Trouble in High Heels

Chapter Seventeen

Geoffrey woke up with another hard-on.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, rolling over and gingerly climbing out of the twin bed he’d slept in since he’d arrived at the ranch. He glanced down at his boxers and sighed. Lord help him, at this rate, he’d have a hard-on until he died. He scowled. Knowing his luck, his erection would last past his death. He could see it now. He’d be in his casket, cold and dead, with his penis still poking out, waiting, hoping for Maria to assuage his ache the way she did in his dreams.

He shouldn’t be thinking about her, he told himself as he pulled on a pair of jeans and headed down the hall to the shower. He was supposed to marry Lori. Lori was loaded. Lori was perfectly lovely, and Geoffrey had a special affection for her. Similar to the affection he had for his sister.

Scowling again, he turned on the shower and stripped off his clothes. For the three hundred and third time, he wondered what he was doing on this ranch. Yes, he knew his family needed money and he was expected to provide it. Yes, he knew that Lori was his best bet for achieving that goal, but it was still only a possibility.

Despite the uncertainty, he would be cleaning toilets today. Lori and Jackson were still out of town on business. In a different situation, he would feel offended that she hadn’t mentioned the trip to him. Instead, he felt relieved. If only he could find some relief from his obsession with Maria.

Hours later, after he’d completed cleaning duties and eaten lunch, Geoffrey wandered to the barn. He told himself he was just stretching his legs, but he wanted to catch a glimpse of Maria. He hadn’t seen her at all today.

He didn’t see any campers in the corral, so he suspected she might be in the barn or riding one of the horses. Walking into the dark, cool barn, he heard noise from the other end. The closer he walked, the more he made out her voice. Muttering in Spanish, she sounded displeased. He was relieved that for once her displeasure wasn’t directed at him.

He felt another surge of hunger burn through him. Everything about the woman oozed sensuality and womanliness, even her temper, God help him.

Rounding the corner to the tack room, he found her perched precariously on two boxes, struggling for a saddle out of reach. He watched her stand on tiptoe and shift her feet, which made the boxes shift.

Horror rushed through him, and he dove toward her to catch her. Too late. She cried out as she fell to the ground.

Geoffrey rushed to her side and searched her face. Her eyes were closed. His heart plummeted. “Oh, Maria. Darling, are you okay? Are you okay?”

She lay there on the floor as still as death. Terrified that she was seriously hurt, he gingerly touched her shoulder. “Maria. Maria, wake up.” He touched her face and lowered his ear to her lips, praying she was still breathing.

She was, but the fact that she was unconscious alarmed him more with each passing millisecond. He was so panicked he felt as if he were going to pass out. Geoffrey began to talk to himself. “Get yourself together. You’ve got to help her. She needs help.” He rose to his feet, reluctant to leave her. Should he pick her up? Should he-

Over his screaming loud panic, he heard a moan. He stared down at Maria. Had she made that sound, or had he? Biting his tongue, he listened and heard the sound again. Sinking beside her, he watched as her brow furrowed in pain.

His heart wrenched. Oh, no, she couldn’t be in pain. He couldn’t let that happen. “Maria, what hurts? Tell me what hurts.”

She moaned again, and her eyes fluttered open. “My head.” She winced. “Oh, my head.”

“Anything else?” he asked, desperate to help her. “I need to carry you to the house so we can get you proper medical attention.”

She frowned. “I don’t need a doctor,” she said and shook her head. She stopped suddenly, wincing. “I’ll be okay if I keep my head still.”

He could see she was downplaying her injury. “A visit to a doctor is imperative,” he said and slid one of his arms underneath her back.

Her eyes flashed open. “You’re not going to try to carry me, are you?”

Surprised at the note of fear in her voice, he paused a half beat. “Of course I’m going to carry you. You can’t walk the entire way. Don’t worry. I’ll carry you back to the house and then take you to a doc-”

She shook her head and winced again. “You can’t carry me.” She made a sound of exasperation. “I’m too big for you.”

Geoffrey sighed. She couldn’t be concerned about her weight. “That’s ridiculous. You have a perfectly luscious body.” He tugged gently to pick her up.

“Geoffrey,” she said, her eyes wide with alarm. “You’re too small. You’ll drop me.”

Geoffrey stared at her in disbelief. He’d thought she was self-conscious about her size. Instead she was criticizing his. Male pride rushed through every pore. “I am not too small,” he said, the words feeling as if they were shooting through his teeth like bullets from a machine gun. “I would be quite happy to show you just how small I’m not,” he continued, fuming. “And I will not drop you.”

Adrenaline and indignation roaring through him, he pulled her into his arms and stood. Stomping toward the house, he felt a feral growl shoot up his throat from somewhere deep in his belly.

“Geoffrey!” Maria’s eyes rounded in surprise. She was clearly shocked, however, no more than he. If he wasn’t wrong, he thought he spotted a glint of admiration in her dark eyes. If he wasn’t imagining things, she was looking at him differently.

He cleared his throat to keep from growling again. “So you see I’m perfectly capable of carrying you. You are not too large, and I am not too small.”

Five hours later, Maria lay in bed, with Geoffrey bobbing up and down every three minutes checking to make sure she was okay. In other circumstances, it would have driven her crazy to be stuck in bed, with someone fussing over her. If there was one thing Maria detested, it was feeling helpless. She would do anything to avoid it.

“I’m still breathing,” she said, feeling just a hint of Geoffrey’s breath on her cheek. “I fell in the tack room. I climbed on some boxes-”

“Which you’ll never do again,” he prompted with an edge to his voice. “You’ve nearly scared the life out of everyone.”

“You nearly scared the life out of everyone, carrying me to the house, yelling for help like I was bleeding to death.” She met his gaze, and a wave of tenderness washed over her, leaving her in a momentary state of shock.

Geoffrey studied her. “You look odd,” he said. “Are you in pain? You must tell me if you have any unusual symptoms.”

Symptoms like crushing over a pretty Englishman whose social status was stratospheres above her own. Not that social status had ever meant anything to Maria. But Geoffrey was different. So polite, yet urgent. So very passionate. How could she not be a little interested in the man? He’d written music inspired by her. She could tell he wanted her, and she couldn’t deny wondering what he was like as a lover.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly and reached for the orange juice on her bed stand.

“I’ll get that.” Geoffrey beat her to the chase and lifted the glass toward her, adjusting the straw.

She took a sip and looked into his eyes. “This is really unnecessary. I’m not sick. I’m not really hurt. You’re pampering me when I don’t need it.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” he said in that snooty uppercrust voice he used on very rare occasions. “More?”

She shook her head.

“Besides, from my point of view, it looks like you could do with some pampering. I may not be all that good at it, but I’d like to give it a try.”

Another rush of warmth coursed through her. The man was getting to her. She’d always made a point of enjoying men on her own terms but never, ever putting herself in a position of weakness. She’d been in that weak place when she’d lived with her father, and she had the scars to show for it.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like something else to eat? Or another pillow?” he asked. “How can I pamper the woman who works twenty-five hours a day?”

Her lips twitched. “There are only twenty-four hours in a day, and I sleep every night.”

“Hmmph. Could have fooled me. What can I do for you?”

She fought a rush of self-consciousness and decided to splurge. After all, Geoffrey was a delicious splurge. She knew he was the kind of man who would come around only once in a woman’s life, and soon enough, he would be gone. The knowledge cast a shadow over her enjoyment, so she pushed it aside. “I’d like you to read to me.”

He blinked. “Read to you.” He hesitated a moment. “Are you saying you can’t re-”

She laughed. “I can read. I just enjoy the sound of your voice.”

“Really?” he said, his voice breaking slightly. He cleared his throat. “Really,” he repeated in a deeper voice.

“Really,” she said. “It’s so-”

“English,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, unable to prevent a smile. “And it’s kinda sexy, too.”

His gaze latched on to hers, and she saw the desire flame. “You make it bloody difficult for this poor Englishman to keep his equilibrium.”

She looked at his hand balled into a fist of tension and lifted hers to cover his. “Are you complaining?”

“Is your goal to torture me? Do you enjoy making me sweat?”

She laughed and couldn’t keep a dozen wicked thoughts from her mind. “That’s for another night. Right now I just want you to read.”

“I think we missed late checkout,” Jackson said as he slid his fingers down Lori’s bare arm. Her skin was so pale and so soft that the sight and texture fascinated him. Her hair was a tousled mass of blonde waves, her eyes closed, and her mouth deliciously swollen and tempting. At the moment she was wrapped in a sheet, but he knew what was underneath. They’d spent the night in a blur of mind-blowing sex and catnaps that enabled them to rest long enough to go at each other again.

This amazing, effervescent, scorching-hot woman was his wife. The reality knocked him sideways again. The desire to take her again, to mark her as his, scared the hell out of him.

Even though they were lawfully wed, he shouldn’t feel this way about her. After all, it was temporary and it was business.

He felt a twinge at that last thought. Their business relationship had been blown to smithereens. He paused in stroking her bare skin.

“Don’t stop,” she said, lifting her arm so he would continue.

He smiled at her artless response. “I almost thought you were asleep.”

She shook her head.

“You know we’re paying for two rooms at the Bellagio when we’re only staying in one,” he said.

Her lips curved in a secret smile, and her eyes opened to slits of blue. “I saw how much you won at that blackjack table. You can afford it.”

Shaking his head, he slid his hand down to her bottom and lightly pinched her through the sheet.

“Hey!” Her eyes flew open. “What are you doing?”

“Pinching the princess,” he said without an ounce of remorse.

She met his gaze and slid her hand over his arm and tugged him closer. “Are you in a big rush to leave?”

His chest squeezed tight at her touch. “I could stay another night,” he said in a voice that sounded a little rough to his own ears.

“That’s nice to hear,” she said. “I hope it won’t be too much of a chore.”

“No chore,” he said. “But I almost feel like I should have trained for this.”

She gave a low laugh, and her eyes swept downward. “Did you ever think about what it would be like if you got married?”

“Maybe a few times,” he said. “But I’ve been wrapped up tight with school and my job for a long time.”

“No time for a wife,” she said, meeting his gaze.

“That’s right.”

“But when you did think about it, what were your thoughts?”

“I don’t know. That it would be nice to go to bed every night with the same woman. Nice to wake up with someone who wanted to be in my life and who I wanted to be with me. We could go places together, do things.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “Camping. Football games.”

She fell silent for several seconds, then blinked. “Camping?” she echoed, grimacing.

He chuckled. “Hey, that’s the male fantasy. I also thought it would be nice to come home to a hot meal and a hotter wife.”

“With a cook and housekeeper, anything is possible.”

He lifted his hand to her sassy mouth. “Okay, princess, what about you? Did you ever think about getting married? If you did, then what did you imagine?”

“I imagined going on adventures,” she said. “To Paris or Italy or New York City. Or a Caribbean island. I imagined spending holidays with my husband, with my sisters and brother.” She sighed. “And I imagined hot sex,” she said. “Lots of it.”

Jackson nearly choked over his shock at her bluntness. He cleared his throat. “I guess I can understand that, since you didn’t get a lot of opportunities to-” He didn’t want to finish that thought. It didn’t feel right.

“Get laid,” she said for him.

The woman was full of surprises. He lifted his hand to push a strand of hair from her face. “When we first talked about you getting married, you said you didn’t think you would want to have sex. Why did you change your mind?”

She slipped her hands over his shoulders and chest, then down his arms to his wrists. “Because I wanted to be with you,” she said. “And it seemed extra stupid not to be with you if we were married.”

“Why me?” he asked, craving her touch. “Why not some other guy?”

She bit her lip. “I don’t know. I just-”

“Just what?” he asked, feeling desire ooze through him again.

“I wanted to be with you. What about you? Why me?”

“Besides the fact that you’re beautiful and sexy?” he asked.

She beamed. “You really think so?”

“Every man really thinks so,” he growled and tugged her against him. He hated the sheet, but he craved her mouth beneath his. He kissed her, savoring her lips, and she responded, cranking up his arousal another few notches.

“I wasn’t asking about every man,” she said. “I was asking about you. Does that mean you like me a little bit?”

“Yeah,” he said, his heart turning an odd flip as he pushed down the sheet. “A little bit.”

“Can I be on top this time?”

He hesitated, feeling himself grow harder. “Top?”

“Yeah. I’ve never done that-”

If Lori wanted to be adventurous, then he definitely wanted to accommodate her. He immediately rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him. The view was divine. Her hair shimmered over her shoulders, and her breasts swayed inches from his mouth.

“I’m ready when you are,” he said.

Leaning forward, she braced her hands on his shoulders and positioned herself over him, pausing a few beats. Jackson held his breath and reined in the urge to plunge her down over him.

Mounting him, she enveloped his shaft, millimeter by wet, silky millimeter. When she had finally taken all of him, she took a little breath and whispered, “Wow.”

He gave a rough chuckle. “Yeah. Wow.”

She leaned down and took his mouth in a French kiss at the same time she undulated with him inside her. “I think I could like this,” she said, her breasts pressed against his chest.

He slid his hands over her derriere and groaned. “That makes two of us.”

The following morning, Lori awakened to the sensation of Jackson ’s breath tickling the back of her neck. His chest curved protectively against her back. His arm rested over her waist, and she felt as if she were in a delicious, sexy cocoon. Inhaling deeply, she caught a hint of his masculine scent.

She swallowed a moan of satisfaction. This felt delicious. She could grow to like this. After marathon lovemaking, they’d fed each other a midnight snack of cheeseburgers and chocolate cake. Afterward, they’d taken a shower together and crashed.

She heard a muted humming sound from somewhere in the room and wondered what it was. She carefully moved her head to glance at the bedside table to see if anything on top of it was off balance, but she didn’t see anything. The sound stopped for a few seconds and she relaxed.

It started again and she frowned. What was it? Slowly lifting Jackson ’s hand from her waist, she wiggled away, not wanting to awaken him.

“Are you always this squirmy in the morning?” he asked and pulled her back against him.

She couldn’t help smiling at his question. “Good morning to you, too. No. I’m not usually this squirmy in the morning, but there’s some kind of humming noise. I don’t know where it is, and it’s driving me crazy.” She paused and was very quiet. “Do you hear it?”

“Cell phone,” he said. “It must be yours. I turned mine off.”

“Oh,” she said, not wanting anything or anyone to intrude on the short time they had together.

“You want to check it?”

“Not really,” she said, turning toward him and burying her face in his throat.

“What are you afraid of, Lori Jean?” he asked, sliding his hand down her back. “I can tell something’s wrong. Your body is tense.”

“I’m not really afraid,” she said and closed her eyes. “I just don’t want to answer any questions about-” She took a breath. “About us.”

He tilted her chin upward. “Are you wishing you’d married the duke?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I just don’t want to deal with other people and their opinions right now.”

“Tell them to stuff it.”

“My sisters wouldn’t like that. And that’s probably not the best approach with the press.” She sighed against his throat. “The last two days have been so wonderful. Do we have to tell other people yet? Can we wait a little bit until we figure out how to announce it?”

“If that’s what you want,” he said, sliding his fingers through her hair. “If you don’t want a lot of attention, you’ll probably need to go back to the ranch.”

“That’s fine with me. Will you go, too?” she asked, searching his face.

“Yes, but I’ll need to resign from the firm soon and get started on the real-estate development I’m putting together.”

“That’s what you want to do with your husband money?” she said.

One side of his lips lifted in a dry smile. “Husband money,” he said and shrugged. “I guess that’s as good a description as any. But yes, I’m going to use the husband money to launch a midrange neighborhood development outside of Dallas, with pools, a park, shopping facilities, hopefully a school, and whatever else will draw in buyers.”

“Did I read somewhere that real estate is in bad shape now?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes, you did. But this would be for entry-level or second-time buyers. That’s the group who wants a chance at the American dream. I have contacts with mortgage companies and construction outfits. With this combination, I think I can give these people a chance at getting a shot at owning their own homes.”

He was so fervent, so positive. She admired his confidence and decisiveness and wished she had a fraction of it. “You sound like you have it all planned out.”

“A lot of it,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about this for years. I bought the property, and I’ve just been waiting for the opportunity to move ahead.” He met her gaze and gave a wry laugh. “I never dreamed I’d get the chance by marrying the hottest girl in Texas.”

Her stomach twisted and tumbled. It gave her a thrill to think that she could help make Jackson ’s dream come true. He was so strong, so independent that she couldn’t imagine him ever really needing her. “You would have found a different way to get your funding. I was just in the right place at the right time.”

“You have a lot of confidence in me,” he said, cupping her jaw with his hand.

“You’ve earned it,” she said and wondered if or when he would ever have the same confidence in her. If or when she would have the same confidence in herself.