The Inconvenient Bride (5 page)

“And now we're married” He arched a brow. “Do you only have sex with single men?”

“I've never had sex with a married one!”

“It's allowed,” he told her. “When you're married to him.”

He finished unbuttoning his shirt and stripped it off, then tugged his T-shirt over his head. The chill in the room was a shock to his heated flesh. He wanted to go to her and wrap her in his arms.

But all the while she watched him like a fawn caught in headlights. Swell, she was going to turn into Bambi. Sierra, of all people. Who'd have guessed?

Dominic's hand went to his belt. She sucked in a breath. He glared at her, annoyed. “Are you going to pretend this isn't why you said yes?” he asked.

She blinked rapidly, then swallowed, and he thought for a moment she would deny wanting him at all. But finally she gave a jerky nod. “Only partly.”

“Right.” His jaw tightened. “There was the check, too. The little matter of half a million bucks.”

She scowled. “The money had nothing—well, almost nothing—to do with it,” she told him defiantly.

He would have liked to ask what the hell she intended to do with half a million dollars, but right now it wasn't important. He didn't care. He wanted another more important answer. “Fine. Then why fight it? It's what we want. What we
both
want. Unless you only believe in one-night stands?”

“Of course not!”

“Then maybe you're a chicken.”

Her eyes flashed. “I'm never a chicken!”

“No?” Dominic challenged softly. “Then prove it.”

For a long moment she didn't move. Then something changed. A gleam came into her eyes, a gleam he remembered once before. The corners of her mouth turned up in a smile that set his heart to pounding. And quite deliberately
Sierra reached out and snagged his tie from where he'd tossed it on the chair.

She ran it through her fingers as she stepped forward to meet him. And his heart slammed against his chest as she whispered, “How nice of you to remember I had a use for this.”

 

They should have gone to his place.

They wouldn't have to smash together on her hard narrow futon. At Dominic's they could no doubt wallow in sybaritic luxury in Dominic's bed.

But she hadn't been able to do it. Not then.

So she consoled herself that even if they had they wouldn't have noticed.

Once it was clear that neither of them had got the other out of their system during that one night in a Kansas motel—it didn't matter where they were.

The awareness, the attraction, the chemistry—
everything!
—between them simply sizzled!

Something about Dominic brought out parts of Sierra she'd never even guessed were there. Something about his power made her want to challenge him. Something about his starchy conservative demeanor she wanted to muss. And his control—his iron-clad control!—she just couldn't rest until she made it snap.

And she'd made it snap!

She'd moved in on him like a tigress stalking her prey. Circling, smiling, watching him from beneath lowered lids, Sierra had moved closer, turned, stepped and backed him into the futon. Then she'd looped the tie around his nape and slid it back and forth. Silk and skin. Hot damp skin.

She saw him take a quick sharp breath.

She smiled. She gave the tie a tug and drew him toward her, so close she could almost feel his heart pounding against his chest, so close the heat of her breath ruffled the hair that
curled there. She touched one flat male nipple with her tongue.

Dominic bit off an exclamation. Then he hauled her hard against him and he was much too close to see.

Her hands pressed against the hot smooth flesh of his back as she lifted her mouth, hungry for his.

Sierra was no stranger to kisses. Since she'd turned thirteen she'd had boyfriends, steadies, casual dates, one after another, men-in-her-life galore. And they'd kissed her—if not one and all, then certainly most.

But she'd never been kissed like this.

There had never been such hunger, such passion, such sheer intensity in any man's mouth on hers. Only Dominic's.

Before that fateful night in Kansas, Sierra had thought that whatever it was that had been sizzling between her and Dominic since they'd met was nothing more than that—an insubstantial, unreal, ephemeral something—like steam.

Just so much hot air.

She'd been wrong. Big time. One kiss and she'd been knocked off her feet—and she'd knocked Dominic off his.

One fierce hungry kiss, almost before they'd got the door closed behind them and had tumbled onto the hard motel bed. They'd practically ripped each other's clothes off in their haste to come together. The kissing, the touching, the stroking, the loving had been hot and fierce.

And their hunger for each other hadn't slacked even after they'd climaxed.

They'd lain in each other's arms, then rolled apart. But within moments they had come together again. They'd touched and taunted, caressed and teased, and kissed and kissed and kissed the whole night long.

In some unspoken agreement, as if they were determined to get enough of each other, to become sated, to be able to happily turn away in the morning and leave each other behind, they had made love again and again.

Once on the plane to New York the next morning, he in
first class and she in economy, they had gone their separate ways, determined to forget.

And they had—but not for long.

Memories of Dominic came back. The desire came back. It slipped into Sierra's mind in the dark of night. It teased her at odd moments in the light of day. When she was cooking spaghetti and getting a face full of steam, she would find herself remembering the heat of Dominic's kiss. When she was combing out someone's hair, she would recall the soft brush of his. When she saw a man in a tux get out of a cab across Broadway, she almost got run over craning her neck to see if it was the man she remembered stripping off his tux and making sweet hot love to her.

She'd dreamed about him.

She'd wanted him again at the same time she'd told herself he couldn't make it happen again. There was no way.

But once more she'd been wrong.

He was making it happen right now!

He turned them around and bore her back onto the futon, his fingers trembling as he fought to unbutton her denim jacket. He muttered when he couldn't manage it easily, and Sierra touched his hands.

“Let me.”

He shook his head fiercely. His eyes seemed to glitter and the skin was taut across his cheekbones. “No. I want to.”

So she let him.

Though her heart thudded within her chest and she longed to urge him on, she made herself wait, made herself watch, let herself smile at his fervent fumblings, at his mutterings and final sigh of relief when eventually he got the buttons open and peeled the jacket from her shoulders and tossed it aside.

She thought he'd go after her spandex top with equal gusto, but he paused instead and sat back just gazing at her, a rapt hungry look on his face.

“Stop that,” she muttered self-consciously and she
tugged at the tie she had still looped against the back of his neck, trying to take back the initiative.

But he just shook his head. Then, with a finger, he traced the line of her top against the swell of her breasts. He bent his head and did it again with the tip of his tongue. It was deliberate, provocative, erotic.

It made her shiver and tug again on his tie. “Wolfe!”

He smiled and slowly peeled her top up, then tugged it over her head and it followed her jacket to the floor. Then with his hands he caressed her breasts. Stroked them. Teased them. Made her wriggle beneath his touch.

“Wolfe!”

“Mmm?” It was somewhere between a growl and a purr and was the sexiest sound she'd ever heard. She remembered it from that night in Kansas when he'd looked down on her, touched her, teased her, eased himself inside her.

She'd lain awake some nights trying to reproduce it. She hadn't come close.

And now Sierra struggled not to clutch at him as he purred again and bent his head to feather kisses across her breasts.

She slid the tie in her fingers and pressed her hands against his shoulders as the kisses moved south.

She felt them lightly on her belly, and at every dip of his head, his soft hair brushed tantalizingly against her sensitive breasts. Her fingers slid up his neck and dug into his hair. It was black as a raven's wing and soft as silk. She lifted her head to touch her nose to it, reveling in the smell of some very costly, subtly masculine shampoo.

There was nothing subtle about the rest of Dominic's masculinity. For all that he had to spend most of his life behind a desk, his body was hard and well-muscled. He made those starched shirts of his look damn good.

But he looked better without a shirt at all.

Without
anything
at all!

Suddenly she was impatient to see the rest of Dominic
again. She had lived on memories for three months. She wanted the real thing.

She eased her fingers out of his hair and began to caress the back of his neck. As he kissed her belly, she rubbed the silk of the tie back and forth against his shoulders.

Then, leaving it there, her hands moved further, sliding down the hot smooth skin of his back until they reached his belt. She traced the line of it around his midsection and felt his muscles tighten. He sucked in his breath at the brush of her fingers against the sensitive skin of his abdomen.

As she eased down his zipper, he tugged off her skirt and cast it aside. Shoes, slacks, socks and leggings followed.

At last they were down to bare essentials. Or nearly bare.

When he peeled off her panties, she didn't demur. When his kisses moved lower, she knotted her fingers and tugged at his hair. The low rumbling purr became more of a growl and he lifted his head to grin at her. “Like that?”

“No,” she muttered. “Hate it. What do you think?”

He laughed. It was a smoky laugh, a teasing laugh. And when he bent his head to press the kisses more intimately still, as much as she would have liked to just lie there and savor it, she wasn't giving him that much control.

She plucked the tie up again and slid it down his back. She touched him with it, teased him with it, tantalized him with it. She rubbed it over his body, across his chest, between his legs.

She heard his breath come in a harsh gasp. “Like that?” she purred.

“Tease. Devil. Minx.” He was breathing hard, his face was flushed, the skin taut. She could feel the hardness of him, the need. She slid the tie around and over, back and forth.

“Si-errrrrr-a!”

She laughed. It was a throaty laugh, a self-satisfied laugh—and it turned into a gasp, too, when Dominic's mouth caught her unawares.

They twisted, they turned, they tangled and wrestled. Gently but fiercely. Determined to give each other the ultimate pleasure.

And finally, when she thought she could bear it no longer, Dominic parted her legs and slid in.

Sierra welcomed him. Her body stilled, settled, softened.

And Dominic, embraced, shuddered against her, trembling, scrabbling for the last vestiges of control.

And he might have managed to regain it if Sierra hadn't shifted beneath him, hadn't dug her heels against the backs of his thighs, hadn't grinned and said, “What are you waiting for, Wolfe?”

He looked startled. Then he grinned. “Not a damn thing!” He drew back just a little, then thrust deeper.

Sierra met him halfway, her hips rocking, her fingers clenching, her body moving as easily and eagerly as his. He might have lost control, but she wasn't far behind and she knew it.

Two more desperate thrusts and he was over the edge. “I can't—!”

“Shh!” She arched against him, her nails digging into his back as she rode the crest of his climax to an equally shattering one of her own.

It was every bit as incredible as it had been that night in Kansas.

But could you build a marriage on it?

That was what Sierra wanted to know.

W
HEN
he awoke there was a woman wrapped around him. Dominic's eyes jerked wide and his whole body went rigid at the shock.

Who? What?

He never slept with the women he had sex with. Never! So how had he—? He eased his head back to peer down at the head resting on his chest.

It was purple.

It all came back like a punch to the gut. His father. Viveca. The ultimatum.

His marriage.

To Sierra.

God.

He was married to Sierra Kelly. He had
slept
with Sierra Kelly! He held himself absolutely still and tried to think. It wasn't easy.

Not with Sierra in his arms.

The sudden tension in his body seemed to disturb her. She sighed and wriggled closer, her fingers curving against his ribs, one of her legs slid over his. Her thigh rubbed against his groin. She tucked her foot between his knees, wiggled it, then slid it down his calf. And up again.

Dominic stopped breathing.

Sierra didn't. She shifted and nuzzled him and he felt her soft breath stirring the hair on his chest. Then her lips brushed one hard nipple.

Dominic sucked air.

He was used to the early morning reactions of his body. He wasn't used to turning into the rock of Gibraltar.

He wanted her now. Again.

Physically. Only physically, he assured himself.

But, ye gods, he sure as heck wanted her physically. What would she think if he woke her and wanted to make love with her again?

He squelched the thought. A glance at the clock on her dresser said it was already ten past seven. He needed to get up and get out now—preferably before she woke.

He didn't know how to deal with morning-after awkwardness. Except for the night in the motel with Sierra, he'd always left before dawn. He didn't know what one did upon waking up with a woman—and he damned sure didn't know how to handle waking up with a wife!

The one thing he did know was that it would be a whole lot easier if he were dressed and not primed to pop at her merest touch.

Carefully, holding his breath, Dominic slid his body out from beneath her. It wasn't easy. Whenever he moved away, she snuggled closer, cuddling in, wrapping her arm around his waist.

Worse, he liked it. He liked the feel of her fingers tucked against his side. He liked the weight of her in his arms. He liked the softness of her skin against the roughness of his own.

He wanted to stay right where he was.

He didn't. One centimeter at a time, he edged his way off the futon, bunching up the comforter and tucking it against Sierra's sleeping form so she wouldn't miss him when he was gone.

His heel touched the floor. He squirmed the last few inches—and came free. Silently he got to his feet—and stood looking down at Sierra.

She looked vulnerable. How odd. With her outrageous hair and wild clothes, not to mention her stubborn chin, smart mouth and flashing eyes, she'd always seemed hard-as-nails and extraordinarily well-defended.

Not now. The purple hair framed a surprisingly innocent-looking face.

Innocent? Sierra?

It didn't seem likely. But she certainly looked it now.

Because, he told himself, at this very moment she wasn't trying to cut him to shreds or shatter every last bit of his control.

She got enormous joy out of doing that. She'd done it again last night.

But he'd done it to her as well, he thought with grim satisfaction. He'd made her crazy—exactly as she'd made him.

The itch to do it again now was almost overpowering.

But he wouldn't.

He was rational this morning. Determined. In control.

He was Dominic Wolfe, after all, and he had more important things to do.

 

Sierra awoke to see Dominic standing in front of her closet door mirror, knotting his tie at his throat.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, startled because she'd been having luscious, erotic dreams about Dominic Wolfe—dreams in which that tie played a prominent part—and to wake up and realize that those dreams had been based on the night's reality made her cheeks burn.

What was even more shocking was remembering that a few hours before that she'd married him.

At her exclamation he turned, giving his tie one last tug. “Morning,” he said briskly. He gave her a quick smile, but didn't look at her.

“Morning,” Sierra replied huskily and found herself dragging the sheet more closely around her, though he'd already seen everything there was—and seemed completely uninterested in looking again now.

He was grabbing his suit coat and shoving his arms into the sleeves. “Gotta run,” he said. “I'm going to be late.”

Sierra scowled at the clock. “It's just past seven-thirty.”

“Right. But I have to go home first. Change clothes. Shave.” He rubbed a hand over stubbled cheeks. “I have a meeting at nine.” He picked up his briefcase and started for the door. “'Bye.”

“Er…'bye,” Sierra said. But before he could get away, she hoisted herself to a sitting position, sheet clutched against her breasts. “Wolfe?”

He glanced back. “What?” He was all impatience now, eager to be gone.

As if she'd been nothing more than a good time, not the woman he married! Well, fine. If that's the way he wanted it.

“Nothing,” she said frostily and gave a toss of her hair. “Goodbye.”

“'Bye.” He went out. The door shut. A second later he was back, staring down at her, something hot and hungry in his eyes.

“What?” she demanded.

“I'll see you tonight,” he said. “My place.” And bang, the door shut after him.

Just like that.

She fumed about it while she showered and dressed. She muttered while she fixed her hair. She supposed she shouldn't have expected anything different from him. It wasn't exactly a love match they had.

She wasn't sure what they did have, besides sex.

She wasn't sure what she wanted—besides sex.

Once upon a time marriage and children were exactly what she wanted. As a teenager she'd had no desperate career plans like her sister, Mariah. She'd never been a whiz kid. No colleges had come banging on her door. And she hadn't gone banging on theirs.

She'd thought that getting married and having babies was a great idea. Only she hadn't really wanted to marry Skip Grimes who was the closest thing she had to a boyfriend at
the time. Skip hadn't really wanted to marry her, either, so it never became an issue.

The issue had been what to do after graduation if she wasn't going to go to college. Her aunt Kathy suggested she learn to cut hair.

“You can get a job, make money, get your own place. Move to Kansas City, maybe,” her mother's younger sister suggested.

For Sierra, who had never felt she fitted in at home, moving to Kansas City sounded like heaven. Besides, learning to cut hair had to be more interesting—not to mention more useful—than knowing the causes of the First World War. And if she really could earn a living and move to Kansas City, there she might meet the man of her dreams—who would look and act nothing like Skip Grimes.

Everything went exactly the way she'd hoped—except she never met anyone in Kansas City who made Sierra's heart beat faster than Skip Grimes had. So three years later, when Mariah got a job as a staff writer on a New York City based lifestyle magazine, Sierra went with her.

She'd got a job in a trendy salon. They'd shared a tiny fifth floor walk-up in the East Village. They'd been awed by the city—its energy, its bustle, its opportunities—and then they'd plunged in.

The Kelly sisters had thrived in New York. Mariah went from junior staff writer to sought-after freelancer, a well-known writer whose personality pieces and in-depth interviews were snapped up as fast as she could turn them out.

Sierra, too, found a home for her talents.

She was very good at cutting hair. She was very good at styling hair, at studying her clients' bone structure and figuring out how to make them look their best. She wasn't afraid to be daring, to suggest color changes, to be bold. And the results were spectacular.

The salon sent her to Paris to study.

“To take advantage of your talent. So you can learn from the best,” her boss told her.

Sierra, never given to study before, had been astonished. And eager. She'd pinched herself all the way to Paris, hardly believing her good luck.

She'd spent a year in Paris, learned everything they could teach her, dated half a dozen charming Frenchmen, but never found one better than Skip.

Still, it was in France that she met Finn MacCauley. He'd been shooting a high fashion layout on the Riviera, and she'd been one of three stylists doing the models' hair. Exacting and demanding and scathing in two languages, Finn routinely reduced stylists to tears.

But not Sierra. She let his tirades blow over her like so much hot air. Then she did what he wanted. They hit it off.

At the end of the week he said, “Let me know when you come back to New York.”

When she did, he asked her to work with him. Her reputation grew. Not just for her ability with hair, but for her ability to deal with temperamental photographers, demanding ad agency reps, commercial clients, and the occasional prima donna model.

She was in demand—professionally and personally.

There were always plenty of men wanting to take her out. For years she'd gone—always hoping to find the one man she'd want to be with for the rest of her life.

But she'd never found him. And eventually she'd stopped thinking so much about it. She learned to love what she did, to be content with her life, to savor her friendships, to enjoy the dates she did go out on without looking for happily ever after.

Then along came Dominic.

He did to her heart, to her body, to her mind what legions of Skip Grimes clones had not. Mariah's corporate shark of a brother-in-law was the one man who'd ever made Sierra's heart beat faster, her brain sizzle, and her hormones sing.

What were there, eight million men in New York City?

Why him?

She'd tried to resist. She'd steered well clear of Dominic Wolfe after the day she'd bearded him in his office where she'd gone to learn Rhys's whereabouts. And even when she hadn't been able to stay totally away from him, like at Mariah's shower, she'd made it a point not to spare him a glance.

Or she'd tried not to.

It was like trying not to think of giraffes. It was all she'd thought of. Finally, at Mariah's and Rhys's wedding reception, even though she'd done her best to avoid him, the inevitable happened. They had to dance with each other. Rhys's best man, Mariah's maid of honor. And then, of course, they'd drunk champagne.

And danced more. And stared into each other's eyes. And finally had gone to that motel room, determined to get each other out of their systems.

It hadn't worked for Sierra.

Nor for Dominic either, apparently.

So now they were married. For better or worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health.

“In bed and out of it,” Sierra muttered.

In her gut and in her heart she still thought she'd made the right decision.

She just needed to do her darnedest to make sure Dominic thought so, too.

In the meantime, though, she had something to give to Pammie.

 

Pammie didn't believe it.

Pammie stared at the check Sierra handed her, then she blinked, and stared again. Her jaw sagged and all the color drained from her face. “It's not real,” she said. “It can't be real.” Her fingers shook. She seemed almost to gasp for air.

“It's real,” Sierra assured her. “I was at the bank when
they cut it. It's made out to me, but it's for you—for Frankie—for the transplant.”

“You're not serious,” Pam said promptly, then looked at Sierra again and said, jaw sagging, “You
are.
” Her breath seemed to almost rattle out of her. “Good lord.”

Then as if she just that moment realized they were still standing in the open doorway, she grabbed Sierra and hauled her into her apartment, glancing over her shoulder toward Frankie's bedroom

“How did you—?” She studied the check again. “Who's Dominic Wolfe? And why did he loan you the money?”

“He didn't loan it. He gave it to me.”

“
Gave it to you?
Why? In exchange for what?” Pam looked suddenly equal parts nervous and urgent. “What's he going to do to you?”

“Nothing! Nothing I don't want him to do,” Sierra qualified. “It's all right. We…we made a deal.”

“What deal?”

Sierra shrugged. “I married him.”

Pam's mouth opened. And shut. She looked appalled and horrified and then she shook her head fiercely. She thrust the check back at Sierra who put her hands behind her back. “Well, you're not going to do it! Never. You won't. I won't let you! Not even for Frankie. I—”

“Pammie,” Sierra said gently, reaching out and folding Pam's fingers over the check. “It's done. I already have.”

Her friend's fingers started to tremble, to crumple the check. Her eyes welled. “Oh, Sierra! How could you?”

“How could I not?” Sierra said simply. For Frankie she would have done a lot more terrifying things than marrying Dominic. She was actually feeling pretty good about marrying Dominic. “And stop mashing it! It's real. We'll go cash it at lunch, okay?”

Pam didn't seem to be able to talk. But at least she nodded her head, then swallowed. “You're sure about this?”

“Absolutely.”

Tears welled in Pam's eyes. “Oh, my God, you're a life saver!” And she threw her arms around Sierra, and Sierra felt the other woman's body trembling. “I kept telling myself,” Pammie babbled, “that if I prayed hard enough, trusted enough, bargained enough… But I didn't expect you to be part of the bargain, Sierra!”