An Officer And A Millionaire

Seven

Reaching up, he cupped the back of her neck in his palm and pulled her head down to his. The first taste of her inflamed him, jolting through his body like a zap from an electrical wire.

She stilled briefly, then groaned into his mouth and returned his kiss with an eagerness that staggered him. Hunter used one hand to shove the pillows separating them aside, then yanked her close, molding her cotton-nightgown-clad body tightly against him. Every curve, every luscious inch of her was molded to him; he felt her heat searing his skin, and he wanted more. He wanted all.

“Take this off,” he murmured, moving his mouth a scant inch from hers.

“Yes, take it off. I want to feel you,” she whispered, her small, soft hands moving, constantly moving over his chest, his back, through his hair, scoring his scalp with her short, neat nails.

Every touch was fire. A blessing. A benediction. A compulsion. He wanted her skin beneath his hands. He wanted to trace every delectable curve with his fingertips, his mouth, his lips. He wanted everything she had to give, and then he wanted it again.

He raised himself up on one elbow, undid the buttons on that blasted gown-the very one that had been tempting him nightly-and then slowly, lingeringly, pulled the nightgown up and over her head. Her incredible hair fluffed out around her head as she lay back on the pillows, and he could think only about burying his face in the mass of curls, inhaling her scent, taking the tenderness she offered so openly.

Hunter had never felt anything like this. Such a wild, frenetic mixture of passion and gentleness. A driving need to bury himself inside her heat blended with the frenzied urge to watch her as she came. To push her higher and higher, to see desire flash and burn in her eyes, to hear her cry his name and feel her splinter in his grasp.

“You’ve been making me crazy for days,” he muttered, dipping his head to take first one rosy nipple into his mouth and then the other.

“I have?” she whispered, then, “Ohh…”

“That nightgown of yours. Covering up what I knew was under there.” He shook his head against her body, trailing his tongue around the edges of her nipple before nibbling gently at its peaked tip. “Ugliest, most seductive thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I didn’t know,” she admitted, then arched up, pushing her breast into his mouth, silently asking, demanding more.

He gave it to her, sucking until she whimpered, while his hand swept down her lush body, sliding across jasmine-scented, soft, smooth skin, to the juncture of her thighs. He found her wet and hot for him and groaned himself as he cupped her, rubbing his hand over her center, loving how she lifted her hips into his touch.

“Hunter…”

Her breathy sigh filled the room and shuddered inside him. Hunter wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He’d never known such need, such all-consuming desire. And he wanted more.

Reaching quickly to the bedside table, he pulled the drawer open, rummaged one-handed inside it and came out with a condom. Quickly, he tore it open, tossed the foil wrapper and sheathed his aching body. Then he looked down at her, losing himself in her eyes. Moonlight played on her skin, making her flesh seem to shimmer in the pale wash of silver.

“Never get rid of that nightgown,” he ordered, already imagining watching her wear it, knowing what was beneath it, being able to pull it off her, like unwrapping a much wanted present.

“Right. Never.”

He grinned and slid closer, moving his mouth down now, across her rib cage, down to her abdomen to flick his tongue at her belly button. And still his hand worked her core. Fingers stroking, thumb pressing against the heart of her while she quivered and trembled for him like a finely played musical instrument.

He was the master, but she was the treasure. He touched her; she responded.

Her hands smoothed over his shoulders, her fingernails drawing light lines of sensation across his skin until he felt as if each one of her fingertips was a lit match head, singeing him down to the bone.

She carefully maneuvered around the bandage low on his hip and whispered, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” he assured her, pausing for one kiss, then another. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

The concern in her eyes touched him even more deeply than the flash of desire he read there as well.

“Let me show you,” he murmured, and before she could speak, he had shifted position so that he kneeled before her, lifted her hips from the bed and covered her wet, slippery heat with his mouth.

He looked at her then, her green eyes wide with passion and dazzled with pleasure as she rocked into him, instinctively reaching for the release he didn’t plan on giving her just yet. He took her to the edge again and again, working her flesh, driving her higher and higher. Her whimpered pleas became groans, and those became demands and still he wouldn’t let her find satisfaction. He kept her on a razor’s edge, even though he tortured himself as well.

His body hard, aching and unable to wait another minute, Hunter laid her down, covered her body with his and pushed himself deep into her heat. She was tight and hot and-gasping in shock.

“I don’t believe it,” he managed to say on a groan.

A long moment passed as he held himself still inside her. He looked down into her eyes and saw pain melt into pleasure and forced himself to ask, “You’re a virgin?”

She grabbed at him, her hands exploring his body so thoroughly he quivered under her touch. “Not anymore,” she said.

“You should have told me.” He was poised on the brink. So close to exploding that beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as he used every ounce of his self-control.

“Sex now, talk later,” she told him firmly, then lifted her hips, taking him in deeper, farther, so that he had no choice but to lay final claim to her body. “I had no idea,” she whispered, squirming beneath him. “This feels…amazing.”

“It’s about to get better,” he said, damning himself. No way was he going to stop. Not when she so clearly wanted this as badly as he did. Besides, the damage was done. No going back now. But damned if he’d have her first time be so bloody quick. Easing back, he touched her center, where their bodies joined, and she jerked beneath him in surprise.

“That’s it,” he told her, watching as her eyes blurred, her mouth worked and her breath huffed in and out of straining lungs. Her hips moved beneath him and Hunter had to call on all of his discipline just to maintain. But he wanted her to explode first. He wanted to see it, to know that he’d touched her as deeply as she’d touched him.

He touched her, rubbed that one, most sensitive spot, with excruciatingly tender strokes, and when she at last surrendered to the power of her own climax, he took his hand away, gave a few hard, fast thrusts and erupted into a climax so powerful it left him shaking like a broken man.

When he collapsed atop her, he felt her arms come around him, cradling him to her. And wrapped in her tenderness, filled with her scent, Hunter dropped into a dreamless sleep.

“You should have told me,” he accused when the first slice of sunlight slanted into the room.

Margie slowly opened her eyes, stretched languorously and looked up at the man hovering over her. “What?”

“About being a virgin,” he ground out. “You should have told me.

Barely awake, her body still thrumming with the pleasures he’d shown her, Margie smiled. “Would you have made love to me if I had?”

He scowled at her. “No.”

“Well, then,” she told him, reaching to slide one hand across his broad, muscled chest, “I’m glad I didn’t.”

Of course she hadn’t told him she was a virgin. It wasn’t exactly something a twenty-nine-year-old woman would be eager to share. Especially since the reason she’d held on to it for so long was that she’d wanted to be in love when she had sex for the first time. Now there was something Hunter Cabot would have zero interest in knowing.

But it was enough for now that she knew. Margie was in love, despite the fact that there could be no happy ending in this for her. Her mind knew that she shouldn’t fall, but her heart had taken the leap anyway. And there was no going back now. The deed was done. In more ways than one, she thought with an inner smile.

She could still feel Hunter’s hands on her body, the smooth slide of his flesh joining hers. The taste of his mouth, the hard rush of his breath as he raced to join her in completion. It had all been so much more than she’d ever hoped. And well worth waiting for.

“Damn it, Margie.” He caught her hand in his, holding it still. “Isn’t this situation already complicated enough?”

She pulled her hand from his, pushed herself up onto her elbows and gave a quick glance down at her own body. She was still naked. Never had put her nightgown-that wonderful thing-back on. She felt slightly wicked, lying naked in bed beside a man who oozed sexuality from every pore. And that wicked thought produced a few others, tumbling through her mind with unrestrained glee. Wow, she thought, unchain a virgin and then step back.

But if she wanted more of what he’d shown her in the darkness last night, it was clear by the look on his face that she was going to have to do some convincing. With her newly discovered feminine power roaring to life inside her though, she told herself no problem.

“It doesn’t have to be complicated, Hunter,” she said, arching her back slightly, elevating her breasts with their hard, pink tips, closer to him.

His gaze darkened and his jaw clenched. Good signs.

“What’re you-”

“We’re married, Hunter,” she reminded him, reaching out now to stroke her fingertips along his tight jaw until she felt that muscle relax under her caress.

Married. To the man of her dreams. The man who would soon be leaving her, she reminded herself. Instantly, she shut down that particular train of thought. She didn’t want to think about him leaving. She wanted to enjoy what she had now.

If there was one thing a foster kid learned early on, it was to live in the present. If you had a nice family, enjoy it while it lasted. If you had a present, treasure it. If you got an ice cream cone on a hot summer day, relish it. Because only God knew when-or if-something good might happen again.

“I’m your wife. You’re my husband. Why shouldn’t we…” She ran her hand down his neck, along his shoulder and down to one flat, male nipple. When she smoothed her fingertips across it, she was surprised-and pleased-to see him flinch at the sensation.

He trapped her hand under his, holding her palm to his chest, and Margie could have sworn she felt heat searing her skin from the contact. She loved touching him. Loved the feel of his hard, warm body under her hands. Loved knowing that she could push this incredibly strong man to the breaking point.

“It’s asking for trouble, that’s why,” he told her, his gaze locked with hers, as if he could scare her off by looking especially intimidating.

It didn’t work.

She lifted his hand, placed it on her breast and held it there. “It’s not trouble I want, Hunter. It’s you.”

Margie watched him fight an inner battle and knew she’d won when his fingers moved on her breast, tugging at her nipple, rubbing the tip in quick strokes.

Shaking his head, he muttered thickly, “I want you, too. So God help us both.”

He took her nipple into his mouth then and suckled her hard, deep, drawing on her breast as if his life depended on it. Margie sighed, arched into his mouth and bit down on her bottom lip as his mouth worked her tender skin feverishly. Her body trembled and quaked in eager response. She cupped one hand behind his head to hold him in place, loving the feel of his mouth on her. Loving what he could do to her with a kiss, a sigh, a touch.

Loving him.

Yes, she thought again, lowering her gaze to watch him suckle her, that was one thing she couldn’t mention. And wouldn’t. She loved him. This brash, arrogant, amazing man had stolen into her heart, and Margie knew she’d never get him out again. Knew she didn’t want to.

Hunter wasn’t interested in love, Margie told herself, even as his body and mouth took her back to that lush place of pure sensation. She knew he still didn’t really trust her and was anxious for this month and their “marriage” to be over. A man like Hunter Cabot would never love a woman like her-their worlds were far too different for any kind of bridge to span them.

So Margie decided to do all she could to make the most of what time she had with him. She wanted all of the memories she could build in the next few weeks. She wanted to be able to remember with perfect clarity how it felt to have Hunter Cabot’s hands and mouth on her.

She wanted the feel of his skin on hers imprinted on her mind so that it would never fade.

Reaching down, she curled her fingers around his hard, thick body and felt a wash of heat fill her as he inhaled sharply. Sliding her fingers up and down his shaft, she felt the power inside him and wanted it inside her. How had she ever lived without knowing the feel of him. How would she ever live without him?

No.

She pushed that thought aside and reminded herself that now was the only important time. She squeezed gently, deliberately, and he hissed in another breath through gritted teeth.

“Now. Need you now,” he murmured and pushed her over onto her stomach. His hands swept up and down her back, over her behind, cupping, kneading, and with every touch, Margie quivered like a too-taut bowstring about to snap.

Wicked, she thought wildly, turning her head on the pillow, feeling him slide his long, hard body over hers. Every caress fed the fires inside; every stroke of his fingers made her want more.

Then he lifted her hips, kneeled behind her and used his fingertips to open her for him. Her heat welcomed that first touch, and she whimpered his name as she closed her fists around the cool, silk sheets beneath her.

He pushed himself into Margie so deeply, so completely, that she gasped and shook with reaction. In this position, she felt so much more, felt him invade her higher and more fully than before. She pushed back against him as he rocked forward, and with every thrust, she felt him stake his claim on her more thoroughly.

Again and again, he pushed himself into her only to retreat and thrust harder the next time. She heard his breathing labor, felt his tension climb to the heights hers had reached, and still she wanted more of him. As he thrust into her, he leaned over her, braced himself on one hand and used the other to rub her center as his lips and tongue moved down her spine.

“Oh…my…”

When Margie’s body shattered, dissolving into tremor after tremor of sensation, she cried out his name and was only dimly aware of him reaching his own release, while emptying himself into her depths.

Finally, Hunter rolled to one side of her, drew her in close and Margie snuggled into him, content in the circle of his arms. His breath dusted her hair, and she sighed, absolutely happy for the first time in her life.

“Better than Bali?” he asked.

Surprised, she tipped her head back to look up at him. “You heard about that?”

He grinned and her heart turned over. “Are you kidding? It’s the first thing my friends ribbed me about.”

“Oh, God. How embarrassing.” She dropped one hand over her eyes, then peeked up at him from between her fingers. “At least I told everyone how good you were.”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “Thanks for that. So, let’s hear it. Was this better than Bali?”

He was teasing her. There was a light of humor in his eyes she’d never seen before, and Margie played along, enjoying this moment almost as much as she’d enjoyed the previous ones.

“Well,” she said, “I’m not sure. After all, a man on his honeymoon goes all out. Now that you’re just an old married man…”

He pulled her over to lie on top of him, then smoothed her hair back from his face with his hands. “You should know better than to challenge a Cabot.”

An hour later, Margie was thoroughly convinced that Hunter Cabot was every bit as good in real life as he’d been on her fantasy honeymoon.

The next couple of weeks flew by.

Hunter slipped into a routine he hadn’t seen coming and didn’t really mind. He was used to being active and now that his wound was mostly healed, he saw no reason to change that.

Every morning before dawn, he tore himself from Margie’s arms, left her sleeping in the bed that hadn’t seen a pillow wall since that first incredible night together and went for a run.

The roads were familiar. He’d run them as a high school athlete, he’d run them to prepare for boot camp and he’d run them on those infrequent trips home since joining the Navy. He knew every field he passed, every house with lamplight just beginning to glow through the windows, every turn and curve in the road. It was all as familiar to him as his own face in the mirror.

In the silence, Hunter’s mind was filled with thoughts he was normally able to dismiss or at least shove aside. But on narrow country roads, where his only company was the occasional bird sweeping across a brilliantly colored sky, there was too much time to think and no way to escape it.

He’d missed it here. For so long, he’d thought of Springville and the Cabot dynasty as a trap; he’d refused to allow himself to see the beauty of the place. The near blissful quiet. He’d immersed himself in the adventure, the risk, the duty of a job he believed in, and had avoided all thoughts about the place that would always be home to him.

Now, though, this place was calling to him so deeply that the call to adventure was muffled inside him.

And time was almost up.

Soon, he’d be returning to base. Back to the job that had been his life for more years than he cared to think about. Since he was recovered, he would be assigned to missions with his team again, and as that thought registered, he waited for the rush of adrenaline-tinged expectation he always felt.

But it didn’t come.

Frowning, he kept running, the sounds of his footsteps like a disembodied heartbeat thundering out around him.

It was Margie, he told himself. He’d allowed himself to be drawn into an affair he’d known from the first would be nothing but a mistake. And yet he couldn’t really regret it, even now. Even knowing that he’d be leaving, a divorce would be filed and he would, most likely, never see her again.

His scowl deepened and his pace quickened. His breath charged in and out of his lungs, and sweat rolled down his bare back. Where would she go? What would she do? And how would he ever know if she was all right?

“Of course she’ll be all right,” he muttered, disgusted with himself. “She’ll have five million reasons to be all right.”

There. Reminding himself that she was doing this for the money made him feel less like a bastard for using her. Because, really, who was using whom?

He didn’t even hear the car come up behind him until it paced him. Hunter didn’t stop, just smiled at the man rolling down his window to talk to him. “Morning, Sheriff.”

“Can take the man out of the Navy, huh?” Kane Hackett said with a grin. “Figured I’d find you out here running. You always did like this road for training.”

Hunter kept going, sparing his old friend a derisive glance. “And it figures that you’re driving the road, not running it. Out of shape, are we?”

One dark eyebrow winged up. “Not so’s you’d notice.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Have to go see Simon,” Kane said, his smile fading into a worried frown. “Figured it’d be best if you were with me when I did.”

That got Hunter’s attention. He stopped running, bent in half and took a few deep breaths before asking, “What’s going on?”

“There was a fire at the Cabot building in town last night,” Kane said.

“Fire?” Hunter grabbed the edge of the car window. “Anyone hurt?”

“No.” Kane shook his head. “The night cleaning crew went in; apparently one of ’em turned on a stove in the break room to make some tea. Left a towel too close to the burner.”

“Damn it.”

“That about covers it.” Kane waved him over to the passenger side door. “There’s damage to the first two floors, though, and I thought, well, Simon had the heart attack last year-”

Hunter was already moving. He climbed into the black-and-white SUV, buckled his seat belt and told his friend to drive.

“Well, how bad is it?” Simon wanted to know an hour later. The old man wore a faded blue robe, and his white hair was standing out around his head like cotton swabs on end.

“Kane took me by to see it for myself before he brought me back here to tell you,” Hunter said, remembering that Kane had left right after delivering the news, leaving it up to Hunter and Margie to watch out for Simon’s blood pressure.

Now as Margie poured Simon’s coffee, Hunter watched his grandfather warily for any sign the old man was going to clutch his chest and drop like a rock.

“And…?” Not dropping. Instead, the old man wanted answers, not coddling.

Hunter gave him a wry grin. Apparently, Simon was a lot tougher than any of them knew. “And, it’s a mess. The fire chief says no structural damage, but there’s plenty of smoke and water damage to make up for it. Most of the files are on the upper floors, so that’s good. We didn’t lose much.”

One corner of Simon’s mouth tilted upward. “No,” he said slowly, “I guess we didn’t.”

“Simon…” Hunter sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Freudian slip, huh?” Simon looked pretty pleased for a man who’d just been told his company headquarters had nearly burned down.

Hunter hadn’t meant “we” the way Simon had taken it. After all, the company wasn’t his baby. He was a SEAL. But touring through the damaged building with Kane at his side, Hunter had actually caught himself thinking about the reconstruction. And what changes might be made. After all, if they were going to have to do some remodeling, there was no reason they couldn’t do some updating as well.

Such as, for instance, making the break room larger. The area was so small now that it would comfortably hold only two or three people. The day care center Margie had instituted also had been ruined, since the room set aside for it was on the ground floor. Now that they were redoing it, he thought they should make it more kid friendly than the old room had been.

And the workers’ cubicles that were now twisted and melted should simply be tossed. Why lock people away into separate little stalls? It’s not as if cubicles gave people the sense of having their own little offices. All they really did was separate them from their coworkers, and what was the point in that?

“Hunter?” Simon prodded, “What’re you thinking?”

What was he thinking? Scraping one hand across the top of his head, Hunter muttered, “Nothing. No thanks, Margie. No coffee.” He put out one hand to stop the cup she held out to him. “All I want now is a shower.”

Then he left the room fast before his own thoughts could start marching in time with Simon’s.

“Well, well, well. Did you hear him?” Simon chuckled and took a sip of coffee that was mostly 2 percent milk.

“He doesn’t want to stay, Simon,” Margie told him. “Nothing you can say will change his mind. You know that.”

The old man’s white eyebrows lifted high on his forehead and wiggled around like two worms on hooks. “It’s not what I can say that’ll keep him here, Margie, honey-it’s you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re looking back.”

“Simon, don’t play Cupid,” she warned, not wanting the man she loved like a grandfather to be as heartbroken as she was going to be when this all ended.

He only chuckled again. “You’ll see…”

She sighed, took a sip of her own coffee and slumped back into the chair closest to Simon’s. Margie had seen the hunted expression in Hunter’s eyes before he left the room and knew that he was already regretting getting as involved as he had in the fire investigation. He didn’t want the life that was waiting for him here in Springville.

He didn’t want her.

Not beyond the tumbled hours they spent together in his bed, anyway. There at least, she knew he wanted her. Felt it in his every touch, his kiss. In the way he held her during the night and the way he turned to her when nightmares plagued him. But she also knew that at the end of the month, he would leave and let her walk out of his life.

Just acknowledging that sent a spear of pain darting through her heart, and Margie didn’t know how she would survive when that pain was her constant companion.