Miranda Lee - Marriage At A Price

by Marriage At A Price(Lit)

  The dining room at Crosswinds was not a small room, the table large by any standards. Eight high-backed chairs could easily be accommodated around it. And there was still room for a selection of corner cabinets and sideboards,

  Courtney had dashed in and set the table earlier whilst Jack had been busy drinking sherry with Agnes in the front living room. She'd placed Jack down the end near the fireplace, herself right at the other end not far from the door. She'd even strategically positioned a bowl of flowers, the blooms big enough to block any direct view of the ever increasingly attractive Jack.

  But it had been a futile gesture. Jack had simply whipped the vase away on entering, dumping it on a sideboard with the witty aside, 'Roses are red, violets are blue, but I'd really much rather look at you.'

  And look at her he had. Curiously. Speculatingly. Seductively.

  Physical passes weren't the only way to seduce a woman, she was beginning to realise. The right man could do it with words, or his eyes, or simply by being under the same roof.

  Courtney decided then and there that she would stay down at the brood-mare barn for a good few hours, whether a mare was foaling or not.

  'Agnes likes to wash her own dishes,' she told Jack coolly, 'but I'm sure you could help by drying up. Now, if I am held up, there's always the TV for entertainment. We have satellite. And there are plenty of books to read.' The shelves in the living room had an eclectic mix, from biographies to novels of all genres, as well as books on everything to do with horses and horse breeding.

  'Don't worry about me,' Jack replied with annoying nonchalance. Til be fine. Agnes and I are going to play Scrabble. Naturally, you're welcome to join us, if and when you return.'

  'Courtney doesn't like games,' Agnes said.

  'Really? Why not?'

  Too much luck involved,' Courtney said sharply.

  'Actually, luck only plays a small part in most games,' Jack countered. 'Winning depends more on concentration and skill.'

  'You're skilled at Scrabble, then?' she asked archly.

  'Never played it before in my life.'

  Agnes chuckled as she rose and started clearing the table. 'Let's get this done in a hurry, then, young man. After which you can come into my parlour...'

  Jack stood up, laughing! his teeth flashing white. Courtney groaned silently and fled the room.

  As it turned out, a mare was foaling when she arrived at the brood-mare barn, so she stayed and helped the night manager deliver the stylish bay colt. It was good to put her mind to something else for a couple of hours, other than that infernal man.

  The birth was slow, and a bit tricky, and she was covered in blood by the time the new arrival slipped out into the waiting bed of straw.

  'Glad that's over,' Fred said with a relieved sigh. 'I hate it when their legs get all tangled up like that. The mare panics. It was great to have an extra pair of hands to keep her calm. You're damned good at that, Courtney. You have just the right touch.'

  The right touch...

  The longing was back straight away, and so was the need, so sharp she almost cried out. In sheer desperation she stared at Fred. He wasn't a bad-looking man. Not the brightest, but still male. He wouldn't knock her back. Maybe if she...

  Bile rose from her stomach to sting her throat. She gulped it down, even more panicky now. Because now she knew, knew that the thought of touching any man other than Jack revolted her so much that it made her sick.

  Oh, God...

  'Something wrong?' Fred asked.

  Courtney shook her head. 'Just wool-gathering. You be all right by yourself for the rest of the night?'

  'Sure. Nothing else doing here tonight. Next week things'll begin to hot up a bit, though. Then you might be losing some sleep. You'd better get back up to the house and to bed while you got the chance, I reckon.'

  Courtney wished he hadn't said that.

  'I think I'll go for a walk first,' she said. 'I like looking at the horses in the moonlight.'

  It was chiming midnight on the grandfather clock in the hall by the time she tiptoed up the stairs. A light still glowed under the door of Jack's bedroom, which didn't exactly help her state of mind. Wretched man! Why couldn't he have been sound asleep, with everything in darkness? Why did she now have to 'contend with the thought of him lying there, still wide awake, his beautiful body ready and willing?

  Gritting her teeth, she crept into her own room opposite his, snatching up a nightie from underneath her pillow and creeping back down the hallway to the far bathroom, hoping against hope that Jack wouldn't hear the shower running. She was careful in closing the old wooden door, then turning the big brass key in the lock.

  Washing herself under the shower proved a torment. Her breasts felt full, her nipples electrified, and the area between her legs on fire. She tried to be quick, and not linger over sensitive spots, but the second she slid the soap over her private parts, she groaned. The temptation to keep doing it was acute. All she had to do was close her eyes and think about Jack, and surely...

  'Damn it all, no!' she muttered. 'This is not what I want.'

  She wanted Jack. Only Jack.

  The soap clattered to the floor and her hand shot up to snap off the shower. She didn't bother with her nightie. A towel would do, wrapped tightly around her wet, heat-drenched body. Her hair hung in damp curls around her bared shoulders but she didn't give a fig about her hair.

  She was past the point of no return, past caring about anything but finding some peace for her poor, pathetic, frustrated flesh.

  How she had the forethought to return to her room for the box of condoms surprised her. At least she wasn't that far gone that she couldn't think of protection.

  Her hesitation over the knob on Jack's door irritated the death out of her. Having made her decision, any lack of courage at this stage was not to be tolerated. It was just that he'd be so annoyingly smug and triumphant!

  Too late to worry about that, she resolved boldly.

  Opening the door, she slipped inside his room.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HE WAS asleep. Sound asleep. Sprawled out on the bed, one of the lamps still on, a book lying open on the pillow beside him. The remnants of a fire smouldered in the marble fireplace, making the room quite warm, which was possibly why he'd thrown back the sheets and was lying there wearing nothing but a pair of navy blue satin boxer shorts with some kind of jazzy red design all over them.

  Feeling even more frustrated, Courtney stalked over and glared down at it.

  Hearts, they were. Red hearts. Not the sort of thing a man would buy himself. Probably a Valentine's day present from a woman. No...from Superbitch.

  Courtney practically ground her teeth. Did he think of her every time he put them on? Did he like sleeping in them, remembering how good she'd been in bed? Or how deliriously bad?

  Piqued by her thoughts and by the fact that Jack hadn't tossed and turned into the night with wanting her, Courtney snatched up the book, snapped it shut and glared at the title.

  'How To Breed Champions,' she read aloud, then glared at him. 'Breeding champions is not your job, buster,' she muttered, tossing the book onto a nearby dresser. 'Your job is to stay awake long enough for me to change my mind and take you up on your offer.'

  'Your wish is my command...' His eyes flicked open as he rolled over and looked up at her through long dark lashes. 'Mmm. Glad to see you didn't overdress for the occasion.' And, reaching out, he tugged at the bottom of her towel.

  It dropped to the floor, leaving her stark naked before him, clutching a box of condoms.

  'You were awake all the time!' she accused.

  'Not quite. But I certainly am now.' His hooded gaze travelled slowly over her from head to toe, drinking in every inch of her stiffly held nudity.

  Do something, she ordered herself. Don't just stand there like some undressed dummy in a shop window.

  'You are one beautiful woman, Courtney Cross,' he said thickly. 'Now, come here...'

  It was a softly
voiced order. A seductive order.

  How easy it would have been to fall into his arms and let him do as he willed.

  It was a struggle to find the boldly assertive creature she usually became when she wanted sex. Because it wasn't just sex she was secretly craving this time, was it? It was the mindless ecstasy of total surrender.

  Which made it all the more imperative that she follow her usual path.

  'Now, Jack,' she said firmly, and busied herself ripping the Cellophane off the box of condoms. 'I told you. I like to be at the wheel. Besides, you must be tired after all that driving today. That's why you fell asleep with the light on. So just lie back, relax and let me take responsibility for everything. You'll enjoy it. Trust me.'

  The Cellophane gone, she flipped open the box and tossed it onto the bedside table before pushing Jack onto his back and climbing up onto the bed beside him.

  He looked taken aback when she immediately started pulling down his boxer shorts. 'Hey! What the heck do...?'

  Too late. His shorts were already off.

  'Do be quiet, Jack. Agnes is not a heavy sleeper. We don't want her coming in to find out what all the noise is about, do we?'

  His dark brows lifted but he eventually lay back and shut his mouth. Which was good, Courtney told herself. She didn't like her men to talk. She wasn't there for a tete-a-tete. She was there to soothe her galloping hormones, or whatever it was Jack had evoked in her to such a maddeningly compulsive level.

  'Now,' she murmured, straddling his wonderfully muscular thighs then sitting back on his knees. 'Let's have a look at you...'

  If she'd been struggling for control before, now was the real moment of truth, with Jack naked and immobile beneath her, his magnificently macho body on full display for her hungry gaze.

  And hungry she was. Oh, so hungry. As her eyes raked over him she wanted to ravish him on the spot. Every single bit of him.

  Courtney tried telling herself his body was no better than any she'd seen before. Just bigger. And bigger wasn't necessarily better.

  Or so some stupid fool had told her once. Some people simply had no idea.

  'You are one beautiful man, Jack Falconer,' she murmured, and leant forward to run her hands all over his wonderfully hairy chest, his smooth as satin shoulders, his strong upper arms. Her breathing became ragged as she moved back to his chest again where her fingers splayed sensuously within the mass of soft dark curls. He gasped when they grazed over his nipples.

  When his hands reached for her, she grabbed his wrists and pushed them into the pillows on either side of his head, a position that unfortunately had the tips of her breasts brushing against the hair of his chest For a second or two, she almost lost it.

  His smiling at her snapped her back to the potential disaster of this situation.

  'I'm the driver tonight, remember?' she whispered harshly against his lips. 'Not you. No touching,' she commanded. 'No moving. No nothing. Do you think you can manage that for once?'

  'Yes, boss,' he replied, but he was still smiling.

  She kissed him, deep and hard, a powerful punishing kiss which was supposed to tell him who indeed was boss. But once again it was herself in danger of losing control. If he'd been able to put his hands on her, she might have. As it was, she kept her head. Just.

  As for Jack, he was breathing very heavily by the time she wrenched her mouth away from his and straightened up again. His eyes had darkened to slate and he was no longer smiling. His erection spoke for itself, lying huge and high against his stomach.

  'You sure you know what you're doing, here?' Jack muttered thickly when she reached to encircle it with both her hands.

  She sucked in a steadying breath, swallowed, then gave him what she hoped was a cool smile.

  Her hands began to move and his eyes widened, his body flinching each time her thumb grazed over the soft velvety tip. Finally, his hips began to lift slightly from the bed, his buttocks squeezing tightly together.

  'You'd better stop doing that,' he growled.

  Courtney stopped, squeezing him in exactly the right spot so that he immediately subsided. Jack looked stunned whilst she tried to hide her own rattled state. She hadn't meant to let things go quite that far with just her

  hands, but she'd become mesmerised by his responses to her touch, by his actually becoming longer and thicker and harder. She'd thought he was fully erect.

  'Courtney, no.' Jack groaned when she bent her mouth to where her hands had been. 'For pity's sake!'

  But pity was not an emotion Courtney was feeling at that moment. Her whole being was consumed by the most compelling need to possess him again. Utterly. And far more intimately. There was no cohesive thought on her part. Just the sense of herself falling into a black abyss from which there was no escape."

  Her heart lurched as her lips closed over him, her head swirled and, finally, she was lost to the darkness.

  His abrupt pulling her off him and up to his mouth came as a shock, much like someone suddenly shining a blinding light into your sleepy eyes.

  'Time to change driver, honey,' he grated out.

  Dazed and disorientated, Courtney was like a rag doll as he rolled her over onto her back, his mouth crushing down onto hers. This time it was his tongue darting deep, his hands holding her arms out wide and his body pressing her down, down, down.

  Panic had her struggling to break free, her mouth twisting from his with a harsh cry of protest.

  'Hush up,' he ground out. 'You can be on top another night, but right now you're going to be made love to by a real man for a change, not some bloody puppet you can pull around by the strings. My name's not Larry, honey. It's Jack. And, like I said, I don't take orders. Now, are you going to be cooperative and quiet? Or do I have to kiss you till you are?'

  Her eyes were like saucers, but her mouth stayed silent.

  'Good.'

  He still kissed her, over and over, kissed her till she was reeling, and then...then he started kissing her all over. Her throat. Her breasts. Her stomach. Her thighs. Between her thighs.

  'Oh, God,' she moaned, and spread her legs wider for him.

  This was one of the things she'd feared; what she'd worried might happen to her. That she would be powerless to stop him doing whatever he liked. And here it was, happening to her.

  Yet the reality wasn't anything to fear, she eventually realised. It was...bliss.

  'Don't stop,' she choked out when he did.

  His laughter was dark. 'Can't have you getting too addicted to that. Or coming too soon.'

  She groaned. She'd been awfully close.

  He kissed his way back up her body till he got to her breasts again. There, he sucked on her nipples till they were so sensitive just breathing on them made her tremble and arch her back.

  By the time he reached for the condom she was quivering, and panting. She could not wait for the moment when she could feel him entering her, filling her totally. She bent her knees in readiness, breathless with anticipation.

  'You like it like that?' he asked, sounding surprised. 'In the missionary position?'

  She blinked, startled that he was stopping to discuss positions at this stage when she was just dying to have him inside her, any old way.

  'Sometimes,' she lied, and he shrugged.

  'Not many women do. But that's okay. I'm easy.' She gasped as he entered her, his thick, hard length thrusting home in one solid surge. Her legs automatically lifted to wrap themselves tight around him, as did her arms, winding around his big broad back, holding him close, pulling him even deeper into her.

  The sensation was incredible. 'Oh, Jack...'

  'I know,' he muttered. 'I know. I feel it too.'

  Did he? she wondered dazedly. Did he really?

  She'd never known anything like it. Not just the physical pleasure, but something else. A wave crashing through her, a wave of emotion so strong it took everything with it, especially all her preconceptions and misconceptions about making love with Jack.

 
Her heart filled with it, overflowed with it. She hugged him to her and wanted nothing but to stay that way forever, their flesh fused, their hearts beating as one.

  This had to be love, she realised in her rapture, that long-scorned emotion that she scarcely believed in and told herself she would never fall victim too.

  Love. Glorious, wonderful, overwhelming love.