Do You Take This Rebel? (15 page)

“Don’t be absurd,” Emma snapped. “You don’t deserve to be treated like this, abandoned on your wedding night.”

“You, of all people, know why we got married. This wasn’t a love match.”

“Oh, of course it was,” Lauren retorted, haughtily dismissing the claim. “And the sooner the two of you realize it, the sooner you can get on with the business of being married. Cole’s just being bullheaded.”

“I lied to him,” Cassie reminded her.

“And you’ve apologized. Jake’s in his life now. Cole needs to get over the past and move on.”

“Otherwise, I’ll be down at the courthouse first thing tomorrow filing for an annulment,” Emma threatened.

“I think I’m the one who’d have to do that,” Cassie teased, amazed at how much better she felt knowing these women were on her side. That they knew the whole story—or most of it—and loved her anyway.

Emma frowned. “You know what I meant. He is not going to get away with tormenting you.”

Karen, silent up until now, reached for Cassie’s hand. “Do you still love him?” she asked quietly.

“Of course I do,” she said without hesitation. Only in the past few days with misery building at the distance between them had she realized just how much.

“Have you told him that?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’d throw the words back in my face.”

Karen shook her head. “I don’t think so—but so what if he does? You just keep saying ’em till he gets the message. Don’t let pride stand in your way, Cassie. Life is too short to waste a single second of it.”

The message was powerful enough on its own, but coming from Karen, who’d so recently lost her beloved husband, it carried additional weight.

“Talk to him,” Karen insisted. “And do it now. Hanging around here with us isn’t solving your problem.”

Cassie wasn’t so sure about that. Being here with her friends had given her a sense of peace. Karen’s advice had solidified her resolve to make this marriage work. She stood up and gave each of her friends a hug.

“You guys are the best,” she said. “I knew if I came here I’d feel better.”

“Now go back there and give him hell,” Emma said.

“Tell him you love him,” Karen corrected, poking Emma in the ribs.

Emma sighed. “Whatever. But call me if you want to nail the guy’s hide in court.”

“Emma, you really do have to learn to express yourself less subtly,” Gina teased. “No one can ever figure out what you’re thinking.”

“Emma’s just a passionate defender of the underdog,” Lauren said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s why she’s so good in court. Now leave her alone.”

“Yeah, leave me alone,” Emma said. “I’m not the same little wimp you guys used to walk all over.”

“Really?” Gina asked with exaggerated shock.

Cassie chuckled at all the bantering and left Karen’s with her heart lighter and her determination renewed. No matter how long it took, she was going to win Cole’s heart again.

Unfortunately, as the first weeks of her marriage crept by with no thawing of Cole’s attitude, Cassie slowly sank into despair again. Though the three of them—she, Cole and Jake—frequently shared meals, Cole made it a point never to be alone with her. Their conversations were limited to plans for the house and anything concerning their son. He didn’t discuss his work or his days, and he never asked about hers. The wall between them was getting thicker and thicker with each passing week. She began to think it would take a wrecking ball to break it down.

Thankfully, though, Cole’s chilly attitude didn’t extend to Jake. The time he spent with his son, making up for all the lost years, was the only thing that kept Cassie going. Their bond was growing stronger day by
day, and Jake was flourishing with all of the male attention.

Coming back to the hotel after her shift at Stella’s, which she had refused to give up, she glanced into Cole’s office and saw them, their heads bent over the computer keyboard. Jake was peppering Cole with a thousand questions, which he answered with an endless supply of patience.

Cassie sighed heavily. Would her own relationship with her husband ever reach that stage again? Would there ever be the easy camaraderie they’d once shared? Only one thing gave her any hope at all. Despite Cole’s cold attitude, she could tell that he still wanted her. From time to time she caught him watching her, his gaze hooded. On occasion he reached out, as if to touch her, only to withdraw without making contact. It was evident that the embers of their passion hadn’t entirely cooled.

Even without Karen’s advice still ringing in her ears, she knew she had a choice to make. She could endure this marriage and keep her pride, or she could risk her heart to change it. She had opted for pride once and nearly lost everything. This time she wouldn’t make the same mistake.

Sex wasn’t love, but it was a means of communication, an undeniable form of intimacy, of sharing. Slowly she would turn Cole’s desire into need.

And over time she prayed she could turn it into love.

C
assie was driving Cole crazy. First there had been the constant hurt in her eyes, which left him filled with guilt.

Then there’d been unmistakable signs of anger. That had stiffened his resolve, prepared him for a battle that hadn’t come.

Now lately she had been doing everything in her power to seduce him. The changes were keeping him dizzy and off balance, wavering between guilt and yearning.

He’d tried telling himself that this last, sly attempt to seduce was merely wishful thinking on his part, but there was no mistaking the intent of her glancing touches, the subtle perfume, the suddenly provocative attire on a woman who’d always preferred denim to lace. She wanted him and she intended to get him, by fair means or foul.

And he, blast it all, was losing the battle. How could he hold out against a woman he’d spent the past ten years wanting?

“Cole?”

“Hmm?” he responded distractedly. When she stroked his cheek with a lingering caress, his gaze shot up. Where had she come from? She rarely entered his room without knocking, but here she was, lips moist, color high. He eyed her suspiciously. “What?”

“Do you have a minute?” she asked, her expression all innocence as her hand fell away.

She was wearing white shorts and some skimpy little triangle of fabric that pretended to be a blouse. Aside from a few bows holding it all together, her back was bare, as were her feet. Rather than her usual pale-pink, she had painted her toenails a kick-ass-red. Staring down at those erotic little toes, he lost his train of thought completely.

“Cole, do you have a minute?” she repeated, amusement threading through her voice.

“I suppose,” he said uneasily. “Is there a problem with Jake?”

“No. He’s fine. He’s spending the night with my mother. He won’t be back till after lunchtime tomorrow.”

Uh-oh, he thought. They were alone. She was in his room, not her own, and she was wearing that sexy scent again, the one that made his pulse pound.

“The house?” he asked, sounding a little desperate even to his own ears. He cleared his throat. “Is there a problem with the house? I, um, I could call the contractor.” He reached for the phone, clung to it as if it were a lifeline.

She smiled. “Nope. It’s coming along right on schedule.”

That left what? he wondered, battling panic as he reluctantly set the phone aside. What the dickens did she want? Besides him, of course. Oh, she definitely wanted him, he concluded, meeting her gaze and discovering the heat there.

“Then what’s on your mind?” he asked, resigned to a really tough test of his willpower.

She edged closer, sat on the corner of his desk, her gaze locked with his, her very bare thigh nudging his. Even through his own jeans, he could feel the temperature of her skin soar. His body reacted predictably with a rush of blood straight to his groin.

This was a dangerous game she was playing. He wondered if she realized it. One glance into her smoldering eyes answered that. She knew, all right. And she was enjoying every single second of making him sweat, of watching him struggle with himself to do the right thing. She was deliberately trying to blast his conscience right out of the water.

“Cassie?” he prodded, a hitch in his voice.

A purely female smile came and went. “I’m not making you nervous, am I?”

Nervous? Hell, no. He was coming unglued. He was about to go up in flames.

“This…” He cleared his throat yet again. “This isn’t wise.”

He sounded like a cranky, sixty-year-old prude. Evidently she thought so, too, because she chuckled, a low, throaty sound that danced down his spine like a flame.

“Really? Why not?”

“Do I really have to explain it?”

She regarded him thoughtfully for a second, then nodded. “Yes, I think you do.”

“Because we have issues,” he began, then all but groaned. Not a sixty-year-old prude. Maybe ninety—and a stiff-necked psychiatrist to boot.

She nodded, acknowledging what he said, but she didn’t look swayed. Nor did she budge one millimeter away from his thigh.

“Care to talk about them?” she asked, her tone only mildly curious.

Now there was a loaded question, if ever he’d heard one. If he said yes, he would be opening up the whole blasted can of worms he’d been trying so hard to ignore. If he said no, he was pretty sure she had some other way for them to spend the time.

He swallowed hard, cleared his throat, then shrugged. “What’s the point?” he asked, proud of himself for coming up with a third option, an evasion that might annoy her enough to convince her to leave.

“Oh, I don’t know. It might clear the air,” she said, sounding amused perhaps, but definitely not annoyed.

He, however, was getting downright irritable. Her attitude was exasperating. Her proximity was arousing. The conflicting messages were roaring around in his head…and elsewhere.

“It. Would. Not. Clear. The. Air.” He bit the words out from between clenched teeth.

She swung her legs, deliberately letting her calf brush his. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, her expression serious, even thoughtful. “We won’t know unless we try.”

He narrowed his gaze and studied her. “Is that what you really want?” he asked skeptically. “A nice, polite
discussion, a chance to make a few excuses, maybe even some promises?”

A spark of anger flashed in her eyes, and he thought for a second she might really explode, tell him to take his sarcasm and shove it. Instead, she leaned over until her gaze was level with his, until he could feel the soft whisper of her breath against his cheek. His heart raced.

“No,” she said in that same quiet, intense tone. “This is what I want.”

Before he could even catch his breath, her mouth was on his, sweet and urgent and hot. Her tongue skimmed his lips, then slid inside, tangling with his. And Cole was pretty sure his entire body was going to go up in flames.

For one tiny, fleeting second, he considered a protest, ordered himself to utter it, in fact, but the moment passed in a frenzy of need.
This
was what he’d missed,
this
was what he and Cassie could be together if only he could let go of his anger and his stiff-necked pride. All it would take was the little matter of forgiving her, of letting go of the past. Right now he was too caught up in the moment to give a hang about anything, the past included.

He groaned and claimed her, deepening the kiss, blanking out all of the arguments against what was happening and seizing the pulse-pounding moment.

She slid into his lap, all willing and eager and hot as a winter fire, just the way he remembered. When he would have moved beyond the devastating kisses for more, she held him still, savoring the mating of their mouths, discovering the amazing nuances possible in a kiss.

His hand drifted to her thigh, skimmed along warm,
supple skin until he reached the core of her heat. He hesitated there, knowing that they were crossing the point of no return. If he touched her intimately, if she let him, there would be no going back. He would have to bury himself inside her. He would have to discover if reality matched fantasy, if the present could equal the memory. He would have to rediscover every texture, every taste, every throbbing response. He would have to make her his.

And he would be hers. Forever. Without denials or recriminations or regrets. Forgiveness might be a struggle for some time to come, but this,
this
would be a given, a habit too hard to break for a second time in his life.

He sighed and held still, waiting for the panic to wash through him, waiting for the anger to resurface and destroy desire. He waited and waited, but it didn’t happen.

Instead, anticipation built…along with soul-wrenching need and astonishing heat.

And then she smoothed her hand across his brow as if to wipe away the worry, the distress that had kept him—kept them—from moving on. He was lost, caught up in the magical spell of her touch, in the powerful pull of her tenderness.

“I want you,” he admitted at long last. “You have no idea how much I want you.”

“I think I do,” she soothed, beginning to work the buttons of his shirt.

Her knuckles skimmed lightly across his chest, and then her mouth was there, clever and damp and eager. Her touch turned the wanting to a persistent ache.

Cole thought he might finally understand what it was like to be ravished, to be taken completely and not have
the will to fight it, just to go along for the astonishing ride. He was on sensory overload, climbing to a peak that he had no intention of reaching alone.

He reached for Cassie’s hands, stilled them, then shifted to evade her lips. “Enough,” he commanded, his voice ragged.

Startled smoky eyes met his.

“I am not making love with my wife for the first time since the wedding in an uncomfortable, straight-backed chair,” he said, scooping her into his arms and standing up.

He carried her to the bed in the next room. There were a dozen times along the way when he could have allowed sane, sensible thoughts to crowd in and end this, but he ignored everything but the feel of the woman in his arms, the need pounding through his veins.

Tomorrow would take care of itself, he told himself. Tonight was about him and the woman whose memory had burned in his heart for years. If it was all they ever had, he told himself that tonight would be enough.

Cassie hadn’t been nearly as sure of herself as she’d wanted Cole to believe. There had been moments, more than she could count, when she’d wanted to dash from his room rather than risk the rejection she feared was coming. Only grim determination and the terror that this might be her one and only chance had kept her there when he’d made it plain he wanted her to go.

Now, as he held her in his arms, as he made steady, deliberate progress toward his bed, she began to allow hope to flare along with desire. Surely this would be the beginning. Surely after tonight the barriers would come down and they would be able to communicate as
they once had, as friends
and
as lovers. Not perfectly, not without setbacks, but with the commitment of two people who’d finally figured out what mattered most in their lives.

Inside the room dominated by that great expanse of bed, Cassie felt a moment’s triumph. She had gotten them this far. She had taken control of her life—not by running, but by staying. If there had been time, if Cole’s clever hands hadn’t been busily stripping away her clothes, she would have taken the time to pat herself on the back for finally maturing enough to stay the course, no matter how difficult.

But Cole clearly didn’t intend to give her—or himself—time to think. His touches, like hers earlier, were meant to excite. His kisses became deeper and more urgent. When his mouth closed over her breast, a wildfire burst into flame inside her.

This was the way it had been ten years ago—powerful, all-consuming need, frenzied caresses and a buildup so sweet, so intense, that she was sure she would die from it. Instead, just when she thought she could go no higher, when it seemed likely that her body was about to shudder in a wild, cataclysmic release, Cole found some way to ease her down before lifting her back to a new and even higher peak.

Beneath him, she moaned, straining, desperate and awash in sensations, frantic for him to bury himself inside her. His work-roughened hands were gentle, skillful and oh, so devious—tender one second, demanding the next. His muscles, hard from working the ranch, bunched beneath her touch. The body that had invaded her dreams, filling her head with erotic images, was even better in reality. Ten years had added strength
and agility, had turned awkward, if delicious, fumbling into skillful lovemaking.

She might have had the will and the incentive to take the initiative tonight, but Cole was in control now, setting the pace, destroying her with his devastating kisses, his tormenting touches. She wanted…she
needed…

“Cole, please,” she begged. “Now. I want you inside me now.”

His eyes glittered with satisfaction. His hands cupped her face, and his gaze locked with hers.

Then, oh, so slowly, he entered her at last, sinking deep inside her, filling her. She gasped at the pleasure of it, at the sense of fulfillment that stole over her.

But then he was moving and her body was soaring until together the climbed to the highest peak yet. This time there was no retreat, no blessed relief, just this building urgency, this frantic, fevered yearning that grew hotter and wilder until it exploded through her, then him in shuddering waves.

Cole murmured her name over and over as they clung together, trembling, then slowly…slowly returned to earth…to his bed…to reality.

And to all the problems that couldn’t be resolved so easily.

Cassie banished that thought as soon as it dared to creep in. She wouldn’t allow it, wouldn’t allow anything to spoil this moment. She had waited too long—not just since her wedding night, but years. Illusion or not, she deserved this sweet oblivion.

She sighed and cuddled more tightly against Cole. His arm held her securely, his hand rested on her hip. His breathing grew steadier, whispering against hot, fevered skin, cooling it.

“That was—” she began.

Cole touched a finger to her lips. “Don’t say anything.”

It was part command, part warning. “Why?” she asked as tension crept in to steal the serenity.

“Just let it be what it was. If we start examining it, things will only get complicated.”

Rather than quieting her, the request to leave things be stirred more questions. “Complicated how?”

This time Cole sighed heavily and pulled away, retreating from her not just physically but emotionally. She could feel the sudden chill in the air as surely as if the air-conditioning had kicked on. She gathered the sheet and wrapped herself in it before facing him.

“Cole, talk to me. Don’t you dare shut me out now.”

“What’s the point?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked that since she’d walked in on him earlier, but it was more devastating now. The hurt and anger she’d been living with for weeks bubbled back to the surface. “The point is that you and I have just made love—using no protection, I might add. We could have made another baby here today.”