Free Bridal Jitters by Jayne Castle

teeth. “I wish it had happened under other circumstances. I wish I had done things differently. I wish I hadn’t scared the hell out of you.”
    “But you aren’t really, truly sorry that you made love to me?”
    He hesitated. “Well—”
    “Just say it.”
    He felt cornered. Despair, anger, and frustration boiled together, a dangerous stew spiced with emotions he knew he did not handle well. “You want the truth? The truth is what I said to you just before I tossed you down onto that damned stone chest. The truth is that I’ve been wanting to make love to you since the first day I saw you.”
    A short, intense silence gripped the chamber.
    Virginia’s brows bristled in a ferocious scowl. “Good. Because that’s pretty much how I’ve felt from the first moment I saw you, too.”
    He felt as if he’d just been struck by lightning. For a few seconds he was too stunned to do anything more than stare at her. “It is?
    “Yes.” She glared at him. “But you seemed so distant and cool. So businesslike. You kept talking about how many new clients we would attract working as a team. You went on and on about how much money we’d both make once we sold the house to developers.”
    He finally managed to unfreeze himself. He took a step toward her. “I never wanted to sell the house in the first place.I came up with the idea because I thought it would be a good way to talk you into a marriage-of-convenience. I figured if I—” He stopped. “Hell, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
    She cleared her throat. “We’re both adults. We’re single. There’s no reason we can’t simply admit that we’re attracted to each other. Marriages-of-convenience are designed for just this sort of situation.”
    “A legal, socially acceptable, two-year affair.”
    “Exactly.” She shrugged. “If it’s just passion, it will probably burn itself out in that length of time.”
    “Yeah. Sure.” Never in a million years. How could he possibly let go of her in two years? Better not to go there in the first place if he knew that he would eventually lose her. But how could he not take what she offered, given the lonely alternative. “Virginia—”
    “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? That was the deal. A two-year MC.” She smiled a little too brightly. “And I agreed.”
    She was acting weird, and it made him more uneasy than ever. What the hell was the matter with him? He had gotten exactly what he’d asked for, what he’d wished for when he’d concocted the plan in the first place.
    “You know, you were right when you said that this was not the time or place to discuss this sort of thing,” Virginia said briskly. “We’d better get going.”
    He moved toward her. “Is sex all you want out of this?”
    “Isn’t that what you want out of it?”
    “Sex is good. Great.” Anger pulsed in him. “I can work with sex.”
    Her face tightened in renewed concern. “You know, you really don’t look normal yet, Sam. You could still be suffering from afterburn. Maybe you’d better get some more sleep before we attempt to go back through that waterfall.”
    “You’re right about one thing. I’m not feeling real normal.”
    Her eyes widened as he closed the distance between them. “Now hold on just one damn minute. If you think we’re going to have sex every time you claim to be in the throes of an afterburn buzz, you can think again. I’ll admit it’s interesting, but—”
    She stopped talking abruptly when he caught her wrists and pinned her to the wall.
    “You just got through telling me that you were in this deal for the sex,” he reminded her.
    “I’ve got nothing against sex.” Her voice was tight with anger. “But the next time we do it, I want to make sure it’s for real. Not just the result of a bad burn buzz. Don’t you get it?”
    “No.” He leaned in closer. “Explain it to me in short words.”
    “I want to be sure it’s me you want. I want to be absolutely certain that not just