Blisters didn’t really cover the extent of the damage to her poor feet. There were wounds on the toes, her heels, the sides of her feet…just about everywhere, there was a blister, some that had broken and others that were bleeding.
“Yeah. I don’t have a lot of experience hiking,” she admitted.
He lifted her up and carried her down a short dock. “What are you doing?” she asked, wary now. He wasn’t going to throw her into the water, was he? It looked cold!
“You’re going to soak your feet, let them cool down. Meanwhile, I’m going to get you a glass of wine and something to eat. Just relax, okay?”
He didn’t wait for her to respond. As soon as she was settled at the end of the rough dock, he disappeared into the woods again. She peered behind her and realized that there was a cabin right there! She must have passed by this place several times and she hadn’t seen either the dock or the cabin!
Turning back, she looked down at the water, not sure if she wanted to put her feet in there. Didn’t fish live in the water? Wouldn’t they bite her toes if she stuck them in there? She’d read something about how a shark could smell blood from miles away. Were fish the same way?
A glass of wine appeared in her line of sight and she jumped back slightly.
“Feet in, Gabby. I promise, it will feel better.”
She looked back up at him, not sure if she believed him or not. “But what about the fish?”
He shook his head. “There are no fish in this part of the lake,” he told her with a completely straight face.
She watched him for a long moment, but when he only raised his eyebrows, challenging her, she went ahead and stuck her feet in. The water was frigidly cold, but it almost instantly soothed her aching feet. “Oh, this feels good!” she sighed, leaning back slightly and feeling the ache in both of her feet ease slightly.
“Relax. I’ll go get you something to eat.”
A moment later, Gabriella was alone again, staring out onto the beautiful lake. It all seemed so serene and she wanted to jump into the water. It wasn’t warm enough though, so she contented herself with the cold water helping to sooth her feet. Finishing off the wine, she set the glass off to the side and contemplated her next move. Unfortunately, she had no idea what that might be. She was lost. Completely lost.
He handed her a sandwich and a beer. Sitting down next to her, he had his own sandwich in his hand and took a huge bite.
“Thanks,” she whispered, tensing when he sat down too close to her already weak and exhausted body. She tried to scoot away, but he only wrapped his muscular arm around her and pulled her flush against his side.
“Relax, Gabby. I’m not going to bite you.” He took a sip of his beer then shrugged. “At least, not yet anyway.”
All of her muscles tightened up once again. She stared at her sandwich and took a deep breath. “Teague, this isn’t a game.”
He was looking out at the lake but she could tell that he was listening. “Sure it is,” he finally said, “or more accurately, it is a competition.”
She shook her head, trying to stop him, but he interrupted.
“Gabby, you’re my wife,” he said with that deep voice and those green eyes moved from the lake to her own eyes. “You’re my wife and I’ve wanted you in my life from the first moment I saw you in that bar. You looked lonely and confused,” he smiled slightly when she stiffened but wouldn’t relent. “You try to come across as tough and strong, competent. And when it comes to your job, I suspect you’re amazing. But life…” he shook his head. “Life throws curve balls all the time, doesn’t it?”
She opened her mouth to argue his point, but the words wouldn’t come. He was right. Before she’d met him, and all the painful, tedious months after she’d left him, she’d been struggling. Struggling to find herself, who she was, and what she wanted. Because wanting him, needing Teague, scared her too much.
“I won’t hurt you, Gabby.”
She thought of that trailer she and her mother had shared. And he lived in a trailer now as well. “You don’t know how you’ll hurt me.”
He chuckled, acknowledging her point. “Yeah. But not about the things that you’re worrying about at the moment.”
She pulled her eyes away from him, not sure what to say. “Teague…”
“Eat your sandwich, Gabby. You’re too hungry to have this conversation.”
She looked down at her sandwich and, yes, she was hungry. No denying that. “But…”
He shook his head again. “Eat. Relax. We’ll talk later.”
Gabriella sighed. Yeah. They’d talk. And somehow, she would figure out how to get him to sign those papers. She could be honest with him, explain why she couldn’t stay married to him, why she needed to move on with her life. She wouldn’t tell him what Toby could do for her. It wasn’t financial. It was stability. Toby was steady and sure. Yes, he was wealthy, but she wouldn’t ever rely on a man for her financial future. Never! Toby was just…he was sanity. Teague was craziness. It was that simple.
She took a bite of her sandwich and enjoyed the silence between them. Gabriella tried hard to focus on her words, what she would say to Teague when their meal was finished, but…her mind just refused to work for some reason.
In the end, she sat at the end of the dock, her feet dangling in the cool water and she ate her sandwich, drank her beer, and enjoyed the companionship of the man she needed to divorce as quickly as possible. For her sanity. Because it was what was right for her.
“Come on, beautiful,” he said and stood up, then bent down again to lift her into his arms.
“Teague!” she gasped, quickly wrapping her arms around his neck. “I can walk! You don’t have to carry me!”
He shook his head as he carried her back to the cabin. “Course I do,” he argued right back. “There’s no way you can walk on those feet any longer,” he said as he stepped up onto the wide front porch of his cabin. He set her down on one of the beautiful wooden chairs, which was surprisingly comfortable. “You stay there. I’m going to go get some bandages for your feet. If those blisters get infected, you’re going to be in a world of hurt,” and he disappeared into the dark recesses of his cabin.
She tried peering into the cabin, wanting to know what it looked like. But it was too dark from this angle so she sighed, relaxing back into the chair.
Looking down at her feet, she cringed. He was right. Her feet were pretty torn up. She should have stopped a while ago and gone back down. She’d been stupidly stubborn in coming here, but she was desperate now. She’d been around him for too long and those crazy feelings that she’d had the weekend she’d met him in Vegas were starting to mess with her mind. She’d started to wonder if there was a way she and Teague could work. If they could stay married and if she should break things off with Toby.
Teague came back out of the cabin, a first aid kit in his hands. He sat down in front of her, lifting both of her feet and placing them on his hard, muscular thigh. “Talk to me, Gabby. What’s going through your head? Why did you walk all the way up here?”
She couldn’t stop the shiver that hit her when he gently touched her foot, careful to stay away from some of the more sensitive looking blisters. “You disappeared on me, Teague.”
“And?”
She sighed, irritated that he was being so obtuse. “And, you still haven’t signed those papers.”
“And I’m not going to. You’re my wife and I want you in my life.”
Her anger burst out of her with those words. How dare he simply decide that he wanted her and was going to keep her! No way! She couldn’t handle that! “Yeah, well, you didn’t really want me after Vegas too badly, did you?”
His hands stilled on her feet and his green eyes slashed up to hers. “Is that why you left me? To test me?”
Her body stiffened with that question. “No!” she replied and shook her head for emphasis. “Definitely not!” She hadn’t!
Had she?
That thought hadn’t ever occurr
ed to her. She’d never even dreamed of him coming to Boston to find her, to look her up. Why had she even said the words?!
Teague saw the panic in her eyes and realized that she really had wanted him to come find her, to prove to her that their marriage was real. “And I failed. You’re right, I didn’t come after you.” He looked back down at her feet, putting antibacterial ointment over the blisters. “I should have.” Damn it! He’d been so wrapped up in his own indignant anger over the past year, he hadn’t even considered that she might be testing him, that she’d want proof of his feelings. They’d had such a whirlwind romance, it wasn’t outside the bounds of reason to think that they needed help transitioning to the real world.
Gabby shook her head frantically, trying to convince him, and herself, that any sort of pursuit might have made a difference. “No. You shouldn’t have. We weren’t right for each other. We were good for a weekend, but…”
He started wrapping gauze around her blistered feet. “But not for the long haul. Is that what you’re saying?”
She didn’t answer him, not wanting to hurt his feelings. “I…I have a lot of baggage, Teague. Things you don’t know about me.” And things she didn’t want to share with anyone. Her past was too shameful. She couldn’t ever let anyone know about the humiliations she’d endured as one of the poorest students in school. Good grief, she didn’t even want to remember them, much less share them with anyone. Especially not Teague. No, she couldn’t hurt his feelings. She couldn’t tell him that she’d grown up in a trailer and she would never live in one again.
He continued wrapping her feet and she let him. It felt good somehow, having someone take care of her. It had been so long since someone had done anything for her. Toby was a good man, but she had more of a “separate” kind of relationship with him. He did his things and she did hers. They got together on Wednesdays and Saturdays for dinner at a restaurant somewhere and then the various social events he attended when he wasn’t working late.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as he wrapped the gauze around one foot, taping it and then starting on the other foot.
She shook her head. “I was just thinking about my relationship with Toby,” she said.
Teague looked at her and something clenched inside of him. “Do you realize that you either look sad or you frown when you talk about the guy in Boston?”
Gabriella’s eyes slashed up to his. “That’s not true. I love Toby.”
Teague looked into her eyes for a long moment, and shook his head. “No, you don’t.”
She stiffened, about to pull her feet away, but he caught her ankle before she could move, keeping her foot on his thigh. “I do love him! I wouldn’t be marrying the guy if I didn’t love him.”
He smiled as if she’d just given him some sort of prize. She didn’t have long to wait to discover why. “If I extend that logic, then you love me because you actually are married to me,” he announced.
Gabriella laughed, astounded. It made sense, but…
“No. You and I were a fling.”
He snipped the ends of the gauze, taping the second foot. “If that were true, you would have tried to divorce me months ago. As soon as you returned to Boston.”
Her mouth fell open with that announcement. And then she gasped when she felt his thumb slide up the bottom of her foot. “Teague!”
He already had hold of her ankle and pulled her closer. “You should just relax, Gabby,” he told her as he relentlessly pulled her closer. “I’m going to win this battle of wills between us.”
She caught her breath as he pulled her closer and closer. She should fight him, she thought. She should grab onto something and pull away.
Did she do either of those? Nope. Her eyes watched his, her body shivered in anticipation. When his hands took hold of her waist, she knew what was going to happen. Maybe she’d known this would happen ever since she’d decided to come up here to an isolated place in the woods.
Gabriella shivered as his hands pulled her onto his lap. “Admit it, Gabby,” he urged as his hands slid underneath her shirt. “You want me and you love me.”
She shook her head, denying both even though something in her heart glowed ever so slightly with his words. If he wanted her to love him, did that mean that he might love her just a little?
She didn’t have a chance to answer the question because his lips covered hers in a kiss that took her breath away.
Over the past week, so many times they’d been in this situation but something had stopped the follow through. Now they were out in the middle of nowhere. There was no cell phone reception, no traffic, no phones…no interruptions.
And he was kissing her like he’d missed her every day for the past year!
She wasn’t immune to that kind of passion and she kissed him back, needing all of him again. Just like that first time in Vegas, she thought and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back with all of the pent up need she’d been ignoring for so long.
“Gabby,” he groaned and stood up, her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her into the cabin.
As curious as she had been to see the inside of Teague’s mountain cabin, all she wanted was him. Now. Naked. Making love to her like he had that long weekend when they’d first met.
Laying her down on the large, quilt covered mattress, she stared up at him, her body shifting underneath his.
“Gabby,” Teague groaned, his eyes moving over her. A moment later, he whipped her shirt up over her head, tossing it onto the floor behind him. “This is not good,” he said, as he surveyed her breasts encased in a sports bra that left everything to his imagination. “It must go,” he told her with absolute certainty.
Gabby couldn’t help it when she laughed at his overly serious expression accompanied by his not-so-serious words. But when his fingers slid underneath the elastic band around her ribs, she gasped at the intimate contact. A fraction of a second later, the sports bra was discarded behind him and his eyes were surveying her breasts. “You’re so beautiful, Gabby,” he growled as he bent lower, taking one of her nipples in his mouth.
She cried out, but arched her back, needing more, needing him to…“Yes!” she sighed when his teeth nipped her nipple. His other hand was on her other breast and she loved the way he was massaging the flesh, making her crazy with his touch.
“Don’t stop,” she begged when he lifted his head, blowing on the sensitive peak.
“I’m not going to," and his mouth latched onto her other breast.
Oh boy, did he follow through on that promise! Goodness, his lips, his teeth, his tongue…he tortured her until she was screaming with the pleasure. Her fingers had been holding his head close, needing that torture but after several moments, she couldn’t take it any longer. But would he allow her hands to push his head away?
Not at all! Even when she tried to wiggle away from him, his strong arms held her in place. “Teague!” she screamed, and only then did he lift his head to look up at her.
“Did you need to tell me something?” he asked, kissing the spot between her breasts.
Gabriella could barely catch her breath as she looked down at him. But he wasn’t being still. His lips moved to her stomach. All of those places that normally were ticklish seemed to have morphed into sexual sensations. She tried to twist, to keep her head about her while he touched her like this, but she couldn’t. He wouldn’t show any mercy!
“Teague, please, I can’t take anymore.”
His only response was a slow, sexy smile as he ignored her exclamation and…moved lower. And lower!
“Teague!” she whispered this time, but she knew what he was about to do. He knew that she was going to try to stop him so his arms were already wrapped around her legs, fully prepared to keep her in place as his mouth and lips found their next goal.
“Have I mentioned how beautiful you are, Gabby?” he whispered as he gazed at her core. “So perfect,” and a long finger slid down the pink folds, sending shoots of electri
city throughout her whole body.
“Teague,” she whispered again, her body trembling in fear, anticipation and desperation.
“I’m here, honey. I’m never letting you go,” he said a moment before his tongue teased her with a feather-light touch. The barely there sensation made her body arch, the trembling increased and Gabriella wasn’t sure if she was arching away from his touch, or demanding more.
When his tongue touched her again, moving against her, tasting her, she cried out, her hands diving into his hair as she whimpered. Was he laughing at her? She had no idea. All she knew was that he was touching her and her body was clamoring for release. She knew he would give it to her. She knew that it would be explosive.
But it had been so long! So damn long! A year since…
“Teague!” she yelled when he twisted his fingers like that! “No, No!” she whimpered, her body trying to curl away. “Too much!” she finally got out.
“Not too much, love.” He chuckled as his fingers twisted again, pressing against the inside of her body as his mouth latched onto that bud and teased.
Teague knew she was close. So damn close. But he wanted her to remember this. He wanted her to know who she was with! Damn, she was so beautiful and whoever had been with her over the past year…well, he wanted that man obliterated from her mind. He wanted to exorcise all of the memories of another man from her. Teague wanted to be the only man she remembered, the only man she cried out for. He’d been her first lover back in Las Vegas. And he was determined to be her last.
Feeling her body tremble like this, it was erotic and amazing. She was so damn close!
But was he letting her climax? Hell no! She tasted and felt too good!
“What’s my name, Gabby?” he demanded as he pulled away only moments before he knew her body was going to climax.
Gabriella lifted her head, ready to scream. “Teague! You’re not playing fair!” she growled, trying to wiggle away from him. She knew this game he played! And he knew her body well enough after only one long, sensuous, erotic weekend together that he could control her in ways she’d never dreamed possible.
Seducing His Wife Page 9