‘I want you more than I’ve wanted any woman in a very long time and that physical connection is very important to me,’ Sander breathed thickly, black lashes low over his molten golden gaze as he studied her with a sexual heat she could literally feel. ‘Right now I just want to cut through all this bull and take you back to bed …’
Her nipples straining into prominence beneath her clothes, Tally experienced a hollow ache at the heart of her and she went pink, acknowledging the power of the fiery sexual hunger that still drew them together even as she was moved to protest, ‘People don’t marry just to share a bed.’
‘Why not? I marry you and I take care of you and the baby. What could be more normal?’
Being taken care of was a seductive proposition for a young woman who had had to fight to get any attention from either of her parents as a child. ‘But would that be enough for you?’
‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ Sander responded. ‘Why are you making this so complicated?’
‘I don’t want either of us to make a mistake,’ Tally confided ruefully, fighting her desire to say yes and let him drag her off to bed then and there. ‘When we met at your office, you didn’t seem to want anything to do with me or the baby.’
‘But now I’ve adjusted to your announcement and I recognise that this is my baby as well,’ Sander countered levelly.
That declaration impressed her. ‘But you were so angry with me.’
‘That was unjust.’ Sander shifted a broad shoulder in a dismissive gesture. ‘As I didn’t use condoms I’m as much to blame for this development as you are.’
‘If you really believe that I could be the wife you want, I’ll marry you,’ Tally framed awkwardly, wishing that she could just throw herself into his arms and wondering why on earth she should still feel so uneasy about his proposal. Was it that it seemed too good to be true that she loved him and had fallen pregnant and he should want to marry her?
‘Okay, so we’ll get the deed done as quickly as possible,’ Sander pronounced impatiently, in no mood to dress up the occasion with fine words or gestures. ‘Next week would suit my schedule—’
‘Next week?’ Tally parroted in pure disbelief. ‘I’m about to start my final exams and it’ll be two weeks before I’ve finished.’
‘I don’t think it will take long to organise a quiet civil ceremony.’
Tally stiffened and sent him a rueful glance. ‘I would rather get married in church, Sander. It could still be small and quiet.’
His beautifully shaped mouth compressed with an impatience he could not hide. ‘If you say so. I don’t really care how we go about it, I just want it staged as soon as possible.’
Tally had read that men were rarely enthusiastic about wedding arrangements. But why was such haste necessary? It would be quite a few weeks before her condition became obvious. Was he embarrassed by the prospect of a visibly pregnant bride? Or a baby who would be born less than the requisite nine months after the wedding? Sander was too much his own man for her to credit either possibility.
‘Look, maybe we should both spend a couple of days thinking this over before we rush into anything,’ Tally suggested, her common sense winning out over her reluctance to allow him another opportunity to consider his position.
Sander frowned, dark as night eyes flashing with angry intolerance. ‘But you said you would marry me.’
‘Yes, and I absolutely meant it!’ Tally broke in with a passionate vehemence she could not restrain. ‘But this is a complete turnaround for you and it worries me that you’re in such a hurry.’
Sander released his breath in a hiss, dangerous golden eyes locked in seething challenge to her troubled face. ‘I don’t know what more you want from me.’
Tally wondered if she was being hugely unfair and foolish. After all, she wanted his heart and it wasn’t on offer. Oleia had evidently planted a dainty but destructive stiletto heel in that organ when he was at an impressionable age and the women who had followed in her footsteps had reaped the distrust, cynicism and emotional detachment that Oleia had sown.
‘I need to know that you truly want a life with me and our child and that this isn’t some crazy impulse which you will regret in a few months’ time.’
His beautiful wilful mouth took on a sardonic slant. ‘Do you think I know myself so little? Or is it simply that you’re offended that I didn’t do the big proposal scene?’
‘It is only a week since you told me to take my cheesy platitudes and pretty much get out of your office!’ Tally slammed back at him as she grabbed up her bag and sprang upright, eager to take her leave before her simmering emotions led her into an argument she did not want to have.
Alive with wrathful impatience and frustration, Sander closed his lean hands over hers and pulled her up against him, hot golden eyes hungrily raking her flushed and unhappy face. He shifted his lean hips and she tensed when she felt the thrusting urgency of his arousal even through his clothing. ‘Let’s forget the talking. It’s getting us nowhere. Come to bed,’ he breathed thickly.
And the hot shivery desire that shot like a sheet of flame through Tally in response to that blunt invitation left no part of her untouched. Her nipples peaked, her breasts swelled and heat and damp gathered between her thighs. She wanted to say yes, she wanted to say yes so badly that the very word was on her lips because she knew that sexual intimacy would ease the terrible tension and allow her to feel close to him again. She was eager for the proof that he still found her desirable, for only that could make her feel in any way secure when he didn’t love her. But on a more rational level she was experiencing a sixth-sense feeling of apprehension that would not let her alone and turned the fever in her blood cold.
‘I think it would be better if I went straight home tonight,’ Tally contended, pulling back from him with strained eyes as she fought the craving he always evoked in her. She did not know how to explain the feelings afflicting her, she only knew that she did not want to add a bout of wild make-up sex to an already volatile situation. She was very much afraid that, willing partner though she would be, sex would only make her feel used because what she really wanted from him just then were reassuring words and feelings, rather than the mindless excitement of his lovemaking. And there was really no point expecting him to deliver the more tender emotions he was not experiencing.
Swinging away from her in receipt of the rare rejection, Sander raked long fingers through his crop
ped black hair and swore under his breath before breathing rawly, ‘I assumed we would be celebrating.’
‘My hormones are all over the place at the minute,’ Tally muttered apologetically. ‘The last week has been pretty traumatic and I need some down time to think and revise for my exams.’
‘I just don’t know where you’re coming from—’
‘Let’s fix a date for the wedding,’ Tally broke in, her desperation mounting and she shifted closer and stretched up to kiss the corner of his mouth in a soothing gesture of affection.
Unfortunately the gesture failed to work its magic. Sander closed his hands into the torrent of her curls and he held her fast while he plundered her mouth with a dark driving need that speared through her like a lightning bolt. Even so she still wouldn’t surrender to her hunger and she fell back from him, her ripe mouth red and swollen. Eyes cloaked, he gazed down at her moodily and noticed with an unexpected sense of satisfaction that when she smiled dizzily up at him, her dimples were showing again.
‘Three weeks today,’ Tally bargained, keen to smooth away the tension still hardening his lean, dark, devastatingly handsome features. ‘Three weeks today we get married … Okay?’
When she had gone in the taxi he had procured and paid for, Sander reminded himself sardonically that at least on one level he had got what he wanted. Was it too cynical to suspect that she had decided to withhold the voluptuous delights of her curvy little body until she got that wedding ring on her finger? Had the natural candid girl who had initially attracted him only existed in his own imagination? It was a depressing suspicion.
Unusually, Crystal got out of bed to see her daughter when she got home and Tally wasted no time in sharing her news. ‘Sander’s asked me to marry him and we’re thinking of three weeks today if it can be arranged.’