Marry Me Read online

  It sounded easy when she put it like that. Utterly forgivable, outrageously tempting. Her eyebrows made a perfect arch over her eyes, the most elegant curve he’d ever seen. And since when did he notice women’s eyebrows? Or the way the corners of her eyes tilted up just a fraction, which made her look happy even when she wasn’t?

  Helplessly caught, he said, “Jesus, you’re so pretty.”

  “Pretty?” She beamed, a sudden glimpse of daybreak, completely delighted. “You think so?”

  “Oh yeah,” he admitted fervently. He could feel okay about saying that; if no one had told her, it was about damn time someone did, and he was glad to be the one to do it. “Prettier than morning. Prettier than the prairie the first day it blooms.”

  She hugged him. And he just stood there with his eyes closed and let the warmth seep into him, lighten up dark corners, ease pains that had been a part of him so long he wouldn’t know what to do without them.

  “Can I ask you something?” she mumbled against him.

  He couldn’t help but be suspicious. She was obviously more devious than he’d given her credit for or they wouldn’t be in this position right now. “I guess so.”

  “Not exactly swinging the door wide open, are you?”

  Her hands got busy again, in slow, easy strokes that brushed along his spine and flirted with his waistband. To distract himself, he told her, “I guess I’m not a wide-open kind of guy. But go ahead.”

  “Then I will.” She licked his nipple. He yelped, jumped away.

  “My Lord, Em.”

  “Oh,” she said, sighing in disappointment. “You didn’t like it?”

  “That was your question? If you could do that?”

  “Yes. Not a good idea, huh?”

  “No.” Not a good idea at all. It had lasted all of a second and he still felt it, thrumming through his veins, pooling low in his belly, making him so damn hard it hurt. “Where the hell did you learn that?”

  “I didn’t learn anything, isn’t it obvious?” He’d been so hot, Emily remembered. A hard, tiny pebble against her tongue. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Oh, don’t look so sad. I can’t stand it. You didn’t hurt me.”

  “You jumped.”

  “Because it felt so good it damn near killed me.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he said, sounding most unhappy about it.

  “Good.” She sidled closer, slow and calculating as a stalking cat. “Then I can do it again.”

  “You—” The battle was easy to see, the strain in his face, the fierce struggle in his eyes. “Do it again,” he ordered, voice harsh, almost cruel. Maybe it should have scared her, but instead excitement spiked.

  And so she did. He shuddered when she flicked him with her tongue. Shook when she licked, flat and long and slow. Moaned when she tangled her fingers in the soft hair that covered his chest.

  She’d only meant to give him some small joy. She’d thought she could make him forget for a few brief moments, this man who never allowed himself respite. She’d planned to stroke him, soothe him, give him a little peace and happiness despite himself.

  But she’d underestimated the effect it would have on her. She loved having that big, strong body at her disposal. The discovery that one small caress from her along his ribs could make him shake intoxicated her. The taste of him fascinated her; she wanted to hold the flavor on her tongue and savor the richness.

  Such a marvel. She lost track of the time she stood in the middle of that room and just touched him. She loved the feel of his chest as it expanded with each breath, contracted as he released it. She took it as a challenge to discover a soft spot on him but couldn’t find one. His ribs were like iron, his belly ridged with steel.

  She loved knowing that, right at that moment, he thought of nothing but her. Loved even more knowing that he’d wanted to say no and hadn’t been able to. It made her feel powerful and sexual, irresistible in a way she’d never even wanted to be before.

  But, finally, it wasn’t enough. She tingled, in all sorts of places. Burned. Wanted.

  She cuddled up close and rubbed her breasts against his chest. There, that was what she’d needed. It seemed like it might be even better if her own shirt was gone like his, but the pressure eased the ache for a moment until she realized it had only moved it further down.

  “Em!” He kept saying her name. It burst out of him, short, hard, as if it gave him some release. And she knew he never once forgot who touched him.

  Helplessly, Jake thrust his hips against her once, need surging painfully through him. “Em, you gotta stop, it’s been so long, I can’t—”

  “Let me do this.” She’d wrapped herself around him, close as her petticoats allowed. There must be lace on her cuff; he could feel it at the small of his back, scratching as her hands streaked over his skin, now greedy and searching with an expertise that she’d learned with astonishing speed.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he told her, though it cost him.

  “Yes, I do,” she said with absolute conviction. “I know exactly what I’m doing. Exactly what I want to be doing.”

  Just a little more, he promised himself. Surely he’d stop her then. What could it hurt, just a little more? Though it did hurt, that sweet, joyous pain he’d denied himself for so long. He’d almost convinced himself that it wouldn’t feel like this, that he’d be able to go on without it. God, what a fool he’d been! He should have known the instant he’d seen her, the first second he wanted her, that he could never go back.

  For both their sakes, they couldn’t continue much longer. He knew that. In thirty seconds he’d pull away. Maybe a minute, no more. And then her hands glided around his hips and hovered over the front of his pants and his breath snagged in his throat. Surely she wouldn’t…oh, damn, he wanted her to.

  He wrapped his hands around her wrists, holding her in place.

  “Oh, don’t stop me,” she whispered. “Only this, I promise. Just for a little while. I want to know, Jake. I may never get another chance at this—”

  “You’ll get another chance,” he said, even as the thought twisted savagely inside him.

  She looked at him directly, a rare, unsmiling expression, her mouth sober and eyes glinting. “Not with you, I won’t.”

  No. It was good she understood that. Even better if he did. And everything inside him screamed in protest at the knowledge.

  Perhaps she had begun this for his sake, Emily thought. Because she wanted to give him some small respite before she left. But that plan had faded long ago, lost in a whirl and rush of this driving need. To know, to feel, to experience.

  He said nothing. She could hear the air hissing in and out as he breathed, over the thunder of her own pulse in her ears. And then, a fraction so slight she barely noticed it at first, his grip on her wrists loosened.

  Lightly she skimmed her hands over the front of his pants and he jerked violently in response, pressing himself into her palm. “Ooh,” she breathed. “I didn’t know.”

  He filled her hands. Hard, long, hot—she knew those words. But she’d never felt them like this, a living thing beneath her touch.

  She stroked him once, felt him shudder against her. “Do you like it?”

  His laugh was rueful, pained. “Like isn’t the word for it, no.”

  “Is there something else I should do?”

  “No,” he managed. “No, you’re doing fine.”

  So she stopped worrying if she was doing it right and let herself enjoy. He was so different from her. He’d dropped his head back, exposing his throat, and she sank her teeth in, right there.

  “Em!”

  She loved how he said that, every time she tried something new. An exclamation, rather than just her name, gasped out in wonder. For the rest of her life, when someone called her name, plain Emily, it would never sound exactly the same to her. She’d hear wonder in it. Maybe she’d intended to give him a gift, but she’d received one
, too, learning of the power contained in her touch.

  But she soon cursed the fabric that barred her from exploring further. His outlines were muted, her investigations constrained. There seemed nothing for it but to rid herself of such a nuisance.

  She reached for his buttons. He sucked in his stomach on a sudden breath.

  “Em, you can’t.”

  “Yes, I can. I am. See?” Just to prove it, she popped open one button, so easily she wondered why people went around fastened up all the time when buttons were so easy to undo and there was so much of interest beneath them.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Then tell me. You feel good.” She opened another, pushed his drawers down an inch, and let her fingers dance against the small wedge of skin uncovered. There were few strands of hair, with more spring than the hair on his head, and she wondered if it were just as dark. And then she shivered, just as he had, with wicked pleasure and anticipation. “I feel good. Heavens, we’re standing in the middle of the room, and I’m fastened to my chin, and you haven’t lost a single piece of clothing. How much of a sin could this be?”

  But it felt like a sin. A wonderful, irresistible, miraculous sin.

  And then she couldn’t wait anymore. Two more buttons fell open like ripened grapes from a vine and then the next one defeated her, clinging stubbornly to its hole. “Oh hell,” she said, and gave up. She burrowed her hand inside his drawers, and found him at last. The fabric bound her hand close, made her grip him hard.

  “Emily, stop, it’s been so long, I—”

  “No.” She was far too captivated to stop. On a man like Jake, hard, rough-edged, to find skin like the finest silk—who would have thought it? On his sex, which was hard as the rest of him. Harder even. The tip was smooth but there were ridges farther down, veins that pulsed as she explored. “Let me, Jake. Let me make you feel good.”

  And then he grabbed her, his arms around her back, and clutched her to him so her hand was crushed between them. His hips thrust once, twice, and she felt wet heat flood her palm.

  Release. That was the term, wasn’t it? She understood the phenomenon vaguely. But this was wonderful release, as tension shuddered from him and sounds burst from his throat and he poured himself into her hand.

  She wrapped her free hand around his back and held on as tightly as he. At length his shudders slowed, then finally ended. She was sorry to have it stop. She loved to feel him completely out of himself, given over to her and the pleasure she brought him.

  But then he let go. He grabbed her hand and yanked it away from him, shoved her away so hard she stumbled.

  Smiling, she met his gaze. Then her smile faded. His face was hard and harsh, his mouth set, his eyes blazing.

  “Pleased with yourself, are you?” He began to remove his shirt, found it still fastened. He grabbed the sides in both hands and jerked. Buttons flew. One bounced off her chest, another pinged on the floor. He tore it off, grabbed her hand, and scrubbed the sticky wetness from her with the mutilated shirt.

  “You couldn’t listen, could you?” His cleansing was not gentle. Her skin burned by the time he’d scoured every bit of evidence from her palm.

  “But I—”

  He went on in a voice so savage each word cut. “I said stop, tried to tell you it had been too long since I…but no, you always know better, don’t you?” He rubbed the soiled shirt over his lower belly, then two quick, violent swipes further down, as if he could wipe away what they’d done.

  He balled the shirt up and hurled it into a dark corner like a soldier might throw a live grenade, as hard and far away as he could. With swift, jerky motions he buttoned his pants, tugged down his under-shirt, and stood there before her, a different man from the half-naked, sensually compelling one he’d been two minutes ago.

  “Was that your prescription, Dr. Bright?” he said with a nasty sneer. “You were gonna treat me with sex? Give the man an orgasm and walk away, satisfied that you’d cured him of what ailed him?”

  She flinched, the words more painful than a blow. It didn’t help to know that in some ways he was right. “It’s not that simple.”

  “How’s it not that simple? All for me, nothing for you, as uncomplicated and one-sided as if you’d stitched up a wound and sent me on my way when you finished your task?”

  “I just wanted to make you happy,” she said weakly. Her head spun, her heart pounded. It had felt so right, she thought in confusion. How had it gone so wrong?

  “It’s not your goddamn job to make me happy!” he shouted.

  “Somebody has to,” she shot back. She’d had enough; she would not allow him to turn her good intentions into something evil. “Lord knows you’d never allow it yourself, unless somebody made you.”

  “Look at you.” His gaze raked her, top to toe, his mouth twisted as if he didn’t like what he saw. She could have been stripped bare and she wouldn’t be nearly as uncomfortable. “Your hair is barely mussed. That’s not what a woman who’d just had her first experience with a man should look like.” And then his eyes met hers, a flare of heat within them—anger or passion, she didn’t know. Maybe both. “By God, I won’t allow it.”

  “Jake—”

  He bent, put his shoulder against her belly, and straightened. She dangled over his shoulder like a half-full sack of grain. He spun for the bed.

  “All right, Jake, you made your point. My hair’s messed up now. You can put me down.”

  “Oh, I’ll put you down.” He flopped her onto the bed, quick and jarring. And then he stood there, breathing hard, his hands on his hips, staring down, and she felt a trickle of…not fear, precisely, but unease. Which was absurd—they’d been alone many a time, and he’d never done her a shred of harm. She knew him better than that; any damage he intended was aimed directly at himself.

  But this was a different man from the one she’d become comfortable with over the past weeks. Harder. Unpredictable.

  And undeniably exciting, capable of things she could only imagine.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Are you?”

  But she remembered the feel of him against her. The way he’d shaken in her arms, a storm that she, just Emily Bright, had caused. The wonder of his sex in her hand, and the way he’d shouted his release, and she knew she couldn’t truly regret it. “I’m sorry that you’re…unhappy about what happened,” she temporized.

  “Unhappy? Is that what you think I am?”

  She started to push herself up.

  “Don’t move.”

  “But—”

  In an instant—she hadn’t a moment to prepare—he was upon her, full length, pressing her into the mattress, pressing the breath from her body.

  “I told you not to move.”

  “Jake!” And then, softer, when she realized how near his mouth was to hers, how his breath reached her with each word he spoke, “Jake.”

  He reached down, pulled her arms over her head, and linked them, circling her wrists easily with one hand. “Are you going to move?”

  She couldn’t if she wanted to. And, God help her, she didn’t want to. He was heavy, in a wonderful way that reminded her of all the differences between them—that he was big and hard and male, and she was none of those things.

  He took her silence for assent. “Good.”

  Still holding her wrists, he rolled to one side. His free hand grabbed fistfuls of her clothes, rucking them up, skirts and petticoats, burying her chest, her neck, in froths of cotton, the lacy edge brushing her lips, until she was completely exposed from the waist down except for her knickers.

  She bucked once, and he brought up his knee across her legs, trapping her.

  “Jake, stop.”

  “Stop?” His voice was mild. “What an interesting word. Apparently it doesn’t mean what I thought it did, for I could have sworn I used it not long ago without the effect I intended.”

  He was staring below her waist. There was nothing to see, she consoled herself. The outlin
e of her legs beneath white cotton. No more than she’d see of a man in trousers.

  But then, ever so slowly, he reached down and beneath her to unbutton the flap of her drawers and flipped it away. With just one finger, he nudged open the slit he’d exposed. Wider, and wider, as he circled his finger, circled but never quite touched her sex, and she nearly came off the bed.

  “There,” he murmured. “That’s better.”

  Against her hip she could feel him grow again, harden and lengthen, an astonishingly rapid change. Because of me, she thought, and it excited her nearly as much as his hand hovering near her intimate parts.

  “You should stop,” she said, and it sounded weak even to her own ears.

  “Can you really,” he asked softly, “tell me you don’t want me to do this?” His finger came a bit closer, tracing the edge of the opening, now and then brushing a curl, skimming a bare inch of flesh.

  “I should.”

  “Oh, come now. You lie so prettily and easily. Lie to me now. Tell me you want me to stop.”

  She couldn’t say the word. Stop. A short, choppy word, easily formed, much simpler than some of the lies she’d told, for every bit as noble a reason.

  She told herself she couldn’t say it because it would be unfair to Jake, who’d held himself from women for so long, to hear she didn’t want him.

  Except that lie rang hollow, too. For she didn’t want him to leave her. She ached, she hurt, she needed.

  “You’ve got three seconds,” he warned her.

  She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

  “Too late.” And then he bent and put his mouth there—oh Lord, right there. She yelped, bolted up.

  “Hush,” he murmured, his mouth hovering a bare inch above her; when he spoke, his lips brushed lightly over her sex, and she shivered, all over, toe to tip.

  “You can’t,” she told him, truly shocked. And unimaginably titillated.

  “You’ve nothing to say about it, remember? You had your turn, now it’s mine.” He released her wrists so he could slip down further, giving him better access. “Leave your hands where they are.”