His Forbidden Fiancee. Christie Ridgway

She felt edgy, too, torn between what her head was advising and what her body was demanding.

      “We hardly know each other,” she said. “So all this…this…”

      “Hankering for hanky-panky?”

      She narrowed her eyes at him. “…is a product of the rain, the wine, the—”

      “The stone cold truth that we turn each other on hard and fast, Goldilocks, no explanations, no apologies. And to be honest, I’m as floored by it as you are.”

      “You are?” Not that she figured he considered her an ogre or anything, but the idea that this kind of “hankering for hanky-panky” wasn’t standard for him, either, was a fascinating notion.

      He laughed. “You look awfully pleased with yourself about it.”

      “Hey, in the past few years, I’ve been rejected on a regular basis, so forgive my dented ego for giving a little cheer.” The merlot had seriously loosened her tongue.

      “Fiancés one through four were idiots.”

      “You’re number four,” she reminded him.

      “I’m trying to forget that.” At the frown on her face, he shook his head and pinched her chin. “Goldilocks, I’m suggesting we try to forget everything but the fact that it’s a dark and stormy night and we’re alone together with our hankering. What do you say? Why not see where it takes us?”

      She stared at him. “That’s male reasoning.”

      He raised a dark eyebrow. “Cogent? To the point?”

      “Shortsighted and all about sex.”

      “And your point is?”

      Oh, he was making her laugh again. And that made her wiggle against his lap. And that made him groan and she was so…well, captivated by the powerful feeling the sound gave her that she leaned in to buss him on the mouth.

      Which he turned into a real kiss.

      Next thing she knew their tongues were twining and her hands were buried in his hair again. Heat was pouring off of him and his skin tasted a tiny bit salty as she kissed the corner of his mouth. “I want to bottle up this feeling,” she told him, awed by its strength. Sexual chemistry, who knew? “We could market it and make a kabillion dollars.”

      “A kabillion is a lot,” he murmured, then turned his attention to her left ear.

      Goose bumps sprinted across every inch of her skin as his tongue feathered over the rim to tickle the lobe. “A kabillion-ten,” she corrected herself. “In the first year.”

      He traveled back to her mouth, then took his time there, leisurely playing with all the surfaces. Her breath backed up in her lungs when he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth. Her fingers tightened on his scalp when he slid the tip of his tongue along the damp skin inside her upper lip. She moaned when he thrust inside her mouth, filling her with his purpose and male demand.

      And all the while she was excruciatingly aware of her nakedness under the robe. Of her bareness resting against his pant legs. The soft wool scratched at her skin now, sensitized as it was by the kisses that never let up and the hands that never wandered beyond her hair and her face.

      She was fast losing all the reasons why she should be happy about that. In the face of this “hankering” as he called it, she’d been unable to stand up against the kissing. It wasn’t such a bad thing, though, was it? For goodness sake, she was engaged to the man.

      Still.

      A little voice somewhere in the dim recesses of her mind reminded her she was here to put an end to that engagement, but she shushed the crabby killjoy. Because this man could kiss, and there was no reason to deny herself the pleasure.

      Except that kissing was quickly becoming not quite enough.

      To ease the growing ache, she squeezed her thighs together and wiggled her naked behind. Matthias tore his lips from hers to gaze at her with serious eyes. “You’re making me crazy.” His mouth was wet.

      She dried it with the edge of her thumb. “What’d you say?” She stroked her thumb the other way and he caught it between his teeth. Nipped.

      Lauren shivered once and then again when his tongue swiped over her fingertip. The inside of his mouth was hot and wet and she leaned forward to taste it again.

      He caught her shoulders, keeping her a breath away. “Lauren, maybe you were right…”

      “Just one more.” She pushed at his hands and, as they fell, they took the robe with them. It dropped to her waist.

      Leaving her naked from her belly button up.

      And frozen between caution and desire.

      His gaze stayed on her face, but when she made no move to cover herself, he let it wander southward. Slowly.

      Like a caress, she felt it move across her features, from her nose, to her mouth, over her chin and then down the column of her neck.

      It traced the edges of her collarbone and her breath caught, held, as he finally stared at her breasts. Under the weight of his gaze, her nipples went from tight to tighter. She glanced down, noticing how hard and darker they looked against the pale skin of her swollen breasts.

      Without thinking, she moved her arms up to cover herself.

      “Don’t.” He caught her wrists. “Don’t keep them from me.”

      Hot chills tumbled down her naked spine. She didn’t want to keep them from him. She didn’t want to keep any part of herself from him.

      In a blur of movement, he stood, lifting her in his arms. “Wh—?” she began.

      “Shh,” he said. “Don’t talk.” He strode for the staircase, rushing up the steps as if she weighed nothing.

      She felt weightless, too, as if she were floating on a cloud of desire. And a cloud of impossible dreams. Good God, could her parents have been right? Had they picked the right man for her after all?

      He didn’t hesitate at the top of the stairs, but headed straight for the master bedroom. At the foot of the enormous sleigh bed, he hesitated.

      Lauren rested her head against his chest, his heart beating hard and fast in her ear. There was nothing she wanted more than to get naked, completely naked, with him. She smiled up at his face, seductively, she thought. “Matthias? Aren’t you going to make love to me?”

      Three

      Lauren stirred, stretched, came awake to the knowledge that she was in a strange bed in a strange room, wearing a near-stranger’s T-shirt and nothing else. A trio of emotions washed through her. Relief. Embarrassment. Annoyance that her parent-picked fiancé proved to be more cautious and in control of his libido than she was of hers.

      Last night, when she’d said, “Matthias? Aren’t you going to make love to me?” he’d gone still and silent. Further prodding, “Matthias? Matthias?” had caused him to close his eyes as if in pain. Then he’d taken a long deep breath and replied, “No.”

      In less than forty-five seconds he’d left her in the guest bedroom with one of his shirts and a kiss on the nose.

      You had to hate that kind of self-control in a man.

      But now it was morning and from the quiet sound of it, the rain had stopped, so she was free to take herself and her humiliation out of his house. She’d give herself a pass on breaking off the engagement in person. When she got a safe one-hundred miles or so away, she’d give him a call. Better yet, she’d send an e-mail from an anonymous account. Or perhaps a note by slow-flying carrier pigeon.

      She wasn’t going to face him again, even if it meant driving home in a knee-length T-shirt and nothing else.

      A woman who wasn’t yet thirty and yet who’d been rejected