His bride had the prettiest brown eyes, especially when they were wide with surprise. She ran a nervous tongue over her lip, tempting him to distraction. He’d worked intel as an officer in the Navy. And he’d known she had lied the night before, so he’d gone on a hunt after she’d left him at bedtime. Just as he’d suspected, she wasn’t being honest. He’d searched for a small town that didn’t exist for over an hour.

Lying was a deal breaker. He hated it worse than death. It made him sick to think he was within a few hours of marrying a woman who couldn’t even be honest about where she’d lived the day before. And if she was from Burnes, why fly into Cheyenne? It was in the same county.

His closest buddy in the Navy had lied about how he was handling the stress. He shot himself to hide what he was dealing with and it had started a chain reaction in Clint of despising lies. Now, he refused to lie and refused to accept them either. He’d finished active duty and didn’t reenlist. His time in intel gave him insight into what the Navy needed, so he’d sold his ideas to investors, finally buying them all out after a few years. He knew that look in her eyes, and it was more than shame at a coverup, she was terrified.

“You don’t understand…”

“Oh, it isn’t me that doesn’t understand. It’s the agency that won’t understand.”

Her eyes turned glassy and she slid off the seat, kneeling in front of him on the floor of the car, her fingers gripping his knees. “Please. You can’t return me.”

Fierce, intense anger sliced through him, but not at her. “What the hell did the agency do that would make you beg?” He tugged her off the floor and back onto the seat next to him, sickened even further that he’d allowed himself to be dragged into something so perverse. “Did they hit you, harass you? I’ll have my lawyer on them…”

She shook her head slowly and it stopped him dead.

“It’s no use. I can’t go back to the agency.”

Her voice was thick with the accent now, but instead of adding to his anger it built other feelings he didn’t want to think about until after his wedding. “I wouldn’t send you back there if they abused you. But I also can’t have it get out that I used an agency that kidnaps women from abroad then sells them to American men. It isn’t right.”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes and her lip wedged between her teeth. He remembered her tempting kiss from the day before. He had to focus. Clint closed his eyes.

Once an officer, always an officer.

He had to keep his head. “I need you to be honest with me when I ask you a question from now on. Understood? My livelihood could count on it. Can I trust you?” He wanted to. There was something so vulnerable about her that begged for him to just wrap her in his arms and protect her from the world.

She nodded and he tucked her back under his arm as the car finally started and pulled into traffic.

“You were born in Russia and I’m guessing you recently came from there?” He did his best to only drape his arm around her, instead of pulling her really close and tasting her lips like he wanted to. So he could forget about what this could actually cost him if his suspicions were true. That would have to wait a few hours.

“Yes, just a few months before.” She returned to her slow and lyrical attempt at sounding American.

“Stop hiding your accent. I like it.” He turned her chin to face him and her jaw was softer than silk. He traced the line of it with the tip of his finger, down her neck until she shuddered with pleasure, closing her eyes. She gripped the hem of her dress and moaned softly.

For a virgin, she certainly reacted quickly. Or was that another lie? That was another thing he couldn’t take a chance on. He couldn’t risk getting a disease. Part of him wanted to test her, another to taste her.

“You enjoy my touch?” He stroked farther down her collarbone enjoying her gasp and the silkiness of her skin.

“I normally have to pleasure myself.” Her voice was breathy. She didn’t open her eyes, but her mouth hung open as her breath came faster.

That would explain it. His pants grew tighter just watching her as she licked her lips and slid the hem of her dress up a little higher, exposing luscious thighs.

“Let me help you.” He slid the fabric slowly up and her leg tensed under his hand. She threw her head back and gripped the leather seat. “I was thinking about you all night. All night.”

He hadn’t realized he’d had such an effect on her, but he couldn’t complain. She reached for the neckline of her dress and yanked it down, exposing a lacy strapless bra. Her dark nipples pushed against the fabric and he slid closer to her, pulling the cups down and drawing his thumbs over her taught nipples, freeing them of their constraints.

She was glorious, flawless, like a painting. She went to fondle her own breasts and he took her wrists, gently holding them at her sides. She wouldn’t need to pleasure herself anymore. What would it matter if he had her before they were married, most couples did. Hell, he could have her a few times before they ever made it across the state. Hopefully, she brought some makeup with, she’d need to fix it before he was through.

“You’re perfect. But they’re mine now.” He leaned forward and skimmed his mouth over one sensitive tight nipple, grazing it with his teeth. She groaned and arched toward him. “You’re a needy one, aren’t you?”

“Please, I’m going to ruin my dress…” She shimmied from side to side, thrashing to get out of his grasp. He released her and she slid out of her panties, then pulled the dress off over her head, leaving her sitting before him in nothing but heels and her bra, pulled down. The bulge in his pants would be evident soon, even sitting.

He reached for her and his hand slid from one soft, heavy breast down her flat stomach to her silky mound. She groaned again as he found her wet slit, more than ready for him. If he didn’t slow her down, she would explode. Her dreams the night before must have been amazing. He was sorry he missed them as he slid forward on the seat, making room to lay her down. He bent and kissed her, plundering her mouth like he’d wanted to. Loving every moan and quiver, he’d never seen a woman in so much need. She was so ready for him.

“I know we need to do this after the contract is signed, but I find that I want to do it now.” He almost didn’t recognize his own voice. He’d loved plenty of women, but never had he allowed sex on the first date.

“I’ve waited long enough.” She draped her arm around his neck and pulled him back into a kiss that had him wishing they had a whole bed, and not just a back seat. Her hands raked down his body and she rubbed him through his pants, gasping when she found what she was after. “I can’t wait any longer. Make me your wife.”

He nipped at her lip, just as she’d done to him the night before. He far preferred playful in bed to anything else. Life had too many rules, the bedroom shouldn’t. “Now, now. I’ve never been good at taking orders.” He smiled playfully. Drawing her arms above her head, he held her wrists with one hand as he teased her breast with the other. “I think I’ll give you a little of what you’re used to doing yourself for now, then you can a feast after the ceremony. We’ll go to our cabin and lock the door…” He kissed her breast until she was panting. “We’ll hide from the world and I’ll make you scream my name. What do you say to that?”

She shook her head. “No, I want you now.”

He trailed his hand slowly down her stomach. She arched to meet him and he changed direction, tormenting her, making a soft circle with the tip of his finger on the velvety flesh of her inner thigh, then back up, almost to her apex, over the top and down her other thigh.

“Clint, stop torturing me. I’ll call your name now, if that’s what it’ll take.”

She was so beautiful, laying there for him to view. Her hands held above her head allowed him to see her softly curved perfect breasts atop a narrow waist, rounded hips that held an area he couldn’t wait to explore a little better. He slid one finger inside her. She was so wet, so ready for him, and his own need throbbed. He closed his eyes and enjoyed pleasuring her for a while, but giving it to her made his own need more insistent than he was used to.

“Not enough,” she panted.

He answered her call and slid two fingers into her depths, flicking the hard nubbin of her pleasure with each thrust of his hand.

“I want what I’ve never had before.” She bucked under him.

He stopped. So, if she’d had that before, at least one man had touched her. His ardor cooled a little, reminding him that he had no business trusting the woman who’d lied to him from the start. He bent over and kissed her again, gentle, without passion, to see if she would still respond to him. She stilled, and he released her hands.

“What’s wrong?” Her wide brown eyes were dilated to almost black. Her voice, thick with pleasure and mixed with her accent, was an intoxicating combination.

He slid his fingers back inside her again and she raised her hips to give him more of herself, like she knew what she was doing.

“I’m sorry, Margaret. I can’t go through with this. Every time I try to convince myself to ignore something you’ve said, you show me everything on your application was a lie. There is no way you’re a virgin. You didn’t come from Wyoming. Your name isn’t even Margaret, you said that within a half hour of meeting me.” He moved over to the other seat across from her and watched as she pulled her bra back where it belonged and looked for her panties. “You’re aren’t even going to deny it?”

She glanced up at him as she slid them over her feet. “You told me not to lie.”