into her mouth as he moved against her in blatant arousal.
She struggled, but he was strong and half out of his mind with unbridled passion. He didn’t realize that she was trying to get away until she dragged her mouth away from his and pushed at him, begging him to stop.
He lifted his head, breathing roughly, his eyes black with frustration.
“Shelby…” he ground out in agony.
“Let me go!” she moaned. “Please…Justin, don’t!”
“I’ll stop before we go all the way,” he whispered against her mouth, and bent to kiss her again. Her protests muffled under his warm, drugging mouth, he lifted her off the floor and carried her to the sofa, putting her down gently, full-length, on its soft cushions.
He shuddered with unbearable need, his mouth rough as it pressed against hers. His body slid over her, pushing her into the cushions, heavy and hard and intimate. She felt his sudden loss of control with real fear. She knew what could happen, and that they were engaged. He might not try very hard to stop.
“Justin!”
“I’m not going to take your chastity, Shelby,” he breathed into her mouth. His brows drew together in agonized pleasure as his hands slid over her hips. “Oh, God, honey, don’t hold back with me. Let me love you. Kiss me back…”
The words died against her soft mouth. He kissed her with growing hunger, his loss of control evident in the urgent movement of his hips against hers, his hands suddenly searching as they moved over her soft breasts. Then his knee moved between her legs and she panicked.
She began to fight him, afraid of the unfamiliar intimacy that was beyond her experience. She pushed at him. All at once, he seemed to feel her resistance. He lifted his head, his eyes blazing with black hunger, and just stared at her for an instant, disoriented. Then when he saw the rejection, felt it in the stiffness of her body, he suddenly tore away from her and got to his feet. By the time she was able to breathe again, he was standing several feet away smoking a cigarette. Several tense minutes passed before he turned around again to pour brandy into two snifters. He gave her one and smiled mockingly at the way she avoided touching him.
He turned away from her to stare out the window while he sipped his brandy. His back was ramrod stiff. “We’ll sleep together when we’re married,” he said. “I hope you know that I don’t plan on separate rooms.”
“I know.” She sipped her own drink with shaking hands, wanting to explain, but his attitude was hardly welcoming. “Justin…I’m a virgin.”
“Don’t you think I knew that?” he asked tersely. He looked at her and his expression was a cold and totally unreadable mask, hiding emotions she couldn’t even guess at. “My God, we’re going to be married. Do I have to stop touching you altogether until the ring’s on your finger?”
She started to speak and lowered her eyes to her glass. She stiffened. “Perhaps…it might be wiser.”
“Considering my lack of control, I suppose you mean.” He said it icily, in a tone she’d never heard him use. He drank his brandy and after a while, the anger seemed to go out of him, to Shelby’s relief. He didn’t apologize, but he went to her and took her hand gently, smiling at her as if nothing at all had happened. They drank brandy, and he taught her a Mexican drinking song as the aftereffects of the evening and the potency of the aged brandy began to work on them. Maria and Lopez had chanced to come home then from a party and Justin had taken Shelby home. Maria had been raging at him in Spanish, and Shelby only found out later that the song he’d been teaching her wasn’t one she could ever sing in public.
She’d looked forward to the wedding with joy and also with apprehension. Justin’s passion had unsettled her and made her doubt her ability to match him. He was experienced and she wasn’t, and she was more afraid than ever of having him make love to her when he was totally out of control.
But there was no cause for alarm, because there was no more heated lovemaking. The most ardent move he made for days afterward was to kiss her cheek or hold hands with her, and all the while, those black eyes wandered over her with the strangest searching expression. She relaxed and began to enjoy his company again, losing her nervousness since he wasn’t making any more demands on her.
Then, suddenly, her father had put an end to it. Give up Justin, he’d demanded, or watch him lose everything he had. Justin would end up hating her, her father had said. He’d blame her for making him poor and their marriage wouldn’t stand a chance. His pride alone would kill it.
She’d been very young and unworldly, and her father was an old hand at getting what he wanted. He’d enlisted aid from Tom Wheelor, who was motivated by the thought of a beneficial merger. And she’d done what her father asked and lied to Justin, admitted to having an affair with Tom, to wanting wealth and position, things that Justin couldn’t give her.
So long ago, she thought. So much pain. She’d only been protecting Justin, trying to spare him the agony of losing everything he and his family had worked so long and so hard to achieve. But in the process, she’d sacrificed her own happiness. She had only herself to blame for Justin’s cold attitude. And not only did she blame herself for her betrayal, but she also hadn’t been honest with him about the reasons she’d been afraid to let him touch her.
Now he was going to marry her out of pity, not out of love. And, too, there was always his wish for revenge. She didn’t know how she was going to live with him, but only proximity was going to change his mind about her. And living with him would be so sweet. Even though she couldn’t be the kind of woman he needed, it was all of heaven to be near him. Maybe one day she’d find the courage to tell him the truth about herself, to make him understand.
All her doubts were back. But she’d given her word to go through with the wedding, and she couldn’t back down now. She was going to have to make the best of it, and hope that Justin’s thirst for revenge wasn’t prompting his decision to marry her.
Abby was enlisted to help Shelby with the wedding preparations. Shelby had always liked the Ballenger brothers’ ward. Abby seemed to understand so well what was going on between Justin and his ex-fiancée.
“I don’t imagine Justin is making it easy for you,” Abby said while they addressed envelopes for the invitations that they’d just picked up from the printer.
Shelby brushed back a strand of dark hair, sighing gently. “He feels sorry for me,” she said with a faint smile. “And maybe he’s bent on revenge. But I’m afraid that’s all he’s got to give me.”
“He seemed to be coming around pretty well the night we all went to that square dance and Calhoun spent most of it dancing with you,” Abby recalled, tongue in cheek. It was easy to laugh about the past now, although she and Justin had been devastated at the time.
Shelby cleared her throat. “Justin had enough to say to me when we danced. Afterward, I guess he gave Calhoun the devil, if his expression was anything to go by. He was mad.”
“Mad!” Abby laughed. Her blue-gray eyes searched Shelby’s. “He went home and got drunk. Worse,” she confessed ruefully, “he got me drunk, too. When Calhoun got back from taking you home, we were sprawled on the sofa together trying to figure out a way to get up and lock him out of the house.”
Shelby’s
