A Matter of Choice by Nora Roberts

marry him.
    "I'm sure he thinks he is," Jessica returned. "I thought maybe if we became lovers, then--"
    "Good God!" He caught her by the shoulder roughly. "Are you considering offering your body as some sort of consolation prize?"
    "Don't!" She shut her eyes so she couldn't see the derision in his. "You make it sound so dirty."
    "What the hell are you thinking of?" he demanded.
    In an uncharacteristic gesture of futility she lifted her hands. "My track record with men has been so poor, I thought... well, given a little time he'd change his mind."
    "Imbecile," Slade said shortly. "Just tell him no."
    "Now you make it sound so easy."
    "You're making it complicated, Jess."
    "Am I?" For a moment she lowered her forehead to her knees again. His hand was halfway to her hair before he stopped himself. "You're so sure of yourself, Slade. Nothing makes a coward of me more than people I care about. The idea of facing him again, knowing what I have to do, makes me want to run."
    He was responding to the fragility she so rarely showed. Deep inside him, something struggled to be free to comfort her. He banked it down an instant before it was too late. "He won't be the first man who's had a proposal turned down."
    She sighed. Nothing she'd said had made sense once it had been spoken aloud--everything he said had. Some of the burden lifted. With a half smile, she turned to him. "Have you?"
    "Have I what?"
    "Had a proposal turned down."
    He grinned, pleased that the lost look had left her eyes. "No... but then, marriage didn't figure in any of them."
    She gave her quick gurgle of laughter. "What did?"
    Reaching over, he grabbed a handful of her hair. "Is this color real?"
    "That's an abominably rude question."
    "One deserves another," he countered.
    "If I answer yours will you answer mine?"
    "No."
    "Then I suppose we'll both have to use our imagination." Jessica laughed again and started to rise, but the hand on her hair stopped her.
    The quizzical smile she gave him faded quickly. His eyes were fixed on hers, dark, intense, and for once readable. Desire. Hot, electric, restless desire. And she was drawn to him, already aroused by a look.
    For the first time she was afraid. He was going to take something from her she wouldn't easily get back, if she managed to get it back at all.
    He pulled her closer, and she resisted. In an instinctive defense against a nebulous fear, Jessica put her hands to his chest.
    "No. This isn't what I want." Yes, yes, it is, her eyes told him even while her hands pushed him away.
    In one move she was under him on the sand. "I warned you, I wouldn't treat you like a lady."
    His mouth lowered, took, and enticed. Fear was buried in an avalanche of passion. At the first taste of him, response overwhelmed her, wild and free. Jessica forgot what she stood to lose and simply experienced. His tongue probed, slowly searching, expertly seducing, while his lips crushed hers in an endless, exquisite demand. She answered, mindlessly willing, desperately wanting. Then he tore his mouth from hers to move over her face, as if to absorb the texture of her skin through the sense of taste alone.
    She fretted to have his lips on hers, turning her head in search. Then suddenly, fiercely, he buried his lips at her throat, wrenching a moan from her. The sand made whispering sounds as she shifted, wanting the agonized delight he was causing to go on and on.
    Her hands found their way under his sweater, up the planes and muscles of his back, down the hard line of ribs to a lean waist. The moist air smelled of salt and the sea, and faintly, of the musky scent of passion.
    His mouth found hers again, unerringly, as water crashed like thunder on the rocks nearby. She felt his lips move against hers, though the meaning of his murmur was lost to her. Only the tone--a hint of angry desperation--came through. Then his hands began to search, with bruising meticulousness, from her hips to her breasts, lingering there as if trapped by the softness.