Paper Marriage Proposition

  Her eyes hurt, he was so compelling. Hard, bulging muscles stretched taut across his broad shoulders. She could see his biceps and the defined bands of his abs before they disappeared under the crisp white sheets.

  Nervously, she wet her lips and forced herself to shut the door behind her. “Did you have a nice birthday?”

  Clenching his jaw, Landon set his reading material aside. “Thank you, yes. Did you need anything?”

  His clipped tone hinted that he wanted her to go, and for three long heartbeats, Beth considered it.

  But she remained, struggling for the words. Love me.

  Landon waited in silence, then let out a sigh. “Bethany, I’m hanging by a thread in more ways than you can imagine. If it’s nothing urgent, I suggest you go back to your room now.”

  She did not know what to say. She’d been so insistent they keep a healthy distance, she now realized it would be a struggle to let him know that things…had changed. Everything. Had changed.

  Breathing deeply, she brought her hand to the tie of her silk robe around her neck and fiddled with it. “I’d like to sleep here,” she said.

  Frowning, Landon sat up, looking all gorgeous and puzzled and frustrated. “Is there something wrong with your bed?”

  Don’t say no, please don’t send me away.

  She’d never seduced a man, and the thought of being rejected made her cheeks heat up and her legs want to aim in another direction.

  “It’s empty.”

  With a low groan, he banged the back of his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. “Ah, Beth. How can I say this…” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

  “Please don’t turn me away.”

  A tremor spread through her as she waited, clenching the fabric from her nightgown in her hands.

  If he denied her, she’d be devastated. Devastated.

  Landon cursed under his breath and rolled to the other side of the bed. “Let me put on something, all right? And we can talk.”

  Mute, Beth gaped at his gorgeous body as he eased out of bed, the ripple of muscle down his back as he plunged into his pajama bottoms. She gazed longingly at the covers, wanted to slip inside them, where Landon had been naked just now. His sheets would be warm, but she didn’t know if they were welcoming.

  “What is it, exactly, that you want from me,” he growled as he strode over wearing loose cotton sleep pants, haphazardly tied.

  She bit her lower lip in uncertainty. “Kiss me good-night?” That was as close as she got to asking him to take her, and apparently he didn’t believe his ears.

  He stared in wonder, his expression revealing he still didn’t seem to know what to make of this visit.

  “Not like a friend or a partner—like a husband,” she amended.

  Understanding made his eyes flash.

  He clenched his jaw so tight, a muscle jumped in the back, then he plunged both his hands into her hair and set his forehead on hers. “Do you want to be kissed by your husband?” he hissed.

  “Yes.” She linked her hands behind his head and shuddered in expectation. “Please.”

  He shut his eyes, let go a breath, and didn’t do anything for a long, long time.

  Rolling his head against hers, he made a low, hungry sound. “Now tell me,” he said slowly, roughly, his voice ragged with desire, “you want your husband to make love to you, too.”

  She didn’t answer for what felt like a year.

  It was a dream, it had to be, but Beth felt too slim and warm to be a figment of his imagination. Landon had a desperate urge to get close to her. Closer. To feel her body around his, penetrate its depths, fill them with his essence.

  He’d never gone without sex so long, but now it wasn’t sex he craved, it was mating with his wife, finding that union, that closeness. Searching her, finding her secrets, delving into the darkest parts of her, allowing her access to his.

  He didn’t know what would happen if he kissed her. He didn’t know if he could stop.

  She’d asked for a kiss, but Landon wanted her to want more, want it all.

  He bent his head when she didn’t respond and watched her reaction as he grazed her lips.

  She trembled against him. “Landon,” she moaned weakly and the way she uttered his name catapulted his need to alarming levels.

  His heart pounded. Stop stop stop, you idiot, you’re losing control.

  But she wanted him. She was here, she was asking for it.

  “Do you, Beth?”

  An anticipatory groan rumbled up from his chest as he whisked her lips again, holding his breath at the tantalizing contact. “Do you want me…Landon…to make love to you?”

  He moved his lips over hers, gently attempting to coax them apart. Her hands tightened at his nape as he slid his hands up her back and held her against him. He gave himself a minute to savor the rightness of her body against his, the difference in their forms, and deepened the contact when she opened a little.

  “I won’t stop,” he rasped, seizing her plush bottom lip between both of his. “I’m going to touch you, and lick you, and strip you down to your skin, and I won’t stop until morning.”

  When she shifted in his arms just slightly, giving him the impression she wanted him even closer, he lost control and slid out his tongue to taste. Once. Side to side, his tongue traced the entry of her lips. “Say it,” he whispered. “Say the words to me.”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  His tenuous hold on his control threatened to snap when her lips parted, and her warm, damp tongue curled seductively around his. The coy caress destroyed him. Patience, measure, reason fled. Need flared in his body like a rising tide of lava, and a hunger pent up for years surfaced with a vengeance. He crushed her to him and opened his mouth wide, kissing her like only a man too starved or too desperate could. His initial sampling became a feast. A claiming. His claiming.

  He growled when her lips moved with the same frantic eagerness as his, and still he demanded more. He drank of her, letting the sweetness and the honey and the taste of her flood his mouth in a flavor so intoxicating it made his head spin. He’d underestimated the power of her. The temptress in disguise with the worried eyes and the heart of a lion that had driven him insane for weeks.

  She moaned into his mouth, and desire ricocheted within the walls of his body, painful in its force. The prenup, the fake wedding, it all vanished from his thoughts. He could only think of his bed. With this woman in it.

  He tore his mouth free and slipped his hands around to cup her tight, round bottom, then dragged her flat against him, letting her feel the painful length of his erection straining against the fabric.

  He gazed into her surprised eyes, curling his hands to get a handful of soft, willing flesh as he covered her mouth again. They moaned in unison.

  He opened his lips over hers, drinking what she gave him, demanding more. He’d thought she was a vision. He’d thought she was a dream. And he couldn’t stop kissing her, touching her, thrusting his tongue inside her depths to taste her. Hot. So hot. So sweet.

  He added teeth to the kiss, biting, nibbling at her, and when she tightened her arms around his neck, he thought his chest would implode.

  “Landon,” she said in a reverent whisper as her mouth trailed down his chest, quick and hungry. No, voracious. Landon felt dizzy as she peppered warm, moist kisses on his heated flesh and stroked her fingers down the muscles of his abdomen.

  Yes, he thought as the blood stormed through his body, yes yes yes.

  His every muscle taut with need, he guided her back and urged her down on the bed. She fell there, her skin luminous in the moonlight, every shadow dancing over her body making it clear her nightgown was sheer.

  His erection pushed even harder, ready to rip through his pants. “Did you come to my room to seduce me?” He trembled knowing the answer, and leaned over her waiting female body, watching her nod slowly, almost hesitantly.

  “Yes.”

  She came up to her knees and reach
ed out for his drawstring. But Landon planted a hand on her tummy and forced her onto her back again, in lust, in agony. “Ladies first.” He couldn’t understand his own words. His breathing had morphed into something haggard.

  With slow, barely steady hands, he tugged the ends of the ribbons that held her nightgown together. One by one the bows came undone.

  “Show me what’s mine,” he said, softly.

  Her eyes darkened with hunger as she raised her shaky hands to her throat, keeping the garment closed. Then the fabric slid down one shoulder, then lower, exposing the round globes of her breasts, her flat stomach, and then…

  He swallowed the aching lump in his throat. “Put it aside,” he said gruffly.

  Every rustle of fabric was audible through the silence—until every inch of her was revealed to him.

  His body throbbed painfully but he hesitated before lying over her, unsure of what his hands would do, knowing how he could lose his mind touching her. She had gotten to him. He had wanted her the first day when she came to ask for help, had wanted her every night when he woke up in a wrenching, unfulfilled sweat produced by dreams so vivid and erotic he would remember them even by day. He’d been fantasizing about a family with her, a real family.

  He would never let her go.

  He grabbed her wrists gently between his hands and guided her arms up over her head, pinning her there, so he could see her in the dim lighting.

  She gazed up at him, her eyes shining with need and want.

  Holding her wrists trapped in one hand, he slid the other between her heaving breasts, past her navel, to caress the silky curls at the apex of her thighs. “Been waiting to touch you.” He stroked the glistening folds with one finger, then inserted it into her tight sheath and she gasped and arched back in pleasure. “I need to see, Beth…your face…hear the sounds you make.”

  Her eyes drifted shut as he inserted a second finger, her face twisting into a grimace of pleasure. “Please,” she said, and tears laced her voice. “Touch me.”

  “Where? Where, Beth baby? Here?” Releasing her wrists, he cupped one breast and roughly scraped his thumb across the pebbled nipple, pleased when she vaulted up to his hand.

  Her voice shook. “Everywhere.”

  She looked so damned beautiful, still shy somehow. And beautiful.

  His heart beat so hard he thought he’d crack a rib, and inside of him, a painful need began to squeeze his gut. Two wives. One had betrayed him to Halifax. And this one…his little Buffy. He couldn’t even think of her betraying him, couldn’t fathom how it would feel.

  “Beth,” he huskily prodded, seizing her hand and guiding it under the elastic of his pants. “That’s for you.” He twirled his tongue across the tip of one breast, breathing hard as she enveloped his erection. He pitched his hips deeper into her palm. “To pleasure you.” Growling, he turned his head to lick the other breast, suckling it into his mouth. “To show you how much I want you.”

  “I want you, too. I want you so much, Landon.”

  The words, what he craved and so much more when she combined it with a flutter of her fingers against the length of his aching hardness, undid him. He’d let down his walls, had let her inside, and he trembled with the force of his desire.

  He closed his eyes, tangled his fingers into her hair, and kissed her, really kissed her.

  She was his, would never again belong to anyone else—every breath she took, the plea in her eyes, the delicate nectar sliding along his fingers as he dipped the middle one between her legs, it all confirmed she was Landon’s.

  He threw himself into that kiss.

  Her need for Landon consumed her, her hand sliding out from stroking that mouthwatering hardness to now claw all over his back as she pressed closer and kissed him deeper. She couldn’t remember wanting a man so much, wanting anything so much.

  She gasped when he tore free.

  With burning silver eyes, Landon ran his fingertip gently over her trembling lip. His velvety voice sent her into pulsing, surging bliss. “Is this my present, wife?” He stroked her lips and bent his dark head, kissing them gently. “These lips?”

  Fevered for his touch, she closed her eyes and purred, having never been spoken to so erotically. “Yes.”

  She could smell him all around her—cologne and cleanness and desire. He grazed her lips and she felt an incredible rise of sensation and need. The sound, weak, was hers as his hand slid down her back, to grab her buttocks and press her against his hot hard length.

  “Are you my present, Beth? Your breasts? Your body?” he whispered fiercely and gathered her closer against him, his weight bearing her down on the bed. He covered her mouth before she could say yes.

  She sagged and clung to him as his strong, supple tongue made a path into her mouth. Scalding hot and sweet, he swirled it around hers. Her thighs went liquid as she felt his teeth behind his lips, gently biting her flesh.

  She moaned, kissing him back, kissing his throat, his shoulders, her nails biting into his back.

  “Need to see…” he murmured against her temple.

  He stretched his arm out and flicked the other lamp on. The room burst with even more bright light. Beth gasped and covered her breasts with her hands, crossing her legs, feeling much more vulnerable, totally revealed.

  Landon shifted back to take in her image, his lids half-mast across his eyes. “Remove your hands.”

  Her stomach jumped in her body, her skin on fire, her veins thrumming with heat. “Don’t look.”

  “Remove your hands, Bethany.”

  “Oh, please,” she whispered, knowing she would not be able to resist him.

  He grasped her wrists and urged her arms aside, her breasts bared for his eyes. His eyes smoldered at the sight of the creamy globes with the puckered areolas. “You’ve been hiding from me for weeks. I won’t let you hide anymore.”

  She flushed red, reaching to where her nightgown lay discarded somewhere over the bed, but his hands covered the mounds. “Oh,” she gasped.

  She sucked in a breath when his thumbs swiped across the nipples.

  “Beth, I’ve wanted to see…” With the heel of his palm, he lifted it to his mouth as he ducked his head. “These lovely babies…” He brushed his lips back and forth. “From the moment I met you.” He latched on to one and she shivered. He wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her against his chest. “We make good war, Bethany… Do you love with the same passion you hate?”

  She bit her lower lip and clutched the back of his head, her voice a squeak. “No.”

  “I don’t believe you, little wife, I don’t believe you one bit.”

  She shut her eyes. A burst of passion overruled her, greater than hate, greater than anything.

  He reached between their bodies to pull the drawstring of his pants open, his arms fully extending as he positioned himself over her once more. He was naked now. As naked as she.

  What Landon revealed made her eyes widen and her mouth flood for a taste. His penis strained, enormous and powerful.

  “Don’t be frightened.” He cupped the back of her head and held her imprisoned for his descending lips. She responded to his kiss, drowning in a sea of ecstasy, loving how his arousal rubbed against her stomach. She was swept into a tide of lust as he gently rocked it against her.

  A need for him, for feeling him buried into her depths, built and clenched inside her womb.

  Her hands roamed and savored the silk of his skin under her fingers, his form solid and heavy and smooth, his jaw deliciously abrading her skin as he nuzzled her breasts. Simple, unadultered lust. It was just that. But it felt like more, like it was everything. A deluge of sensations assailed her.

  “I’ve pictured you like this so many times, Bethany.” He reached between her legs and his touch slipped and slid into her. “I pictured you wet…as wet as this. Soaked for me.”

  She was lost in his eyes, their warmth swirling around her. She surged upward, clutching his shoulders, and scraped her cheeks like a
cat against the faint stubble of beard along his jaw.

  “Landon.” Her fingers then trailed down the furring of dark hair on his chest. His mouth was a flame racing through her skin. Every groan of his surged in her blood like a drug, intoxicating her.

  His tone slid like a rasp of silk, low and seductive. “My beautiful wife.”

  Twisting her head on the pillows, she caught him closer to her, bringing his prominent erection to nestle between her thighs. She parted her legs—a perfect fit. “Please.”

  He started leaving her, and her limbs clenched around him in panic. “No!”

  “Shh. I’m merely getting a condom.”

  She released him, flustered. “Oh.” She stole a glimpse of his rigid stomach, his hair-dusted thighs and calves as he bit the foil packet and tore it open with his teeth. He slid the protection on, and she had never seen anything sexier than Landon’s hands, covering his erection. “What?” he persisted with gentle firmness.

  She shuddered, pierced with rapture as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Thank you—for remembering about that.”

  He dragged her over his lap, his hands guiding her legs around his hips. He impaled her slowly, completely, and groaned. His lips locked around her risen nipples and suckled. She bucked as pleasure shot through her. He blew and licked at the peaks, killing her softly. Heat spread through her body, unfurling like ribbons. She heard her moans, their bodies slapping in rhythm. His cheeks were flaming hot, Beth’s body perspiring and quivering like a strained bow.

  She’d never known anything could be like this, this togetherness existed, this passion, this need and this hunger.

  His hips arched into hers hard. Over and over again. His hands guided her own movements, bouncing her against him. Faster, deeper, with more purpose.

  Her body ruled, screamed, opened and closed around him. The burn intensified, the clench in her womb unbearable.

  Her cry came first, but the sound he made was greater, so sexy, so low, torn from his chest as he shuddered.

  And in that instant it was just him and her, no war, no one else, but Beth and Landon.