To Have and to Hold (4 page)

As a result, when he used his hands to ease her down onto the bed, she was lost enough to say, “Gabe,
please.
”

Swearing under his breath, he moved to drag off his briefs. But he returned to his position an instant later, his hands going under her thighs. “Wrap your legs around my waist.” The rawness of his voice was as much an aphrodisiac as the skin stretched tight over his cheekbones.

She did as he asked. And realized that her body was angled slightly upward, in perfect position for his claiming. Instinct screamed that the penetration would be deep, incredibly so. “Gabe,” she whispered. “It'll be too much.”

“I'll ease you through it.” He stroked his hand up her body to curve over her breast and though his words were calm, his eyes were anything but.

She had the feeling he was hanging on by a very thin thread, the pulsing length of his erection a physical mark of desire against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. A small part of her feared the intensity of him, but that part was buried under the crushing force of her own need.

Gripping her bottom, he nudged at her with that length of hard, hot flesh. Lightning sizzled up her body and when he pushed in, she screamed. But Gabe was true to his word, easing his way into her so slowly she thought she'd go mad. He touched places inside of her that no one had ever touched, bringing intense pleasure.

And no pain.

“I'm damn glad you're a rider, Jess,” he almost growled as he filled her, going so deep that she could feel his heartbeat in her body.

Not aware enough to understand what he was referring to, she squeezed intimate muscles around him in a reaction as old as time itself. Throwing back his head, he tightened his hold on her and began to move. His rhythm was fast, his strokes deep. She screamed and screamed as he pushed her over the edge in a tempest of hot breaths and powerful thrusts.

And when she fell, it was as a marked woman. Gabriel Dumont's woman.

* * *

Jess felt raw, exposed. He'd shattered her, claimed her passion and left her powerless. And she'd let him.
Begged
him. Now that the haze of desire had faded to reveal harsh reality, she couldn't accept or understand the depth of her capitulation.

He wasn't supposed to be the man who made her yearn!

It felt as though she'd given up her dream in that bed…given up Damon. Every time she'd felt pleasure, every time she'd screamed, she'd betrayed the love that had lived in her heart for a lifetime. And she didn't understand how that could have happened. Gabe wasn't the kind of man she could ever love. She wasn't even sure she liked him.

Sliding quietly out of bed, she pulled on the first thing that came to hand. Unfortunately, it was Gabe's shirt. The scent of him was in the fibers, on her skin, in the air. It mocked her with echoes of what he'd taken…what she'd relinquished. As she searched for her dress so she could get rid of the shirt, she heard the sheets rustle.

“Where are you going, Jess?”

A bedside lamp came on.

Blinking against the glare, she tucked her hair behind her ears and buttoned up the shirt. “To my own bedroom.”

His eyes were cold, focused. “I was under the impression you were already there.”

“Look,” she said, finding courage from the ragged tatters of her pride. “We've consummated the marriage. There's no need for us to be in the same bed anymore. I'd rather sleep on my own.” She hugged her arms around herself. “I'll…I'll let you know if we were successful.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I'm not that arrogant—it's probably going to take more than one try.”

She bit her lower lip, trying not to look at the muscled upper body she'd caressed so feverishly less than an hour ago. “Well we can't do anything for a couple of days anyway. It didn't hurt during but I'm sore now.” Despite the humiliating awkwardness of the admission, she forced herself to meet his eye, aware that Gabriel would capitalize on the slightest indication of weakness with brutal efficiency.

He flicked off the light. “Suit yourself. But don't try to use sex against me. I don't play those kinds of games.”

“I'm not playing a game.”

“Aren't you?” He snorted. “If you think I'm going to agree to carry on with a marriage where my wife saves herself for another man, you're sadly mistaken.”

“H
ow dare you!”

“I asked you to be my wife, not my roommate. Decide what you want.”

Not replying, Jess slammed through the connecting door between their rooms. Gabriel folded his arms behind his head and unclenched his jaw with conscious application of will. No woman had
ever
made the rules in his bed. And Jess wasn't going to get the chance to be the first. He'd meant what he'd said—he had no intention of living in a sexless marriage, not when bed was the one place where he…Shoving away that thought, he sat up.

Sleep was not what he wanted right now. He'd been more than ready for a replay of their first time together before Jess had pulled her little stunt. The woman had turned into pure lightning in his arms, the most responsive lover he'd ever had. He hadn't wanted passion when he'd chosen her, hadn't thought she'd incite it in him. But she had. He was willing to live with that fact, so long as it was confined to the bed. The primitive in him liked knowing he'd been the only man to taste his wife's screams.

Hard on the heels of that thought came a far less pleasant one.
Damon
. Gabriel had made it his business to keep tabs on the other man since learning of the separation and knew that he'd recently been sniffing around for information about Jess.

His hand fisted.

Jess could love Damon all she liked. It made no difference to Gabe except that it meant she'd never expect anything emotional from him. But he had no intention of putting up with a “friendship” between his wife and the younger man.

Jess might hate Gabe for it but she'd known who and what he was when she'd married him. He held on to what was his and Jess was now
his
. End of story.

* * *

Jess woke with gritty eyes. Checking the clock, she saw it was a few minutes before five. “Four hours of sleep. Great.” A sound reached her from the bedroom next door and she realized Gabe was probably already up. Trying
not
to think about him or what they'd done in the tantalizing privacy of the night, she tugged the blanket to her chin.

The scent that rose up around her was that of the very man she'd been attempting to ignore. Thoughts derailed by anger, she'd forgotten to take off Gabe's shirt and now the lapse taunted her into full consciousness. “Arrgh!” She decided she might as well get up and shower.

The hot water poured a balm over muscles unused to the kind of activity she'd indulged in the previous night. An activity she definitely did not want to think about, but which she couldn't seem to excise from her brain.

She'd just finished dressing and was standing in front of the window brushing her hair when a perfunctory knock sounded on the connecting door. Gabe walked in a second later. Clad in an old pair of jeans and a rough work shirt, his sexuality was somehow even more intense, more powerfully real. Her nerves quickfired, recalling the demands he'd made in the dark, the exquisite pain of sensual pleasure.

“Good morning.” He gave her an amused smile, clearly aware of his effect on her.

That arrogance snapped her back to her senses. “I didn't say you could come in.” Pulling the brush hard through her hair, she returned her attention to the predawn darkness.

He closed the gap to stand next to her, a powerful presence she'd touched intimately but knew only as a shadow. “Be ready to head out at seven.”

“Where are we going?”

“To visit your parents.”

Her animosity disappeared. “Thank you.” Placing the brush on the windowsill, she forced herself to face him.

The eyes that looked back at her were completely unreadable. “Kiss me good morning, Jess.”

“I don't take orders well.”

“Funny, you followed them perfectly last night.”

Her spine stiffened to ruler-straightness. “Exactly the kind of thing a woman wants to hear after her first time.”

He winced. “Point taken.”

Her mouth fell open at the oblique apology. Gabe took full advantage, sliding his hand to her nape and claiming the kiss he'd asked for. Still sensitive from the unbridled sexuality of the previous night, her defenses were pitifully weak. She was horrified to hear herself make a sound of protest when he began to pull away. But Gabe liked it. Folding her into his arms, he kissed her with even more intensity.

By the time he finally left the room, she was in complete emotional disarray. This had not been in the plan, this acute response to his touch. She'd always talked about love and sex in the same breath, always assumed she'd care deeply for any man she made love with. Yet here she was, shattering every time Gabe touched her. It shamed her deeply.

And the worst thing was, she had no idea how to fight it. Her love for Damon had insulated her against other men since the day she'd reached adulthood. But that shield had buckled under the potent seduction of Gabe's masculinity.

Unable to think of anything that would make her feel better about her sudden descent into lust unaccompanied by love or romance, she did what she always did when she needed to think. She pulled out a sketch pad and began to draw.

She began every project with a detailed sketch, never putting oil paint to canvas until she'd worked out all the dimensions and angles. In truth, she wasn't impulsive in any area of her art—she carefully thought through the subject before she created, step by slow step. But today she let her hand run free with no conscious interference. What emerged was an image of the face she'd carried in her heart for over a decade.

If only Damon hadn't waited so long to make that drunken call, she wouldn't be here. They would have been married long before her father's death, would have found some other way to hold onto Randall Station. But he'd waited until it was eons too late, Kayla's pregnancy combined with Jess's debt to Gabriel opening an impassable chasm between them.

That distance
hurt.
Damon had been her closest friend since childhood, their relationship a combination of mischief and laughter. He'd helped her see the sunshine again after her mother's early death, teasing her out of tears and forcing her to rejoin the world. She'd confessed her secrets to him, listened to his in return, and somewhere between childhood and womanhood, she'd fallen in love.

He'd broken her heart when he'd married Kayla. And he'd crushed it again with that phone call. “Why?” she whispered to the sketch. “Why did you wait so long?”

It was as well they hadn't met before her wedding—Jess wasn't sure she could have withstood his declarations in person. And now she was Gabriel's. Not that it mattered. If Damon had truly meant what he'd said, he would have tracked her down the moment she arrived home. But he hadn't.
Why?

Throwing the pencil to the floor, she dropped her head into her hands.
“Help me.”
It was a tortured whisper. But no one was listening.

* * *

Several hours later, Jess looked out at the Dumont family plot from inside the Jeep. She'd forced this visit but now that they were here, she was no longer sure she'd made the right decision. It was apparent that Gabe would much rather be elsewhere.

“Are you coming?” she asked, opening her door. He'd surprised her by accompanying her to her parents' graves. She had no idea what to expect from him this time, especially since he'd been so silent on the long drive back to Angel.

He undid his seat belt and got out, not saying a word as she opened the back door and reached for the greenery and flowers she'd gathered from around the station. But he was by her side when she walked toward the final resting places of Stephen, Mary, Raphael, Michael and Angelica Dumont.

Stopping in front of Raphael's grave, she looked up at him. “Would you like to lay the flowers?”

“No.” His tone made it crystal clear he considered this a waste of time.

She was cut to the quick but refused to rush. This was important.

Gabe reacted only when she went to put flowers on his mother's resting place. Striding over, he moved them to his sister's instead.

“Gabe?”

“Are you done?”

“Yes.” She rose from her crouch, eyes on the harsh lines of a face she found impossible to read. “But…”

“But what, Jess? They're dead and have been for twenty-five years.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to check some fencing. We'd better head back.”

She grabbed his hand to stop him when he would have turned away, acting more out of instinct than logic. His eyes slammed into hers, but she found the courage to stand her ground. “I'm sorry, I didn't realize how much this would hurt you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I'm fine. You're the one who wanted to come out here.”

“Gabe,” she began, convinced she'd glimpsed a deep vulnerability behind his uncaring mask. Hope fountained in her blood. Perhaps her marriage wouldn't be a soulless one after all. If Gabe could feel so intensely, then maybe what had gone on between them last night hadn't been based on lust alone.

“Jess, you know me. I'm not some wounded hero you have to save. I was ten years old when they died. I barely remember them.” Turning, he shrugged off her hand and strode to the car.

Jess wanted to believe he was lying but the look on his face as he'd spoken had been nothing but calm, nothing but completely in control. Hope crumbled. No wonder Gabe never visited his parents' and siblings' graves—the man didn't even have the heart to love their memory.

* * *

An entire day and a surprisingly undisturbed night of sleep later, Jess was sketching on the verandah when a battered old pickup roared down the drive. She waited for whoever it was to park and walk over, but the driver raced all the way to the edge of the verandah before braking to a sudden halt on the grass.

Frowning at the theatrics, she put down the sketch pad. Who in the—? The vehicle's door swung open and out jumped the last person she'd expected to see.

“Jessie girl!” Running up the steps, Damon wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off her feet.

It was impossible not to be happy to see him, not when she'd missed him so very much. Blue-eyed with jet black hair, Damon had the looks of a movie star or a playboy. But it was his smile she'd fallen for, a bright slash that constantly proclaimed his amusement at the whole world.

She laughed for the first time since arriving back in the country. “Let me down, you idiot.”

That familiar smile faded. “I don't ever want to let you go.” But he lowered her until her feet touched the floorboards. “Couldn't you have waited till I got back?” It was a pained accusation. “You didn't even give me a chance.”

Butterflies in her stomach. The bad kind. “What?”

“I heard you got hitched while I was out of town.”

“You heard right.” Said in a quiet but lethal voice, the statement came from the other side of the verandah. “So I suggest you get your hands off her.”

Aware how it must look, Jess moved out of Damon's arms, face flushing alternately hot and cold. “Damon came to say hello.”

Gabe walked over to put his own arm around her waist. Rebelling against the display of ownership, she tried to pull away but unlike Damon, Gabe wasn't willing to budge. “Did he?”

Jess was surprised to see Damon's eyes narrow. “Did you even tell Jess I wanted to speak to her when she got back?” His chin jutted out.

“Funny,” Gabe said, his tone completely reasonable and indefinably dangerous at the same time, “I thought they had phones all over the country.”

Jess was starting to be scared for Damon. He was strong but no match for Gabe. She pleaded silently with him when he glanced at her and to her relief, his next words were civil. “I think me and Jessie need to talk.”

Gabriel's arm became a steel trap. “You want to talk to my wife, you can do it right now.”

“Yeah, sure. Later, Jess.” Damon left with the same turbulence with which he'd arrived.

Jess didn't speak again until his pickup was a blur in the distance. Then she wrenched herself out of Gabe's hold to face him, arms crossed. “What did you think you were doing?”

“I thought I was making it clear that you're now my wife, something you seemed to have forgotten.” His eyes glittered with anger. “How long were you planning to make out with him in front of half the station?”

Fury prompted her reply. “He's been my friend for almost as long as I've been alive. Did it occur to you that maybe he wanted to talk to me about what's going on in his life?” She pushed aside the memory of Damon saying he never wanted to let her go, because that
did
make her feel guilty.

“I don't care what the hell he wanted to talk about.” Gabe folded his own arms, a solid wall of dominance. “There'll be no more private chats between the two of you.”

“You're my husband, not my keeper!”

“I shouldn't need to be your keeper. Or do you think it's perfectly acceptable to throw yourself into the arms of your would-be lover?”