April Fool Bride (8 page)

Maddie thought she would go up in flames. But
she'd wait another minute before stopping him. She knew she was
literally playing with fire in letting him touch her, kiss her, but
she couldn't resist. It was like so many of her fantasies come to
life.

"Let's take this party upstairs," Jake
whispered, gathering her into his arms, rising with her held
tightly against his chest as if she weighed nothing.

With every step, she told herself that she
would stop him. At the top of the stairs, he turned and headed to
her room. She could feel his heart pounding against her and knew
hers pounded just as hard in response. He was her husband. Would it
be so wrong to have this time with him?

Jake paused at her door. A moment later they
were in her room with the door closed behind them. He paused again,
and she heard the lock click. The lamp on one of the bedside tables
had been left on low, casting a warm glow across the satin
coverlet. Maddie saw the heat in Jake's eyes as he looked from her
to the king-size bed that had taken the place of the girlish canopy
bed she'd once had.

At the bed, he released her. She slid down
his body, feeling his hardness. His heat. Now was when she would
tell him to stop. His hands drifted around her waist. She heard the
quiet buzz of the zipper. Her dress fell open. He shoved the satin
down. It puddled on the floor around her feet. He unhooked the
strapless bra, removing the last barrier that kept his hands from
her breasts. When he touched her, his hands shook. That made her
feel a bit better because she was shaking like a leaf in a
whirlwind.

His hands were hot on her skin. His
fingertips, slightly callused, aroused as he stroked her. The heavy
ache between her thighs grew more pronounced. Oh, she wanted this.
She wanted him. But…he didn't want her. Not really. This was just
lust. Any woman would have pleased him. Maddie gasped a strangled
protest, "No. Jake. No." Yet she couldn't make herself move from
his embrace.

Confused, Jake raised his eyes from her
mesmerizing body to her face. She quivered like a tautly strung
bow. "No?" he managed to whisper.

Maddie gained the courage to step away.
Another step and the spell was broken. She ran to the bathroom and
closed the door.

Jake sank onto the bed. He took deep breaths
trying to calm his raging body. Why had she stopped him? He knew
she wanted him. Several minutes passed. He finally managed to get
enough blood back into his brain to think. He heard the shower come
on.

He saw his bag and Maddie's on the large
table by the window. When the pressure against his zipper had
subsided, he walked over to his suitcase and removed a pair of gray
jogging shorts and a white tee shirt. Well, this evening hadn't
worked out like he'd hoped. He knocked on the bathroom door. "If
you're finished in there, I need to take a shower. A really cold
shower."

The door opened immediately. Maddie's hair
was pinned on top of her head, and her face had been washed clean
of makeup. She wore an old flannel robe, belted tightly about her
slim waist. He bit back a groan. She even looked sexy in that, he
thought, escaping into the bathroom.

Maddie knew she and Jake couldn't sleep
together, but the floor was the only other horizontal surface in
her room. There was no other bedding either, and she didn't want to
go rummage through the linen closet because Constance would find
out for sure. Then she'd know that Maddie and Jake's marriage was a
sham. Amy had said Constance, as trustee, could create problems.
Constance couldn't learn that this was a marriage of convenience,
but Maddie couldn't risk sleeping with Jake either. At the end of
the year, she wanted to walk away from this with her heart intact,
not broken in a million pieces.

"Okay," she muttered. "Necessity is the
mother of invention." She checked the door to make sure it was
locked then she pulled the down comforter from the bed and laid it
on the floor at the foot of the bed. She added a pillow to it,
removed her robe and used it as a blanket. When she heard the
bathroom door open, she hastily closed her eyes and feigned sleep.
A moment later, she felt the pillow yanked away.

She sat up to see Jake toss the pillow onto
the bed. His hair was wet from the shower. The white tee shirt and
gray shorts didn't obscure enough of the details of his body. She
looked away quickly.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" he
asked.

"I'm doing the only sensible thing given the
fact that we can't sleep together."

When he didn't say anything, she risked
looking at him. He frowned fiercely. "This is ridiculous. You can't
sleep on the floor."

"There's nothing wrong with the floor."

Jake sighed heavily and sat on the edge of
the bed. "Look. I'm tired. You're tired. It's been a stressful few
days. I can't let you sleep on the floor. I'll have to play the
gentleman card and give you the bed, but I don't want to sleep on
the floor either."

When Maddie started to protest, Jake held up
a hand. "We're both mature adults. I'm way past the stage of being
a slave to my hormones. If you can say the same, then why can't we
share the bed? For sleep only. You can consider it another oral
contract if that makes you happy."

"No sex?"

"None. Nada. Zero."

"No seduction? No wooing?" Maddie asked.

"Right. It's a big bed. You stay on your
side. I'll stay on mine."

He was right. Even though she'd been
energized earlier when he'd been touching her, the truth was, she
was exhausted. "Okay. Just so you agree that there will be no
sex."

"How many ways do I have to say it?" He
grumbled. "Oh, for the love of a good night's sleep, I'm too tired
to argue with you. I promise I won't touch you."

Maddie gnawed on her lower lip. Jake
suppressed his smile. She looked so darn sexy in the pink tee shirt
and pink polka dot boxers. He'd seen her chew on her lower lip so
often when she'd been young. Usually when she was trying to work up
her courage to do something she shouldn't do, something that always
drew Constance's ire.

"I'm going to hold you to your promise."
Maddie went around the bed to the other side. She slid beneath the
covers and pulled the blanket up to her chin. Jake climbed into bed
and turned the lamp off.

"I won't touch you until you ask me too," he
said softly in the dark.

"Then I'm safe because I won't ask."

Maddie turned onto her right side, facing
away from him. After a minute, he heard her reposition onto her
back. Then she turned again. She wriggled and made little enticing
sounds until he couldn't stand it. Irritably, he asked, "What's
wrong?"

"Nothing. I think I'm too tired to
sleep."

That brought back memories of all the nights
she'd creep into the servants' quarters where he'd be in the small
living room reading. "Oh, Maddie, you've always been an insomniac.
Want me to tell you a story?"

A smothered giggle answered him. "No thanks.
The stories you told me when we were kids always scared the bejesus
out of me."

"Yeah, well, I was in my 'Nightmare on Elm
Street' phase."

"Don't even mention that movie. It freaked me
out for years."

Her soft laugh made the darkness more
companionable. He'd never liked sleeping with a woman after sex,
but he found he liked being here with Maddie, cocooned in the dark
with only moonlight shining through the windows as they talked.
Maddie had turned on her side, facing him. "I know you want me,
Maddie. Why do you keep saying no?"

Maddie tensed. She couldn't tell him the
truth. She opted for another truth that he might accept as answer.
"I'll tell you on two conditions. First, don't make fun of me, and,
second, you have to tell me a painful truth too."

"Let me think. The first is easy to fulfill.
I promise I won't make fun of you. There. That's done. The second.
Hmm. I take it you're going to impart a painful truth?"

"Particularly painful. In every way."

Jake turned on his side, narrowing the
de-militarized zone between them. Moonlight allowed him to see her
fairly well. "It's a deal. Tell me your deep dark secret."

Softly, she whispered, "I'm celibate."

His eyes flew open. "You're what?"

She laughed, but there was little amusement
in the sound. "It's true. Mad Maddie, the oil heiress known for her
sexcapades, is celibate. She no longer sleeps around. She no longer
drinks too much and goes home with strange men."

Jake heard the pain in her voice. "Did you do
that? Go home with strange men?"

"Yes. Any man. Anything to make my life less
lonely."

Jake hated the jealousy that rolled through
him like black bile. But he hated the desolation in her voice even
more. He breached the distance between them, pulling her close,
seeking only to comfort.

Maddie stiffened. "You promised."

"I haven't broken that promise."

When she turned away from him, he pulled her
close, curving his body around hers. "Here's a painful truth. I
just want to hold you. Don't ask me why. I'm not trying anything.
I'm not breaking my promise." He laid his arm across her, holding
her against him. Having her bottom snug against him was the most
delightful torture he could imagine. She was so close to him that
he could feel her heartbeat against his arm that bound her to him.
She took a deep breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

"What are you, a saint?" Maddie gasped.

"I must be," he muttered. "Only a saint would
set himself up for such torture."

He heard another choked sob. "Why are you
crying, Maddie?"

"I'm not."

Jake knew that was a lie. "Just sleep. You're
safe in my arms until you tell me otherwise." He laughed softly.
"If you can ignore my erection, I guess I can too."

To his surprise, after several minutes,
Maddie relaxed against him. Her breathing deepened. He drew her
even closer, liking the way she felt in his arms. That roused
her.

In a sleepy murmur, she said, "You still owe
me a painful truth. The other doesn't count."

He held her and willed himself to yield to
sleep. She wanted a painful truth?

How about the fact that he found himself
wanting her more than he'd ever wanted any woman?

Chapter 8

The next day, Maddie awoke to find herself
lying almost on top of Jake. Her right arm was flung across his
chest, and his left arm rested on her back. She tensed and waited
to see if he too were awake, but he slept on. Slowly she pulled
away. Sleeping in his arms had been as unexpected as it was
wonderful. He made an unintelligible sound and rolled onto his
stomach. She took one last look at him even as she told herself not
to get used to the tenderness he'd shown her last night. After that
intimacy, she needed to shore up her defenses.

Maddie dressed quickly in jeans, a lime green
tee shirt and sneakers. She grabbed an old leather aviator jacket
that she'd bought at one of the charity resale shops and hurried
out of the room before Jake awoke and asked her where she was
going. She didn't want to lie to him about the shelter.

Downstairs, she dashed into the kitchen and
greeted Inez with a smile. Usually, Maddie had coffee with her, but
not today.

She had a hard time starting the old
Mercedes. Although beautiful on the outside, the old sports coupe
that had been her mother's was a clunker on the inside. The engine
needed a valve job or something like that. She'd listened patiently
to the mechanic who told her about everything wrong with the car,
but the details hadn't sunk into her non-mechanical brain. She just
knew it would cost more money than she wanted to spend so she had
to put it off until next year when she could tap into her
trust.

Maddie backed the car out of the garage,
cringing when the engine backfired. She prayed the sound didn't
rouse Jake. Before she could shift into low, it backfired again.
Damn. She glanced up at her bedroom window. "Please be asleep."

At first Jake thought the sound was gunfire.
He awoke disoriented, but he knew in an instant that he wasn't back
in Afghanistan and under fire. He was alone in the bed. He went to
the window and saw the old Mercedes that used to occupy the last
bay in the garage. Surely Maddie wasn't driving that old heap. As
he watched, it belched smoke from the exhaust and backfired. That
explained the noise that had awakened him. Why wasn't she driving
some sleek new car?

Jake dressed in jeans, a red knit pullover
shirt, and his favorite running shoes. Within fifteen minutes he
was in the kitchen and chatting with Inez, the new housekeeper,
over a cup of coffee. The short, slightly built woman--also
Hispanic like his mom--was probably in her mid-forties. Inez didn't
beat around the bush. "Your mother helped me get this job. She's a
good woman."

"Yep. That's my mom." He looked around. He'd
spent much of his youth in this very kitchen. Walking across the
black and white marble tiles was like coming home.

"Would you like me to cook you some
breakfast? Mrs. Quinn told me to do whatever you wished."

That surprised Jake. "Thanks, but I'm going
to visit my mom."

"Please tell her I'll see her at the farmer's
market next weekend. Oh, and I'll prepare the coffee pot in the
morning so you can just press the power button when you come into
the kitchen. Unless you want me to bring a tray to your room. I
mean Miss Maddie's room."

"Oh, heck no. I can fetch my own coffee."

She giggled. "That's what Miss Maddie does.
Except this morning. She didn't even stop for a cup."

Jake should have realized Inez knew
everything that went on in the household. Graciella always had.
Chances are Maddie hadn't warned Inez to silence. "So where did
Maddie go in such a hurry?"