The Cattle King's Bride

“I remember a time when you used to be nicer,” she quavered. She didn’t want to fight. Her need for him was fierce.

“God help me, don’t I regret that now?” Dev suddenly lifted himself on his strong arms to loom over her. “You want me to make love to you, is that it, you crazy woman?”

Wasn’t it her dread that she could drive him away with her fears and phobias? At one time she had seriously considered DNA testing, then backed off in shame. Gregory Langdon couldn’t have been her father, although he had been on the scene. Mike Norton was her father. He had loved her. Could a man love a child he knew wasn’t his? Maybe some men could. The child couldn’t be blamed for the sins of the fathers.

“Well?” Dev growled.

She threw all her chaotic thoughts out of the window. “Yes, yes, yes, yes!” she cried. “A thousand times ye—”

He stopped her by lowering his body onto her, covering her, letting her feel his full weight—taut, hard body, the musculature, the rib cage so clearly defined the imprint was left on her body, her flesh satiny-soft and yielding to his potent maleness. His mouth came down near mercilessly on hers. But wasn’t she starved for it, hot and aching with longing? She could never mistake Dev for anyone else, not even in the blackest night with her lack of vision total. Every part of her recognized and accepted him—the scent of him, the magical feel of him, her wild response. Her very flesh lit up in ecstasy for him. So did her heart, flowering in her chest.

Dev kissing her was the most ravishing feeling in the world. It was so intensely erotic, it transformed her not into an acquiescent, trembling creature, but a voluptuous woman. She cried out with pleasure. He was a masterful manipulator, but the mastery was inherent in everything he did. How could she relish the sexual excitement that came with the dominant male, then tell him perversely that she feared domination? She had to be a basket case.

Still kissing her, Dev moved off her, falling back onto his side. “You drive me mad with wanting you,” he rasped. “I should really be thinking about going into therapy if I had the time. I could take up something calming like arts and crafts, maybe wood whittling.”

“I’m sorry, Dev.” She pressed close to his body, sighing and breathing into his ear.

His mouth clamped on hers. “Damn you, Mel.” His hand slid a little roughly down the length of her abundant hair. “Just tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.”

A shiny tear fell onto her cheek. “You.”

“You want me, not us?”

“Just love me, please,” she begged.

“But I want us, Mel! Be warned. There’s a caveat attached to all this. I’m not going to wait for you forever.” He spoke forcefully, even as he was trying to keep the immensity of his desire for her in check. There were still walls to be knocked down with Mel. Even as a child, Mel had felt impelled to rebel against Langdon authority. He knew his grandmother had been hateful to Sarina. Mel, too, but it was Mel’s determined nature that made her fight back.

His great hope was his grandfather’s passing would put an end to the chaos of the past with all its moral dilemmas. Mel’s fears were born out of extremes. He understood her. He loved her. But it was hell. So much time and pain had passed between them. There had to be a resolution.

Her body gave off heat and its own intoxicating fragrance. He could feel the heat off her beautiful breasts and the heat between her legs. He rested his hand there. “Listen, I adore the nightgown, Mel, but it has to come off.”

“Just do it,” she begged, moving her body to make things easier for him.

“That’s an irresistible plea if ever I heard one,” he mocked. “Okay, let’s try it inch by inch.” He drew her nightgown slowly up the length of her legs, past her taut stomach, her narrow waist, letting the silk-satin lie in folds under her breasts. Then he moved down to the bottom of the queen-size bed—too small for a man like him—taking her elegant feet in his hands.

Mel lay back, eyes closed, in a state of surrender. Her short-term forays into other far less troubling relationships had brought home to her she would never be satisfied with any other man but Dev. No one else seemed to know what she wanted. No one else could cause the throbbing in her breasts, the mad flutter like a million butterflies in her stomach, the little electrical charges all over, the tiny, keen knife-like thrusts between her legs. No one else could even bring her to orgasm. She had never been able to fake it. Odd that lack had never been noticed.

Dev was kissing her bare feet. The lick of his tongue and his kisses moved languorously up her trembling, increasingly restless legs. He pressed his lips to her flat stomach, the tip of his tongue tracing the whorls of her navel, then his mouth began its downward trail again to where her body was pulsing white-hot. She could hear his breath deepening and quickening. Her own breath was shortening. With exquisite smoothness, his index finger glided inside her—she was so ready for him. Her heart leapt like a wild bird bouncing off the walls of its cage.

God! Oh, God! Oh, God!

“Please, Dev, come inside me.” She knew she was whimpering. The muscular contractions were growing so strong, she felt she might climax too soon.

“Just you wait a bit longer,” Dev murmured, clearly taunting her. “Punishment isn’t over yet. I want you to come alive for me, no one else.”

Her flesh had melted. Her bones had turned to liquid lava. This was what Dev wanted, as much sensation as possible. “Dev, my heart is ready to explode.” She was feverishly turning her head from side to side. Her long legs had fallen apart of their own accord.

“Just a little longer,” he murmured.

“You devil!”

“Whose fault is that? With you, I have to take my pleasure when I can.”

Moments later, judging it precisely, he removed her nightgown with care, then threw it unerringly towards a chair, where it landed in a silky pool. Her breasts were uncovered to his gaze, her hyper-sensitive coral-pink nipples tightly budded and standing erect.

There was a roaring in Mel’s ears as he took one, then the other, into his mouth.

“Tell me you love me,” he muttered, determined on causing her at least some of the pain she caused him.

She didn’t answer. Her total focus was on wrapping her legs strongly around him, tightening them. She wanted to capture him, not knowing when exactly he had managed it, but he was as naked as her. Their nakedness felt absolutely right. It had from the very first time. Dev was her first lover. He had taken far more than her virginity. He had taken her lifelong allegiance.

“You know I love you.” Her body was breaking out in a fine dew of perspiration, the exquisite agony of want. “You’ve marked me forever.”

“I’d say we marked each other,” he said harshly, not at all satisfied with her answer. “Say it. You-love-me.”

“I-love-you.” She tried to lift her head off the pillow, her voice barely above a ragged whisper. “Oh, please, Dev.” Her body, so long starved of him, was frantic for release. Yet he wanted to circle her like an eagle.

He bent his head to lick away the trail of her hot tears, then descended into kissing her, savouring the lush texture of her lips, tasting the nectar within. Only then did his strong hands move beneath her satiny heart-shaped rear, cupping it, then lifting her body high so its delta was close-up and ready. He wanted to bury himself deep, ever deeper inside her so they fused.

Her little keening cry was the trigger. He came in a flooding roar. She came with him in her own burst of fire.

He wouldn’t have changed places with any other man in the world.

He had waited and waited for Amelia. It had made many aspects of his life excruciatingly difficult. What Mel had to learn now was he would never let go. The waiting was over. He would not stand for interference from anyone. That included Mel. The king was near death. Long live his successor.

Gregory Langdon lay very still in his magnificent brass-studded mahogany bed that had been custom made for him decades before. His skeletal hands rested on the coverlet. The heavy curtains Sarina had almost drawn shut blocked the glare of sunlight from outside. His son, Erik, was downstairs. Ava, Erik’s daughter, his beautiful granddaughter, had arrived with her no-account husband. He guessed the cracks were already appearing in that ill-advised marriage. He and Ava had quarrelled over the young man she had only imagined she loved. On the surface, Luke Selwyn had appeared a suitable suitor for his granddaughter’s hand. His family had money—so he wasn’t a fortune-hunter but over a period of time Selwyn’s less-attractive qualities had begun to surface. He was basically a lightweight, a floater through life, all drive and ambition blunted by wealth.

In the end Gregory had made it very plain that he was violently opposed to the marriage, but gentle, sensitive Ava for once in her life had defied him and ignored the concerns of her brother. Dev had been against the marriage, as well. Dev was devoted to his younger sister and her to him.

He knew the rest of them had arrived—Langdons and a fair sprinkling of Devereaux. They thought the world of Dev, nicknamed after their family. They looked up to Dev and admired him.

Only so far—and he couldn’t hold out much longer—no Dev and no Amelia. He drew a shallow breath, pain sweeping over him in a monstrous wave. He was dying. He accepted it. There was no place else to go. The pain would finally cease. But he couldn’t die before Dev and Amelia arrived. He had resisted another jab of the needle that lessened the agony but befuddled his mind. Even dying, he needed to be in possession of his faculties. The pain didn’t matter. He needed reconciliation even if he didn’t deserve it. Dying was a terrible business. Better to die quickly than have an agonizing end drawn out. He had been such a vigorous man. Splendid health he had taken for granted. But finally the traumas of old age had unleashed themselves upon him. Black oblivion would come as a mercy.

At a slight sound, Gregory Langdon looked towards the bedroom door. Probably the nurse. He didn’t like her one bit. A big, broad-shouldered, no nonsense woman, competent, but distressingly plain. He was used to having beautiful women around the place—Ava, Amelia, and the light of his life, Sarina. There had been no happy start, let alone a happy ending for him and Sarina. That was one miracle he couldn’t command. The timing, right from the beginning, had been all wrong. He and Sarina, a married woman, had been a generation apart, not that it had mattered. Mireille had hated him and hated Sarina to the death. He couldn’t condemn his wife for all her cruelties. He had married Mireille without love, but at his parents’ constant urging. To give Mireille her due, she had genuinely tried to make him a good wife. Only a man should never marry a woman he didn’t want.

He knew which woman he wanted the instant he set eyes on young Sarina Norton, so beautiful she took his breath away. He had never counted on a woman doing that. And Mireille was by no means his first woman. He would carry that vision of Sarina into the next life. If there was one. He wasn’t a religious man. What we had was all we got. Let folk have their faith. It didn’t do any harm. Then again, he could be in for a big surprise two minutes after lift-off. Some leap of faith there!

A woman’s slender form floating towards him in a cloud.

An angel, his dark angel. “Sarina?” he called.

“I’m here, Gregory.” Sarina moved across the carpeted expanse of the huge room to stand beside his bed. She took his emaciated hand in hers. “Are you sure you can stand the pain?” she asked, looking down at the wraith of the once-invincible Gregory Langdon.

Gregory carried her hand shakily to his mouth. “Tell me, Sarina. Are my grandson and Amelia coming?”

“They are, my dear one.” Sarina choked back a sob. “They’re due to fly in at noon.”

“God, haven’t I made a mess of my life?” Gregory groaned. “My son lived in fear of me. News to me, but my grandson accused me of it, anyway. Dev never went in fear of me. Neither did Amelia. Ava was always so quiet and shy. Dev and Amelia were more a pair than Dev and his own sister. Could I have a drop of water, please, Sarina?”