HE WASN’T SORRY.
Austin walked toward the bench where Cara sat staring at the falls. No matter how bad this conversation got, he wasn’t sorry for telling her how he felt.
And he wasn’t sorry for the sexy talk, either. Sure, he wished he could have prevented her from feeling embarrassed. He regretted wronging his brother, which he’d actually been trying to avoid. Rather than let his feelings boil away inside and perhaps explode in the future, he’d sought to release them safely.
To be honest, he was only sorry he’d been caught. That’s right, Austin Varnell, straightest of straight arrows, had been a naughty boy.
So sue him.
That probably wasn’t the best attitude to take into a conversation with his future sister-in-law.
Truly, he was only a rebel in his mind. He would do the gentlemanly thing and deliver a groveling apology with repeated assurances that he Didn’t Think of Her That Way.
In other words, he would lie, because how could he not think of her that way? She’d run toward him naked, flung herself into his arms and kissed him. He didn’t have to imagine what she looked like—he knew. So when he’d described massaging her with oils, he could visualize her body perfectly. And had. And would for a very long time.
And he was about to tell her he wouldn’t. Right.
Austin wasn’t good at lying, but he was good at keeping his feelings hidden. Sometimes.
Cara had noticed him and was watching as he approached the bench.
She was so…so Cara. The Cara who had made him realize that he’d had a little superiority thing going on. That he’d mistakenly believed that people who laughed and talked about nothing were shallow and not worth their time. Cara had taught him that socializing had value. He’d never be a natural at it like Dal, but he was no longer the supercilious lump on the sofa, either.
But what had he given to her? Nothing good.
Austin reached the bench, opened his mouth to deliver the apology that would allow them to meet at future family gatherings with a minimum of awkwardness—and told her, “I’m not sorry. And I meant every word I said. Every. Single. Word.” Then he sat down.
He’d never been good at lying.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it doesn’t.”
“I feel better.”
“This isn’t about you.” She gave him a withering look and stared out at the falls. “Why did you let me think you were Dallas?”
“Because it was the only chance I would ever have to talk to you as a lover. I could tell you how I felt and you’d never know. So I went for it.”
“I’d never know?” She looked at him in disbelief. “You didn’t think there’d be a conversation like, ‘Oooh, Dal, let’s do the massage thing.’ ‘What massage thing?’ ‘You know, with the special oil? The one we fantasized about in the dressing room that day?’ You didn’t think there’d ever be a conversation like that?” She threw her hands up in the air.
“Dal’s next line would have been ‘I don’t remember—why don’t you remind me.’ And then neither of you would have cared,” Austin said.
He thought he saw a flicker of a smile before she turned away.
“You’ve ruined massages for me.”
“I can fix that.”
“Stop it,” she said coldly. “Flirting with your brother’s fiancée is completely out of line.”
Except while she’d been flinging her hands around, Austin had noticed something. He reached for her left hand and rubbed his thumb over her bare ring finger. “Are you still my brother’s fiancée?” Dal hadn’t said anything, but Dal was mad at him right now and justifiably so.
Cara snatched her hand away and crossed her arms. “No.”
Austin’s heart began beating in heavy thuds. “Then I’m not out of line.”
“You think you can just move right in? One brother is as good as another? Maybe I won’t notice the difference? You two are nothing alike! Dal would never sneak around behind your back and do what you did. He genuinely loved me—in his comfortable, easy-breezy way. He has no idea that love can be so…” She gestured as she sought the words. “Intense. Rich. Deep.” She dropped her hands. “More.”
Austin knew. “You mean the kind of love where you would rather suffocate than breathe the air of a world without your beloved? The kind of love that burns so hot it frightens you and you back away from it because you’re afraid you’ll get hurt? You bury it and think you’ve put it out. But one day, a naked woman flings herself into your arms and knocks away the ash. And you realize the fire was only banked and now it’s burning hotter than ever.”
Cara had slowly turned her head until she was looking straight at him. Straight into his eyes.
“But it’s too late,” he continued. “So you say what you should have said before and hope it’s enough to bank the fire again. Because you know the fire will never completely go out.”
They stared at each other. “Is that the love you’re talking about?” he asked her.
Cara looked dazed. “Yeah. That’s it.”
“That’s how I feel. It’s how I’ve always felt.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Look what happened when I did.” He waited a beat and then asked, “Are you still mad at me?”
“Yes!”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You’re mad at me, Dal is mad at me, the engagement is off…so I don’t have anything to lose by kissing you.”
Quickly grasping either side of her face, Austin kissed her the best going-for-broke, all-in, bet-the-farm, one-shot kiss of his life…and won his heart’s desire.
Three months later
“ALL RIGHT, GENTLEMEN.” Cara heard the wedding coordinator talking in the room next to the bride’s parlor at the Rocky Falls Community Church. “We’re ready for you to line up—not you, Mr. Varnell. We don’t want you to accidentally see the bride.”
Cara waited until the groomsmen shuffled out and tapped on the wall. “Hey, sailor. Whatcha wearin’?”
“Cara?”
She laughed. “Yes. Austin?”
“Absolutely.”
“What’s the code?”
“Cara…”
“Come on.”
“I burn for you,” he said in a low voice.
“Oooh. That makes me hot,” she said.
“Cara, what are you doing?”
“Just fanning the flames.”
“In the church?”
Such an Austin response. She loved, loved poking through his layer of reserve to the passionate man beneath. “It’ll give you something to think about during the ceremony.”
He was the one. She knew it, just as everyone had told her she would. Hokey as it sounded, she felt they were soul mates.
If she ever doubted her decision to break up with Dallas, she had only to remember how quickly her love had become affection. When Dal found the right woman, he was going to be stunned at the difference.
“So,” she prompted Austin. “Tell me what you’re wearing.”
Reluctantly, he quickly recited what he was wearing, ending with, “and a vest and cravat in Bridal Blush pink.”
“And?”
“Is there supposed to be anything else?”
“You tell me. Are you wrapping your package? Or are you leaving it unwrapped so it’ll be easier to sneak away and exchange presents during the reception?”
“Cara!” He strangled her name.
Good.
Since that evening at the falls, Austin had determinedly wooed her. And she had determinedly resisted.
Until Dallas had called her. “Would you give the guy a break? You want emotion? He’s emoting all over the place. I can’t take it anymore.”
So Cara had relented. She’d never gotten around to canceling the wedding, anyway.
But she invoked a no-sex rule. Not to punish Austin, but to make sure she wasn’t distracted by sex before she knew that they had a true emotional connection.
Like that had been a problem.
So the sex ban had become a game of holdout. Who would crack first? Who would beg the other?
There would be only winners in this game.
Austin cleared his throat. “I’ll unwrap my present if you’ll unwrap yours.”
“Don’t be silly!” Cara laughed. “I never wrapped mine.”
She heard the breath hiss between his teeth just as the wedding coordinator entered the room. Ha. Perfect timing.
“Are you ready, Cara?” she asked.
“I am so ready.”
IT HAD TO HAVE BEEN the longest ceremony in the history of weddings.
Then there had been the ten million photographs because all kinds of people wanted a picture of their Chrysanthemum Wedding. Right now, Austin hated chrysanthemums. And wedding photographers.
“You’re being so patient,” Cara cooed at him.
They were being arranged in yet another pose, this time on the top steps with the rest of the wedding party below them. “I am not.”
“Are you thinking about my present?”
He looked down at her. Deliberately he moved his hand and squeezed her bottom through the beaded dress.
“So you are!”
Her impish laughter faded as Austin continued to knead and caress her. “They have enough pictures,” he said.
“They have enough pictures.” She sighed.
And that was it. Austin had reached his breaking point. For the past three months, he’d waited. He’d given her time and space, though not a lot of time and only a little space. He’d respected her boundaries and even understood her reasoning. He didn’t like it, but he understood it.
He’d proposed after a week.
She’d turned him down.
So he’d proposed after two weeks.
And she’d turned him down.
The next day, he’d arrived on her doorstep with a basket of massage oils and massaged just her hands. He pretended each finger was a different part of her body and demonstrated what he planned to do with that body part when he had the chance.
The day after that, Cara proposed to him.
Now, Austin took her hand and led her through the chrysanthemum petals and down the aisle.
No one stopped them.
Cara’s mother hurried after them. “Stop looking at each other like that!” she instructed through a clenched smile. “People are talking. Remember the video. Stand up straight, Cara. Make sure you hold the bouquet—Wait! Where are you going?”
“To give Austin his present.” She smiled up at him and he felt his knees buckle.
“Oh. Now? Should I send the videographer with you?”
“No,” they both answered.
“But—”
“See you at the reception!” Cara called as Austin helped her into the limousine.
It was a short, tense drive to the Wainright Inn and a shorter, tenser elevator ride up to the bridal suite. There was no way Austin was going to touch his bride. If he did so, he would abandon all civilized behavior. He glanced at her. She wore a smug expression.
Smug? She was smug and he was desperate. “You planned this.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You truly wanted me insane with lust during our wedding?”
She leaned up against him and licked his ear. “You betcha.”
“That tells me you’ve never driven a man insane with lust before. It’s not slow and tender and pretty. It’s raw and elemental and…goal oriented.” He was sweating.
“Promise?” she asked in a provocative voice.
They literally ran off the elevator. Austin swiped the key card, drew her inside and had her pressed up against the wall in a deep kiss before the door latched.
“Ow!”
She was lucky he heard her, being insane with lust as he was.
“What?” he panted.
“My veil. It’s smashed up against the wall and all the pins are stabbing me in the head!”
“Take it off.”
“I can’t! My hair—I’ll never get it pinned back up!”
“Does it have to be pinned up?”
“Yes!”
Austin pulled her into the living room. “I’ll be careful. No running my fingers through your hair.” He kissed her throat, urgently moving to the bodice of her strapless gown where her breasts swelled demurely.
He didn’t want demure. He wanted flesh in his hands. He wanted nipples in his mouth. His fingers brushed the edge of her dress and he met resistance.
He pushed. “Is this glued to you or something?”
“Taped,” she answered breathlessly. “So it won’t slip.”
Austin stared at her. “But…how do I get to you?”
“You sit on the bed.” Cara kissed him, walking him backward as she did so. “And you get out your present.”
His present nearly burst through the zipper. As Austin dropped his pants and sat on the bed, Cara stood in front of him and shimmied the beaded sheath over her hips, bunching it at her waist.
Austin went dry-mouthed as she revealed white lace-edged stockings hooked to long garters that were attached to a lacy thing just below her waist. Austin didn’t care about the lacy thing. He barely noticed the lacy thing. What he did notice was that there was nothing below the lacy thing except Cara’s dark blond curls.
Best. Present. Ever.
She straddled him and Austin had to consciously remind himself to breathe. She started to lower herself and he said, “Wait.”
Running his hands up the backs of her thighs, past the lace-topped stockings, he gripped her bare buttocks. “I need to do this,” he murmured.
Bringing her to his mouth, he gave her the most intimate of kisses.
“Auuusstinnn…” Cara moaned and clutched his shoulders as he used his tongue to excite her, learning her scent, her taste and the places that made her gasp and squirm. He laved her with a rhythm that had her gasping and rocking against him.
And then, “Austin—stop.”
Not the words he’d expected to hear. In fact, hadn’t she meant to say, “Don’t stop?”
“Please.” She tugged at his hair. “Trust me, this will be the only time I ever stop you, but I want our first time to be together.”
“Okay.” He should have been more eloquent, but that was all he had.
Gazing into his eyes, she lowered her body onto his, sheathing him within her warmth. Austin’s eyes were squeezed shut so tightly he saw purple spots. He’d waited so long. He’d wanted so long.
“Don’t move or I’ll explode,” Austin whispered, and opened his eyes to find her looking at him with a tender expression.
They sat, joined together, and smiled at each other. “What are you thinking?” Cara asked dreamily.
She expected him to think? “Um, something incredibly romantic.”
“What?”
Afterward, he’d teach her not to ask complicated questions when they were in the throes of passion.
“I’m thinking that my bride didn’t wear panties on her wedding day.” He grinned. “I find that incredibly romantic.”
“Austin, that’s not what I meant.”
He thrust upward, making her gasp and effectively distracting her.
Wearing a wicked grin, she returned the favor.
Austin took over, guiding her hips in a quick rhythm that had them both shuddering their climaxes within moments.
“Wow.” Cara looked shocked. “That was fast.”
Austin exhaled. “I needed that. I so needed that.” Resting his head on her shoulder, he added, “I may live now.”
“Hmm.” Cara stretched her arms over her head. “I feel much more relaxed.”
Austin nuzzled her throat. “I’ve been practicing my massage techniques. Want to skip the reception?”
“They’d come find us. My mother would get the manager to unlock the door.”
“Any manager would know better than to unlock the bridal suite when the bride and groom might be inside.”
“We don’t have time, anyway.” Cara shifted and then raised an eyebrow at Austin. “Really? Already?”
He smiled. “The fire blazes anew.”
“That’s some fire.” And Cara began a slow, rhythmic rocking.
“It’s not about the fire, Cara. It’s about the love that fuels the fire.”
She gripped him and moved faster.
“Well, maybe a little about the fire.”
THE RECEPTION WAS UNDER WAY when Cara and Austin slipped into the ballroom at the Wainright Inn.
“Oh, look. She’s just glowing,” a guest commented to Mrs. Brantley. “What is that shade of pink?”
Mrs. Brantley smiled tightly. “Bridal Blush.”