Once Upon a Honeymoon (Harlequin American Romance)

by Julie Kistler

  “A romantic dinner and then a ring? How could you? It’s so beautiful and it’s all a big, ugly, disgusting lie! How could you do this to me?”

  “Do what? I bought you a ring. What’s wrong with that?”

  Bridget tried to leap to her feet, but she caught her knee under the corner of the coffee table. Hooking it, she gave it a good push, and the whole thing lifted up on one side. She leaned forward, trying to regain her balance, but the heel of her hand came down on the rim of the cake plate.

  As he watched in horror, the chocolate cake flipped up, like a huge, fat, messy tiddlywink.

  Splat.

  Before he could get out of the way, he got the full brunt of it. Cake, fudge, frosting, not to mention a whole tiger lily, had all plastered themselves down the front of his shirt.

  Bridget just stood there, staring at the mess. A clump of cake slid off his shirt, plopping back onto the coffee table, and they watched its slow progress all the way down.

  Finally she said, “I hope that wasn’t a good shirt.”

  “Good or not, it’s the only one I’ve got at the moment.” Gingerly, he picked the lily out of the chocolate mess in his front pocket. After wavering for a moment, he set it over by the remains of the cake. “Do you have something else I could wear, just long enough to clean this up?”

  “Oh, sure.” She started to back up down the hall toward her bedroom. “I’m sure I must have... There must be something I can... I’ll just see.”

  Tripp had no choice but to stay where he was, although he did, very carefully, peel off his shirt. And then he used the once-white linen to brush off the front of his pants. “God, what a mess.”

  Bridget came back, but she wasn’t carrying any extra clothes. Instead, she had a stack of newspapers.

  “I thought we could get this under you,” she said, clumsily bending down to lay papers on the couch behind him, and to poke a couple of sheets under his feet. Obediently, he lifted first one foot and then the other.

  Bridget took away his shirt, wrapping it in newspaper and carelessly tossing it aside. “Okay,” she said breathlessly. “Now strip.”

  “Strip?”

  “Your pants. They need to come off.” She was kneeling, and her head was just level with his....

  He clenched his jaw and looked across the room, out the window, anywhere but at the top of her pretty little head, just even with his belt buckle.

  And then she started to undo it.

  He caught her hands. “I think I can undo my own belt.”

  “Of course.” She shrugged. “I just thought... Well, you needed to get out of them.”

  Her breath was wafting hot puffs of air against his belly button as he undid the buckle on his belt. Oh, God. This was torture. Unlike her other fiancé, Tripp was no saint. About two more seconds of her breathing on his bare stomach, and he was going to take off his pants himself and show her just what he had to offer.

  Her hand brushed his fly. He went rigid.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “Maybe you could, uh, back up a little,” he said gruffly.

  “Just take them off,” she breathed.

  He looked down into her deep, dark eyes, and Tripp saw banked fires there that made it difficult to breathe. He saw the tip of her tongue dart out, once, to touch her top lip, and he knew that tongue was only a fraction of an inch from the front of his pants.

  The images of her tongue and his... He shut his eyes.

  “Are you in pain? You just groaned.”

  “Yes, I am in pain.” Forcing himself to remain calm, he took her by the shoulders and pulled her to a standing position. All he meant to do was put some distance between them, but there she was, in his arms, breathing unsteadily, staring at him, and he knew she wasn’t going anywhere.

  So he kissed her.

  He didn’t bother to make it soft or nice. He just seared her with all the anger and frustration he’d been storing up. Damn it all to hell if she didn’t kiss him back just as hard and mean and ferocious.

  Her mouth opened to him, and he plunged inside. She was hot and delicious and she smelled like chocolate. No, that was him. It didn’t matter. It was intoxicating.

  She was moaning and pushing closer, pressing her mouth into his, rubbing the slippery silk of her blouse against his bare chest.

  Swiftly, Tripp pushed his pants down and out of the way with one hand. They dropped onto the newspaper with a thud that startled them both. And them he grabbed her back, and kissed her again, with an unrelenting hunger that shocked even him.

  Muttering something unpleasant, he pushed her backward into the couch.

  “The chocolate,” she tried.

  “Don’t care,” he shot back, and fastened his mouth over hers so she couldn’t talk.

  She was shoving at his clothes and he was shoving at hers, until all he was wearing was his silk boxer shorts, and she was half-covered in her silk blouse. Tumbled together in the couch like that, surrounding himself with Bridget—it was fast and furious and the sexiest thing he’d ever done. He knew he had to pull back to breathe soon, but he didn’t give a damn if he passed out at this point.

  Gasping for air, she pulled back first. But her eyes were glued to his body, lingering on his chest, brushing over his arms and his legs, hungrily following a wayward streak of chocolate that painted a line across his ribs. She licked her lip. And then she bent to press her lips to the chocolate, to delicately flick the sweetness away with her little pink tongue.

  He let out a sound of pure heat, of pure male agony. God, he hadn’t planned to let things go this far. One more inch and they’d both be beyond the point of no return.

  “Bridget,” he tried.

  “Mmm,” she said, licking his chest.

  “Bridget, I don’t think we should do this.”

  “What?” But the moment was lost. He saw the strained, embarrassed look on her face as she sat up.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. Sorry? Yeah, he was plenty sorry. Sorry he’d interrupted her. Sorry he’d ever been born. “I didn’t think...”

  “I didn’t, either.”

  “There’s Jay to think of. I mean, you are engaged.”

  “Jay. Right.”

  She scrambled off the couch, hovering about ten feet away before he could protest.

  Neither could think of a thing to say.

  But Tripp was very aware that the pair of boxer shorts he was wearing did very little to hide the prominent evidence of his desire. “Do you have something else for me to wear?” he asked quietly.

  “I—I couldn’t really find anything that would fit you. You’re a lot bigger than me, and I looked for something like a sweatshirt or a T-shirt, but I couldn’t really find—”

  “You don’t have anything for me to wear?”

  “Nothing but...well, this.” She held out a robe. Her robe.

  A plain cotton kimono, it probably came to midcalf on her. But as he held it up, he knew it would only do about knee-length on him. Still, it was better than nothing.

  “Why don’t you start cleaning this mess up?” he said. “There’s chocolate everywhere.”

  “I know.” Her gaze flashed to his chest, where he had been painted with a brush of chocolate frosting. His mind filled with the image of Bridget’s mouth pressed to his flesh again, licking away that chocolate.

  He couldn’t bear it.

  Hiding himself behind her robe, he mumbled, “I think I’d like to take a shower. Would you be willing to wash my clothes while I’m in the shower?”

  “Well, I would. But I can’t.”

  He sighed. “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t have a washer or a dryer.”

  “In the building?”

  “Uh, no. I have to take my laundry out.”

  “Great,” he said roughly. “This is just great.”

  “Look, why don’t we rinse out the chocolate in the bathtub? We can hang your things up to dry.”

  “And how am I supposed to get hom
e without my clothes?”

  “Well...” Bridgie sent him a strange look. “I guess you’ll have to stay overnight.”

  Chapter Eight

  He was sleeping on Bridget’s couch. Or trying to sleep. Just him, all alone.

  No chocolate, although they’d checked the general vicinity to make sure.

  No pants, no shirt. Just his boxers and Bridgie’s robe.

  And no Bridgie.

  This was what he was reduced to. Tripp Ashby, eligible bachelor, was finally engaged, and to a woman he was dying to touch, dying to make love to. So where did he end up? On her couch. And it was his own idea.

  He was the one who’d been noble and idiotic, deferring to her white knight of a fiancé. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do to make love to someone else’s fiancé when that guy wasn’t looking, but Tripp felt sure he could’ve overlooked it just this once.

  Bridgie. The image of her mouth licking away that chocolate...

  He punched the pillow, rustling around, trying to find a more comfortable position.

  Surely, sometime in his life, he must’ve slept on her couch before. He pondered the subject.

  There was that time when she came over to help him study for his Medieval History final, and they ended up falling asleep together. But that was his couch, not hers, and he hadn’t even known they were sleeping together until he woke up.

  He smiled. He remembered the expression on her face when they did wake up. Horrified. She’d leapt away from him, blushed seventeen shades of pink and made him promise not to tell anyone. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  “But you know, Bridgie,” he whispered into her dark living room. “If I had it to do over again, I might’ve tried harder to stay awake. And when you were all sleepy and cozy, I might’ve tried harder to persuade you to stay.”

  To stay. To let him kiss her. To let him make love to her. Right there on the dilapidated sofa in the basement of the house he shared with Deke.

  But he couldn’t think about how it might’ve been. It was too painful.

  Sofas. Damn hard, uncomfortable places to sleep.

  Tripp flipped over onto his back, folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. With Bridgie down the hall in a nice, soft bed, and him out here on a lonely, godforsaken sofa, it was going to be a long night.

  But he’d no more than closed his eyes when he heard Bridgie calling his name.

  “Tripp? Tripp? Are you awake?”

  “I am now.” He opened one eye. It was light in the room. Dim, but definitely light. “Is it morning already?”

  “Yeah. But your clothes are still wet. Here, I brought out your pants so you could feel—”

  She was holding them out in front of her, giving them the once-over, not paying attention to where she was going. One pant leg seemed to get tangled up with her leg, and she got stuck. Before she could catch herself, she fell straight forward, right over the side of the couch, right on top of Tripp.

  “Oof,” she said. She picked up her head enough to look him in the eye.

  Above him, plastered to him, her body was soft in all the right places, soft and sexy as hell, and Tripp held on to her, unwilling to let her go.

  “The way you’ve been behaving lately, maybe we should call you Tripp instead of me,” he said lightly.

  “What a klutz,” she mumbled. “I’m not usually like this.”

  “I know.”

  She started to wiggle, to try to scramble off him, but that only made things worse. A tendril of her hair brushed his bare chest, her small hand skimmed his hip, and that was all it took. He went rigid. He let out a moan as her stomach slid down his stomach, grazing him right where it did the most damage.

  “Uh, maybe you ought to...”

  At first his motives were pure. He meant to move her away, to cool down the steam quotient and get them both out of trouble. But he made a mistake. When he adjusted his arms around her, bracing her against the back of the couch, he eased them both around. And suddenly he was on top.

  “Tripp, can we...?”

  But he didn’t want to hear her question. He could feel her small, slender body curving underneath him, into him. She was trembling, shivering, angling closer with every breath she took, and he knew suddenly that she was as turned on as he.

  It was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat. With her pressed up so intimately, amazingly close, he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. And he couldn’t be noble twice in a row.

  So he did what came naturally, what required no thought at all.

  It took only a few inches to bend down and kiss her, and he did it, savage and hot. All of last night’s frustration came pounding out, as he delved deeper into her mouth, kissing her rougher and harder than he meant to. But, oh, she tasted good.

  She was wearing a cotton nightgown, something white and demure, nothing like the nasty black number she’d had at the cabin. The cool cotton twisted between them, riding up over her thighs and her waist, and he could feel the slick heat of her bare skin as her leg wound around him.

  He pushed more of the nightgown away, bending down to press his lips to her shoulder and her collarbone, to the soft swell of her breast, slipping his hand up under her hip. He found no barrier. Nothing—no panties—just soft, soft skin. He stifled a moan.

  He splayed his fingers against her round, soft bottom, maneuvering her in closer, trying to ease the sharp hunger of his desire.

  They were touching everywhere, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted her, all of her. He had to have her. Now.

  “Bridget?” He found her gaze. She looked dazzled, disoriented, but she nodded, very quickly. “Bridget?” he asked again.

  “Yes. I said yes.”

  And then they both heard the front door of her apartment swing open.

  They froze.

  “There you are, ma’am.”

  “Thank you so much. What a lovely doorman you are. My son and my daughter-in-law will be so grateful you allowed me to come in,” someone said pleasantly from out in the hall. “Good morning! Anybody home?”

  Aside from the fact that he wasn’t wearing anything but Bridget’s bathrobe and a pair of boxer shorts, Tripp knew exactly what the two of them looked like, entwined like that on the couch. Most of her body was underneath him, her hair was a wild tangle on his pillow and one bare leg was wrapped around his waist.

  Talk about compromising positions.

  Quickly he detached himself, yanked his robe shut and vaulted over to the other side of the couch. Bridget still lay there, dazed, so he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to a sitting position. And then he reached back and jerked the strap of her nightgown into place.

  Although he didn’t think that little diversion was going to fool anyone.

  One glance at Bridget, disheveled, breathing unsteadily, practically hyperventilating, and even an idiot could guess she’d just had the ride of her life.

  But she looked beautiful. Good enough to eat, good enough to topple right back onto the couch and never let go.

  “Just popped in to see how things were going,” Kitty Belle said gaily, poking her golden brown curls into the room. Her bright little eyes skipped from one to the other. “And from the looks of you two, I’d say they’re going just fine!”

  * * *

  “WEAR THE RING,” he said between gritted teeth.

  “No.”

  “Wear it, damn it.”

  “No.”

  “In front of my mother,” he said ferociously, “I really think you should wear it. Especially after last night.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “I won’t wear it. Especially after last night.”

  “Are you two fighting over there? Newlywed squabbles, and you’re not even married yet.” Kitty Belle tittered at her own joke. “Sparks are flying!”

  With Bridget’s hand firmly in his, Tripp towed her over to where his mother sat. She didn’t go willingly. This morning, all she wanted to do was hit him.
Because if she stayed seethingly, blazingly mad at him, she didn’t have to think about the wanton way she’d gone after him last night and again this morning.

  If she hung on to her fury, she didn’t have time to think about how sweet and nice he’d been last night, making that special dinner just for her. And that ring. If that wasn’t enough to break her heart.

  She didn’t have to think about the way he looked in his boxer shorts, his beautiful athlete’s body stretched out on display in front of her. All muscle, all sinew, all slim, elegant strength. If there had ever been a more gorgeous man, she hadn’t seen him.

  Damn the man. Last night, with that taste of chocolate, brushed just so across his muscled torso, like an added attraction, she had gone absolutely out of her mind. It was so embarrassing.

  Last night. And then this morning. Even worse this morning.

  He was going to make love to me. “No, he wasn’t,” she swore under her breath. There must have been some mistake. Her overheated imagination must have run away with her.

  Because she certainly had wanted him to make love to her. Tripp, she had to keep reminding herself. That was Tripp you almost took a tumble with on the living room couch. The man you’ve lusted after for so many years, you’ve lost count.

  She wanted him. Like just another one of the hot-to-trot tarts who were always chasing after him.

  But she didn’t want to be one of them. She had always prided herself that she was different, better, smarter, less ruled by passion, more ruled by her brain. She was the one with her eye on her future, on what a lifetime of trust and commitment could mean, as opposed to a few minutes of groping on someone’s couch. Wasn’t she?

  Not when he kept sending her those smoky glances. How was she supposed to act like a human being, how was she supposed to keep her hands off him, when he insisted on looking at her that way?

  It really wasn’t fair. Even dressed in a chocolate-stained white shirt and rumpled, damp trousers, Tripp looked terrific.

  “Terrific.”

  “Did you say something?” he asked her.

  “No.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes—”

  “Stop fighting, you two.”