Margaret Way - Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor - Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor

“Zara, darling , I have seen you cry, remember?” His answer was sardonic. “All crocodile tears.” He drew her into the opulent living room, switching lights back on as they went.

“Why did you never answer my letters?” Her accusation flew at him. Her voice sounded the old heartbreak. Yet he made no response. She dragged back against his strong hand. “Answer me, you ghastly, ghastly man!”

At that, he jerked them both to such an abrupt halt that her body slammed into his. “Do you understand nothing?” he asked harshly. “ Sweetheart , I never read any of them.”

She had always held on to the hope that he had at least read some of them. Now she felt shattered. She had poured out her heart in those letters, telling him of her hatred for herself for being such a fool as to be so effortlessly manipulated by her father. “But I sent you so many!” Her expression was eloquent with pain. “God, how many? You never read any of them. You can’t be telling the truth!”

“Even more serious than that, Zara, my lost love; I burnt the lot of them.” There was a bitter twist to his beautifully shaped sensuous mouth. “Had a little bonfire. You made it very plain you were done with me, remember? You revealed yourself for what you were. Probably still are. A woman who has the power to bring a man to his knees. Were you planning on keeping the torture going? Now that’s sick! I wasn’t having any. I have my pride. You ought to consider you’re more like your father than you think.”

“What?” She reacted with horror, stunned that he should say such a thing. Indeed, her shock was so great that the air turned red before her eyes. Anti-violence all her life, without a second’s thought, she brought up her hand and struck him as hard as she possibly could across the face. He could easily have stopped her by grasping her wrist, his reflexes were such. But for some reason, he didn’t. He took the blow. “I’m nothing like my father,” she said very tightly. “He was a cruel, cruel man.”

“You’ll get no argument from me.” His answer was as dry as ash. “You took a chance hitting out at me, Zara.” As he spoke, he was making a production out of rubbing his cheekbone. His skin was so tanned the red imprint of her fingers barely showed. “I could have retaliated.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, when she wasn’t at all ashamed of her actions. He deserved it. There was immense pleasure in connecting, if only in a blow.

“No, you’re not,” he bluntly contradicted. “You loved it!”

“I did!” She admitted to it in a low voice, moving closer and staring into his burning blue eyes.

“Course you did!” he taunted. “So…I’d say what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Tears of rage filled her eyes but he grabbed her, hauling her into his arms. How many times had he wanted to do that since he’d arrived? It was perilous being around Zara. She could have resisted, but she made no movement to draw back. “Hartmann a good lover?” With an effort, he kept his tone purely conversational.

Diamond pinpoints of light stood in her desperate eyes. He pulled her ever closer. “Did he tell you you have the most beautiful, the most kissable mouth in the world? Don’t bother struggling. You won’t get away.” He held her strongly with his left hand, brought up his right to touch her long hair, tipping her face up to his. “Be careful now how you answer,” he warned.

Anger burned past raw pain. “He did. He did! ” She laughed in his face, her own face pale. “Of course he d—” She got no further.

He was under too much strain. Cursing her. Cursing himself. There was no reprieve with Zara.

He opened his mouth wide over hers, claiming it completely, sick to death with wanting her. It was a brutal kind of rapture to be with her, to have her captive in his arms, to kiss her again after such an eternity. The fire would never burn out. He had to believe she was feeling the heat too because her whole body was undulating, as though her tender woman’s flesh was melting at his touch.

Once she tried to draw back, making a sound of dissent as if she were in a rage. But he knew it for what it was. No more than excited defiance. He knew. He definitely knew. She could no more subdue the powerful sexual flame that sprang fiercely between them than he could—a flame that had been ignited years before. He wasn’t going to listen to any play acting. He’d had more than enough of that. He plunged his fingers into her long heavy hair, keeping her face up to him.

“Damn, damn, damn you, Garrick!” she cried, as though her emotions were too powerful to be contained.

“Sounds more like praying to me,” he taunted. “Anyway, I’ve damned you a thousand times.” His tongue worked over and around her closed lips, increasing the pressure, prising them apart. It had to be driving her crazy because her mouth opened fully and her breath mingled with his.

Paradise regained.

He was kissing her the way he wanted to kiss her. The way he kissed her in his dreams. Not tenderly, but a furious combative passion that demanded release. Sensation swirled all around them. Images of them together filled his mind. Now and in the past. He had her back where she belonged. In his arms. He couldn’t seem to care about all the rest. Her flight from Coorango. The betrayal he’d felt. He had her with him right now. He wasn’t going to let her go.

Not tonight. He hadn’t planned it. How so? When he knew it was going to take place.

Zara had a fear she might faint. So much pressure was building in her. In her back, in her stomach, her breasts and her legs. Her body swayed against his, her aching breasts pressed hard against the muscular plane of his chest. She hungered for him so much she was shaking uncontrollably. The strength of his hold on her increased. It came to her belatedly that he was supporting her. The rose had slipped out of her fingers. It was crushed somewhere between them. Its sweet fragrance was scenting the air. She felt trapped. At the same time she felt she was where she belonged.

“I could have picked any other girl in the world,” he muttered, his lips against her throat, “but it had to be you ! So let’s choose a bed,” he said with a shuddering laugh. Yours or mine?” He raised his hand, clasping her neck beneath the heavy fall of her hair.

“Don’t sound so cynical, Garrick,” she begged, her voice a jagged whisper.

“Ah, be damned to everything!” he cried, as though the situation was utterly intolerable. He caught her chin, turned her face up to him. “You can’t be crying?” he rasped.

A single tear had escaped, edging down her cheek.

“Do you think your tears make me fair game?” His expression carried no gentleness whatever. It showed tension as tight as a piano wire strung to perfect pitch.

“It’s always about you, isn’t it?” she lashed back. “You and your abominable pride! Well, it cost us.” She closed her eyes against him, realizing he would never forgive her until the day he died. Her heart was drumming in her ears, the beat strong enough to make her deaf. A great flush of sexual excitement was covering her body in a tide. She thought of a dam, its massive walls giving way.

“Drop the tears, Zara,” he advised. “They won’t work. Tonight you’re mine. It will be just like old times!” He put one steely muscled arm beneath her and then swept her off her swooning feet.

There were no words in her mind to stop him. She knew it would happen. They both knew it would happen. Both of them wanted the torture over. If only for a single night. She needed no man in her life. Unless it was Garrick. He needed no woman. Unless it was her. Both of them were in the fierce grip of obsession. A maelstrom of passion that had at its core a fatal flaw.