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He was ready to get out of there. First, because his wife’s laugh, which was all kinds of sexy abandon, was proving to be a temptation he couldn’t resist much longer, and second, because Tina and Jodie, and even Gail, were grating hard. Pushing buttons he hadn’t known he had. Megan’s ability to let it roll off her back gave him the sense she’d had too much practice. And he didn’t like it.
As it turned out, Gail had kicked off her shoes and propped her feet on one vacant chair, leaving the only other available between Tina and Jodie, whose antics had vacillated between mildly annoying and downright nasty.
No, thanks.
Roy and his two groomsmen were huddled in the same kind of quiet conversation they’d been engaged in through the rest of the evening—excepting the ceremony, of course—the monosyllabic, extended-silence kind.
Opting to stand off at the side, he watched the dance floor while he waited for Megan.
A cackle of laughter had the muscles of his spine tightening unpleasantly. And then Gail’s chiding reprimand. “You two are terrible!”
He didn’t want to know. Shouldn’t even have been able to hear over the music.
A less-than-delicate snort from Tina. “Please, it’s pathetic.”
But their voices.
And Jodie. “She can’t stop collecting these guys.”
That brought his head around. They hadn’t noticed him standing behind them, and again they were talking about his wife. The woman who’d fought with him in an effort to respect this day.
“I don’t know who she thinks she’s kidding with this one. There’s no way—”
“No way,” chimed in Tina.
“—he’s anything more than the next ‘friend,’ trying to do her some sort of favor. Keep us off her back probably.”
Gail held up a hand between them. Good. Her cousin, showing some loyalty. Only, then she started talking and his vision went red.
* * *
Megan’s steps faltered as she approached the table.
“...keep wondering with all these ‘buddies’ is if she’s so great to talk with, then what exactly is bad enough to drive these guys away?”
Megan’s breath caught in her throat as Gail sloppily speculated on her life with Connor standing directly behind her.
He’d heard.
She knew by his utter lack of reaction. The stillness in a form that was so much energy.
Jodie nodded sagely as Tina glanced up and, catching Megan’s eyes, let out a snort of laughter.
Closing her eyes, she drew several deep breaths.
They’d already put in their time. They could leave.
Maybe he wouldn’t say anything and they could just forget it.
When Megan opened her eyes, Connor was already around the table, no doubt as ready to make a break for it as she was. More. Gail wasn’t even his relative.
Or...well, not by blood anyway. Lucky.
And then he was at her side, sliding a hand around her waist as he pulled her close. Closer. And closer still until her eyes went wide as his marauding hand slid across her bottom in a slow, blatant caress to rest at the very top of her thigh. Face burrowed into the side of her neck, he drew a long breath, teasing his nose along the sensitive stretch of skin behind her ear.
He was making a point. Letting them see what she’d asked him to rein in for the sake of Gail’s special day. Really, she couldn’t hold it against him. In fact, it sort of made him her own personal hero.
Letting her pull back enough for decency, Connor smiled down at her. “What do you think about wrapping it up here?”
Tina’s chin pulled back and Jodie rolled her eyes. Gail scrunched up her nose and stuck out her bottom lip. “No. You’ve got to stay. Bride’s prerogative and all. It’s my day, so park it.”
Connor’s menacing half smile slanted over his lips as he looked at the table. All nonchalance, with one hand still resting dangerously low on her hip, the other tucked casually in his pocket.
“Bride’s prerogative,” he murmured. “Definitely.”
She should have seen it coming, should have known. But it wasn’t until he’d caught her hand that she saw what he was holding.
The floor dropped out from under her.
“Megan,” he said with a doting smile and a steely glint in his eyes. “I know you wanted to wait to announce our news, but I honestly can’t. Not. Another. Second.”
She was too stunned to react when he slid that gorgeous glittering band over her finger, raising their joined hands for everyone to see. “I know it was fast, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I was letting this woman get away.”
Gail was the first one to pick her jaw up off the floor, her watery eyes now darting between the ring she wore and Megan’s. “You got married,” she gasped. “At my wedding?”
Megan started fumbling for something to say, for an apology maybe, though it didn’t really seem right. She opened her mouth, only to have the air squeezed out of her lungs by Connor’s arms wrapping snug around her. “No, of course not,” he assured with all the sensitivity of an assassin. “We got married first. This morning.”
Tina and Jodie were both shaking their heads as if understanding was impossible.
“I know it’s early, but I think we’ve waited long enough to get back to our honeymoon. So if you’ll excuse us...” And with everyone watching, Megan found herself swept off her feet, tucked into Connor’s arms. “Drinks are on me tonight. Congratulations.”
CHAPTER NINE
“WHAT IN THE HELL do you think you’re doing?” Megan demanded from the far side of the elevator where she stood, hands on hips, eyes boring into him like little embers of hell.
Connor snapped the picture from his phone then slipped the device back into his tux pocket before it ended up incinerated beneath his wife’s fiery glare, or more likely crushed beneath the spike of her sexy glass slipper.
“Documenting our first fight.”
For a moment, all the red-hot rage directed his way turned to utter shock, leaving her sputtering in a way he couldn’t deny he was getting a serious kick out of. But in a blink, she rocketed back to fury, leaning into the space between them, her voice going lethally low. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Come on, it’s something for the scrapbook. You’ll thank me later.”
“You know good and well I’m not talking about a picture.”
Yeah, he did. The way he knew taking a snap of her when she was this cranked up was probably a move just short of suicide, but like his decision to break his promise to her back in the club, it was one he wouldn’t regret.
“We had a deal,” she hissed, her eyes darting between him and the elevator’s digital display. “But maybe you forgot. Or perhaps our agreement didn’t suit your needs at the time, so you just changed your mind.”
The car slowed, sounding a low chime to alert them they’d arrived at their floor. The doors soundlessly opened and Megan turned forward—her face a mask of calm, belied only by the rapid pulse at her neck. Placing his hand at the small of her back, they stepped out into the main floor.
“Definitely the latter,” he answered quietly at her ear.
A taunt, almost daring her to lose her cool in the midst of all these people. But not Megan. She kept it together, impressing him more and more. Confirming once again how well suited she was to being his wife. Not that he’d make a habit of goading her in public or out of it. He didn’t expect much fighting, but it was important to know how she would handle it.
From there, they walked silently through the hotel, before arriving at their private villa.
He was more than ready to go toe-to-toe with her on this point, regardless of what kind of mad she had on. That scene at the nightclub was beyond unacceptable.
The second they were inside, Megan spun on him. “You promised me.”
He had. But circumstances weren’t what he’d expected, requiring a judgment call, and he’d made one. Firming up his stance, he crossed his arms.
“Did you hear what they said?” he demanded, giving his own mad its head. “I wasn’t going to let those catty, backbiting—”
Her hand cut through the air. “I don’t care what they said. All that matters to me is what you said. Your word. What it’s worth. What I can believe.”
He held her stare, not backing down. “You can believe I took you to be my wife. To honor, respect and protect, for all the days of our life.”
* * *
Megan blinked up at him, suddenly at a loss for words. “Those were our vows?”
“They were mine. And I meant them. I’m not the kind of husband to twiddle my thumbs while my wife is maligned. I would have liked to accommodate you tonight, Megan. I fully intended to. But in a choice between breaking my vow to protect my wife and breaking my vow to protect your cousin’s ‘special day,’ you can bet I’ll be putting you first every time.”
“Oh.” She swallowed past the knot of emotion in her throat, trying to force it back down. Trying not to allow a few simple words the power to leave her vulnerable.
Then after a moment, Connor closed the distance between them, pulling her into his chest. “I’m sorry I had to break my promise to you. But I meant what I said about taking care of you. I won’t stand by while someone hurts you.”
“I could have handled it.” She’d been doing it her whole life.
“Why should you?”
“Gail deserved to have her wedding day.” And more than that, because he’d agreed to let her!
“Yes, but so did you.” Connor caught her face in his hands, tipping it back so she was looking up at him. “Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.”
Everything he said sounded so right. Tempted her to trust. To leap. But the void she was looking out over was simply too great to ignore.
Searching his eyes, she asked the question that was the crux of her fears and reluctance. “What if you change your mind?”
“That’s the point, Megan. I won’t.
“Commitment—” he rubbed the bridge of his nose as he let out a thoughtful sigh “—it’s very important to me. I’m not looking to fill some temporary position, Megan. I want a wife who will stand by me for the duration.” Only, then something in his expression shifted. His eyes went distant for a beat before snapping back to hers. Sharper. More intense. “Maybe if you had more time...”
“You mean date?” she asked, knowing she wouldn’t go along with it. No more waiting around to see whether something panned out. No more false hopes and years of indecision—
“No,” he said with a hard shake of his head, confirming they were in agreement on the no dating. Connor leaned into her space, putting his face before hers so the sincerity in his eyes was front and center. “Understand this, Megan. You’re my wife and I want to keep it that way. But I realize everything hasn’t fallen into place for you the way it did last night and I’m asking for a big leap. Still, I’m confident, with a little time, it will. So I propose a trial period. Give me three months. If you don’t think we suit, I give you a divorce and you return to the life you had planned. In the meantime, we start as we mean to go on. You live with me...as my wife.”
Her throat felt dry, her heart pounding too fast.
It was crazy. What he was suggesting... “You’d introduce me to your friends and business associates? What if I wasn’t happy and wanted to leave?”
“You go. Megan, I’m asking you to give our marriage a shot, not to lock yourself in some prison you can’t get out of. Granted, I don’t believe you’d leave without giving us a chance. Not once you’d made a commitment—one you remember making, that is. Besides, you’re not going to want to leave.”
He made it sound so simple. She’d been so tempted, time and again throughout the day—but the doubts. They simply weighed too much.
“I’ve finally found a way to be happy, Connor. I know you think because love isn’t a factor that this arrangement you’re suggesting comes without risk, but it doesn’t. Not for me. I can’t put my faith in someone else again. And that’s what you’re asking me to do. It—it hurts too much to be let down. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t think the reward would be worth the risk?”
“I don’t know. And maybe that in itself should tell us both something,” she whispered.
“Yeah, it does. It tells me instead of waiting, hoping you’d remember or come around, expecting you to see the big picture when I hadn’t given you all of the pieces, I should have done this.”
And before she could blink, he’d pulled her into a kiss.
Megan was flush to his body. Her hands trapped between them, where they’d come up in a stunted defense that stopped before it really began—stopped at the strange familiarity of this intimacy she couldn’t quite remember—stopped at the foreign heat inexplicably swirling like a whirlpool through her center, pulling deeper, concentrating with every back-and-forth pass of his mouth over hers.
No wonder she’d blocked it out.
Connor’s kiss was even better than she’d imagined. So good, she felt the resistant determination slipping from her body even as she grasped after it. But it was gone, having taken the edge of aggression in the dark depths of Connor’s eyes with it. The hands at her shoulders snaked around her waist and into her hair. The pressure against her lips increased and she opened to him.
Afraid to miss even a second, she couldn’t blink and her eyes remained locked with his, anticipating the taste and texture of him mixed with her own.
Only, rather than take his fill, Connor barely breached her mouth, skimming the inner swell of her bottom lip with a slow, agonizing lick so compelling it temporarily overwhelmed even the instinct to breathe.
Using the hand wound loose in her hair to angle her head, he deepened the kiss. Enticing her into a return of action—the tentative flick of her tongue against his.
It was all the invitation he needed, and hands tightening at her hip and hair, Connor’s low growl of satisfaction slipped through her lips an instant before the firm thrust and retreat of his tongue. The penetrating claim wringing a response too strong, too immediate, too intense to deny. And then she was clutching at him, pressing close even as he pulled her closer still.
It wasn’t enough.
Not for either of them.
Connor grasped her bottom in a firm, kneading caress. Then the back of her thigh, pulling it up along the outside of his leg. Rocking into her so she felt the steely length of him against her belly and the hard press of solid muscle between her legs.
From somewhere in the back of her mind, she was vaguely aware of all the reasons this was such a bad idea...only, she didn’t care.
Couldn’t stop.
Another deep thrust, and then Connor’s devouring mouth moved down to her jaw, her neck. Licking, sucking, pulling at the tender spot until she’d thrown her head back, and her hands restlessly worked between them, grasping at the panels of his shirt. Trying to get a hold enough to rip it open.
“Megan, Megan,” he groaned, the hot wash of his breath as intoxicating as the friction of his lips. “Baby, it’s going to be so good. Tell me you want this.”
“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, yes, yes, please. I want you.”
His knee pressed higher between her legs, raising her skirt as he rocked the thick slab of his thigh against her intimate flesh in a way that had tendrils of pleasure sliding through her center.
Flicking a teasing lick over the corner of her mouth, he murmured, “Tell me, yes...tell me you’ll be my wife.”
This wasn’t the time for that discussion. This wasn’t the time for talking at all. “Later. Please, we’ll talk more about it later.”
His hips dipped lower, giving her a fleeting taste of the thick ridge of his erection.
Once.
Oh, God...so hot.
Twice.
Her fingers knotted in his hair as liquid heat spilled through her belly.
And then again.
Her breath rushed out on a gasp at the sharp, needy spasm deep within her.
“Tell me you’re coming home with me tomorrow.”
“Connor, please,” she begged, her body on fire.
“You don’t even know how much I like the sound of that,” he whispered against her parted lips. “How much I want to hear it against my ear as I move inside you...pushing in deep...”
A whimper escaped her at the erotic images sliding through her with the rough stroke of his voice.
“...taking you higher and higher...until you shatter in my arms.”
“Yes...” She was about to shatter already.
“Yes, what, Megan?” he asked, trailing his fingertips from the back of her knee to the curve of her bottom and back. “You know what I want to hear.”
CHAPTER TEN
WAIT. WHAT? “Are you...blackmailing me with...sex?”
“I don’t know.” His hips pulled back a fraction of an inch. “Would it work?”
It would.
Even knowing the game he played, Megan was a hairbreadth from promising anything Connor asked for—if it meant he’d finish what he started.
Only, somehow in the past seconds, her stalled-out mind had sputtered to life again. Weakly turning over the events unfolding around her. Events that would shape the rest of her life.
“No,” she choked out, forcing her hands to be still. Her eyes to open and meet the burning black of Connor’s stare.
“Damn.”
She could see the indecision in his eyes...the debate whether to try again. Try harder.
A tremor of hope slipped through her belly at the thought. One she ruthlessly pushed aside.
“What is this?” she asked, waving a hand between them.
He shook his head, an almost bewildered look on his cocky face. “It’s hot.”
It was more than hot. “It’s distracting. I can’t think.”
“Good, agree to give me three months.”
But before she could even contemplate giving him three minutes, his mouth was over hers again, his tongue sliding between her lips in slow, seductive thrusts. Once again tempting her reservations to abandon their posts.
Heart racing, breath ragged, she shook her head, forcing her hands to center at Connor’s chest and then giving him a small push. She couldn’t agree to anything. Whatever state she’d been in last night, at this moment, the impairment of her judgment was at record level.
“Megan,” he murmured, watching her from beneath heavy lids.
Oh, hell, that look. She swallowed, taking a step back. And then another. She needed to get away. Needed space to breathe. To think.
“Come on, baby. Don’t run away. Let’s sit on the couch and talk.”
Her gaze shot to the couch. Within a blink, it had become fodder for more scenarios than her experience could justify—a den of seduction, rife with erotic potential.
She had been reading a lot lately.
“I’ll keep my hands to myself,” came another low, rumbling assurance, pulling her focus back to Connor. Standing where she’d left him, the shirt she’d been trying to free him of spread wide to reveal the hard muscles banding his abdomen and the perfect discs of his nipples.
Her mouth watered as another couchside scenario accosted her.
“Sure you will.” Fine, maybe he would. Maybe it wasn’t his hands she was worried about.
“Don’t believe me? You could always tie my hands.” Connor grasped one end of the tie hanging loose at his open neck, let it twist around his finger as he held it out in offering. His wicked smile pushing new limits. “Unless you’d prefer—”
“No!” Okay, it definitely wasn’t his hands she was worried about. And with what she was thinking, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to sit on any couch again, let alone that one.
She forced her feet to move one after the other until she’d cleared the stairs and made the master suite again. Arms crossed, she gripped the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head. Stepped into the shower and jerked the tap to cold, bracing for the crush of clarity she prayed the icy deluge would bring.
“Agghgh!” she half shrieked as arctic needles fired against her overheated skin, coating her body with the cold wash of reason returned.
She’d been about to agree to...anything.
Marriage.
Moving across the country.
And God help her, even with the chill of reality raining down over her...all she could think about was the way his kiss had all but consumed her.
A low groan of reluctant need slipped past her lips, and she positioned her face beneath the pounding spray, waiting for the cold to beat its way through her thick skull and to snuff the smoky thoughts in her mind and the fire blazing through her veins.
“Damn, Megan. I like it when you make those sounds.”
The lock. She hadn’t even thought about it.
Blinking the running water from her face, she turned to look out the clear glass of the shower stall to see Connor leaning against the wall across the room. His half smile was at full strength, seductive and hungry.
“What are you doing in there, sweetheart?”
“Trying to clear my head.”
One brow arched and he pushed off the wall, his predatory gaze sliding over her body.
Why wasn’t she embarrassed by his obvious perusal? Not that there was anywhere to hide. The clear glass was more a display case than any kind of shelter from searching eyes. And yet, his eyes on her felt natural. Easy.
Not at all the way she’d felt with other men, but then, she’d been working outside the norm from the word go that morning. She should stop making the comparisons.
“Hmm. Clarity looks good on you. Maybe I could use some too.”
This time it was Megan’s mouth that tipped. Definitely. This guy needed to have the fire inside him doused. “You think?”
Connor’s hands were on his half-open fly, finishing the job she’d started down in the entryway. And then he was stepping out of his tuxedo pants, leaving them in a heap on the floor as he took a step toward the shower.
Megan’s mouth dropped open as she realized just exactly what she’d been inviting.
Was her brain ever going to work right again?
His hands moved to the black boxer briefs straining atop the force of his erection. Those went next, and then he was completely, mouthwateringly naked. His body more beautiful than her fantasies could have imagined. And he was closing the distance between them. Coming for her. Opening the glass door, his eyes blazing hot enough to make her body burn even under—
“What the—?” he barked out as he hopped into the far corner of the shower.
Megan knew she probably shouldn’t have laughed, but there was something decidedly satisfying in, for once, not being the one caught off guard. And the stunned confusion etched across the frozen mask of Connor’s face was simply too irresistible.
The rapidly thawing mask of confusion.
“You did that on purpose,” he charged, maintaining his position beyond the stream of water.
“You said you wanted the clarity,” she answered, her body going alert as his focus narrowed on her breasts and then lower. They were both naked. Standing at opposite ends of the oversize stall. The second Connor grabbed for her, she darted out the door, laughing. “Who was I to stop you?”
A deep growl sounded behind her as she reached for the plush warmth of the robe folded over the lip of the tub. Wrapping up, she turned back to the shower and froze. Hands flat against the wall above the tap, muscles flexed and straining, Connor, braced beneath the spray as the cold beat over his body. Then with a shake of his head, he focused on her where she stood beyond the glass.
“I’ll be honest, this doesn’t work as well as I’d expected it to.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she answered, half mesmerized by the picture before her.
“Megan, I’m trying really hard to stay where I am right now, but if you don’t walk out that door, I’m going to walk out this one and put you against it.”
Her mouth fell open.
First the couch. Now the door. It was as if he had seductive superpowers with his ability to infuse the most mundane household objects with deviant potential.
“Or maybe that’s what you’re waiting for.” The promise in his voice was what had her feet moving past the threshold, where she dared one glance back at Connor, who stood watching her, his expression dark, smile wiped clean from his face.