Shayla Black (31 page)

He could be your husband, if you wished it,
a pesky voice reminded her. It was a ridiculous thought, of course. No one married simply for satisfying sex.

But she missed more about him than what they did alone at the cottage. As much as she hated to admit that fact, Maddie missed his smile, the way he teased and challenged her, even when he infuriated her. While Brock was doing his utmost to persuade her to the altar and change her life to his liking, Maddie admired his tenacity. The man simply did not give up.

But the scared girl inside of her wondered if his care and charm would disappear once he had her land.

Maddie wasn’t certain she could withstand another broken heart.

Hand in hand, they moved around their picnic, pretending to conduct a great search for Aimee.

“
I know she must be near.” Brock mocked a baffled tone.

Aimee laughed from her hiding spot. He pretended not to hear.

“
Where can she be?” he asked as if stumped.

Maddie couldn’t help but smile wistfully. His play with Aimee was so effortless. Somehow he understood her four-year-old mind, where Maddie sometimes struggled, so bogged down in adult responsibilities.

He returned her smile with a warm one of his own, green eyes twinkling with mischief.

“
Have we tried the trees over there?” he asked, pointing.

“
We haven’t.”

A quick glance behind the fat trunks revealed nothing, which came as no surprise. Brock scratched his chin and pretended confusion.

“
She is quite good at this,” he said loudly so Aimee could hear.

Maddie couldn’t resist smiling. “Indeed. Lots of practice.”

“
I see. Well, we shall simply have to look harder.”

Aimee tittered again, no doubt enjoying the game.

Together, they searched around the picnic, behind a few more bushes, pretending to peer within a wild garden of white daisies and pouting yellow cowslips. Absently, he picked a few of each. Through it all, Brock did his best to act perplexed, and Aimee gleefully enjoyed the diversion.

When Maddie and Brock searched behind yet another cluster of bushes, a pair of rabbits came bounding out from the undergrowth. Aimee jaunted after them with a squeal, elated with the new company.

“
There she is!” Brock sounded as if one of life’s great mysteries had been solved. “Let’s chase her!”

Aimee soon lost the footrace with the rabbits and darted away from Brock with a chuckle, stopping at Maddie’s side, behind her skirts.

Brock knelt to Aimee’s level and handed her the flowers he had picked. “You are excellent at hide and seek. I admit defeat.”

Aimee hesitated only an instant before grabbing the makeshift bouquet and launching herself into Brock’s arms. He caught the girl with his left hand and gripped Maddie’s in his right.

“
Yes! I won!” Aimee cheered, throwing her arms around Brock’s neck.

The three of them stood so close, almost like a family. Emotion—both sad and wistful—clogged her throat. Aimee had never experienced this sort of responsive play from Colin. She’d never known the love of a father figure. That fact tore at Maddie’s insides, but she did not fight the feeling. For just this moment, she leaned a bit closer to Brock and savored the idea that this domestic scene could have been theirs, that it could still be theirs...if she could believe every day as Brock’s wife would be this sweet.

#

That midnight, Maddie crept into the cottage a quarter hour late, half-hoping Brock had not come. She had been confused, restless, since the picnic.

How could she enjoy the time she spent with Brock when she did not trust him? Why did her body respond to him so eagerly when she knew he used seduction as a means to bend her to his will and lure her into marriage strictly for her land? And Brock’s rapport with Aimee—why did the sight of them together fill her with a wistful remorse she could not shake?

Everything in her head was a jumble, tangled images of past, present, what could be...what was likely to be.

She couldn’t dwell on that now. She had to survive tonight first. Every night grew more challenging. Every time Brock made love to her, she felt a bit more reluctant to let him go. He could not know of her feelings. Brock was like any adept hunter; if he discovered her weakness, he would only exploit it until she surrendered.

Maddie drew in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders for the encounter to come.

Shaken by her scrambled thoughts, she divested herself of her cloak and veiled hat and hung them on the peg near the door. When she turned, Brock stood disheveled, watchful and unsmiling, in the entrance to the parlor.

“
Hello, Maddie.”

She swallowed nervously. “Brock.”

What would he want of her tonight? Trepidation assailed her even as her heart increased its rhythm.

“
I’m glad my driver delivered you safely. When you were late, I began to worry.”

A glance to his strong, square face told her Brock’s speech was more than mere words. He had been concerned, and it warmed a place within her against her will.

Damn it, if he wanted her for her land, why was he trying to steal her heart? He hadn’t wanted it before, not to hold forever. What, if anything, had changed?

“
I am perfectly safe,” she assured softly as she made her way to the parlor.

Once there, the settee of pink velvet awaited them, perched before a fire that echoed the heat between them.

He followed her into the room and stopped close to her, so close her heart beat an erratic rhythm. Every inch of her skin tingled with awareness.

With his coat and cravat gone and his shirt open, exposing the bronzed column of his throat, Brock looked dangerous—but so touchable. Lord knew she wanted him badly...

“
And perfectly beautiful,” he murmured. “Since I leave in the morning for three weeks in Birmingham, I am eager to touch you.” He bent to kiss her neck.

“
Three weeks?” Maddie did her best to concentrate on his words and respond appropriately. “Why?”

Brock breathed across her skin, awakening her to his scent, his sensuality. A shiver assailed her, and Maddie closed her eyes. Her will to resist him was gone. As his mouth moved to the sensitive curve of her shoulder, Maddie knew she ought to refuse him—to save her sanity, if nothing else. But she could not turn him away without violating the terms of their bargain.

Worse yet, she didn’t think she had the strength to resist him, even if their wager had given her that freedom. For her, Brock was impossible to forget.

He drew in a deep breath, as if taking her in with his senses. “You are as close to perfect as God intended. You’re a little stubborn, perhaps—”

Maddie paused at his tone. Was he teasing her? “That’s irony, coming from you.”

The low rumble of his chuckle reverberated across her skin. “But you are definitely beautiful.”

Before Maddie could absorb his compliment, he lifted his head to look down at her. Every hint of playfulness had gone. Now he stared deep, green gaze piercing and reassuring at once as he framed her face with his hands.

A charged moment of silence passed. Maddie’s heart thumped. She was beyond ready for his kiss. Inside, she ached, but the desire went beyond the satisfaction she knew he would give her. She wanted
him
—all of him. The realization they had never spent an entire night in one another’s arms made her ache with longing.

She closed her eyes against the dangerous emotion. He was the enemy. Why couldn’t she remember that anymore? She couldn’t even recall how she had lived without him these past five, bleak years.

Slowly, Brock lowered his mouth to hers. Maddie sank into his kiss, giving herself over to the moment.

Threading her fingers through the silk of his hair, she breathed in his spicy scent. It compelled her nearer, along with his slow exploration of the inside of her mouth.

Eager for more, she nipped at his bottom lip with her teeth. He answered her, brushing his fingers down her spine in a slow glide that made her shiver. She felt his every touch with her senses—deep inside where her heart beat.

Without waiting, Maddie brushed her mouth across his for the next kiss, clasping his larger body against her. Brock met her, his mouth somehow gentle and demanding at once. She coveted the taste of him, yearned for more.

He gave it to her, fusing his mouth against hers in a slow, melting kiss without end. Maddie let the kiss sweep away her fears, her inhibitions, her sanity—until only the want remained.

Brock brushed his fingers across her collarbones, to the swells of her breasts. Her nipples tightened in anticipation, breasts tingled. When he caressed the rigid tips a moment later—so softly her knees nearly buckled—she moaned.

“
Tell me you want this half as badly as I do,” he panted, his gaze searching, never leaving her face. He wore a frown, the crease between his brows conveying pain.

She could not lie. “I want you more than I thought possible.”

“
Thank God. All I can think about now is touching every soft inch of your skin and filling you up until you moan.”

His words made her stomach pulse with desire. In the past, Brock had been able to rouse her—she could hardly deny that. But this was different, deeper. It was more than seduction.

And dangerous or not, she wanted this more than anything.

Maddie kissed the side of his jaw, moving inward toward his full mouth. “I wouldn’t want you to think of anything else.”

Then she ran her tongue across his bottom lip. He groaned and grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her mouth beneath his. A mere heartbeat passed before he crushed her lips with his own and probed his way inside, tasting, taking, demanding, igniting temptation within her.

Maddie answered every thrust of his tongue, softly persuading him to give her more. As she pulled at his shirt with impatient fingers, one button fell with a clatter to the floor. She didn’t care, nor did he.

When she pushed the shirt aside to reveal the smooth steel of his golden skin, Maddie set her greedy hands over his shoulders, the wide expanse of his chest. With a savage jerk, Brock yanked the shirt over his head and flung it across the room, exposing his torso to her hungry eyes.

Then he set to work on the buttons at the back of her dress with an equal lack of care. Hers were more delicate than those on his shirt—and more difficult. Impatience for the feel of his skin against hers danced in her belly.

Maddie raised her mouth to him. Brock met her. Their lips collided. Tension coiled. Desire mounted.

They exchanged breaths and sighs, as the storm of need swelled between them. Brock abandoned any pretense of finesse in unfastening her buttons. Urgency reigned as he set both hands to the task. Maddie was heartily glad. The few buttons that clattered to the floor hardly mattered.

But when he parted the back of her dress and, with a heated stroke of his hands, swept it down her shoulders, her breasts, exposing her thin chemise and the tingling nipples beneath... that made the damage to her dress irrelevant. Brock and his touch felt more significant than drawing her next breath.

“
Damn it all,” he swore, “I must have you.”

He pressed his lips to the column of her throat. She arched to him in offering as she wrestled the dress past her hips and to a puddle at her feet.

“
Quickly,” she urged.

His teeth nipped at her lobe; his hot breath fanned out across the sensitive skin of her neck. Maddie moaned, clutching him tighter as Brock set to work on her corset.

Craving him, she reached between them and gripped the hard ridge of his erection through his breeches. Brock paused in the unlacing. A groan tore from his throat. Head thrown back, jaw tight, wide shoulders taut, he was the picture of masculine beauty.

“
Hurry,” she whispered, stroking the thick mass of his shaft through the barrier of his breeches.

“
You make it difficult for a man to think, let alone move,” he groaned.

Maddie took advantage of his distraction and bent to flick her tongue across his flat male nipple. Brock drew in a hissing breath between his teeth as it drew up under her tongue. Nothing thrilled her like pleasing him. For good measure, she unfastened his breeches and swept them, along with his drawers, down his legs.

Galvanized into action, Brock’s hands moved twice as fast. Almost the moment Maddie was aware of his ministrations, her corset tumbled to the rich carpet beneath the settee.

Her breasts spilled from the whalebone restraint into his waiting hands. He cupped her, dragging his thumbs across her aching nipples. That quickly, her breasts became taut and heavy. Her whole body thrummed with pleasure.

Brock knew exactly how to touch her. When they had been adversaries, he had taken the time to learn her body, understand what made her mewl. Now that she was his mistress to bed in any way he pleased, he no longer had to spend the effort to see to her pleasure. But he did. Always. Though Maddie knew it was foolish—dangerous even—she hoped he did so because he cared for her.