Callaghan's Bride Read online

  His head lifted and he looked at her again, this time reading with pinpoint accuracy the sultry look of her eyes, the faint pulse in her throat, the hard tips of her breasts rising against the slip that her half-open bodice revealed. Somewhere along the way, he’d unbuttoned his shirt that she was wearing and it was lying back away from her torn dress.

  He traced the ragged edge of the fabric with returning anger. “Did it have to be this dress?” he groaned.

  She winced. “You never seemed to look at me,” she defended herself. “He wanted to take me out, and it was the nicest thing I had in my closet.”

  He sighed heavily. “Yes, I know.” He smiled wryly. “I didn’t think I could risk taking you out. But look what happened because I didn’t.”

  “He was so drunk,” she whispered hoarsely. “He would have forced me…”

  “Not while there was a breath in my body,” he returned intently.

  “How did you know?” she asked suddenly.

  He pushed a stray curl away from her cheek. “I don’t know,” he said, frowning as if it disturbed him. “Something I’d heard about Gaines bothered me. One of the men said that he was fine as long as there wasn’t a bottle anywhere nearby, and another one mentioned a threatened lawsuit over a disastrous date. I remembered that you’d gone to the dance at the bar.” He shrugged. “Maybe it was a premonition. Thank God I paid attention to it.”

  “Yes.” A thick strand of jet black hair had fallen onto his broad forehead. Hesitantly she reached up and pushed it back, her fingers lingering on its coolness.

  He smiled because it was the first time that she’d voluntarily touched him.

  She sought his eyes, sought permission. As if he understood the new feelings that were flaring up inside her, he drew her hand down to his chest and opened her fingers, pressing them there, firmly.

  Her hand moved experimentally, pressing down and then curling into the thick hair she could feel under the soft fabric of his shirt.

  Impatiently he lifted himself and peeled off the T-shirt, tossing it to the floor. He lay back down again beside her, curling his leg into hers as he guided her hand back to his chest.

  She hesitated again. This was another step, an even bigger one.

  “Even teenagers do this,” he mused, smiling gently at her inhibitions. “It’s perfectly permissible.”

  “Is it?” Her fingers touched him as if she expected them to be burned. But then they pressed into the thick pelt of hair and explored, fascinated by the size and breadth of his chest, the warmth and strength of it.

  He arched with pure pleasure and laughed delightedly at the sensations she aroused. It had been a long time since a woman had touched him like that.

  She smiled shyly, fascinated by his reaction. He seemed so stoic, so reserved, that this lack of inhibition was surprising.

  “Men are like cats,” he murmured. “We love to be stroked.”

  “Oh.” She studied him as if he were an exhibit in a museum, curious about every single cell of his body.

  “Feeling more secure now?” he asked softly. “More adventurous?”

  “I’m not sure.” She looked up at him, quizzically.

  “Nothing heavy,” he promised. His black eyes were softer than she’d ever seen them. “It’s no news to me that you’re a rank beginner.”

  “What are you…going to do?” she stammered, wide-eyed.

  “Kiss you,” he breathed, letting his gaze fall to her bare breasts.

  “Th…there?” she gasped.

  He touched her lightly, smiling at the expression on her taut face. “There,” he whispered. He bent and drew his cheek softly over the bruised flesh, careful not to hurt her with the light pressure.

  While she was trying to cope with so many new and shocking sensations, his mouth smoothed back over the soft, silky flesh and she felt it open. He tasted her flushed skin in a heated fever of need. Her hands curled up into his thick hair and she held him to her, whimpering softly with pleasure as she found herself drawing his face hungrily to where the flesh was very taut and sensitive.

  “Here?” he whispered, hesitating.

  “Oh…yes!” she choked.

  His mouth opened obediently and he drew the hard nipple into it with a faint, soft suction that brought a sharp cry from her dry lips.

  She thought she felt him tremble, and then he was moving onto his back, breathing roughly as he carried her with him. He held her at his side, their legs intimately entangled, while he fought to get his breath back.

  His skin was cool against her hot breasts where they were pressed together above the waist. Her cheek was against the hard muscle of his upper arm and she caught again that elusive spicy scent that clung to him.

  Her hand eased onto the thick hair at his chest, but he caught it and held it a little roughly at her side.

  “No,” he whispered.

  She didn’t understand what she’d done wrong. A minute later, he got to his feet and bent to retrieve his undershirt. While he shrugged into it, she tugged up her bodice and tried to fasten it.

  But when she would have gotten to her feet, he pressed her back down.

  “Stay put,” he said quietly. He turned and left the room.

  She’d barely gotten her breathing calm when he was back, sitting down beside her with a cold can of beer in his hand.

  He popped it open and took a sip before he pulled her up beside him and held it to her lips.

  “I don’t like beer,” she murmured dazedly.

  “I’m going to taste of it,” he replied matter-of-factly. “If you swallow some, you won’t find the taste so unpleasant when I kiss you.”

  Her heart jumped wildly.

  He met her surprised expression with a smile. “Did you think we were finished?” he asked softly.

  She blushed.

  “I was getting too aroused,” he murmured dryly. “And so were you. I’m not going to let it go that far.”

  She searched his hard face with open curiosity. “What does it feel like to you, when you kiss me like that?” she asked quickly, before she lost her nerve.

  “How does it feel when I do it?”

  “I don’t know. Shivery. Hot. I never felt anything like that before.”

  He took a sip of the beer and looked down at her hungrily. “Neither did I,” he said tersely. His eyes seemed to possess her as they ran like caressing hands all over her. “Your breasts are freckled,” he said with an intimate smile and chuckled when she blushed. He held her face up to his and kissed her nose. “I’m not going to rush out to the nearest bar and gossip about it,” he whispered when he saw the faint apprehension in her wide eyes. “It’s a lover’s secret—a thing we don’t share with other people. Like the scar on my belly.”

  She frowned slightly. He tugged down the waistband of his jeans and drew her hand against him where a long, thick scar was just visible above his belt.

  “It runs down to my groin,” he said solemnly. “Fortunately, it missed the more…vital areas. But it was touch and go for a few days and the scar is never going to go away.”

  Her fingers lingered there. “I’m sorry you were hurt.”

  He held her hand to him and smiled. “This is something I haven’t shown to anyone else,” he told her. “Except my brothers.”

  It made sense then. She looked up into his eyes. “A… lover’s secret,” she whispered, amazed that she could think of him like that, so easily.

  He nodded. He wasn’t smiling. “Like the freckles on your breasts, just around the nipples.”

  She felt her breath gathering speed, like an old-time steam engine. Her breasts felt tight, and not because of Sandy’s rough handling. She frowned a little because it was uncomfortable and she still didn’t quite understand it.

  “We swell, both of us, when we’re aroused,” he said quietly, glancing at the small hand that had come up to rest a little gingerly against one taut nipple. “It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

  “Just…just a little.”
She felt like a child in a candy store, breathless with delight as she looked at him. “I liked…what you did,” she whispered.

  “So did I. Have a few sips of this and I’ll do it again.”

  Her breath caught. She sipped and wrinkled her nose. He took two more huge swallows before he put the can on the table and came back to her.

  He stretched out beside her and this time when he slid his leg in between both of hers, it wasn’t shocking or frightening. It felt natural, right. His hands slid under her as he bent again to her mouth. Now the kisses weren’t tentative and seeking. They were slow and insistent and arousing. They were passionate kisses, meant to drag a response from the most unwilling partner.

  Tess found herself clinging to him as if she might drown, her nails biting into his nape, and every kiss was more intimate than the last, more demanding, more arousing, more complete.

  When his powerful body eased completely down over hers, she didn’t protest at all. Her arms slid around his waist, her legs parted immediately, and she melted into the leather under them, welcoming the hard crush of him, the sudden heat and swelling that betrayed his hunger.

  “You can feel it, can’t you?” he whispered intimately at her ear and moved a little, just to make sure she could.

  “Cag…!”

  “I want you so badly, Tess!” he whispered, and his mouth slid over her cheek and onto her lips. He bit at them with a new and staggering intimacy that set her body on fire. When his tongue eased into her mouth, she opened her lips to accept it. When he pressed her legs farther apart so that he could settle intimately between them, she arched into him. When he groaned and his hands found her breasts, she gave everything that she was into his keeping. He never thought he could draw back in time. He shook convulsively with the effort. He dragged his hips away and turned, lying on his back with Tess settled close against his side while he fought his own need, and hers.

  “Don’t…move!” he stated when she turned closer to him.

  She stilled at once, half-heard bits of advice from a parade of motherly women coming back to her and making sudden sense.

  She could feel Cag’s powerful body vibrating with the hunger the kisses had built in it. He was like corded wood, breathing harshly. It fascinated her that he’d wanted her that much, when she was a rank beginner. He certainly wasn’t!

  When she felt him begin to relax, she let out a sigh of relief. She hadn’t known what to do or say. Men in that condition were a mystery to her.

  She felt his hand in her curly hair, holding her cheek to his chest. Under it, she heard the heavy, hard beat of his heart, like a fast drum.

  “I haven’t touched a woman since my fiancée threw me over,” he said in a harsh tone.

  Years ago. He didn’t say it, but Tess knew that was what he was implying. She lifted her head and rose up, resting her hand on his shoulder to steady her as she searched his face. There was a hard flush along his high cheekbones, but his eyes were quiet, soft, full of mystery as they met hers.

  “You want to know why I drew back.”

  She nodded.

  He let go of her hair and touched her soft, swollen mouth with his. “You’re a virgin.”

  He sounded so certain of it that she didn’t bother to argue. It would have been pretty pointless at the moment, anyway.

  “Oh. I see.” She didn’t, but it sounded mature.

  He chuckled gently. “You don’t know beans,” he corrected. He moved suddenly, turning her over so that his body half covered hers and his eyes were inches from her own. His big hand caught her hip and curved it up into his intimately. The reaction of his body was fierce and immediate; and very stark. She flushed.

  “I don’t date anymore,” he said, watching her mouth. “I don’t have anything to do with women. This—” he moved her subtly against that part of him that was most obvious “—is delicious and heady and even a little shocking. I haven’t felt it in a very long time.”

  Curiosity warred with embarrassment. “But I’m not experienced,” she said.

  He nodded. “And you think it should take an experienced woman to arouse me this much.”

  “Well, yes.”

  He bent and drew his lips over her open mouth in a shivery little caress that made her breath catch. “It happens every time I touch you,” he whispered into her lips. “An experienced woman would have realized immediately why I was so hostile and antagonistic toward you. It’s taken you months.”

  He covered her mouth with his, kissing her almost violently as his hand slid back inside her dress and played havoc with her self-control. But it only lasted seconds. He got up abruptly and pulled her up with him, holding her a few inches away from him with steely hands at her waist.

  “You have to go to bed. Alone. Right now,” he said emphatically.

  Her breath came in soft spurts as she looked up at him with her heart in her eyes.

  He actually groaned and pulled her close, into a bearish embrace. He stood holding her, shivering as they pressed together.

  “Dear God,” he whispered poignantly, and it sounded reverent, almost a plea for divine assistance. “Tess, do you know how old I am?” he groaned at her ear. “We’re almost a generation apart!”

  Her eyes were closed. She was dreaming. It had all been a dream, a sweet, sensuous dream that she never wanted to end.

  “I can still feel your mouth on my breasts when I close my eyes,” she whispered.

  He made another rough sound and his arms tightened almost to pain. He didn’t know how he was going to let her go.

  “Baby,” he whispered, “this is getting dangerous.”

  “You never called me ‘baby’ before,” she murmured.

  “I was never this close to being your lover before,” he whispered gruffly. His head lifted and his black eyes glittered down into her pale blue ones. “Not like this, Tess,” he said roughly. “Not in a fever, because you’ve had a bad experience.”

  “You made love to me,” she said, still dazed by the realization of how much their turbulent relationship had changed in the space of a few minutes.

  “You wanted me to,” he returned.

  “Oh, yes,” she confessed softly. Her lips parted and she watched, fascinated at the expression on his face when he looked down at them.

  She reached up to him on tiptoe, amazed that it took such a tiny little tug to bring his hard mouth crashing passionately down onto her parted lips. He actually lifted her off the floor in his ardor, groaning as the kiss went on endlessly.

  She felt swollen all over when he eased her back down onto her feet.

  “This won’t do,” he said unsteadily. He held her by the shoulders, firmly. “Are you listening?”

  “I’m trying to,” she agreed, searching his eyes as if they held the key to paradise. His hands contracted. “I want you, honey,” he said curtly. “Want you badly enough to seduce you, do you understand?” His gaze fell to her waist and lingered there with the beginnings of shock. All at once, he was thinking with real hunger of little boys with curly red hair….

  Chapter Seven

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Tess asked softly.

  His hands contracted on her waist for an instant before he suddenly came to his senses and realized what he was thinking and how impossible it was. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, until he got back the control he’d almost lost.

  He put her away from him with an odd tenderness. “You’re very young,” he said. “I only meant to comfort you. Things just…got out of hand. I’m sorry.”

  She searched his eyes and knew that what they’d shared hadn’t made a whit of difference to their turbulent relationship. He wanted her, all right, but there was guilt in his face. He thought she was too young for anything permanent. Or perhaps that was the excuse he had to use to conceal the real one—that he was afraid to get involved with a woman again because he’d been so badly hurt by one.

  She dropped her gaze to his broad chest, watching its jerky rise and fa
ll curiously. He wasn’t unaffected by her. That was oddly comforting.

  “Thanks for getting rid of the bad memory, anyway,” she said in a subdued tone.

  He hesitated before he spoke, choosing his words. “Tess, it wasn’t only that,” he said softly. “But you have to realize how things are. I’ve been alone for a long time. I let you go to my head.” He took a long, harsh breath. “I’m not a marrying man. Not anymore. But you’re a marrying woman.”

  She ground her teeth together. Well, that was plain enough. She looked up at him, red-cheeked. “I didn’t propose! And don’t get your hopes up, because I won’t. Ever. So there.”

  He cocked his head, and for an instant something twinkled deep in his eyes. “Never? I’m devastated.”

  The humor was unexpected and it eased the pain of the awkward situation a little. She peeked up at him. “You’re very attractive,” she continued, “but it takes more than looks to make a marriage. You can’t cook and you don’t know which end of a broom to use. Besides that, you throw cakes at people.”

  He couldn’t deny that. His firm mouth, still swollen from the hot kisses they’d shared, tugged up at the corners. “I missed you by a mile. In fact,” he reminded her, “you weren’t even in the room when I threw it.”

  She held up a hand. “I’m sorry. It’s too late for excuses. You’re right off my list of marriage prospects. I hope you can stand the shock.”

  He chuckled softly. “So do I.” She was still flushed, but she looked less tormented than she had. “Are you all right now?” he asked gently.

  She nodded and then said, “Yes. Thank you,” she added, her voice softer then she intended it to be.

  He only smiled. “He won’t be back, in case you’re worried about that,” he added. “I fired him on the spot.”