A clammy coldness seized Hannah. “What night, Isabel? And stop him from what?”
“That slipped out. I wasn’t going to tell you, but perhaps it’s time someone knew. Promise me you won’t tell Slade. It’s so shameful, and it happened before he was born, so I never told him. Do you promise, Hannah?”
Hannah looked into the old woman’s anguished face. “I promise.”
Isabel let out her breath and withdrew her hand. “Thank you. Late one terrible night, John apparently worked himself up into a particularly drunken rage. Herbert and I’d already retired for the night, so we knew nothing of what was afoot. But John’s brooding turned violent. He tore out of the house, fought his way through the hedges, ran to a rear door, and stormed up the servants’ stairs … to your mother’s room and—” Isabel stopped on a ragged breath. “I’m sorry. Give me a moment.” She lowered her head to look at her lap.
Hannah’s heart pounded faster. Her poor, sweet mother. “Did he—?”
Isabel jerked her head up. Tears stood in her eyes as she shook her head. “No, but very nearly. Your grandfather heard her screams and came running to trounce John good and send him packing, as Hamilton had every right to do. The next day … that very fence there began going up.”
Hannah turned to stare with Isabel at the fence. When the grand old lady again took up her story, she spoke with a briskness that suggested she wished to be done with the topic. “Servants talked, the word spread quickly, and an awful scandal followed. Within mere days, Catherine was sent away with her lady’s maid. They left with the Foster girl and her family on an extended grand tour through the West. We never saw her again.”
Hands gnarled together in her lap, like the twisted roots of an ancient oak, Isabel stared quietly at them. After a moment, a ragged sniff shuddered out of her. “Hannah, I’m so sorry.”
Hurting for her mother, for herself, and for Isabel, hurting for Slade and for the tortured man who was his father, Hannah gathered Isabel’s frail body close and kissed her forehead. “I’m so sorry for you. It must have been awful.”
“It was awful. Still is, I’m afraid. My family—or yours—never quite recovered. I wish I could’ve been a better mother to John.”
“Don’t say that, Isabel.” Hannah rested her cheek against Isabel’s soft, white hair. “You can’t blame yourself. It sounds to me like your John loved my mother very much, and did something stupid when he was drunk. He suffered terribly, I’m sure, for loving her so much, and for not having her return it.”
Hannah blinked, hearing her own words. Why was she making excuses for John Garrett? She should be reviling him. What he’d done then was still playing hell with peoples’ lives twenty-five years later—through his son. Thus conjured, the darkly handsome face of Slade Garrett smiled mockingly at her. Hannah stiffened, and welcomed Isabel’s distracting words.
“You’re very generous to say that. But still, I’ve never understood how a son of mine could.…” She let her voice trail off and then gently tugged herself out of Hannah’s embrace. “I’m fine, dear. Thank you.”
Hannah thought the subject was done, but apparently there was more, because Isabel continued on. “After Catherine left, we thought John would die from regret and his broken heart. He continued drinking and behaving irrationally. But right away, a shy girl he’d never paid the least bit of attention to—Mariel Whittington was her name. Her family’s since moved to New York—stepped forward to comfort him. John married her within a month. And nine months to the day later, Slade was born. Their only child.”
Hannah smiled. “There. You see? A lovely ending, Isabel.”
“No.” She shook her head. “John never, ever got over Catherine. He made Mariel miserable, belittling her, comparing her unfavorably to your mother. No matter how the poor girl tried, she couldn’t be Catherine. She came to hate your mother’s memory, and John finally drove her to hate him and to take to her bed with feigned illnesses. She died of a broken heart when Slade was ten. He was devastated, but John barely noticed she was gone.”
Isabel fiddled with her skirt a moment. “John was a failure as a husband and a father, but he had a brilliant head for business. When my Herbert died shortly after Mariel did, John threw himself into managing the Garrett affairs. And was tremendously successful. But all his life—and Slade’s—he cursed J. C. Lawless, laying on your father’s head all his own failures. He especially hated him for possessing the one love he could never have.”
Now tears stood in Hannah’s eyes for the sad, lonely little boy that had been Slade Garrett. She dabbed at the wetness with her shawl’s ends. “I understand so many things now, Isabel. Thank you for telling me.”
“You’ve every right to know, dear. I raised him, seeing what his parents were like. I just hope I’ve succeeded with him where I failed with John.”
Hannah clutched Isabel’s hands in hers, gripping them with no small amount of emotion. Her heart ached for this woman. “You did a wonderful job with him, Isabel. He’s a good, strong man, worthy of being admired.”
“Thank you.” Isabel smiled tremulously and freed a hand to pat Hannah’s shoulder. “He’s also worthy of being loved. That’s all I want before I die—to know that Slade is happy and loved. Do you love him, Hannah?”
* * *
Later that evening, Hannah sat alone in her delicately furnished bedroom. She faced the oval mirror mounted in the cherry vanity, but paid not the least bit of attention to her own reflection. Dressed for bed in white cambric, and deep in thought, she absently brushed her unbound hair. She focused on a chocolate-brown curl when it wrapped itself around her fingers.
Did she love Slade Garrett? Her sigh rent the silent air. Isabel was correct—he did deserve that much. Hannah set her hands in motion again, brushing and brushing, but a moment later, her hands stilled yet again. This whole affair was her own fault. Pretend to marry? Pretend to be happy and … going about the business of producing a baby?
Producing a baby. She was a grown woman with normal desires and yearnings, and she lived on a ranch. Yes. And had … seen things, with the cattle and horses and all. So she knew the … baser particulars of producing a new life. But was it really that violent and … and that messy for humans? Hannah grimaced, telling herself she certainly hoped not.
But then, unbidden came her mother’s words to her and her sisters about love and marriage. She’d said it was sacred, beautiful, that she wished for each of her daughters a strong, loving husband. Mama’d said there was nothing more beautiful between a man and woman than the physical side of their love. So maybe it was different for humans.
Well, all she knew of it was how Slade Garrett made her feel. And not just in her heart. Gasping at these racy thoughts, and still clutching her silver-backed brush, Hannah jumped up. Possessed of a restlessness she couldn’t name, she began to pace, tapping the brush against the palm of her other hand.
She couldn’t go through with her own plan. To make it work, she and Slade would have to sleep together. No! They would pretend to sleep together. Merciful heavens, what made her think she could get Slade Garrett to pretend to anything? Well, he had agreed to her plan. Yes, but why? She saw the way he looked at her. Those dark eyes of his had already possessed her. The rest was a mere formality. Did she really believe she could get him to play parlor games with her at bedtime?
Hannah stopped her pacing and put a hand to her mouth. Such deception she was practicing. She saw Isabel’s hopeful face, asking her if she loved Slade. Slade was right—she’d be more hurt than anyone when she found out they weren’t really married. Or in love.
In love. She’d been spared answering the bald question when Esmerelda’d presented herself with an uprooted shrub in her mouth, which they’d had to pry out of her jaws and replant. But love … how could she know? Who could she ask? She’d never been in love before.
She knew only what she felt in her womanly places when he was near, when he touched her. But was that love—or the same thing the cattle and horses felt? Hannah gripped her brush harder, wanting to throw it against the wall. This was unbearable. She needed a distraction.
A sudden scratching and whining at the closed door that connected her room to Slade’s jerked Hannah around and swirled her wrapper’s folds about her legs. Her first thought was of Slade. But then she realized what she was hearing. Esmerelda. Her heart pounding out its tremendous relief, she crossed to the closed door and began talking as she opened it. “You want out. You want in. You’ve got me completely trained, haven’t—
“You,” she completed. Esmerelda was not alone. With her was a disheveled, madly grinning duo. Slade Garrett and Dudley Ames. They reeked of spirits and each had an arm around the other’s shoulders. Behind them stood a young, sober-appearing, bespectacled man of the cloth.
Hannah couldn’t seem to settle her gaze on any one of the three men. Was this their elopement charade? Were Slade and Dudley really drunk? Was the preacher a real one? Not sure of anything anymore, except that she was eternally grateful that they hadn’t awakened the ancient household, Hannah whispered, “What are you doing?”
“We’re gettin’ mar-married,” Slade slurred out. Without releasing Dudley or even looking behind himself, he reached his other hand back and unerringly snagged the poor preacher by his already crumpled lapel. As one, the threesome stumbled into the room, forcing Esmerelda through the door ahead of them and Hannah backward several steps.
Dudley belched airily and announced, “Yeah, we’re … gettin’ married. Not me an’ S-S-Slade.”
That struck the two drunks as tremendously funny. They clutched the poor preacher between them and hung all over him as they bellowed out their hilarity. Nearly buckling under the combined weight of the two much larger men and their eyebrow-singeing breath, the middle man’s spectacles fogged. He made a horrible face, looking as if he might promptly be ill on the carpet.
Hannah sympathized completely, breathing as she did the same air he was. She wrinkled her nose and stepped back. Well, that answered one question—they were really drunk. Hannah knew she should stop this madness, but how? She’d never dealt with a liquored-up man before. Perhaps the preacher could.… She eyed the suffering young man. No, he wasn’t much bigger than she. He’d prove no help. In an agony of indecision, she put a hand to her mouth and remained frozen in place—even when Slade shoved the holy man forward a step.
“Look, Hannah—we brought a rev—A rev-rer—A preacher.” Then, making a supreme, serious-faced effort, he pushed himself off Dudley and tried his best to straighten up and smooth his own clothes some. Dudley followed his cue. The two succeeded only in mincing and staggering around and pulling out things that needed tucking in.
“Please, miss,” the heretofore silent preacher begged. “Can we just do this so they’ll let me go?”
Hannah finally uncovered her mouth, lowering her hand to her heart. “You do know I’m not really marrying him? He told you that, right?”
Clutching his Bible to his chest, the poor preacher swallowed hard and made a face, as if his own saliva tasted bitter. “Yes, miss. He told me you’d say that. I understand.”
Relief nearly buckled Hannah’s knees. This was the charade, the pretend ceremony with Dudley as a witness. She’d no more than let out her breath than Slade recaptured her attention with “Well? We’re … we’re ready.”
Hannah and the holy man stared at the dangerously bobbing and weaving twosome, who swayed like two saplings in a stiff breeze. She exchanged a look with the silently pleading, desperately hopeful preacher. And then she looked down at herself. Beyond horrified at what she saw, she clutched at a handful of white cambric, holding it out as proof. “But I’m not dressed and—”
“Iss white, ain’t it?” Dudley waved a hand erratically in her direction. “You look gor-gor-jis-ness.” He frowned mightily. “I mean beaut—beaut-fidul.” Slade slapped him hard on the back. “You look pretty.” Supremely proud to have gotten it out, the senator’s son grinned and emitted a ferocious hiccup, forceful enough to stagger him.
Hannah cut her gaze over to the preacher. He shifted his Bible, holding it against his skinny chest. He then raised his joined hands prayerfully to her. “Please, miss. I beg you. They pulled me out of bed and … and—You don’t know the places I’ve been tonight, before they remembered what they were about and where you were. I’ve seen things and been forced to—”
Hannah held up her hand. “Say no more. Get it over with. Come on, before they wake the dead.”
“The dead? I’m afraid it’s too late. You see, we’ve already been to the cemetery. We went there after the … after the—pardon me, miss—the den of iniquity.” The preacher spoke as if he knew his soul was forfeit.
“Sweet Jesus.” Hannah shook her head and stepped forward to place herself between the two totally despicable men. Looping an arm through each of theirs, she made a face to match her disgust and said levelly, “Say the words, so we can all go to bed.”
To her right, Slade straightened up and reached around in front of her to poke Dudley in the chest. “See, my drunken frien’? I tol’ you she wanted me.”
* * *
Slade jerked awake to the sound of loud snoring. On both sides of him. He blinked against the dry scratchiness of his eyeballs. As the fog began lifting from his brain, his body told him he was lying on his stomach—on a narrow bed but mashed in a hot, sweating heap between two other bodies. His face was pressed against the softness of a damp pillow, and his mouth was slacked open.
Slade blinked again, marking that the room was blanketed with the thick grayness of an ungodly hour. He then made the mistake of smacking his mouth open and closed as he worked his tongue. His breath burned his nostrils and forced a grimace on him. “Gee-sus,” he croaked. “What the hell is going on?”
Having invoked both heaven and hades, he attempted to roll onto his back. But the only thing that rolled was his stomach. He groaned and flopped back to his original position. Someone who lay up against his back sounded a hellacious snarking snore. Slade felt his head swell. Groaning, he stretched his face muscles into an unnatural contortion.
Then the door from the hallway burst open and swung back to hit the wall behind it. Slade and his dark-shrouded bedmates all popped their heads up off the pillows. Haloed in bright light was the cheerfully smiling, happily striding Hannah. Fully dressed, she crossed the room and came to stand at the bedside. “Good morning,” she chirped—in an unnecessarily loud voice. “And how are we this morning?”
The other two succumbed, flopping limply back onto the pillows. Slade spared them not even a glance as he braced himself on an elbow, narrowed his eyes—at the light, at the noise, at her—and told her in very vulgar and no uncertain terms how “we” were this morning.
Hannah shook her perfectly coiffed head. “Such language on the first day of our marriage.”
Slade wondered if she’d always been this obnoxious. “Whose marriage? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ours,” she chirped brightly, gushing out her words. “Mine and yours. Now, don’t tell me you don’t remember our beautiful ceremony and our two lovely attendants?”
Slade didn’t move a muscle, but he did repeat himself. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She cocked her head at a coquettish angle and put her hands to her narrow waist. “You don’t remember?” Her smile suddenly became an angry snarl and her eyes glittered. “Well, then, my dear husband, allow me to refresh your memory.”
Belatedly recognizing her cheerfulness as the ruse of a towering temper, Slade watched her stomp around the bed and head for the draperies. He stretched out his arm—marked that he still had on his coat—and sucked in a huge breath. “I swear to God, Hannah! Don’t!”
Too late. She yanked the draperies open, revealing the full and bright glory of God’s most magnificent creation—the yellow, golden, blazing … sun. Its burst of light instantly illuminated the room’s remaining shadows and sent Slade, eyes closed tightly, into a sickening thump back onto his stomach. He made a noise like a dying animal and buried his face in the pillow. Around him, his mystery bedmates made similar noises.
“Oh, no you don’t,” the angry woman said. “We need to talk, mister.”
“Idon’twannatalk,” Slade garbled directly into the pillow.
He next felt the bedcovers being ripped back. Without moving his head, he made a grab for them, but came up with air. That was quickly followed by him and his bedmates being pummeled repeatedly with a pillow by the angrily grunting woman. “Get up! I want you wide awake when I kill you. Get up!”
Fine. He was as close to death without actually going over as he’d ever been, so why fight back? Defeated, Slade joined his companions in rolling over onto their backs. If he could just grab that pillow from her, all would be right with the world. He raised a hand in supplication. Next to him he heard a groggy groan that begged for mercy. On his other side, a lazy woof. Woof?
Slade popped up to a sitting position, his fully clothed legs and still-booted feet spread out before him. The pillow pummeling stopped. Next to him, Dudley—Dudley!—snapped to, his red hair spiked up at odd angles. He turned his slack-jawed head to stare at Slade.
Slade grimaced. “Geez, man, do you know what you look like? Like warmed-over sh—”
“Then we came out of the same chamber pot. What are you doing here?”
Slade thought about that. “I live here.” He sought corroboration from Hannah. Frowning like a demon, she stood at the foot of the bed with the pillow raised over her head. “Don’t I?”
“Oh, yes. You live here. You’re going to die here, too.”
Slade blinked at her and then turned to Dudley. “See? I live here. You’re the one who’s displaced.”
“Do tell. Then I find my presence here somewhat odd.” Dudley hung his red head limply forward and stared at his lap. He fingered the burned hole in the crotch of his pants. And then pointed to it. “What’s this?”
“The same thing it’s always been. That’s your—”
“Gentlemen!” The angry woman spoke very loudly. “There’s a lady present.”
Slade joined Dudley in turning their painful attention back to her. Grimacing, he and his boon companion each held an arm up and out, as if collectively they could block out the sun’s dazzling brightness. Slade spoke for them. “We see you, Hannah. And I’ll give you a thousand dollars to quit shouting and close those draperies.”
“Keep your money, Garrett. But thanks to you, it’s mine now, anyway. Besides, I’m not the lady I referred to. Look to your right.”
Slade exchanged a look with Dudley. Then, as if performing a carefully choreographed sequence, they obediently complied, gawked wide-eyed, and jumped off the bed as if shot out of a sling.
Dudley whipped around and pointed accusingly at the body in question. “That’s a—that’s a dog! Esmerelda’s in our bed.”
Hannah thumped the reclining dog with her pillow. The mastiff stretched mightily and raised her head. She blinked twice at Hannah and lay back down. “No, Mr. Ames, Esmerelda’s in my bed. Ask me why.”
“I can’t—I feel ill.” He doubled over and went in a headlong search for the wall. Reaching it first with his outstretched hand, he held on to it and slid down to a knees-drawn-up, sitting heap.
Slade made his own headlong, stumbling dash for the connecting bathroom door. “When I come out, if any of you three is in here, I’ll shoot all of you.”
* * *
Hannah paced in the music room. It was too late. There was nothing she could do about it. She was married to Slade Franklin Garrett. Legally. Lock, stock, and barrel. Oh, no, that was no pretend ceremony last night. Oh, no, it was as real as Slade’s and Dudley’s drunken stupor. The whole thing—it was real.
Including the real and terrified preacher who’d been fed a story of Hannah’s “mental incompetence” to convince him of the need for the unusual time and place of the ceremony. Hannah snorted—apparently marrying crazy but rich heiresses to ambitious suitors was nothing new among these Brahmin. She’d even signed that real and legal document the red-eyed preacher’d presented for her signature this morning at first light, thinking it was part of the charade.
Then, seeing that Slade had already signed it, she’d asked the preacher when he’d done that. Only then had he divulged the truth, talking to her as if she were a simple-minded harridan. Well, certainly no amount of yelling and screaming from her at that point had convinced the man of her mental competence before he fled the premises, coattails flapping.
That damned Slade had even purchased her ring before the fact. Hannah looked at her finger. A real and hugely glittering diamond. If she could get the tight-fitting thing off, she’d heave it into the pond.
She glanced at the tall clock’s face on her next pass around the room. Three hours. Dudley, his tail tucked between his legs, had left an hour ago. Would Slade never come down? She’d awakened the lout three hours ago. What was he doing? Hannah reached into her brown cashmere skirt’s pocket and pulled out her pistol. She checked the chambers for the tenth time. It was loaded. All she needed was a target.
Where was he? Hannah stomped to the room’s sliding-panel doors and yanked them open, startling the passing Serafina, cloak in hand, into standing stock-still, somewhat like a surprised deer. The thousand-year-old maid hunched her shoulders, clutched the thick garment to her pouter-pigeon chest, and squinted fearfully at Hannah. “I was being quiet, miss. Missus. I swear it.”
Hannah huffed out a laden breath. “I’m not going to harm you. And tell everyone to quit tiptoeing about. Haven’t they ever heard a body yell before?”
“Yes, missus. I mean—no, missus. Not for three solid hours, missus.”
“For God’s sake, call me Hannah. I’m not anybody’s missus.”
“Yes, Mrs. Garrett, ma’am.”
Hannah eyed the maid, screamed out her rage, and wrenched the paneled doors closed again. Death was too good for him!
Turning, Hannah eyed the room, hating everything in sight. Then, she settled on her revenge. Storming across the highly polished wood floor, nearly losing her slippered footing twice, she stepped onto the thick, rose-patterned square of carpet that set off the room’s centerpiece like a river’s island. The grand piano.
Flinging herself down on the piano bench, Hannah banged out her frustration on the ivory keys of the delicately wrought and finely tuned instrument. She played no tune known to man. Instead, her original rendition was simply noise. It was violent-sounding. Therefore, it was good.
Just as she built to a heart-stopping crescendo of a finish, a large male hand, attached to a muscled male arm, reached around her and grabbed her raised hand. Her proposed grand finale ended up nothing more than an anticlimactic, petering-out, one-handed, sickly plinking of the keys.
In the ensuing and blessed silence, the owner of the hand and arm, close enough behind her to be touching her back with his legs, said, “I’ll double my earlier offer of a thousand dollars, if you’ll cease and desist torturing this fine instrument, our ears, and my grandmother’s entire household staff. All of whom have wisely retreated to the summer cottage. The general feeling is I created this beast, so it’s my job to tame it.”
Vowing he didn’t yet know the meaning of the word “beast,” Hannah frowned up her mouth and narrowed her eyes at the big hand holding clawlike onto hers. She tried to wrench her hand free, but succeeded only in feeling his grip tighten. That did it. Snarling like a badger, she turned as best she could to stare up into his … shockingly pale, sickly frowning, squint-eyed face. At least he was restored to his sartorial splendor and smelled of better things than the bottom of an ashtray, a whiskey bottle, and a brothel.
Even though surprise at his state widened her eyes momentarily, sympathy for him died an easy death in her heart. “Take your hand off me.”
“Not until you give me your pistol.”
“So you admit I have good reason to want to use it.”
“The best. Now give it to me.”
“Never.”
“Hannah, I’m not in the mood for games.”
“Games? I assure you I’m not playing any game.”
“Then you actually intend to shoot me?”
“Yes.”
Slade’s face darkened into a storm cloud. “Just give me the damned peashooter so I can talk with you without dodging bullets.”
“You want to talk? It’s a little late for that. We’re married.”
“Right you are. Much to Isabel’s tremendous delight. And Dudley’s laughing sarcasm. And apparently your anger.”
“Oh? My anger’s only apparent? Well, what can I do to make it more obvious? Hmm, let me think.” She raised her free other hand—the one bearing his wedding ring—high above the ivory keys and curved her fingers, preparatory to attacking the piano again. Positioned as it was, stray sunbeams caught her hand, splintering rainbowed light off the gem’s facets, sparkling her and Slade.
“Oh, no you don’t.” He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her bodily off the stool.
Hannah kicked and screamed, sending the bench and its seatload of music scattering about, like so many thrown playing cards.
“Scream all you want,” Slade breathed into her ear as he fought to gain control of her scratching hands. “We’re—ouch, dammit—totally alone, Mrs. Garrett. And as you so rightly pointed out, it’s too late for talking.”
Hannah stilled instantly, absorbing his words—and their veiled meaning. She then renewed her efforts with vigor, kicking back at his shins, wrenching in his arms and calling him every cuss word and foul name she could remember hearing the cowboys use back home. When the raw verbiage ran together into a blue streak, she smirked malevolently. Until she realized he was hauling her over to the narrow fainting sofa that reposed against a near wall.
“Impressive, my sweet. But words will do you no good. You’re—dammit, Hannah!—mine now. Under my control—if you bite me, I swear I’ll bite you back!—with the full sanction of the—give me that!—law and the church on my side. I can do with you—that hurt!—as I please.”
Slade abruptly turned her to face him and then flung them both down onto the sofa. Every bit of air whumphed out of Hannah’s lungs when his weight landed squarely on top of her. She made shallow gasping noises, like a fish out of water, as she tried to haul air back into her lungs.
Red-faced from their brief skirmish, Slade edged his knee between hers, forced her skirt-tangled legs apart, looked into her eyes … and leered. “Why, Mrs. Garrett, I do believe you’re under me now.”
Hannah stiffened and then began to fight in earnest. For more than ten minutes she struggled uselessly underneath her equally determined husband. Finally, close to tears and wrung-out emotionally and physically, she stilled. And stared up at Slade’s dark and handsome face. He grinned and oh-so-nicely asked, “Are you through, my sweet?”
That did it. “Get”—teeth gritted, the word hanging in the air, she again grappled with him, but he caught her wrists, clasped them in one hand, and held them over her head—“off me, you rotten, snake-bellied, dung-covered—”
“Son of a sway-backed mule. You’ve already used that one.”
Breathing hard, resigned to his weight, and too tired to be angry, she nearly grinned at his drollness, even as she promised, “I’ve got more.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really? I’d love to hear every dirty one of them—especially while I’m making you my wife.”
Hannah frowned up at him. “What did you say?”
“I said I’d love to hear every dirty—”
“Not that. About making me your wife. I signed a paper three hours ago that says I am. And I have on a gold band with a diamond as big as a calf’s head that says I am. So … aren’t I already?”
“You did sign the document? Interesting.” He ran his gaze over her face and settled himself more fully in between her parted legs. Eyebrows raised over glittering black eyes, he informed her, “You are already. But in name only.”
Grinning like a satyr, he lay atop her, watching her intently. Hannah met his gaze, raised her Lawless chin a notch and narrowed her eyes. In name only? What was his meaning? Then, it came to her. Her eyes flew open wide and her mouth became a perfect O. “Never!”
He nodded fatalistically. “It will be much more frequently than never. Much more, my sweet.” With that, he lowered his head at a slant and, catching Hannah by surprise, claimed her mouth.
As his firm and practiced lips moved seductively over hers, as his tongue forced her lips apart, Hannah closed her eyes and tried to resist him. She really did. For a moment. But where the spirit defied, the flesh was all too willing. After all, the man was her husband. A whimper, a mewl of defeat, sounded low in her throat. She wanted this. Wanted him. With every part of her being.
She was too honest with herself to pretend this was against her wishes. For if it were, her soft womb wouldn’t already be responding to the hard pressure of him against it. Her mouth wouldn’t be opening to allow his tongue inside to explore. Her arms wouldn’t be going around his neck the instant he let go of her wrists. Her heart wouldn’t be responding to the rapid beat of his, or her hips to the rhythmic thrust of his. She wanted him, yes. But she couldn’t let him. Because if she did, she’d be lost forever.
When he broke their kiss, Hannah breathed out. “Oh, God, Slade. If you do this, I’ll hate you forever.”
A gleam backlit his eyes as he hungrily ran his gaze over her face and jaw and neck. “You already do, remember? You just tell me when to stop. And I’ll stop, baby.”
He waited, staring at her. A slow heat roiled low in her belly. Her breath caught in her throat. He’d never been more darkly handsome. His seductively lowered eyelids, the dusky redness of his face, the moistness of his full lips all inflamed Hannah’s senses. Her pulse racing, she gave in. Defeated. Lost. In love. “Slade, I never—This is—I don’t know how … to love you.”
A look of great tenderness, and perhaps relief, claimed his features. His eyes also reflected his naked desire, his towering need for her. Then he nodded slowly. “I’ll show you.”
With that, he once again claimed her lips, reconquering virginal territory, heightening Hannah’s desire to fever pitch. When she was sure she couldn’t feel anything more, when she was sure the raging flood inside her would break and drown her … he broke off the kiss and pulled himself up and off her.
The rush of air between their bodies fluttered Hannah’s eyes open. Confused, dazed, she pulled herself to a half-sitting position and looked around. He was gone. Dear God, he was gone. Had it been a dream? Then, the room darkened ominously. Hannah swung her legs off the sofa, jerking around.
Slade. He was closing the curtains. Hannah slumped back onto the sofa, flinging an arm over her eyes. For a moment, she’d thought she was losing her mind. Then she realized what she was feeling under her other hand. Exposed undergarments. Eyes widened by shock, she jerked again to a sitting position. Why, her blouse was completely undone. When had that happened?
She looked from her chest to Slade as he swaggered confidently, like the full-grown, healthy male that he was, back to her. Hannah jerked her blouse closed over her exposed camisole.
Slade seemed to know immediately what was wrong. He smiled tenderly and lowered himself to a squat in front of her. He pulled her hands from her blouse and held them lightly in his, resting them on her thighs. Then, he reached up to brush back a wisp of hair from her face. “I won’t hurt you, Hannah.” His voice was low and throaty and alluring. “But we can’t do this with our clothes on, sweetheart.”
When he moved as if to pull himself up, Hannah grabbed at his shirt. “Slade!” He stilled, waiting for her to speak. “Will you … tell me what’s happening when … it’s happening, so I won’t.…” Again she looked down at her other hand clutching his so tightly.
Slade reached out his free hand and cupped her chin, raising her head until she met his eyes. “Your eyes are so blue right now, they outdo the sky. Yes, sweetheart, I’ll talk you through it. Don’t be afraid.” He gently ran his thumb over her jaw. “Are you ready?”
Her gaze still on him, her mouth dry, Hannah swallowed and nodded. Chuckling, he stood up with all the natural grace of a mountain lion, and held his hand out to her.
Hannah looked into his eyes and then lowered her gaze to his hand. Square-palmed. Long-fingered. In perfect symmetry with the rest of his body. It was the hand of a man of the world, a man who commanded respect. A man of power and charisma. A man of flesh and blood, and wants and needs. And right now, he wanted her.
When she took his hand, there’d be no going back. Hannah tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth. Here was her last chance. Who was she kidding? There’d never been any question. She reached out her diamond-bedecked hand, placing it—as well as her heart and her life—into his keeping.
He exhaled softly, again as if relieved, and then gently, firmly closed his fingers over hers, making her feel adored, protected, needed. Perhaps loved.