The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife

much good. And we do. I love this area. But when money and sex get together…” She shook her head expressively.

“I’m not sure I get it…how that relates to why you never wanted to marry.”

“Because that’s always how it is. Marriages here are mergers. A woman antes up on her side of the deal with sex, using her sexual skills to attract and keep the most powerful man. And I just…”

“What?”

“I just never wanted to live my life that way.”

“Come on, Em. There was never any rule you had to play life by those conditions.”

“A rule, no. But the pressure never let up. My parents, my grandmother, ardently wanted me to be married-to the right man, in the right family-to start having kids and adding to the Dearborn dynasty. And it seemed like Reed was an answer because he was such a good friend. Until you came home.”

“Hey, how’d I enter this equation?”

“Because, you horrible man, I’d talked myself into believing for years that chemistry wasn’t important. Didn’t have to be important. I wasn’t remotely afraid of a sexual relationship with Reed or worried it wouldn’t be all right. I didn’t want more. It never occurred to me that I was cheating him of more.”

She leaned forward, shooting Garrett a harsh, stern glare in the darkness-even if she couldn’t quite see his face.

“But you kissed me,” she said softly. “And I was back remembering what it was like to be seventeen again. Hot and hungry. Full of yearning. And suddenly it wasn’t enough to spend a whole lifetime of all right.”

“I’ve been held responsible for a fair number of things in my lifetime. Being cold-blooded in business deals. Being clueless in relationships. Being tough in negotiations. But I don’t think anyone ever suggested my kissing technique had any power before.”

“You’re joking. I’m not. Darn it, Garrett, you’ve ruined my life,” she said. And stood.

Seven

Garrett saw her walking toward him in the dark shadows of the porch. He assumed she was coming close to engage in a more serious conversation. She’d just claimed that he’d ruined her life. Only there was something odd in her tone, not just the hint of humor he wasn’t expecting, but something else.

That something else was in the gleam of her eyes when she leaned down…crouched down…and then pounced.

The aim on her first kiss missed the mark. Her lips smooshed his cheek, but then homed more accurately than radar on the target she really wanted. In the dark corner of the porch, where he was sitting cross-legged on a mat, he felt her elbow dig into his rib and her fanny nestle into his lap-initially threatening the family jewels. He caught a pale hint of perfume. Felt the silky long gown drift around him. Tasted the naked softness of her lips.

Unless he did something-and quickly-he suspected she was either going to injure or permanently maim him. Enthusiasm could be a dangerous thing, yet severing the kiss didn’t seem to be an option.

In a thousand years he’d never expected Emma to jump him. She wasn’t the jumping type. Yet more evocative than being jumped by Emma was her lack of finesse. She really couldn’t have done this much. If ever.

And her lack of experience seemed to make his blood rush like a hot, wild river. Still latched onto her, he used one hand to snug down her spine, to lean her down, down, until she was lying on the mat. He still had a leg hooked under her, a knee threatening to break, but he managed to pull that loose and then he could lie with her. Length to length. Still latched together. And with both hands free now to hold her still, to frame her face, to invest pressure and emotion and promise into the next set of kisses.

He took her tongue. Heard her heave a sigh, a breathy, artless groan. A miserable groan of longing and wanting.

Her gown was held up by a swath of silk on one shoulder. That was all. Her other shoulder was bare, softer than a baby’s butt, and when his lips trailed down, he found the soft thudding pulse in her throat, the fragile line of her collarbone. And that naked shoulder had him so damned mesmerized that he had to taste and nuzzle.

Her knee shot up as if she wanted to wind a leg around him, yet nearly connected with his family jewels again.

Control slipped. Garrett never let control slip. Not in life, not in work, not in sex. But hell, she was just so wild. For him. As impossible as it seemed, she was wild for him.

His emotional timbers were already shaken, he knew that. He’d been up all night. No rest, no sleep. It bothered him fiercely that he’d seen that private scene between her and Reed. It bothered him that Reed hadn’t fought for her the way a man should have fought for an unforgettable woman like Emma. It bothered him that she’d looked so bowed and cowed after Kelly left her.

For hours he’d told himself to stay out of it; her relationship with Reed was none of his business. Besides which, he was afraid it would embarrass Emma if he said anything. No one wanted scenes like that witnessed by anyone. Who was ever happy with how they broke up or fought with someone? Those scenes were always horrible.

But damn, it was so obvious that she’d felt terrible. And when he’d finally escaped the dance and hightailed it home, he’d found himself standing in his upstairs window, watching for lights at Color. Hell, he didn’t even know if that’s where she’d land that night. But then he’d seen the lights go on, a trail from the front of the gallery leading toward the back…and then nothing.

He’d paced. And paced. Naturally there wasn’t much he could see from the second-story window two houses down from hers. When he’d gotten around to realizing that he was downright spying on her, he’d wanted to whack himself upside the head. He didn’t do things like that. But finally he just couldn’t stand it. He had to know she was all right.

And now he knew.

She wasn’t all right.

Clearly she wasn’t remotely all right.

She twisted from beneath him, knelt and tugged folds on folds up of the silky gown over her head. Beneath, she wore a satin thong. Her hair came down in a cloud around her cheeks, and before his brain had time to register how dazzling she was, how exquisite, she’d come back to him.

“Love me, Gar,” she whispered. “We missed this last time around. I don’t want to miss it again. I want to know-I’ve needed to know, all this time. What we are together. What we could have been.”

Her voice, so like velvet, caressed him almost as evocatively as her hands. He dredged up some sanity from God knew where. “Emma, I didn’t come here for this. I swear. I understand, you’re upset-”

“Didn’t you wonder how it would be between us?” she whispered.

“Yes.” No way to deny it. No way to deny anything with her fingers, pleated open, skimming up, his ribs, his chest, to his neck…her lips only a breath away.

“I regretted it a million times. That we didn’t make love back then.”

“Me, too.”

“I’m tired of regrets, Gar. I’ve lived by the rules every which way I know how. They’re not working. I want you. I’ve wanted you forever. Are you going to say no?”

As if he could. Maybe a while back-a few minutes back-he might have still had a brain and some principles, but now any thinking power he’d ever had was pressing thick and hard against her belly. He’d label it lust, except this was a helluva lot more lethal than lust.

When he took her mouth this time, it was different. When he leveled her onto the mat, everything was different. He told himself that he’d turned into the seducer, yet it wasn’t true. They were both on fire, both in a frenzy-to touch everywhere, to cherish, to claim.

He had no idea what happened to that satin thong, but there was nothing between them when it mattered. When he thrust inside her, he felt as if something shattered inside him, as if some part of him had been protected by a shell all his life, and with her that protective shell was lost.

He wanted her. Needed her. Like air, like fire, like earth. Her scent, her sounds, her taste…he wanted all of her, every which way from Sunday, now, immediately, completely.