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When he strolled out of the makeshift lobby wearing a cheesy grin, she said, “What are you up to? You look like you’ve been doing a lot more than going to the bathroom.”
He shrugged and slipped his hands into his pockets, where she could have sworn she detected the sound of crinkling plastic.
“Dallas Lebeaux, what are you hiding?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Can’t a guy keep a secret from his wife?”
“Did you buy me a present?”
Again, all she got from him was a maddening shrug, then, “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”
“Hmm, sounds intriguing.” She didn’t press him further, for if there was anything she liked more than her new husband, it was surprises!
“Whoa, it’s bright out here,” Finn said, holding the door open for his adorable wife as they moved from the dark ex-grocery store to blinding midday sun.
“It sure is.” On the way to the car, she brought her hand to her forehead to shade her eyes. Sunbeams shot through the paste diamond in her gumball-machine ring, reminding him for a second of the antique ruby and diamond he’d almost slipped on Vivian’s hand. The ring had been his grandmother’s, then his mother’s. Giving that ring to Vivian would have been the worst mistake of his life.
But then if marrying his real fiancée would have been just a mistake, what did marrying a hired fiancée amount to? Full-out catastrophe?
He eyed the scooped neck of the pink T-shirt Lilly had changed into. No catastrophe there. The full upper curve of her breasts peeked at him, practically sending him an engraved invitation to feel how soft they were and pliable and—
“Wasn’t that girl you helped onstage adorable?”
“What? Huh?” Finn, reaching to unlock, then open Lilly’s car door, was still focused on the adult entertainment.
“Don’t tell me you already forgot her corkscrew pigtails?” she said, climbing inside the car.
Hell no, he hadn’t forgotten the girl or her baby brother. It was just that the topic of kids was too painful to bring into this lark he and Lilly called a marriage.
“You’re going to make a great father,” she said after he slid behind the wheel. “My brother says you can tell a good parent by their patience, and what with all my blubbering last night and the church thing this morning—” she transfixed him with her near-flood-stage baby blues “—what can I say? You’re a patient guy. A guy I know is going to make a great dad.”
Talk about hitting below the belt. How had Mitch known Finn yearned to be a father? The power Lilly wielded with her body already had Finn losing control. If she started talking babies, too, he’d be a goner.
Figuring the best way to avoid the issue was to ignore it, he started the car.
“Where to?” he said.
“Want to go back to the motel and talk?”
“Nah,” he said, backing out of their parking space. “It’s too early for talking. How about playing a few slots?”
Chapter Four
“Come on, baby…Mommy needs a new pair of shoes.” Lilly pulled the one-armed bandit’s lever, then watched in disgust as once again, her nickel investment paid a dividend of exactly squat.
“You’re not doing so hot,” Mr. I-Can’t-Lose said smugly from his stool beside her. His coin tray was heaped with nickels to the point that he’d had to get one of the jumbo-sized SlotWorld coin cups to hold his overflow. And wouldn’t you know it? Just as she looked his way, his machine hit triple blue sevens again.
“Awesome!” he shouted. “That’s twenty more bucks! I’m rich!”
Great. You’re rich and the chink, chink, chink of nickels spewing out of your machine is giving me a headache. As were the dinging bells of other winning machines—not to mention the cigar cloud haze from the old guy on the next row.
Sighing, Lilly reached into her wallet for another five-dollar bill to slip into the change portion of the machine.
“You know, beautiful,” Dallas said with an annoyingly warm smile, “you’re welcome to grab a handful of my nickels.”
“Thanks, but I’ve never been too keen on accepting charity.”
“We’re married. What’s mine is yours.” Before she could stop him, he dumped his coin cup into the base of her machine.
“Hey, what’d you do that for?” He was still leaning into her personal space and suddenly she was far more disturbed by his oh-so-male scent than his nickels.
“I did that,” he said, leaving his stool to straddle her knees, “because you need to loosen up. This is our honeymoon for heaven’s sake and here you are worrying more about beating a stupid slot machine than getting to know your husband.”
Lilly gulped. She’d only imagined the heat of his breath on her chest, right? “Um, Dallas…” she managed to say though her lungs felt strangely weak. “I, ah, think you should get back to your own stool. Someone might take your machine.”
He flashed her a wicked grin before glancing down one way, then the other of their dead-end aisle. “Looks to me like we’ve got the whole place to ourselves. Hmm, whatever shall we do with all this privacy?” He slipped his hands to her waist, shocking her with a sudden turn of the tables that put him back on his own stool, landing with her on his lap.
She took a long time drawing her next breath, praying the additional air might still her frenzied pulse. Rats. No such luck. “Dallas, please…”
“Please what?” he said, his breath hot against her neck, her right ear. “Please, kiss you? Please slide my hands up your shirt? Please take you back to our poor, lonely suite?”
Without waiting for her reply, he did slip his hands under her shirt, and such was her shock—not to mention secret, aching delight—she froze, allowing him to skim his open palms up her torso until finally reaching her silk-covered breasts. The heat of his palms caused her nipples to traitorously swell, and she deeply, honestly searched for a reason to push him away. But in the end, the only dizzying thought that sprang to mind was that Dallas was now her husband. She was his wife. And if they stayed their current course, no matter how impossible it seemed, every dream she’d ever had would be well on its way to coming true.
Skimming her hands to his back, she arched into him, licking her lips before darting her gaze to make one last check they were alone. However wary she might have been about ever again opening her heart, the attraction drawing her ever-closer to her husband was a powerful thing. Two seconds later, when Dallas still hadn’t crushed his lips to hers, she decided to live life on the edge by cupping the back of his head and drawing him to her, finishing the job herself.
Dear Lord, Finn thought on the heels of a groan. Had he ever partaken of a woman so sweet? Lilly’s kisses tasted like ice cream and cotton candy. Bubble gum and red hots. She was the most honeyed, most indescribably delicious thing he’d ever tasted and he couldn’t wait for more. Damn Mitch. Finn had won his part of the bet fair and square. Whatever happened between Lilly and him from this point on was gravy—or maybe that should have been chocolate sauce!
“Oh, Dallas,” she softly crooned. “You have such a way with kisses.”
Screech. There went those damned mental brakes.
Like fingernails on a chalkboard, Lilly’s calling him Dallas grated his nerves. That’s it. Once and for all, they had to establish the perimeters of their relationship—not that they even had a relationship—but before he made love to her, which he fully planned to do by the end of the day, Finn wanted to hear his name spilled from those full, pouty lips.
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