She looked away from him and tugged her hand free. He didn't let it stop him.
"Being brutally honest here, Matty. I never gave a thought to how my folks would react."
Her gaze slanted back to his face.
"It wasn't exactly out of sight out of mind, but they might not see it that way," he admitted
He ran his hand through his hair. It wasn't that he didn't care about them. He'd known from a pretty early age that whatever their differences, he was damned lucky to have parents who loved him the way they did. And he loved them back, even when they drove him nuts. So, how come he hadn't given them a thought?
"Look, Matty, I'm not meaning to sound harsh or uncaring in saying They'll get over it. But they truly will. Eventually." She winced at that word, and he hurried on. "On the other hand, the damage has been done. Telling them now won't make it any better than if we play this out the way we planned and let them think in the end that the marriage just didn't work out."
She faced him, but her eyes were full of doubt.
"Look at it this way, if we tell them now, they've only had a couple days of being happy about it before they know the truth. If we go ahead like we'd planned, they'll have a couple of good years they wouldn't have had otherwise."
She giggled.
It wasn't the response he'd expected. Matty could be darned hard on a guy's ego. Here he'd been all earnest and trying to think of his parents and she was giggling.
"Now what?" he asked in resignation. "I didn't say a single word that could make you think of me as Snidely Whiplash."
"No, but you make your parents sound like a pair of old cowponies you've turned out to pasture to enjoy their twilight years."
He chuckled. "If that image works for you."
"They'd hate it." She was trying to stifle her amusement, without much success.
"Yeah, they would." He grinned unrepentantly, partly because he knew his parents wouldn't mind the teasing even if they knew about it and mostly because it eased the knot in his gut to see the pain lift from Matty's eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
" 'Morning," Dave's voice rumbled at her.
Matty stopped dead in the small hallway between the guest room and the closed door to the master bedroom, missing another nose-to-collarbone encounter with him by less than an inch.
Only this time the collarbone was naked.
She'd gotten up earlier than usual this morning because they'd agreed last night that they would both prefer to be out of the house before Pamela Dobson arrived for her first tour of cleaning duty since the wedding.
But she hadn't counted on how long it would take her to make the bed so its appearance would match Pamela's precision corners.
Instead of scooting to the bathroom past a sleeping Dave with most of a good-size room between them, she was trying to ease past the upright version in a hallway about the size of a closet.
An upright version that had tousled hair, a dark shadow of beard stubble, and wore only navy blue boxer shorts. At least she wore pajamas of jersey knit that couldn't be seen through and that covered her from a decorous V-neck of the cap-sleeve top to her bare feet.
" 'Morning." At least that's what she'd intended to say. She cleared her throat and tried it again, this time with passable success.
"You headin' to the bathroom now?"
"Yeah, yeah, I am."
She turned sideways, trying to avoid contact with him. But he stood there, looking as if he might be about to fall asleep again. How could he manage to make her think of both a dangerous bandito and an oversize sleepy toddler simultaneously?
"Uh, Dave?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you going to move so I can use the bathroom? And maybe you should go make the coffee now? Strong coffee?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, coffee." He gave her a sleepy smile, rubbed one palm against his chest absently and turned partway to the side to let her pass.
Only his coordination or his depth perception or something seemed to be off, because instead of clearing each other, his naked chest rubbed across the entire length of her right arm, from shoulder to elbow, and most of it along bare skin.
It felt exactly the way a jalapeno pepper tasted. An explosion of hot and spicy, yet somehow, for all that heat, a trace underneath of something impossibly sweet.
She fled.
It wasn't graceful and it wasn't particularly dignified, but it was necessary. She hoped he was too sleepy to recognize her flight for what it was.
She half sprinted to the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her, dumping the clothes she'd been carrying clutched to her chest onto the counter.
And in the mirror she saw the evidence of what she'd already felt—the tips of her breasts tightening to telltale points. From the time she'd recognized desire for Dave, her breasts had always responded this way. Even before they'd made love for the first time, he'd taught her both torment and pleasure by his attentions to that sensitive flesh.
She locked the door. Not against him–Dave would never intrude that way. Maybe she locked it against her own irresponsible thoughts.
She sat on the edge of the tub, and avoided looking at herself in the mirror, rubbing her opposite hand over the tingling skin of her arm, and drew in a deep breath.
Trouble was, that breath seemed to pull into her senses the musky scent of Dave that she'd first inhaled when they'd nearly collided in the hall.
The scent of a warm, vital male, newly awakened. Just the way he would smell if a woman woke up with her head on his bare, broad chest. Hair tousled and cheeks roughened by sleep, while his eyes were soft and lazy. Just the way he would look if he rolled over in bed to rumble that " 'Morning."
She'd never had those experiences.
Six years ago, with both of them living at home, the acres of their two ranches had offered privacy and protection. But they had never had an opportunity to spend a whole night together. When he'd gone off to college, Grams had refused to let Matty visit him on campus. And when Matty had started college herself–at a different school, and several hundred miles apart–he'd been awash in studying as he'd started law school and her money had been too tight to allow for road trips.
She used to daydream about what it would be like to spend an entire night with Dave. To wake up together in the morning. To have his arms around her. To watch those long, thick lashes flicker up, and see those hazel eyes sleepy and relaxed.
Then to start the day together. Maybe watch him shave. Certainly to take a shower together. And then go back to bed and spend an entire day on a firm mattress and soft sheets.
"Matty?"
She jumped, more at his voice than the knock at the door.
"What?"
"How much longer you going to be? Pamela's going to be here in twenty minutes."
Matty mumbled a curse, looked at her watch, and repeated it louder. Where had the last half hour gone? Only her rear end, now numb, seemed to have sensed the passage of time.
"You better use the hall bathroom."
"Geez, what have you been doing in there?"
Fear swept through her that somehow he might be able to read her thoughts through the door. She knew it was irrational, but knowing didn't stop it.
"None of your business," she snapped. "The deal was I got the bathroom first. No time limit. You agreed, so there's no sense–"
"All right, all right. I'll use the hall bathroom. Boy, sounds like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."
She refused to consider what side of what bed would have put her in an entirely different frame of mind this morning.
* * * *
"Hey, Matty!"
For a moment he thought she was going to keep going. She must have set a speed record for eating breakfast and some other sort of record for escaping Pamela Dobson without the other woman spending at least an hour unearthing any secrets she might be harboring.
After he'd given up on getting into his own bathroom and used the hall bathroom, he'd rushed. But he still hadn't be
aten Pamela's arrival. Or her eagle eye.
That's why he wanted to talk to Matty. But when he came out the office's exterior door, she already had Juno roped up and was leading her to the barn where Matty's rig was stored. In a matter of minutes she'd have Juno bridled and saddled, and would be on her way.
"Wait up. I need to talk to you."
He could almost hear her exasperated sigh, but at least she stood still and waited until he reached her in the open area between the corral gate and the barn doors.
"What do you want?"
"You can start by quitting directing that lethal frown at me."
"Why?"
"General principle? Peace on earth, good will toward men?"
"Dave, I have too much to do today—"
"Want to tell me about it?"
"No." She glanced at him, bit her lip and softened that some. "At least not yet. If the grant comes through and some other things work out...but there's no chance of that happening if I stand around wasting time on this nonsense–"
"Peace on earth nonsense? No, wait." He snagged her arm as she started to turn away at his teasing. "How about because we have an audience. Don't look. That's right, look at me. Pamela's watching us from the kitchen window. And she could give a hawk lessons."
If anything, Matty's frown deepened. "So? That's pretty much standard operating procedure for Pamela."
"Right. So's adding two and two and coming up with twenty-two."
He shifted so he blocked the kitchen window's view of Matty's all too revealing face. Loosening his grip on her, he ran his hand up and down her upper arm.
"Dave, I really have a lot to do today, so if you could hurry this up, I'd–"
When she tried to pull back, he held on to her arm, hoping it still looked like a gesture of affection instead of a wrestling hold.
"Pamela got here early—which we probably should have figured on—and she saw me coming out of the hall bathroom with my shaving kit. She didn't hesitate to ask why I was using that bathroom instead of mine. I said you were in there, and you liked your privacy. She harrumphed, and said if we'd wanted privacy we shouldn't have gotten married. And then she gave me one of those two-plus-two equals twenty-two looks."
"Are you telling me that from seeing you come out of the bathroom, Pamela Dobson's concocting..." She'd started off scoffing, but by the time her words trailed off, she sounded worried. "Maybe we should go back in and, uh, say something. You know call each other darling and stuff."
She made it sound like such an extreme measure that he found himself grinning.
"You think your acting skills are up to it, Matty?"
"I can do anything I have to do." He wondered if she had any idea that she'd squared up to him like a patriot facing a firing squad when she said those words.
"How about a little pantomime?"
Wariness was in her eyes, in the tilt of her head and in her voice as she asked, "What do you have in mind?"
"Giving Pamela an explanation she'll believe–and all without saying a word."
"You've clearly got an idea, so spill it, Currick."
"If she thinks we've had a fight, that would explain your desire for privacy and my using the other bathroom–might even explain it if you didn't do a perfect job of making the guest bed."
"Great idea!"
"Except, since you just sent me a thousand-watt smile–" One that had threatened to melt his backbone. "–it's obvious the fight's over. And you know what the other half of making up is."
"I don't–."
"You did say that keeping up appearances was part of our deal."
"Sure, but–"
"Well, this is one way to make sure word gets around that we're a normal, newlywed couple. Having spats, and then making up. For appearances' sake, of course. Unless," he paused artfully, "you're scared or maybe you're afraid you can't handle kissing."
"Can't handle it? That's ridiculous. I have no reason to be scared. It was no big deal at the reception and it's no big deal now. It's exactly the same thing. A necessity."
Necessity? That's all she considered those kisses? Okay, she didn't love him anymore, but that was going too far.
He'd been treating her with kid gloves, but maybe it was time to make her admit that she'd responded as strongly to their kisses the day they got married as he had.
"You know what they say about necessity," he started in a husky murmur as he stepped in, crowding her. He could see her urge to back away in the faint tensing of her muscles, but she stood her ground. To make sure that didn't change he cupped his palms gently around her head.
"No, I don't know. What do they say about necessity?" It was a dare.
"It's the mother of invention."
He curved his palms closer to her skull, drawing her toward him. He wanted to read what was in her eyes, but her lashes dropped over them.
He expected resistance, or at least reluctance, as he brushed his lips across hers.
Then Matty moved.
She put her hands over his–and still he didn't know which way this would go.
She dropped Juno's reins and came toward him.
Their mouths flirted with kissing, brushing and teasing. A touch to her top lip, a whisper at the corner of his mouth, a hint of invasion at the seam of her lips.
Then she angled her head and the kiss shifted from a butterfly to a dragon. With heat and claws and power.
Without volition his hands tightened on her, needing to be closer, wanting to be deeper. The invasion became real as his tongue demanded entrance. She hesitated only long enough to make him sweat, then her lips parted.
Oh, the taste of Matty. A sound came from him, a sort of growl, and he didn't care.
It was different from their you-may-now-kiss-the-bride kiss. This wasn't impulse and instinct. This time he'd intended to kiss her and she'd known it was coming. It was no accident.
She couldn't pretend this didn't exist. She couldn't ignore the dragon that kept roaring to life when they touched.
With the combustion gobbling up their oxygen, he broke the kiss only enough to drag in two lungfuls. Then he took her mouth again.
With his body rioting to lie her down on the ground and make this real, the unraveling ropes of his discipline could be trusted only enough to let his hands cup her head and his mouth mate with hers. Her hair pulled loose from the braid to slide silk over his fingers. Her mouth drew him into a universe of hot, damp satin.
Then her tongue stroked into his mouth, and the blast of heat that coursed through him was like being incinerated from the inside out. He'd have no complaint for the rest of his life if he could experience that feeling, oh, say, twenty times a day.
Another sensation tapped at his consciousness, but it was outside the haze of desire so it took an extra minute for it to penetrate.
Matty's touch had changed. Her hands no longer simply covered his, but had slid to his wrists and were exerting pressure to release herself from him. He delved hungrily deep into her mouth once more before easing his grip enough for her pressure to have effect, but he cooperated no more than that, and he made no effort to untangle her hair where it snagged around his fingers, pulling more from the braid.
She drew back, as if she hated to leave him, smoothed his hair back at his temple, then glided her palm down his cheek, his throat and to his chest, which was rising and falling in fast, heavy breaths. She smiled at him, mistily, besottedly.
"That should take care of the necessity of satisfying Pamela," she said in a voice that should have been reserved for the most private of endearances.
Then she turned and continued toward the corral.
Dave stayed where he was.
Sure, he didn't want to face Pamela yet. Besides, it wouldn't hurt any to let her think he wanted to watch Matty's jeans-clad rear end as she grabbed Juno's reins and headed for the barn. He'd simply look like a new husband who was waiting for the opportunity to wave goodbye to his wife. Instead of a man who was in no condition to walk.
<
br /> You know what they say about necessity.
No, I don't know. What do they say about necessity?
It's the mother of invention.
He'd intended to push her. He'd intended to prove to her that she wasn't as immune as she wanted to think.
Instead, it had been Matty who'd invented a new form of torture.
And then she'd walked away like it was all acting.
Was he totally wrong? Was he the only one who felt this?
If so, he'd agreed to two years of hell on earth.
* * * *
Feeling the burn of Dave's eyes on her back–no, throughout her whole body–Matty used all her stubbornness to walk normally until she was well inside the dim barn.
She ducked into the empty stall where she'd been storing her saddle and other gear and, now out of his sight, sank back against the rough wall with a hand spread wide over her abdomen–as if that would stop the somersaults or put out the fire.
Fire was exactly what she'd been playing with.
If she hadn't ended that kiss when she had...well, Pamela would have had plenty to talk about in town, and most of it X-rated.
He'd been goading her, and she'd intended to let him know she wasn't afraid of him, wasn't afraid of any lingering...whatever between them. She could handle it. She was no longer the young girl who had never kissed anyone other than him, much less any more intimate activities. She'd lived in the world for six years, and she'd experienced it. She'd had romances. Not as many as he had, but a few.
Definitely not as many as he'd had, because he'd learned some things she'd swear he hadn't known before–and that she still didn't know. Like that kiss.
None of her romances had kissed her like that. None of them had made her feel as if his mouth on hers was the most important thing in the world, and answered every question she'd ever had.
She hadn't bargained for that when they'd entered into this deal. She'd been thinking strictly about the Flying W's welfare. Hadn't she?
She shook her head. It didn't matter now. She'd asked for this token marriage and he'd agreed. How and why were far less important than the facts of the matter.
She'd wanted to teach him a lesson. But she was the one who'd flunked.
She couldn't pretend there wasn't still chemistry between them. But chemistry had never been the problem. There'd been plenty of chemistry between them right to the end; a sizzling kiss that would have gone a lot farther if he hadn't backed away and told her he thought it would be a good idea to see other people.