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  He’d reserved the bridal suite, and it was the most incredible sight Mari had ever seen. The bed was huge, dominating the bedroom. She stood in the doorway just staring at it while Ward paid the bellhop and locked the door.

  “It’s huge,” she whispered.

  “And strategically placed, did you notice?” he murmured with a laugh, suddenly lifting her clear of the floor in her neat white linen traveling suit.

  “Yes, I did notice,” she said huskily, clinging to him. “You looked so handsome.”

  “You looked so lovely.” He bent to her mouth and started walking. “I love you to distraction, did I tell you?”

  “Several times.”

  “I hope you won’t mind hearing it again frequently for the next hour or so,” he murmured against her eager mouth and laid her gently down on the bed.

  Mari had expected ardor and passion, and she had experienced a tiny measure of apprehension. But he made it so natural, so easy. She relaxed even as he began to undress her, his hands and mouth so deeply imprinted on her memory that she accepted them without the faintest protest.

  “This is familiar territory for us, isn’t it?” he breathed as he moved back beside her after stripping off his own clothing. “Up to this point, at least,” he added at her rapt, faintly shocked visual exploration of him. “But you know how it feels to have my eyes and my hands and my mouth on you. You know that I won’t hurt you. That there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  She looked back up into his eyes. “I couldn’t be afraid of you.”

  “I won’t lose control right away,” he promised, bending slowly to her mouth. “Give yourself to me now, Mari. Remember how it was on the ground, with the rain soaking us, and give yourself to me the way you offered then.”

  She felt all over again the pelting rain, the sweetness of his hands, the wild fever of his mouth claiming hers in the silence of the meadow. She reached up to him, suddenly on fire with the unaccustomed removal of all barriers, physical and moral, and she gave herself with an abandon that frankly startled him.

  “Shhh,” she whispered when he tried to draw back at the last minute, to make it gentle, to keep from hurting her. But she reached up to his hips and softly drew them down again, lifting, and a tiny gasp was the only sound she made as she coaxed his mouth back to hers. “Now,” she breathed into his devouring lips. “Now, now…”

  “Mari,” he groaned. His body surged against hers, his arms became painfully strong, his hands biting into her hips, his mouth trembling as his body trembled. He was part of her. She was part of him. Locking together, loving, linking…

  “Mari!”

  She went with him on a journey as exquisitely sweet as it was incredibly intimate, yielding to his strength, letting him guide her, letting him teach her. She used muscles she hadn’t realized she possessed, she whispered things to him that would shock her later. She wound herself around him and lost all her inhibitions in a wild, fierce joining that ripped the veil of mystery from the sweetest expression of shared love. Even the first time it was still a kind of pleasure that she hadn’t known existed.

  She stretched lazily, contentedly, and snuggled close to him under the lightweight sheet, nuzzling against his matted chest with a face radiant with fulfillment.

  “I love you,” he said softly as if the words still awed him. He smoothed her hair tenderly. “I always will.”

  “I love you just as much.” She smoothed her hand over his chest. “Cousin Bud wasn’t at the wedding.” She frowned. Her mind had been curiously absent for a week. She lifted up. “Ward, Bud hasn’t been at the house!”

  “Not for a week,” he agreed complacently, grinning. “Not since that day I took you to see Ty and Erin.”

  “But this is horrible! I didn’t notice!”

  “That’s all right, sweetheart, I don’t mind,” he said, drawing her back down.

  “Where is he?”

  “Oh, I sent him on a little trip,” he murmured at her temple. “I told him that bull he wanted was out to stud at a cattle ranch in Montana, and he went up there looking.”

  “Looking?” she frowned.

  “Well, honey, I didn’t exactly tell him which ranch it was on. Just the state. There are a lot of ranches in Montana.”

  “You devil!” she accused, digging him in the ribs.

  He pulled her over him, smiling from ear to ear. “All’s fair, don’t they say? Cousin Bud always did cramp my style.” He coaxed her mouth down to his and kissed it softly. “I didn’t want him on my case until I had you safely married to me.”

  “You couldn’t have been jealous?”

  “I’ve always been jealous,” he confessed, tugging a strand of her hair playfully. “You were mine. I didn’t want him trying to cut me out. Don’t worry, he’ll figure it out eventually.”

  “I shouldn’t ask,” she mumbled. “Figure what out?”

  “That the bull is still on my ranch, just where I had him all along.”

  “What are you going to tell Cousin Bud?”

  “That I misplaced him,” he said easily. “Don’t worry, he’ll believe me. After all, he didn’t think I was serious about you, either, and look how I fooled him!”

  She would have said something else, but he was already rolling her over on the big bed and kissing the breath out of her. So she just closed her eyes and kissed him back. Outside it was raining softly, and Mari thought she’d never heard a sweeter sound.

  ISBN-13: 9781460335994

  Unlikely Lover

  Copyright © 1986 by Diana Palmer

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