Mail Order Cowboy (Harlequin American Romance) (21 page)

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Authors: Pamela BAUER

BOOK: Mail Order Cowboy (Harlequin American Romance)
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“I think they have a surprise planned for us,” Wood told her when Hannah would have protested them leaving.
He pulled her by the hand over to the carriage, where, spread out on the ground was a plaid blanket. In the center was a bottle of champagne, two flutes, a knife and the smallest wedding cake Hannah had ever seen.
Wood tugged on his ear. “I had a feeling the two of them had something up their sleeves.”
“We don’t have to stay out here,” Hannah told him, feeling ridiculously embarrassed by the setup.
“You don’t think they might feel bad if we...” His voice trailed off, as he waited for her to say something.
“I suppose they might.” Hannah shifted, annoyed and uncomfortable. “Are you thirsty?”
“My mouth is a bit dry,” he confessed.
“Mine, too. I guess we might as well drink the champagne.”
He shrugged. “Sure, why not?” He reached for the bottle. “I’m not sure I know how to open this.”
Hannah noticed a hand towel folded neatly beside the glasses. “You need to work the cork carefully.” She handed him the towel. “Put this over the top in case it pops.”
Despite his insistence that he would probably spill it, Wood managed to open the bottle with little fuss. He filled both of the flutes, then made a toast.
“To us.” His eyes held hers as their glasses clinked together, and Hannah, although she hadn’t even taken a sip, felt effervescent inside.
“Mmmmm. It’s good,” she said, quenching the dryness and appreciating the warm fuzzy feeling the liquid produced.
“More?” He held up the bottle and she shoved her glass in his direction.
“I didn’t eat much dinner,” she confessed, the champagne relaxing her.
“You want to eat the cake?”
Hannah giggled. “Why not?” She dropped down onto the woolen blanket, her skirt puffing out all around her. “I feel like Cinderella.”
“Cinder who?”
Hannah took another sip of champagne. “Cinderella. I thought everyone knew about Cinderella.”
“Not me,” he admitted.
“She’s this poor girl who can’t go to the ball until her fairy godmother changes her rags into a beautiful gown.”
Wood cut a sliver of cake. “Was Gabby your fairy godmother?”
“She wanted to be. That’s why I’m wearing this dress and you’re wearing that tux and we have the carriage and this—” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm that encompassed the champagne and cake picnic.
“We have no plates or forks,” Wood told her, a piece of cake in his hand.
“Don’t need any. The groom is supposed to feed the bride.” She leaned toward him, her mouth wide open, inviting him to place the cake in her mouth. However, as he was about to shove it in, she swayed, and he missed his target. Icing glazed her cheek and outlined her lips.
Hannah giggled. “You don’t have very good aim, Wood. Here. I’ll show you.”
She cut a piece of the cake and said, “Open wide.”
He did as she instructed, but she deliberately missed his mouth, smearing the cake on his chin. “Oops!” She gave him an impish look.
“Very funny,” he drawled.
Hannah laughed as his tongue snaked out to lick the frosting from his face.
“Now what do we do? We have no napkins.” He swiped at his chin with the back of his hand.
“Nope.” She reached for the hand towel and waved it temptingly in front of him. “Just this towel.” When he would have reached for it, she snatched it away, hiding it behind her back. “I think I like the way you look with cake on your face,” she said impudently.
“Give me that towel, Hannah,” he ordered her, but she paid no attention.
“Uh-uh. Have some more champagne, Wood. It’s really good.” She took another drink while her other hand remained behind her back.
A devilish fire lit his eyes, but she paid no attention. “Don’t make me take it from you, Hannah,” he said in a dangerously seductive voice.
She should have heard warning bells. Maybe she did hear them and paid no attention. At any rate, she was unprepared for the speed at which Wood’s arms wrapped around her waist in an attempt to get the towel.
“Come on, Hannah. Give it up,” he coaxed as the two of them playfully tumbled onto the blanket—she holding fast to the towel, he trying to pry it loose from her fingers. They wrestled like a couple of teenagers fighting over a loose football.
Knowing her defenses were being stormed, she used the only tactic she had. “Ouch, you’re hurting me,” she cried out, feigning pain.
He immediately loosened his grip on her, allowing her time to slide out from beneath him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...” He began to apologize only to realize she was laughing, not crying.
“Why, if that wasn’t the most low-down, dirty...” He started to crawl toward her, like a lion stalking its prey.
Aroused by the look in his eyes, Hannah said, “I told you, Wood. Chivalry will get you nowhere.” She inched her way backward until she reached the edge of the blanket.
“Are you saying I should just take what I want?”
Although she knew she was playing with fire, Hannah couldn’t resist asking, “What is it you want?” She dangled the towel in midair. “This?”
With one quick grab he snatched the cloth from her hand and tossed it aside, his eyes never once leaving her face. “You’re tempting me, Hannah.”
“Tempting you to what?” she taunted.
“To forget that I promised not to touch you.”
She hooked her hands over the back of his shoulders, unconsciously offering herself to him. “Is that why you didn’t kiss me when the minister pronounced us husband and wife?”
“Did you want me to kiss you?”
“Not if it would have been fluttery and soft like this.” She barely brushed his mouth with hers, “Then, no. That’s an obligatory kiss and I don’t want any man to feel obliged to kiss me.”
“No chivalrous kisses?”
“Definitely not.”
“What if it had been a wild and hungry kiss given only because the man couldn’t resist making you his?”
She trembled at the thought, her lips quivering, her breasts having. That slight movement was all it took for Wood’s resistance to abandon him. He captured her mouth with his in a kiss that sealed their marital contract. For Hannah it was an exquisite torment, as the intimate exploration of his tongue made her long for another gratification.
She found herself at the beginning of a passionate journey, being pulled along by emotions that refused to listen to anything but the seductive pull of anticipation. Wood’s hands ignited a flame she had forgotten burned deep inside her.
Even though her body rubbed against his, she couldn’t get close enough to satisfy the craving for his touch. Moaning softly, she encouraged the exploration his hands made as they traced patterns of intimacy in places she thought would never know the pleasure of a man’s touch again.
She wanted more, much more than the kisses that only fueled her growing desire for him. Frantically she forced open the buttons on his shirt, loving the heat that greeted her fingers as they roamed across his bare flesh. When her hands found the waistband of his trousers, he shuddered.
“Does this mean you don’t want our marriage to be in name only?” he asked huskily.
Just when Hannah thought she was on the brink of surrender, his words snapped her back to reality. She snatched her fingers away, as if they had been burned.
He tried to recapture the moment, saying, “It’s all right. I don’t mind. Hell, I want you so bad I ache.”
Hannah rose to her feet, turning her back to him. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. If we hadn’t been drinking the champagne...” She fumbled with the buttons that had come undone on her dress.
“I want to return to the home place,” she told him, avoiding his eyes.
Wood felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. For just one moment he had thought that they might have truly celebrated their union. Now he could see that she wanted nothing to do with him other than to have his name on the marriage certificate.
They said little on the way home. Once they were back at the house, Wood saw how wrong he had been to think she wanted anything more from him. Hannah was as brusque as she had been the first day he had arrived at the farm. Gabby was the one who showed him where he would sleep—for it had been decided that he would take the loft in the house. Hannah’s husband couldn’t sleep in the bunkhouse, and for all appearances he needed to be Hannah’s husband.
Wood undid the buttons on the stiff shirt, remembering how Hannah’s fingers had slipped between the pearly fasteners, sending a river of fire through his blood. He kicked off the rented shoes and sank down onto the bed, wondering what was going through her mind at that very moment. Was she thinking about how close they had come to consummating their marriage?
If only he hadn’t asked that stupid question.
Does this mean you don’t want our marriage to be in name only?
Why couldn’t he just have let things happen? Because he wasn’t used to women taking the aggressive role in sex. Although it had caught him off guard, it had also excited him. But then nearly everything Hannah did aroused him.
As he hung up his jacket, he remembered the box inside his pocket. He had meant to give it to her during their champagne picnic, but he had forgotten about it in the heat of their passion. He stared at the silver wrapping paper. Iridescent foil, was what the clerk had called it. All Wood knew was that it was unlike any paper he had ever seen—just as Hannah was unlike any woman he had ever known.
If only he could find the key to her heart. Instead of sleeping alone in the loft, he could be spending the night with his bride. That’s where he wanted to be. In her arms, with her warm body next to his. He closed his eyes. If he didn’t stop thinking about her, he would never be able to sleep.
But then why should he? It was his wedding night. No, it was
their
wedding night. And they needed to settle something once and for all. He was tired of her body saying one thing and her mouth saying another.
Barefoot, he padded down the stairs to the second floor. It was dark except for a narrow strip of light beneath Hannah’s door.
With a sharp rap, he called out in a whisper. “Hannah, open up.”
When she answered, she wore a flimsy, pink nightgown that gave a certain part of Wood’s anatomy a quick jolt. She made no attempt to cover up, but simply said, “Is anything wrong?”
He swept her up into his arms, kicking the door shut with his foot. As he carried her to the bed, he kissed her, his mouth hungrily demanding a response. Her lips opened, inviting him to take what he wanted.
Into a tangle of sheets their bodies fell, shifting and gliding until they were stretched out side by side. He was all over her, loving the taste of her. Starting at her neck, then her shoulders, pushing aside the flimsy pink nightgown to find a rosy nipple. Velvety sighs of pleasure encouraged his tongue to caress her hot flesh.
With one easy movement, she lifted the garment over her head and sent it sailing to the floor. She grinned at the sensual surprise in his eyes. If he had thought she was sexy in her tight trousers, naked she took his breath away. Although he could have marveled in her beauty, she was not about to lie idle. She planted a trail of kisses over his face and throat, then unzipped his trousers. As he kicked his way out of the legs, her hands made a journey of discovery across his stomach, up and down his thighs until they found their target.
Never had Wood met a woman who behaved so boldly in bed. He trembled as she wrapped warm fingers around his erection.
“I love what you do to me,” she murmured huskily.
“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that?” His breath came out shakily as she stroked his swollen flesh.
“You make me feel like a woman.”
“That’s never been a question in my mind,” he said, as once more he took a nipple into his mouth, his tongue circling it delicately.
Slowly he caressed her burning flesh, tracing her rounded curves, gliding downward to the center of her desire. As his fingers found her moist, intimate spot, she quivered and arched her body invitingly. Whimpers of pleasure urged him to explore her wetness, the sensitive folds of flesh inviting his touch.
With a brazenness he found irresistible, she guided his swollen flesh into her, moaning as the intensity of his need thrust him deep into her center. They melted together, their bodies suspended somewhere in time as the ageless rhythm of a force neither could control took over.
Their bodies raced in search of pleasure, forward and back in an incredibly sweet blending. She pulled him deeper and deeper, melting his heart, melting his soul. There was nothing else in the world that mattered except the exquisite sensations of being one with her. It was a journey to another dimension, one he didn’t want to see end. But neither one could stop the rush of ecstasy that ruled their actions, pouring out of them in an overwhelming urgent need. Just when he thought she had sent him over the edge, he felt something he had never felt before, an explosion so magical it shook his entire body.

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