His Forbidden Fiancee

Two

Lauren Conover stared at her bedraggled reflection in the bathroom mirror, looking for any evidence of the backbone she’d thought she’d found this morning before driving to Lake Tahoe. Instead, all she saw was a wet woman with reddened lips and a confused expression in her eyes.

“You were supposed to walk in and break it off with him immediately,” she whispered fiercely to that dazed-looking creature staring back at her. “Nowhere in the plan were you supposed to find him attractive.”

But she had! That was the crazy, spine-melting trouble. When the door to the magnificent log house had opened, there stood Matthias Barton, looking as he always had on those few occasions they’d been together. Dark hair, dark eyes, a lean face that she couldn’t deny was handsome—and yet, never before had it drawn her.

Then he’d invited her inside and when she’d been looking up at him with the fire at her back she’d felt fire at her front, too. A man-woman kind of fire that made her skin prickle and her heart beat fast.

The kind of fire that a woman might be persuaded to marry for.

And she’d come all this way to tell him it wasn’t going to happen.

And it wasn’t!

When her mother had plopped a stack of bridal magazines onto the breakfast table that morning, Lauren had looked at them and then at her thirteen-year-old sister’s face. Her tough-as-nails tomboy sister who had been giving Lauren grief since the engagement had been announced two weeks before.

“You’d better do something quick,” Kaitlyn had said, backing away from the glossy magazines as if they were a tangle of hissing snakes. “Or the next thing you know, Mom will have me in some horrid junior bridesmaid’s dress that I’ll never, ever forgive you for.”

Lauren had known Kaitlyn was right. Her mother’s steamroller qualities were exactly why she’d found herself engaged to a man she barely knew in the first place. That is, her mother’s steamroller qualities combined with her father’s heavy-handed hints about this marriage being good for the family business he always claimed was faltering. As well as Lauren’s own embarrassment over her three previous attempts to make it down the aisle.

She’d picked those men herself and the engagements had each ended in disaster.

So it had been hard to disagree with her mother and father that their choice couldn’t be any worse, despite Kaitlyn’s teenage disgust.

But the sight of those pages and pages of bridal gowns had woken Lauren from the stupor that she’d been suffering since returning home from Paris six months before. Hanging a third now-never-to-be-worn wedding dress in the back of her family’s cedar-lined luggage closet had sent her to a colorless, emotionless place where she’d slept too much, watched TV too much and responded almost robot-like to her parents’ commands.

Until glimpsing that tulled and tiara-ed bride on the front cover of Matrimonial, that is. The sight had hit her like a wake-up slap to the face. What was she thinking? She couldn’t marry Matthias Barton. She couldn’t marry a man for the same cold, cutthroat reasons her father picked a new business partner.

So she’d grabbed her keys and gathered her self-confidence and driven straight to where Matthias had mentioned he’d be staying for the next month, determined to get him out of her life.

Now she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

Sighing, she turned away from the mirror and adjusted the spray in the shower. She’d found the master bedroom right off—my God, that luxurious bed had almost made her swoon!—but spun a quick about-face and entered a smaller guest bed and bath instead.

The hot water felt heavenly and some of her uneasiness went down the drain with it. All she had to do was walk back out there and tell that gorgeous hunk of a man that she wasn’t marrying him. He’d probably be as relieved as she was. After that she’d drive home, face the certain-to-be-discordant music chez Conover and get on with the rest of her life.

The rest of her life that wouldn’t include any more engagements to wrong men.

A few minutes later, wrapped in an oversized terry robe she’d found hanging on the bathroom door and carrying her damp clothes in hand, Lauren made her way to the staircase. Some framed photos lined the walls but she didn’t give them but a cursory glance as she was more concerned with getting away from the house than anything. She could tell it was still raining and even from the second-floor landing the downstairs fire looked cozy and inviting, but she straightened her shoulders and mentally fused her vertebrae together.

Break it off, Lauren, she ordered herself as she descended the steps. At once. Then get in your car and drive home. Who cared about not waiting to dry the wet clothes? The robe covered her up just fine.

She could see Matthias standing by the fireplace now. He looked up…and somehow made her feel as if she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

A flush heated all the skin under the suddenly scratchy terry cloth. Lauren’s nipples hardened—though she wasn’t the least bit cold, oh no sir—and she knew they were poking at the thick fabric. Would he notice? Could he tell?

Would he care?

Trying to pretend nothing was the least amiss, she made herself continue downward. But, man-oh-man, was he something to look at. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and unfastened a second button at the throat. The vee of undershirt she could see was blinding white and contrasted with the dark, past-five-o’clock stubble on his chin and around his mouth.

His mouth made her think of his kiss again. It was just a regular man’s mouth, she supposed, but she liked the wideness of it and the deep etch of his upper lip. She really liked how it had felt on hers and, then, when his tongue had touched—

“Don’t look at me like that,” he suddenly said.

She was two steps from the bottom and the rasp in his voice made her grab for the railing. “I’m sorry,” she said, unable to move, hardly able to speak. “What?”

“You look at me like that and I forget all about my intentions.”

Her mouth went dry. “What intentions?” Maybe they were bad intentions…yet why did the idea of that sound so very good?

Matthias glanced over his shoulder. “My intention to feed you before anything else. Didn’t I promise to rustle up dinner?”

Behind him she could see he’d set two places on the coffee table pulled up before a wide, soft-cushioned couch. Something was steaming—she could smell it, beef bourguignonne?—on two plates and ruby-colored liquid filled two wineglasses. Candles flickered in low votives.

Had she mentioned she was a sucker for candlelight?

She took another whiff of that delicious-smelling food. “Are you a good cook?”

He smiled and she liked that, too. His teeth were as white as his undershirt and they sent another wave of hot prickles across her flesh. “Maybe. Probably. But I’ve never tried.”

She had to laugh at that. “Are you usually so confident? Even if you haven’t attempted something you just expect you’ll excel at it?”

“Of course. ‘Assume success, deny failure.’ My father taught us that.”

“Yikes.” And Lauren thought her cold-blooded père knew how to apply the screws. “That’s a little harsh.”

“You think so?” Matthias walked over to take her wet clothes in one hand and her free hand in the other.

He insinuated his long fingers between hers and the heat of his palm against hers shot toward her shoulder. “I think…I think…” Lauren couldn’t remember what she was about to say. “Never mind.”

He was smiling at her again, as if he understood her distraction. He led her toward the couch. “Let me put your clothes in the dryer, then we’ll eat.”

She stared after his retreating form for a moment, then started back to awareness. She was supposed to take the wet clothes home! Right after she told him the engagement was over! Right before walking out the door without dinner, without anything but her car keys and the comforting thought that she’d done the right thing.

But now he was coming toward her again, that small smile on his face and that appreciative light in his eyes. He brought that attraction between them back into the room, too—all that twitching, pulsing heat that drew her heart to her throat and her blood to several lower locations.

Tell him it’s over! Her good sense shouted.

Tell him later, her sexuality purred, with a languid little stretch.

“Sit down,” Matthias said, reaching out to touch her cheek.

Her knees gave way.

Merely postponing the inevitable. Lauren assured herself that she’d take care of what she came for and leave. Soon.

Except, an excellent dinner later, she was feeling a bit fuzzy from more merlot than she was used to. As well as a lot charmed by the man who had taken their dishes into the kitchen and was now sitting back on the cushions beside her, dangling the stem of his wine-glass between his fingers.

Over the meal he’d entertained her with stories that all revolved around his adventures in take-out dining. If she needed any further evidence that he was a business-obsessed workaholic like her father—and why else would Papa Conover have pushed so hard for her to marry Matthias?—now she had it. The man couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten food prepared in a home.

“Even this doesn’t qualify, I’m afraid,” he said, gesturing to where their plates had been. “The cartons were printed with the name of some gourmet catering place in town.”

“Hunter’s Landing, right?” Lauren asked. “Though it’s not named after your friend from college? The one who built this house?”

Matthias shook his head. “No. Just a little joke on his part, I guess. He had a wild sense of humor.”

The suddenly hoarse note in his voice made her throat tighten. He missed his friend, that was certain. Swallowing a sigh, she closed her eyes. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This wasn’t the way he was supposed to be. She didn’t want her parent-picked fiancé to be sexy or charming or vulnerable and, for God’s sake, certainly not all three. It only made it that much harder to break it off with him.

She was always such a nitwit when it came to men. There was a reason she’d been engaged three times before now. There was a reason she’d picked the wrong men and then stuck with them until the humiliating end—until they walked out on her.

“So,” Matthias said, breaking into her morose thoughts. “Enough about me. Tell me all about Lauren.”

All about Lauren? Her eyes popped open and her spirits picked up. Was this the answer? If she told Mr. Assume-Success-Deny-Failure Barton all about Lauren, he might break it off between them himself! Because the truth was, when it came to romance, she was all about failure. And obviously more accustomed to getting dumped than the other way around.

Drawing her legs onto the couch, she turned on her side to face him.

Except his face was directed at her legs, bared by the edges of the terry robe that had opened with her movement. Heat rushing over her face, she yanked the fabric over her pale skin. She wasn’t trying to come on to him. She was trying to get him to see that a marriage between the two of them would never work.

When she cleared her throat, he looked up, without a hint of shame on his face. “Great legs.”

The compliment only served to discombobulate her further. The heat found its way to the back of her neck and she blurted out, “You know, you’re fiancé number four.”

He stared. “Number four?”

Ha. That had him. Now he’d turn off the charm and dam up that oozing sex appeal. She nodded. “I’ve been engaged before. Three other times.”

He gave a small smile. “Optimistic little thing, aren’t you?”

She frowned, bothered that he seemed more amused than appalled by her confession. Maybe he didn’t believe her. Maybe he thought she was joking. Holding up her hand, she ticked them off. “Trevor, Joe and Jean-Paul.”

“All right.” He drained the remainder of his wine and set the glass on the table, as if ready for business. “Give me the down and dirty.”

He still seemed amused. And charming. And sexy.

Blast him.

Lauren took a breath. “I almost married Trevor when we were nineteen. It was going to be a sunset ceremony on the beach, followed by a honeymoon—one that I’d planned and paid for—that would hit all the best surfing spots in Costa Rica. On my wedding day, I was supposed to wear a white bandeau top, a grass skirt I found in a secondhand shop in Santa Cruz, and a crown of plumeria blossoms straight from Hawaii.”

“Sounds fetching,” he said, “though I don’t see you as a surfer.”

“That’s probably the biggest reason Trevor ran off without me. He cashed in our first class tickets for coach ones and took his best surfing buddy to Central America instead. I haven’t heard from him since.”

Lauren experienced a little pang thinking of the bleached-blond she would always consider her first love. He’d driven her parents nuts, she recalled with a reminiscent smile. He’d been the perfect anti-Conover.

“Okay. That’s number one. But why aren’t you now Mrs. Joe…?”

“Rutkowski. His name is Joe Rutkowski.”

Matthias bit his lip. “You’re kidding.”

“No. Joe Rutkowski was—well, is—my father’s mechanic. If you find a good car-man, you don’t break up with him—even if he breaks up with your daughter. That’s what my father says, anyway.”

“So what gave good ol’ Joe second thoughts?”

“His pregnant other girlfriend.”

“Oh.”

“Little Jolene was born on my birthday, which also happened to be our proposed wedding date.”

“Tell me you sent a baby gift. Little coveralls? A tiny timing light?”

Lauren narrowed her eyes at him. He didn’t seem to be getting her point. “My heart was broken. My mother sent a certificate for a month of diaper service and signed my name.” It still annoyed her that she’d lost the opportunity to watch her hoity-toity parents introduce the town’s best Mercedes mechanic as their new son-in-law.

“But your broken heart recovered enough to find yourself in the arms of—what did you say his name was?—Jacques Cousteau?”

“Very funny. Jean-Paul Gagnon.” Her father hated Frenchmen. “I met him in Paris. We were going to get married on top of the Eiffel Tower. I had a tailored white linen suit with a long skirt that went to my ankles and was so tight that I couldn’t run after the nasty little urchin who stole my purse on the way to the ceremony.”

“I hope you’re going to tell me that Jean-Paul took after the urchin himself.”

“He did. But when he came back with my purse he told me that it had given him time to think about what he was doing. And marrying me was not what he wanted to do, after all.” She gazed off into the distance, remembering her disappointment at not being able to shock her parents with the groom she brought home from Europe. “I really liked Jean-Paul.”

“In the morning, I’ll find some place that will feed you crepes.”

In the morning? Lauren jerked her head toward him. “Have you been listening to a thing I said?”

“Of course I have.” He moved closer and wrapped his hands around her wrists. “I just haven’t figured out what the hell it has to do with you and me.”

Lauren swallowed. Here was the opening she’d been waiting for. Now was the time to say, “There is no you and me, Matthias. There never really was.”

Except the words wouldn’t come out. They were stuck in her tight throat—and all it could handle was breathing, a task that seemed to be so much more complex when he was touching her.

“This is a lot harder than I thought,” she whispered.

A ghost of a smile quirked one corner of his handsome mouth as he slid his fingers between hers. “You’re telling me.”

Despite her breathlessness, she found she could still laugh. “Are you being bad?”

“Not yet. But the night’s still young.”

Night? Good Lord, she’d completely lost track of time. It had been early evening just a minute ago. She checked her watch. “I’ve got to leave.” Scooting back, she tried yanking her hands from his.

He merely held her tighter. “Not now, honey.”

“But Matthias was…”

Something flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t let go. “I may be an SOB, but I’m not completely black-hearted. It’s too late, too dark, too stormy for me to let you leave tonight. It wouldn’t be safe.”

She looked out the windows and could tell he was right. The rain hadn’t let up in the hours she’d been at the house and it was still coming down in torrents. Oh, great. She was stuck with the man she couldn’t bring herself to break up with and her heart was thrumming so fast and he was so gorgeous she worried that if she didn’t get away from him soon she’d…“I’m not so sure it’s safe here, either.”

“Will anyone be worrying about you? Do you need to make a call?”

Registering that he hadn’t addressed the safety issue, she shook her head. “I had planned to stay with a friend in San Francisco for a few days on my way back. She said she’d expect me when she saw me.”

“So here we are.” He dropped her right hand so he could toy with one of her curls instead. “All alone on a dark and stormy night.”

“So here we are,” she echoed. “All alone.” Oh, but her mother definitely could have called this one. Coming up here was truly another of Lauren’s Bad Ideas.

“How do you propose we entertain ourselves?” Matthias asked, twining a lock of her hair around his forefinger.

Lauren pretended not to notice. “Swap ghost stories? That sounds appropriate.”

“But then we might be too scared to sleep.”

Oh God. Her heart jumped and her gaze locked on his face. He was wearing that little smile again, as if he knew that mentioning the words we and sleep in the same sentence had her thinking of the two of them together, in a bed, doing everything but sleeping.

What the heck was going on? In the last few months, she’d chitchatted with Matthias at parties, danced with him a couple of times at charity events, pretended to be interested during family dinners while he talked shop with her father. Not once had she felt the slightest shiver of sexual attraction and now it was all she could do not to squirm in her seat.

Or squirm all over him.

“How come you weren’t like this before?” she demanded.

His teeth flashed white. “I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Seriously. Matthias—”

He put his hand over her mouth. “Shh. Don’t talk.”

She reached up to pull his fingers away. “If I don’t talk I’m afraid I’ll—”

And then he stopped that sentence, too, by swooping forward to kiss her for a second time. “Sorry,” he said against her mouth. “I just can’t help myself.”

But she was helping him already by spearing her fingers through the crisp hair at the back of his head. He angled one way, she angled another and then they were really kissing, lips opening, tongues touching, tasting, their breaths and the sweet tang of merlot mingling.

Goose bumps rolled in a wave from the top of her scalp to the tickly skin behind her knees. She scooted closer to him, bumping the outside of his legs. Without breaking the connection of their mouths, he gathered her and the voluminous terry cloth onto his lap. In the move, the robe’s hem rode up and she found herself settling onto him with nothing between her bare behind and his hard slacks-covered thighs.

Yanking her mouth from his, she glanced down, relieved to see that her front was covered decently enough and that the robe was draping her legs modestly, too. Still…“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, taking her hands from his hair.

“What?” His voice was hoarse.

Where to start? The engagement? The kiss? The lap? Or the bare skin which only felt barer because it was against the soft fabric that was clothing all those male muscles? “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

His eyelashes were spiky and dark, as masculine as the rest of him. “So you’re holding out for the wedding night?”

The edge in his voice didn’t surprise her. She felt edgy, too, torn between what her head was advising and what her body was demanding.

“We hardly know each other,” she said. “So all this…this…”

“Hankering for hanky-panky?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “…is a product of the rain, the wine, the—”

“The stone cold truth that we turn each other on hard and fast, Goldilocks, no explanations, no apologies. And to be honest, I’m as floored by it as you are.”

“You are?” Not that she figured he considered her an ogre or anything, but the idea that this kind of “hankering for hanky-panky” wasn’t standard for him, either, was a fascinating notion.

He laughed. “You look awfully pleased with yourself about it.”

“Hey, in the past few years, I’ve been rejected on a regular basis, so forgive my dented ego for giving a little cheer.” The merlot had seriously loosened her tongue.

“Fiancés one through four were idiots.”

“You’re number four,” she reminded him.

“I’m trying to forget that.” At the frown on her face, he shook his head and pinched her chin. “Goldilocks, I’m suggesting we try to forget everything but the fact that it’s a dark and stormy night and we’re alone together with our hankering. What do you say? Why not see where it takes us?”

She stared at him. “That’s male reasoning.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Cogent? To the point?”

“Shortsighted and all about sex.”

“And your point is?”

Oh, he was making her laugh again. And that made her wiggle against his lap. And that made him groan and she was so…well, captivated by the powerful feeling the sound gave her that she leaned in to buss him on the mouth.

Which he turned into a real kiss.

Next thing she knew their tongues were twining and her hands were buried in his hair again. Heat was pouring off of him and his skin tasted a tiny bit salty as she kissed the corner of his mouth. “I want to bottle up this feeling,” she told him, awed by its strength. Sexual chemistry, who knew? “We could market it and make a kabillion dollars.”

“A kabillion is a lot,” he murmured, then turned his attention to her left ear.

Goose bumps sprinted across every inch of her skin as his tongue feathered over the rim to tickle the lobe. “A kabillion-ten,” she corrected herself. “In the first year.”

He traveled back to her mouth, then took his time there, leisurely playing with all the surfaces. Her breath backed up in her lungs when he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth. Her fingers tightened on his scalp when he slid the tip of his tongue along the damp skin inside her upper lip. She moaned when he thrust inside her mouth, filling her with his purpose and male demand.