More Than a Convenient Marriage?

She was exhausted. It shouldn’t bother her, but it left her feeling abandoned and without hope for their marriage, a family, or a love like her brother had found.

“Yes,” she said quietly, pulling on her cloak of polite endurance to hide how hurt she was. “It’s been a long day and tomorrow will be longer.” Smooth out all those rough edges, Adara. Make it seem as if you don’t have a heart to break.

“Your place or mine?”

“I—what?” She blinked at him, trying to quell the flutter of sensual excitement that woke in her blood. A little embarrassed by how quickly she could bloom back to life, she murmured, “I’m genuinely tired.”

Nevertheless, she seesawed with indecision, longing for the closeness she experienced in his arms, but fearful of how neglected she felt when he drew himself apart from her the way he had since meeting her brother.

“I’m freaking exhausted,” he admitted with heartfelt weariness, “but we’re not going back to separate bedrooms. Mine,” he said decisively, catching her hand to lead her there. “Don’t bother moving your clothes. The farther away the better.”

“Gideon.” She chuckled a little as she stumbled behind him, then was distracted by entering a room she’d rarely peeked into. It was scrupulously clean and not just from the housekeeper doing a thorough job in their absence. Gideon was a tidy man. Living on boats forged that habit, he’d told her once. He didn’t like clutter. The decorator’s palette for the walls was unmarred by paintings or photos. The night table held only a phone dock that doubled as a bedside light.

He stepped into his closet to set his shoes on a shelf.

“You need to find a few days in the next week to come to Valparaiso with me,” he told her as he emerged, drawing his belt free as he spoke, then hanging it precisely alongside the rest.

“You’ve become very dictatorial in the last few days, do you realize that?” She wasn’t sure where the cheeky comment came from, but it blurted out even as her voice tightened along with her blood vessels. He was undressing, shedding his shirt without reserve to expose tanned planes of muscle.

“You used to be a pushover. I didn’t have to try very hard to get what I wanted. Now I do.”

“Does that bother you?” A pang in her lip made her realize she was biting down as she awaited his answer, habitually fearful of masculine disapproval.

He moved toward her, pants open to expose the narrow line of hair descending from his navel, feet bare, predatory with his tight abs and naked chest and sober expression. His nipples were pulled into tight points by the air-conditioned room.

She tensed against a rush of uncertainty and sexual admiration.

“You were thinking of leaving me because you weren’t getting what you wanted. That bothers me very much.” He cupped the side of her neck and his thumb pressed under her chin, gently tilting her face up. “We can’t meet each other’s needs if we don’t say what they are, so I’m pleased you’re telling me what you want. I’m telling you what I want. I like feeling you next to me and waking up to make love to you in the middle of the night. I need to travel and when I do, I want you to know that no one is in my bed except you.”

So he hadn’t completely left her, this man who so easily found his way to the deepest recesses of her soul. She swept her lashes down to hide how moved she was.

“What do you want, Adara?”

She practically liquefied into one of those women she often saw following him with limpid eyes and undisguised yearning. Her heart was so scarred and scared she could barely acknowledge what she wanted, let alone articulate it, but she managed to say huskily, “You.”

Instantly it felt like too huge an admission, like she was confessing to a deeper need than the sexual ones he had. Unable to bear being so completely defenseless against him, she splayed her hands on his chest and tried to lessen the depth of the admission by saying in a stilted murmur, “I’m not a sexual person, but I want to be in bed with you all the time.”

Something inscrutable flashed in his expression, quickly masked by excitement as his chest expanded under her touch with a big inhale.

Adara hid her sensitivity in a sexual advance she couldn’t have made a week ago, but their constant lovemaking over the last few days had given her the confidence to lean forward and tease his nipple with her mouth.

He grasped a handful of her hair while his erection grew against her stomach, making her smile as she flicked with her tongue and made him groan with approval.

“I thought you wanted to sleep,” he said through his teeth.

“We will,” she said, scraping her teeth across to his other nipple. “In a bit.”

* * *

Gideon checked inside the velvet clamshell box, giving the ring one more critical look. The cushion-cut pink diamond was framed on either side by half-carat white diamonds, two on each side. Like Adara, the arrangement had a quiet elegance that wasn’t ostentatious or flashy. It was a rare find that held the eye a long time once you noticed it.

When he’d seen it, he’d thought, Sunrise. A new beginning. Then his sailor’s superstition had kicked in. Red sky in morning...

No, there was no warning here. They were proceeding into the horizon on smooth waters, making this ring the perfect marker for their anniversary in a few weeks. He had considered waiting until the actual date to give this to her, but they had a gala tonight and it seemed the right time for Adara to show off a trinket from her husband.

A good time for him to show her off, he admitted to himself with a self-deprecating smirk. A funny pang hit him in the middle of his chest as he tucked the box into the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. Adara was the last person to walk around bragging, Look what my husband gave me. He was the one who’d coaxed her into accepting this invitation so he’d have an excuse to give her this ring and seal a deal they hadn’t quite closed.

Moving into the empty living room to wait for her, he poured himself a drink and gazed at the lights bobbing across the harbor, disturbed by how insecure he still felt about their future.

If sex was an indicator, he had nothing to worry about. Horny as he may have been as a teenager, he hadn’t had access to a female body often enough to be this sexually active. Since Greece, however, he and Adara had been living the sort of second honeymoon every man fantasized about. There shouldn’t be an ounce of need left in him, but as he dwelled on waking this morning to Adara’s curves melded into his side, and the welcoming moan she’d released when he’d slipped inside her, a flame of sexual hunger came alive in him again.

And it was so good. Not just the quantity, but the quality. Her old inhibitions were gone. She was outspoken enough that he could unleash himself with the knowledge that she’d slow him down if she didn’t like it. The sex was a dream come true.

So he didn’t understand this agitation in himself, especially when she’d become more open in other ways, making him feel even more special and privileged to wear the label “Adara’s husband.”

Like yesterday, when he’d swung by her office on impulse at lunch, catching her in a meeting. Through the glass wall he’d watched her hold court, standing at the head of a board table surrounded by men and women in suits, all glued to her words. He’d understood their fascination, hypnotized himself by the glow of—hell, it looked like happiness, damn it.

Adara had paused in sketching diagrams on a smart board to point the tip of her electronic pen at each person as she went round the table, soliciting comments, earning nods and building consensus.

Gideon had stood there transfixed, proud, awed, full of admiration while remaining male enough to enjoy the way her shirt buttons strained across her breasts, just a shade tighter than she used to wear them.

Maybe that wasn’t entirely voluntary. She’d said something the other day about eating too much and being too sedentary while they were away. He’d dismissed the comment because who gained ten pounds in less than a week? And even if she had, he was quite happy with her curves, thanks. Studying that ready-to-pop button, he’d been torn between intense desire and the sheer pleasure of watching her work.

She’d turned her head and a flush of pleasure had lit up her expression. She’d bit back a smile, mouthing something about “my husband” to the crowd that turned their heads to the window.

He’d been busted and had to meet a pile of names he’d never remember. It had been worth it. Ten minutes later they had locked lips in the descending elevator and wound up doing a “snap inspection” on the family suite at one of her hotels, skipping lunch altogether.

It was all good. She’d even let him listen in to her calls to her younger brothers when she’d broken the news about looking up Nic. A few beseeching, helpless looks at Gideon while she walked through some difficult memories had kept him close, rubbing her back as she choked through the conversations, but afterward there’d been a level of peace in her that told him she was healing old wounds that had festered for years.