CULLEN'S BRIDE

by Fiona Brand

  "I know what you don't need," he said with a destroying gentleness, "and that's a few sweaty hours between the sheets with a man who can't give you anything more than that."

  Her heart almost stopped at the image of Cullen's muscled body entwined with hers in dampness and tangled sheets. The image was crude and utterly sexual, brutally ripping away any possibility of softness or tenderness. "You're going to a lot of trouble to scare me off."

  "I'm no Prince Charming," he admitted flatly. "I'm big and hard, and so hungry it feels like I haven't had a woman in years. I wouldn't court you, Rachel, I'd just take you."

  The shock of his words slapped coldly at her, but something about his body language, the careful distance he kept from her, his refusal to let her see his facial expression, made her stand her ground. "I'd have some say about that. I don't believe for one minute that you treat women like objects."

  The silence closed in around them; the music and laughter of the barbecue seemed to lull and recede, making his voice sound deeper, harsher, on the still night air.

  "You're right," he admitted. "I don't." He turned so the moonlight skimmed his face, so she could see the compassion softening the brooding line of his mouth, stealing the glitter from his eyes. "But I also don't intend to take the daughter of a neighbour and family I respect just to relieve my physical needs. And I especially don't want a woman who thinks she can change me."

  Rachel stiffened at the tender cruelty of his brush-off.

  Damn him, he was feeling sorry for her.

  Nothing could have made her more furious. Not his calm indifference, not the knowledge that somehow he'd seen right through her, seen her desire to put things right for him, to change the mystifyingly strong opinion of the town and somehow melt all the hard reserve he used to distance himself from people. From her. "You could almost convince me you're genuine if you weren't trying so hard to put me off."

  And then she did what she'd promised herself she wouldn't. She reached up and touched the satin-rough line of his jaw.

  His fingers closed on hers, calloused and hard as he wrenched her hand away on a soft, succinct curse that should have shocked her. She wasn't shocked—his touch burned her as she knew it would, sealing them together with a jolt of pure sexual energy that turned the coldness in his gaze to hot metal. Cullen was all the things he'd said he was, and he could probably hurt her very badly indeed, but the one thing he wasn't was indifferent.

  She winced as the splinter dug deeper into her flesh.

  "What is it?" Cullen rasped.

  Without waiting for her reply, he turned her hand over in his grip and unfurled her fingers, letting the cold light of the moon wash across her palm. The splinter was long and thin, jutting darkly from the mound of flesh below her thumb. Just seeing how big it was made the wound sting even worse.

  Cullen cupped her hand with both of his and unexpectedly lifted her palm to his mouth. His teeth flashed whitely as they closed over the splinter and tugged it from her flesh. He turned his head, jaw rasping against her skin, and spat the splinter out. Then, instead of letting her go, he bent his head, and his mouth closed around the small wound. His teeth pressed into her soft flesh as he sucked out any remaining debris; his tongue laved her skin in a hot, wet caress that rippled through her. She couldn't move, could barely breathe. Her whole world had shrunk to the circumference of his mouth and the heat radiating from her palm.

  "Damn," he said, releasing her hand, then reaching out to touch her hair. "This isn't working."

  She drew a shuddering breath at the light stroke of his fingers as he sifted them through an errant tendril, "If you're talking about your plan to scare me off, then I'd say it's doing the exact opposite."

  His mouth curved into a wry smile, and Rachel caught her breath. She'd been right in thinking he would be sinful if he smiled. Sinful and bad, good enough to eat, and dangerously, wildly sexy.

  "Baby, I may not scare you, but you sure as hell scare me."

  And then he bent his head, blocking out the moon. His hand curved around her nape, his palm rough against her skin, holding her still as his mouth brushed hers. His lips were firm and unexpectedly tender. She'd braced herself for a hard, plundering, ravaging assault, but the sweetness of his caress was butterfly-soft and so beguiling that she ached for him to deepen the pressure. Her hands lifted and settled on the incredible warmth of his chest as she parted her lips and tilted her head to grant him easier access. She was as guilty of misjudging Cullen as everyone else was—he looked every inch an outlaw, but he was kissing her like an angel. A fallen, dangerously beautiful angel.

  Cullen groaned when Rachel opened her mouth for him. He hadn't expected that. But then, nothing about Rachel Sinclair was predictable. He should have run the second she stepped up to the fence. Come to that, he should have left the party as soon as he saw her arrive. But he hadn't. He'd stayed, and he'd ended up touching her. Worse, he'd let Russ fill his ear with the kind of small-town gossip he should know better than to listen to. He hadn't wanted to know about Rachel's failed marriage, or that her mother had died when she was a baby and her father had been too sunk in grief to hold his daughter. He definitely hadn't wanted to know that when Sinclair had finally surfaced from mourning, he'd been at a loss for how to deal with the girl child who looked so much like his too fragile second wife, beyond paying for other people to care for her.

  And most of all, Cullen hadn't wanted to hear about how Rachel had been sent away to school when she was still so small she should have been cuddled up on her mother's lap. He didn't want the image of Rachel, desperate and alone, haunting him. He had enough of his own ghosts and demons.

  Her tongue touched his tentatively, almost shyly, and Cullen groaned. Damn. Who was he trying to kid? He'd come to the barbecue because he wanted this. Because watching her from a distance was better than nothing. And suddenly he was more concerned with cradling her close, soothing and stroking her with his hands, than making her believe how impossible it was that they could ever be together.

  His tongue mated gently with hers, and she sighed, melting against him. Her arms crept around his neck, fingers drifting through his hair, sliding it free from the leather thong that bound it, then knotting her fingers in it to pull him closer.

  Cullen shuddered with pure pleasure at the insistent tugging, sinking his own fingers deeper into her hair, coaxing her tongue farther into his mouth, deepening the kiss with every second that passed, until they were welded together so tightly that her heartbeat shivered through him.

  His hand drifted over the warm, silky skin of her back, grazed her zipper and, before he could think, eased it down so he could trace the hollow at the base of her spine and the lacy line of panties that were just as flimsy, just as silken, as her dress. Cullen shuddered again as Rachel continued to pet him as if he were a big, muscular cat, her fingers flexing, stroking, raking through his hair. He wanted to do the same to her, and more. He wanted to push all the silk aside and slip his hand lower, test the sweet moisture he knew he would find…

  Rachel made a low sound in her throat and moved, fitting herself more closely against him. She wasn't wearing a bra, and just the thought of releasing the tie behind her neck, then taking the weight of her breasts in his hands, almost tipped him over the edge. He had to remember where they were, who she was…

  Who he wasn't.

  When he took her it was going to be long and slow, not a rushed, hurried fumble in somebody else's backyard. The thought hammered through him, twisted in his gut, and gave him the needed discipline to slide her zip up and ease her away. "Rachel," he said hoarsely. "We've got to stop."

  She blinked at him, eyes clouded and soft, hair tangled, mouth so sensually swollen that a fierce growl of male possession started deep in his throat.

  Cullen pulled in a breath, fighting the hunger that pulsed through him as he deliberately put space between them. He wanted her mouth again. He wanted the cool glide of her hands on his skin, her moon-pale body and silky dark h
air wrapped around him—but the tight, hard rise of his flesh was warning enough. It was almost a relief to hear Cole's voice, edged with a cold, unmistakeable menace.

  "It's just as well you did that, Logan, because if you hadn't, I would have taken you apart."

  Rachel stepped out of Cullen's shadow, placing herself firmly in bright moonlight. "Back off, Cole," she declared. "Cullen wasn't doing a thing except turning me down."

  She moved again, sideways this time, placing herself directly between him and Cole. Cullen clenched his jaw against a powerful surge of emotion. He wouldn't have believed it if he wasn't seeing it with his own eyes. Rachel was protecting him from her brother.

  Cullen stepped out from behind her pale, drifting dress and wondered how he'd got himself into a situation where a woman was ready to do battle for him. "What Rachel means is that we just got a little carried away by the moonlight," he stated with cool deliberation. "Nothing more. I was just leaving."

  Cole met his gaze for a long moment, then nodded curtly. He shot Rachel an uncompromising look. "Get your bag. We're leaving, too."

  Rachel didn't respond to her brother's order; she was too busy watching Cullen, her jaw set stubbornly, revealing that the fierceness she'd displayed at the hospital wasn't just a flash in the pan. She was used to fighting with her brother—hell, with anyone she took a fancy to square up to.

  "I'll leave when I'm ready."

  Cullen took another step away, deliberately distancing himself from her. It was unexpectedly difficult to do. The instinct to catch her around the waist and move her behind him so he could take care of big brother himself was so strong that every muscle in his body was tensed against a retreat. "Cole's right. You should go."

  "Don't bother trying to tell me what to do," she said with dangerous softness. "It's bad enough I have to put up with him!" She stabbed an accusing finger in Cole's general direction, not taking her gaze off Cullen for a second.

  The passionate fury in every line of her body made Cullen go still. The sudden vision of Rachel locked beneath him, her legs wrapped around his waist, that wild gaze linked passionately with his as he pushed himself inside her, flooded his loins with a throbbing, painful heat. A groan rolled through him, and he broke out in a sweat. Sweet hell.

  He wanted her. Here. Now.

  And God help them both, but she wanted him, too.

  Cullen unclenched his jaw by slow degrees, but he couldn't do a thing about the guttural roughness of his voice. "Listen to your brother, he knows what he's talking about."

  "Cullen…" Rachel reached out to him, but he'd gone, turned on his heel and strode away, leaving her shattered and confused, achingly bereft and more than a little angry at Cole. "You went too far," she declared in a voice that trembled with temper. "Don't interfere again, Cole."

  "I'll interfere if I have to," Cole said stubbornly. "You've been hurt enough, and getting involved with a renegade like Cullen isn't going to improve your odds of that happy-ever-after marriage you claim you're looking for."

  * * *

  Cullen reached his truck and leaned against it, taking several deep breaths. He was shaking with pure, burning need.

  And other emotions that were too complicated to unravel.

  If he had any sense at all, he would head back to Auckland for the weekend. Three hours of driving and he could find the kind of woman who wanted nothing more than satisfaction on a physical level and wouldn't demand anything he wasn't prepared to give. But the thought filled him with distaste. There was only one pair of legs he wanted coiled around his waist, only one pale-silk body twisting beneath his.

  His teeth ground together. And he couldn't take her. He wouldn't. Having sex with Rachel Sinclair would destroy her and ruin him. And sex was all he could ever offer a woman. He'd found out who he was fifteen years ago, and that person couldn't risk intimacy on any but the shallowest level.

  Once the farm and his half-wild stock were fit for sale, he would sell up and return to barracks and his military career. He couldn't conceive of staying in Riverbend any longer than it took to cut every tie he'd ever had with the place.

  Having any kind of relationship at all with the town's equivalent of a princess wasn't going to happen.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  Rachel checked her watch as the last customer finally walked out the door into the perfect Saturday afternoon weather. "I'm out of here," she muttered to herself, snatching up the letter that had arrived in the post that morning and locking the salon with relief.

  For the past month she'd spent every spare moment painting the flat above the salon and hanging wallpaper, working until her shoulder and arm muscles ached and her eyes burned with tiredness. The decorating wasn't so urgent that she had to exhaust herself getting it done, but she'd needed the hard work, the satisfaction of bringing order to her life, to balance out the unexpected chaos of her emotions. And most of all she needed a place of her own. The next big effort would be shifting in the furniture she'd stored out at the farm. That was for tomorrow. What was left of today was for her, to fill some of the empty spaces inside her with a little sunshine. When she was good and relaxed she would read the letter, which was from Sandy—her ex-boss—and catch up on all the gossip about her friends and Sandy's large, rambunctious family.

  She drove out to the farm as fast as her city thoroughbred of a car could take the dusty, winding back road, thinking for the hundredth time that she would have to switch to a model that didn't mind bucking from one pothole to the next. Maybe she would get a four-wheel drive. It would be part of her general toughening-up campaign. Since the Hansons' party she'd vowed to see sense. The final dissolution of her marriage had upset her more than she'd bargained for. She'd been on some kind of crazy emotional seesaw, and Cullen had somehow triggered her to tilt in the one direction she didn't want to go.

  Into the arms of another man who didn't want her.

  * * *

  Cole came toward her as she strode purposefully across the lawn to the stables, a duffel bag crammed with her towel, a cold drink and the letter slung over her shoulder. She already had her swim-suit on beneath her shirt and denim cutoffs.

  "Swimming at the water hole again?" He shook his head. "Why don't you just use the pool?"

  "I can swim in the pool any time. I like the water hole because it's so peaceful."

  Cole followed her into the tack room. She could feel his scrutiny like a laser playing over her features.

  "You're having trouble sleeping again," he accused. "Maybe you should give the riding a miss today."

  Rachel grabbed a bridle, looped it over her shoulder, then pulled her saddle down, bracing herself against its weight. She wasn't sure whether Cole's concern was attributable to the shadows beneath her eyes or her own rusty riding skills. She didn't really care. She was living in the country now, and she was going riding. "I'll sleep better if I get some exercise and sunshine."

  He eyed her warily. "At least let me carry the saddle."

  "It's not heavy." Rachel walked past him and out into the sun-light.

  Cole continued to shadow her. "I suppose you could take Jessie, but she's not going to be too impressed."

  Rachel gave him an amused look. "She never is."

  She saddled and mounted the sleepy mare, then clicked her tongue, urging Jessie to greater speed as they made their stately way through the gate and down the tree-shaded farm road, then onto the track that led to the water hole. The dusty buy stock horse flicked an ear. Her ambling gait didn't alter.

  "Damn," Rachel muttered resignedly. She'd squeezed with her legs until they ached almost as much as her rear, but the horse knew she had a rank amateur on her back and refused to lift her pace beyond a plod. And Rachel didn't have the heart to kick her. In truth, she felt guilty taking Jessie out. The only time she ever saw the old mare move voluntarily was to put more food in her mouth or to escape capture.

  * * *

  Cullen guided the big stock horse
through the trees with his thighs, shrugging out of his shirt as he went. The sun beat through the sparse branches arching overhead, sending bands of heat sliding like hot chains across his sweaty skin.

  A sudden sense of being home assailed him, a rightness in the muscular horse between his legs, the rugged, challenging country he was riding through, and the sheer physical effort it took to bend the wildness around him to his will.

  His jaw tightened against the renegade emotion. The stock horse, Mac, had belonged to wily old Alistair Carson—another casualty of the rough demands of Logan land. Alistair—who'd owned a small adjoining farm—had run Cullen's stock along with his own. The brutal workload, along with the old man's stubborn persistence, had finally killed him.

  The only way Cullen could make a success of such a big, diverse spread was if he committed himself to the challenge. To do that, he would have to stay.

  Cullen urged Mac on at a faster pace. He smelled the river before he saw it; the resinous scents of bush and fresh water were strong in the brassy stillness of the afternoon. The water level had dropped with the dry, leaving the banks cracked and eroded where the cattle came down to drink. Debris from last winter's floods was snagged high, some of it caught on low tree branches—a stark reminder of how quickly and how high the water could rise. Despite Mac's objections, Cullen bypassed the first tributary, heading lower down the gully toward the main watercourse and its deep, green swimming hole. After allowing the horse to drink, Cullen left him amiably munching the spindly clumps of grass that grew beneath the feathery manuka and kanuka trees, and climbed down the bank before shedding his boots, dusty denims and finally his battered leather Akubra hat.