His for the Taking

She felt herself blushing. When she clumsily dropped Cinnamon’s leash, the little dog yelped and dashed away. Not that she cared. How could she concentrate on the dog when Cole was holding her so close she was trembling? How could she resist the burning need in Cole’s eyes, even though some tiny, sensible voice in her head pleaded with her to be more intelligent?

Greg. Marriage. Stability. Noah’s future.

Greg will protect you.

Cole’s mother promised to destroy you.

“Cole,” Maddie begged as her breasts lodged snugly against his muscular chest. “Cinnamon…He’ll get away.”

Cole tugged her nearer so that her nipples peaked against the violent thudding of his heart in his warm chest. “He knows his way home.”

For no special reason her gaze lingered on Cole’s sculptured, sensual mouth.

Reluctantly, she laid her head on his shoulder and inhaled his dizzying, clean male scent and the lemony flavor of his aftershave. “Oh, Cole,” she whispered on a rush of longing.

He needed no further invitation. Pressing his warm lips against her earlobe, he sighed. “Baby, you feel so good.”

A delicious current raced in her blood. His mouth nibbling her flesh set off sparks even as the memory of his mother’s words ate into her soul.

You’re so far beneath him, all you’d ever do is drag him down into the gutter where your kind lives.

For a long moment, Cole simply held her tightly against his long, hard body. “You smell good, like the woods and the creek…like everything I love best.”

Feeling cherished, she closed her eyes and fought to forget his mother’s cruel assessment, fought to forget that he’d let her go when he’d promised to love her forever.

Stroking her fingers through his thick ebony hair, Maddie felt herself in a sensual dream. He was so tall and solid and hot. He felt so right. For the first time in years, everything seemed perfect. Had she been striving for all the wrong things, when all she’d ever wanted was Cole?

He’s the enemy, the man who threw you and Noah away.

No. That wasn’t how it was. His father died right after you left. You were gone. He was so sad and lost, he turned toLizzie. He’d wanted to be faithful to his wife. She could see that, understand it.

When Cole lightly brushed his mouth across hers, his sweet kiss scorched.

When she clung instead of resisting, his lips became hot and hard and punishing. Fire raced in her veins. Another girl, without her mother’s genes, might have felt shame to part her lips and give herself so easily. But Maddie gloried in the wildness of his touch and the sweetness of his taste as he made a thorough exploration of her mouth.

When he held her and kissed her like this, she couldn’t deny what she’d really wanted these past six years: him.

Grabbing her bottom, he thrust himself closer and rotated his hips against hers so that she could be in no doubt of his state of arousal.

“I want you,” he whispered possessively. “You know that, don’t you?” He sounded angry about it. “Damn it, I still want you! I couldn’t stop, no matter how hard I tried! Not even when I was married!” he raged. “I wanted you even then.”

She could empathize with his anger. Oh, boy, could she ever. Yet his anger hurt, too. He’d wanted to forget her, had married to forget her.

“I tried to forget you, too.”

Her fingers twined around his warm neck and caressed his damp hair even as she pressed herself into him as wantonly as he was pushing against her. His body felt like strong, sun-blasted rock, and she was melting in his heat.

In an instant, the past merged with the present. She was no longer an inexperienced girl. This was now, and she wanted him as a mature woman craved her one true mate. She couldn’t deny it any more than she could deny her next breath.

Six years and all the battles she’d fought to become a new, respectable, brave person, the kind of young woman who could be a proper wife to a professional man like Greg, were nothing compared to this primal need she felt for Cole.

But what did Cole truly think of her?

Would he always see her as the trampy daughter of Jesse Ray Gray? Did he merely lust for her in a raw, animalistic way? Wasn’t that why he’d rejected her and married Lizzie?

Because of her doubts, she found the inner strength to spread her fingertips wide against his chest. Shoving lightly, she stumbled back a step. With a growl, he caught her and steadied her by slowly pushing her against the thick trunk of an oak tree. With the tree supporting their weight, he began to kiss her lips, her throat and her breasts, which were still slick and damp. Feelings of desire swamped her all over again.

When his greedy, exploring mouth followed a silky path from her breasts to her lips, he plunged his tongue inside. Once more everything was softening and melting inside her. All too soon, passion blurred her doubts, many though they were, and she was ablaze and needy for more of his loving, which felt true and right despite everything. Nobody but him had ever kissed her like this, made her feel like this. There was an honesty in such feelings, wasn’t there?

Sensing her response and riding it, his kisses grew harder and longer and infinitely sweeter, and she drank deeply of him, stroking his tongue with hers, feeling as if she could never get enough. When he brushed his mouth over hers again, she kissed him back, and with every kiss her soul-devouring desire built.

He began to murmur to her in soft, mesmerizing tones, his love words both passionate and tender. She felt his erection jammed hard against her belly.

Oh, she wanted to tear off her clothes and his, too.

But when he pushed her wet T-shirt up and began to fumble with the fastenings of her bra, a rush of cool air against her naked belly and Cinnamon’s wild barks made her shiver and push his hands away.

This is happening too fast. You ‘re not good enough for him. His mother hates you. He married Lizzie. No matter what he says, he rejected you—and Noah, too. By not talking to you and by not reading your letters, he rejected you both.

His pointed red ears cocked, Cinnamon stood five feet away, quivering as he watched her intently. She fought to concentrate on the eager little dog instead of on Cole, because if she didn’t quit thinking about all the things she wanted to do with Cole, she was going to be naked and lying flat on her back underneath him, her legs spread wide, writhing like a wanton. No doubt, when he finished his business he would blame her and think her as cheap as her mother.

“We have to stop,” she whispered, feeling miserable because she ached from wanting him. “Or we’ll go too far…and regret it.”