Runaway Vegas Bride

by Teresa Hill

  He stood up, got an airline pillow and blanket out of the overhead bin, then sat back down beside her. He pushed the armrest between them up and out of the way, then put the pillow against his side. His arm around her, he invited her to make herself comfortable against him.

  She turned her body toward the window, away from him, bent her legs and tucked them half under her on the seat, then leaned back into him, her head on his shoulder. He might nibble on her ear, if he wanted, but she felt fairly safe in this position.

  He didn’t object at all, merely spread the blanket over her, as she murmured, “Thank you.”

  Just drifting off to sleep, she felt his hand, under that blanket, palming her leg at the knee and then slowly sliding up her thigh.

  Her eyes flew open and locked on his. She felt in an instant that he’d angled his body toward the window. She glanced anxiously toward the aisle and found her view blocked completely by his shoulder. No doubt, his body was now blocking anyone’s view of her.

  Which was bad.

  Very bad.

  And in that time she’d nearly fallen asleep, she’d somehow ended up with her back pressed against the front of his body, her bottom tucked firmly against his lap, and he obviously liked it there, because he was thoroughly aroused.

  It was a completely involuntary reaction, she reasoned, as she rubbed her hips against him, and it just felt so very good, she had to do it again. She couldn’t help it.

  He swore softly and started nibbling on her neck, making her squirm all the more, sensations shooting through her body. That hand of his, beneath the blanket he’d so thoughtfully spread over her, sliding even higher on her thigh. His other hand undid the two buttons on her jacket, then settled warm against her belly, eventually sliding up toward her breasts.

  He took his nose and nudged her jacket down her shoulder a bit, used his teeth to pull the tiny strap of her camisole aside, and the next thing she knew, his warm mouth settled on her neck, dropping little kisses up and down the line of her neck and shoulder.

  She sucked in a breath, his hands all over her, his mouth too, her body tucked firmly against his and turning liquid in his arms.

  “Wyatt, we’re on a plane,” she protested.

  “I know.”

  “And you said you really weren’t into doing things like this in public places.”

  “I said I wasn’t into actually having sex in public places. But since you got on this plane that way, I’ve decided that’s not really a firm conviction of mine.”

  Before she could object, his hand settled, palm flat, against the curve of her hip.

  Her breasts got all tingly and full, her nipples bunching up to knots. His hand finally palmed one of her breasts, as well, his thumb rubbing back and forth on one of her nipples.

  His hand felt so big and so hot against her, and the camisole was so thin, it was practically nonexistent. His hands were everywhere. So was his mouth.

  “Someone will hear us,” she protested.

  “Only if you get too loud,” he claimed. “I didn’t take you for a screamer, Jane. Although I’d certainly like to make you scream. Just not here. Not now. Later, okay?”

  “Mmm. Okay. Later.”

  He kissed her neck some more. Lord, she loved it when he kissed her neck. It just made her melt all over, all hot and shivery and boneless with pleasure. He got his hand under her camisole and back on her breast, skin to skin. She rubbed her bottom against him, feeling a pulse throbbing in him, an answering one in her own body.

  Could they really have sex on the plane? Would it be that bad? That dangerous? She could shove a pillow in her mouth and just try very hard to move as little as possible, couldn’t she?

  She wanted to turn around, wanted so badly to touch him, to feel his skin beneath her hands, but he held her fast. She reached back with one hand and held his head down to her shoulder, and with the other, covered his hand on her breast, urging him not to stop tormenting her this way.

  Wyatt touching her, kissing her. It felt so good. He was going to drive her crazy. She knew it. But just how far was he going to take this?

  “Wyatt?” she whispered urgently. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “This,” he said, his mouth against her ear, nibbling there as the hand on her hip slid into the curls between her thighs.

  She shook her head. “No. You can’t. Not here.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “Because…you can’t.”

  But even as she said it, her traitorous body had made room for him there, easing her thighs ever so slightly apart. She shuddered as his fingers moved knowingly into the hot wetness of her body, and his thumb…oh, that thumb.

  If he hadn’t covered her mouth with his, no telling what kind of noise she would have made then. But he’d anticipated that, silencing her with a long, deep, slow kiss, his touch between her legs just as maddeningly slow and sure.

  He thrust inside of her with his tongue, with his fingers, and it took nothing and no time, it seemed before she shuddered against him, having to bite down on her lip to keep from crying out in pleasure, the kind of deep, uncontrollable feelings she hadn’t been sure she was capable of feeling.

  There was no control at all on her part, nothing she was capable of or willing to do to stop this, to hold it back, to contain it in any way. He was completely in charge. She’d given herself fully into his hands, and he was obviously a master at this. Oddly, she felt both out of control and completely safe in his arms, felt no need to protect herself, to maintain any kind of distance. She was his. She might as well have stripped off all her clothes and presented herself to him naked as could be and invited him to do whatever he wanted. She’d given herself to him that completely. Something she’d never felt safe doing with any man, especially one who looked like him, who had the confidence and obvious experience with women that he did.

  Jane lay there in his arms, exhausted, spent, gloriously happy. She couldn’t believe it. She just couldn’t fathom what he’d done to her and how glorious it had felt, how she couldn’t wait to do it again, to do anything he wanted, whenever he wanted.

  “This is why women make fools of themselves over men,” she told him softly, once she could actually think again and form words.

  He laughed, the sound so sexy, and thrust gently against her hips once, then again. “You begin to understand how I felt when you told me you weren’t wearing any underwear?”

  She nodded, then got it. “Payback? This was payback?”

  “No, Jane. This is a little thing called foreplay. What do you think?”

  “That if the real thing feels any better, I may die.”

  “And just think, we only have another three hours before we can get off this plane, find a hotel room and get naked,” he told her.

  Three hours?

  She whimpered. “What are we going to do for three hours?”

  “Exactly what we’ve been doing,” he promised.

  “No. I can’t. We can’t. Someone will see us. Someone will hear us. Wyatt!”

  But he was kissing her again, and she wanted so much for him to kiss her.

  She wanted him to do all sorts of things to her, right here on this plane. He couldn’t do much more than he already had, could he? She feared she was about to find out.

  Chapter Eleven

  She felt as if she’d been drugged by the time they landed in Vegas, as if her entire body was utterly exhausted, limp with the aftermath of foreplay like none she’d ever known before and the added fear of trying to stay quiet enough that the whole plane didn’t know what they were doing.

  Her skirt was all rumpled and up around her waist under the blanket, her legs like jelly. She had no idea where her shoes had gone. Her hair had either all come loose or Wyatt had taken it down, and she wondered if the stubble on his jaw had left faint reddish marks on her neck and her face.

  Not that she really cared, as long as he was kissing her.

  But they did have to get off this plane s
omehow, and she might as well be wearing a giant, blinking sign that said, Nearly had sex on the plane to Vegas.

  “I feel like such a bad girl,” she whispered to him, as she looked out the window, seeing a sea of neon lights below.

  He leaned in beside her, looking out the window himself. “You were a deliciously bad girl on this plane, and now, look at all those hotel rooms below us, all those places for you to be bad, Jane.”

  She grinned. “Are we going to be bad first, or are we going to hunt down our crazy relatives?”

  “Well, it is about 4:00 a.m. our time. Surely they’ve already done whatever it is they wanted to do and are asleep by now. I figure we have some time before they wake up, so what would it hurt to be bad until the sun comes up?”

  He dropped a kiss on her shoulder as he said it, and she wondered just how bad Wyatt, in the privacy of his own room, behind a locked door, could be. She didn’t want to disappoint him, although in truth, he seemed delighted in anything she was willing to offer him, so far.

  The lights in the cabin came up and the pilot announced that they would be landing soon.

  Jane groaned and hid her face against Wyatt, afraid that people had to be staring at them. His body was warm and welcoming, his arm around her, hand on the back of her head, holding her against him. He was chuckling softly.

  “How terrible is it?” she asked. “Is everyone watching?”

  “Jane, they’re all still half-asleep. No one really cares.”

  She peeked out to the side, seeing no one, and then cautiously looked forward.

  “See? It’s fine.”

  “I’m all mussed up,” she said.

  “Yes, you are.” He sounded quite pleased by it.

  She brushed her hair back with her fingers and then faced him, embarrassed as could be without the cover of darkness between them. “You have no shame, do you?”

  “Not at the moment.” He took her chin in his hand. “And you look absolutely gorgeous like this. Someone should always be mussing you up.”

  He kissed her softly on the lips, and something in her heart turned over, as if she’d gone to the dark side, too, and never wanted to lose this feeling. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a big, long, deep kiss in the light, just because. He groaned, took her hips in his palms and pulled her onto his lap. She fell back against him, forgetting everything, until a woman cleared her throat somewhere near Jane’s ear.

  They came up for air to find the stewardess, the gorgeous one who’d been eyeing Wyatt from the moment he stepped onboard, asking them to buckle their seat belts, because the plane would be landing soon.

  And she gave Jane a look that said, What in the world is he doing with someone like you?

  Jane wanted to shoot right back, Seeing how bad he can make me, but shook her head and laughed instead.

  Once they landed, Wyatt helped her straighten herself up as best he could and guided her off the plane with a hand riding low on her waist, just enough to feel a little devilish. They grabbed the first cab they found and he asked the driver to take them to the Pallazzo.

  “Leo’s current favorite, I believe,” Wyatt said.

  Jane leaned back against him, torn between snuggling in the cab and reaching into her briefcase and turning on her phone to see if Gram or Gladdy had answered any of the frantic messages she left for them or if maybe Lainie had tracked them down while Jane and Wyatt were on the plane.

  “Don’t do it,” Wyatt declared. “If you turn on that phone and have a message from them, it might be hours before we sort out their troubles and can be alone.”

  “I know,” she said, but the ultra-responsible, good-girl tendencies were harder to deny now that they were on the ground in the same city as her sweet but maddening grandmother and great aunt.

  “We’ll be good and responsible when the sun comes up. I promise.”

  “Okay, but you might have to take my phone away from me and hide it.” She pushed her briefcase over to him. “Here. Really. Just find it and take it.”

  He fished through her briefcase, came up with the phone and slipped it into his pocket. Then he frowned and said, “It’s on. You turned it on when I wasn’t looking?”

  “No,” she insisted. “What do you mean, it’s on?”

  “I mean, it’s vibrating, so it must be on.”

  “I didn’t. I swear.” She grabbed the phone out of his pocket and saw that it was indeed on, and she had a call coming in. “I must have forgotten to turn it off when we got on the plane, just left it on vibrate.”

  “Don’t answer it, Jane. If you do, I swear, when I finally get you alone, I will make you pay for making me wait even longer.”

  Responsibility warred with her overwhelming need for him but responsibility won.

  “I’m sorry. Really, I am,” she said, answering the incoming call. “Hello.”

  “Jane! Oh, thank God.” It was Lainie.

  “Did you find them?” Jane asked.

  “No, Gladdy called for you here, when you weren’t answering your phone.”

  “Please tell me they didn’t get married already?”

  “No. They…actually, I don’t know. Jane, they’re at the hospital. It…I’m sorry. It sounds bad.”

  Jane froze, the words just not making any sense at first. “Gram?”

  “No, Leo.”

  Lainie told Jane the name of the hospital and insisted she had no other details, though she’d been trying and trying to call the hospital, Gram and Gladdy, with no response. Stunned, Jane thanked her and clicked off the phone.

  “What is it?” Wyatt asked.

  Jane slipped her hand into his and held on tight, then gave the cab driver the name of the hospital and asked him to take them there.

  Wyatt just looked at her, and she could see him trying to make sense of this in his own head. Leo Gray seemed indestructible to her, and she’d only known him a few weeks. How much more invincible he must have seemed to Wyatt.

  “All Lainie knew was that they took Leo to the hospital.”

  Wyatt still didn’t move.

  “Has he been ill?” Jane asked softly.

  “No. Not that I knew. He’s always been incredibly healthy.”

  He grasped her hand like a lifeline, with his other hand pulled out his own phone, went to click it on, but fumbled it, dropping it instead. Jane went to pick it up for him, but he held up a hand to show that he didn’t want it. And his hand was shaking.

  “How far to the hospital?” she asked.

  “Five minutes, tops,” the driver responded.

  “Okay,” she said to Wyatt, still holding his hand, wishing she could somehow protect him from what could come. “Lainie said neither Gram nor Gladdy are answering their phones anyway. We’ll find out how he is in a few minutes.”

  Wyatt knew the doctor was talking to him. Something about a stroke, Leo unconscious since he’d been brought in and on life support. There were questions about Leo’s medical history, his doctors’ names. Wyatt had that information. Jane handed over his cell phone, and he found the names and numbers. Did Leo have a living will? Did anyone have power of attorney to act on his behalf if he was incapacitated?

  “Yes. I do.” A power he’d hoped to never exercise.

  The papers? They needed the papers. No, Wyatt didn’t walk around with Leo’s legal papers on him.

  Jane stepped in. Jane still by his side, still firmly holding his hand, saying she’d make the calls, get all the papers, so Wyatt wouldn’t have to do anything but see Leo.

  Wyatt kissed her forehead, said, “Thank you,” and then let a nurse lead him through those ominous-looking double doors into the medical nightmare of machines and cubicles and terrified-looking relatives.

  Jane’s grandmother was seated by Leo’s side, holding his hand and crying softly. She looked absolutely heartbroken, and on her left hand—the one holding Leo’s—something caught the light with a flash. A big new diamond ring Wyatt didn’t remember seeing before.

  Wife number
five, Wyatt thought, then remembered that Leo had always held out hope that one day he’d be able to say, “Till death do us part,” and mean it.

  Wyatt feared his uncle was about to get his wish.

  He walked to Kathleen’s side, took the hand she offered and then helped her to her feet. She threw her arms around him and wept softly, as Gladdy had done outside in the ICU waiting room.

  Women, crazy about Leo and fighting over him to the end, Wyatt thought. How perfectly Leo-like. He sincerely hoped the old man hadn’t actually married both women. Settling the estate would be a nightmare if Leo had.

  “He was so happy,” Kathleen said, still crying. “So very happy. We had a grand time, these last few weeks. Some of the best times of his life, he said. I’m grateful for every moment we had together.”

  Wyatt smiled, despite feeling as if his heart was breaking.

  It was exactly what Leo would have wanted. All it was lacking was Kathleen vowing that he’d been the absolute love of her life and that she’d go to her grave remembering the times she spent with Leo Gray. Her and Gladdy both would have been even better, from Leo’s perspective.

  “He wanted me to tell you,” Kathleen said, “that you were the perfect son to him, all the joy and love without all the responsibility that comes with actually being a parent.”

  Wyatt laughed, despite himself. “He actually put in more time raising me than my father did.”

  Leo had never had children of his own, although between them, his four wives had given him a dozen or so stepchildren and unknown hordes of grandchildren, almost all of whom adored Leo and still kept in touch with him.

  “I’ll leave you two alone.” Kathleen hugged him once more, kissed his cheek sweetly, then Leo’s. “We’ll be right outside if you need us.”

  By the time they reached Leo’s doctor, they knew everything.

  Leo had known for weeks that he had an inoperable condition that could cause a stroke, but for reasons Wyatt could not understand, had decided not to tell anyone. He’d just gone about his life, as it had always been until something like this happened. His best hope was to die with a smile on his face in the arms of a beautiful woman, the doctor remembered Leo saying. Wyatt told him that Leo might very well have gotten his wish.