to sleep,” he murmured gently. “I’ll be right down the hall—if you need me.”
Even as his heart pounded, he forced himself to push her away and stand up.
“Cole?” Her quick, sharp breaths sounded truly panicked at the thought of being alone.
“I’ll be on the couch,” he rasped.
* * *
Unable to sleep without Cole holding her close, Maddie counted sheep. Then she counted her rushing heartbeats. When she still couldn’t sleep, she got up, paced awhile and then went to the bathroom where she filled a glass with water. Not that any of it helped still her clamoring senses. More restless than ever, she lay back down in the dark.
She remembered Cole’s flushed cheeks, the heavy glint of desire in his eyes. He’d wanted her, too; she was sure of it. But he’d been conflicted.
Curious, and feeling shamelessly needy, she arose and padded down the hall to her living room where she found him sprawled on the couch, his dark eyes wide and glued to the ceiling.
“Can’t sleep?” she teased.
“Out!” he growled huskily.
“Don’t make me beg.”
“Can’t a guy ever say no?”
Bending over him, she slid her hands under his shirt, feathering her fingertips through the crisp, dark curls that covered the broad expanse of his chest. At his quick gasp of excitement, she seized her advantage, tracing her hands blindly down the muscular length of him, kneading him until she worked her way to the huge bulge of denim between his muscular thighs.
“I thought so,” she murmured, closing her fingers over him and stroking purposefully. “I want you naked,” she growled into his ear.
He groaned savagely in protest. “Maddie!”
“I want you,” she whispered. “But not here.” She waited a beat. “My room.” She shot him a flirtatious wink and then bolted, flying down the hall, only to be terrified when he did not follow her immediately. She needn’t have worried. Two seconds later, they were naked on her bed with her door locked. He had her flat on her back underneath him while he kissed her lips with hot, urgent passion that tore her soul. In an equal frenzy, she kissed him back.
“We’ve got to slow it down,” he whispered.
“No! I need you! Everything you have to give me! Quick. Fast. Hard. I don’t want to wait. I need it. I want to erase all the ugliness.” She had to erase Vernon for good.
“Then we’re at cross-purposes.”
With softer kisses and featherlight touches, he slowed the pace and changed the mood. With each tender kiss that he placed on her mouth, on her throat, on each of her nipples and in the center of that damp nest of dark curls between her legs, he made love to her with a reverence she’d never imagined possible.
“Next time I’ll protect you,” he promised.
“I know.”
She wanted him to take her so she could feel his strength and possessive power in every cell of her being, to know that she was safe in his arms. But he lingered over her, loving her slowly, which caused her passion to build to a frenzy.
He placed his lips between her thighs and caressed her with his tongue until her whole body felt on fire.
“My turn,” she teased when he would have taken her, “to torture you with my lips and tongue.”
She took him into her mouth, sucking gently, teasing him at first and then adoring him. In the blaze of his building rapture, the last vestiges of her nightmare were consumed. There was only Cole and the exquisite, mind-numbing delight she found in his arms.
Suddenly there was a ferocity in them both as he tore free of her mouth and pulled her underneath him and slid inside her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes!”
He thrust and she arched, their bodies moving in perfect accord as the world tipped like a crazy top and spun faster. Then they tensed as passion washed over them.
After the explosion, she lay in his arms and wondered if two people like them, from such different worlds, had a chance together.
* * *
She awoke to a rosy dawn and noisy grackles, to Cole’s hard arms wrapping her with a fierce possessiveness. She felt new and different and yet unable to trust her emotions.
“You look like a little girl when you sl
eep—a little girl who’s every bit as innocent as Noah.”
“Not Yella’s wanton, wicked bad girl?”
“Don’t ever call yourself that again,” he muttered fiercely, pulling her closer. “You’re the mother of my child. You’re going to be my wife.”
“Oh, really? What’s got you so cocky this morning?”
“How quickly we forget,” he said.
“I don’t remember accepting any of your arrogant proposals.”
“Do you remember the great sex?”
“And that gave you all sorts of ideas about our relationship?”
“If the sex didn’t put you in the mood to accept my proposal, maybe I’ll have to give you a repeat performance.”
“That would be lovely, under different circumstances, but I’ve got work.”
“It’s early yet.”
“Noah’s going to wake up any minute. I don’t want to have to explain you.”
Instead of arguing, he got up and strode into the bathroom while she lay back and admired his muscular body. After he turned on the shower, he stuck his dark, sleep-tousled head out the door and shot her a grin. “Water’s warm. Feels good. I could use some company.”
“I really shouldn’t. I’m tender as all get-out.”
“And we took it so slowly…”
“But we did it so many times.”
“We did, didn’t we? No wonder I woke up in such a cocky mood. What if I promise to be gentle?”
When she joined him, she kissed him so fiercely he grabbed her hands and held them over her head. Pushing her back against the slick, wet tile he took her hard and fast as the steaming water blasted her. When it was over, she clung to him breathlessly, thinking herself a worse wanton than her mother.
The man didn’t love her. He probably never would. And still she wanted him.
Stepping out of the shower, he left her to ponder all the reasons he was wrong for her.
While she dressed, he scrambled eggs and made coffee for them in her kitchen.
“I’m impressed. I didn’t know you could cook,” she said when she entered the kitchen.
“It’s called survival. I can do eggs. I can do toast, bacon, burgers, steaks. I’m afraid that’s about it.”
