Bound As His Business-Deal Bride (Mills & Boon Modern) Page 8

  ‘This document...’ He motioned towards her tablet now lying on the table. ‘It shows an excitement, a passion. Sure, the business is holding its own, but there’s nothing here to be passionate about.’

  Their eyes locked. A glorious heat settled in her belly then unthreaded and curled its way through her. The air seemed electric with possibilities, each one tempting but as unattainable as the other. Her passions had stopped being about a person long ago and had become about the little things accessible to her day to day. The smell of a rose, the cool breeze brushing sun-warmed skin, the sweet burst of a chunk of wild strawberry in this morning’s jam. But now...

  There was so much she could be passionate about here, if she allowed it. The hint of chest behind Gage’s open-necked shirt, the strength of his tanned forearms sprinkled with golden hair, the pull of crisp cotton over muscular shoulders. All of that had inflamed her passions once, and it would be so easy for her to allow it to be so again. She eased her thoughts back to safer ground. Away from sliding her hands over those broad shoulders, pressing her lips to the pulse on his neck, letting him wrap his arms tightly around her...

  Thoughts that would take her nowhere good. She ignored their allure.

  ‘We’ve been trying to grow an enhanced rose. One with slightly different notes in the scent. Last year a bush showed promise so we cultivated a field of them and invited a few parfumiers here. Let their best noses smell it.’ She paused, allowed the anticipation to build because there was joy in this, for her at least. Something she’d worked hard for and achieved on her own. And there was a tiny nugget of hope inside that people would be proud of her achievements. That Gage might be proud. A small thrill skittered through her at making him wait. Making him interested in what she had to say. Enticing him.

  As the silence stretched, he raised an eyebrow and she relented. ‘It started a bidding war for exclusive access. We’re still in negotiations, but people are willing to pay a lot. It’s—’

  ‘Exciting’ Gage finished the sentence, looking at her over steepled fingers. ‘And an achievement.’

  What she’d dreamed of when her dreams of having Gage had died.

  Warmth coursed over her, heat rising to her cheeks. She must look as pink as the roses in her field right now. Here was a chance. It might be tiny, but it was a chance nonetheless.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Her words might have been a little too urgent, her voice a little too breathy, but she didn’t care.

  The corner of his mouth quirked up in something of a smile, which looked a bit triumphant for her liking, but if this was a lifeline, she was taking it.

  ‘I’m not bloody-minded about the process. If a business stands up to scrutiny, it stays. The farm does. For now.’

  The whole of her unwound, as his words sank in. Eve couldn’t help the smile that broke out on her face. In business she’d learned to hide her emotions, but she didn’t care about that now—this was something to celebrate. She walked over to where he sat, and he turned in his chair to face her. He could still take her breath away with those eyes of his, as perfect as a cloudless summer day. Her heart fluttered a few silly beats, as it always did when he was near. Around him she reacted like a girl barely out of her teens. He tilted his head back to look up at her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. All her tension seeped away, and something else entirely overtook it. A sensation so unfamiliar she’d almost forgotten what it meant. The surge in her pulse, the butterflies in her stomach. The bursting in her chest evidence of true happiness. She’d had so little of it in recent years. At that moment she didn’t think too much about what she was doing as she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, the merest brush. Something entirely platonic. Except the smell of him, all earth and spice, made her linger a bit longer than she should. Maybe she sighed. Maybe her breath brushed his cheek in a way it shouldn’t have before she pulled away. She should move back to her seat, but she didn’t.

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said. His voice was low and soft, better suited to dimmed lights and late nights than this morning in a breakfast room. And the sensations coursing inside her morphed into something else, something liquid, hot and potent. ‘But that’s not the type of kiss you’d give your fiancé.’

  Her heart picked up its rhythm to something harder and faster. She should be terrified by this, but she wasn’t. The anticipation of a coming dare overtook her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’re having dinner with Greta Bonitz tonight. Our engagement won’t be convincing to her if that’s how you act.’

  ‘I thought you were convinced I could fake it?’

  ‘Time to prove it.’ He held out his hand, palm up. His voice was a murmur, like a breeze through rose petals. ‘Touch me.’

  She should back away but his hand was there, and she craved to feel his skin against hers once more. He was right, in public they’d have to hold hands, at least try to look adoring, if this were to work. Maybe, just maybe they could reach some sort of truce here and now. She placed her hand gently in his. He wrapped his fingers round hers, stroking the backs of her knuckles with his thumb. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and give in to the sensation, his warmth, the gentleness of his touch.

  ‘You scared, Eve?’

  It was the game they’d played when they’d been kids and had sneaked off to the bottom of their respective gardens to see each other through the vine-covered hole in the wall. She’d always risen to the challenge of that taunt. Whether it had been climbing trees too high or catching garter snakes, a dare had always been her call to action.

  She gazed into the everlasting and perfect blue of his eyes. She could drown in them they were so deep. ‘You don’t scare me, Gage Caron.’

  His pupils were wide and dark, his nostrils flared. The knowledge that she still affected him jolted through her with the hot roar of power. He might be able to destroy her and her business, but she held something too. His desire. She wanted it, to wrest back some control of her own. Then he tugged at her hand. She followed with no resistance, allowing herself to be reeled in. Gage widened his legs so she stood between them, and drew her close with a smile that was all triumph. She swallowed, a pulse thrashing wildly in her throat.

  ‘Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf now, cher?’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE SHOULD RUN yet all Eve craved was to sink into Gage and take everything that his wicked smile promised. He was all dry heat and the crack and fire of an electrical storm, dangerous and thrilling. She was rooted to the spot, watching him blaze in front of her with a hypnotising energy.

  This was a test of her determination. But if he thought the look of him sitting there as sinful as Lucifer would chase her away, he was sorely mistaken. She didn’t run anymore. She never would again.

  ‘Sugar, you’ll learn that I’m no Little Red Riding Hood,’ she said, her voice low and raw in a way that sounded alien to her ears.

  ‘Who are you then?’

  She cupped his cheek, traced the smooth, freshly shaven skin as she leaned down, her lips a whisper away from his. Breathing the same breath as if in that moment they shared one life together.

  ‘I’m the woodcutter.’

  Eve dropped her lips to his. She’d always marvelled at how soft his mouth was, but something about it caught her off balance today. That the hard man he’d become could have any gentleness left in him. This should stop, but she cupped his face and he slid a hand to her waist and gripped tight as he parted his lips and she followed.

  Their tongues touched and she melted into the delicious taste of him, coffee and sweetness, and she could hardly breathe for the memory of it all. Those recollections flooded over her. Of their love, the adoration when everything had been perfect and unassailable. She slid her hands into his hair and gripped hard as he thrust his hands into hers, tugging at the pins that tamed her curls, scattering the infernal metal objects with a clatter on the table
-top.

  Their mouths clashed and warred and the kiss became a frantic thing with teeth and tongues and desperation. Gage hauled her onto his lap, never breaking contact. She twisted and then straddled him as he dragged her close till there was no space between them.

  Years of dreams and desires collided in that one moment. She didn’t care what it meant, what he thought of her. Gage had been her one and only. She couldn’t contemplate another man touching her after he’d planted his seed during their one night of abandon, after she’d carried and lost their baby. It was too raw and too much and she just wanted to forget. Gage and his body could make her.

  She couldn’t stop as her hands roved over his shoulders and chest and relearned him, like a road travelled long ago. She worked his buttons with trembling fingers so she could stroke the hot, perfect skin beneath. Rocked on his hardness because he was right there with her, thrusting up as she moved, each movement causing a bright burst of pleasure to explode through her.

  One hand released her hair, trailed down her body to her breast. His questing fingers stroked over her nipple. She groaned into his mouth so he plucked at it harder in the way she’d loved as she rode him. He remembered everything that drove her wild and repeated it, their bodies still in perfect tune with each other. Their breaths panted into the room as he grappled with the button of her trousers. Slid the zip down too slowly then eased his hand inside and stroked gently over her underwear.

  ‘More,’ she gasped against his lips, and the word was met with a low chuckle and fleeting pressure but not enough. She burned, wanted to tear off her clothes as they itched and prickled her skin. He eased his thumb beneath the waistband of her panties, sliding it with steady pressure over her slick clitoris. It took only moments for the burn to build and twist then explode outwards, her screams of pleasure trapped by their fused mouths. He kept going and the orgasm went on and on, wreaking destruction.

  When she’d shuddered for the last time and sagged into him, limp and wrung out, Gage tightened his arms tight around her waist and stood. She barely had the wherewithal to wrap her legs round his waist as he placed her on the table in front of him. Her hands tangled in his hair; his mouth never left hers. Frantic hands grappled with the buttons of her shirt, tugged down the cups of her bra and he dropped his head to her nipple and sucked, torturing her till she writhed against him. She wanted him again, the exquisite emptiness building deep inside.

  Gage somehow manhandled her pants down and off her legs. He pulled her forward so that she perched right on the edge of the table. The clink of a belt buckle and the burr of a zip told her they were far from finished and she didn’t care. She never wanted this moment to end.

  She reached out, craving to feel the heavy, warm silk of him in her hands, and then she took and gripped hard, marvelling at his glorious size and stroking him in the way she remembered he loved. He pulled back, moaned, mouth at her neck, kissing and nipping as a flood of heat built between her legs, aching to her core. He ran his teeth over and along the shell of her ear and the sounds they made were barely human, guttural expressions of need.

  He tugged down the straps of her bra, pulled her shirt off her shoulders, trapping her arms, and she arched back, gloriously exposed. Gage’s one hand slipped between her legs, fingers probing deep. The other tortured her nipple.

  ‘I don’t damn well care anymore,’ Gage growled in her ear. It was like the words weren’t meant for her, as if he was giving himself permission to take what he wanted. Then he kissed her again, all heat and battle, and she shook as though she was overwhelmed by a fever, with the impending orgasm hanging just out of reach. He pulled her closer or did she guide him? Then his fingers withdrew, leaving her empty and bereft till he notched himself at her entrance. She wrapped her legs around him again, encouraging, drawing him forward with her heels. He entered her with a sharp thrust and a groan. She tensed at the sensation, swift and over-full. It had been years and, no matter how wet she was or how much she wanted this, she couldn’t help the gasp that escaped at the size of him. Gage stilled.

  ‘Cher?’

  It had never been Eve when he’d been inside her.

  ‘A moment,’ she whispered. She wanted his hands and his lips and possession, so she didn’t have to think about him between her legs, invading her very soul. The short, shallow thrusts that had her panting and wanting even more. She raised her mouth to his, softer this time, gave a languid kiss that he mirrored as he slid in and out in a way she would have said was gentle and loving if it had been seven years earlier. The kindness of him at this moment would be her undoing. She drove her heels into the back of his thighs and tried to spur him on to something harder, less tender.

  ‘Just...take me,’ she said as she nipped at his collar bone.

  ‘No.’

  He slowed right down then, rocked into her, and she thought she’d go mad. He threaded his hand into her loose hair, wrapped its unruly length around his fist and eased her head back, her neck bared to him. Her breasts thrust forward, pushed up by the ruined cups of her bra. He licked and kissed and sucked and she was sure he’d leave marks everywhere as she groaned in frustration, bright light sparking in her eyes and the cliff of oblivion looming just out of reach.

  All the while he kept up the rhythm, gentle and slow, and she despised him for it because what she wanted was hard and hateful, not this...undoing. Unpicking every seam she’d so tightly stitched up over the years. Only when he slid his hand between them again, stroked and teased and she began saying who knew what—unintelligible mutterings that were probably begging but she didn’t give a damn about her pride—did he begin the hard thrusting that she’d craved, his rhythm breaking and irregular because he was as lost as her with the pressure and changes of angle.

  In a roar of pleasure she fell apart, screaming his name, and he followed with a shout on one final hard thrust, filling her with his heat.

  They stayed there for a few seconds, heavy breaths ragged in the room, the smell of salt and musk and sex hanging in the air, fused with the spicy scent that was all Gage. She closed her eyes, her head against his chest. The thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat in her ear. What had she done? His hate she could deal with. But a gentle, kind and passionate Gage Caron had the power to destroy her utterly and she wouldn’t let him. She’d barely recovered the last time she’d let him go. She needed to move, protect herself from her own critical mistake. Allowing herself to touch him. Thinking the fire of their passion wouldn’t burn her.

  Eve raked up her bra straps. Shrugged her shirt back over her shoulders and pushed at Gage.

  ‘Move.’

  He slid out of her, still half-erect, hair a mess and looking confused as he stepped back, hands up and off her body. She ignored him and wrestled with her underwear, trousers. Anything to get away as fast as possible, to begin the process of putting herself back together.

  ‘Eve?’

  She shook her head as he tried to reach for her, tears stinging her eyes. Clutching her crushed clothes to her body as she pushed past him and ran to her room. She slammed the door and turned the key before stumbling to the bed and sitting on the edge.

  Her body wasn’t listening to what her head was trying to tell her, that this should never have happened. The unprotected sex, whilst blindingly stupid, wasn’t going to lead to pregnancy. She had an implant so there was no risk of that.

  No, it was that her body wanted more. More of Gage, his lips and his hands driving her out of her mind. Driving out the thoughts that whispered that if her father never recovered, some secrets would remain safe and she and Gage might one day have a chance, when there was none to be had at all. Not now or ever, because secrets had the power to destroy, and there were some secrets she would always have to keep.

  What if he wanted more, too? She shivered, like she’d plunged into icy water. She craved that more than anything else in the whole world but there could never be any tr
uth between them because she wouldn’t destroy the family he loved. So they had nothing, because that lack of trust between them would rot everything away from the inside. Eve took a deep breath. She’d shore up her defences and inject the coldness into her blood that she’d become renowned for.

  A sharp rap sounded at the door.

  Time to be cruel to be kind. And the crueller the better.

  No answer.

  Gage did up his belt, having chased Eve to her room with his trousers half-open. Head still reeling at how out of hand one kiss had become. How much more he had wanted until Eve had fled down the hallway, half-dressed herself. He’d never hurt a woman during sex before, but she’d gasped and now he wasn’t sure, not after she’d pushed him away and run, leaving him quite literally with his trousers around his damned ankles.

  He had to get his head together, but sanity was somewhere back with their bodies locked in ecstasy at the dining table, with nothing on his mind other than the feel of being inside her again. The warm silk of her skin, the wet heat surrounding him. Eve’s kisses, which had been desperate and wanting. The smell of her still clung to his skin, so heady and sweet it might never wash away.

  It was as if he’d been transported back to a time where life had been perfect, a kind of surety that everything would work out. He hadn’t felt that way for so long, the sensation shocked him. And Eve had been right there in the maelstrom of it all. So why run away at the end? Instead they should have both taken to the bedroom where he could have spent the day buried inside her, working her out of his system.

  Gage tested the door. Locked? Hell. His heart began beating a sickeningly fast rhythm and he swallowed. All those rumours of him forcing her to go with him came back to the fore as bile rose in his throat. It was a moment’s worth of insecurity that took him right back to her rejection. How he’d misread the situation totally. Had he done the same here today? He raked his hands through his hair. No. She’d been right there with him, screaming as they’d exploded together...