The Bride Tamer by Ann Major Page B

of the woodwork to gape. To shut her up, Cash seized Vivian by the arms and crushed his mouth down on hers, hard.
    At first her body was rigid and her lips stiff and unyielding.
    â€œLet me go!” She pounded at his chest with puny fists.
    â€œHush!” His grip tightened. After that he was lost.
    Next thing he knew, his tongue was in her mouth and he had her pinned to the wall. Her wriggling body against his felt better than anything he’d ever imagined, and hotter too. Perspiration dripped from her hair onto his hands. Desire spiraled through him.
    Feeling as if his world had gone insane and he’d gone even crazier, he released her mouth and muttered, both savagely and tenderly, “I’ve never done this before. I swear to you.”
    â€œI hate you,” she spat. “I’ll hate you forever if you don’t stop—”
    â€œJust with you,” he growled. “This has only happened with you. Usually I’m the sanest man alive. Boringly sane.”
    When their mouths came together again, it was like a match falling on gasoline. He exploded, and after that, he couldn’t stop kissing her.
    As for Vivian, she’d been dazed and furious when she’d left the house. Thinking herself safe from him in the market, she’d been terrified when he’d suddenly appeared, striding straight at her like a tall gringo god.
    Then he’d seen her, and after that he hadn’t stopped staring at her with those wild green eyes that lured her. Dios, how he’d flushed every time he looked at her. Dios, how could just his eyes on her mouth turn her to mush?
    Now that he was kissing her, with heated, demanding lips, she knew that he was temptation—at least for her—in its purest, rawest form. He was taller, bigger, darker than she remembered. Or at least he seemed so in the shadowy stall. She was like a moth who’d been exiled to the dark and cold too long, a moth who’d beat her wings to death just to be near the flame, even if the wicked tongue of desire burned so hotly she caught fire and was incinerated.
    If Cash was here, he was only responding to her signals. This was all her fault. After years of rigid control, her body was betraying her, as she’d always feared it would.
    When he grabbed her again, to her horror and embarrassment and immense delight, her hands slid up around his neck and she threw her body into his. Their clothes were damp with perspiration, their skin hotter. She heard him gasp. The fact that he wanted her thrilled her. Her lips opened, and she was kissing him back with an urgency that more than matched his.
    Her tongue was in his mouth, and she wanted it there. Heat lit every cell in her body and made her feel achingly alive. Every minute since she’d run out of the pool house, she’d been thinking about how gorgeous he was, every long inch of him. Over and over again she’d relived him ripping off that sheet so she could see him.
    Her hands slid around his back, which was warm and muscular and damp. Dios, he felt even better than he looked. She wanted to tear his wet shirt off and lick his body as she had in her dream.
    Mindlessly, she was running her fingers up the contours of his broad shoulders and raking her fingertips through his silky black hair, thrilled that he groaned and gasped at her slightest touch. He made her feel precious and desirable and all woman.
    He was hard and hot and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where this was going. She had to open her eyes, and when she did, she saw half a dozen familiar brown faces from the village. When she blinked, they began to giggle and hide their smirks.
    She shut her eyes in mortification. The villagers would never take her seriously again. But the minute her eyes were closed, she became a wanton creature of sensation again, a woman who needed a man to hold her as Cash was holding her. She was blissfully aware only of his mouth and hands, aware