Rescued by a Wedding: Texas Wedding / A Marriage Between Friends

“It means…” She bit her lower lip. “I know where you must have been, who you must have been with. Even though, when we agreed to do this, you promised me that there would be no other women, not while we were married.”

He tugged her wrist slightly. She either had to wrestle herself free or come around the desk to meet him. She chose to come around, though it brought her close enough that he could see the nervous twitch next to the corner of her mouth.

Ah…she felt more fear now than anger. In a perverse way, that pleased him. It proved he still had power.

And he saw something else, too. A physical awareness of him that heated the surface of her cheeks.

It made him ache, being so close to her, smelling her, hating her and wanting her all at the same time. It was as if someone had shoved a hot brand against the small of his back.

“I did promise I’d be faithful,” he said, careful to keep his tone lightly ironic. “But that was when I believed I’d be getting what I needed here at home…within the marriage bed, so to speak.”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Yes, of course I see the difference. So that’s why I wanted to make you an offer. I understand that it’s a…a hardship to have to…to do without sex for a full year, and…”

He smiled. Her pulse had tripped on itself from the effort to even say the word sex.

“And?”

She swallowed, blinking as she tried to hold his gaze. “And I’d like to make it up to you. Financially, I mean. I was thinking ten thousand dollars for every month we’re married. That’s one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, when the year is up, when I can sell the acres I need, and—”

He tilted his head, chuckling softly. “You’re offering to pay me not to have sex with you?”

“No…I’m paying you for not having it with anyone else, not while we’re married. It’s hard to—” She swallowed and tried again. “If you have a mistress while I’m your wife, it’ll be—well, everyone will say it’s just like before. I’ll be the laughing stock of Texas. I’d prefer not to be shamed like that…not again.”

He cursed inwardly. It always came back to that, didn’t it? Eleven years ago, he’d made a mistake, and, in her eyes, it would forever define the man he was. He felt his hand tighten on her wrist, as the frustration, the anger and the hunger tied every muscle in his body into knots.

“You must agree it’s generous, Trent. A hundred and twenty thousand—”

“Oh, sure. It’s generous.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore. Without thinking, he pulled her toward him. She wasn’t expecting it, and she stumbled, practically falling into his arms. Her body was stiff, but her flesh trembled. He let his palms encircle her waist, and they met around the slim curves, just as they used to do.

She stared up at him. He didn’t apologize, didn’t let go. He stroked her rib cage with his thumbs.

“Trent…”

“Your offer is generous as hell, Susannah. But money isn’t what I want.” He angled her even closer, close enough to feel the heat that throbbed through him. “You know what I want.”

“But what you want—you can’t…what about the paper?” She seemed to be struggling to catch a breath, inhaling softly between each word. “You won’t…sign it?”

“No, I won’t sign it, Sue, but there are other ways.”

“Other ways to…what?”

Her lips were half-open, peach-pink wet and glimmering in the sunlight. They were ripe and soft. And he remembered exactly how they had tasted. How they had felt, on him, around him. For eleven long years, even in dreams, he had been haunted by the memory of their warmth, their hidden strength.…

A painful heat swelled inside him. She might hate him, but he must have this. He refused to go on burning and wanting, and being forever denied.

Though she wouldn’t admit it, she burned, too, and he would follow that fiery path until he found his way in.

“Trent. Tell me what you mean.”

He let his body answer her. He placed his palms against her buttocks, and moved her hips toward him slowly, by agonizing inches, letting his heat find hers. He watched what it did to her. He watched her eyes struggle not to lose focus, watched her throat hold back the moan that wanted to break free.

Somehow she hung on to her question, as if it were a life raft, as if it could take her to a different answer. “Other ways for what?”

“Other ways for husbands and wives to know each other. Please each other. Ways that don’t risk making babies.”

She stopped breathing entirely. “You can’t mean—”

“Yes, I can. There are lots of ways to make love, Susannah.” Trent let her go abruptly, smiled and moved toward the door. “And before this year is over, we’re going to discover every one of them.”

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WASN’T EASY to sleep that night. Every noise Susannah heard, even the familiar oak branch that had scratched against her window since she was six, made her heart race. Outside, the night seemed to go on forever, the mushroom-colored moon caught in a soup of gray clouds. Inside, every creaking floorboard, every snap, groan or sigh from the old house, sounded like Trent coming to find her.

Trent, coming to lie beside her in the darkness and, with his angry lips and determined hands, somehow force her to keep her promise.

She woke up feeling wrung out and muddy-headed. And oddly lonely. In some ways, she missed Nikki. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to. But sitting around gabbing was a luxury she could rarely afford—and it wasn’t something Nikki enjoyed much, anyhow. So she tried just to be glad she didn’t have to make breakfast for Nikki and nag her out the door to school.

She did have to get up, though. She was due at the burn center by nine, and there was no way to avoid it. She went in only two mornings a week during peach season, and Rachel, her gung-ho administrative assistant, would undoubtedly have scheduled a dozen meetings, phone calls and interviews.

So Susannah put on her best spring suit and extra lipstick, and made her way across town. She sent up a little prayer that no big problems would present themselves today, and that maybe she could get home early.

No such luck.

“Susannah, thank God you’re here.” Rachel stood up from her chair when she saw her boss. “You’re not going to believe what Dr. Mahaffey’s wife did.”

Susannah moved into her office and put down her purse, trying to refrain from pointing out that she didn’t care what Dr. Mahaffey’s wife did. Obviously, she couldn’t say such a thing. Dr. Mahaffey was the retired chief of surgery for the burn center, and his wife had organized some of their most successful fund-raisers. So what Mrs. Mahaffey did was always important.

Especially to the executive coordinator of donor/volunteer affairs. And that was Susannah.

“What did she do?” Susannah managed a smile, because she knew the answer would be something hilarious. Spunky, opinionated, energetic Maggie Mahaffey was eighty-two, nine years older than her exhausted husband, and most of the time she lived on Mars.

Rachel stood in the doorway between the offices and held out a plate heaped with pie. “She sent in a recipe for the peach book.”

Susannah set down the stack of color-coded phone messages she’d just grabbed and stared at the plate, as if she expected it to explode. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” Rachel nodded, her full lips pressed so tightly you almost couldn’t see her signature-red lipstick. “Taste it.”

Susannah laughed and took a step backward. “I’ll take your word for it. What’s wrong this time? Six pounds of sugar? How that woman has managed to avoid diabetes is a mystery to me.”

“No sugar. This time she added mint.” Rachel widened her eyes dramatically. “Mint. And…cashews.”

Susannah’s mouth just hung open, seemingly unable to respond to her order to close. “Cashews in her peach pie?”

“Yes. Cashews.” Rachel wasn’t easily rattled, but this clearly had shaken her. “What are we going to do, Susannah? It’s indescribably gross. I brushed my teeth twice, and I still taste it.”

Susannah sat on the edge of her desk, suddenly tired. Given what she was going through back at Everly, a disgusting peach pie simply didn’t seem important. “I’ll just have to create a typo. The line about the cashews will mysteriously drop off.”