Wear My Ring: The Secret Wedding Dress / The Millionaire's Marriage Claim

He looked around as if he hadn’t noticed how bare the place was. ‘I don’t spend my weekends antiquing, if that’s what you mean.’

‘You don’t have to go that far, but you could do with a dining table. Some kitchen stools. A throw cushion or two.’

‘I’d bet my left foot that no man ever looked back on his life and regretted a lack of throw cushions,’ he rumbled.

‘But they’re like garnish on a dinner plate. You don’t need it to make the meal, but that splash of colour makes your mouth water all the same.’

To that he said nothing, just watched her across the darkness, and her own mouth had never watered as much in her entire life.

‘Is it just me, or is it hot in here?’ she asked, peeling off her shirred blazer, her knobbly scarf, and throwing them over the back of a couch.

‘Air-con’s on heat blast. I’m acclimatising.’

Her eyes fell onto a plate of doughnuts he was piling high. She edged towards the scent of sugar. And him. ‘Turn the heat down and put on a sweater. Much more comfortable.’

‘For who?’

For her clearly. She’d been inside his place for less than two minutes and already a drop of sweat slid between her shoulder blades, trickled down her spine, and pooled in the dent at the bottom of her back.

As for him? His gaze lingered on her cream silk top, hovered over the minuscule spaghetti straps, then swept down her bare arms. Paige fought the urge to cross her arms across her chest, as even in the sweltering room her nipples contracted to aching peaks.

‘Nah,’ he said as his eyes moseyed back up to hers, ‘I like the heat.’

Leaving the doughnuts to the elements, Gabe edged around the island, his dark eyes locked onto her. Heart pounding, she backed up a step, and her backside hit the couch.

‘Would you prefer I turn it down?’ he asked, his voice dropping as he neared.

God, no, she thought. By the twitch at the corner of his beautiful mouth, she realised she’d clearly said it out loud. Bad habit. Must break.

He moved closer, and, breathing deep, she caught his wholly masculine scent that made her certain he could change a tyre, and build a fire, and wrestle a shark all before breakfast and not break a sweat.

And she knew. There would be no doughnuts that night. There would be no lines drawn, or contracts agreed upon. Her world contracted until all she knew was moonlight, heat, breath, her throbbing pulse. And Gabe. Half naked, his dark gaze searing into hers.

Then, right when she thought she might die from the tension coiling within her, he took one last long step and his big hand was in her hair, and his hot mouth was on hers.

Explosions went off behind her eyes, beneath her skin, deep in her belly until her whole body was awash with heat that had nothing to do with the sweltering air.

Her hands were in his hair gouging tracks in the lush softness. Her leg was wrapped around his. Her body arcing into him as every part of her that could meld with his did.

She felt his smile against her mouth. A smile of pure and utter conquest. She nipped at his bottom lip. Take that.

He stilled, all that strength bunching, waiting, compounding. In the stillness his heat beat against her skin. The energy coursing through his veins found a matching beat in hers. Every sense was on a delectable high.

When the wait for retribution became too much, she rolled against him. Softly. Fitted herself along his length. Purposefully. Slid her hands to the back of his head, and her tongue across his bottom lip, tasting the tender spot she’d bitten.

This, she thought. This was what she’d needed. This raw release. Who needed promises? Who needed commitment? Of all times for her friend to pop into her head, this was not a winner. Clint joined Mae as they smiled at one another in that gooey way they had when they thought nobody was watching. In fact, they didn’t really care who was watching, they were too busy watching one another.

Paige shook her head in an effort to remove the image from her mind, and the usual dull ache it had created deep in her belly.

As if he sensed her retreat, Gabe closed his big strong arms around her, wrapping her in heat and muscle and might. He pressed her back and kissed her slow and deep until she was nothing bar a flood of sensation pouring hot and thick through her whole body. His scent curled itself about her, warm, spicy, mouth-watering, until she couldn’t remember what her mouth tasted like before it tasted like him.

This. The word whispered through her again.

And things only got better from there for a really long time. As he found the sweet spot below her right ear, sucking her skin into his hot mouth. The hollow at the base of her neck with his tongue. The line of lace where the edge of her bra met swollen sensitive skin. Until her mind was a haze. Her body pure vibration.

She groaned in frustration as his lips were gone from hers, but then his arm slid beneath her legs and he lifted her as if she weighed nothing. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held on tight, her breath shooting from her lungs as light, bright, startled laughter.

When her eyes found his, dangerous and intense, the laughter dried up in her throat, the pleasure of it trickling down to her toes.

She bumped in his arms as he kicked open what must have been the bedroom door. Then he stopped so fast she gripped on tighter so as not to fly out of his arms.

‘Dammit,’ he said. Followed by a whole slew of words worthy of any pirate.

‘Problem?’

He slid her down his body, his hardness giving her no doubt he was as deep in this thing as she was. Then he took her by the shoulders and turned her so that she could see into his bedroom.

It was huge, half the size of her whole apartment. Gorgeous window mouldings and cornices, with another fabulous art deco sun-burst in the centre of the high ceiling. Occupational hazard, it took her half a second to imagine a reading lamp and great chair in the near corner. A small antique desk with enough room for his laptop below the wide window. Lush dark curtains pooling on the shiny floor. None of which were there.

But decor and character weren’t the only things the room was lacking.

It had no bed.

A small sound of desperation escaped her lips as her eyes roved quickly over the scrunched-up blankets on the floor, none of which looked terribly conducive to the kind of action her poor neglected body was screaming for.

She swore beneath her breath. Or at least she thought she had. The rumble of laughter at her back told her she’d said it out loud. Again.

Then his hand slid around her waist, tucked beneath her top, and found her sensitive stomach. She melted against him, against the hardness pressed against her backside. He swept her hair aside and his teeth grazed her shoulder and if she hadn’t pressed her thighs together she’d have orgasmed on the spot.

She spun in his arms, her hands finding his firm chest. His body filled her view, blocking out any light that dared come between them. His face was all darkness and shadows, his skin like a furnace, his scent like pure testosterone. Instinct had her swaying back, only to find herself up against the doorjamb.

‘Gabe …’ Paige said, her spine merging with the line of the doorway.

His hand landed on the doorjamb above her head. She breathed out. Slow, shaky, every ounce of oxygen leaving her body until she was weak with desire. Heat licking and trembling at her core. She couldn’t feel her feet. Could feel the beat of his heart against her palms all the way in the backs of her knees.

Her chest felt tight, her lungs dysfunctional. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hang onto her self-control. But if she pulled back now, how long till she had such a chance again? If she turned away from this, she might as well buy a cat, get a blue rinse and be done with men for ever.

She curled her fingers and traced her nails through the crisp dark hair of his chest. Pressed her lips gently to his flat nipple, before tracing it with her tongue. Her hands, getting greedy now, roved over the bumps of his six-pack, the hard muscles at his hips, over what turned out to be a damn fine example of male backside.

Something close to a roar escaped Gabe’s mouth as his fingers curled into her hair and tugged, sending her head sliding down the vertical strip of wood. Then his mouth found hers, any gentleness or exploration gone, his lips and tongue making a joke of any last resistance she might have had.

He tucked his fingers beneath the strap of her top, sending it cascading down her arm, revealing the lacy half-cup of her bra. His eyes, dark as night, watched as his palm cupped her breast, then his thumb ran over the dark centre. Chills running up and down her body, she pressed her feet into the floor and she bit her lip so as not to cry out.

His hand found her hip, his thumb swirling over her belly button. Then before she knew it her jeans were unbuttoned, the zip sliding open one tooth at a time. Paige’s hands went to Gabe’s hips, grabbing on for dear life as his big hand slid inside her pants, cupping her. Then he slid a slow, strong finger along the seam of her underwear.

She bucked as a shot of the most exquisite pleasure pierced her, blocking out every other sensation.

Then his mouth was on hers again, taking her blissful agony and doubling it. Trebling it. Turning her thoughts to mere threads swirling in a wash of liquid heat as a finger curled beneath the hem of her underwear, dipped inside her, sending wave after wave of shock and awe through her.