y she’d stiffened, Landon eased his hold around her a fraction. “Relax, Bethany. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She shuddered, and for one brief moment, let her eyes drift shut and her stiffness melt away into his strength. “I know.”
And Beth wasn’t going to hurt him, either. Not this man. Not now, and not with this truth.
Eight
Overall, he’d say the wedding was a success.
The reporters had taken shots, most of his friends had departed, and now only family remained, lounging on the twin sofas inside the book-lined study.
Beth was on her fourth glass of champagne. Landon had consumed double that amount. She smiled now as though happy, smiling like…well, he didn’t know what. But her smile was so pretty it made his lips curve, too.
“I’m thinking of something silver…” Beth’s mother, Helen, said.
Everyone made their guesses, and Landon watched his wife pick the cranberries from the nut and dried fruit mix.
Note to self: she likes cranberries.
He kept wondering things, like if she slept with socks or not, if her soap smelled like she did, if she sighed when she made love, or moaned, or whimpered. He wondered if she was ticklish, and if the faraway look that sometimes shadowed her eyes was due to missing David.
He’d not wanted anything like this for years.
Unbelievable, that suddenly he was up for revenge, he was up for sex, up for seduction. Now every morning he awakened with a charge of anticipation, knowing that a woman would be under this roof with him, soon in his bed, a woman so wound up he knew she needed this as badly as he did.
“Landon, your turn.”
He lifted his gaze to Kate. “My turn for…?”
“Twenty questions.”
Beth’s smile faded as she considered him expectantly, and a fierce tangle of desire and emotion kept getting bottled up inside him. He couldn’t understand this irrational pull she had on him, but tonight he was tired of pushing against it. He scraped his chin with his thumb and forefinger, unable to think of anything.
“Something blue,” he said at last.
His mother sipped her tea while his brothers started guessing, and smiling. Landon shook and shook his head. And Beth was…there were no words to describe her. That form-fitting dress looked delicious on her. He wanted to use his lips to pry it off, his teeth…
Inch by inch, the blood seemed to leave her face as he approached her, a sudden clatter of claps and cheers goading him forward. His heartbeat vibrated like thunder in his body. She inched back, buried in the sofa cushions, as he advanced.
Bending down, Landon seized her delicate chin and forced her to meet his smoldering stare. She’d been averting her gaze. Now he knew why—her eyes were welling with it. She feared this, them, the hunger between them.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she murmured as he reached out to seize a handful of soft, honeyed hair. The tendrils slid like silk as they sifted between his fingers. God, he wanted to learn everything about this woman, wanted her to look at him like his mother had looked at his father before he’d died, with love and knowledge and unity.
She caught her breath when he ducked his head and, as he spoke, grazed the curved top of one ear. “My wife’s eyes are blue, aren’t they?”
Gently, he palmed the back of her head and dragged his mouth to cover hers. With a slight pressure of his lips, she opened, and something inside him snapped when her taste flooded him. Warm, sweet. His body went crazy for more, so he tightened his hold and let his tongue take a deep foray into her mouth. Cheers erupted around them. He had to stop, damn, he really did, but she’d just put her arms around his neck and slanted her head a bit, and, Jesus, if they’d been alone he would be tearing at her clothes, he wanted this so much.
Prolonging the moment, he deepened the kiss for just a couple of seconds longer, wanting to see if he could taste her sweet anger, hatred, passion and need inside of her. Maybe she could taste it inside of him. He tasted it all, tasted more than that. Dreams, martinis, cranberries, desire.
“I want you, Bethany,” he said as he tore away and growled into her ear. “As much as I want to nail Halifax to the ground, that’s how hard I want you.”
He eased back, and Beth blinked up at him like she’d been ravaged without her will, and as if he’d been the bastard who’d done it. A burning need to touch her, kiss every part of her, swam through his veins. Her hair tumbled past her shoulders, her eyes were heavy and sleepy and brimming with need.
She hadn’t pushed him away, and that alone knifed him with satisfaction and the need for more.
The cheers morphed into comments from his brothers, but Landon’s sole attention was focused on Beth.
She seemed troubled, battling the sparks, what had been building between them. Her hands shook as she pushed herself to a stand. “I think I’m going to bed.”