No Need for Love

‘You did,’ she said quickly. ‘After the judge pronounced us——’

‘That wasn’t a kiss, Hannah, it was a formality.’ His breath warmed her cheek as he bent his head. ‘Let me show you what a kiss should be,’ he said, and his mouth descended on hers.

She made a murmur of distress and turned away from him. ‘What are you doing?’

He clasped her face in his hands. ‘No more games,’ he said huskily. ‘Not now.’

Hannah’s throat constricted. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Grant. Please——’

His mouth was cool and soft as it silenced her, moving with slow assurance against her lips. She struggled and he moved back, taking her with him, until he was leaning against the wall and she was gathered closely in his arms.

‘Grant,’ she said, ‘don’t.’

‘Kiss me,’ he whispered. His tongue slid along the seam of her lips. ‘It’s all right now, Hannah, you can let go. It’s all right, darling.’

She could feel the heavy beat of his heart against hers, feel the heat of his body. He was warm, like the sun blazing down on the white sand, and he smelled like the sea, clean and salty and powerful. Her heartbeat quickened, then began to pound. She felt as she had in that one dizzying instant when he had taken her hand and drawn her forward to the altar hours ago; she felt as if she were melting, as if she might fall to the floor in a boneless heap unless she had the steadying support of Grant’s arms…

‘You’re not made of ice,’ he whispered, ‘no matter how you try to pretend.’ He bit gently at her lip. ‘Open to me, Hannah, let me taste you.’

‘No. Grant, no. You can’t!’

‘I can, damn you,’ he said with a rough passion. ‘You’re my wife!’

His wife. His wife.

The words beat through her, sang in her blood, and she swayed in her arms as he gathered her even closer to him, holding her so tightly that she could no longer tell where her body ended and his began.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered. His hands threaded into her hair and he tilted her face up to his. ‘I love the way you look when I touch you, Hannah. Your eyes get all smoky, your mouth turns soft…’

‘Grant,’ she said in a breathless whisper, ‘Grant, listen to me. We can’t—I don’t want——’

She caught her breath on a long-drawn-out sob as he bit lightly at her neck. Her head fell back and he whispered her name as he kissed her throat.

‘Yes, you do,’ he said thickly. He caught her mouth with his. His tongue slipped between her lips again and she gave a moan of pleasure. ‘You want this,’ he said, and he slid his hands down her body, his thumbs just brushing her breasts before they settled at her waist. ‘And this.’ He caught her and lifted her against him, so that her loins were cradled against the hard arousal of his flesh.

‘Grant,’ she said frantically, ‘Grant——’

‘That’s what you do to me,’ he said in a soft, urgent whisper. He took her hand and brought it between them. ‘Do you feel that, Hannah? It’s for you, darling, all for you.’

She whimpered as he gathered her into the curve of one arm and traced the outline of her body with his fingertips, then cupped her breast. His thumb moved, and she felt her nipple spring erect to seek his touch.

‘Oh,’ she whispered, ‘oh…’

Stop him, she told herself, stop him now, before it’s too late. Stop him before this goes too far and there’s no turning back.

His fingers were at her throat, opening the buttons that ran down the front of her dress.

‘Beautiful,’ he said softly, when he finally eased the pink silk off her shoulders. He bent his head and kissed the swell of each breast rising above her white lace teddy, and a tremor of almost unbearable excitement went through her. ‘Now it’s your turn,’ he said, and he drew her hands to his shirt.

No, she thought, no, I won’t do it. But her fingers were already skimming lightly down the soft cotton, trembling as they undid the buttons, and then she tugged the shirt free of his trousers and slipped it back on his shoulders.

‘Touch me,’ he said, and she put her palms flat against his chest, closing her eyes as she felt the silken kiss of the dark, lightly curling hair, the warm heat of his muscled skin.

‘I knew it would be like this,’ he said fiercely, and the words raced through her blood.

Yes, oh, yes, she had known it, too. She had always known it. She’d wanted him from the beginning; what was the sense of denying it? And he wanted her, she knew that, she’d known it all along. All the talk of contracts and babies was only window-dressing.

This—the magic, the flashfire that was always waiting to blaze into life, that had always threatened to overwhelm them—this was the only thing that meant anything. Her breath caught as Grant kissed her deeply. Desire, thick and hot, moved through her veins.

He groaned softly as she touched him, as she discovered the long, hard lines of muscle in his back and shoulders. Liquid heat built low in her belly. This was reality, and, if she had been foolish enough to think she could live with Grant without giving in to it, her only comfort was that he had been the same kind of fool.

Her head fell back as he swung her up into his arms and carried her through the sitting-room to the bedroom beyond, and he captured the sound of her surrender in his mouth, returned it to her in the whisper of her own name and the heat of his breath as he kissed her. He let her down beside the bed slowly, so that her breasts brushed his chest, her belly grazed his, and he drew back the curtains. Then he gathered her to him again and kissed her, over and over, as if he could never get enough of her mouth. She reached up and clung to his wrists as his hands cupped her face, drinking from his mouth as he drank from hers.

‘Tell me you want me,’ he said.

His face was almost lost in shadow, but she could see his eyes, glittering with desire. You can still stop, a little voice within her whispered urgently; there’s time.

But his mouth fell on hers again, and when he lifted his head she was beyond reason, beyond anything but the wildness building with each tick of her heart.

‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Oh, yes, Grant. I do. I always have.’

He laughed softly and triumphantly as he shrugged free of his shirt. With deft fingers, he undid the rest of her dress and it fell to the floor like the petals of a pink rose.

‘We’re going to be incredible together,’ he said softly. ‘I knew that from the first time I touched you.’

A smile trembled on her lips. ‘Did you?’ she whispered, cupping his face in her hands as he had cupped hers, letting her thumbs follow the curve of his high cheekbones, letting her fingertips learn the sweet, hard lines of his mouth while his hands curled around her hips.

He caught her finger between his teeth and sucked on it, then bit lightly on the soft pad of flesh below her thumb.

‘Yes.’ He pressed his open mouth over her breast and she cried out softly as his teeth closed lightly on the hardened nub of flesh rising just beneath the white lace of her teddy. ‘After I left you that first night, I almost came back.’

Hannah smiled and buried her face against his throat. ‘I wouldn’t have let you in.’

‘I’d have kicked down your door and taken you anyway,’ he said huskily.

She felt herself quickening at his whispered words. ‘I’d have fought you.’

Grant laughed. ‘Not for long.’

Colour stained her cheeks. ‘Why didn’t you?’ she whispered. ‘Why did you wait all this time?’

‘I don’t know.’ He drew her to him. ‘Maybe because I was never sure if I wanted to kiss you or kill you,’ he said with a little laugh as he bore her down into the soft depths of the bed.

‘And now you are?’

‘Yes.’ He drew down the strap of her teddy and kissed the flesh beneath. ‘Why would I want to do anything but make love to you, now that I’ve got you sweet and warm in my bed?’ He gave her a long, slow kiss. ‘I wondered, Will she give hers

elf to me because she wants to, or will she be a cold stone performing the terms of the contract?’

Hannah’s smile faltered. ‘What?’

Grant ran his hand the length of her body. ‘I have my answer now, don’t I, sweet?’ He bent and kissed her mouth. ‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘oh, yes.’

‘Grant?’ Hannah struggled back against the pillows.

‘Don’t talk now.’ He growled softly as he nipped at her throat. ‘Give me your hand,’ he whispered, ‘and——’

‘No. Grant, please.’ She pushed at his shoulders, and he went still. ‘What did you mean about—about me being a cold stone performing the terms of—of the contract?’

He rolled to his side and looked down at her. ‘What?’ He gave an exasperated little laugh. ‘Hell, I wasn’t taking notes.’

She sat up, suddenly painfully aware of how abandoned she must look in nothing more substantial than a white lace teddy, with her hair tumbling around her shoulders and her lipstick smeared, and she reached for the bedspread and tried, as best she could, to drag it to her chin.

‘What did you mean?’ she insisted.

‘Hannah——’

She drew in her breath. ‘The contract doesn’t give you the right to—to take me to bed, and you know it.’

‘My God, woman.’ He gave a relieved laugh. ‘Are we going to have a discussion of legal niceties here? OK. Technically, I suppose you have a point.’ He reached out and caught her wrist. ‘Our marriage licence does that. Now, come over here, and——’

Hannah slapped his hand away. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Grant. Nothing gives you the right to—to—’

‘What’s the problem here, Hannah?’ he said, his voice suddenly cold and flat.

She stared at him. ‘The problem? The problem,’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘is that you seem to think you had the right to—to do what you were just doing.’