by Eileen Wilks
Or maybe she wanted a few more minutes with this baffling man.
She shook her head, trying to rouse the wariness she knew she ought to be feeling. "I really shouldn't."
"Scotch and water." He handed her one glass. "I hope that's okay."
The smoky aroma made her nose wrinkle. "I suppose. For medicinal purposes."
"Not a Scotch fancier, I take it."
"It was Ken's drink."
He glanced at the glass still in his hand. "Should I cultivate a taste for Irish whiskey?"
"It doesn't matter what my employer drinks." She took a sip. The taste was strong, not entirely unpleasant Malt and smoke, medicine and memories … it was the memories that made her set the glass down on the nearest surface after that single taste.
"I'm glad you agree I'm still your employer." He put his own drink down, untasted, next to hers. "But I'd like to exchange that status for another. No," he said when she tried to interrupt. "Don't say anything yet. Give me a chance to present my case."
"We aren't in court." She shoved her hair back, her hand lingering on her nape to rub at the tension there. "But go ahead. I can't seem to stop you."
"First, don't even think of leaving here. Even if you decide you don't want me for a husband, you're better off here than somewhere Lawrence can get at you. You'll have my protection, Claire." His voice was low and intense. "No matter what you decide. But what happens in a month, when Sonia comes back?"
"I…" She hadn't thought that far ahead. Had carefully avoided thinking about it. "Jackie will have him in custody by then."
"Maybe. But she has to have evidence. If your cousin can't testify against Lawrence, what can she do? What will you do?"
What, indeed? "If I have to, I'll leave Dallas."
"And if he follows you?" He came closer. "Claire, the man has apparently nursed his obsession through six years of prison. If your friend can't put him away before Sonia comes back, what will you do?" He paused. "If you marry me, you'll have my protection for as long as you need it."
"Did it ever occur to you that I might not want to depend on someone else for protection?"
"Whether you want it or not, you need it. And what's wrong with that? Women have married for protection for centuries."
"Those would be the same centuries that women were treated as chattel, I believe."
Humor glimmered in his eyes. "All right. If not for protection, what about money? Also a historically common motive, one that remains popular today."
"Maybe with some women – or men. But it strikes me as a legalized form of prostitution."
"Only if you go to bed with me. Will you be easier to seduce if we're married?"
Her heart kicked, sending a quick, excited message to the rest of her body – which very much liked the idea of being seduced by Jacob. She ignored it. "Are you saying you wouldn't expect to have sex with your wife?"
The teasing smile vanished. "I'd expect nothing more than whatever you promised me. We can work out the terms ahead of time. Of course, some of it we might not want to put into writing." Again, that glint of amusement. "Like the part about whether you go to bed with me or not."
"Jacob." Sadness slipped inside her anger, softening it when she wanted to stay strong and angry. "Marriage isn't a merger. It isn't some sort of business deal."
"It can be."
"Only if one person is selling something to the other. I won't sell myself."
"Then marry me for Ada's sake."
"What?" Off balance, she placed her hand flat on the wall, as if she could steady her mind by catching herself physically. "What does Ada have to do with this?"
"You don't want to marry for money, but I do. I have to." His gaze, his entire concentration was focused entirely on her. As if, in that moment, nothing else existed for him. Only her.
Desire shivered over her. He shouldn't look at her that way. It was arousing and unfair, and she didn't want to become the object of a man's obsession. Not again, never again.
But her body itched with nerves. Awareness drew her skin tight, and longings she refused to acknowledge crawled out of their hiding places, making her move restlessly.
She turned her attention to the slightly stuffy elegance of the library instead of its owner. Walls of books encircled them, books bound in leather and hardback and paper. The wood of the shelves was old and dark, polished to a well-loved glow. In one corner, a globe the size of a baby elephant's head rested in an ornate brass stand. She moved over to it, gave it a spin, and watched the world turn, whirling and whirling on its brass axis. And going nowhere.
"You want to marry me for my money." She shook her head. "I hate to tell you this, but I'd bring more debts than capital to your proposed merger."
"You're talking about your cousin's hospital bill, aren't you? Well, if you marry me, you won't have to worry about that. I can take care of it. We'll put it in the prenuptial agreement."
Exasperated, she rubbed a hand over her face. "There's not going to be a prenuptial agreement. I turned you down, and you are not making any sense. None at all. Why would you even want to marry me? You don't know me, and I don't have money—"
"You've forgotten the trust."
The trust. The will, his father's will, that left his fortune to his sons. After they married. All of them. "Your marriage alone won't dissolve the trust."
"Luke and Michael will marry in the very near future. And so will I." He crossed to her, his pale gaze steady. "You, I hope."
"Why?" She meant to demand. The words came out breathless. "Why do you need money? Why would your brothers agree—"
"For Ada. She's got Timur's Syndrome. She'll die without regular treatments."
"Dear God." Stunned, she searched his face and found only determination. "Is she all right? Will she be all right?"
"If she gets the treatments, yes. Probably. But they are experimental – and expensive. To keep her alive for another five years will cost between two and five million dollars. We have to end the trust."
It was a good reason, a worthy reason, for him to marry. But it was his obligation, his choice, not hers. "Jacob, I can't. There must be someone you know who would understand, who wouldn't ask for more from marriage than…" Money. Protection. His large, strong body in her bed at night. "Ask one of them."
"I tried that, remember?" His hands kneaded her shoulders gently. Persuasively. "She turned me down."
She felt trapped, pinned by his eyes, by his needs, by the giddy response of her body to his nearness. Too confused to argue, she put her hands on his chest, unsure whether she was holding him away or inviting him closer. "Why me?"
He slid his hands up to her neck in a slow caress, cupping her face. "Because I want you."
The stab of disappointment was keen. A lot of men wanted her. "I'm sure there are other women you want."
"Not like this. You're beautiful, but that isn't … that wouldn't be enough." Some shade of feeling clouded his eyes. Not desire, though that was there. Confusion? Could he be as confused as she was? "It doesn't matter."
It did matter. It mattered very much. She opened her mouth to say so.
And he took it.
The taste of him was already familiar. Her willful body knew it, craved it, and held still beneath the slow assault of his mouth, while her heart quivered and her hands clenched into fists. His tongue painted her lips, forcing nothing, inviting everything. His hands spread wide on her shoulders, then slid down her back, pulling her gently, inexorably, up against him.
His big body was hard, hot with a man's heat, the muscles tight with hunger. And careful, oh-so-careful of her as he cradled her up against him. His mouth promised her that same care; his hands shaped promises along her spine, her ribs, her waist.
Her back was bare … except for his big, warm hands. They dressed it in shivers, and her flesh greedily soaked up heat and promises both. She shuddered, one slow roll of sensation wiping her mind free, empty, blank – and filling her. With him.
Her muscle
s went limp, stunned with pleasure. And something more. Something that sent her hands roaming over him, claiming his shoulders, his back, his throat, where she found a rhythm in the hollow vulnerability beneath his jaw. His heartbeat was sounding a challenge as crazy as the one pounding through her own body.
She hardly noticed when he scooped her closer, because that was what she wanted. She didn't think it strange when the world tilted and, a dizzy moment later, the weave of the carpet scraped against her back as he laid her down. That, too, was what she wanted.
Yet there was a second – one tiny, blurred rip in time – when she froze. The past had teeth, and they sunk into her when his body came down on top of hers. For that one sliver of a second, reality shuddered, and she couldn't move.
He knew. When he lifted his head, his eyes were heavy, the pupils pleasure-dark inside their pale rims of color. His jaw was tight with hunger. And his fingers traced an unbearably tender line along her cheek. "Claire?"
Uncertainty ghosted across his voice, unraveling something inside her that had been wound tight for a long, long time. She stared up at him, bewildered. "Jacob, I have to ask you something. I have to know."
"Ask."
"Are you in love with me?"
He went still. Nothing showed on his face, nothing at all, but she felt his battle in the taut muscles.
After a long, long moment, he spoke. "No."
Relief shivered through her, a sense of safety … and pain. He hadn't tumbled into some fantasy that could rule him and deceive them both. But it hurt. As much as she needed to hear him deny it, she would have believed him if he'd said yes instead of no … because she wanted him to love her.
His fingers were gentle on her face. "I care. And I won't hurt you, Claire. Not ever, not under any circumstances."
"I know." And she did. But how could she tell him it had been shame, not fear, that had oozed out of the past to mar the present? Shame for all her mistakes, past … and present.
She kissed him instead. She threaded her fingers into short, silky hair as dark as the heat pooling in her middle and pulled his head to hers. She slid her tongue into his mouth where it could dance with his, and felt his pulse leap – along with hers.
His hand palmed her breast. Her breath fractured. When he reached behind her neck to unfasten the buttons that held her dress up, she shifted to make that easy. When his mouth came down on her breast, licking, sanity rippled in the shock wave.
Lust was sure and swift, its ancient imperative washing her nearly mindless. Nearly, but not quite. In the midst of physical delight curled something darker, scarier. Stronger. Something that called to every reckless impulse she'd ever had, singing of power and surrender. She was coming apart beneath opposing needs – for safety, sanity, the responsible boundaries she'd learned in the past six years. And for leaping, naked and laughing, off the highest cliff she'd ever found.
Her body tensed beneath those splintering needs. Her hands raced over him, greedy and sure, while her heart dipped and dived in wild uncertainty. His name was a gasp of wonder or fear.
"Shh." His mouth came back to hers. He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, telling her they had all the time in the world to discover each other, insisting she was precious. Fragile. Safe.
She didn't believe it. Not when his hands trembled where they touched her. Not when this need was so huge and fierce. Was she fragile? She didn't think so. There was fear as well as passion in the frantic drumroll of her heart, but she could race past it, accept it, ignore it. Fear wasn't the problem. Jacob wouldn't hurt her, not physically. He had said so, both with words and with the wordless, leashed strength of his hands and body. She believed him.
There were other risks than the physical. But she was willing, even eager, to take those risks with Jacob.
But could she promise that she wouldn't hurt him?
Her hands faltered. Her kiss turned softer. She knew how to touch a man, but she was suddenly, blindingly, unsure how to touch Jacob. She tried to ask, with lips and tongue and fingers, what he wanted. What he needed. Asked him to be there with her, as hasty and hungry and frightened as she was.
The muscles of his chest jumped at her touch. At some point his shirt had become unbuttoned. The hot silk of his skin drew her. She discovered the small nest of hair in the center of his chest with something like gratitude. Ken's chest had been smooth, hairless.
His hips flexed, pressing his arousal against her hip. She reached for the zipper to his pants, but the shape of him distracted her. He was huge and hard and fascinating.
He groaned and pressed himself deeper into her palm.
Lost in fire and need, Jacob had room for only one thought: Claire was going to give herself to him.
It wasn't what he'd planned. He'd meant to seduce her, yes, but not yet. Not when his control hung by a thread that was shredding fast. He'd wanted to show her to know how good they could be together – but he'd meant to offer only a taste, holding back the main feast for their wedding night.
Logic had never seemed so unimportant. Claire was ready to give herself to him now. There was no way in heaven or hell he could refuse that gift. But he would be careful of it. Of her. He'd felt her falter. She'd been coming apart under his touch, all fire and need – then, without warning, she'd turned uncertain. Vulnerable. As if she might break at a single clumsy touch.
She had fears; he knew that. She hadn't told him about them, and she would have to – he needed to know, to understand. But that could wait. What couldn't wait was making certain she wasn't afraid now, in his arms. The only way to be sure of that was to stop what she was doing with the questing warmth of her hand. Immediately. Before he yanked her panties and his pants down and thrust inside her. Hard.
He shuddered. "Easy," he murmured to one or the other of them, and gently pulled her hand away. And began to carefully, precisely, drive her out of her mind.
Her mouth was there, waiting for him. He kissed it, licked it, then wandered down the line of her jaw to test the pulse at her throat. It hammered out a mad triple-time beat. Her hands reached for him again, nearly sending him beyond sanity, so he took them in his, gripping them tightly, holding on to her and to his control while his mouth traveled slowly, leisurely, over her body.
Her breasts were so beautiful. He told her that with the wash of his tongue, the gentle suction of his mouth. She moaned. He shivered, and traced a damp line down the center of her stomach.
The material of her dress was in the way. He needed to dip his tongue into her belly button. He needed her naked, entirely bare, so he let go of her hands to finish stripping her.
She agreed by lifting her hips, letting him pull off her dress. She lay there, passive and achingly beautiful, her eyes smoldering hot, while he tugged off her panty hose, too. And that was the last he knew of control.
Claire wanted him naked. She made that plain by the way she ripped at his shirt and tugged down his zipper, her hands moving so fast he couldn't catch them. Or maybe it was his breath, his sanity, he couldn't catch. She'd had enough of gentleness, of the careful easing into passion. She wanted it all, and she wanted it now.
They tumbled together, rolling on the carpet, bare to bare and breath to breath. Hands, lips, tongues tried to learn everything, all at once. Something got in their way – a table? His back crashed into that obstacle, and her leg. Something on the table raffled and fell. Neither of them knew or cared. Chests heaving, they ended up with him on top, her legs open, need pressed against need.
Her hips urged him in. Mindless, he obeyed, and found heat. Dampness. A perfect, snug fit. A surge of feeling beyond pleasure, beyond everything.
Claire.
With the last instant of will, he held himself still. "You'll marry me," he said fiercely.
"Jacob—"
"Say yes." He moved – out, then in again. "Say yes, Claire."
"Yes, Jacob, I need you, need—" Her hips moved and she clutched at him.
He wanted more. Wanted her to say yes again, t
o say she would marry him and know what she was agreeing to. He groaned and tried to hold still a moment, just one more moment… "Claire. Slow down."
"Dammit, Jacob," she said, her hips pushing at his. "We'll go slow later. Move!"
In the midst of danger and heat, a sudden wash of feelings flooded him, feelings so strong and right he could do nothing but grin – cocky, certain. Happy. And bend his head to kiss her.
She kissed him back, kissed him as if there had never been another man, as if she were giving him something no one had ever touched in her before. He fell into the kiss and the rhythm, the sweet slap of flesh against flesh, the ancient summons carrying them both. She chanted his name until there were no words left, only the hard, driving fusion of bodies taking them where they had to go.
For all the thundering inevitability of it, Jacob's climax took him by surprise – the huge fist of sensation, grabbing him and shaking a shout from his throat. He heard her cry out, knew she was there with him – and drove into her one last time.
His heart still hammered, his chest heaved. He was physically wrecked, and what he felt was peace. He lay sprawled on top of her, and knew he was too heavy, but couldn't remember how to move. Her hand stroked his shoulder and back, stilling gradually.
She'd stopped moving? The quick, irrational fear that he'd smothered her gave him the energy to roll onto his side, taking her with him. Her head found a natural pillow on his arm and she sighed, her body limp and warm and cuddle-close. After another eon or two, he found the strength to lift his hand and push her hair back, because he needed, badly, to see her face.
She was asleep.
Feelings squeezed him in a place achingly tender and unfamiliar. Claire trusted him. She'd fallen asleep in his arms. He wanted to lie there with her forever, guarding her sleep, soaking up these strange feelings. He wanted to wake her up and offer her promises – wild, unreasonable, impossible promises. But the sweat was drying on his skin, and the air was chilly. She would soon be cold.