InformedConsent

by Susanna Stone

  Informed Consent

  Susanna Stone

  If you dare to come near me again, I swear I’ll take that as your consent for me to use you any way I choose…

  With equal parts determination and trepidation, Tara Calloway risks more than her heart to carry a vital message to her long-ago would-be lover, both hopeful and fearful of the reception that awaits her. She needs to keep it strictly business between them, for everyone’s sake, but Joe Corbett seizes this chance to carry out the explicit sexual threats—promises?—depicted in the letter he wrote her six years ago in a paroxysm of heat and anger.

  And she has no intention of stopping him.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Informed Consent

  ISBN 9781419938009

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Informed Consent Copyright © 2011 Susanna Stone

  Edited by April Chapman

  Cover design by Syneca

  Photography: Photos.com

  Electronic book publication December 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book.

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  Informed Consent

  Susanna Stone

  Chapter One

  If you ever come back into my life…

  Sitting astride her Indian Motorcycle at the top of the ridge, Tara read the creased and crumbling note once again, though she’d long ago memorized its contents.

  After all this time, Corbett’s unequivocal words, in his unmistakable, unforgettable handwriting, still had the power to chill her soul and heat her blood.

  She crammed the scrap of paper back into the breast pocket of her leather jacket and zipped it shut, then looked ahead along the valley where the late afternoon sun glowed rich on the eastern slope.

  The endless vista of river and forest and sky spread before her as the warm September breeze wafted over the British Columbia interior through a million pine branches.

  This was the last moment to turn back. Turn the bike 180 and head the hell back to Victoria, without running the risk of succumbing to whatever dangers Corbett might hold for her.

  Right. And let her father down. Throw away everything he’d worked for, everything he believed in.

  “Joe Corbett’s the one man I’d trust with this. Do whatever it takes to persuade him to come back.”

  Yeah. Whatever it takes. Of course, Leo hadn’t a clue what had passed between her and Corbett six years ago.

  She pulled her helmet back on and studied the road below. It turned and twisted back on itself, down into the river valley toward the King Camp, a good three kilometers farther on.

  Tara shifted into gear, and began her switchback descent toward Corbett and whatever reception might await her. Such as his carrying out the agenda outlined in his brutally explicit note.

  If you ever come back into my life…

  Had he meant it? All of it? Any of it?

  Hell, what did it matter? She could handle this. After all, by now he should have forgotten all about her; he no doubt had a woman in his life. And despite her fantasies over the years, this encounter was going to be strictly business. She would reasonably and calmly introduce the proposition that had brought her five hundred kilometers across the Strait of Georgia, up the Fraser Canyon and over relentless logging roads.

  Tara and the bike leveled off as they curved into the flat valley floor and built up speed, roaring straight down the road for the last lap of her journey.

  She careered into the yard of the old camp and pulled to a halt outside the main building.

  Impressive. The camp appeared to be modernized only enough to provide safety and cleanliness without sacrificing the rustic northern feel of the famous institution that had provided summer fun and fresh air and challenges for generations of underprivileged kids.

  Lots of scope for the hard-working carpenter, she remembered.

  As Tara removed her helmet, a woman appeared from around the corner of one building, carrying a carton of old shingles. Slim and fit and perhaps forty, she bore the look of a career camp counselor.

  “Hi,” the woman said with a look of appreciation at Tara’s wheels. She shifted the load onto the bed of her dusty Tacoma. “Nice machine.”

  “Thanks. I’m looking for Joe Corbett. I hear he’s working here these days?”

  “He’s up back working on the old cabins by the lake.” She indicated a narrow roadway through the woods at the far end of the yard. “Post-summer repairs, so we’ll be all set for next season. I’m Jeannie King, by the way.”

  Tara gripped the woman’s outstretched hand. “Tara Calloway.”

  “Nice to meet you. You can go on back, if you like.”

  “You’d let a stranger just wander around your camp?”

  The woman gave a half shrug, as though offering nothing more serious than the loan of a pencil. “You’re a friend of Corbett’s. You ride a classic Indian 101 Scout—what year is that, by the way? ‘31?”

  “1930. My grandfather’s. When I was a kid we used to roar along the back roads at death-defying speeds with me in the sidecar. Probably completely illegal, of course.”

  “Sounds perfect. Mind saving me a walk back there? Just let Corbett know I’m knocking off for the day. I’ll see him tomorrow.”

  Tara rode slowly over the old gravel road until she reached a cluster of vintage cabins in a clearing where the river widened into a lake, and parked the Scout beside the first cabin. If Corbett were anywhere nearby he’d have heard her, and if—

  “I’d know the sound of that old bucket of bolts anywhere.”

  He stood in the open doorway of the second cabin, leaning against the doorframe, leather tool belt hanging low from his waist, every morsel of him illuminated by the long, low afternoon light. His hard-worn jeans and hard-worn muscles and hard-worn eyes.

  Oh hell.

  She’d made a big, big mistake coming here.

  Tara focused hard to remain upright on legs made of water, at her first sight of the man she had once wanted with every nerve in her body.

  “You don’t get to say anything nasty about my Indian Maiden, Joe Corbett.”

  “As you command.” He straightened himself away from the doorframe but remained standing on the low, open veranda.

  His look was unreadable. Happy to see her? Mad? Or worse, did he even give a shit? But just maybe he’d forgotte
n all about that damned letter.

  She approached the cabin and ascended the wooden steps, the better to speak with him face to face.

  “I told you to keep out of my life.” His voice was quiet, rimmed with steel.

  No, he hadn’t forgotten.

  “Not quite. You said if I—” Her throat shut down as the force of his bottomless look bore into her soul.

  “Yes? If you ever came into my presence again I would…well? What did I say?”

  God, he wasn’t going to let up. She forced her voice to obey and looked straight into those cool and dangerous gray eyes.

  “That you would—to put it bluntly—have your way with me.”

  The faintest flicker of interest twitched at the corner of his mouth. That clever, agile mouth that should have done so many blissful things to her that night.

  The night—and the mouth—she’d dreamed about for six years. But in her dreams, he hadn’t backed off. Vanished. In her dreams, he’d done everything there and then. And more.

  But—snap out of it, Calloway—this was reality. She wasn’t a smitten nineteen-year-old anymore. She was here on a mission, and just needed to keep calm and slap her libido down and deal with the matter at hand.

  “Seems to me, Calloway, I put it way more blunt than that.”

  “Maybe a little.”

  …I will possess you, consume you, invade you and violate you any and every way I choose…

  Hell, did the flush—of desire?—show on her face? She sure felt it under her clothes.

  “Go on,” he prompted. “What else did I say?”

  She permitted a ladylike snort to preface her response. “You think I keep a perfect memory of your every word?”

  “Oh, I certainly do, Ms. Calloway, ma’am. No mistake there.”

  Damn his folksy put-on.

  “You wish.”

  He stood gazing at her for a moment, as though deciding where to start, then covered the remaining space between them and gently, firmly positioned his forefinger on her chin and raised it, to look straight into her eyes.

  “I kind of think the word ‘consent’ was involved.” His voice was all slow and calm. She could hear herself swallow; no doubt he could too.

  …I’ll take that as your clear, unequivocal consent for me to take you. To fuck you in ways you never imagined, so deep and hard you’ll never forget me…

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Okay,” he said, “since you insist on playing the amnesia card, I’ll refresh your memory.”

  The tip of his finger slid south to trace the skin of her throat as his scent invaded her lungs and her brain, all wood shavings and pine and male desire.

  “I said, if you ever came near me again…”

  He undid her top shirt button.

  “I would take it as your consent for me to fuck you…”

  She exhaled slowly, controlled, so he couldn’t hear, as every cell in her body hummed with excitement at his touch.

  I should stop him.

  “Hard, thorough, unrelenting. No mercy.”

  His dead calm, dead sure voice held no emotion—just the facts, ma’am.

  “Oh.” She tore her brain apart, frantic to find some brilliant, snappy response. “Is that what you meant?”

  Right. She was going to fire her inner scriptwriter.

  “It’s what I said, Calloway. So, yeah, it’s what I meant. But, hey, I’ll play along.”

  He removed his fingertip from her breastbone and stepped back and she was able to breathe again. Sort of.

  “Assuming you did somehow misunderstand the word ‘fuck’, I’ll give you a second chance.”

  “Corbett, I’m here just to talk to you—”

  “Out of here. Now. Or the program goes ahead as outlined.”

  “You seem damned sure of your chances,” she said, striving for a light tone.

  He raised one eyebrow. God, the man was talented.

  “You think I won’t do it?”

  “You’re not that kind of guy.” Even as she threw out the challenge, her treacherous body throbbed for it. Her blood grew thin and flowed fast at the prospect of his overpowering her, stripping her, spreading her legs…

  Just as he’d promised. Threatened.

  …you have no clue how out of your depth you were the night you tried to seduce me. Girls like you who tease men like me are asking for trouble, and you can thank your guardian angel I stopped before I showed you how the game of sex is really played…

  “That kind of guy…?” he challenged.

  Okay. She needed to disarm this situation. Present her case and then walk away with her self-respect—and god knew what else—intact.

  “It’s not you. Not good old reliable Joe Corbett, hardworking, decent, all-round nice guy.”

  “Uh-huh. You mean that nice guy who would never hold a woman—especially not that nice, wholesome Tara Calloway who used to hang around her dad’s workshop—up against the wall. Against her will.”

  “What, here?” She waved a would-be insouciant hand around the veranda, as though the innocent rustic scenario of the old sleeping cabin could provide a cloak of safety.

  But Corbett, in this time and place and mood, was clearly anything but safe. With casual deliberation, never taking his eyes from hers, he unbuckled the tool belt and lowered it to the floor. He shoved it aside with his foot.

  She opened her mouth to make another attempt at the purpose of her visit, but the surrealism of the situation simply paralyzed her throat. The energy of Corbett’s single-minded determination snaked its way into in all her vulnerable places. Her lower gut flamed into response.

  “Sticking around, eh?” He took one lapel of her leather jacket between his fingers, as though inspecting the quality.

  I have to tell him why I’m here.

  But she stood paralyzed as he eased her jacket back off her shoulders.

  “Corbett…”

  Why the hell couldn’t she just say it? Clear the air—I’m here with a message from my father. An offer. A proposition. It has nothing to do with you and me.

  Except her father’s assignment seemed to have plummeted out of her consciousness. What the hell was it again…?

  He tossed the jacket unerringly to land on an old wicker chair.

  “Then I have to assume the consent is given. Signed and sealed.”

  Corbett enclosed her wrist in his unequivocal grip that matched the determined set to his mouth and Tara could only gasp at the electricity short-circuiting between them.

  What had she let herself in for? How much did she really know about this man when he became aroused? Or how much he might have changed since that achingly lovely night when nothing happened?

  “And I guess that mythical nice guy would never do this.”

  This was to swing her around and ram her back up against the inside wall of the veranda and jam his pelvis against hers, forcing her back into the rough, wood siding.

  The thrust of his solid erection bore straight into her reality, conjuring up a flash memory of that night to continue working toward her undoing.

  A not-at-all-nice smile transformed his face. He was a stranger.

  If she didn’t say “no” now, she was saying “yes”.

  And—heaven help her—she wanted it. Even just a taste. A brief swallow of what Corbett had to offer, just to make up for the futility of six years ago, and then she’d stop him. Really. She could bring him to his senses…

  “Make no mistake, Calloway, what’s about to take place between us is hardly typical of the two nice people we’re supposed to be.”

  He pressed his unrelenting erection harder against her vulva and her resistance, which had just hit rock bottom.

  “Is this how you like it, Corbett?” she found the strength to demand. “By force? Have you lost the seductive touch I had a taste of that night?”

  “Looks like that seductive touch worked, since you came back for it. Though it took you six years.”

  Still pin
ning her hips and thighs to the wall with his own, he closed his fists over the lapels of her shirt and yanked it open, tearing half the buttons from it. Alarm and desire and deep sexual hunger boiled up within her, but he didn’t pause. He dragged it off her body, then grabbed her wrists, thrust them behind her and gripped them together in a merciless one-handed hold.

  He was clearly on the edge and ready to drag her into places she’d never even imagined.

  The truth sliced through her. Despite her best intentions, she was going to surrender to the traitorous frenzy of her own desire that he stoked higher with each fresh invasion of her body, each assault on her peace of mind, which, with her shirt, now lay in tatters among the sawdust and wood shavings at her feet.

  She would let Corbett commit the sexual excesses he’d sworn to inflict upon her.

  Regardless of the consequences.

  His mouth came down onto hers, dominant, invasive, inexorably taking control. His tongue forced his way in between her lips and her teeth, staking out territory, claiming victory.

  He pulled back his mouth, still holding her hands captive behind her.

  “I’ve waited six years for this.” His calm, determined voice twisted in her core, each loaded word penetrating her like a knife hot out of the fire. “I’m going to draw infinite pleasure from every square millimeter of your extremely accommodating flesh. And you don’t fool me for a moment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Corbett inserted his index finger inside the tiny gap where the front of her bra stretched between her breasts.

  “I know damn well you will too.”

  Oh god, yes.

  He pulled gently at the clasp, then gave a sharp twist and the bra fell open to expose her breasts to his unhindered view.

  “Nice,” he remarked, and she held herself absolutely still and breathless with repressed excitement as his fingertips gently lifted one breast, assessing its heft, and his thumb grazed the nipple, along with the edges of her sanity.

  The flash of memory hit her hard, and her breasts now flamed in response as she relived the long-ago moment, that one sweet intimate touch when he’d slipped his hand beneath her top and claimed her breast.