Bride of the Tiger by Heather Graham (best large ereader .txt) 📗

had to wait. She needed to go away, to avoid seeing him again. She’d been with him now. She knew that it was like nothing on earth, and everything that love was intended to be.

It couldn’t be an affair. It couldn’t be casual. It couldn’t be lost. It had to be real and forever, or it could be nothing.

Then what was it that still worried her?

After all this, why did she feel the niggling suspicions, the remainder of mistrust?

How could she have done this? She, who had been hurt so badly, taken in so blindly. She, who knew that love could grow bitter.

He pulled her atop him, and she almost smiled, forgetting her fears, because the look on his face was simply so male. So triumphant, his golden eyes gleaming like topaz.

“My God, I love you!” he declared intensely, voice low but seeming to shake slightly.

And her smile deepened wistfully. “Do you really?”

“I do.”

She lay against him, her heart beating, her thoughts a prayer.

Let it be true.

Please, God, let it be true.

* * *

He was a wonderful cook, she discovered. He made fabulous omelettes with tiny shrimp and a delicious creole sauce. They ate in bed, loosely clad in robes, beneath the extraordinary blue of the sky.

For a moment she felt as if her heart had stopped, because she realized suddenly that he was, by nature, a passionate and volatile man, and his bed had probably played host to any number of women.

Jealousy streaked through her, painful and cruel. She lowered her eyes to her plate, then realized that he was studying her intently, smiling slightly as he noticed her change of emotion.

He touched her chin, raising it. “What?”

She shrugged, then laughed—because it was so ridiculous, of course. She’d only known that he existed for a few days.

“I was wondering how many women you’d had with you in this bed.”

He made no firm denials. He was silent, watching her for a minute. “We both have pasts.”

It was her turn for silence.

Once again she took refuge in staring at her food. He wouldn’t let her. He caught her chin again, forcing her to meet his eyes.

“Past. As in Tine Elliott. You’re not still in love with the man, are you?”

The question was harsh. Too harsh, she thought.

“No,” she said sharply, deciding that the one word was enough; he could take it or leave it.

He continued to stare into her eyes, as if seeking something. Tension seemed to leap around them, in the air, part of them. He released her chin, sighing.

“I think you should marry me,” he said.

She looked up at him quickly, laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“We’re—we’re strangers!” she told him.

He smiled as seductively as any cat, grinning with pleasure.

“Strangers?” he said with such insinuation that she blushed.

“We don’t know each other,” she said loftily, straightening to what she hoped was dignity, her shoulders squared.

Dignity was lost. Her stretching had pulled the terry material of the robe taut against her form, and with no hesitation he tweaked the rise of her nipple, laughing. “I know you very well.”

Tara clutched the robe, nearly dislodging her plate. “I’m being serious and rational.”

“So am I.”

She shook her head, not knowing whether to laugh, too, or to protest vehemently.

He took their plates and set them aside then scooped her into his arms.

“I really need to get home,” she murmured a little nervously.

“No.”

“But—”

“Not today.”

“Not today!”

“All of today, all of tonight, you’re mine. I’ll get you home in the morning.”

“But this is so sudden. So intense.”

“You said that we’re strangers. I’m trying to let you get to know me.” He caught her hand and brought it to his chest. “Feel my heart, my love. That’s all you really need to know, isn’t it?” The teasing quality left his voice—she felt he was speaking in earnest.

Yet she wondered if he was querying her—or himself.

“Really. I should simply sweep you away and marry you, and keep you forever and forever.”

“I have to leave on a business trip.”

“That’s all right. Your willing bridegroom will follow.”

She smiled and wondered just what had been wrong about his words. She thought she almost had it, but then he was moving again, sweeping her into his arms as he rose from the bed.

“What—”

“A shower. We’ll have eaten together, walked together, laughed together—and showered together. ‘Getting to Know You.’ I’d sing it for you, but I can’t carry a tune worth a damn.”

With her arms about his neck, her eyes imprisoned by the passion in his, she could do nothing but laugh. “Whistle, then,” she commanded, and he obeyed, and she laughed all the while that he brought her into the elegantly modern and squeaky-clean bathroom. He set her down to start the water, then he turned, eyes growing dark as amber, and untied the belt of her robe and eased it from her shoulders.

The shower stall was of beige marble, with curving seats cut into each end. As he plucked her from her feet to set her beneath the stream of water Tara noted that his taste was wonderfully attuned to hers. She loved old things, but she also loved the contemporary flair of his apartment.

Then she wasn’t thinking about the apartment at all, because his hands were full of soap and moving over her body. Over her breasts, along her hips, between her thighs.

Gasping for breath, laughing, she tried to elude him, tried to elude the evocative sensation. Finding soap, she returned the caress, catching his eyes as she slowly sudsed his chest, his abdomen, his tightly muscled buttocks, in swirling circles.

Steam whirled around her, and she was absolutely fascinated as she heard the sharp rasp of his breath and watched the sexual tension seize his features, sharpening them, darkening his eyes, straining his cheeks.

Then she was left to gasp, for he caught her beneath the arms and spun around, setting her on one of the marble seats, kneeling before her. Suddenly, passionately, aggressively. Laving her navel with his tongue, parting her thighs and moving lower.

She cried out at the excruciating sensation, at the