InformedConsent

Informed Consent

Susanna Stone

If you dare to come near me again, I
swear I’ll take that as your consent for me to use you any way I choose…

With equal parts determination and trepidation,
Tara Calloway risks more than her heart to carry a vital message to her
long-ago would-be lover, both hopeful and fearful of the reception that awaits
her. She needs to keep it strictly business between them, for everyone’s sake,
but Joe Corbett seizes this chance to carry out the explicit sexual
threats—promises?—depicted in the letter he wrote her six years ago in a
paroxysm of heat and anger.

And she has no intention of stopping him.

Chapter One

If you ever come back into my life…

Sitting astride her Indian Motorcycle at the top of the
ridge, Tara read the creased and crumbling note once again, though she’d long
ago memorized its contents.

After all this time, Corbett’s unequivocal words, in his
unmistakable, unforgettable handwriting, still had the power to chill her soul
and heat her blood.

She crammed the scrap of paper back into the breast pocket
of her leather jacket and zipped it shut, then looked ahead along the valley
where the late afternoon sun glowed rich on the eastern slope.

The endless vista of river and forest and sky spread before
her as the warm September breeze wafted over the British Columbia interior
through a million pine branches.

This was the last moment to turn back. Turn the bike 180 and
head the hell back to Victoria, without running the risk of succumbing to
whatever dangers Corbett might hold for her.

Right. And let her father down. Throw away everything he’d
worked for, everything he believed in.

“
Joe Corbett’s the one man I’d trust with this. Do
whatever it takes to persuade him to come back.
”

Yeah.
Whatever it takes.
Of course, Leo hadn’t a clue
what had passed between her and Corbett six years ago.

She pulled her helmet back on and studied the road below. It
turned and twisted back on itself, down into the river valley toward the King
Camp, a good three kilometers farther on.

Tara shifted into gear, and began her switchback descent
toward Corbett and whatever reception might await her. Such as his carrying out
the agenda outlined in his brutally explicit note.

If you ever come back into my life…

Had he meant it? All of it? Any of it?

Hell, what did it matter? She could handle this. After all,
by now he should have forgotten all about her; he no doubt had a woman in his
life. And despite her fantasies over the years, this encounter was going to be
strictly business. She would reasonably and calmly introduce the proposition
that had brought her five hundred kilometers across the Strait of Georgia, up
the Fraser Canyon and over relentless logging roads.

Tara and the bike leveled off as they curved into the flat
valley floor and built up speed, roaring straight down the road for the last
lap of her journey.

She careered into the yard of the old camp and pulled to a
halt outside the main building.

Impressive. The camp appeared to be modernized only enough
to provide safety and cleanliness without sacrificing the rustic northern feel
of the famous institution that had provided summer fun and fresh air and
challenges for generations of underprivileged kids.

Lots of scope for the hard-working carpenter, she
remembered.

As Tara removed her helmet, a woman appeared from around the
corner of one building, carrying a carton of old shingles. Slim and fit and
perhaps forty, she bore the look of a career camp counselor.

“Hi,” the woman said with a look of appreciation at Tara’s
wheels. She shifted the load onto the bed of her dusty Tacoma. “Nice machine.”

“Thanks. I’m looking for Joe Corbett. I hear he’s working
here these days?”

“He’s up back working on the old cabins by the lake.” She
indicated a narrow roadway through the woods at the far end of the yard.
“Post-summer repairs, so we’ll be all set for next season. I’m Jeannie King, by
the way.”

Tara gripped the woman’s outstretched hand. “Tara Calloway.”

“Nice to meet you. You can go on back, if you like.”

“You’d let a stranger just wander around your camp?”

The woman gave a half shrug, as though offering nothing more
serious than the loan of a pencil. “You’re a friend of Corbett’s. You ride a
classic Indian 101 Scout—what year is that, by the way? ‘31?”

“1930. My grandfather’s. When I was a kid we used to roar
along the back roads at death-defying speeds with me in the sidecar. Probably
completely illegal, of course.”

“Sounds perfect. Mind saving me a walk back there? Just let
Corbett know I’m knocking off for the day. I’ll see him tomorrow.”

Tara rode slowly over the old gravel road until she reached
a cluster of vintage cabins in a clearing where the river widened into a lake,
and parked the Scout beside the first cabin. If Corbett were anywhere nearby
he’d have heard her, and if—

“I’d know the sound of that old bucket of bolts anywhere.”

He stood in the open doorway of the second cabin, leaning
against the doorframe, leather tool belt hanging low from his waist, every
morsel of him illuminated by the long, low afternoon light. His hard-worn jeans
and hard-worn muscles and hard-worn eyes.

Oh hell.

She’d made a big, big mistake coming here.

Tara focused hard to remain upright on legs made of water,
at her first sight of the man she had once wanted with every nerve in her body.

“You don’t get to say anything nasty about my Indian Maiden,
Joe Corbett.”

“As you command.” He straightened himself away from the
doorframe but remained standing on the low, open veranda.

His look was unreadable. Happy to see her? Mad? Or worse,
did he even give a shit? But just maybe he’d forgotten all about that damned
letter.

She approached the cabin and ascended the wooden steps, the
better to speak with him face to face.

“I told you to keep out of my life.” His voice was quiet,
rimmed with steel.

No, he hadn’t forgotten.

“Not quite. You said if I—” Her throat shut down as the
force of his bottomless look bore into her soul.

“Yes? If you ever came into my presence again I would…well?
What did I say?”

God, he wasn’t going to let up. She forced her voice to obey
and looked straight into those cool and dangerous gray eyes.

“That you would—to put it bluntly—have your way with me.”

The faintest flicker of interest twitched at the corner of
his mouth. That clever, agile mouth that should have done so many blissful
things to her that night.

The night—and the mouth—she’d dreamed about for six years.
But in her dreams, he hadn’t backed off. Vanished. In her dreams, he’d done
everything there and then. And more.

But—
snap out of it, Calloway
—this was reality. She
wasn’t a smitten nineteen-year-old anymore. She was here on a mission, and just
needed to keep calm and slap her libido down and deal with the matter at hand.

“Seems to me, Calloway, I put it way more blunt than that.”

“Maybe a little.”

…I will possess you, consume you, invade you and violate
you any and every way I choose…

Hell, did the flush—of desire?—show on her face? She sure
felt it under her clothes.

“Go on,” he prompted. “What else did I say?”

She permitted a ladylike snort to preface her response. “You
think I keep a perfect memory of your every word?”

“Oh, I certainly do, Ms. Calloway, ma’am. No mistake there.”

Damn his folksy put-on.

“You wish.”

He stood gazing at her for a moment, as though deciding
where to start, then covered the remaining space between them and gently,
firmly positioned his forefinger on her chin and raised it, to look straight
into her eyes.

“I kind of think the word ‘consent’ was involved.” His voice
was all slow and calm. She could hear herself swallow; no doubt he could too.

…I’ll take that as your clear, unequivocal consent for me
to take you. To fuck you in ways you never imagined, so deep and hard you’ll
never forget me…

“I don’t remember.”

“Okay,” he said, “since you insist on playing the amnesia
card, I’ll refresh your memory.”

The tip of his finger slid south to trace the skin of her
throat as his scent invaded her lungs and her brain, all wood shavings and pine
and male desire.

“I said, if you ever came near me again…”

He undid her top shirt button.

“I would take it as your consent for me to fuck you…”

She exhaled slowly, controlled, so he couldn’t hear, as
every cell in her body hummed with excitement at his touch.

I should stop him.

“Hard, thorough, unrelenting. No mercy.”

His dead calm, dead sure voice held no emotion—just the
facts, ma’am.

“Oh.” She tore her brain apart, frantic to find some
brilliant, snappy response. “Is
that
what you meant?”

Right. She was going to fire her inner scriptwriter.

“It’s what I
said
, Calloway. So, yeah, it’s what I
meant. But, hey, I’ll play along.”

He removed his fingertip from her breastbone and stepped
back and she was able to breathe again. Sort of.

“Assuming you did somehow misunderstand the word ‘fuck’,
I’ll give you a second chance.”

“Corbett, I’m here just to talk to you—”

“Out of here. Now. Or the program goes ahead as outlined.”

“You seem damned sure of your chances,” she said, striving
for a light tone.

He raised one eyebrow. God, the man was talented.

“You think I won’t do it?”

“You’re not that kind of guy.” Even as she threw out the
challenge, her treacherous body throbbed for it. Her blood grew thin and flowed
fast at the prospect of his overpowering her, stripping her, spreading her
legs…

Just as he’d promised. Threatened.

…you have no clue how out of your depth you were the
night you tried to seduce me. Girls like you who tease men like me are asking
for trouble, and you can thank your guardian angel I stopped before I showed
you how the game of sex is really played…

“That kind of guy…?” he challenged.

Okay. She needed to disarm this situation. Present her case
and then walk away with her self-respect—and god knew what else—intact.

“It’s not you. Not good old reliable Joe Corbett,
hardworking, decent, all-round nice guy.”

“Uh-huh. You mean that nice guy who would never hold a
woman—especially not that
nice,
wholesome Tara Calloway who used to hang
around her dad’s workshop—up against the wall. Against her will.”

“What, here?” She waved a would-be insouciant hand around
the veranda, as though the innocent rustic scenario of the old sleeping cabin
could provide a cloak of safety.

But Corbett, in this time and place and mood, was clearly
anything but safe. With casual deliberation, never taking his eyes from hers,
he unbuckled the tool belt and lowered it to the floor. He shoved it aside with
his foot.

She opened her mouth to make another attempt at the purpose
of her visit, but the surrealism of the situation simply paralyzed her throat.
The energy of Corbett’s single-minded determination snaked its way into in all
her vulnerable places. Her lower gut flamed into response.

“Sticking around, eh?” He took one lapel of her leather
jacket between his fingers, as though inspecting the quality.

I have to tell him why I’m here.

But she stood paralyzed as he eased her jacket back off her
shoulders.

“Corbett…”

Why the hell couldn’t she just say it? Clear the air—
I’m
here with a message from my father. An offer. A proposition. It has nothing to
do with you and me.

Except her father’s assignment seemed to have plummeted out
of her consciousness. What the hell was it again…?

He tossed the jacket unerringly to land on an old wicker
chair.

“Then I have to assume the consent is given. Signed and sealed.”

Corbett enclosed her wrist in his unequivocal grip that
matched the determined set to his mouth and Tara could only gasp at the
electricity short-circuiting between them.

What had she let herself in for? How much did she really
know about this man when he became aroused? Or how much he might have changed
since that achingly lovely night when nothing happened?

“And I guess that mythical nice guy would never do this.”

This
was to swing her around and ram her back up
against the inside wall of the veranda and jam his pelvis against hers, forcing
her back into the rough, wood siding.

The thrust of his solid erection bore straight into her
reality, conjuring up a flash memory of that night to continue working toward
her undoing.

A not-at-all-nice smile transformed his face. He was a
stranger.

If she didn’t say “no” now, she was saying “yes”.

And—heaven help her—she wanted it. Even just a taste. A
brief swallow of what Corbett had to offer, just to make up for the futility of
six years ago, and then she’d stop him. Really. She could bring him to his
senses…

“Make no mistake, Calloway, what’s about to take place
between us is hardly typical of the two nice people we’re supposed to be.”

He pressed his unrelenting erection harder against her vulva
and her resistance, which had just hit rock bottom.

“Is this how you like it, Corbett?” she found the strength
to demand. “By force? Have you lost the seductive touch I had a taste of that
night?”

“Looks like that seductive touch worked, since you came back
for it. Though it took you six years.”

Still pinning her hips and thighs to the wall with his own,
he closed his fists over the lapels of her shirt and yanked it open, tearing
half the buttons from it. Alarm and desire and deep sexual hunger boiled up
within her, but he didn’t pause. He dragged it off her body, then grabbed her
wrists, thrust them behind her and gripped them together in a merciless
one-handed hold.

He was clearly on the edge and ready to drag her into places
she’d never even imagined.

The truth sliced through her. Despite her best intentions,
she was going to surrender to the traitorous frenzy of her own desire that he
stoked higher with each fresh invasion of her body, each assault on her peace
of mind, which, with her shirt, now lay in tatters among the sawdust and wood
shavings at her feet.