Tempting the Millionaire: An Officer and a Millionaire

She didn’t know what had prompted this, and she didn’t care. Since the first time he’d kissed her, days ago, she’d been dreaming about another one. And this kiss more than lived up to her fantasies. Her blood felt like champagne, bubbling into a froth that swam giddily through her veins. His tongue swept into her mouth, stealing her breath, filling her with a heat that felt overwhelming, mind boggling.

She gave herself up to it, and when her mind started whispering, she resented every taunting thought. What was he doing? Why was he kissing her? Was it all a show for the townspeople? And if it was, why now? Why tonight? He hadn’t seemed to care if anyone believed they were married or not. So what had changed?

And why do you care? that voice murmured at last. Did she really have to question this? Couldn’t she just, for once, enjoy the moment? Feel his arms around her and pretend, however briefly, that they were a real couple? Couldn’t she just convince her brain to take the night off and let her body lead the way?

Oh, yeah.

Lost in sensation, she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him everything he was giving her. And while she surrendered to the heat, she was only dimly aware of the thunderous applause rising up from the people surrounding them.

Margie couldn’t sleep.

How could anyone be expected to sleep when the bodies were simmering at a high boil and sexual expectation was humming along at a gallop? Hmm. Mixed metaphors. Probably a bad sign.

Apparently her “husband” wasn’t feeling any lingering effects from that kiss. His deep, even breathing sighed into the silence, telling her that at least one of them was going to get some rest that night.

Jerk.

With the pillow wall at her back, Margie tried to ignore the fact that Hunter had been ignoring her for hours—ever since that spontaneous kiss had ended. As if he somehow was blaming her for him kissing her. And wasn’t that just like a man? Right back to Adam in the Garden. It was all that woman’s fault.

She punched her own pillow and shifted position, trying to find a spot where the sheets didn’t seem to be scraping sensitive skin raw. Where she could hear the sound of Hunter’s breathing and not imagine that breath dusting her face as he loomed over her.

Moonlight sifted into the bedroom through the French doors and lay in a silvery blanket across the bed. In the dim light, she stared up at the ceiling and told herself she’d never fall asleep if she didn’t close her eyes. But then every time she closed her eyes, she felt Hunter’s mouth on hers again, so no sleep that way, either.

She folded her arms over her chest, pinning the sheet and quilt to her body and tried silently repeating multiplication tables. Maybe she could bore herself to sleep.

That’s when Margie noticed Hunter’s breathing pattern had changed. She listened harder, noticed the quickened tempo of his breaths, as if he were running in his sleep, and she went up on one elbow to peer over the pillow wall.

He yanked a field dressing out of his pack and wrapped it around his side in an effort to stop the bleeding. Damn lucky shot, he told himself, fury at the situation spiking inside him.

Should have been a simple recon mission. But he’d been cut off from his team almost from the moment they entered the target area. They’d had to break for cover; then he’d been trapped, forced to hide while the others stealthily made a break for it.

The SEALs never left a man behind, and he knew his team would be waiting for him. They’d never evac the country without him, but it would be up to him to make it to the rendezvous point. Which would have been a hell of a lot easier if he hadn’t been bleeding.

With pain his only companion, Hunter inched his way across a desert barren of any life but the enemy. He hid during the day, traveled at night. He rationed his water and was finally forced to dig the bullet out of his side with his own fingers. Days crawled past and tension, along with a fever, mounted. There were so many dangers, so many easy ways for him to die and be lost in this damn desert forever.

But he wouldn’t go that way, he told himself. He’d find a way out. Get back to where things were green. Quiet. Where he didn’t have to constantly expect the muffled explosion of a gunshot coming out of nowhere.

He wanted…In his sleep, Hunter heard a whisper of something soft, something comforting, and he turned toward it, instinctively reaching. Warmth surrounded him. A gentle touch smoothed his hair back from his face and whispered words of comfort swam through his mind, his heart. He reached for the source of that calm, for the ease it promised, for the balm he so desperately needed.

Gentle hands stroked his skin, and Hunter groaned at the sensation. He was back, he was out of the desert. It hadn’t killed him, after all. And here he was, with a warm, willing woman sliding her hands over his back, tenderly across his face, and he wanted that touch more than he wanted his next breath.

Coming up completely out of the dreamscape he’d wandered through, Hunter heard that whisper again, and this time, he recognized the speaker.

“It’s okay, Hunter,” Margie soothed, while her hands stroked him tenderly. “You’re okay. You’re safe. Come back.”

He took a slow, deep breath and drew her scent of jasmine deep into his lungs. His eyes cleared and he looked up into her grass-green eyes and felt something stir and shift inside him. The same something he’d fought all night after kissing her at the dance.

Well, he thought, staring up at her, feeling her hands on his bare skin, he was through fighting. He wanted her. Had wanted her for days.

And now he was going to have her.

Chapter 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.