Bride for Real Read online

  A choked cry escaped her as he explored the swollen silky flesh between her thighs and then he dropped down to his knees and used his mouth and his tongue on the tender tissue. Beneath that sensual onslaught Tally’s legs shook like mad. It was his arms that held her steady when all control was wrested from her by her enthralled response to his exquisite carnal expertise. Her body was on the very edge, surging and hurtling towards orgasm, when he sprang upright and lifted her. Something made of china broke noisily and he brought her bottom down on a cool surface but neither of those bewildering facts could interfere with the fire raging out of control inside her.

  Sander hauled her back to the edge of the table with impatient hands and parted her thighs. He slid into her, long and impossibly thick and hard, stretching her honeyed channel to capacity. As he withdrew and then slammed back into her swollen softness again the delirious excitement washed back in an intoxicating tide. With each bold stroke erotic ripples of pleasure assailed her and he held her to him, his hands firm on her hips as he thrust deeper into her with every rhythmic movement. She was out of control and out of her mind with excitement. When he drove her into a climax she screamed in release, shuddering and shaking from the seething intensity of sensation that threatened to tear her body apart as she travelled from the height of stressed-out tension to ecstatic limpness.

  ‘You are still the most incredibly sexy woman I’ve ever met,’ Sander growled, breathing audibly as he pressed a string of appreciative kisses across the bridge of her nose.

  Closing strong arms round her, Sander lifted her off the table to carry her upstairs. She was only dimly conscious of the fact that he was crunching over the broken shards of pottery and scattered blooms that were all that now remained of the floral arrangement that had sat on the table until they’d sent it flying.

  So stunned by what had happened between them that she couldn’t think straight, Tally was nonetheless struggling to regain control. ‘What are you doing?’ was the best she could manage.

  Sander did not respond. Dark golden eyes vibrant, he scanned her flushed face and simply settled her down on what had once been the marital bed. But then he had no desire to talk about anything other than the most superficial things. He had too many recollections of attempts to talk that had blown up in his face over a year earlier. Now, playing safe in silence, he wrenched back the bed linen, ignoring it when the silken bedspread spilled down in a heap on the oak floor. He followed Tally down to the mattress and began to kiss her again with a hunger that had not abated in the slightest.

  Sander had always been great at kissing. The ravishing sensual force of his mouth on hers again rocked her from inside out. Nothing and nobody tasted quite as good as Sander. Roused from satiated weakness, she revelled in the renewed response of her own body, stretching up to kiss him back eagerly while he shed his clothing in fits and starts. The level of his continuing desire enthralled her and made her suspect that perhaps her estranged husband had been more faithful to her memory than she had ever had reason to hope. Surely only self-denial could make him want her so badly?

  Tally was desperate to touch him, her palms skimming across his broad satin-smooth shoulders and down over his muscular, hair-roughened pectoral muscles before moving more skittishly lower.

  ‘Don’t tease me, yineka mou,’ Sander growled in a roughened undertone, his flat stomach muscles contracting beneath her spread fingers while a tremor of anticipation shook his long lean body against hers in a way that made her feel incredibly desirable.

  ‘I won’t …’ Tally collided with hot golden eyes and felt her heart jump. As he shifted against her, inviting her touch with the raw sexuality that only grief had made her resist, she refused to think of anything but the moment.

  In the back of her mind Tally knew and accepted that later their encounter would demand a strict accounting from her and just then she was painfully aware that she couldn’t face it. How could she confront the conflict and mess of responses that Sander had roused in her from the moment she had walked out of his life and match it with her loss of control over events that afternoon? But, even as she avoided examining what she was doing, she was taking strong note of the fact that the guy she had let go to reclaim his freedom was getting straight back into bed with her the first chance he got. That gave her the most colossal kick of satisfaction and pleasure. It encouraged her to entertain the stunning idea that there might not have been other women in his life since their separation. And that heady suspicion somehow made everything that had occurred feel acceptable to her.

  ‘You’re irresistible, yineka mou, ‘Sander purred, cupping a pouting breast and catching the swollen pink peak between thumb and finger so that she quivered, heat rising from the very heart of her in response. ‘I can’t get enough of you.’

  He wanted her again, wanted her even more fiercely

  than the first time, the pulse at his groin more pressing than he could bear. He crushed her reddened mouth under his again and her senses drowned in the intoxicating flood of almost painful arousal thrumming through her reawakened body. Muttering her name against her lips, he pulled her to him and turned her over, groaning his acute pleasure against her cheek as he sank his bold shaft into her lush clinging warmth all over again. And if wildness had distinguished their first bout of intimacy, control and steady intensity distinguished the second. As he held her fast and plunged into her velvety depths again and again her excitement reached a height she had never dreamt of and she forced her face into a pillow and bit into the soft cloaking fabric to suppress the cries of a pleasure beyond bearing.

  Afterwards she was so weak she couldn’t move and it was a blessed relief to allow the limp heaviness of her exhausted body to simply slump in the shelter of his cradling arms. For the first time in more months than Tally wanted to count she felt both content and happy and she fell blissfully asleep reassured by that conviction. Everything in her world might be in turmoil but it was a turmoil that felt astonishingly right.

  Around dawn she wakened with a start and sat up, disorientated. The curtains weren’t drawn and morning light was stealing across the furniture in shades of peach and gold. But all that mattered to Tally in that instant was the reality that she was alone. The pillow beside hers was dented but empty; and the sheet was cold when her palm traced an investigative sweep across it. She leapt out of bed as though jet-propelled and paid the price for that impulsive movement, wincing as muscles stretched and complained and an ache between her thighs reminded her all too bluntly of how she had passed the night. It was the work of an instant to snatch up the bedspread and cover her nudity within its shimmering folds.

  Tally peered out of the window and saw without surprise that the helicopter was gone because, when she thought about it, she did have a dim distant memory of the noise of its take-off at some stage of the night. Sander had slept with her then gone, and she felt gutted, not to mention feeling like the worst female fool since the start of the world. Like a woman in a bad dream, shattered and without any proper objective, she wandered down to the ground floor, stiffening in dismay when she heard a noise coming from the kitchen and almost retreating back upstairs again. A cleaner? Housekeeper? After all, both the flower arrangements and the level of cleanliness made it obvious that the house was being efficiently looked after.

  A dark head appeared in the doorway and Sander, an impressive bronzed figure clad only in form-fitting silk boxers, gazed up at her with glittering dark eyes of enquiry.

  ‘I thought I heard something. I thought…’ But she bit back the remains of such a revealing admission, determined to save face. ‘I wondered where you were.’

  ‘I was making breakfast,’ Sander announced with staggering cool as if it were something he did on a regular basis rather than an entirely new departure for him.

  Unshaven, hair still springy and damp from a shower, Sander looked as drop-dead gorgeous as a glossy tiger on the prowl. But no four-legged animal could have sported his muscular six-pack and long powerful
thighs. Her heart was racing, her tummy flipping as she moved instinctively closer. ‘Breakfast?’

  ‘Just toast and coffee,’ he declared in case she might be at risk of expecting something more ambitious, which, with his track record, was most unlikely.

  As she padded into the spacious kitchen diner she picked up on the smell of charred toast in the air. The windows were wide open, presumably to clear the lingering fug of smoke. ‘The toaster here is rubbish,’ Sander proclaimed in exasperation.

  He made coffee so black and strong it was like treacle and it would upset her stomach, she reflected ruefully; he couldn’t cook, either—he couldn’t cook to save his life. He thought he could cook but his tools or his ingredients always let him down, whether it was a faulty oven timer or temperature gauge or a tough cut of meat. Convinced that any idiot could cook, he had no patience and was prone to taking disastrous shortcuts. She could picture what had happened this morning: he would have stood over the ‘faulty’ toaster and cancelled the operation because he couldn’t be bothered waiting for the toast to pop up on its own time. Then, when the bread was partially done, he probably had put it in the toaster again and it had burned. But Tally was touched that he was making what she could only interpret as a romantic effort on her behalf, even if his attempt to give her breakfast in bed was more likely to burn the house down.

  ‘I’m not very hungry,’ she said, trying to be helpful because the toaster was sending up a warning plume of smoke again and she crossed the kitchen to switch it off before it could set off the fire alarm.

  Sander pulled her back into the heat of his big powerful body and growled, ‘I’m only hungry for you—we shared a fantastic night, moli mou.’

  Her memory leapfrogged in some discomfiture over the dynamic night of intimacy that they had shared. He had been insatiable, while she had been wildly, encouragingly responsive to his every move and he had made a lot of them. Indeed his seemingly limitless hunger for her body has struck her as distinctly gratifying when she considered the number of options he had to have as a single male soon to be in full repossession of his freedom. But was very satisfying sex enough to power a reconciliation? Was such a far-reaching idea as ditching their divorce petition even on his mind? With Sander it didn’t pay to make assumptions because he was not predictable, nor was he particularly conventional.

  A stray thought came out of nowhere and assailed Tally. Reacting to it, she tugged free of him and yanked open the refrigerator, staring in at the packed shelves of fresh produce with wide suspicious eyes. While she mulled over that thought she poured two glasses of fresh orange juice and handed him one. ‘Have you been renting this place out?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Sander asserted with hauteur. ‘I don’t want strangers here. This was our home.’

  There was only one other explanation for that very well-stocked fridge and it struck Tally like a wake-up call that blew away the cobwebs of a night in which she had enjoyed very little sleep. As she drank her orange juice her brain was suddenly functioning again. Her smooth brow furrowing, green eyes wide with suspicion, she flipped round to study his lean darkly handsome face. ‘Did you set me up for this?’

  Sander quirked a winged ebony brow. ‘What are you talking about?’

  And, that fast, Tally knew that Sander had flown to France with an agenda and that she had been seduced to plan within an inch of her life. ‘You planned to see me here, you even planned to spend the night here with me and you set the scene—that’s why there are flowers everywhere and the kitchen has been stocked with food.’

  ‘Would you have preferred to have gone hungry? Or to have slept in a damp bed?’ Sander enquired in bewilderment, clearly not seeing what all the fuss was about. ‘We could hardly stay in comfort in a house that has been empty for so long. Of course I had it prepared for our occupation.’

  ‘You’re so devious. How am I supposed to feel about this set-up? I was entrapped!’ Tally flung at him furiously.

  Brilliant dark golden eyes wary, Sander heaved a sigh and spread lean brown hands in a wholly unconvincing expression of innocence. ‘You’re my wife and I want you back. That’s not a set-up or a crime …’

  I want you back. Not at all sure yet how she felt about that possibility and shaken by it, Tally stalked past him, the bedspread trailing across the floor in her wake. ‘I’m going for a shower.’

  Sander breathed, ‘Tally …?’

  Tally twisted back. ‘No, don’t say anything more. You’ve already said enough to hang yourself!’ she warned him bitterly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BUT mere minutes after Tally’s fiery exit, Sander stepped into the shower cubicle with her, bold as brass as he always was in a challenging situation.

  Before she could react, he caught her wet slippery body to his and plunged his mouth down on her angrily parted lips. And what she might have said was forgotten when she did not get the chance to say it. Indeed, it did cross her mind that, although they might have spent many hours together during their marriage, they had shared very few verbal exchanges. But then Sander had always been a man of action and, equally, a man of few words. She acknowledged this dizzily, her hormones surging up with greedy enthusiasm to interfere with such clear-minded thoughts.

  In the aftermath of that sizzling bout of lovemaking in the shower, Sander held her close while she tried to persuade her legs to hold her up without his support. Still breathing heavily, he lifted a thick strand of dripping straight hair to ask in bewilderment, ‘Why isn’t it curling again now that it’s wet?’

  His mystified expression provoked a spontaneous laugh from Tally. ‘I had a special straightening treatment done at a salon and it won’t curl again for months now. It’s much easier to handle,’ she told him brightly.

  Releasing that recalcitrant strand from his fingers, Sander stared down at her with a very masculine frown of incomprehension. ‘Let it go back to normal,’ he urged. ‘I loved your hair the way it was …’

  Tally was amazed. He had loved the corkscrew curls that were the bane of her life? Well, he had never mentioned the fact before. The water was running cool. Switching it off, Sander thrust back the shower doors. As she stepped out he enveloped her in a big fleecy towel. It awakened reminders of the way he had quietly taken care of her in the later stages of her pregnancy when her body had grown heavy and clumsy, restricting her ease of movement. That extra degree of consideration had seemed to come so naturally to him that it had made her heart sing with hope for their future as a new family. And then cruel fate had struck down her fond hopes with tragedy. When their little son had been born dead, let down by placental insufficiency, the hope of them becoming a family had perished with their child and their marriage had followed suit.

  Stunning, heavily lashed dark golden eyes resting on her troubled face, Sander tugged her back to him with hands that would not be denied. ‘I want to forget the past eighteen months.’

  An uneasy laugh fell from her lips. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  His strong jaw line squared. ‘It can be as simple as we want it to be. We are the only two people involved here, moli mou.’

  Sander wanted her back. Maybe he had set her up by inviting her to the house and arriving when she wasn’t expecting him, but seemingly he had done so with good intentions. Here she was and, in her own opinion, she wasn’t beautiful, wealthy or even particularly talented. But Sander, who enjoyed every one of those worldly advantages, still wanted her back as his wife. That was a truth that could only flatter Tally and it reminded her once more of his eagerness to make love to her again.

  And Tally’s mouth opened, strong curiosity sending words to her lips before she had even taken the time to think them through and question whether or not she might be asking something without being properly prepared for the answer she might receive. ‘If I thought that you hadn’t been with anyone else since we parted, maybe I could consider that possibility,’ she dared to suggest.

  A deathly silence fell in which her words hung lik
e a precariously balanced pane of glass ready to drop and noisily shatter. The instant she looked up at Sander she knew that her fond hopes had roamed dangerously far from the truth. His bronzed skin tone could not hide the fact that in receipt of that declaration he had lost colour, his classic cheekbones prominent beneath his brown skin, his wide sensual mouth clenching into a troubled line.

  Sander was rigid with heated incredulity, as Tally’s need for that assurance had come at him out of nowhere and far too late in the day to have any value to him. It was also a cautionary reminder that Tally’s apparent spontaneity and lack of calculation could be misleading because there was often far more going on below the surface than she was prepared to acknowledge. And she had just placed a deadly explosive tripwire right in his path and he fiercely resented the fact. What right had she to ask him that now? In the circumstances it was unreasonable. More than eighteen months ago, Tally had barred him from her bed and turned her back very firmly on him as a husband. Refusing even to admit that their problems might still have a remedy, she had walked out on their marriage. She had made it clear that she wasn’t coming back and that she wanted a divorce. Furthermore she had excluded him from every one of those decisions. The period that had followed their break-up was a blurred black hole of deeply unwelcome memories for Sander, a reality that he was too proud to even consider sharing with her.