Authors: Jayne Ann Krentz
„Go to hell!“
„Can you deny any single one of those factors?“ he pushed deliberately.
„I don’t have to accept or deny anything. And if we’re going to make lists, how about one that includes a marriage based on lies and deceit. What kind of a chance would it have? What woman wants a husband who knowingly misled her?“
„I did what I had to do to make the whole arrangement work,“ he shot back stonily, getting to his feet.
Instinctively Heather stopped pacing and took half a step back. „Including using sex!“
„No, that’s the one tactic I really didn’t try. I always let you stop me. I let you have control of that aspect of the situation. But I’m beginning to think I made a serious tactical error on that point. I should have taken you to bed a couple of weeks ago, Heather Strand. I should have made you realize just how much you and I want each other.“
„You think sex would have solved everything? Made matters easy for you?“ she scoffed, retreating another pace as he advanced slowly. The situation was out of control and she knew it. It was out of control because she herself had slipped her own leash. The chains of controlled focused behavior she had put on herself so many years ago had started to weaken last night as she sat in the Hacienda Strand’s offices and faced the truth.
The only explanation for her wild stormy behavior that morning was that those chains had parted altogether. The passionate spirited girl had turned into a woman but the volatile element of her nature had not been destroyed. It had merely been kept buried under guard.
Heather knew what was happening in herself and it frightened her. It also left her feeling strangely exhilarated as she faced the man responsible for loosing the strong emotions within her. She hadn’t allowed
herself to feel such fierce emotion of any kind in so many years that the result was almost dizzying.
Jake, too, was intuitive enough to realize what had happened, and he knew he was dealing with fire. If he didn’t control it the resulting blaze might consume them both, he told himself.
„You didn’t handle matters very well this morning, did you, Heather? You’ve been sitting in this hotel room for the past few hours wishing you’d found another way to deal with the sense of betrayal you felt. You’ve been seeing the pain on your mother’s face. The humiliation your sisters went through. The anger and hurt your father experienced. Just like last time – you couldn’t come back and face the havoc you caused eleven years ago. You just kept going. But this time you know you can’t run. This time you have to go back and deal with it like the adult woman you are. There’s only one person you can blame for your present situation besides yourself, and that’s me. I’m the one who convinced your father to keep quiet about the sale of the Hacienda. He didn’t even tell your mother. I told Paul it would be the best way to handle you.“
„You manipulated me as though I was a rival! A threat to your position.“
„You were. I couldn’t risk telling you everything until I had you committed to me, as well as to the Hacienda Strand.“
„Such arrogance.“
„Was I any more arrogant than you were to think you could descend on the Hacienda after all these years and pick up where you left off? I’m the one who poured money and time and everything else I had to give into that hotel during the past two years. I’m the one Paul Strand came to when the place was in trouble and I’m the one who put it back on its feet. It’s going to be my home and it can be yours, as well. If you come home with me everything can fall back into place.“
„You’re crazy if you think I’ll come back with you.“
„It’s the only option you’ve got that you can live with and you know it.“
„That’s not true.“
„The only other option is to run off to California again. Do you really want me to let you do that?“
„I’m not a child. You’re not going to decide what I do or which option I’ll choose,“ she flashed. The feeling of entrapment grew stronger, making her desperate in a way she hadn’t been in years. Like a cornered animal she scrambled for an escape. There was none.
„Heather, every argument you used with me the night you proposed still exists and is still valid. The only difference is that you now know I own the Hacienda.“
„That’s a rather huge difference!“
„No, it’s not. Once you’ve accepted it, recovered from the shock of finding out you’re not going to be the only one in charge, you’ll see that I’m right. Everything can be exactly as we both want. We’ll have our home and our combined interest in the Hacienda. You’ll have achieved everything you came back to achieve. Including the happiness of your family.“
He was throwing her a lifeline and Heather knew it. It would be embarrassing going back after that scene this morning but it would be a nine-day wonder that would eventually die down. Life could go back to normal in some respects. She could soothe some of the pain and humiliation she had caused her family.
Wearily Heather lowered herself to the bed, rubbing her forehead with her hand. „What have you done to me, Jake? I can’t even think straight.“
„Only because you’ve been so busy painting yourself into a corner.“ He stretched out a strong hand. „Come with me, honey. I
can help you out of that corner.“
She stared at his hand. „You’re the one who got me into it in the first place.“
He drew a breath. „We both made mistakes because
we both wanted the Hacienda and everything it means. But there’s something else we both want just as much, Heather. Each other.“
„Don’t play any more games with me, Jake. I’ve had all I can take today.“
Jake moved to stand in front of her using his extended hand to stroke the curve of her head. Heather flinched but she didn’t try to evade him. „It’s true and you know it, don’t you? The attraction between us is very, very strong. It’s a wonder one of us hasn’t given into it.“
„Probably because we’ve both had our eyes on more important things,“ Heather snapped. „The Hacienda, for example.“
„No, I don’t think that’s the reason. I’ve held back because I didn’t want to risk upsetting you. I’ve been trying to play that side of things strictly as you ordered. Give me credit for that much, at any rate. Why have you been holding back?“
„I told you. I had other, more important things on my mind.“ She tried to move and found it impossible. He was standing directly in front of her as she sat on the bed. His legs were slightly apart, caging hers, and his hand was still stroking her hair.
„I don’t think that was the reason at all. I think you were wary of me; perhaps even afraid because you know that when you’re in bed with me you’re going to lose that fine sense of poise and self-control you’ve worked so hard to develop. All that passion and fire and spirit are going to be set free. I won’t settle for less and I think you know it.“
She reacted violently to the threat in his words, surging to her feet and shoving at his lean, hard body with both hands.
„No!“ The single word was torn from her lips, a cry of frustration and rage and fear.
„Heather, honey, stop it. Calm down. You can’t fight me and win. Not on this level.“
But she struggled to win, nevertheless, frantically trying to free herself and make for the door. In a flurry of arms and legs Jake tumbled her back onto the bed, pinning her by her wrists and using the weight of his body to hold hers quiet.
Heather stared up at him through slitted catlike eyes, her teeth
slightly bared in a primitive reaction. What she read on Jake’s face was not rage or disgust or violence. What she saw in the depths of those gray eyes was desperation, and the discovery of such an emotion in this man shook her to the core. It suddenly chilled her own fury and fear.
„Jake?“ Dazedly she moved her head, trying to find her feet mentally if not physically. „Jake, I don’t understand. What are you…?“
„I can’t let you go, Heather,“ he groaned heavily as he lowered his head. „You’re a part of it. I need you to make it all work. Don’t you understand?“
„No, no, I don’t, and I don’t want to,“ she heard herself say on a note of panic. The last thing she could risk was giving herself to Jake Cavender. Not now when everything had gone so terribly wrong.
„If you can walk away in the morning, after we’ve been together tonight, I swear I won’t stop you. But I want tonight, Heather. You owe me a wedding night.“
His mouth came down on hers with a rough intensity that communicated Jake’s hunger all too clearly.
Frantically Heather tried to find the words she needed to free herself. She managed to pull her mouth momentarily from his. „Would you want me so much if I had nothing to do with the Hacienda? If I offered you one night instead of marriage? Would you, Jake? If you could have me only on my terms, without the security of a proper wedding and without my family’s blessing, would you still think the attraction between us was so very important?“
„What the hell are you talking about?“
„Because that’s all I’m willing to give a man who likes to manipulate me.“
„Honey, you don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t want a one-night stand any more than I do. You want everything right. That’s why you came home. To make everything right.“
Her eyes widened in anguished honesty. „I don’t know what I want anymore, Jake.“
She felt the tension in him. „Then we’ll take it one step at a time until you do know what you want. Tonight I’ll show you that one of the things you do want is me.“
„If you make love to me tonight it will be on my terms,“ she vowed, knowing in every fiber of her being that all her defenses were down. The emotions in her were an uncontrollable flood, as violent as the seasonal thunderstorms that swept through the area on
summer afternoons. Pain and passion and rebellion and rage seethed in her veins, seeking a way to release themselves. She knew instinctively that if Jake made love to her he would tap into that internal storm in her body. The prospect was both terrifying and exhilarating. „No promises, Jake. No guarantees. No neat tidy package consisting of me, my approving family and a home at the Hacienda Strand.“
„Another contract, Heather? Like that prenuptial agreement you made me sign?“
„You won’t sign this one because there’s nothing in it for you, is there?“
„You said yourself that you don’t know me very well,“ Jake muttered as his mouth closed once more over hers.
6
No,
Heather realized
as his body shifted to crush her deeply in the bed, she didn’t know him very well. If she did, she would have understood that the depths of his emotions were even more raw and powerful than her own.
She learned that shattering fact the moment he began to consume her with his passion. The spectrum of his blazing emotions was suddenly savagely revealed to her. In him there was pain and passion just as she had known. There was anger, too. And a purely masculine desire to find the key to her surrender. But above all there was a hunger unlike anything she had ever known.
There was no doubt that Jake wanted her tonight for a variety of reasons, but in that moment Heather could not believe any of them were business ones.
The caldron of emotions that were swirling in her reacted to the fundamental intensity of Jake as though they had suddenly received a focus and an outlet. All her turmoil coalesced into an unalterable sensual response that spiraled upward to meet the demands of the man who had induced the chaos.
Heather could not have said exactly what she felt as Jake sprawled across her body and plundered her mouth with his own. There was no way such fervor could be based on love, she was certain. But she had never experienced anything close to it. The urgent need to pursue the dangerous course on which she had embarked left no room for analysis.
Her nails bit deeply into the fabric of his shirt, seeking
the resilient feel of his smoothly muscled shoulders. He was a strong man and discovering that his passion matched his physical strength was enthralling. She wanted to satisfy that unleashed hunger in him more than she’d ever wanted anything else in her life.
„I’ve been going out of my head wanting you these past few weeks,“ he rasped as he momentarily pulled his mouth free from hers. „I told myself I’d give you time-that I could wait until our wedding night. But when I saw you on that damn bike this morning I knew you weren’t going to come tamely to my bed after all.“ His hand released her wrist to stroke the side of her cheek as she lay looking up at him through her lashes. „All along I’ve been wondering what you would be like when you weren’t so busy being charm
ing and poised. Today I’m finding out, aren’t 17“
„What makes you think you’re going to like me when I’m not charming and poised?“
„Liking doesn’t come into it.“ He ran his finger along her lower lip, opening her mouth, then he leaned down again to plunge his tongue into the moist depths behind her teeth.
Heather twisted slightly beneath him, reacting to the hardening weight of his body. He responded by thrusting one of his legs between hers. As he separated her thighs he used his free hand to trail down across her breasts to the mound below her waist. His fingers pressed against the denim of her jeans, tracing the outline of her with an intimate touch that made Heather shiver.
„I should never have let you go back to your cottage the other night. I should have kept you with me until morning. Until you realized that with me you can be as wildly passionate as you want. I can handle you, Heather. I can take all you have to give. I
need
what you have to give.“
She moaned with a wrenching sense of longing and
desire as he buried his face against her throat. Heated moist kisses were strung down to the collar of the black knit pullover she wore, and when that barrier was reached Jake pushed his hands up under the garment at her waist. A moment later he had it over her head and lying in a small heap on the floor beside the bed. The delicate scrap of a bra seemed to come apart under his hands. Jake fit his palms to her breasts.