Marriage on the Rebound

by Michelle Reid

  Hope for what? She didn’t know. She didn’t even want to bother searching for the answer, because she could suddenly feel him as though he was deep inside her again, and she wanted him there in reality.

  ‘Do we really have to meet these people?’ she murmured huskily. ‘I could plead a headache and you could put me to bed and tuck me in, you’re very good at doing that…’

  He let out a soft laugh, his hands splaying over her slender hips where they were sensually moulding themselves to his. ‘And to think,’ he murmured ruefully, ‘I thought you were such a shy little thing.’

  ‘Disappointed?’ she asked.

  ‘No—enchanted,’ he replied, and captured her mouth again.

  ‘Does this mean we can go back upstairs?’ she questioned hopefully some long, very satisfying minutes later. And, like a woman with a brand-new weapon in her possession, she began seducing him with soft, clinging kisses interspersed with, ‘Please?’ Her fingertips ran inside his jacket so they could stroke long, sensual caresses along his lean ribcage, and her slender hips slowly gyrated against the steadily building tension in his.

  ‘Please…?’ she kept on whispering. ‘Please, Rafe—please…?’

  Until the kisses grew longer and stronger and deeper, and her new-found powers of seduction grew bolder when it became clear that he wasn’t going to bring a halt to what she was inciting here in the hotel lift of all places. Her fingers began to slide loose the black bow-tie at his snowy white collar and he didn’t do a single thing to stop her.

  And here it was, yet another variation on the act of loving, where she seduced him, not the other way round. Where she made his heart pound with desire and made his skin burn beneath her delicate touch.

  Triumph whistled through her when, on a painful groan, he reached out and hit the button which would take them back to their floor again—the triumph of knowing that she had the power to make him want her above everything, even his precious business dinner.

  ‘You are a witch,’ he muttered unsteadily, as if catching hold of her thoughts and answering them. ‘You’ve cast a damned spell on me.’

  The lift stopped. The doors slid open to reveal a Japanese couple waiting to come inside. They looked rather shocked as Rafe grimly pulled Shaan past them and back down the corridor to their own room.

  ‘I’ll never live this down if anyone finds out,’ he muttered once he had them safely locked inside their suite again.

  ‘I won’t tell,’ Shaan promised softly, her fingers already busy with his shirt buttons.

  Her fingertips ran light, scraping caresses over hair-roughened flesh, felt muscles inside him dance with pleasure, felt the heat bouncing from him, felt the need throbbing in him, and pulled the shirt free from the waistband of his trousers. With a boldness that managed to shock even herself, she ran her hands over his hips, down his long, powerful thighs, then sensually back up again over the swollen evidence that was the very essence of the man himself.

  He shuddered violently, his mouth leaving hers so he could release the air from his tense lungs on a pleasurable hiss. And in all they had shared during these last few dynamic days she had never felt so aware of her own femininity as she was at that moment.

  Because he was enjoying this—losing himself in it. His eyes closed, expression taut with a passion that would have alarmed her if her own hungry passions hadn’t been as throbbingly intense.

  And it was those hungry passions that gave her the courage to go for the kill. With her eyes locked on his face and the delicate pink tip of her tongue probing between the provocative set of her even white teeth, she reached for the clasp on his trousers, flicked it free, then smoothly slid down the zip—and touched him.

  It was a shock. No matter how intimate they had become over these last few days, this was the first time she had actually voluntarily touched him like this. And the shock was in the fierce heat of him, the unbelievable tension, the power of him pushing against the final barrier of stretchy black underwear.

  ‘Don’t stop now,’ he murmured huskily when her fingers went suddenly still.

  ‘Don’t stop’, he’d said, and she didn’t want to stop. She wanted to overwhelm him with the power of her sensuality just as he had done countless times to her. But…

  She glanced up, found his eyes open, saw the twin fires of desire burning in their smoky depths and just stared rather helplessly at him—begging, she suspected, for him to take over now her courage was beginning to fail her.

  But Rafe shook his dark head in refusal. This is your seduction this time, Shaan,’ he said gruffly. ‘You began it, you finish it.’

  He meant that what had happened the night before had been entirely his seduction and, since neither of them had liked what had happened then, he was therefore relinquishing all control this time to her.

  But she suddenly discovered that she didn’t want it. She liked him to overwhelm, overpower and devour her. She liked to kid herself that he allowed her no choices in this wild, sensual madness that formed the very crux of their relationship.

  She liked to see herself as the innocent victim of the ruthless Danvers brothers because if she didn’t see herself in that way then she would have to start looking at what she really was.

  Fickle. That word came back to taunt her. Fickle in her feelings, fickle in her allegiance. Fickle in the way she could supposedly love one man yet be like this with another.

  Fickle.

  Then he moved, one of his hands coming up so he could gently comb his fingers through her long, loose hair, and her whole body shivered on a shaky sigh, breasts heaving behind their tight covering of silk, and she turned her mouth into that warm, male palm as her senses went haywire.

  Fickle or not, she told herself fatally as she wound her arms inside his gaping shirt and reached upwards for his mouth again, she wanted this—needed it now—so badly that nothing else seemed to matter.

  And through all of it came the one telling little truth that had supported her own actions throughout the whole of this thing with this man: the knowledge that he wanted her, desired her, couldn’t get enough of her, Shaan, jilted bride of his brother. No matter what Madeleine meant to him, Rafe still wanted her.

  And if that made them both fickle then so be it. Because at this moment in time she wanted him more than she could ever remember wanting anything.

  Anything.

  Wanted this—this wonderful, heady sense of elation she was experiencing as her hands went back to caressing his body, feeling his pulsing responses, his muscles rippling with pleasure when her fingers brushed over them, finding his mouth again time after time, drowning him in hot and moist, wanton kisses.

  ‘What about your friends?’ she managed to recall in the middle of their next wave of heated passion.

  ‘I’ll ring them,’ he muttered. ‘Later.’ He shuddered at the sensual rake of her nails down the satin smooth skin of his back. ‘Much later,’ he added, and bent to scoop her up in his arms, then carry her through to the bedroom.

  From there on Rafe took over—of course he took over; he would not have been the forcefully virile man she wanted if he had been content to lie back and let her do all the seducing. And what followed was a slow, hot, flesh-stirring loving that was the complete antithesis of what had gone the night before.

  It was as if he needed to demonstrate to her that he could be warm, gentle, beautifully controlled, and still be devastatingly passionate. He kissed her all over, left no place untouched, until she lay there a weak, boneless mass of pulsing sensation before he slid slowly inside her.

  Then stopped.

  It brought her eyes flickering open, blackened by desire, to find his face wearing a sombre cast to it that actually hurt something deep inside her.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I adore you.’

  Was adoring something similar to love? she wondered hazily. Well, if it wasn’t, it was close, very close—close enough for her to feel the exact same way about him.

 
So, ‘You too,’ she whispered, and watched his eyes turn to silver, felt him swell inside her as if her simple reply had the power to incite him, and she closed her eyes as her body turned to liquid again.

  A moment after that he was moving in her with deep, slow, rhythmic thrusts that filled her with a magical sense of both his and her own entity.

  It was wonderful. It was special. It was all the more enriched by those few small words of mutual caring which seemed to transcend the mere physical which they had been relying on until now. And the climax, when it came, was more like a gentle flood than a wild torrent, engulfing her in a warm, lazy sea of sensation that seemed to go on and on and on into a softly pulsing world of pure ecstasy…

  ‘Are you going to tell me where you were today?’

  He was lying propped up on an elbow beside her, watching her make that slow, sinking journey back to earth again while the back of one finger gently stroked her heated cheek. It was a nice, soothing, almost tender gesture, and so beautifully in keeping with what they had just shared together.

  She opened heavy eyes, too sensually languid to do much else, and found his own eyes, darkened by similar satiation, resting on her.

  ‘Not if you’re going to start shouting again,’ she warned. ‘Because I’m just too content to listen.’

  His small huff of laughter accompanied the soft slide of his finger across her kiss-swollen mouth. ‘If I promise not to shout, then?’ he offered lazily.

  ‘Josh,’ she said. ‘I was with an American called Josh.’ The caressing finger went still. ‘He has a wife called Sadie and they are both in their seventies. I asked if I could join them on an organised tour of the island. They agreed, and I had a lovely time into the bargain.’

  He didn’t say a single word for the space of several taut seconds. ‘God, you know how to punish a man,’ he muttered then. ‘You deliberately let me imagine you swanning all over Hong Kong with some hunk of a guy!’

  ‘You promised not to shout,’ she reminded him poutingly.

  ‘So I did,’ he ruefully agreed, and the finger began moving again, sliding across her cheek to begin gently stroking her hair behind her ear while something else passed across his eyes—she wasn’t sure what, but it warmed a special spot inside her to see it.

  Tenderness; that was what it was. Tender amusement. And wry indulgence for her teasing. And—

  ‘So, where did you go with these nice Americans who took you under their wing?’ he murmured.

  She told him, giving him a detailed account of her whole day—then she remembered something when she reached the part about Stanley market. Suddenly she jumped off the bed to run naked across the room and collect the carrier bag of the purchases she had made today.

  ‘I bought you a present,’ she said, explaining her sudden fit of energy.

  ‘Not a new watch, I hope,’ he drawled mockingly, his eyes lazily indulgent as they followed her.

  ‘No—not a watch,’ she said, turning to teasingly wrinkle her nose at him.

  He was still lying as she had left him, reclining on his side with the sheet negligently draped over his lean hips while the rest of him was wonderfully naked.

  He looked so gorgeous it stopped her breath for a few throbbing moments, and then she came back to sit crosslegged on the bed near to him so she could place the bag on her lap while she rummaged inside it.

  ‘Now, let’s see…’ she murmured, producing first the cerise scarf she had bought for herself, which she draped around her neck, then showing him the ones she had bought for her aunt and Jemma. Next came the tiny jade Buddha for her uncle, and, finally, the slightly larger one she had bought for Rafe.

  ‘They’re supposed to be lucky,’ she explained. ‘If someone else buys one for you. So…’ Feeling suddenly awkward and shy, she handed the palm-sized sculpture to him. ‘Be lucky, Rafe,’ she murmured softly.

  For a few moments he didn’t move a muscle, and she couldn’t see his eyes to know what he was thinking because he had them lowered while he stared at her small pale green offering.

  Her stomach muscles began to knot, her chest growing tight in tense anticipation, white teeth pressing into her full bottom lip as the silence stretched without him so much as saying a word.

  OK, she began thinking anxiously. So it wasn’t the best jade the world could offer, and it certainly hadn’t cost the earth to buy, but the thought counted for something, surely? Even with this man, who could afford the very best in anything he wanted?

  Then his eyes lifted and she saw it—and her heart flipped over. He was moved—actually moved! His free hand snaked up, caught the two edges of her new scarf and tugged, pulling her face down towards him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly, and kissed her. And it was special, this kiss, because it held not a hint of sexual passion. Only—

  ‘Shaan…’ he murmured as he drew away again, with a sombreness that did not quite fit the occasion. ‘I want you to know that I’m not playing games with you here. I want this marriage to work. I want us to work.’

  ‘Can it work?’ Considering the way it had started, Shaan didn’t really think it had a chance.

  ‘You mean because we started with nothing?’ he asked. ‘Well…’ A powerfully muscled shoulder moved in a shrug. ‘We can build on nothing. In fact, I would go as far as to say,’ he added, ‘that it’s probably a darn sight easier to build on nothing…’ He paused. Then, on a small sigh, he concluded, ‘I suppose the point I am trying to make is—do you want to try?’

  ‘You mean I’m being given a choice here?’ She tried mocking the seriousness out of the moment.

  It didn’t work, though he did allow himself a grimace at the justice in her taunt, because they both knew that until now Rafe had not really given her any choices about anything that had happened between them.

  But, ‘Yes,’ he replied, and his eyes remained serious—deadly serious.

  Her eyelids lowered while she thought about what he was actually telling her here. He was talking permanence. He was offering permanence. ‘Is it what you want?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ It was gruff and it was sincere.

  ‘Piers and Madeleine—’

  ‘No.’ His warning tug on the cerise scarf stopped her. ‘They no longer belong in the equation,’ he stated firmly. ‘This is between you and me, and what we’ve discovered we can have if we just try to work at it.’

  ‘Sex’ was the word Shaan would use to describe it. But then it was her turn to grimace, because she’d tried love without sex and had got nothing back from the relationship. So maybe Rafe was right, and they did have a chance of building from nothing—with sex as their foundation instead of that more intense emotion called love.

  ‘Are you a faithful man, Rafe?’ she asked him quietly.

  ‘Yes.’ he replied.

  And she found she believed him. There was something about this conversation which insisted on honesty. But, still, she wanted clarification on that point. ‘No other women on the side? No little stop-overs in brief ports of call?’

  ‘Who’s been talking?’ he sighed, then grimaced. ‘Or don’t I need to ask?’

  ‘Just answer the question,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve been fooled by one man in that way too recently to let another one walk me into the same trap.’

  ‘Rumours about my love life have been greatly exaggerated,’ he informed her satirically. ‘But, no, no other women.’ His eyes caught hers again. ‘Just you, me and a chance of something special.’

  Something special. Something special sounded tempting. Something special was what she was already beginning to feel for this complicated man with his hard crust of ruthlessness and his mind-blowing sensuality, and this—this warming show of honest sincerity was perhaps worth more than all the rest put together.

  But…

  Lowering her eyes away from him, she contemplated her fingers while her mind tried to come up with a catch in all of this. Because there had to be a catch, didn’t there? It was all just too good to be tr
ue—too darn easy—and that prodded at another little sore point she had been struggling with.

  This quick, this right and this easy—that did make her fickle.

  Or gullible? she suggested to herself soberly. Gullible in a lot of ways. Gullible to Piers’ false kind of charm, gullible to Rafe’s more aggressive kind, and gullible to—this, this need to be wanted as hotly and as passionately as he clearly wanted her.

  Could they build on that? Was it at least worth trying, or was she just asking for more heartache at the end of it all?

  ‘Well?’ he prompted when she took too long to answer.

  ‘OK, we’ll work on it,’ she heard herself surrender.

  His eyes flashed, and in the next moment he was pushing her onto her back and coming to lie across her, his mouth hot and urgent as it covered hers.

  When she lifted her arms so she could bury her fingers in his hair and hold his mouth on hers, he caught one hand with his own, his fingers pleating with her fingers as he pressed them back against the bed.

  And it was only when she felt the cold, solid press of something sandwiched between their two warm palms that she remembered the little Buddha she had just given to him.

  For luck, she had said. She only hoped there was some truth in it, for she had a feeling they were going to need it if they were to make anything of this odd liaison that never should have begun in the first place—or come as far as it had done since.

  And maybe Rafe’s thoughts were moving along similar lines, because as he guided them both through yet another storm of heated passion he kept that little Buddha pressed between their heated palms, and even afterwards still kept it there as they slid into a languid sleep.

  Oddly, she felt comforted feeling it there. Maybe there was more to its myth than mere fiction. She hoped so; she really hoped so.

  * * *

  So they worked at it—both of them. Worked at it through the rest of their two-week stay in Hong Kong and the weeks following when they returned to London.

  And it went very well—aided and abetted by the fact that they kept themselves very much to themselves for most of the time, which meant that no outside influences could put a spanner in the works. And they also utilised to its fullest potential the main ingredient that kept it going.