She gave a frustrated sigh and thrust a hand through her hair, sending red curls every which way. He found his eyes lingering on the fiery strands. That was one thing about Jess that hadn’t changed—that wild, silky mass of hair so incongruous with her quiet, undemanding personality.
“I’d like to keep it small and if we invite some people from Kowhai,” she named the nearest town, “and not others, it’ll cause hard feelings. How about we limit it to the station folk?”
“Nobody else?”
“No,” Jess said, wondering if she was imagining the renewed edge in his tone. “Do people…?”
“Some have been guessing since they heard you were coming back and going straight to Angel.” He reached to flip a switch and she was transfixed by the pure strength under the golden-brown of his skin. “After the wedding is early enough to confirm the rumors.”
Jess nodded, unable to stop thinking that soon Gabe’s hands would be touching far more intimate things than the controls of a plane. The thought threatened to reawaken her earlier panic but she forced it down. The day she let that panic show was the day she lost any hope of making this marriage work. Gabriel would never respect a weak woman. “That’ll make it easier.”
“Four p.m. tomorrow all right for you?”
Her throat was so dry she had to cough lightly to clear it. “Okay.” There was no reason to wait—they’d made their bargain on a rainy night a year ago.
Now it was time for her to pay up.
Two
“I’ve put your things in the guest bedroom for tonight.” Gabe braced his hands on the verandah railing on either side of her, the masculine heat of his chest searing her back.
Her stomach twisted though she knew full well he would never force her. Gabe might be ruthless, but if she said no, he’d back off. And all talk of marriage would end. She’d be escorted off the station with no invitation to ever return.
“Only tonight?” she asked, focusing on the distant grandeur of the Alps. Located in the basin beneath those magnificent behemoths, the Mackenzie stunned even in the final grip of winter. But the aching beauty of her homeland couldn’t calm her at this moment. “You can’t mean us to…so soon?”
“We’re going to be married, Jess.”
“I know. But we can’t—”
“I was upfront with you about wanting children.”
It took every ounce of her courage to continue in the face of his intractable will. “I’m just saying we need time to get used to each other that way.”
“What way?” The words were spoken against the sensitive skin of her neck, his breath a hot caress.
Desire flashed through her bloodstream, a shock that threatened to turn her world upside down. “You know what I’m trying to say.”
“I’ve been celibate for a year.” A flat declaration. “If you want more time, find another man.”
“I can’t believe you said that.” She tried to turn but he refused to allow it. “You’re telling me you’ll call off the wedding if I don’t agree to have sex with you straight away?”
His body was an inescapable trap around hers. “Think about it, Jess. Why are we marrying? You want to keep the Randall land in your family and I’m thirty-five, at a stage in my life where I want children to ensure Angel Station’s future.
“Essentially, we’re marrying to provide heirs for both of us. If you’re not willing to do what it takes to create them, what’s the point? Either we start as we mean to go on or we don’t start at all.”
It was a brutally practical depiction of their bargain, heartbreaking in its truth. And it made her furious. Why couldn’t he have even tried to soften things this one time, when she most needed it? “I’m a virgin, Gabe. So if I make a few mistakes tomorrow, you’ll have to excuse me.”
He went completely, utterly motionless behind her. “What did you say?”
She was at once proud for having caught him off-guard, and more than a touch nervous about her admission. “You heard me.”
“Are you telling me Damon never tried anything?”
If he’d had been any other man, she’d have thought the question a deliberate attempt to rub salt into still-open wounds. But sly maliciousness wasn’t Gabe’s style—he attacked head on. “No.”
“And you didn’t find another lover?” He answered his own query before she could say anything. “Of course not. You were waiting for Damon to fall in love with you.”
His cruel guess cut far too close to the mark. “We both know that didn’t happen, so I’m rather less experienced than you might be used to.” The understatement of the century. Gabe’s women had always had sensuality oozing from their pores, a silent, dark knowledge in their eyes.
“Fine. I’ll train you myself.”
Stunned, she swiveled in his arms. “That had better have been a joke.”
He bent his head until his lips were a hairsbreadth from hers. “I thought you knew—I don’t have a sense of humor.” His kiss was nothing soft, nothing gentle. Pure male arrogance and resolve, he made her open her mouth for him and when she did, he took her.
No mercy. No holds barred.
As at the airport, Jess froze. But this time, the kiss didn’t end in a hard flash. It was an inferno and she found herself clinging to him without knowing how she’d gotten there, her body pressed to his, her mind awash in unadulterated need. When he did release her, it was only so she could gasp in a breath. Then he claimed her again.
And her thoughts scattered like a million grains of sand under a thundering surf.
Gabe took his time tasting Jess, enjoying the lush softness of her mouth. There was no doubt in his mind that she was responding to him on a primal level. It was exactly what he’d set out to achieve. Jess might love another man but she was going to be screaming her husband’s name in bed.
What he’d never expected was the exquisite pleasure she gave him in return. That didn’t make him happy. Passion had a way of sabotaging the best laid plans, of pushing things off-kilter. In choosing Jess, he’d made the deliberate decision to steer clear of desire. But here she was, wildfire in his arms.
Breaking the kiss, he watched her try to regain control, her breasts rubbing against his chest as she took several ragged breaths. Her lips were wet, her eyes closed and her body pliant. It was tempting to initiate another kiss but he had no intention of ceding power in this arena. Or any other.
Her eyes opened.
Rubbing his thumb over her lower lip, he dropped his other hand to rest on the curve of her hip. “We’ll have no problems in bed.”
The sweetly feminine submissiveness disappeared in a split-second. “Let me go. You’ve proved your point.”
Releasing her, he stepped back and dropped his eyes to the pebbled hardness of her nipples. A flush streaked up her neck but she didn’t make any effort to cover them. Stubborn. He’d delight in taming her. “Get some sleep. It’ll be a busy day tomorrow. And Jess, remember, I’m not a man who lets go of what’s mine.”
Mrs. Croft, the cook and housekeeper for the main house on Angel Station, was bustling about in the kitchen by the time Jess came downstairs at around seven the next morning.
“What’s with the sleeping in, Jess my girl?”