Call It Destiny

herself say on a note of panic. The last thing she could risk was giving herself to Jake Cavender. Not now when everything had gone so terribly wrong.
    „If you can walk away in the morning, after we’ve been together tonight, I swear I won’t stop you. But I want tonight, Heather. You owe me a wedding night.“
    His mouth came down on hers with a rough intensity that communicated Jake’s hunger all too clearly.
    Frantically Heather tried to find the words she needed to free herself. She managed to pull her mouth momentarily from his. „Would you want me so much if I had nothing to do with the Hacienda? If I offered you one night instead of marriage? Would you, Jake? If you could have me only on my terms, without the security of a proper wedding and without my family’s blessing, would you still think the attraction between us was so very important?“
    „What the hell are you talking about?“
    „Because that’s all I’m willing to give a man who likes to manipulate me.“
    „Honey, you don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t want a one-night stand any more than I do. You want everything right. That’s why you came home. To make everything right.“
    Her eyes widened in anguished honesty. „I don’t know what I want anymore, Jake.“
    She felt the tension in him. „Then we’ll take it one step at a time until you do know what you want. Tonight I’ll show you that one of the things you do want is me.“
    „If you make love to me tonight it will be on my terms,“ she vowed, knowing in every fiber of her being that all her defenses were down. The emotions in her were an uncontrollable flood, as violent as the seasonal thunderstorms that swept through the area on summer afternoons. Pain and passion and rebellion and rage seethed in her veins, seeking a way to release themselves. She knew instinctively that if Jake made love to her he would tap into that internal storm in her body. The prospect was both terrifying and exhilarating. „No promises, Jake. No guarantees. No neat tidy package consisting of me, my approving family and a home at the Hacienda Strand.“
    „Another contract, Heather? Like that prenuptial agreement you made me sign?“
    „You won’t sign this one because there’s nothing in it for you, is there?“
    „You said yourself that you don’t know me very well,“ Jake muttered as his mouth closed once more over hers.

6

    No, Heather realized as his body shifted to crush her deeply in the bed, she didn’t know him very well. If she did, she would have understood that the depths of his emotions were even more raw and powerful than her own.
    She learned that shattering fact the moment he began to consume her with his passion. The spectrum of his blazing emotions was suddenly savagely revealed to her. In him there was pain and passion just as she had known. There was anger, too. And a purely masculine desire to find the key to her surrender. But above all there was a hunger unlike anything she had ever known.
    There was no doubt that Jake wanted her tonight for a variety of reasons, but in that moment Heather could not believe any of them were business ones.
    The caldron of emotions that were swirling in her reacted to the fundamental intensity of Jake as though they had suddenly received a focus and an outlet. All her turmoil coalesced into an unalterable sensual response that spiraled upward to meet the demands of the man who had induced the chaos.
    Heather could not have said exactly what she felt as Jake sprawled across her body and plundered her mouth with his own. There was no way such fervor could be based on love, she was certain. But she had never experienced anything close to it. The urgent need to pursue the dangerous course on which she had embarked left no room for analysis.
    Her nails bit deeply into the fabric of his shirt, seeking the resilient feel of his smoothly muscled shoulders. He was a strong man and discovering that his passion matched his physical strength was enthralling. She wanted to satisfy that unleashed hunger in him more than she’d ever wanted anything else in her life.
    „I’ve been going out of my head wanting you these past few weeks,“ he rasped as he momentarily pulled his mouth free from hers. „I told myself I’d give you time-that I could wait until our wedding night. But when I saw you on that damn bike this morning I knew you weren’t going to come tamely to my bed after all.“ His hand released her wrist to stroke the side