Page 44 of The Bridal Quest

Irene closed her eyes, unable to look into his face any longer for fear she would wantonly throw herself into his arms. She wanted, quite badly, to feel his lips against hers once more. She could remember their taste, their texture, and her own lips tingled at the memory.

"No," she whispered almost fearfully. "It is not true. There is nothing between us."

"I thought you were not a woman who lied," he shot back, and his hands tightened on her arms, pulling her closer.

Then his lips were on hers, hungry and seeking, and all rational thought left her. Irene went up on her toes, her mouth pressing into his with an equal hunger, and her arms went around his neck, holding on to him as heat rushed down through her in a storm, sweeping aside all else.

In this moment there was nothing but the feel of his hard body pressed against her all the way up and down her length, nothing but the harsh thrum of lust in her loins, the pounding of hot blood in her veins. Their kiss was long and deep, as though they could summon up each other's souls. Irene trembled in his arms, bizarrely weak, almost faint, and yet she had no desire to end the kiss. She wanted him, his taste and heat, the hardness of his masculine body. She yearned to drink him in, take him inside her, and was stunned at the very fact that such a feeling lived in her.

His hands slid up her back, moving to caress her sides, then sweeping down to curve over her buttocks. His fingers dug into the soft flesh, cupping her and lifting her up onto the hard, pulsing evidence of his desire. Irene had never felt a man in this way, indeed, had not even imagined the feeling, but she knew at once what it was, and a pulse began to throb between her legs.

She dug her fingers into his hair, aware of a wild desire to rub her body against his, to unbutton his clothes and let her fingers caress his bare skin.

"Oh, God!" Irene broke away, half turning from him, bringing her shaking hands to her face, "No! What am I doing?"

Gideon let out a groan of frustration, and his arms went around her from behind, pulling her back against him. His loins cupped her buttocks, hard and insistent against her. She could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and hear the harsh rasp of his breath as he bent to nuzzle into her hair.

"You feel it," he murmured huskily. "Do not deny that you burn with the same desire I do."

"I cannot. I will not."

"You are so stern. So harsh," he went on, his lips teasing softly now at her neck. "Do you not care at all how you tempt me?"

"I do not try to tempt you."

"I know you do not." He let out a noise that was half laugh, half groan. "That is the devil of it. You have no need to try. You have only to look at me with those golden eyes. I have only to see a lock of your hair pull loose from its restraint and I can think of nothing else but watching it all come free, of pulling out the pins and sinking my hands into those curls ... gold as honey ... soft as satin."

"Gideon, stop!" Irene pulled away and faced him, clenching her fists at her sides to still the telltale trembling of her fingers. "I will not allow you to seduce me. Can you honestly think that I would set myself up as your mistress?"

"No," he replied, scowling blackly at her. "I want you as my wife, as you well know."

"Gideon, I told you I would not. Why will you not believe me?"

"What would you have me do?" he countered. "You have told me what you will not do. But you cannot make me cease trying. Did you really think that I would meekly accept your refusal? That I would not do my best to change your mind? To persuade you in whatever way I could?"

They stared at each other for a long moment; then Irene sighed, relaxing her taut stance. "No. I suppose I did not expect you to give in. Not really."

"Would it be so terrible?" he asked in a low voice, taking a step closer to her.

Irene backed up at his advance and found herself bumping against the side of his horse. The placid mount did not move away from her but stayed where he was, stretching his neck to crop at a tasty-looking tuft of grass.

Gideon moved closer, his eyes holding hers as he brushed his knuckles down her cheek. Slowly, as he continued gazing into her eyes, his hand moved lower, skimming over her jaw and down the column of her throat, then spreading wide over her chest. Irene could not pull her eyes from his, could not even make herself step away as his fingers moved boldly downward, molding her dress to her breasts, her stomach, the side of her hip.

"Would you find it such a chore to be my wife?" he asked, his dark eyes burning into hers. "To be in my bed ... to feel my touch ..."

"No," she answered honestly, though her voice shook from the fire that rippled through her in the wake of his hands. "It would not be terrible ... for a few weeks, a month, until you were no longer filled with this lust for me."

She forced herself to jerk away from his hand. "But then, when your thirst was slaked, I would still be under your control."

"I think you underestimate how long I would desire you," he said mildly. "But let us say you are right. When the fire between us died, you would still be my wife. You would have my name, my respect, my fortune, still."

"I would have nothing but what you chose to give me," she shot back. "Once your fire has cooled, once you have gotten what you hoped to achieve, think you that you would find my blunt speech acceptable? No, then, I believe, you would find that I am impertinent and far too independent, that I speak my mind with no regard for what you think or prefer. You would realize that I am argumentative and opinionated."

His brows arched upward in amusement. "Do you think that I have not already realized those things?"

"Do not jest with me!" Irene exclaimed. "You may find such concerns silly and unimportant, but I assure you, I do not! If you were the one who would be under another's thumb, with nothing of your own, not even the right to your own body ... dependent on someone else's whims, forced to live by another's rules, then you would not wish to enter into that state, either."

"Irene—" Looking somewhat alarmed, he held out a hand toward her. "Do you think me such a tyrant?"