He closed the distance between them, big and male with a glitter in his eyes that was pure anger. "Have you come to kiss and make up?"
She put up a hand to stop him but he walked into it, pressing her palm against his chest and holding it there with one of his own hands. The energy radiating from him burned through her skin and caressed things low and newly awakened.
She fought back, determined to conquer her body's hunger for this man she barely knew. "I came to talk."
"Talking is not what we do best, darling." In those angry eyes, she saw memories of their first night in this bed, sultry and dark, passionate and furious.
Her heart began to thud in anticipation and she hated herself for it. "Maybe we'd better start getting good at it." She broke his hold, surprised when he let her go.
"Why?" Reaching out, he thrust one of his hands into her hair, recapturing her.
"I didn't marry you for conversation. I married you to get a well-behaved, undemanding and faithful wife who'd give me children. That you're hot in bed is a very nice bonus but the last I heard, having sex doesn't require talking."
She slapped him. "Damn you!"
His reaction was a smile that was anything but amused. "I was damned long ago, Jess. Don't you know what they say-Gabriel Dumont survived the fire because he made a deal with the devil."
"You're no devil, just a bastard."
"On the contrary my dear, my parents were very married." Thrusting his other hand into her hair, he pulled her close. His next words were spoken against her lips. "They used to talk but that didn't fix anything."
Something about that last statement struck Jess as indefinably wrong. Yet he gave her no chance to follow up, ending all conversation with a kiss that robbed her of both her breath and her sanity. Already in the grip of the passion of anger, she ignited at his first touch. Logic and reason flew out the window.
Her robe was on the floor two seconds later, Gabe's hands shoving under her camisole to lie flat against her back. Fueled by the rawest, most primitive of desires, she gripped his hair and took another kiss, giving back as good as she got. He made a harsh sound low in his throat and broke the kiss to run his hands down to her waistband.
Her panties and pajama bottoms joined the robe before she could do much more than gasp. Sucking in a shocked breath, she tried to say something-what, she didn't know-as he lifted her clear. But the sound was lost in the tumult of his next kiss and so was her mind.
When he tore away his lips to turn her so she faced the bed, she didn't
understand what was happening … until she felt the hardness of him pressing against her through the closed zipper of his pants.
"Do it!" The order was guttural.
But that same unfamiliar wildness in her, the one that had reacted so explosively to his kiss, understood. It was an understanding of the body, not the mind-her thoughts were fragmented, her skin tight enough to hurt. Bending, she closed her hands around the thick wood of the bedpost.
And then she heard the zipper being lowered.
Even that warning wasn't enough. She screamed as he pushed into her. Hard. Fast.
Deep. Her body accepted him, welcomed his driving thrusts, but he was merciless in the intensity of what he asked of her, pushing her so far that she lost all traces of civilization and surrendered to her most primal heart.
Lying in the darkness, Jess didn't know who she was anymore-not only had she let Gabe love her with an intimacy that made her a traitor to her own emotions, she hadn't managed to make him talk about anything. Taking a deep breath, she moved to push off the sheets.
A strong arm clamped around her waist. "No, Jess. Tonight you stay with your husband."
When she opened her mouth to argue, he covered it with his own. There was no tenderness in his touch-it was a brand, a mark of possession. She tried to stifle her reactions, tried to regain command of a body that no longer seemed her own, but still she broke. Over and over and over.
And that was how she spent her nights for the next seven days. In Gabriel's bed, in Gabriel's arms, as he taught her that no matter how well she thought she knew herself, she knew nothing. In those dark hours, she discovered a hidden, deeply sensual part of herself that gloried in what went on between the sheets, an houri who cared for pleasure alone.
Yet even as he stripped her of her defenses, he maintained his own steely control. That was what hurt and frustrated her the most-Gabe had brought passion into a relationship she'd once believed would be pure business, made her want things she'd never have dreamed of at the start, but the passion was all on his terms.
The days weren't much better. She spent them tormented by memories of the nights, confusion a churning knot in her stomach. So when her paintings arrived, she was more than ready to do something, anything, to temper her descent into emotional chaos.
Ripping open the boxes, she began stacking the canvasses in the large ground-floor room she'd commandeered as her studio. "I'm good at this," she told herself, determined to rebuild her fractured confidence. She wasn't merely Gabriel Dumont's convenient wife, not merely the possession of a man who'd pushed her firmly to the periphery of his life-her place was in his bed and occasionally on his arm. Other than that, he didn't want to know him.
And she was finding the cold distance … hard.
Jess buried that thought soon as it rose. She'd entered this marriage knowing the rules. If she'd come to hope for more, then that was her mistake and one she'd be better off nipping in the bud.
Taking a calming breath, she set a prepared canvas on the easel she'd placed opposite the door, and picked up a soft pencil. Damon's face was easy for her to draw. She'd spent years staring at it with adoring eyes. But today, she saw things in it she'd never before seen … things that troubled her.
"Call for you, Jess, my girl."
She looked up with a start, not having heard it ring. "Who is it?"
"A Richard Dusevic."
Jess's eyes widened but she waited until Mrs. C. had left, to answer. "Mr.
Dusevic?"
"Ms. Randall, I have on my desk several high-definition images my assistant tells me are of your work."
"Oh." Very intelligent, Jess.
"Can you send me the originals?"
Sounding calm became a test. "Sure. Would you like just the ones for which I submitted slides?"
"Give me a selection of your choice. I want to see what you can do. I have a feeling I won't be disappointed."
She crushed the receiver to her ear. "I'll get them couriered up to you A.S.A.P."
"I'll call you after I've had a chance to review them."
Jess nodded though he couldn't see her. "Thank you."
"Don't keep me waiting, darling." With that flamboyant goodbye, he hung up.
She put down the receiver and tried to breathe but that was pretty much impossible. "Oh my God, Richard Dusevic called me."
"How many men do you have, Jess?" The sardonic question came from the doorway.
Chapter 7
Reacting out of instinct, she flicked a coversheet over her work-in-progress and smiled. Nothing could spoil her mood today. "Richard Dusevic is the owner of one of the most prestigious art galleries in New Zealand."
Gabe folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. "Congratulations."
"It's only a request to see work, not an offer," she clarified.
"But Dusevic doesn't go around asking everyone I gather?"
"No." She grinned and did a little dance. "I have to go to the post office tomorrow morning to send some paintings to Auckland. Can I borrow the SUV?"
"I'll drive you," he offered unexpectedly, a smile on his lips that actually reached his eyes. "I have to see someone there anyway."
She began to search through her work, disquieted by the happiness she felt at having made him smile.
"Are you going to show me your paintings?"
Surprised, she glanced at him. "Why should I?" It came out without thought, a snippy comment she hadn't known she had the capacity to make. "We don't talk, remember?"
"Been waiting to say that, haven't you?" He pulled up his body, his jaw an unyielding line.
Ashamed at having sunk that low, she shrugged and resumed her sorting. "I have work to do."
When she looked up a minute later, he was gone.
Giving a frustrated sigh, she sat on the floor, her head in her hands. Why had she done that? It would have made far more sense to have acted civilly and broken the ice between them. But she hated the idea of being what he'd described her as-well-behaved, undemanding.