Unexpected Legacy

Suddenly he looked as hungry as he did when he ate her food.

“Do you want me to hijack you?” he asked. “Want me to come after you? Is that why you’re leaving for Florida? Do you want me to give chase?”

His stare was so piercing and primal, he didn’t look weak or sick at all.

He looked predatory and male, and she felt fragile and female. Inside her, a dozen words rippled with the need to come forth.

I want you. Please give me your love. Yourself.

But how could she tie him up this way? Was this really the answer he wanted? Or was he seeking for her to appease him by saying that she didn’t need anything else from him? He’d given her so much already. For his whole life.

A sound of protest tore from her chest, and it sounded so sexual, Kate swallowed it back in horror.

He smiled slowly, almost seductively, as his thumb trailed down the curve of her jaw. “Cat got your tongue?”

Kate couldn’t think. Speak. Breathe.

His thumb went lower, and now slowly brushed over the sleeve of her dress. Then it trailed down her bare arm, the touch a shivery, silken whisper that made her insides quiver with yearning. Her heart galloped as pure need kicked in. His other fingers joined his thumb to caress the inside of her left arm, and her skin broke out in goose bumps as her lungs strained for air.

Garrett was quiet as he watched her reactions. She realized she hadn’t pulled away from his touch, but instead had leaned closer.

He slid the fingers of his other hand into her hair, softly tangling them inside the loose mass. He watched her with somber expectation, as though wondering if she would stop him.

She didn’t.

Oh, why didn’t she?

What on earth was he doing?

What was she doing?

Intense sexual thoughts began to flicker through her mind. Garrett’s lips, his beautiful body naked against hers...

Their gazes held, both of them silent, their eyes almost questioning but also on fire with desire. His breath, slow and deep and slightly uneven, bathed her face.

Suddenly, he tugged her dress up her thighs and then slid his hand under the fabric, up her panty-clad bottom, then up her back, his fingers slowly tracing the little dents of her spine.

Kate sucked in a mouthful of air.

She probably should stop him. She probably should. Instead, she trembled and bent to brush a kiss across his lightly stubbled jaw. Then she drew back and noticed that his eyes were closed, his face almost in an expression of pain. She cupped his jaw and kissed his forehead, her insides melting when he groaned, encouraging her, so that she kissed the tip of his nose.

His hands were suddenly on her hips. Pushing her away? No. He drew her over his lap, guiding her so that she straddled him, and suddenly his fingers stole under her panties to caress her buttocks as his nose slid down the length of hers. She should pull away, but she was breathless, waiting for something, anything, as he buzzed her lips with his. “Kate, stop me,” he said softly.

Five

Holy hell, what was he doing?

He blamed the seven freckles on her nose. They made him do stupid stuff.

He blamed the strep, the fact that he was on steroids, antibiotics and some strange tea his mother had made him this morning. He blamed the fact that Kate smelled like spring and raspberries. He’d never been so hungry, and he didn’t know if a thousand men could tear her away from his arms today.

He was fixated on her lips. It was surreal, so surreal, having Kate in his bed. “Stop me, Katie,” he found himself saying, as he continued to run his hands up and down her thighs, and grip her lovely bottom.

He wanted to squeeze her so tight he feared he’d break her bones. He shouldn’t be touching her buttocks, but he was too tired to fight the urge and too sick to care. They felt too good. She felt too good.

He’d wanted to do this since he’d seen her slide into those purple panties and he’d been haunted ever since. Why had she done that little striptease? He couldn’t stop thinking she’d wanted him to see her. She’d wanted him to want her.

And he did, he really did.

“You think I’m blind? That I don’t know?” he murmured against the top of her head. He drew back and stared into her face, noticing how soft her lips looked parted. “What you want is right here—and you’ll want it whether you’re in this room with me or all the way in Florida. You’ll want me.”

He didn’t know why he was testing her like this. But he wanted to see...

If she feels anything for me.

Anything even remotely resembling this madness that I feel.

He caught her closer when she squirmed and tried to push herself away. “You have no idea what I want!” she angrily spat.

“I know exactly what you want! I notice it every time you look at me, like I’m everything you’ve ever wanted. But I’m not, Kate. We both know I’m not. There’s not a day I don’t remember what I took from you—”

“Shut up, Garrett! You’re sick and...medicated and clearly out of your mind.”

He caught her back against him and stroked her cheeks as tenderly as he could, but knew his hands were shaking. “I know you’ll probably hate me for this, but I still won’t let you go to Florida. I want you close to me, where I know you’re safe.”

“I’m not asking for your permission!”

He frowned and stared into her beautiful shining eyes, wondering why he couldn’t have this girl, why he felt like he was poison for this girl.

“So you’ll make me follow you? Hmm? Is that what you want, Kate?”

She glared at him, and he couldn’t stand that little glare. He set a kiss on her forehead and rubbed her back under her dress, and she shuddered and pressed closer. Her need seeped into him, warming him to the core, until he felt like a torch was blazing inside of him. Blazing for her. He could feel her need of him like you’d feel rain pelting your back or the sun on your face. There were days when he could successfully ignore the pull between them, the undeniable chemistry. But tonight, his heart beat like a crazed drum for her. His muscles strained with aching desire. He could hardly stand not to touch her, felt dizzy with temptation, weak from fighting it.

“Do me a favor and say you’ll stay?” He nuzzled her face with his own. “Stay with your family. With me.”

His chest cramped as he thought about what he felt for her. What he felt for Kate was like a storm, and it was always there, consuming him from the inside, tormenting his every living moment.

Her voice sounded resentful. “Why? So I can keep on playing my Oscar-worthy role of the good little—”

He lost it. It was the anger and need in her voice, the closeness of her body. It was Kate. Driving him past the point of obsession, past the point of reason. He curled his hands around the back of her head and growled, “Damn you, the only one playing the role of a freaking wallflower, pretending not to want you like this, is me,” and his mouth pressed, scorching and hungry, against hers.

He hadn’t meant to kiss her. He hadn’t planned to crush her body against his and part her lips with his own. He hadn’t planned to hungrily push his tongue into her soft mouth, but he did all that, because he needed to. And when she responded by twining her arms around his neck and releasing a soft moan that nearly drove him to his knees, he did more.

He wanted her, wanted her more than air, more than food, water, anything.

Blood boiling in his veins, he grabbed her curvy buttocks and molded her body tighter against his as he twirled his tongue around hers, wildly tasting every inch of her warm, giving mouth. The kiss was fire, lightning, electrifying to him, surpassing his every dream and fantasy about her. Surpassing any other kiss he’d ever had.

He was thirty already, and he had never felt so out of control, gotten so carried away with a woman before. His arms, his legs, his every muscle shook uncontrollably with pure, raw lust, as if one mere taste of Kate alone was enough to make him addicted to her. And he was, he was addicted.

Her luscious flavor, the erotic little moans she poured into his mouth, stimulated his thirst to levels far beyond quenching. He wanted her so much he could eat her up alive and still not be satiated. He could lick every inch of her creamy skin and be still ravenous for more. Because she was everything he wanted and everything he couldn’t have. Dammit.

It took an inhuman effort for him to draw back, and he did it with a pained sound from deep within his throat.

“Kate, do you know what’s happening here?” He panted hard for his breath, and dropped his head, unable to resist her.

His hungry mouth opened wide around the fabric of her dress and he sucked hard, mindlessly, as his hand cupped her breast from beneath and squeezed the tip even farther out for him to suck.

“Garrett,” she gasped as he drew her nipple, fabric and all, deeper into his mouth.

He groaned in ecstasy, turning his head to nuzzle the tip of her second breast. “Kate, if you don’t want this—stop me...stop me now....”

She palmed his jaw and drew his mouth up to hers, searing him with her eager kiss, her lips trembling with desire.

He groaned and shut his eyes when she dragged her mouth up to kiss his nose, then his eyelids, and an out-of-control shudder wracked his large body.

He knew he was losing himself in the fragrant scent of her arousal, in the feel of her small body trembling against his, in the sound of tears in her voice. He should make her leave, so he could go back to hell. But some demon was shouting at him that he was losing her, that she would be out of his life in weeks, and suddenly he couldn’t take it.

“Three seconds,” he rasped as he opened his eyes, his hands unsteady as he cupped her breasts and used his thumbs to circle the budded peaks. “You have three seconds to tell me to stop.”

To emphasize his words, he gave her another branding kiss, praying that she would resist him.

And that somebody would just whack his head from behind, tie up his hands and gag his mouth, so that he didn’t use them all over her body like he was aching to.

Because he just couldn’t withhold his desire any longer. He didn’t care if he was going to hell. As far as he was concerned, he’d been living there for years, and every one of those years, he’d wanted her.

Yeah, he must be a devil to be here with this angel in bed, ready to have the best sex of his life with her. Ready to make the fantasies he’d had for hours and days and weeks and months and years come true for him. For both of them.

I’m going to hell and it will damn well be worth it.... “One,” he warned.

Kate only watched him, as though waiting for him to get to three to kiss him again. The thought made him grind out, “Two.”

She looked thoroughly kissed and ready to be taken. He’d never in his life wanted anything so much.

“Three.”

When she sighed in outward relief and never made so much as a move to stop him, he went crazy. He pulled her dress over her head and tossed it to the floor, then trailed his lips down her flushed face as his hands coasted down the sides of his newly revealed treasure. She was smooth, slim and curvy, and she made him want to kneel at her feet and revere her. Adore her. Make love to her until they died from it.

With a little sound of frustration, Kate reached to the waistband of his underwear and tugged down his boxer briefs.

He helped her, and once he was naked, rolled around immediately, almost crushing her with his weight as he flattened her back on the bed and held her by the hair. His tongue plunged into her mouth, flooding him with her essence, feeding his reckless thirst.

Her bare skin slid against his as she suckled his tongue, and the unexpected act triggered ripples of pleasure through his system. She rubbed her breasts against his chest while he slanted his head for deeper access to her. Crazy good. She tasted crazy, crazy good.

Warnings shot across his mind as he pulled open her bra. This was the time to stop, but he was past stopping.

He did not care about anything else except branding her, taking her to a place where there would be no talk of Florida, no talk of leaving; there would be nothing but the two of them. Together.

He shoved the fabric aside and exposed her nipples. Perfect and pink.

He cupped one in his big hand and licked his way down her throat, down to the pebbled nipple. He groaned at her taste, then slid his fingers between her parted thighs and easily yanked down her panties. Squirming restlessly, she pulled him up by the hair, to her lips, and kissed him while she breathlessly murmured, “Hurry.”

He cradled her head and angled her back for his devouring kiss. Murmuring her name softly, he blanketed her body with his, his erection nestling between her legs.

He ducked his head to nibble hungrily on her lips and reached between her legs again, stroking his fingers along her slick folds. She was so hot and wet. He groaned, then stuck his finger into her channel only to bring it up and stick that finger into his mouth, tasting her before he stroked and penetrated her again. “How long has it been for you?” he asked, her tightness closing around him.

“A long time,” she gasped.

“How long?” he pressed.

“Years.”

He closed his eyes as his chest swelled with emotion. Mine, mine, mine, he thought, noting how tight she was, how hot she was, as she rocked her hips to his caress.

The fact that she had also not been with anyone for a long time made him wild. He already felt dangerously close to orgasm as he added his thumb to caress her tender spot. He watched her toss and turn in pleasure, his erection throbbing painfully between his legs.

She’s going to be just yours from now on....

He couldn’t think beyond sinking himself inside her, taking something no one would ever take from her. Her sex was slick against his fingers as she curled her legs around him and locked her ankles at the small of his back, urging him on with a sensual rock and a breathless, “Please. Garrett, please, I hurt.”

She wants me so much she’s hurting for me....

Groaning softly out of pure sheer overwhelming need, he slid his hands up her arms and intertwined their fingers as he pinned her hands at her sides.

“Are you ready, Katie?”

Her voice got strangled in her throat, thick with need and desire. “Please, yes.”

His body tensed in anticipation as he teased his hardness along her entrance. She was slick and wet and swollen—so damned perfect. He closed his eyes and savored her body as he gently prodded her entry, inch by inch, slow and deep, releasing a growl of pure animal need. “Ahh, Kate.”

“Garrett,” she cried out and stiffened. A killer wave of red-hot ecstasy whipped through him, tensing his muscles that already strained for release.

He groaned when he realized he wasn’t wearing any protection.

“Kate...damn...”

She cried out when he dragged out, grabbing his shoulders and saying, “Don’t stop, don’t stop!”

He groaned in torment and eased back in, totally lost in her heat. The sound she released was slow and dark, as if the pain were morphing into pleasure. “Better?” he rasped.

He took her answering whimper in his mouth and kissed deeper until her body was writhing wildly underneath his.

He drove inside her once more.

Kate gasped, moaning out his name, and it was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard her say. And when she said, “More,” he snapped and began a frantic pace.

They kissed like crazy for several minutes, and then she clutched his hard shoulders and gazed up at him with cloudy blue eyes.

She was so damned beautiful like this—this was how he wanted to have her every night in his bed. Red hair. Coral lips. Rosy cheeks. Thickened, recently kissed nipples.

He didn’t even remember that his body hurt, that his throat was raw. All he knew was that Kate watched him, her breath rippling from between his lips as they moved together. All he knew was that he was shattering with pleasure as he gripped her waist and increased the pace. He thrust deeper, harder, lost in her grip, her heat, in her.

A knot of ecstasy pulled inside him and shot him off to outer space, and with three more thrusts, he pushed her past the precipice into an explosion that made her shout his name as he sank all the way home, spilling himself inside her.

For minutes they lay there, entangled and sweaty. He was breathless, sated and frankly, awed as hell.

He’d never felt so whole. He’d never made love like this. He shifted to look at her, then groaned at the sight of her languid body and dewy face, so beautiful and so taken.

“I’m sorry I lost control, Katie,” he murmured, kissing her cheek, loving how warm and loose she felt as she snuggled closer. “I should’ve worn protection. What day are you in your cycle?”

“I don’t know. Eight maybe,” she said, tucking her face in his neck, as if hiding from his prying eyes. “Please don’t worry, Garrett.”

“Eight. Is that even safe...?” Man. He’d been as careless and excited as an adolescent to touch her. Not using protection had been inexcusable, made his chest churn with disgust at himself. “Freckles, damn...”

She sat up and pushed his hands away, shaking her head. “Please just...please stop apologizing for it, Garrett. I wanted this to happen, so did you. We had fun, it was great, it’s done. There’s no need to get all serious about it, and there’s certainly no need for you to add it to your guilt bag.”

Garrett sat back, so stunned at her words, his mind came up blank. Guilt bag? So she thought he had a guilt bag?

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“It means it was no big deal! It was just sex. You’ve had it with millions of women and I plan to do the same with other men in the future. I don’t want you to apologize and I definitely don’t want you considering...thinking that it could possibly...everything is all right here, okay?”

“I’m trying to be responsible. If there are repercussions—”

“Stop! Just stop! Even if there were...”

“If there were, I need to fricking know before I enter into any sort of agreement with Cassandra Clarks!” he angrily barked.

Kate stiffened. “What do you mean? What agreement?”

His lips formed a thin, angry line.

“What agreement, Garrett?”

He groaned and raked a hand through his hair, then let his hand fall. “She wants to marry me as a condition for selling us her share of Clarks.”

“Marry...you?”

A thousand expressions crossed her face, until hurt ended up on the forefront, and Garrett felt like an ass.

“You! How dare you touch me when you’re thinking of...I would never marry for anything other than love!”

He winced as she angrily jumped out of bed and searched for her dress.

He’d just had sex without a condom and honestly? He didn’t even care.

He wanted her. He just wanted her. If it meant taking responsibility and doing something about it now, he would. But now it felt like the last thing she wanted was to be tied to him.

She’d basically told him that she thought the worst of him, that she wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on earth. Of course she didn’t want him. He’d mucked up her entire life, and if she got pregnant, he’d muck it up again, taking her dream of Florida away from her.

The realization hurt him so much, he could only watch her from the bed, wondering if he’d actually stayed away from her all these years out of duty, or because he was a coward and knew, deep down, that he just didn’t deserve her.

“Do you want some of the food I brought over, or should I just go home now?” she asked, and as if she’d already decided on the latter, she slipped back into her dress. Then she resumed searching on the floor for her panties.

He held them out to her with a scowl. “You were trembling in this bed with me, Kate. You. Begged. For me.”

“You’re right.” She covered her face with shaking hands, then plunged her legs into her panties. “I even started it.”

He was baffled. She looked very perturbed by the fact that she’d slept with him. He didn’t know what to make of it when he’d just felt her writhe beneath him, wet and wanton.

“No. I did, Kate. I started it,” he said, gentling his voice, standing up to embrace her. “Hell, I’ve been thinking about doing this with you since...”

Her eyes widened as though he’d just divulged something completely damning. “Since when? Since I said I was going to Florida? Ohmigod, are you trying to use sex to get me to bend to your will and stay here? Why else would you touch me when you haven’t your whole life!”

She suddenly looked enlightened, while he stared blankly at her, puzzled and confused. Her cheeks were reddening by the second, but Garrett was growing too angry at her accusation to care. “Kate, do you seriously believe I’m that cold and calculating?”

Did she think anything even remotely redeeming about him, and was there any chance in hell she could ever love him when she was holding their past against him?

“Of course I do! You’re a man who just confessed to be considering some sort of weird business marriage with some bimbo you barely even know!”

“She’s not a bimbo, Kate,” he said, just to be fair to Cassandra.

Kate’s cheeks went redder. “You still haven’t told me why you went behind your beloved’s back and slept with me.”

“Why don’t you first tell me why the hell you slept with me? Were you just horny or did you just pity me tonight, or were you apologizing for giving me strep?”

“Who do you think you are to judge? Garrett, you slept with me even while thinking of marrying some stranger in the name of...business. I swear that’s the most disgusting thing anyone’s ever done to me!”

“You’re just goddamned playing with me! You’ve teased me your whole life, parading around with other men! You just gave me a little taste of what I want, and once you got what you wanted, you’re ditching me!”

She glared and stomped to the door. “Go to hell!”

“I’m already there, Kate. It’s been my damned zip code since I was ten!”

As she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her, Garrett punched his fist into the pillow and yelled, “Goddammit!”

Six

“We’re sitting at twenty-eight percent today...” Landon said. As usual, the man droned on and on about business.

Garrett made it a point to occasionally nod as if he were listening while he scrolled through his last text conversation with Kate. He’d texted her in the middle of the night after the debacle of their argument four nights ago. He’d been lying awake at midnight feeling medicated and as low as a dog. All he’d needed was for someone to put a bowl of Alpo out for him. Instead he’d found her food in the kitchen, cursed himself over and over again, heated up his soup and chowed down on several muffins, then grabbed his phone and texted her. Despite the fact that it had been past one in the morning, she’d replied. Which meant she’d been lying awake, too, as sleepless as he was.

Thanks for my food. When can I see you? I want to talk.

Everything is fine. I’ve already forgotten about it.

Garrett wasn’t so stupid as to believe this, but had answered.

K. So I hear you’re getting your dresses fitted Wednesday. I’ll drive you.

Won’t your girlfriend get jealous?

I’d like to explain to you about her.

It’s fine. The fitting is at five so I’ll see you before then.

“Are you even listening, Garrett?”

He lifted his head to Landon’s confused gray gaze.

“Hmm? What?”

Landon scowled and then continued, raising his voice as though to be clearer. “Clarks...new strategy...”

So, Kate thought Garrett had planned it all?

How could she believe that he’d planned to get sick, so that he could get her to bring over some food for him, get her into bed, seduce her like some out-of-control adolescent and conveniently forget a condom so she might have to stay? Well, hell, it sounded so brilliant, he felt like an idiot for not thinking of it before.