Page 85 of The Rancher Married the Wrong Sister
Wednesday at breakfast two days ago, her cheeks flushed pink as she stared at him over her untouched eggs Benedict. He’d been reading the financial section, only half-aware of her presence, when something had made him glance up.
Her gaze had been fixed on his lap.
Specifically, on the way his dress pants fitted across his thighs. Her lips had parted slightly, and she’d wet them with the tip of her tongue, completely unconscious of what she was doing. The innocent hunger in her expression had been unmistakable...and quickly followed by mortification when she’d realized where she was looking.
At the time, he’d dismissed it. His mind had been closed to other women, still focused on Jessica’s inevitable return. Wednesday’s attraction had been nothing more than an inconvenient complication he could ignore.
But now...
Now he remembered how she’d wetted her lips as she stared, and this time the memory had a very different effect on his body.
“Shit,” he muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
He tried to control his thoughts, to redirect them toward the quarterly projections or the upcoming board meeting or anything else. But his treacherous mind wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, it conjured more memories. The way Wednesday’s breath had hitched when he’d kissed her at their wedding. How she’d trembled against him, her inexperienced mouth responding to his with surprising passion. The soft sounds she’d made...
And every morning since then, those stolen glances across the breakfast table. She thought she was being subtle, but he noticed everything. The way her eyes lingered on his hands when he reached for his coffee. How her breathing changed when he rolled up his sleeves. The unconscious way she pressed her thighs together when he spoke to her directly.
She didn’t know it, but every time she looked at him, her eyes begged him for something she was too innocent to name.
Take me. Claim me. Fuck me.
His body responded involuntarily to the memory, tightening, hardening, and demanding release that eventually had Gavine leaning back in his office chair, his hand moving to his belt with desperate urgency. He squeezed his eyes shut as he unzipped his pants, and for the first time since his teenage years, he pleasured himself while imagining he was fucking his wife.
In his mind, Wednesday was beneath him, her violet eyes wide with shock and wonder as he showed her exactly what her innocent stares had been begging for. He could picture her reaction when she finally saw him—all of him—for the first time. How those same eyes that had lingered so hungrily on his clothed body would widen when she discovered just how thick he was, how much of him there was to take.
She’d been wondering about his size during that breakfast, her curious gaze drinking in every detail she could see through his dress pants. Now he imagined her hands trembling as she reached for him, her inexperienced fingers barely able to wrap around his length.
“Too big?” he’d murmur against her ear in his fantasy, and she’d shake her head frantically, desperate and wanting despite her fear.
His hand moved faster as he pictured her soft skin flushed pink with arousal, her inexperienced body stretched around him as he pushed inside her for the first time. The sounds she’d make—not the calculated moans Jessica had performed, but real gasps of pleasure and surprise as he filled her completely, teaching her body sensations she’d never imagined.
His climax hit him with devastating force, leaving him gasping and shaking in his leather chair.
For several long moments, he sat there in the aftermath, his heart pounding and his breathing ragged. Then cold, hard reality set in, and his jaw clenched with self-disgust.
This was an accident, he told himself firmly. A momentary lapse brought about by his anger over Jessica’s deception. It didn’t change anything. Wednesday was still the wife he neither needed nor wanted, a temporary inconvenience to be endured until Jessica came to her senses.
The sooner he got rid of her, the better.
Chapter Four
“YOU’RE NEW.”
I look up from the worn paperback I’m reading to Mrs. Kenner, startled by the unfamiliar male voice. A man about my age stands in the doorway of Bethel Manor’s activities room, holding a guitar case and wearing scrubs with little cartoon cats on them.
“Oh, I—yes.” I set the book aside carefully, marking our place in the romance novel Mrs. Kenner insisted I read aloud despite my blushing protests about the shirtless cowboy on the cover. “I’m Wednesday. I just started volunteering here last week.”
“Noel.” He grins, and it’s the kind of easy, uncomplicated smile I haven’t seen directed at me in forever. “I’m the music therapist. Come by twice a week to torture these poor souls with my questionable guitar skills.”
Mrs. Kenner snorts from her wheelchair. “Don’t let him fool you, dear. He’s got a voice like an angel. Makes all us old biddies swoon.”
“Mrs. K, you flatter me.” Noel’s eyes crinkle with genuine warmth as he looks between us. “What are you reading to our resident romance expert?”
“The Cowboy’s Forbidden Kiss,” I admit, my cheeks heating. “Mrs. Kenner has very specific taste in literature.”
“The spicier the better,” Mrs. Kenner declares proudly. “Life’s too short for boring books.”
Noel laughs, a rich, comfortable sound that makes my shoulders relax for the first time in days. When was the last time someone laughed around me like that? Not at me, but because they actually enjoyed my company?
