Page 110 of Texas Honor

She lifted her eyebrows. “For a man who isn’t interested, you sure do have a visible problem.”

He actually flushed. “Will you quit!” he cried. “For God’s sake, Maggie!”

“Am I embarrassing you?” She clicked her tongue. “Sorry, I thought you wanted me to be a little more aggressive.”

“I did. I thought.” He scowled at her. His heart was beginning to race. She could see his pulse throb under the dark, hairy mat of his chest. “I don’t want gratitude from you. Not when I know that’s all you can give me.”

There was a deep note in his voice that made her tingle all over. “You sound as if that’s not all you want from me,” she murmured, smiling gently.

He ran a hand through his thick hair and sighed in angry frustration. “I don’t know what I want anymore,” he said. “It was all cut-and-dried, wasn’t it? We’d get married and keep Becky, and I’d take care of you both. We’d be...friends.” He looked up, his eyes possessive, exciting. “But we don’t make love like friends, Maggie. What happens to me when I love you...isn’t sex. And I don’t ever want it to be just physical.” He took a slow breath, his pale eyes troubled as he looked at her. “I thought a convenient marriage would be enough. Until today, in court, when you laughed and said that Becky was yours. And I felt like an outsider looking in, like a convenience.”

“I know—now. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry I hurt you. Because I did, didn’t I?” she asked gently, and moved toward him, stopping when she could feel the heat and strength of his body. “And I did it again, today, when I told Janet that you hadn’t told me anything about the detective. But it was true. You share nothing with me except your body. You don’t want to let me that close.”

His pale eyes narrowed. “You don’t know how close I want you,” he said huskily, with fierce emotion in his voice. “You don’t have the faintest notion.”

Her lips parted. “Don’t I?” She slid the peignoir down her arms, watching his eyes fall to it.

“Not sex,” he bit off.

“It won’t be,” she whispered. “I promise. Watch me, Gabriel.”

She slid the straps of the gown down her arms, too, and slowly, seductively, bared her body to his glittering eyes. He started to reach for her automatically, but she held his hands gently at his sides, shaking her head.

“Shh,” she whispered. “I...need to show you...that I’m whole again. I think you need the proof.”

As he held his breath, her cool hands reached for the snaps of his pajama bottoms and undid them, letting the fabric slide down the length of his powerful, hard-muscled legs. She moved close to him then, just barely touching, letting him feel every texture of her skin as she brushed against him.

“Maggie,” he groaned, his eyes closing.

“I want all of you,” she said, putting her mouth to his chest, sliding her hands down the warm, smooth silk of his back and hips, around to the hair-roughened skin of his flat stomach and thighs.

He bit back a harsh groan and his muscles convulsed, but he didn’t try to stop her.

“Oh, Gabriel,” she breathed against his skin, her eyes closed, her hands adoring his body, loving the freedom of touching him as she’d always dreamed of doing, arousing him, giving him everything there was of passion and love in her whole being.

“Let me lie down,” he whispered, “before my knees give way.”

He went to the bed and stretched out, his body arching in sensual expectation, his eyes open. “Come on,” he whispered, his eyes glittering, challenging. “Do it.”

She’d invited him once in exactly those words. And now she took the invitation. All the things he’d done to her, she did to him. Exploring. Touching. Drawing the very tips of her fingers over skin so sensitive that he began to make odd, hoarse sounds.

“And you say I’m a noisy lover,” she teased at his lips as she smoothed her body completely down the length of his and lay over him. “You’re noisy, too.”

He looked up into her soft, loving eyes and suddenly didn’t need words; suddenly knew. His hands slid to her hips, holding them lightly to him. “That pill...” he whispered. “Did you take it today?”

“No.” She smiled. “And if you miss even one—” she bent to his open mouth “—it can be very, very dangerous.” She bit his lower lip. “I feel absolutely primitive. I want to bite you all over.”

He burst out laughing, although it was a sound laden with passion and delight. He held her hips. “Sit up,” he whispered, daring her. “I’ll help you.”

“I don’t know how,” she said.

“Shh.” He sat up against the headboard, drawing her over him, facing him, her body close and warm against his as he eased her onto his hips and watched her lips part on a breath as he deepened the contact into stark intimacy.

Her nails drew sensuously against his broad, dark shoulders. She looked into his eyes as she lifted and fell, and trembled a little at the newness of what they were sharing.

“I’ve never done this deliberately,” he whispered. “Knowing that a child could come of it, and not minding.”

“Neither have I,” she whispered back, catching her breath as she saw the depth of emotion in his eyes. “Becky will...like...having a baby in the house.”

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