Ann Major - Silhouette Christmas Stories

"I was a challenge."

"Once I might have agreed with you. Mother sent me to end your relationship with Larry, but the minute I saw you, I had my own reasons for wanting to end it. I wanted you even when you belonged to my brother. That's why I was always so nasty the few times I saw you after your marriage. I couldn't deal with those feelings." Grant's hand kept moving against her scalp in a slow circular motion that was mesmerizingly sensuous. "I've persecuted myself with guilt because I drove you away. I haven't always been the kind of man a woman like you could admire."

No__She remembered the holidays they'd been forced to share when she'd been Larry's wife. Georgia had been coldly polite, but Grant had been unforgiveably rude.

If only he hadn't been touching her and holding her, Norie might have fought him. But she felt his pain and she had to relieve it. "Georgia wanted me out of Larry's life. When he left me, I felt completely rejected by all the Hales. After he died, I thought you wanted me gone, Grant. That's why I left," she admitted softly.

"What?" His hand had stilled in the tangled silk of her hair.

"I overheard your family talking after the funeral. Your mother had worked so hard to break up my marriage. She said Larry never would have died if he hadn't married me, that I'd made him unhappy. You can't imagine how terrible that made me feel. It was clear everyone wanted me gone. Everyone. I thought I heard your voice."

"The Hales can be a crazy bunch. Maybe they did say those things, but I didn't. After the funeral I had to get off by myself. I felt so bad about Larry. He was so spoiled, so young. He died before he ever knew who he was or what he wanted. He couldn't stand up to Mother. I left the house for the rest of the day. When I came back, you were gone."

"It doesn't matter now."

"It does to me." Grant's voice was hard and grim, determined. "I should never have left you alone with them."

He pulled her closer, so close she was quivering from his heated nearness. So close her pulse throbbed unevenly.

"What are you doing?"

His lips touched hers, gently at first. A gasp of heady pleasure caught in her throat.

"Honey, I think it's obvious. For seven years I've wanted you more than I've ever wanted anything. Or any woman. You thought I didn't. I should have done everything in my power to stop you from marrying Larry. After the wedding I couldn't admit to those feelings, not even to myself. We've always been at cross purposes. For five years I've searched for you. Now there is nothing to keep me from claiming you."

Nothing but her own common sense and her will to preserve the placid life she'd made here for herself and Darius. Her heart raced in panic.

"Grant, no-" Norie twisted to evade the plundering fire of his mouth.

He covered her parted lips with his, and with heated kisses teased them to open wider. His hands ran over her body and lifted her gown. She felt dizzy. Uncertain.

"Please, don't do this," she murmured helplessly. "We're all wrong for each other."

"I know." There was the hint of cynicism in his tone of voice, but his eyes were dark with passion.

"But-"

"I don't care. Not anymore. I just want you, Norie. And if I can have you-even if it's only for one night-I will."

"Your family- "

"To hell with my family. If I can have you, I don't want anything else."

"You're a Hale."

His breath drew in sharply. "Not really, gypsy girl. I told you that my real father deserted Mother shortly after I was born. When Mother married Edward Hale, she forced him to adopt me. She wanted both her sons to share the same name so people would think of us as real brothers instead of half brothers."

Norie had heard all that before. To her he was a Hale, and that was that. She tried to pull away, but Grant held her fast, with hard, powerful arms. And he kissed her.

She tasted him. Her tongue quivered wetly against his. A thousand diamonds burst behind her closed eyelids. She drew a breath. It was more like a tiny gasp. Suddenly she was clinging to him with quaking rapture. His male attraction was something she could no longer fight. He ripped back the covers and pulled her down against the solid wall of his chest.

"Norie. Norie… "

Her name was sweet as honey from his lips.

Inexpertly, she caressed his rough, hard jawline with trembling fingertips. Her dark eyes met the smoldering blue fire of his gaze.

"You're mine," he said inexorably. "Mine."

Then he began to kiss her, his mouth following every curve, dipping into every secret female place, lubricating her with the silky wet warmth of his rasping tongue until she was whimpering from his burning hot kisses.

Her dark eyes flamed voluptuously, and she was as breathless as he in a mad swirling world of darkness and passion and wildness that was theirs alone.

She wanted him more than anything in the world.

And yet…

"I-I can't," she pleaded desperately, placing her fingertips between her lips and his. "I want to, but I just can't."

His grip tightened around her.

A sob came from her throat.

On a shudder that was half anger, half desperation, he let her go.

For a long moment she hesitated.

"Go," he commanded, a faintly ragged edge to his breathing. "Go, before I change my mind."

Then she fled, away from Grant's warmth, out into the cold, empty darkness of the house.

Norie lay in her icy room, in her bed, her nerves and muscles wound so tightly she jumped with every blast of the norther outside. At last she drifted into fitful sleep, only to be plagued by dreams of Grant. She would then awaken with her pulse throbbing unevenly and lie listening to the wind. Yet it wasn't the storm outside that was battering her heart and soul, but the one within her.

Her slim fingers curled and uncurled like nervous talons, twisting and untwisting the sheets. She wanted Grant. More than she ever had.

His presence made her aware of the emptiness of the past five years. She had accomplished nothing by running away. If she didn't send him packing soon, she knew she would be lost. There was only one thing to do-call the wrecker first thing in the morning. The sooner Grant left, the sooner she could start all over again to try to forget him.

But the next morning when she picked up the phone, it was dead.

No sound came from upstairs, so she assumed Grant was still asleep. She dressed quickly in the dark, cold house, ate a bowl of bran with a banana, and went out to her truck.

The road into town was glazed over with ice, and she went only a quarter of a mile before deciding to turn back. Better to spend the day with Grant, than to kill herself trying to get rid of him.

Only when she got back to the house and found him in her kitchen scrambling eggs, she wasn't so sure. There he was, large and male, making himself at home, dominating the room with his virile presence. He was watching her. His blue eyes flamed in a way that told her he was remembering last night. Treacherous, delicious shivers danced over her skin, and she blushed uneasily. That made him smile.

"The phone's dead," he murmured without the faintest note of regret in his voice.

She was toying with her woolen scarf nervously. "That's why I thought I'd try to make it into town to try and get a wrecker, but the road's too icy."

"I'm glad you had the sense to come back." There was a quiet, intimate note in his low-toned remark.

She was pulling off her coat and scarf, and he was watching her again. His intent, hot gaze savored the beauty of her flushed face and the soft curve of her breasts.

"You'd better keep an eye on those eggs." She pivoted sharply and hung her things on a peg by the door.

"Looks like you're stuck with me for another night," he said mockingly. "I've got one more day… and one more night to change your mind." His voice was a honeyed caress.