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  “I guess not.”

  “Never mind. Just forget about all the details.” He bent to her mouth. “Now, where were we…?”

  The wedding was the social event of the year. The governor did give her away; along with all four brothers, including the tall, darkly distinguished Simon, who wore an artificial arm just for the occasion. Dorie was exquisite in a Paris gown designed especially for her by a well-known couturier. Newspapers sent representatives. The whole world seemed to form outside the little Presbyterian church in Victoria.

  “I can’t believe this,” she whispered to Corrigan as they were leaving on their Jamaica honeymoon. “Corrigan, that’s the vice president over there, standing beside the governor and Simon!”

  “Well, they sort of want Simon for a cabinet position. He doesn’t want to leave Texas. They’re coaxing him.”

  She just shook her head. The Hart family was just too much altogether!

  That night, lying in her new husband’s arms with the sound of the ocean right outside the window, she gazed up at him with wonder as he made the softest, sweetest love to her in the dimly lit room.

  His body rose and fell like the tide, and he smiled at her, watching her excited eyes with sparks in his own as her body hesitated only briefly and then accepted him completely on a gasp of shocked pleasure.

  “And you were afraid that it was going to hurt,” he chided as he moved tenderly against her.

  “Yes.” She was gasping for air, clinging, lifting to him in shivering arcs of involuntary rigor. “It’s…killing me…!”

  “Already?” he chided, bending to brush his lips over her swollen mouth. “Darlin’, we’ve barely started!”

  “Barely…? Oh!”

  He was laughing. She could hear him as she washed up and down on waves of ecstasy that brought unbelievable noises out of her. She died half a dozen times, almost lost consciousness, and still he laughed, deep in his throat, as he went from one side of the bed to the other with her in a tangle of glorious abandon that never seemed to end. Eventually they ended up on the carpet with the sheet trailing behind them as she cried out, sobbing, one last time and heard him groan as he finally shuddered to completion.

  They were both covered with sweat. Her hair was wet. She was trembling and couldn’t stop. Beside her, he lay on his back with one leg bent at the knee. Incredibly he was still as aroused as he’d been when they started. She sat up gingerly and stared at him, awed.

  He chuckled up at her. “Come down here,” he dared her.

  “I can’t!” She was gasping. “And you can’t…you couldn’t…!”

  “If you weren’t the walking wounded, I sure as hell could,” he said. “I’ve saved it all up for eight years, and I’m still starving for you.”

  She just looked at him, fascinated. “I read a book.”

  “I’m not in it,” he assured her. He tugged her down on top of him and brushed her breasts with his lips. “I guess you’re sore.”

  She blushed. “You guess?”

  He chuckled. “All right. Come here, my new best friend, and we’ll go to sleep, since we can’t do anything else.”

  “We’re on the floor,” she noted.

  “At least we won’t fall off next time.”

  She laughed because he was outrageous. She’d never thought that intimacy would be fun as well as pleasurable. She traced his nose and bent to kiss his lips. “Where are we going to live?”

  “At the ranch.”

  “Only if your brothers live in the barn,” she said. “I’m not having them outside the door every night listening to us.”

  “They won’t have to stand outside the door. Judging from what I just heard, they could hear you with the windows closed if they stood on the town squa… Ouch!”

  “Let that be a lesson to you,” she told him dryly, watching him rub the nip she’d given his thigh. “Naked men are vulnerable.”

  “And you aren’t?”

  “Now, Corrigan…!”

  She screeched and he laughed and they fell down again in a tangle, close together, and the laughter gave way to soft conversation. Eventually they even slept.

  When they got back to the ranch, the three brothers were gone and there was a hastily scrawled note on the door.

  “We’re sleeping in the bunkhouse until we can build you a house of your own. Congratulations. Champagne is in the fridge.” It was signed with love, all three brothers—and the name of the fourth was penciled in.

  “On second thought,” she said, with her arm around her husband, “maybe those boys aren’t so bad after all!”

  He tried to stop her from opening the door, but it was too late. The bucket of water left her wavy hair straight and her navy blue coat dripping. She looked at Corrigan with eyes the size of plates, her arms outstretched, her mouth open.

  Corrigan looked around her. On the floor of the hall were two towels and two new bathrobes, and an assortment of unmentionable items.

  He knew that if he laughed, he’d be sleeping in the barn for the next month. But he couldn’t help it. And after a glance at the floor—neither could she.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-1495-8

  LONG, TALL AND TEMPTED

  Copyright © 2011 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the individual works as follows:

  REDBIRD

  Copyright © 1995 by Diana Palmer

  PAPER HUSBAND

  Copyright © 1996 by Diana Palmer

  CHRISTMAS COWBOY

  Copyright © 1997 by Diana Palmer

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