by Lucy Monroe
She couldn't walk right now if her life had depended on it, so he'd already achieved his goal without even touching her. Her legs had turned to jelly at the fury in his voice, the frustration emanating off him in waves and the sensual threat in his voice.
"I'm not a prostitute, and I don't see you as a sex client." Whatever that was.
His teeth ground together. "Then what's all this crap about learning how to perform the way I like it?"
"I was pretty much a failure at the sex thing before you, and, Carter, I can't be sure that I'm good at anything beyond really wild kissing. In fact, I'm not even sure that wasn't some sort of aberration brought about by six years of abstinence and however long it has been for you."
"You're worried you'll disappoint me?" His teeth were still gritted, but he didn't look quite so ferocious around the eyes.
"Yes."
"But not because you want to give me full value for my half a million dollars."
She opened her mouth, but the denial wouldn't come. He had paid five hundred thousand dollars to her so she would marry him and sleep with him. There was a small part of her that felt that kind of thing deserved at least a moderate return on the investment. It didn't make her feel like a prostitute, though, and why that should be, she didn't understand.
Neither did Carter, by the look of him.
As her silence grew, so did his anger until he erupted into cursing that would have made her brother blush. And he had been an Army Ranger.
"Carter."
He ignored her and turned back to face front, twisting the key in the ignition to start the car, only realizing it was still going when an awful grinding sound accompanied the movement. He growled out another cuss word and pulled back onto the highway with squealing tires.
"I wanted you to have options, to be able to end the marriage if you felt you had to. Not to feel trapped."
He shifted into a higher gear, and the car shot forward at a truly breathtaking speed.
Daisy clung to the door.
"I did not pay you so that you would feel the need to earn the money in my bed. I want you in my bed because you want to be there, damn it!"
"I do want to be there."
He acted as if she hadn't said anything, weaving through traffic with more skill than sense, and she gasped as he came particularly close to the rear bumper of another car.
"Slow down, Carter, you're scaring me."
"I'm mad."
"I can tell, but I don't want to be dead, or—" Her voice caught, and she screamed as he narrowly avoided a semi truck-trailer.
The Jag began to slow immediately. Carter went so far as to move into the right lane with the slowest-moving traffic.
"I'm sorry," he ground out. "I don't normally drive like that."
"I am, too. Sorry, that is. I'm scared of disappointing you, but it doesn't have anything to do with the money. Not really. Please believe me, Carter."
His grip on the steering wheel did not lessen, nor did his jaw relax at all. "You have no reason to be afraid. We've already proven that we're more combustible together than a match and a stick of dynamite."
"But that was just kissing."
"It was a hell of a lot more than kissing."
She could see that he was not going to understand her. She didn't even know if she understood herself. All she did know was that a woman who had the sexual past she did, did not have unfailing confidence in her ability to please her lover.
Only time and experience would tell if her fears were justified.
The silence in the car stretched until it felt like a rubber band pulled taut, ready to snap with sharp and painful impact at anyone in its radius.
"Do you want to call it off?" she finally asked, her voice choked with the failure she could not seem to evict from her life.
"No. I want to make love to you so often and so long that you can't think of anything but me. Not the money. Not your insecurities. Not having to join some damn country club. Just me."
"Oh."
Neither one of them said another word on the remainder of the drive to the secluded cabin in the woods Carter had rented for their honeymoon.
He pulled up in front and cut the engine. "We're here."
"Yes."
He unbuckled his seat belt and pulled on the handle to open the door.
She grabbed his shoulder. "Carter."
He turned his head, his blue eyes dark and unfathomable. "What?"
She wanted to say, I love you, but knew he wouldn't believe her. How could she love a man she'd gotten to know personally only a few days ago? He didn't know about her years' long obsession. However, he could believe in her desire for him because he wanted her, too.
"I want to be here. I want to be with you."
He pulled her hand from his shoulder, but he didn't fling it away as she was half expecting him to do. Instead, he lifted it to his mouth and kissed her palm.
Her eyes filled with tears. "Thank you."
She didn't know why she'd said it, but she felt as if the kiss had been a benediction, one she'd desperately needed.
His eyes closed, and he kissed the tingling flesh of her palm again. Then he let go and opened his eyes. "Come on. I don't think I can wait much longer."
She wasn't sure how he could want her so much when he had been so furious only moments before, but his tone was one of absolute certainty. She had the feeling that if they didn't get inside in the next five minutes, they were going to end up consummating their marriage in the passenger seat of his Jag.
Chapter Seven
Carter was there when she pushed the door open. He lifted her out of the low-slung car, and he swung her up in his arms.
"I believe tradition says I carry you over the threshold."
She clasped her hands behind his neck. "I'm all for tradition, Mr. Sloane."
"Good, Mrs. Sloane." He said the words with a significance she didn't get, but she didn't dwell on it for long.
She was too awed by her surroundings. The large log cabin had a sunken living room with a fireplace and acres and acres of windows that looked out over a burbling stream and tons of deciduous trees that were all turning color for autumn.
It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
"It's perfect," she breathed.
She looked up at him, ready to say something else, but her voice stalled in her throat at the hot look in his eyes.
The incredible view, the luxury of the cabin, every detail of her surroundings ceased to matter.
The only thing she could see was the man she'd just married. The only thing she could feel was the heat of his body next to hers. The only thing she could smell was the scent of her lover. The only thing she could hear was the sound of his breathing, shallow and short. The only thing she could taste was the tang of desire on her tongue.
Her world had shrunk to include only him, and her own breathing sped up right along with her pulse.
She said the one thing that made sense right at that moment. "Kiss me, Carter, please."
Insistent, masculine lips covered hers, branding her with a heat that went clear to her soul.
She belonged to this man.
Completely and without reservation.
His tongue teased her lips, and she parted them for him, hungry for his possession of her mouth. He gave it. She sucked on his tongue, sliding hers against it, kissing with a passionate intensity that only this man drew from her.
It ignited a carnality in his kiss that blew her thought processes to smithereens.
She was unaware of him letting go of her legs, but suddenly she was standing, and his hands were busy on the tiny buttons that went down the back of her dress. His mouth continued to devour hers, and she tore at the studs holding his tuxedo shirt together. The stupid things would not let go and she was in danger of ripping the fine linen, when he drew away from her.
"Let me do it."
She didn't argue, just stood and gloried in the sight of Carter's body as it was revealed bi
t by bit to her gaze. The tie went first, sailing off in the direction of the coffee table. Then the studs. One by one, he took them from his shirt until it hung loose.
She stepped forward, her own gown slipping down to reveal the demibra she'd worn because he asked her to.
He sucked in air, and his gaze zeroed in on her breasts and stayed there, while she pushed his shirt off his shoulders, glad he'd taken his coat off when they got in the car earlier.
She reached down for the front of his pants, and his big body jolted as if he'd touched a live electrical current. She felt like one.
The fastening and zipper on his pants were a lot easier for her fumbling fingers, and pretty soon she was pushing those down his thighs as well. He toed off his shoes and socks and stepped out of his pants with an economy of movement that impressed her.
His boxers tented in front, the waistband actually pulling away from his body a little from the pressure his hard penis put on the fabric. He was big.
Which should have made her more nervous, but it didn't. She happened to believe they had been made to fit together and somehow it was going to work.
She felt wet enough to make his entry smooth if not instantaneous.
Prickly shivers ran down the backs of her thighs at the wild look in his eyes. "Take off your dress."
It was a command, plain and simple, but his tone carried something more. A desperation that touched her heart and made her body melt like heated honey on the inside.
Just this once, she would obey.
She lowered her arms to her sides and let the antique lace gown slide down her body and fall to the floor in a heap of cream satin around her feet.
She moved toward him again, stepping over the gown, but he shook his head.
"I want to see you."
She felt the heat of a blush crawl up her body, or was that the heat of his gaze?
Whatever it was, it felt as though she'd stepped into a dry sauna, and she could barely breathe. "You just want to look?"
He nodded. "I've been fantasizing about this all day."
She shouldn't be so shocked. She'd had her share of daydreams about him wearing less than he was right now, though none of those dreams had done his actual body justice.
He was beautifully toned and proportioned in a way to stop a woman's heart … or capture it.
His blue gaze roamed over her in a way that made her feel touched everywhere it rested. "Rand told me Phoebe has a thing for sexy lingerie. It's a habit I think I could learn to like in a wife."
"Is that a hint?" The words barely made it past the dry Sahara of her throat.
He shook his head. "Nah. I like buying it for you too much. I was just commenting."
"Oh," she squeaked as his look zeroed in on the triangle of satin covering her now-damp curls between her thighs.
"Turn around. I want to see your ass."
"What?"
He let his eyes travel up her body until they met her own. "You want me to."
She did, which shocked her to death, but the idea of him looking at her with such blatant male appreciation was a major turn-on. Mesmerized by the sexual power radiating off of him and her own inexplicable reaction to it, she turned.
"You were made for a G-string."
"My butt's too big."
"Not from where I'm standing."
Oh, goodness. His voice brought a burst of warmth between her legs. She heard a whisper of movement, and then his fingers brushed the place where her cheeks came together.
She turned her head to see him.
He wasn't looking anywhere near her face. "You're perfect. A masterpiece of sensual beauty."
She didn't know what to say. No one had ever looked at her like that before, or thought those things, much less said them.
"If I told you to bend over, would you do it?"
Her heart stopped beating and then sped up as if she'd taken a shot of adrenaline. "Maybe if you asked nicely," she croaked out.
"Would you please bend over, Daisy?"
The whiskey roughness of his voice caressed her insides while her body moved to obey the plea in his voice.
She bent forward, letting her hands rest for added balance on the back of the white sofa facing the windows.
"Spread your legs a little."
She didn't move.
"Please."
She smiled to herself and let her feet separate about four inches. She wasn't sure where this teasing wanton had come from, but Daisy liked the heady sense of feminine power Carter's obvious desire was giving her.
Husky male laughter met the movement. "You little tease. Give me at least six more inches."
She looked back over her shoulder again, wanting to see his reaction as she did as he asked. She widened her stance, bending her knees slightly. It was a totally sexual pose, but it made her feel warm and sultry inside, not cheap.
His jaw set in granite-hard lines, while his hands clenched at his sides.
"Stay like that," he commanded in a gravelly voice.
"For how long?"
"Until I tell you to move."
Was this part of giving her the wedding night of all wedding nights? It was certainly pushing her beyond where she'd ever gone before in her sexuality. He was hardly touching her at all, and yet she felt as though what they were doing was more intimate than anything she'd ever done with her first husband. Including the act of intercourse.
Carter would make her glad she cooperated, she was sure of it.
"All right."
His face took on the cast of a predator, and his smile was more the baring of teeth than anything else. "Good."
He came closer until his straining erection rubbed up against her bottom through the silk of his boxers. "Face the front and don't look at me again unless I tell you to."
That wasn't a problem. Darkness had fallen outside, turning the wall of windows into a mirror through which she could watch her husband do whatever it was he planned to do to her. And she watched in utter fascination as he took off his last remaining bit of clothing, leaving his masculine flesh open to her hungry gaze. She didn't get to look long, though.
His fingers clamped onto her hips, and he rubbed his now naked hardness against her backside, up and down the center, teasing them both with the touch that tantalized but did not deliver.
"Do you like that?"
"Yes."
He did it some more until she was straining to move against that hold on her hips. Her arms folded, and she dropped forward until her forearms rested on the back of the couch. She wasn't looking in the mirrored window any longer. She was just feeling, and what she felt was driving her insane.
He pulled back, and she whimpered.
"Hush, honey. Trust me."
"Yessss," she hissed out. She did trust him.
She felt a gentle kiss right at the base of her neck. Then one baby kiss after another until he'd worked his way down her spine. By the time he reached her bottom, she was shaking and could barely stand. Would have fallen in a heap on the floor, in fact, if she hadn't been leaning on the sofa.
He used his tongue and lips in shocking, pleasurable ways on her backside that had her groaning and begging for his possession.
"You want me inside you?" His breath caressed her most feminine flesh.
"Yes!"
"Your wish is my command."
And then she felt him inside her. Wet. Slippery and oh, so talented, his tongue penetrated her labia with one thrust after another. Completely abandoned to her desire, she pressed back against his face, seeking greater penetration.
He increased the pace of his thrusts and then varied them with swirls around her clitoris, followed by more thrusts, followed by more clitoral stimulation. The seemingly never ending cycle drove her beyond reason as pleasure built upon pleasure, radiating from the core of her body outward.
When his hands came around to her front and cupped her breasts, she cried out. When he squeezed her nipples between his fingers, she felt it inside her womb.
The pleasure became unbearable, and her knees buckled from a heart-shattering orgasm that left her throat raw from screaming.
His hold on her front stopped her from pitching forward. He pulled back, so she landed on his hard thighs instead of hanging like a limp rag over the back of the couch when her muscles gave out.
Hands so gentle they felt like billowing silk against her skin brushed over her breasts, down her stomach and along her trembling thighs.
"You're so perfect for me." His words were filled with the same awe she felt.
She turned her face into his neck. "You're perfect."
His laughter rumbled against her back. "Not perfect, but definitely in need."
She could feel his erection pressing against her. If she shifted up just a little, he would be able to penetrate her, and she wanted that as much as he did.
She tried to make the movement, but he held her in place. "Not yet, Daisy."
"I don't want to wait anymore, Carter."
One of his arms slid under knees and the other around her back, shifting her into a cradle against his body. He stood up without any visible effort and smiled down at her.
"I want to be inside you, too, but I think I must be a little old-fashioned."
If she had just one more iota of energy, she would have laughed at that. Old-fashioned? Him? The man who had turned her into a raving wanton woman? Not likely.
"I want to see your face the first time I come inside you." He looked so serious, so intent, that her heart contracted.
She didn't know how old-fashioned that was, but it certainly was sweet. "I'd like that."
He carried her into the bedroom, her shoes falling off on the way. The thumps they made as they dropped from her feet only barely registered. She got an impression of lots of white and big wooden furniture before she found herself flat on her back with Carter looming over her.
"I need a glove. Will you put it on me?"
"A glove?"
He was already leaning over her and grabbing something from under one of the pillows. When he came back with a foil packet, comprehension donned.
"You want me to put your condom on you?" She'd never done that before.
