Bridal Bargains

‘I showered,’ Nell mumbled distractedly.

‘And removed my scent from your skin. Now I will have to put it back again.’

‘But you need—’

‘You,’ he said. ‘Again,’ he added on a lusty growl as he leaned over to claim her mouth.

‘Mmm,’ Nell mumbled out a dizzy protest. ‘Don’t do that. Your mother. We have to—What are you doing?’ she choked as his hand made a shockingly intimate dive between her legs.

‘Making sure that you don’t disappoint,’ he returned smoothly, then laughed when her eyes widened in shock that he’d dared to actually admit it. ‘A deal is a deal,’ he said smoothly and flattened her to the bed.

Nell was caught in her own trap and she knew it.

When Xander had come back to the island to stake his claim on his bride, he did it by unleashing the full power of his sensual repertoire upon her that by far outstripped any ideas her naïve imagination she could have come up with.

He was amazing.

Any attempt to get him to talk about anything serious was thoroughly quashed by—sex. The kind of sex that could mercilessly slay her senses even when she was only thinking about it. He just had to look at her and she wanted him. He just had to say, ‘Come here’, in that rough-toned, desiring voice and she went like an eager lamb to the slaughter of her own common sense.

They played together, in the pool or in the ocean. He showed her how to reach the top of the rock flanking the little cove so they could dive into crystal-clear water beneath. He taught her how to fish from the selfsame rock then laughed himself breathless as she screamed in horror when she actually caught a fish.

And of course they made love—all the time, anywhere. Xander could not get enough of her and in truth Nell learned to use the newfound power over him with a feline ruthlessness that kept him forever and delightfully on his guard.

‘I knew you would be dangerous once you discovered how to do this to me,’ he complained late one afternoon after she’d spent the whole day taunting him with teases and half-promises and now rode him with slow and sinuous moves with her body that kept him pitched right on the edge, fighting not to give in because giving in before she did would fill her green eyes with so much triumph.

His skin was bathed in sweat and his hands were clamped to her supple hipbones. When she leant down to capture his mouth a whole new set of sensual muscles joined the torment. She caressed his taut cheekbones, the rasping clench of his jaw. She brushed the hard tips of her breasts against him and rolled her tongue around the kiss-softened contours of his lips before whispering, ‘My lover,’ then drew in every sensitised, beautifully tutored muscle to send him toppling over the edge.

As role reversals went, Nell knew she had cornered the market. She had him hanging on every flirtatious word and look and gesture like a besotted slave. On the occasions he grabbed back power just to remind her that he could do if he so desired to, she became the tormented one, the hopeless, helpless, besotted slave.

One week floated in perfect harmony into two then a third. Thea watched them and smiled a lot, and began crocheting an intricately patterned gossamer-fine christening shawl with a serene complacency that made Nell blush.

This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?

Frowning as she bent to pick up a stray piece of driftwood off the shoreline, she sent experienced fingers gliding over its undulating ocean-smoothed contours the way her mother had taught her to do, while her mind drifted elsewhere.

She suspected she was pregnant. It was very early days yet to allow the suspicion to grow too large in her head, but her regular-as-clockwork period had let her down three days ago, and if Xander’s virility was as potent as the rest of him then she knew, deep down, what it meant.

It changed everything. From believing she wanted to conceive his baby she now discovered that she didn’t. Not yet, not like this. Not while they still hid from the real world on this tiny island where she felt more like a very indulged mistress than she did a wife.

A sigh broke from her, sending her chin tilting up so she could stare bleakly at the blue horizon. Xander could not remain hidden here for very much longer. As it was he needed to spend more and more time in his state-of-the-art study here dealing with business.

And Nell had pressing things of her own she needed to do—if she could only get to a telephone that did not have every call made on it carefully monitored.

Marcel. She was worried about him. She needed to know how he was and what he was doing. If he was cutting himself up with guilt and remorse or too angry with her to care that she was worrying about him.

When Xander did find it necessary to leave here, did he intend to take her with him this time or was she, in effect, still his prisoner whether it be behind the gates of Rosemere or here in this beautiful place?

He evaded the question each time she asked it. He evaded any discussion about life beyond here. Their honeymoon, he called it. A time to enjoy now, not what tomorrow had to bring.

But even a honeymoon as idyllic as this one had to come to an end some time.

She released another sigh. Xander watched it leave her as he stood in the window with the phone pressed to his ear. She was wearing a blue sarong today. Beneath the sarong would be a matching-coloured bikini, and her hair was up, looped into one of those casual knots she had a way of fashioning that always tempted him to tug it free.

His fingers twitched, so did other parts as he saw himself unwrapping the beautiful package that was his sensational, warm and willing wife.

Wife. His wife. As soon as he thought the words a blanket of seemingly unquenchable possessive desire bathed his flesh. He wanted to be out there with her, not standing here talking business on the telephone.

‘I know I have to attend,’ he snapped out, sud