Miranda Lee - Not a Marrying Man

Yes, he thought as he dropped a few cubes of ice in his glass then slurped in some whisky. I do. And you deserve better than me. You deserve a man who’ll marry you, give you children and grow old with you.

I can’t do any of those things.

Warwick scowled as he lifted the glass to his lips, irritated suddenly by his maudlin thoughts. What good did they do? He’d always been a realist, and the reality of his life was that he couldn’t offer Amber any more than he’d originally offered her.

But damn it all, surely the time she’d spent living with him hadn’t been totally wasted. She’d travelled a lot and learned a lot. She’d socialised with some of the world’s most successful people, been dressed by the world’s most fashionable designers, stayed in the world’s most luxurious resorts.

Some women would kill for what Amber had experienced during these past ten months.

Unfortunately, Amber wasn’t one of those women. Warwick knew she didn’t give a fig about any of those things. All she wanted was his love and his ring on her finger.

Not that she’d told him so. Not once.

Her aunt Kate had told him, last Easter at a family barbecue at her home that Amber had dragged him along to.

What an old tartar she’d been. But she’d obviously loved her niece and wanted to see her happy.

‘You do realise,’ Kate had snapped at him when Amber had left them to go to the bathroom, ‘that Amber was practically engaged when she met you. To a perfectly nice boy who would have given her the only things she’s wanted since she was knee high to a grasshopper: a loving husband and a family of her own. Two things you’ll never give her, Warwick Kincaid.’

The old dragon probably could have said a lot more but didn’t get the opportunity.

‘Shame on you,’ she’d hissed under her breath as Amber had walked back towards them.

That had been three months ago. Warwick hadn’t told Amber what her aunt had said. Hadn’t asked her about the man she’d been on the verge of marrying. He certainly hadn’t embraced the undeniable shame the woman’s forceful words had momentarily evoked. Instead, he’d gone on wallowing in Amber’s warmth and passion, telling himself that he hadn’t forced her to choose him over that other fellow. He’d never forced her to do a single thing. She had free will, didn’t she? She wanted to be with him.

But gradually, the shame had resurfaced. So had his conscience, something that he’d kept buried for a long time. In hindsight, his plan to stop acting like a besotted bridegroom and start showing his true colours had not been well thought out. He hadn’t anticipated the hurt that his abrupt change in behaviour would bring her. Hadn’t anticipated his own level of self-disgust.

Far better that the break be clean and swift.

When the time came, that was.

Her walking over and bending forward to pick up her glass of wine showed him that that time definitely wasn’t tonight, his flesh stirring as he imagined how she would look doing that without that dress on.

‘Dinner won’t be ready for at least fifteen minutes,’ she said as she straightened. ‘I haven’t cooked the rice yet.’

‘What are we having?’

‘Beef stroganoff.’ Her free hand lifted to push her long hair back from where it had fallen over one of her shoulders. ‘I wanted something plain for a change.’

Warwick’s flesh stiffened as he noted the telling outline of erect nipples under the pink silk. She was as frustrated as he was, by the look of things. Understandable considering there’d been no sex this past week, the longest time he’d abstained from touching her since their first night together. It had been damned difficult. But at the time he’d been on a mission to make her hate him; to make her give him the flick, instead of the other way around.

Now that that idea had been tossed out of the window, Warwick had no weapons against the desires that were, at this very moment, taking dark possession of him. Various erotic scenarios filled his mind, none of which involved waiting till after dinner to satisfy his already clamouring flesh. His hunger had nothing to do with food. It was primal and sexual and urgent.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said abruptly.

‘About what?’

‘About eating.’

She looked confused. ‘You don’t want any dinner?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Then what do you want?’

‘I want you to take your dress off.’

Amber’s eyes flung wide. ‘What?’

Warwick appreciated that he’d never ordered her to take her clothes off for him. Not even in the bedroom. Why now? he wondered, even as he banished any qualms and surrendered to the temptation to exercise his sexual power over her.

‘You heard me,’ he said in a voice that was as hard as his erection.

‘But … but people might see me,’ she stammered. ‘From out on the water.’

‘Not up close,’ he countered. ‘Come now, Amber, you’ve nothing to be shy about. You have a glorious body. Do you need a little help, is that it?’

AMBER just stared at him.

What I need, she suddenly felt like screaming, is a little respect.

But no words came from her mouth—her rapidly drying mouth.

She stood there, rooted to the spot, as he started walking towards her, bringing his drink with him, lifting it to his lips and sipping it slowly. Their eyes met over the rim of the glass, his shocking her with their coldness. Or was that desire glittering in their ice-blue depths?

She couldn’t be sure. He’d run hot and cold ever since he’d come home, leaving her hopelessly bewildered.

Amber told herself to move. To do something, say something.

Anything!

But her tongue was as useless as her legs.

She remained frozen as he moved around behind her, a soft gasp breaking from her lips when he pushed aside her long curtain of hair, draping it over her left shoulder before bending his mouth to her exposed right ear.

But it wasn’t his lips that made her shiver. It was the fear of what she was about to allow … and enjoy.

‘Don’t,’ she heard herself whisper just as his tongue tip dipped into the shell of her ear.

‘Don’t what?’ he whispered a few seconds later.

‘Don’t do this to me … ‘

‘But you want me to,’ he murmured, and nibbled at her ear lobe. ‘This is what tonight was all about. Not food.’

‘No,’ she choked out. ‘Not … entirely.’

His laugh was low and sexy. ‘Yes. Entirely.’

She stiffened when he ran the zipper down past her waist, a shudder following when he stroked the cold glass he was holding down her spine.

‘You want this as much as I do,’ he said thickly as he pushed the sides of her dress off her shoulders.

It pooled around her feet in a silky pink puddle, leaving her wearing nothing but her pink high heels.

This wasn’t the first time she’d left off her underwear. But it was the first time she’d felt ashamed of having done so.

I’m exactly what Aunt Kate said I am, Amber accepted despairingly as she stood there, naked, before her wealthy lover’s gaze. Not a proper girlfriend or a much loved partner, but a mistress, a kept woman. Kept for nothing but her master’s sexual pleasure.

Her stomach contracted when he moved around to look at her from the front, her feelings of shame at war with those other wickedly powerful emotions he could so easily evoke. Not just desire but need—the need to be caressed, and kissed, and filled.

She closed her eyes, blotting out the way his glittering blue eyes were gobbling her up. Perversely, her not being able to see him only increased her awareness of her own appalling excitement. Every muscle in her body tensed up, waiting for his touch. Yearning for it. Dying for it.