“Take it,” he said, schooling his features. “And we’re ready for the check.”
“Oh, but the chef was making dessert—”
“We’re ready for the check,” he repeated firmly.
She gave him a nod as she scurried away.
“I’m sorry,” I said out of habit.
He reached up and brushed a tendril of hair out of my face, tucking it gently behind my ear and making me shiver even harder than I already was from the tenderness of his touch. “Why the hell are you sorry?” he demanded, his tone so thoroughly incongruous with the way he was touching me that I felt breathless, like I was running and couldn’t keep up. My head sure couldn’t.
“I don’t know,” I forced myself to say. “It just seems like I’ve done something to upset you, so I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t apologize for something unless you know what the fuck you’re sorry for.”
Apologizing for everything was just part of who I was. It was as innate to me as breathing, something that came from growing up in the South just like saying Bless his little heart or putting salt on your watermelon in the summer. I bit down on my tongue to keep from apologizing again for apologizing the first time, because I got the distinct sense that another I’m sorry coming from my mouth was the last thing he wanted to hear right now.
The waitress brought the bill, and Hunter shoved a credit card in her direction. As soon as he did, she left with it, taking the not-so-subtle hint that we wanted to get out of here quickly or that he wanted us to be alone, whichever the case might be.
He didn’t say anything while she was gone, so I took his cue and kept my lips zipped. The most likely thing I might say would be to apologize again, so it was probably better all around.
She returned a moment later with a to-go bag and the payment slip. She passed the bag to me while he scribbled in a tip and his signature.
“Dessert,” she said quietly to me. “Compliments of the chef.”
I nodded and put my handbag inside the brown paper bag to make it easier to carry.
“Let’s get out of here,” Hunter said, not even sparing the waitress a second glance. He reached for my hand, and instinctively I set mine in his. He helped me slide off the bench, gently but insistently tugging me close to his side as we headed toward the exit.
A slew of photographers had come together just inside the front doors.
“Seriously?” Hunter grumbled in my ear.
I dropped my voice so only he could hear. “That’s what this was about, isn’t it? The reason we’re here?”
He gave a noncommittal grunt, sweeping me outside into the sweltering heat. It was dark out, but the parking lot was so brightly lit that we couldn’t see the stars in the sky. Instead of guiding me to his rental car, though, Hunter suddenly turned toward the side of the building. “I suppose we might as well give them the sort of show they’re hoping for, then,” he said, turning me so my back was against the wall.
That was all the warning he gave me before his lips were on mine. Hard. Hot. Possessive. His tongue slid across the seam of my lips, and I opened with a startled gasp, dropping the bag to the ground. He teased me with his tongue, his hands drawing me closer until I was completely enveloped in his heat and lost in a sea of sensation.
I wasn’t ready for this. I hadn’t yet braced myself for his sensual assault. In my head, I knew this was all for show, but my body didn’t seem to get that memo. Not at all. Every stroke of his tongue sent jolts of awareness down to my sex. Every brush of his hand—gentle even as he left no doubt as to his pure, raw, masculine strength—had my nipples beading and my panties getting wetter. Ready or not, I wanted him with an intensity that had no business in this relationship.
His lips left mine to explore the length of my neck and the curve where it met my shoulder, and I pressed my head against the wall with my eyes squeezed tight, trying to remember how to breathe. I had to find a way to get my body to stop reacting. I had to find a way to keep my heart out of this, because there was no room for an emotional attachment to this man.
But he was all man. Of that, there was no doubt. His hands weren’t the only part of him that were strong and gentle. The muscles of his chest and torso brushed against my body. He lifted me against the wall, one of his powerful thighs splitting mine as he held me in place with his hips and his hands, his erection pulsing against me through the barrier created by our clothing.
In a strange way, the realization that he was just as affected by the show we were putting on for the cameras helped to calm me, aided me in distancing myself from what was happening. If we were going to be convincing with what we wanted the world to see, we were going to have to be convincing for ourselves, I supposed. I wasn’t alone in this. Hunter was as hot and bothered as I was, and we were barely getting started.
Gathering my wits enough to remember why we were doing this in the first place, I put both my hands on his broad shoulders, holding on while he continued his assault on my senses. When I peeked through my lashes, I found photographers snapping away, just as expected. It was working. We were going to be all over the local news tomorrow. I eased my left hand over Hunter’s shoulder so it rested on his back and they would get a clear shot of the engagement ring, even as he raised his head again and met my lips for another kiss. This one was soft and slow, a delicious counterpoint to the visceral attack the first kiss had been.
He lifted his head from mine, his lips still a hair’s breadth away. “Is it working?” he murmured.
While I knew he was referring to the cameramen, asking if they’d followed us out to invade our privacy, there was a part of me that wondered if he didn’t also want to know if it was having an effect upon me. There wasn’t really any way to hide my body’s reaction to him. No point in trying. I bit down on my lower lip, still tasting the essence of him there, and nodded. My answer would be the same no matter which of those questions he was truly asking.
He kissed me again, just a tease that wasn’t anywhere close to enough, and said, “Good.” Then he lowered me to my feet, picked up the bag I’d dropped, and took my hand in his. I walked along beside him on wobbly legs, slipping past the throng of reporters who were blinding us with their flashes, until we reached his car. He helped me inside and kissed me again, his tongue gliding over the spot I’d just bitten, before closing the door and waving to the cameras.
One year. I could get through one year of this. I might go through a mountain of batteries and wear out my vibrator, but I could do it.
THIS WAS DEFINITELY hell, this place in life where I existed now. To be clear, I no longer thought that simply because of how hot it was all the time. Had to be hell. I must have fucked up even more royally than I’d realized, and someone had decided to put me in a permanent state of misery, and I’d ended up in purgatory. There was no other reasonable explanation. I’d survived telling both Mom and Carrie about the upcoming nuptials, but I wasn’t sure the hearing in my left ear would ever be the same after Mom told me exactly what she thought of it all. Carrie had been far more understanding. Maybe too understanding. Shouldn’t she have been bothered by it, at least to an extent? But all she’d said was that she understood, and she’d see if she could come. Those two calls had hardly touched the surface of the hell my life had become, though.
For one thing, I was being bombarded at every turn by jackasses shoving cameras and microphones in my face. That wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal, playing hockey in the South. I mean, if I were in Montreal or Toronto, maybe New York or Chicago, then sure. That was just how it tended to go in the big-time hockey hotbeds. But in Oklahoma? I was supposed to be able to live like the masses, to go places and not be recognized as someone important enough to care about. Or at least not important enough for them to shove a mic in my face. I was supposed to be able to blend in even better down here than I had in Portland. Instead, the complete opposite was happening, and I hated every second of it.
In general, I was a private person. I prefe
rred to keep my personal life personal, but right now I was having to broadcast it to anyone who cared to see it…and there were a surprisingly large number of people who cared. They were doing the same thing to Tallie, but she seemed resigned to it, so much so that I was beginning to understand her better. All indications pointed to the fact that this had been her life for quite some time, and she expected it to be part and parcel of her life going forward. It wasn’t her choice, but for some reason she allowed it to happen.
The one good thing to come of it was that our efforts seemed to be having the desired effect, at least as far as we could tell from such a small sample size. Already, I’d seen pictures of the two of us popping up in the local newspaper’s gossip and celebrity section, and there’d even been a brief article on the sports page. Tallie said that she’d seen positive talk along with some video on one of the websites she visits regularly, and there was quite a bit of buzz going on social media sites. We were making an impact. So far, no one was exactly sure what to make of us, but the fact was they were talking. So there was a start.
If the fact that the media was following us around constantly wasn’t bad enough, now we could add to it that every time some obnoxious camera guy focused in on the pair of us, I had to be all over Tallie. Getting cozy with her, in and of itself, wasn’t a horrible thing, beyond the fact that I liked to keep things like that behind closed doors. Tallie was sexy as sin, and I was about a hundred times more physically attracted to her than I wanted to be. The problem came from the knowledge that no matter how turned on I got while we played our parts, there wasn’t ever going to be anything permanent between us.
Don’t get me wrong. I was down with the idea of a one-night stand under the right circumstances. But nothing between us would allow for it to be just one night. It would be awkward when I would be taking her home with me every night for a year but then we’d be parting ways once we shut the cameras out. Was there such a thing as a one-year stand?
She’d said up front that maybe I wouldn’t have to be celibate the whole time we were together, but I wasn’t sure she meant it or had thought through the implications of what she’d hinted at, and I was less sure it was a good idea. For either of us. The further we took things once we were alone, the greater the likelihood that one of the two of us—if not both—would end up getting our feelings hurt in the end. It would be a hell of a lot safer to just keep our hands to ourselves, like Mrs. Roth insisted upon, other than in those moments when we were playing things up for the media.
And finally, despite the fact that I’d insisted that Lance had no place in our marriage, I couldn’t seem to get rid of the jackass. He was overseeing every aspect of the wedding, presiding over things like he was the goddamned king or something, and butting in where he needed to butt out. Once we’re married, it’ll be different, Tallie kept telling me. She insisted that he wouldn’t be involved at that point, but a wedding wasn’t a marriage, and it seemed as though she had no say in things where that was concerned.
I wanted her to put her foot down, to stand up for herself, but that seemed to be more and more unlikely.
Today was Friday. The wedding was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and my parents were flying in early this evening. My brother, Kade, was supposed to be staying wherever the hell he was these days. I hadn’t asked, and Mom hadn’t offered to tell me. I’d made her swear that she wasn’t going to say a word to him about any of this, that he could find out later once the wedding was over, the camera crews were gone, and he couldn’t cause any problems. He might resent me for keeping him in the dark. Lord knew it wasn’t the first thing he would resent me for, and I doubted it would be the last, but I didn’t need him here getting high and falling into the fucking wedding cake while a hundred cameras caught the whole thing. For some reason, I doubted that would go over well with any of the Thunderbirds executives, let alone all of Tallie’s people.
Kade was supposed to stay put, but Carrie might be coming. She’d said she would think about it when I’d called, and I knew it was a huge imposition for her because it wasn’t just herself she had to sort out. She had Kaylee to worry about, too, and Kaylee was a hell of a lot more important than my fake marriage. I had a feeling Mom was “helping” Carrie come up with ways to put an end to this wedding before it ever happened.
No matter how many times I chewed it over, I couldn’t make up my mind whether it would be better for Carrie to stay home or come. She wanted to support me as a friend, but how would it go over with Tallie’s family, particularly if they figured out what sort of relationship Carrie and I had always had? How would I explain Kaylee? And what would Tallie think, herself? I couldn’t worry about that until and if it became an issue, though, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I would get married and not invite Carrie. She’d been my friend through everything, more of a friend than my brother had ever been. Yeah, we fucked sometimes. We were still just friends. It worked for us even if no one else understood it and our mothers wanted there to be more.
Whether Carrie came to Tulsa or not, I still had a shitload of things to do before anyone arrived this evening, not the least of which was pick Tallie up at her parents’ house so we could finalize paperwork on my new house. For a couple of reasons, I’d included her in the whole process even though it was technically going to be my house. It got us out and about so we could spend time together, get to know each other, and potentially be seen by people who supposedly mattered, and it got her away from Lance and her mother.
When I arrived at the Roths’ house, their frazzled housekeeper showed me into their audacious family room that looked like it had popped straight out of Southern Living magazine, where Tallie was standing on a pedestal. She was wearing a gauzy white thing while half a dozen people poked at it with needle and thread.
The bodice fit her like a glove, in lace that I could practically see through, and they were sewing hundreds or thousands of glittery beads on it. It was cut so low I could almost see her belly button. The skirt was made of some light-as-air fabric that would easily fall to the floor even if she wore five-inch heels, and it had a slit in front high enough that it almost revealed her pussy. She was gorgeous in it, but I had a hard time imagining she could look anything less than gorgeous in anything. My only problem with it was I had a feeling this was what Lance wanted to send her down the aisle wearing when, in my opinion, something like that shouldn’t ever leave the confines of her bedroom. It was a hell of a lot better suited to a wedding night than a wedding. Granted, I didn’t think the two of us would be having a traditional wedding night.
Even now, Lance was marching around the circle of seamstresses and barking out orders. “I think we need to go a little lower here,” he said, pointing to the dip in the bodice.
If it went any lower, it might as well be completely open in the front, showing off everything for the world to see. Tallie put a hand over the vee, as though to cover herself, and shook her head slightly. I couldn’t agree with her more, but Lance either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“About another inch,” he told the woman who seemed to be in charge of the beading. “And more sparkle up on her shoulders. The lighting is going to be amazing, but we want Tallulah to shine even more than she already does.”
None of them had noticed my presence, so I cleared my throat. Lance whipped his head around to glare at me, and Tallie looked up, covering herself even more.
“You’re not supposed to see the dress until the wedding,” Lance groused.
I chose to ignore that bit of superstition, focusing instead on what seemed to be the bigger issue at hand. “Is that what you call that thing? A dress? Looks more like lingerie.” Lingerie that I could easily imagine myself taking off her, an inch at a time. Damn, but I needed to stop thinking along those lines.
“Then it’s a good thing we won’t be listening to you for advice on how to dress Tallulah Belle,” he shot back. “Uppity Neanderthal,” he muttered loud enough for me to hear.
My blood was boi
ling, and this was only the first time today I’d had to deal with him. It wouldn’t be my last, though, since my final fitting for my tux was this afternoon before my parents arrived and we held the rehearsal dinner. If he survived the day, it would be a miracle.
Pointedly ignoring him, I looked at Tallie. “Is this what you want?” I asked her. She might not think she could voice her opinions. I wanted her to know that she could. That it was all right for her to make a decision and tell him to stick it where the sun didn’t shine. I wanted her to stand up for herself.
Lance rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t matter what—”
“If you dare finish uttering those words, they might be your last,” I interrupted him, putting the full force of my displeasure into my glare. Between him and Mrs. Roth, there was no wonder Tallie seemed to always comply. It had to end. “It does matter what Tallie wants. She’s the one who’s fucking getting married. It’s her wedding. Her dress. Not yours, so you’d just better back the fuck off unless you want me to put that thing on you and cut the slit up high enough that your limp dick flaps.”
That was probably taking it too far.
“Well, I never…” Lance muttered, looking thoroughly scandalized.
There were several audible gasps coming from throughout the room, and a glance at Tallie revealed she was either blushing in deep embarrassment or attempting to prevent herself from bursting out laughing. I couldn’t be sure which it was. I shouldn’t have said that. I should have just bitten my tongue about the damn dress and gone about my business, but the more I was around this imbecile, the less I seemed capable of doing what I should. But it was too late to take my words back—something that was becoming a habit, it seemed—and I honestly didn’t want to. Someone needed to put this asshole in his place, and no one else was stepping up to the plate, not Tallie and not even her father. I supposed that left it for me.
[Tulsa Thunderbirds 01.0] Bury the Hatchet Page 5
