Claiming His Christmas Wife

by Dani Collins

  He had been astonished when she had said it. He could remember being astounded that she really had been a virgin on their wedding night. She had been so sensual and responsive, reacting to his lightest touch. She had said something at the time about dating in the wrong pool, not the sort of men she found truly attractive. He remembered being curious but not asking questions, because he was smart enough to know that sexual pasts were never good topics with current lovers.

  His own past seemed tawdry against her standards, especially when he’d left her thinking he didn’t want her.

  I’ve said things to hurt you.

  And it worked.

  He’d been fearful he’d killed whatever she’d once felt for him when she had said that. He’d spent the evening sick with himself for kicking over what had actually been quite precious, long before he realized its value.

  At the same time, he’d been fighting jealousy. He had no right to such a thing, but even Vito’s eyes had lit with surprised appreciation at the sight of Imogen tonight and he was 10,000 percent devoted to Gwyn. Everyone was looking at Imogen, not because she was Travis’s surprise ex-wife, but because she was that entrancing.

  He was proud to stand beside her, but threatened. He wanted her, but so did everyone else. And there was nothing that gave him a claim on her except maybe obligation on her part for the help he was offering her.

  All of that had been whirling in him as his mother showed up to act as any mother would on meeting the woman who might have been her daughter-in-law.

  His mother’s presence had reminded him that any sort of monogamy was an exercise in futility. It didn’t matter how much he wanted Imogen. He couldn’t have her. Not forever. Not in a way he could believe in.

  The pressure had reached a boiling point in him. Imogen getting cozy with his mother had been his snapping point.

  He wasn’t still punishing his mother. He wasn’t that small. But the accusations Imogen had been throwing at him about being human had been all too accurate when primal forces had been taking him over. Then she had dared him to kiss her.

  He hadn’t been trying to control her. He’d barely been able to control any of that—which was a terrifying admission to make to himself. But the second he had touched her, he hadn’t been thinking of anything at all. Nothing except pleasure. Ensuring hers, then enjoying his.

  We don’t want anyone to know.

  He supposed that was for his benefit. She had pulled herself together and was out there putting on a brave face to protect his reputation, and all he wanted to do was go out and manacle her wrist with a firm grip, telling the entire guest list, “She’s mine.”

  He wanted to drag her back in here and prove it again. And again and again.

  The instinct, so base on the heels of acting like such a caveman, left him shaken. He splashed cold water on his face and pulled himself together.

  When he finally returned to the party, he didn’t spot her right away. The delay was just long enough for a knee of panic to kick into his abdomen. Then he found her outside, at the rail with his father.

  He noted the wrinkles pressed into the velvet of her dress. Anyone else would imagine they had been caused by her sitting down for a few minutes, but he knew his own weight had imprinted those lines into her gown. He burned with primitive satisfaction as he approached. Burned in the sinful fires of wanting to do it again.

  As he came up behind them, he heard his father offering a history lesson, pointing to heritage properties barely visible in the dark.

  Unable and unwilling to go another second without touching her, he found her waist with his splayed hand. “Dance?”

  She turned, revealing a brief flash of pain that nearly knocked Travis over the rail and into the water before she swept her lashes low, leaving an impression of having been chastised.

  “If you’d like. Excuse me, Henry.”

  “You two have fun,” his father said with an indulgent smile.

  His father’s pleasure against her wariness set Travis’s heart on its edge. He took her into his embrace, but she felt stiff and awkward.

  “He was only telling me about some buildings. It wasn’t anything about you or us.” The pang in her voice rang like a bell deep in his ears, sending painful echoes into his chest.

  “I wasn’t trying to cut that short.” Maybe he was. What point was there in letting his father get to know her? He’d dropped by the house today with a half-assed explanation, which his father had only absorbed with a pained nod.

  Forgive me for hoping your reasons for divorce weren’t as insurmountable as mine with your mother. Of course, if I was still married to your mother, I wouldn’t have Gwyn and her children, would I? I guess these things work out as they’re meant to.

  Was that his father’s idea of something “working out”? His first wife had cheated and his second had been diagnosed months after their wedding day, gone within a couple of pain-filled years.

  Imogen’s hand in his felt tense. All of her did. He was shoving a mannequin around the dance floor.

  She had her chin tucked, hiding her expression. When he looked around to see if anyone had noticed, he caught Gwyn frowning at them with concern.

  He drew Imogen toward the rail, where a shadow was cast by the bulkhead. “Imogen, I’m—”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry. You’ll make it worse.” She kept her face turned toward the water, so the guests couldn’t see she had a sheen of misery on her eyes.

  “I hurt you.” A cloud of remorse choked him. He sidestepped to shield her with his body and tried to enfold her, somehow thinking if he held her gently now, it would erase his fervent embrace from before.

  “I hurt myself. I thought I was proving something, but now there’s just one more thing to worry about. And for what? Nothing changes.” She pushed away and pressed herself to the rail, looking up to hold back tears. He watched her visibly gather her composure, taking breaths to steady her shoulders and calm her profile.

  “Are you two all right? Did your mother say something?” Gwyn appeared beside them, looking to him with concern.

  Travis bit back a curse while Imogen quickly found a bright smile.

  “I’m a little seasick. Please don’t say anything.” She squeezed Gwyn’s arm. “You know what sort of rumor that will start. But maybe fetch me a ginger ale?” she asked Travis.

  So quick with the lies it was terrifying, making the other thing she’d said a harsh truth: nothing had been changed by their lovemaking.

  He went to order her drink, thinking he would never again attend a party on a boat. There was no escape when the seas grew rough.

  * * *

  Imogen’s cheeks ached from the strain of holding a fake smile. Her shoulders were carved marble, her molars practically shaved down to nothing after grinding them to endure this interminable night.

  It was after midnight, yet somehow the hotel concierge had come through for her and made a purchase from an all-night pharmacy, leaving her package next to the bathroom sink as she had asked in her brief call from the ladies’ room aboard the yacht.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she cried as she read the directions. “Is nothing in this life simple?” Marching out of the bathroom, she found Travis unraveling his tie and pulling it from his collar. His jacket already hung off the back of a chair.

  He stalled with surprise. “What’s wrong?”

  “Can you look up if these interact? There’s no point taking both if one cancels out the other.” She shoved the contraceptive and the antibiotics at him, then went straight back to the bathroom to remove her makeup, so overwhelmed and frustrated she was shaking.

  She was still reacting to their impetuous lovemaking, not quite believing it had happened. After his claim that he’d only said things in the past to hurt her, implying they hadn’t all been true, she had had a perverse need to test his desire. As they fo
ught, she had goaded him. Part of her was thrilled to discover they were as explosive as they’d been during their marriage. But as physically exciting and satisfying as their lovemaking had been, all she’d learned was that he was capable of having sex with someone he disliked.

  How devastating.

  He came in to set both items beside her on the vanity. “They’re fine.”

  She finished brushing her teeth, poured herself a glass of water and took her medication. Then she dropped the contraceptive into her palm and threw it into her mouth, right there where he could watch her take it and there wouldn’t be any accusations later if things went awry.

  He inhaled sharply, as though her action was a bludgeon that landed someplace very mortal and damaging to him.

  “No discussion, then,” he said in a strained voice.

  “What’s to discuss?” she asked after washing it down. “You don’t want a baby with me. You’re already sorry you even touched me. Do you mind?” She lifted her hair and turned her back so he could remove the necklace.

  He slid the pendant free and set it on the vanity with a muted shower of gold links against marble. Then he surprised her by taking hold of her hips. The weight of his head came to rest against the crook of her neck and shoulder. The heat of his forehead almost thawed the rigidity gathered there.

  “My only regret is that I didn’t treat you more gently. You destroy me, Imogen.” His voice was grim, but his breath feathered against the top of her spine. “When I’m with you like that, nothing matters. You’re like a drug.”

  Damaging and ugly. Her heart skittered and swirled down a drain. “And you hate it. Hate me. I know.”

  “I don’t hate you.” His hands tightened. “I don’t hate how we are together. That is the problem!”

  She shakily took off the earrings, but he didn’t release her. His body heat and the press of his mouth on her hair remained while she set aside the earrings. She stared at their hooked shape against the marble, unwilling to lift her gaze to the mirror and see herself in his odd embrace. She stood in his hold as though his body was a compress, something that eased the ache while the injury remained.

  His breath wafted against her skin again. His hands massaged gently on her hips.

  “You’re so fierce and dangerous to me, I forget that you’re slight and tender and bruise easily.”

  “I’m fine. We had quickies before. If I wasn’t into it, I would have told you.”

  He drew a deeper breath as he lifted his head, but when he released his grip on her hips, he folded his arms across her front, gathering her into him.

  She felt so safe in that moment, with her one arm resting over his at her waist, her other hand catching at his strong wrist where his arm banded her collarbone, she let herself lean into him and close her eyes. His cheek rested against her head, lips near her ear. She felt the light kiss he placed there and nearly wept at the sweetness of it.

  “I’m tired of the hurt and the blame and the guilt,” she confessed in a whisper. “I’m tired of being a disappointment.”

  “You’re not.”

  She drew away and turned to face him. “You don’t want this. You don’t want me.”

  His lips tightened into a grim line and he looked away, not at his reflection but in the other direction, as if he couldn’t look at himself right then, either.

  “I don’t want to be at the mercy of the way you make me feel. You have always been too much for me. Never not enough. I don’t know how to deal with the force that is Imogen. You’re so beautiful and passionate. I make rash promises I can’t keep, just for the privilege of touching you. I want you more than I can bear.”

  “I don’t want to be your self-destructive impulse, Travis. I want...”

  She wanted him to love her. To want her forever. Those had been her thoughts the first time, when she had been young and idealistic and had succumbed within a week to blind passion. She had saved herself for her husband because she had believed if a man married her, it would mean he loved her.

  She was older and wiser now, but... “I want you to like me,” she said shakily. “At least a little. I know I can’t look to any man to complete me, but we ought to offer each other something besides orgasms. A lifetime commitment was an unrealistic expectation for both of us. I know that. We should have had an affair four years ago, but an affair now is madness. You resent me. I’m a charity case. It’s too unequal.”

  “It’s not charity. I’m helping you because I want to, Imogen. Because I care. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t.” He set his hand against the side of her neck and looked her in the eyes.

  I care. Silly, foolish hope began to thrum like a trapped bird in her chest.

  “But trust is an issue for me.” His thumb stroked against her throat. “That’s not all on you. I didn’t trust you when we married and I didn’t yet have a reason not to.”

  “Then I lived up to your lowest expectations,” she muttered.

  “How much did you trust me?” he challenged quietly.

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “Fair enough.” He acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. “But this is an opportunity for the affair we should have had. One without added pressures like marriage or ulterior motives.”

  “One without expectations of any kind? Not even a future?” She said the words so they both understood the rules, even though it was a heel on her heart.

  “Yes.”

  That wasn’t such a terrible thing. He did care for her in his way and the surrender of defenses and weapons between them would bring an approximation of the peace she desperately longed for. It was something.

  Covering his hand, she turned her head so she could kiss the inside of his wrist.

  His breath shuddered as he drew her in. She lifted her mouth for the press of his and it was pure magic. All the charged emotions flipped and became a magnetism, strong and electric, sealing them into rightness. His kiss was urgent but tender. Passionate but sweet. So, so sweet.

  They stood there a long time, hands whispering across clothing as they kissed. She ran her fingers through his hair again and again, loving the short, spiky strands, so dearly familiar. He cupped her butt and took soft bites down the side of her throat, laughing with satisfaction when he made her shiver and moan.

  “Still my fatal weakness,” she said sheepishly, shrugging and drawing back to rub the lingering tingles.

  “I’m going after the small of your back before we’re done,” he promised in a voice that hit like a velvet punch in her midsection. His fingertips tickled into those delicate hollows that took out her knees.

  As she let him take her weight, she looked into the expression that convinced her she was someone worth the trouble, the one that was fierce and possessive, lit with approval and hunger and abject desire, all his attention on her. It was intoxicating to be looked at like that. This was why she had fallen for him the first time.

  Closing her eyes so she wouldn’t start to believe in the impossible, she ran her hands up behind his neck, reveling in the luxury to do so, and drew him down for another kiss.

  He dipped and caught her behind the knees, carrying her to the bedroom where he set her on her feet by the bed. When he started to kiss her, she drew back a half step.

  “I want to look at you,” she told him shyly and started to search for the buttons in the pleats on his shirt. “Feel you.”

  He yanked at his shirt, pulling it from his waistband and rending the buttons to get it open before stripping it with a powerful twist of his tanned shoulders. When one cuff hung up at his wrist, he swore like he meant it, making her laugh.

  “We have all night,” she pointed out.

  “You don’t understand how badly I want to be naked with you,” he growled, making her laugh again as the shirt got trampled so he could jerk his arm free. Then he shed his pants and underwear in o
ne swift move.

  He straightened and all of her melted at the sight of this man. The handful of years had added muscle to his chest and seemed to broaden his shoulders. The taper to his flat abdomen and narrow hips was accentuated and sexier than ever. He was starkly aroused, flesh thrusting with desire atop the tense columns of his thighs.

  As intimidating as he was, however, so broad and aggressive-looking, his hands were surprisingly gentle as he drew the dress down her shoulders. It fell to her elbows and the bodice drooped, exposing her breasts.

  Her nipples, already hard points, pinched even tighter as he looked at her like he’d uncovered a treasure, seemingly having forgotten himself as his breath became audible and unsteady.

  He lightly guided her hands down to her sides, so the dress continued its fall. It puddled around her feet, leaving her standing in only her midnight blue thong and a pair of high heels in black velvet with a velvet ribbon tied in a bow at each ankle.

  The hiss of his breath deepened as his gaze took her in, crossing from shoulder to shoulder, singeing her quivering breasts and making her stomach suck in. Heat flooded into her loins, dampening the thong he lightly traced with the tip of his finger. Her thighs trembled in reaction to his touch, making her feel unsteady in her shoes.

  Very slowly, excruciatingly slowly, he eased her thong down, exposing her inch by inch, making her clench in anticipation and bite her lip at the tease of it.

  “Don’t close your legs. Let them fall.”

  “Travis,” she breathed, tortured.

  “I know. I want you, too. But let me look.” The lace finally fell down her legs, but that only left her helpless to the torment of his light caress. He traced and teased and had her moaning under the tickling touch that only incited, didn’t assuage.

  She reached to take him in hand, squeezing a message of what she needed from him. He grunted out a harsh curse and thrust into her grip, then caught her against him so the impact of hot skin against her own made her cry out.

  They kissed then, madly and deeply. Without restraint. Wet and hot and with such lust she thought she would combust. She rubbed herself against him, needing the scrape of chest hair against her nipples, and lifted her knee against his hip, longing for the shape that stroked her sensitive flesh to invade and satisfy her.