When Jason pointed to the door behind her, she shot him one last look, making sure to put all the murderous thoughts into that expression before she turned around and moved her ass, muttering absolutely everything that she was going to do to the large, sneaky bastard after she was done.
Eager to return back to the room so that she could kick his ass for drugging her after she’d refused the pills from Ethan, she used the bathroom, washed her hands, looked in the mirror and groaned when she saw the state of her hair and clothes. Shifting anxiously, she shot a glare at the closed door, anxious to renew her attack on the bastard and then back to the mirror before shooting another quick glance at the door, the need for revenge nearly overwhelming her need to take a shower.
Nearly.
It was close, but in the end she settled for shooting one last glare at the closed bathroom door before she pulled off her clothes, tossed them aside, turned around and came to a halt when she realized the bounty that awaited her. She’d never seen such a beautiful sight, she thought was she took in the large, two person garden tub to the left before allowing her eyes to shift the right where a glass shower stall big enough to fit at least ten people inside awaited for her. She looked from one promising escape to the other before she decided with a sigh that she was just going to have to simply enjoy them both before she beat the living hell out of Jason for sneaking the medicine that she’d refused to take into the yogurt he’d tricked her into eating.
She should have known better than to accept food from a Bradford, especially Jason. But that was okay, because she would get the little bastard back, but later, much later. Right now she had a decadent shower to take, followed by a long soothing bath and a delicious dinner, she thought with a smile when she spotted the telephone by the bathtub.
*-*-*-*
“We need to leave,” Jason stressed as he continued to wear a path in the rug.
“As soon as she comes out of the bathroom,” Danny promised him, shooting another nervous glance down at his watch, more than aware of what could happen if they didn’t leave soon.
“She’s been in there for over an hour,” Trevor pointed out, looking just as nervous as the rest of them and for damn good reason.
They’d already been here too long and if they didn’t leave soon, the Bradford curse would kick in and they’d all be fucked. This wasn’t their honeymoon and they’d taken great pains to make sure that it wasn’t mistaken for one, anything to avoid the curse that seemed to hit every Bradford that was foolish enough to take his wife on their honeymoon before the year mark was up.
While most of the men in his family thought that the Bradford curse was bullshit, he knew better. He’d seen the curse hit his uncles and cousins enough times over the years to know better than to risk it. When he took Jodi on a honeymoon it would be well after the one-year when the curse couldn’t touch them and he could take her anywhere that she wanted to go without having to worry about one of them ending up in the hospital or stranded out in the woods being chased by coyotes.
That wasn’t happening to them.
No fucking way.
That’s why he’d taken precautions and made sure that this trip was in now way interpreted as a honeymoon. He’d brought his dad, pain in the ass cousins, rented only one hotel room, slept on the other bed and only allowed himself to hold her when they weren’t alone, terrified that he’d do something that would be misinterpreted by whatever the hell this thing was that had fucked with their family for generations.
It was the same reason that he hadn’t followed his wife into that bathroom when he’d heard the shower being turned on, because being alone in a room with his wife after all these months when she was naked and wet was definitely going to cause him to do something that would turn this into a real honeymoon.
He shifted uncomfortably in his wheelchair as he tried to think about something besides Jodi, naked and wet and so fucking tight that-
“We need to get going,” Jason repeated, cutting into the dirty thoughts running through his mind, which unfortunately were the only things he’d been allowed to have these past few months since sex had been off the table for him.
Then again, it really wouldn’t have mattered if sex hadn’t been placed at the top of the list of restrictions since he’d been stuck in a hospital bed. Not that he hadn’t considered paying off one of the custodians to keep the nurses away from his room so that he could have a little alone time with Jodi, but every time he went to make his move, one of his relatives that was staying in the rental house with her would show up and destroy his plans.
So, it had been five months, five very fucking long months since he’d felt her silky walls close tightly around him and some days he’d thought he’d fucking die if he went another five seconds without experiencing that again. He could do that right now, he realized, licking his lips in anticipation. All he had to do was ask his father to give him a few minutes, tell his cousins to fuck off and he could finally have her again.
He could roll his wheelchair into that bathroom, pull his clothes off, start the tub and invite his wife to sit on his lap and finally give them both what they’d been craving since the moment he woken up in the hospital and saw her. Okay, maybe not the moment that he’d first woken up since he’d been in pain, drugged out of his mind and out of it and she of course had been high on Tylenol, threatening to beat the shit out of his brothers and cousins and wiggling that beautiful little ass of hers in his face.
God, he loved her ass, he thought, licking his lips hungrily as he thought about just how round it was now. Softer, curvier, fuller, he thought, shifting uneasily in his seat as his thoughts shifted to her breasts. They were fuller now, hanging a bit lower and just begging for his hands and mouth.
He licked his lips, just thinking about how good it would feel to wrap his lips around one of her full nipples as he slid a finger inside her wet, welcoming pu-
“Someone needs to get her so that we can go!” Trevor said impatiently as he shoved his fingers through his hair and once again tore him away from his thoughts, which was for the best, he told himself even as he made a mental note to kick his cousin’s ass once they got back home.
“We’re going to miss our plane,” Jason added, shifting around nervously as he glanced around the room, looking as though he expected something to jump out of the shadows and attack them at any second.
Since he knew exactly what would happen if he came within five feet of that bathroom door, he glanced over at his father. With a nod of understanding, or perhaps it was fear, his father walked over to the door and after a slight hesitation, he knocked on the door.
“Jodi, sweetheart? We have to get going,” his father said, clearing his throat uncomfortably as he waited for her response.
She didn’t make them wait long, which as it turned out was rather unfortunate, especially since he was stuck in a wheelchair and wasn’t able to make an escape as fast as the others.
And God, how he wished he’d been able to run at that moment.
When Jodi opened that bathroom door, looking seriously pissed off in that towel that was showing him a lot of cleavage and hip, his hands went to the wheels of his wheelchair, prepared to roll himself away to safety, but that look of warning that she was giving him stopped him from making any sudden movements.
“Is there a reason that I’m wearing a wedding band?” his beautiful, loving, sweet, and hopefully forgiving wife asked through clenched teeth with her eyes narrowed to slits, making her eyes look somewhat terrifying.
Wow, was she pissed, he numbly mused as he watched her raise one dainty foot to move in his direction, most likely to kill him or go for his balls…
He’d prefer that she kill him, he decided as his mind raced to find something, anything that would save his ass from the beating that in retrospect he probably had coming when he decided to take the coward’s way out like any sane man would when facing his pregnant, hormonal and seriously pissed off wife.
He placed a hand over hi
s stomach where a fresh scar now bisected the others and groaned in pain, knowing and really not caring at the moment that he was most likely going to hell for this, but if it saved his balls then so be it.
Chapter 4
“Oh, shit,” Danny said, placing his hand over his stomach as he cringed in pain, startling her into rushing to his side.
“Are you okay?” she asked nervously, trying to resist the urge to move his hand aside and place hers over his scar so that she wasn’t standing here feeling so damn helpless.
When he shook his head, she opened her mouth to tell him that everything was going to be okay and that she was going to go get his father when she saw it. The movement was small, but it was more than enough to let her know that the large bastard was faking it to save his ass, which shouldn’t have amused her, but sadly, it did.
He shot another peek up at her to see if she was buying his bullshit story so of course she decided to play along. She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d decided to play along with this little game of his, but it probably had something to do with the fact that after five months she was finally in a room alone with him without having to worry about nurses, doctors, orderlies and Bradfords walking in on them.
Speaking of Bradfords…
“Let’s get you on the bed,” she said softly with a reassuring smile that he seemed to buy since he reluctantly nodded with a long drawn out sigh that nearly made her roll her eyes.
He really had nothing on Jason, who’d made making annoying sounds into an art form, she decided as she carefully rolled his wheelchair over to the bed that she’d found herself sleeping in not too long ago and set the breaks. Keeping one hand pressed against his stomach, he slowly raised one leg and then the other and pushed the foot pedals aside so that he could place his feet on the floor. As he stood up and carefully pivoted to the side so that he could lie down, he made another attempt at sounding pitiful, which nearly had her sighing, because really, this was just pathetic.
“Are you okay? Can I get you anything?” she asked with a tender smile as she casually unlocked his wheelchair and rolled it to the other side of the hotel room, well out of his reach.
“No, I’ll be okay. I just need to lay here for a little while,” he said, making sure to sound appropriately miserable as he laid there with both hands over his stomach, groaning in misery as she walked over to the door and casually set the locks, making sure that they weren’t going to be disturbed.
“You poor thing,” she said with a sympathetic frown as she turned around and headed back towards the bed where Danny now lay, groaning miserably even as he continued to sneak quick glances at her to see if she was still buying it.
“Why don’t you close your eyes and take a nap?” she suggested, which of course earned a sigh of relief that he tried to bite back, but not fast enough.
“If you think it would help,” the big fibber said, sounding unhappy about it, but that little smile of satisfaction as he grabbed another pillow, stuffed it under his head and closed his eyes said otherwise.
Shaking her head, because he really just couldn’t pull it off like Jason could, she double-checked the locks on the door. She reached over and dimmed the lights, idly wondering where they were. Not that she really cared, she thought as she ran an appreciative eye over Danny’s body.
She should care about a lot of other things right now as well, like why they were there, why Ethan and Jason felt the need to drug her, what day it was, why there was a wedding ring on her finger-
Okay, so she definitely cared about that one, she decided as her gaze landed on the matching one on his ring finger. She paused halfway to the bed and glanced around the room, noting the two double beds that looked well used, the mini bar, the folded blankets and pillows on the end of the long couch behind her, the floor to ceiling curtains that were closed before finally returning to the man on the bed.
They apparently had a lot to talk about, but it could wait until later. Right now she had other things on her mind and none of them had to with talking.
*-*-*-*
No one would believe that he’d once led an elite force of Marines if they saw him now, lying on the bed, pretending to be asleep just to escape his pregnant wife’s unpredictable mood swings. Then again, the first thing that he’d been taught in training was to know when to retreat. He just wished that he’d used some of that training wisely and had made a hasty retreat out the door with his father and cousins instead of putting himself at the mercy of his pregnant wife.
God, please don’t let her start crying, he prayed, not normally a very religious man, but if it would save him from hearing her cry then he would do absolutely anything. There were few things in life that he couldn’t handle and seeing Jodi cry was one of them and unfortunately for him and all the men in his family, who also couldn’t stomach the idea of a woman crying, she cried a lot.
He really wasn’t sure if this was normal or not, but he wasn’t willing to risk his balls by mentioning it to her. Whenever she cried he felt like the biggest asshole on earth, mostly because his brothers and cousins would shoot him glares telling him that they thought he was the biggest asshole in the world for making her cry. He felt so fucking helpless when she cried, which probably had more to do with the fact that everything he said and did to make her feel better usually resulted in making it worse.
Every time she saw a baby, she cried.
Every time he smiled at her, she cried.
Every time she had ice cream, she cried.
Every time she was tired, she cried.
She tried to fight it every fucking time. He saw it in the stubborn set of her jaw, the way that she tried to focus on something else, but nothing worked. Absolutely nothing. He’d learned months ago to just shut his mouth, open his arms and let her quietly sob against his chest while she apologized for crying. One time he’d made the mistake of telling her that it wasn’t her fault and that it was normal for pregnant woman to feel a bit emotional…
That hadn’t ended well for him.
It was also something that he tried not to think about, mostly because it still gave him nightmares. It was probably something that he would need years of therapy to recover from, but he’d most likely just work through the emotional pain by binge eating, he absently thought as he laid there, noting that it was quiet.
Really quiet.
She wasn’t crying, which was all that mattered, he told himself, but even as he continued to lay there with his eyes closed, waiting for her to make a sound, any sound that would clue him into her mood, he couldn’t help but promise to turn his life around if he made it through this in one piece.
That was of course after he hunted his father and cousins down and killed the bastards for sacrificing his ass so that they could make a clean get away. Seriously, what kind of asshole left a disabled vet alone with a hormonal, pregnant woman, who in theory had every right to be pissed off when she found out that they’d not only drugged her, taken her across state lines, but also managed to marry her all without her knowledge?
Only an asshole in his family would do something this fucked up, he decided, debating whether or not he should risk cracking open one eye to see what she was doing. If she was grabbing something to turn him into a eunuch then it would probably be for the best if he saw that one coming so that he could roll off the bed and drag himself to the door with the hopes that someone walking by would hear his cries for help and save him before it was too late.
Yet, even knowing that there was a very good possibility that he might end up singing soprano for the rest of his life if he didn’t move his ass wasn’t enough to help him overcome the terror that kept him frozen on the spot. He’d dealt with a lot of fucked up things when he’d served in the Marines, but none of the shit that he’d gone through during the war had ever terrified him as much as not knowing what his wife was about to do to him.
He was fucking pathetic, but even knowing that wasn’t enough to make him man up and open his eyes. Maybe if he played de
ad she would take pity on him and leave him alone? But, he knew better than to wish for the impossible.
Forcing himself to open his eyes, after several long seconds of debating the pros and cons of living the rest of his life as a coward trapped on this bed, he slowly opened his eyes and groaned when Jodi’s soft lips gently brushed against his.
“I missed this,” she whispered against his lips, sighing with pleasure as she moved over him until she was straddling his lap and the smooth curve of her belly brushed against him.
“I missed you,” he found himself whispering back, loving the way that her lips curled against his as he placed his hand on the swell of her stomach and groaned when he his hand was met warm, bare skin.
“I didn’t go anywhere,” she reminded him as she teased his bottom lip as he traced her curves that were a hell of a lot fuller than he remembered while she continued to brush her lips teasingly against his.
“No,” he agreed with a chuckle that was of a pained groan as he slowly traced his fingertips over the small of her back and down the curve of her bottom, “but you were on the very top of my ‘Off Limits,’ list.”
“I was taken off that list a month ago,” she pointed out with a little moan of pleasure that as she settled more comfortably on top of him, causing the part of him that had missed her the most to harden, desperate to feel her sheath tightening around him as he slid inside her beautiful body, but unfortunately he couldn’t allow that to happen.
Not if he wanted to get her home safely.
They had to stop now before it was too late, which unfortunately, it probably already was, but he had to try to stop this before it went any further. When she turned her head to deepen the kiss, he already knew that it was probably too late, but even though he knew that it was probably pointless to try and stop this before something happened that they couldn’t come back from.
Since telling his extremely pregnant wife, who was known to sometimes overreact to the smallest things, that he wasn’t going to make love to her after waiting all this time probably wouldn’t go well. He decided to take another approach, one that was guaranteed to fuck them all over, but one that was going to give them a chance to make it out of this thing alive.
“Welcome to Vegas, Tink.”
Honeymoon from Hell V Page 3
