“Well, isn’t this cozy,” Brady said, joining Kelsey in the master bedroom a few minutes later, shaving kit in hand.
Trying not to feel self-conscious in the ribbed knit undershirt and loose-fitting men’s pajama pants she typically wore to bed, Kelsey went into the adjoining bathroom and plucked her toothbrush out of the holder. “Don’t look at me like it’s all my fault,” she warned as she squeezed toothpaste onto the brush.
Brady tossed his shaving kit onto the counter next to her orange-blossom shampoo. “Isn’t it?” Arms folded in front of him, Brady lounged in the doorway and watched her brush, rinse and spit. His lips set, he unzipped his bag and pulled out his own toothbrush and paste. “You could have done what your sister so clearly wanted you to do and offered to put off our wedding night until we were alone.”
“Which is going to be never, in case you haven’t figured that out,” Kelsey whispered back, pausing to blot her mouth with a towel. Unable to get by him, because his tall frame was blocking the only exit out of the small bath, she bided her time impatiently as Brady brushed his teeth.
Able to see he still didn’t understand what was really going on here, Kelsey continued to whisper, “Ten to one, Meg and Luke, and Jenna and Jake, would be here, too, if they didn’t have kids at home. But they do. So obviously Dani and Beau have been elected—”
“—or volunteered,” Brady interrupted, following his tooth-brushing with a swish of mouthwash.
“—to play chaperone for me and you,” Kelsey finished haughtily.
Brady straightened and gave her a look. “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea, given what they think is the reason you married me today.” He led the way back into the bedroom.
Kelsey stormed after him. “I am not competing with them!”
He turned to face her and continued unbuttoning his shirt. “Not even a tiny little bit?” he demanded, towering over her.
“Well, okay.” Reminded of what had happened, or nearly happened between them that afternoon, Kelsey backed up a step. She swallowed hard around the sudden parched feeling in her throat and forced herself to look up at him as if being here with him like this did not bother her in the least. “I wouldn’t mind it if I had already found the love of my life, but I haven’t so…” She let the thought go unfinished. Then, deciding she was much too close to him, she went around to her side of the bed and climbed in.
Looking unhappier than ever, Brady stripped off his shirt, boots and jeans, and climbed in beside her. “So you ‘made do’ with me,” he theorized grimly.
Unwilling to lie down just yet, now that they were actually in bed together again, Kelsey propped herself against the headboard. She pulled the sheet up to her chest and held it against her breasts. “That isn’t it and you know it.”
Brady gave her a hard look that challenged her veracity as he settled back against the headboard, too.
“We’re partners,” Kelsey continued stubbornly.
Brady tugged the covers no higher than his waist. “And man and wife,” he muttered in a low, disgruntled tone that carried no further than their bed, “who—thanks to your impulsiveness—are now sharing a bed for the night.”
“What choice did we have?” Kelsey railed right back at him in the same highly irascible manner. “If I’d not slept in the same room and the same bed with you tonight,” she shot back quietly, “then Dani and Beau might have told Wade McCabe there was nothing to worry about after all. Wade would have concluded that this wasn’t a real marriage, and there goes the deed to the ranch.” Still holding on to the covers, she clamped her arms in front of her and stared straight ahead. “I am not giving up this ranch.”
“Well, there we agree, anyway,” Brady said, abruptly lying down and stretching out beside her.
Was it her imagination, Kelsey wondered, or was this bedroom of hers getting smaller and more intimate by the minute? Beside her, Brady shifted around and sighed loudly. Kelsey rolled her eyes and refused to look at him. “Now what’s wrong?” she whispered stonily.
Brady shifted again. His shoulders were so broad, they took up his half of the bed, and his legs were so long, his feet were hanging off the end of the mattress. He grimaced and continued to try to get comfortable. “This bed is awfully small.”
Kelsey shifted a little farther away from him, so they would no longer be touching, and nearly fell off the edge of the bed. He was making this harder than it had to be, she thought, glaring at him. “It’s a double.” It should sleep two.
“Which would be fine for me alone,” Brady conceded, sighing and staring at the ceiling again, “but with you in here…it’s going to be awfully darn hard to sleep here without touching each other.”
“So what if we do touch each other?” Kelsey challenged. “Nothing’s going to happen we don’t want to happen. Unless—” Kelsey paused, grinning, as the next idea—and it was a brilliant one—hit.
As the silence strung out between them, Brady rolled toward her. “What?” Brady demanded suspiciously, searching her face.
Kelsey shifted onto her side to face him. She snapped her fingers and flashed him a mischievous grin. “Never fear, cowboy. I know how to get rid of Beau and Dani faster than you can say ‘We’re outta here!’”
BRADY DID NOT LIKE that look in Kelsey’s vibrant green eyes. That look always guaranteed trouble. “What are you up to now?” he demanded.
Kelsey raised her knees beneath the covers, braced her arms on either side of her, and began to rock back and forth suggestively. “Let’s see how loud we can get this bed to squeak.”
Brady swore, rolled and grabbed her shoulders, hard enough to temporarily stop her. “Are you out of your mind?” he said, ignoring the tantalizing warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips.
“No.” The flush in Kelsey’s cheeks increased and the soft edges of her lips curled up merrily. “Actually, if you want to know the truth—” she paused and waggled her eyebrows at him teasingly “—when it comes to bright ideas, I’m ‘in the zone’ today.”
Brady ignored the clear definition of her breasts beneath the clinging blue cotton undershirt. Kelsey might not realize how sexy she looked, dressed for bed, but he did, and it was driving him crazy. The last thing he needed was her emulating the sounds of the two of them making love. “That is definitely a matter of opinion,” he said, pushing away images of their erotically entwined bodies.
Kelsey scowled at him. As the seconds drew out, her lips formed a delicious pout. “It makes perfect sense,” she countered in that soft, determined tone he knew so well. “And if you would just stop and think a minute, Brady, you would know that.”
Deciding holding her that way was courting danger, Brady let her go and shifted away from her.
Kelsey sighed and elaborated in a low, exasperated voice. “Dani and Beau are here to prevent us from making love, if we haven’t already done so.”
“So?” Brady said.
“So—” Kelsey frowned at him impatiently, looking as if she were irked that she was still having to explain her thinking to him. “The two of them would be here with us until their baby was born if they thought they could prevent our consummating our marriage with their mere presence.”
Given the possessive, protective way he was beginning to feel about Kelsey, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, Brady thought.
“I love my sister and her new husband,” Kelsey continued to explain resolutely, looking Brady square in the eye, “but I don’t want them in residence with me for the next three months.”
Put that way, neither did Brady. Although, up until this afternoon, he and Kelsey had been only business partners, he had come to relish his time alone with her.
“Now, on the other hand,” Kelsey theorized softly, with a very wicked grin, “if my nosy sister and her husband discover we’re already making love, the horse is already out of the barn. There would be nothing they could do to invalidate our marriage, and they’d likely leave. So what we need to do, fast, is make it sound like we’re making hot and heavy love in here. So come on,” Kelsey whispered, pausing to utter a long, sultry moan that swiftly had Brady groaning softly, too—for a completely different reason. “Help me here,” she whispered as she began to rock back and forth.
For a virgin, she was remarkably adept at simulating the sounds of lovemaking. Too adept for Brady’s comfort. The hard-on he’d had earlier sprang back to life, with near painful consequences. He knew much more of this and they’d both have reason to regret her impetuousness. She thought she’d been shocked before…
“Cut it out, Kelsey,” Brady warned grimly.
“No.” Kelsey threw her head back against the pillows, exposing the long slender column of her throat and, beneath the scooped neckline of her undershirt, the tempting uppermost curves of her breast and the jutting imprints of her nipples. Shutting her eyes, she rocked all the harder and moaned again, even louder. Down the hall, he could hear the sounds of Dani and Beau moving around, stepping out into the hall.
Brady knew he had to stop her—now. Before her sister and husband came to investigate, and discovered this for the ruse it all was. Because she wasn’t about to listen to him, there was only one way to do that.
Brady moved swiftly, so he was on top of her. As abruptly as his weight covered hers, she went still. The sultry moan came to a strangled end as her green eyes opened wide. She looked first startled, then furious as—unable to rock the bed even the slightest, with his weight stopping her—she moaned again, even louder, and whispered feistily, “You’re not stopping me.”
“The heck I’m not,” Brady threatened, and then he quickly shut her up the only way he knew how. He lowered his lips to hers and delivered a traffic-stopping kiss.
She uttered another moan of strangled passion, and then to Brady’s dismay, instead of stiffening in shocked resistance—the way he expected her to—or trying to fight him off, she wreathed her arms around his neck, opened her mouth to the plundering pressure of his, and let her body melt against his. He thought kissing her earlier, in this bed, when they’d both been naked and willing as could be, had been arousing. It was nothing compared to the way he felt now. His body ignited. And so did his soul. Despite the reckless way she had behaved all day, baiting him and driving him crazy, he wanted her. Damn, how he wanted her…
Kelsey had known, after the way she had panicked earlier, that Brady expected her to fight him off. Which was, precisely, why she hadn’t. She didn’t want him thinking he could second-guess her, when the truth was, he just couldn’t. And…she had also had all day to think about what she had walked out on when she had cut and run from this bed. Fiery kisses. Heart-stopping passion. Not to mention the possibility of actually climaxing for the first time in her life. It infuriated her to realize she was as old as she was, and still had no earthly idea what all the fuss was about. If all the romantic books and movies, not to mention the glowing happiness of all three of her sisters, were anything to go by, what she had been missing up to now was pretty darn sensational.
But not as sensational as the feeling of Brady’s lips, moving over hers, or the intoxicating pressure of his tongue twining with hers. He tasted hot, male and forbidden. He smelled even better—like soap and cologne. His body was warm, strong, solid. And the way he was pressing against her created a delicious, tingling ache.
The fear she’d felt earlier gone, Kelsey gave herself over to the steamy embrace completely. And that was when Brady stopped, lifted his head and swore again.
“DAMMIT,” BRADY WHISPERED, rolling onto his back, his every muscle—and he had a lot of them—tensed and flexed. “I told you we were not going to do this, Kelsey.”
Trembling, Kelsey stared at him. “I don’t see why not,” she told him breathlessly.
“Obviously.” Brady shut his eyes and lay his arm across his forehead.
Kelsey rolled onto her side and studied him in the dim bedroom light. Despite the fact it was rather cool in there, a light sheen of sweat had broken out on his body. He was breathing as hard as if he’d just run a six-kilometer race at top speed. “Are you okay?” she asked after a moment. She thought she was all worked up, given the way her body was tingling and aching with frustration, but Brady almost looked as if he were in pain.
Brady swore again, not moving in the slightest. “If I head for the shower, will they be able to hear the water running from down the hall?” he asked.
Kelsey thought a minute. “Yeah.”
Brady swore again.
Kelsey brightened. “I could go with you,” she offered. “You know, talk and moan a lot. If they thought we were in there together, it wouldn’t look so suspicious. In fact, from what I gather, showering together is a pretty newlywed thing to do. So…”
Brady groaned again, even more miserably than before. To Kelsey’s consternation, rather than take her up on her rather brilliant suggestion, he reached over and turned off the light. Dropping back onto the pillows, he continued breathing as if he were in dire pain. “Kelsey?”
“Hmm?”
“Stay on your side of the bed,” he ordered gruffly. “Be quiet. And go to sleep.”
KELSEY HAD NEVER BEEN ONE to take orders, but something in Brady’s voice told her she had better do what he said. So she turned onto her side, away from him, and tried not to think about what had almost happened, what most certainly would have happened, had she not chickened out earlier that day.
The next thing she knew it was morning, there were sounds of people moving around downstairs, and Brady was nowhere in sight. Trying not to feel disappointed she hadn’t gotten to see what it would be like to wake with him sleeping next to her, she got up, pulled on a robe over her pajamas and headed downstairs. To her surprise, Brady was at the stove, cooking breakfast for Beau and Dani as if he owned the place. Which, Kelsey had to admit reluctantly, now that they were married, he sort of did.
“Morning.” Brady smiled at her as if absolutely nothing had happened before.
Kelsey resented him for that. She had expected him to act as physically frustrated and out of sorts as she was. But maybe it was better that he didn’t, she decided quickly, given the fact they had a very nosy audience who were intently watching everything she and Brady did and said. “Morning.” Kelsey nodded at Brady, then at Dani and Beau. Since when had the three of them become such good friends? she wondered suspiciously.
“Pancakes or eggs?” Brady asked.
“Both,” Kelsey said, just to be obstinate.
“Coming right up.” Brady turned back to the stove.
“Brady was just telling us he thought it would be okay if I did some location shots here for the movie I’m working on,” Beau said. “Is it okay with you? The film company would pay you for the use of your cattle and horses and pastures, of course.”
“Of course.” Kelsey nodded, feeling like a fool because this method of making money to further expand the ranch hadn’t occurred to her before.
Dani smiled, looking a lot more at ease with Kelsey’s marriage to Brady than she had the night before. To Kelsey’s further aggravation, breakfast continued, pleasant as could be, with Brady playing the cheerful host, and Beau and Dani talking up the new film project Beau was working on and the recent movie reviews she had written, plus the book of movie reviews Dani was about to publish, until it was finally time for them to head to their respective offices.
“I imagine our plumbing will be fixed this evening,” Beau announced as he exchanged a meaningful glance with Dani. Dani nodded, too, and Beau continued, “So we won’t be coming back tonight. You two lovebirds will be on your own.”
Thank heavens, Kelsey thought. But for once did not speak her mind.
Dani and Beau left. Kelsey slapped her hands on her hips and turned on Brady. She hated being protected or excluded and it looked like the three of them had just done both. “Just what the heck did you tell them before I woke up?” she said.
BRADY LOOKED HER RIGHT in the eye. “The truth. That I’d cut off my right arm before I’d do anything to hurt you,” he said quietly.
The wind went out of Kelsey’s sails as quickly as it had come in. “Well, apparently they bought it hook, line and sinker,” Kelsey said as she finished her coffee in a single gulp.
“I mean it.” Brady took her by the shoulders and held her in front of him. The truth of what he was saying was in his midnight-blue eyes. “You’re not just my partner now, you’re my wife, Kelse. We’re building something pretty darn important here and I don’t want to lose that.”
Kelsey swallowed around the sudden lump of emotion in her throat. “I don’t, either,” Kelsey said cautiously. To her amazement, she felt oddly protective of him, too.
“Good.” Brady nodded as if that settled that. To Kelsey’s disappointment, he stepped back and returned his attention to the eggs cooking on the stove. “Now that we’ve got money in the bank, I think it might be a good time for us to go and look at those additional horses and ponies you’ve been wanting to buy, and put a bid in on some more tack for your riding stables.” He filled two plates with eggs and pancakes, and then sat down at the table with her.
Kelsey realized without wanting to that she could quickly get used to taking all her meals with Brady. Maybe even sleeping with him, too. Not that she needed to be thinking about that at all, given the fact he had chosen not to make love to her the previous night, even when she had changed her mind and said it would be okay.
She swallowed around the sudden parched feeling in her throat, and tried to think about business instead of the incredibly wonderful and satisfying way Brady kissed. “We can get a better deal on some used tack if we go to the auction house,” she said, as if their business were all she had on her mind.
“Good idea,” Brady said as he added butter and syrup to his stack of fluffy golden hotcakes. “I want to cut our expenses as much as possible to make room in the budget for the cowboys I’m intending to hire.”
Kelsey noted he needed to shave. She liked the way he looked with a morning beard, sort of dark and dangerous, maybe even a little bit like an outlaw. A very handsome, sexy outlaw. Aware she was letting her thoughts digress again into forbidden territory, Kelsey forced herself to straighten up and get her mind out of the bedroom. It was funny, what a little thing like a marriage license and ceremony could do to a woman—even a formerly nonromantic tomboy like herself. She’d been married to Brady less than a day, and already she could feel herself changing—for the better.
“When will that be?” she asked, aware she wasn’t looking forward to a time when she and Brady would no longer inhabit the ranch alone.
“As soon as I can find qualified cowhands and staff up,” Brady told her, looking as if he were longing for that day as much as she was dreading it. “I asked them to put up a Help Wanted sign for me at the feed store and also posted a notice with the Cattle Raisers Association. Hopefully, calls about working for me won’t be long in coming.”