This Heart Of Mine

Chapter 18

"It's nice that Kevin finally decided to spend some time with you. Maybe he'll agree to marriage counseling." Amy finished putting the strawberry jam cake on a Wedgwood plate and regarded Molly with her familiar pitying expression.

"We don't need marriage counseling," Kevin snapped as he came through the door with Marmie padding at his feet. They'd just gotten back from their gliding adventure, and his hair was windblown. "What we need is that cake. It's five o'clock, and the guests are waiting for tea."

Amy moved reluctantly toward the door. "Maybe if you'd both pray…"

"The cake!" Kevin growled.

Amy gave Molly a look that indicated she'd done her best but that Molly was hopelessly doomed to life without sex. Then she disappeared.

"You're right," he said. "That kid is irritating. I should have given you a hickey."

This was a topic Molly definitely didn't want to discuss, and she focused all her attention on arranging the tea tray. She hadn't had time to change out of her rumpled clothes or straighten her own windblown hair, but she forced herself not to fidget as Kevin took a few steps closer.

"In case you were worried, Daph… My ears have just about recovered from that scream."

"You were heading right for the trees. And I didn't scream." She picked up the tray and shoved it at him. "I squeaked."

"One hell of a squeak. And we weren't anyplace near the trees."

"I believe that our female guests are anxiously awaiting you."

He grimaced and disappeared with Marmie.

She smiled. She shouldn't have been surprised that Kevin was an experienced glider pilot, although she wished he'd mentioned it before they'd taken off. Despite their afternoon together, things weren't much better between them. He hadn't said a word about his interviews that morning, and she couldn't bring herself to ask. He'd also been strangely jumpy. Once she'd accidentally bumped into him, and he'd sprung away as if she'd burned him. If he hadn't wanted her with him, why had he invited her?

She knew the answer. After his confrontation with Lilly, he hadn't wanted to be alone.

The woman who was causing his turmoil slipped into the kitchen through the back door. Uncertainty was written all over her face, and Molly's heart went out to her. During the drive back to the campground, she'd brought up Lilly's name, but Kevin had changed the subject.

She remembered what he'd said earlier at the cottage. Am I supposed to feel this sudden attachment to her? Because I don't! It had been a pointed reminder that Kevin didn't like close attachments. She'd begun to realize how skillful he was at keeping people away. Oddly enough, Liam Jenner, for all his obsession with privacy, was less an emotional recluse than Kevin.

"I'm sorry about your cat," Molly said. "It was an impulse. Kevin needs lots of excitement." She traced the edge of the cut glass serving plate. "I want him to enjoy the campground so he won't sell it."

Lilly nodded slowly. Her hands slipped in and out of her pockets. She cleared her throat. "Did Kevin tell you about our conversation?"

"Yes."

"It wasn't exactly a rousing success."

"But not quite a failure either."

A heartbreaking flicker of hope appeared on her face. "I hope not."

"Football is a lot simpler than personal relationships."

Lilly nodded, then toyed with her rings. "I owe you an apology, don't I?"

"Yep, you do."

This time Lilly's smile had something more to it. "I was unfair. I know it."

"Darn right you were."

"I worry about him."

"And the damage a man-eating heiress might do to his fragile emotions, right?"

Lilly looked down at Roo, who'd come out from under the table. "Help me, Roo. I'm scared of her."

Molly laughed.

Lilly smiled then sobered. "I'm sorry I misjudged you, Molly. I know you care about him, and I can't believe you'd deliberately hurt him."

Molly suspected Lilly's opinion would change if she knew the circumstances behind their marriage. Only her promise to Kevin kept her from telling her the truth. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm on your side. I think Kevin needs you in his life."

"You'll never know how much that means to me." She gazed toward the door. "I'm going in for tea."

"Are you sure? The guests will be all over you."

"I'll manage." She straightened her posture. "I've had enough of hiding out. Your husband is going to have to deal with me one way or the other."

"Good for you."

By the time Molly reached the sitting room with a plate of cookies and another teapot, Lilly was chatting graciously with the guests who'd surrounded her. She had her heart in her eyes whenever she looked at Kevin, but he avoided looking back. It was almost as if he believed that any sign of affection toward her would somehow trap him.

Molly's childhood had taught her to beware of people who weren't emotionally open, and his guardedness depressed her. If she were smart, she'd rent a car and drive back to Chicago this very night.

An elderly woman from Ann Arbor who'd checked in earlier that day appeared at her elbow. "I've heard you write children's books."

"Not so much anymore," she replied glumly, thinking about the revisions she still hadn't done and the August mortgage check she wouldn't be able to write.

"My sister and I have always wanted to write a children's book, but we've been so busy traveling that we never can seem to find the time."

"There's more to writing a children's book than just finding the time," Kevin said from behind her. "It's not as easy as people seem to think."

Molly was so startled she nearly dropped the cookie plate.

"Kids want a good story," he said. "They want to laugh or get scared or learn something without having it shoved down their throats. That's what Molly does in her books. For example, in Daphne Gets Lost…" Off he went, describing with uncanny accuracy the techniques Molly used to reach her readers.

Later, when he appeared in the kitchen, she smiled at him.

"Thanks for defending my profession. I appreciate it."

"People are idiots." He nodded toward the baking supplies she was setting out for breakfast the next morning. "You don't need to cook so much. I keep telling you I can order from the bakery in town."

"I know. I enjoy it."

His gaze drifted over her bare shoulders and lacy camisole top. He lingered there for so long she felt as if he were running his fingers over her skin. A silly fantasy, she realized, as he made a grab for the biscuit tin where she'd just deposited the leftover cookies. "You seem to enjoy everything about this place. What happened to all those bad memories of summer camp?"

"This is how I always wanted a summer camp to be."

"Boring and lots of old people?" He bit into a cookie. "You've got strange taste."

She wasn't going to argue with him about this. Instead, she asked the question she'd been postponing all afternoon. "You haven't said anything about your interviews this morning."

He scowled. "They didn't go as well as I wanted. The first guy might have been a great chef once, but now he shows up drunk for interviews. And the woman I interviewed put so many restrictions on when she could work that she'd have been useless."

Molly's spirits soared, only to sink as he went on.

"I've got one more candidate coming in tomorrow afternoon, though, and she was great on the phone. She didn't even mind a Sunday interview. I figure we can train her on Monday and leave here by Wednesday afternoon at the latest."

"Hooray," she said glumly.

"Don't tell me you're going to miss falling out of bed at five-thirty in the morning?"

Amy giggled in the hallway. "Troy, don't!"

The newlyweds were getting ready to check in before they left. Every afternoon right after tea they raced back to their apartment, where Molly was fairly certain they jumped into bed and made very noisy love before they had to return to the B &B for the night.

"Lucky us," Molly muttered. "Now we can get lectured on our sexual inadequacies by both of them."

"Like hell." With no warning Kevin grabbed her, pushed her against the refrigerator, and crushed his mouth to hers.

She knew exactly what he was doing. And while this might be better than her hickey idea, it was a lot more dangerous.

His free hand caught her leg beneath the knee and raised it. She snaked it over his hip and curled her arms around him. His other hand dipped under her top and covered her breast. Just as if he had the right.

It was all for show. She told herself that as she parted her lips and let his tongue slip into her mouth. He felt as if he somehow belonged here, inside this one small part of her, and she wanted to kiss him forever.

The kitchen door thumped, reminding her they had witnesses. Which, of course, was the whole point. Kevin drew back a few inches, not even far enough for her lips to cool. His eyes never left her mouth, and he kept his hand on her breast.

"Go away."

A gasp from Amy. The thud of the door. The sound of quickly retreating footsteps.

"I-I guess we showed them," Molly breathed against his mouth.

"I guess," he replied. And then he started kissing her all over again.

"Molly, I-Oh! Excuse me…"

Another quick thud of the door. More retreating footsteps, this time Lilly's.

Kevin muttered a dark curse. "We're getting out of here."

His voice held the same note of determination she'd heard in television interviews when he promised to dominate Green Bay. He released Molly's leg. His hand slipped more reluctantly from her breast.

She'd gotten herself right back where she wasn't supposed to be. "I really don't think-"

"No more thinking, Molly. I'm your husband, damn it, and it's time you start acting like a wife."

"Like a-What do you-"

But Kevin was fundamentally a man of action, and he'd done enough talking. Shackling her wrist, he hauled her to the back door.

She couldn't believe it. He was abducting her to have__

Forced Sex!

Oh, jeez… Fight back! Tell him no!

She knew from watching Oprah exactly what a woman was supposed to do in this situation. Scream at the top of her lungs, drop to the ground, and start kicking her assailant as hard as she could. Oprah's authority had explained that not only did this strategy have the advantage of surprise, but it used a woman's lower-body strength.

Scream. Drop. Kick.

"No," she whispered.

Kevin wasn't listening. He was dragging her across the garden and along the path that ran between the cottages and the lake. His long legs ate up the ground just as they did when he was trying to beat the final whistle. She would have stumbled if he didn't have such a tight grip on her.

Scream. Drop. Kick. And keep screaming. She remembered that part. You were supposed to keep screaming the whole time you were kicking.

The idea of dropping to the ground was interesting. Counterintuitive, but it did make sense. Women couldn't compete with men when it came to upper-body strength, but if the male assailant was standing and the woman dropped… A shower of hard, fast kicks to the soft parts… It definitely made sense.

"Uhm, Kevin…"

"Be quiet, or I swear to God I'll take you right here."

Yes, this was definitely Forced Sex.

Thank goodness.

Molly was so tired of thinking, so tired of fighting what she wanted so much. She knew it was a lousy reflection on her personal maturity that she needed to believe that the decision had been taken out of her hands. Even crummier to regard Kevin as a sexual predator. But at twenty-seven she wasn't yet the woman she wanted to be. The woman she intended to be. By the time she was thirty, she was absolutely certain she would have taken charge of her own sexuality. But for right now let him do it.

They were bump, bump, bumping down the path, passing Fairest Lord Jesus, passing Noah's Ark. Lilies of the Field lay right ahead.

She reminded herself of Kevin's shortcomings as a lover and vowed she wouldn't say a word to him about them either during or afterward. He wasn't a naturally selfish person. How was he supposed to know about foreplay when he'd had all those women servicing him? And a little slam, bam, thank you, ma'am would be a good thing. Those feverish nighttime images that had been robbing her of sleep would finally fade in the harsh glare of reality.

"Inside." He jerked open the cottage door and gave her a push.

She had no choice in the matter. No choice at all. He was bigger, stronger, apt to turn violent at any moment.

Even for an imaginative person that was a stretch.

She wished he hadn't let her go, but she liked the way he'd braced his hands on his hips. And his glare definitely looked threatening.

"You're not going to start giving me crap about this, are you?"

This posed a dilemma. If she said yes, he'd back off. If she said no, she'd be giving him permission to do something she knew she should resist.

Luckily, he wasn't done being angry. "Because I'm sick of it! We're not kids. We're two healthy adults, and we want each other."

Why didn't he stop talking and just drag her to the bedroom? If not by the hair, then at least by the arm.

"I'm packing all the birth control we're going to need…"

If only he'd said he was packing a gun and he'd turn it on her if she didn't lie there and let him do what he wanted. Except she wanted to do a lot more than just lie there.

"Now, I suggest you march your little butt right to the bedroom!"

The words were perfect, and she loved the way he jabbed his finger toward the door, but the expression in his eyes was beginning to look less like anger and more like caution. He was getting ready to back off.

She hurried to the bedroom. She couldn't make too much of this, couldn't let it be too important. She was a beautiful slave girl forced to give herself to the ruthless (but gorgeous) man who owned her. A slave girl who needed to get her clothes off before he beat her!

She pulled off her top so that she was standing before him in her bra and shorts, which weren't really shorts but gauzy harem pants. Harem pants he was going to rip from her body if she didn't take them off first.

She bent her head and kicked away her sandals. Then she pulled her shorts-harem pants-over her legs and cast them aside. When she looked up, she saw her owner standing in the bedroom door, a slightly befuddled expression on his face, as if he couldn't believe it was going to be this easy. Ha! Easy for him! He wasn't staring death in the face!

She was wearing only her bra and panties. Lifting her chin, she gazed at him defiantly. He might possess her body, but she'd never let him have her soul!

He moved toward her, his confidence restored. Of course he was confident. She'd be confident, too, if she had an army of guards stationed right outside the door, ready to drag a disobedient slave girl to her death if she didn't submit.

He stopped in front of her and gazed down, his green eyes raking her body. If she'd left her top on, he would have torn it off with his dagger… no, his teeth!

He burned up her skin with those imperious eyes. What if she didn't please him? Such a merciless master demanded more from her than simple submission. He demanded cooperation! And (she'd just remembered) he'd vowed to have her dearest friend, the gentle slave girl Melissa, tortured to death if he was displeased. No matter how it destroyed her pride, she must satisfy him!

To save Melissa.

She lifted her arms and cradled his magnificent jaw between her hands, desperately trying to gentle this barbarian. She leaned forward and pressed her innocent lips to his cruel ones-cruelly, cruelly… sweet.

She sighed and teased him with the tip of her tongue. When he opened his mouth, she invaded. How could she do anything else when she had poor, gentle Melissa's life to protect?

His hands splayed over her bare back, moved up to the clasp of her bra. Her skin quivered. The clasp fell open.

He gripped her shoulders and took over the kiss. Then he tugged off her bra and cast it aside.

His mouth left hers. His jaw scraped her cheek. "Molly…"

She didn't want to be Molly. If she were Molly, she'd have to grab her clothes and put them right back on, because Molly wasn't self-destructive.

She was only a slave girl, and she bowed her head submissively as he drew back and gazed down at her naked breasts, now exposed to his predatory emerald eyes. She shivered and waited. Cotton rustled as he drew his T-shirt-his silken robe-over his head and tossed it aside. She squeezed her eyes shut when he pulled her against him, his conqueror's chest pressed to her naked, defenseless breasts.

Tremors swept over the sensitive skin as he began to nibble kisses, like a golden slave's collar, around her throat, then down to the breasts that no longer belonged to her. They were his. Every part of her body belonged to him! Her knees grew weak and sagged. She wanted this so much, but she needed desperately to hold on to her fantasy.

Master… Slave girl… His to do with as he wished. Mustn't anger him… Let him-oh, yes-extend the trail of kisses over her ribs to her navel, her stomach, gliding over her hipbones as his thumbs caught the elastic on her panties.

Concentrate! Envision those cruel lips! Those cutting eyes! The dreadful penalty the slave girl would pay if she didn't ease her legs open so he could slip his hand between them. Her merciless master… Her savage owner… Her-

"There's a bunny on your panties."

Even the most creative mind couldn't have held a fantasy together against that dark, husky chuckle. She glared at him, then grew uncomfortably conscious that one of them still wore a pair of khaki slacks while the other wore only a sky blue pair of bunny panties.

"What if there is?"

He straightened and rubbed his fingers over the front of the panties, making her shiver as he gave the little bunny a pat. "Just wondering."

"They were a present from Phoebe. A surprise."

"They sure surprised me." He nuzzled her neck while he continued patting her bunny. "Are these the only ones?"

She sucked in her breath. "There… might be a few more."

He splayed his other hand across her bottom and massaged. "You got the badger dude on any of them?"

She did. Benny, with his cute little badger mask. "Could you stop… talking… and get back to… ahh… conquering."

"Conquering?" He slipped one long finger beneath the elastic leg band.

"Never mind." She sighed as he rubbed. Oh, that was wicked. She eased her legs open and let him go where he wanted.

And he wanted to go everywhere.

Before she knew it, her panties were gone, along with his clothes, and they were naked on her bed, too impatient to pull down the quilt.

Their play turned serious much too soon. He gripped her shoulders and pulled her on top of him-the servicing position. She wiggled up his body, caught his head in her hands, and kissed him again, hoping to slow him down.

"You're so sweet…" he murmured in her mouth.

But he was impossible to distract. He caught the back of her knees and spread them over his hips. Here it came. She braced herself for his thrust and bit her lip to keep from yelling at him to take his time, for Pete's sake, and stop acting as if the ref just blew the two-minute warning!

She'd promised herself she wouldn't criticize, so she sank her teeth into the hard muscle of his shoulder instead.

He made a low, hoarse sound that might have been pain or pleasure, and the next thing she knew she was on her back and he was hovering over her, those green eyes wicked.

"So the bunny lady wants to play rough?"

With two hundred pounds of muscle? Oh, I don't think so.

She started to tell him she'd only been trying to distract him so he wouldn't be so quick on the trigger, but he shackled her wrists and made a dive for her breast.

Ahhhhh… It was torture. Agony. Worse than agony. How could one mouth cause so much havoc? And she didn't ever want it to stop.

He brushed his lips over the slope of her breast. He grazed the nipple, moved to the other breast, where he did the same. Then, without warning, he began to suckle__

She writhed against him, but he didn't release the wrists he'd imprisoned in one hand. Leaving the other free to roam.

It meandered from breast to belly, then lower, brushing through the curls. But that proved to be a tease because he quickly moved on to her inner thighs.

They fell open.

He stayed where he was.

She twisted, trying to force those tantalizing fingers away from her thighs to the part of her that throbbed so much she thought she would die.

He didn't take the hint. He was too busy tormenting her, too busy playing at her breasts. She'd heard that women could have orgasms just from this, but she hadn't believed it.

She'd been wrong.

The shock wave caught her by surprise, thundered through her, and pitched her into the sky. She didn't remember crying out, but she heard the echo and knew she had.

He slowed. She shuddered against his chest, breathed him in, tried to understand what had happened to her.

He stroked her shoulder. He kissed her earlobe. His whispered breath tickled her hair. "A little quick on the trigger, aren't you?"

She was mortified. Sort of. Except it had felt so good. And been so unexpected. "An accident," she managed. "And it's your turn."

"Oh, I'm not in any hurry…" He picked up a lock of her hair, drew it to his nose. "Unlike some people."

The sheen of perspiration on his skin, the way he pressed against her thigh, told her he was in more of a hurry than he wanted to admit. A very big hurry. Funny… she hadn't remembered that about him. Not exactly. She remembered that it had hurt. And now that she thought about it, there'd been a moment when she'd thought she might be too small.

No time like the present to find out if that was true.

She scooted on top of him.

He scooted her back off. Dawdled at the corner of her mouth. When was he going to get to the slam, bam part?

"Why don't you just lie back and rest for a while?" he whispered.

Rest? "Oh, I definitely don't-"

He caught her shoulders, nestled his thumbs in her armpits, started that trail of kisses again. Only this time he kept going.

Before long his hands were at her knees, pushing them far apart. His hair brushed her inner thighs, so sensitive now that she quivered. And then he claimed her with his mouth.

The gentle suction… the sweet thrusts… She couldn't breathe. She caught his head, pleading. Her hips buckled as the waves seized her once again.

This time when she'd calmed, he didn't tease her. Instead, he grabbed the condom she'd forgotten about, eased his body over hers, and gazed down with those green eyes. His skin was hot beneath her hands, and the blaze of late-afternoon sun streaming through the window burnished him with molten gold. She felt his muscles quivering beneath her palms as the effort to hold back became too much for him. Still, he gave her all the time in the world.

She opened… stretched to accept him.

He filled her slowly, kissing her, soothing her. She loved him for the careful care he was taking, and slowly, her body accepted his.

But even when he'd buried himself, he didn't ram at her. Instead, he began a slow, silken thrusting.

It was delicious, but it wasn't enough, and she realized she no longer wanted his restraint. She wanted him free and wild. She wanted him to luxuriate in her body, to use it for his pleasure. Wrapping her legs around him, she grasped his hips and urged him on.

The leash he'd held on his self-control snapped. He plunged. She moaned and met his thrust. It was like being burned in a fire of the senses.

He was too big for her, too strong, too fierce… Absolutely perfect.

The sun burned hotter until it exploded. They flew together into a brilliant crystalline void.

He'd never made love to a woman with a bunny on her panties. But then, there was a lot about making love with Molly that was different from anything he'd experienced. Her enthusiasm, her generosity… Why should he be surprised?

Kevin slid his hand over her hip and thought about how good it had been, even though she'd acted strange at first, almost as if she were trying to convince herself to be afraid of him. He remembered the way she'd stood before him in her bra and bunny panties, with her head high and shoulders back. If an American flag had been waving behind her, she'd have looked like a very sexy Marine Corps recruiting poster. The few, the proud, the cottontailed.

She stirred in his arms and snuffled her nose against his chest, burrowing like one of her storybook pals. But despite the snuffling, the burrowing, and the bunny panties, Molly had been every inch a woman.

And he was in big trouble. In one afternoon, he'd undone everything he'd been trying to accomplish by ignoring her.

She slid her hand from his chest to his belly. Here and there the last shafts of sunlight glazed her hair with little reddish sprinkles like the ones she'd used on yesterday's sugar cookies. He forced himself to remember all the reasons he'd tried so hard to keep her at a distance, starting with the fact that she wasn't going to be part of his life much longer, which could very well piss off her sister, who happened to be the owner of the team he intended to take to the Super Bowl this year.

He couldn't think about all the ways a team owner had of making it tough, even for her star player, not right now. Instead, he thought about how much passion had been locked up inside the small, quirky body of this woman who was and wasn't his wife.

She snuffled again. "You're not a bust-out. As a lover, I mean."

He was glad she couldn't see his smile, because giving her even the smallest advantage generally meant he ended up swimming in the lake with his clothes on. He settled for sarcasm. "I sense a tender moment coming on. Should I get a handkerchief?"

"I just mean that-Well, after last time…"

"Don't tell me."

"It was all I had for comparison."

"For the love of-"

"I know it's not fair. You were asleep. And unwilling. I haven't forgotten that."

He tucked her closer and heard himself say, "Maybe it's time you did."

Her head shot up, and she looked at him with a million emotions on her face, the main one being hope. "What do you mean?"

He rubbed the back of her neck. "I mean, it's over. It's forgotten. And you're forgiven."

Her eyes filled with tears. "You mean it, don't you?"

"I mean it."

"Oh, Kevin… I-"

He sensed a speech coming on, and he wasn't in the mood for any more talk, so he started making love to her all over again.