Harlequin Presents January 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Ruthless Caleb WildeBeholden to the ThroneThe Incorrigible Playboy

by Sandra Marton

  “Wow, all over again,” Sage said softly.

  He grinned. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like Dr. Phil.” He pulled to a stop at a red light and looked at her. “I know we’re bound to hit some bumps in the road during the next few weeks. You have to tell me if I don’t notice.”

  She nodded. “And you’ll do the same with me.”

  “Hey,” he said lightly, “honesty and trust. How can we lose?”

  She smiled. “In that case...”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you ever going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Everything that’s happening is a surprise.”

  She was right. And look at how his last attempt at a surprise, the abortive flight to Dallas, had turned out. Maybe surprising her wasn’t the way to go.

  “To my hotel. My hotel, not that fancy funeral parlor Caldwell chose for our meeting.”

  “Wasn’t it awful? Like a set for The Addams Family.”

  “That old TV series. Yeah.”

  “The Broadway show. I was in it.”

  The light went to green; he gunned the engine and the car shot forward.

  “Time for another ‘wow,’” he said, smiling at her.

  “Not really. I had three whole lines in the first act.”

  “Acting’s a tough profession, huh?”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve done off-Broadway. And a lot of off-off Broadway. And a lot, a lot, of commercials.”

  “I don’t know much about acting.” He glanced at her. “But there’s lots of theater in Dallas.”

  “I don’t know Texas at all.”

  “Well, you will. Soon. It’s not as big as New York but—”

  She squeezed his hand. “It’ll be okay,” she said softly.

  “Yes,” he said gruffly, “it will. I’ll show you all my favorite haunts. And if you don’t like my condo, we’ll buy something else.”

  “Is that where you live? I thought you lived on El—El—”

  “El Sueño. It’s the family ranch and I do spend some time there but I’m in Dallas most of the week.” He glanced at her. “Heck. Who wants to raise a kid in a city high-rise? We’ll look for a house. Maybe a ranch. Outside Dallas. Even in Wilde’s Crossing. Would you like that?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t—I don’t know what to say, Caleb. It’s all so new...”

  “Hey.” He let go of her hand, touched her cheek, her hair, and silently cursed himself for a fool. He was trying to make her happy but he was loading too much on her slender shoulders. Honesty and trust were great, but some things were better put aside until the moment was right. “There’s no rush for any of this, Sage. We’ll take things one day at a time, okay?”

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “For understanding that this is—that it’s—” She swallowed. “I guess I’m one of those people who has to ease into new situations, you know? I mean, it took me a while to figure out New York.”

  He knew she was trying to make him feel better, so he told her it had taken him a while, too.

  “I mean, it’s confusing. What’s with the five boroughs thing? Only Manhattan is New York.”

  “Is that an attack on Brooklyn, Mr. Wilde?”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Uh-oh, indeed,” she said, laughing.

  It was good, hearing her laugh. Definitely, he’d have to remember not to layer too many things on her for a while.

  “Anyway, you’ve got it wrong.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Me? Get something wrong? Impossible.”

  “Manhattan is New York but it’s really the city. All the other boroughs are New York, too, but they aren’t the city.” She rolled her eyes. “Clear as mud, right?”

  “No. Actually, it’s as succinct a description as I ever heard.”

  They rode in easy silence for a few minutes before Sage turned toward him again.

  “Caleb?”

  “Yes?”

  “When are we going to leave here? For Dallas, I mean? I know you have to get back to the real world, sooner or later.”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, I thought we’d stay here the rest of the week...”

  “Oh,” she said.

  There was a world of weight in the one soft word. Caleb glanced at her. She was sitting back in her seat, hands folded in her lap, staring straight out the windshield.

  “You’re worried about meeting my family,” he said softly. “Trust me, honey. They’ll be surprised, but they’ll be happy for me. For us.”

  Sage nodded. She wanted to believe that, wanted to trust him—she was trusting him, not just with her future but with her heart. And that was part of the problem, part of what made all that was happening so dangerous...

  “Here we are.”

  She looked up. They’d pulled to the curb with Central Park to one side, a tall building to the other.

  Caleb undid his seat belt, reached over and undid hers.

  “Such a long face,” he said softly. “That’s not a way to start the first week of our lives together.”

  She looked at him. “That’s a very nice thing to say.”

  He grinned. She loved that grin. Part arrogance, part mischief, completely and heart-stoppingly male.

  “What? You think we legal eagles can only speak tort?”

  Sage laughed. “What I think is that you’re full of surprises.”

  “Only good ones,” he said, as he took her in his arms and kissed her.

  “Ahem. Sir? Madam?”

  A liveried doorman stood beside the car, trying his best not to smile.

  Sage blushed. Caleb grinned.

  “I’ll need the valet to take my car,” he said.

  “Of course, sir.”

  The doorman reached for the door handle, which gave Caleb enough time to lean in and give Sage one last, quick kiss.

  “Stop that,” she whispered, but her cheeks were rosy, her eyes were bright, and she was laughing.

  Caleb stepped from the car, whistling, and tossed the keys to the uniformed kid who’d just shown up. Sage thanked the doorman as he offered her his hand and courteously helped her onto the sidewalk.

  “Welcome to Hotel New York,” he said with a polite smile.

  Caleb slid his arm around her waist.

  “Should we tell him he has it wrong?” he whispered, his lips against her ear.

  Sage looked up at her lover’s smiling face, and felt her heart flood with emotion.

  When could she tell him what he meant to her?

  Or was there such a thing as taking honesty a step too far?

  * * *

  His suite was beautiful.

  Big. Bright. Airy.

  “No funerals allowed here,” Caleb said solemnly.

  The sitting-room windows overlooked Central Park, as did those in the bedroom. A small formal dining room opened just off the sitting room; a master bath Sage figured was almost the size of her entire apartment opened off the bedroom.

  But what made her catch her breath on a long “ooh” of delight were the flowers.

  Roses and tulips, orchids and daisies, varieties she couldn’t possibly have named, standing tall and elegant in crystal vases, nodding gracefully in white ceramic bowls, drooping like elegant ballerinas in pale blue pottery jugs.

  “Oh, Caleb,” she said, her face glowing with pleasure. “Did you arrange for this?”

  Was he blushing? He hadn’t even known he could blush, but he could feel the heat rising into his face.

  “Do you like them?” he said, his voice gruff. “I wasn’t sure what kinds of flowers you liked best, so—”

  She flung herself into his arms.

  He held her close. Closer
still. Buried his face in her hair and felt—felt his eyes blur.

  What was happening to him? Because something definitely was. What had started as The Right Thing was turning into something more.

  “I wanted this day, this night, to be special for you,” he said.

  She looked up, her eyes brilliant with tears.

  “You’re what’s special,” she said, “you, Caleb, you—”

  He kissed her. Kissed her again. Her tears became sighs, her sighs became moans, and he did what he’d longed to do back in her apartment.

  Took the pins from her hair.

  Took off her dress.

  Helped her step free of it as it pooled at her feet.

  She was wearing a pale blue lace bra and panties. And those impossibly high, impossibly sexy heels.

  She was beautiful.

  And she was his.

  He took her in his arms. Kissed her, searched out the sweetness of her mouth, groaned as she undid his belt, his fly, slipped her hand inside and found his heat, his hardness, his hunger.

  For her. Only for her. Because she was his. His...

  Caleb yanked his shirt over his head, kicked off his shoes, pulled off the rest of his clothing. Then he swung Sage into his arms, carried her to the bedroom and made love to her until she came apart beneath him.

  He watched her face as it happened, heard her sob his name, and knew that his life had changed, not just because of the baby they’d created together, but because of Sage.

  Because he’d found her.

  Because—because—

  He gave up thinking.

  And shattered with her.

  * * *

  There was a small fridge in an alcove just off the dining room.

  Wrapped in one of the luxurious white robes the hotel had provided, Sage rummaged within it, said a triumphant “Ta da!” and turned toward Caleb with a small platter of cheeses in one hand and a bowl of big, ripe strawberries in the other.

  He grinned, extracted the cork from a bottle of champagne.

  “Non-alcoholic,” he said, as he poured the bubbly stuff into two flutes. “And now... Dinner in bed, madame?”

  “An excellent suggestion, sir.”

  They took their loot into the bedroom and climbed onto the bed, leaned back against the stacked pillows and feasted.

  Sage said the pseudo-champagne was lovely.

  Caleb rolled his eyes and said it was, for certain, preferable to herbal tea.

  The cheeses were delicious. The berries were sweet and when some of the juice dribbled over her lips, Sage said they needed napkins.

  Caleb said they didn’t, and proved it by licking the juice from her lips, her throat, her breasts.

  She gave a little “mmm” of pleasure, a soft moan when he drew her nipple into his mouth.

  “Still want that napkin?” he growled against her soft flesh.

  “I’m not sure,” she said breathlessly. “You’ll just have to convince me—”

  “Put your glass down.”

  “Why?” she said, in a sexy whisper surely meant to drive him crazy.

  Caleb poured a few drops of his drink over her belly, then licked it away.

  Sage gasped. Her hand shook.

  “That’s why,” he said.

  She put her glass on the table. He let some more of the liquid drip on her. Lower. And lower. Lower still, until he nuzzled her thighs apart.

  “Now this,” he said thickly, “this is a definite improvement over herbal tea.”

  Sage whispered his name.

  “I love the taste of you here,” he said thickly. “And the scent. I love—”

  She cried out.

  One last taste of her. One last kiss. Then his champagne flute fell, forgotten, to the carpet. He rose up, kissed her mouth and sank into her.

  The whirlwind caught them up again, spun them off the edge of the world until he collapsed in her encircling arms.

  When their breathing finally slowed, he gathered her close, rolled onto his side holding her, and they tumbled into sleep.

  * * *

  They showered in the enormous glass shower stall.

  Sage announced that the bathroom really was twice the size of her entire apartment. And the hot water didn’t give out after just a few minutes, a very good thing because it lasted enough for Caleb to say, “Here, let me do that,” take the sea sponge from her hand, and bathe her with it.

  Every sweet inch of her, from top to bottom.

  He dried her, too, with a fluffy white bath sheet as they stood beneath the heat lamps.

  She gasped as he dried places that required extra tender care, as he kissed her and teased her with his mouth, his hands, his fingers.

  Then it was her turn to dry him. To tease him. Explore him, until one touch led to another, one kiss to another...

  He carried her back to bed. She wrapped her legs around his hips.

  “Caleb,” she gasped.

  “Yes,” he groaned, “yes...”

  Later, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  * * *

  When they awoke, the sky was black. Central Park wore the city’s fabled skyline like a necklace of diamonds.

  “I,” Caleb said, “am hungry enough to eat a—”

  “Fried cheese sandwich with a fried hot dog on the side?”

  He grinned, told her to be careful what she wished for, sat up and reached for the phone.

  They put on the terry-cloth robes again. A waiter brought their dinner; Caleb met him at the sitting-room door, thanked him, tipped him extravagantly and said he’d take over from here.

  He didn’t want to share this night with anyone.

  He wheeled the serving cart to the windows. Dragged over a pair of chairs. Sage lifted the silver lids from the plates and platters.

  Grilled steaks. Tiny roasted red potatoes. Baby carrots and asparagus slender as toothpicks.

  “Where’s yours?” she said with wide-eyed innocence. Then she picked up a potato and popped it, whole, into her mouth.

  “Good?” Caleb asked.

  “No,” she said. “But I’ll make the sacrifice. I’ll eat it all, to save you from food poisoning.”

  He laughed, leaned over and kissed her.

  They ate every morsel, opened another bottle of the not-really-Champagne.

  Then Caleb wheeled the cart into the dining room and they settled on the floor in front of the flower-filled fireplace, the last of the fizzy non-wine in their glasses, and leaned back against a big stack of black-and-white pillows.

  Caleb drew Sage into the curve of his arm.

  She sighed. Then she said, in a deadly serious tone, “Okay, Caleb Wilde, the time has come.”

  His heart thudded. Was she going to say she’d changed her mind about marrying him?

  “I want to know everything about you.” She looked at him. “For starters,” she said with a smile on her lips, “have you always been a knight?”

  He laughed. “Trust me, sweetheart. I’ve never been that.”

  Her smile faded; her expression turned serious.

  “I do trust you,” she said softly. “And I never thought I’d say that to any man.”

  Caleb kissed her temple. “Want to tell me about it?”

  She hesitated. And then she knew that she did, that this was part of what made everything between them special.

  That they could be honest and open with each other.

  So she sat up straight, scrunched around until she was sitting, cross-legged, facing him.

  “I grew up in Indiana,” she said, “in a little town in the middle of nowhere.”

  Just the two of them, she said, she and her mother. And, she said, without any e
mbarrassment or apology, the same direct way she’d said it before, they’d been poor.

  It hurt him, to think of her as a kid without the things he’d pretty much taken for granted, but what hurt most was when he realized, as she talked, that her childhood, her teen years, her life in that little town in the middle of nowhere, had been defined more by her mother’s bitterness, by the absence of a father, than by poverty.

  His own mother had died when he and his brothers were very small but he had warm memories of the woman who’d become their stepmother. And though none of them could ever pretend their relationship with their father had been warm or traditionally loving, at least they’d had a father.

  She told him how she’d come to New York with two hundred dollars she’d saved from working at the local diner when she was in high school. How she’d found a flat she’d shared with five other girls.

  “Picture it, six women, all fighting for the bathroom,” she said, making light of what he knew must have been a tough couple of years.

  “Then,” she said, “I got a part in a Sandra Bullock movie. I was supposed to just sit near her in a restaurant scene but I ended up with a line to speak.”

  “And you were great.”

  “Of course,” she said archly. They both smiled. “Seriously, I guess I was okay because I got a few more parts and then my agent snagged me a TV ad.” She fluttered her lashes. “I was a talking box of corn flakes.”

  He laughed, took her hand, kissed each finger and said he’d never look at corn flakes the same way again.

  “I met David right after that.” Her tone softened. “He was wonderful. Funny. Caring. Smart. He became the big brother I’d never had. Everybody liked him—except for his father. Once David came out, Caldwell disowned him. He wouldn’t even take his calls.”

  Caleb reached for her and drew her into his lap.

  “I’m sorry for what I did that night. To David, you know? I shouldn’t have—”

  “It was okay. Really.” She smiled. “David said it was a compliment. See, he was trying out for a part where he was going to play a straight guy so he figured if you didn’t think he was gay...” She leaned her head against Caleb’s shoulder. “That’s enough about me. You’re supposed to be telling me about you.”