by Jill Shalvis
And damn, if that didn’t make him all the more attractive.
“So…why are you so upset?” he wondered, reaching out with one finger, rubbing it over the crease she knew appeared in her forehead when she got herself worked up over something.
To say she was worked up now was the under-statement of the year.
“Annie?”
“What?” she whispered.
“Why are you so upset?”
“Because…” Because you do something to my insides and I don’t like it. Because I’m melting over the way you’re looking at me, and I don’t like that, either. “I’m not harboring some secret hero fantasy over you,” she said defensively.
He lifted a shoulder. “Okay.”
“I’m not attracted to you. Not in the least.”
“You’re sure protesting a lot.”
“Did I mention I wanted to be alone?”
“Yep.” He straightened and reached for her hand. “But what the princess wants, she doesn’t always get. Not tonight, anyway. I was sent out here for you. There’s something Lissa wants you to see.”
“Unless it’s the Exit sign,” she muttered, “I’m not interested.”
His laugh was low and sexy. “You should know I was ready to leave the moment I got here.”
That surprised her. He seemed the type of guy who could have fun at his own funeral. He’d certainly had enough fun at her expense. “What made you stay?”
“Besides being afraid of Lissa if I left early?” Suddenly there was no teasing in his gaze. “You.”
She stared at him for one long beat, then tossed her head back and laughed. “Right.”
“No, really. I—”
At that moment, Lissa and Kevin and a crowd of others, piled out onto the deck.
“You nearly missed it.” Lissa grinned while two waiters put out a couple of chairs. “Sit,” she said to the groom and his best man. “I’ve ordered you each a special present. Just because you allowed me to join you tonight doesn’t mean you can’t have a traditional bachelor party.”
Kevin and Kyle looked at each other. Annie tried to decipher the look on Lissa’s face and gave up.
Two uniformed women officers pranced—and there was no other word—onto the deck. Before Annie realized what they meant to do, they’d handcuffed each brother to their respective chairs.
This started an immediate party on the deck as the two cops began to dance.
The woo-hooing and catcalling got louder. The music was turned up.
And the two “cops,” thrusting their ample breasts and booties in the men’s faces, began to strip.
The crowd went wild.
Kevin blushed beet red.
Not Kyle. No, he just sat there, clearing enjoying the show. He certainly couldn’t miss it, Annie thought darkly, as the exceptionally built, redheaded stripper kept putting her…parts right in his face.
It repelled her, disgusted her. It did.
But it also made her legs inexplicably rubbery. It made her thighs ache, and she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
And when it was over, she was still standing there, mouth a little open, when Kyle came up to her, obviously still full of himself and mischief.
“Did you enjoy the show?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
He lifted a brow. “You’re not too uptight to admit that was fun, are you?”
Uptight? She wasn’t uptight! There wasn’t an uptight bone in her body!
“Are you a prude, Princess?”
She was still assimilating the uptight insult. When she managed to switch gears, she had to pause.
Uptight, no she definitely was not uptight.
But prude…? Damn it, maybe she was. Being a tomboy had given her a certain degree of freedom when it came to how she lived her life. But it had also limited her when it came to relations with the male of the species. “I just still think sex is overrated, that’s all.”
His good humor faded and his eyes darkened with a light of challenge she couldn’t miss. “Then you haven’t been with the right man.”
“Oh, yes. Do tell.” She crossed her arms to hide the fact that even her nipples reacted to his sexy voice. “I suppose you’re the right man. Would that be correct?”
“Are you asking?”
Was she asking. Lord, no.
But his lids had dropped over his eyes a little bit, giving him a sleepy, sexy look as he studied her mouth.
Her tummy fluttered.
“Princess?”
How was it possible that just his voice could render her a twisting, melting mass of hormones? No man had ever done that to her before, and she’d tried. Oh, baby, how she’d tried.
“Are you asking?” he repeated with infinite patience.
“No. I’m definitely not asking.”
“Hmm.” The sound assured her he saw right through her. “You be sure to let me know if you change your mind.”
Change your mind, her body begged.
She ignored her body. Not an easy task since said body was fairly humming in a completely foreign way she suspected was helpless lust. “I won’t.” But because she sounded weak, she tightened her arms and repeated it. “Of course I won’t.”
But a little shameful part of her wanted to.
7
THE BACHELOR-BACHELORETTE party lasted a lifetime. Two lifetimes.
Annie couldn’t wait until the last toast. Couldn’t wait to get to her room, strip down, shower and go to sleep.
Once asleep she would dream of such comforting things as ice cream. Of her home in Grunberg where the sharp, magnificent mountain peaks and comforting, familiar alpine towns and people provided her with all she needed.
Or better yet, she wouldn’t dream at all.
She certainly wouldn’t think of pink satin.
Or the upcoming wedding.
Or of one sexy but cocky, stubborn, smart-aleck cop named Kyle Moore.
Nope. Not a single thought would be spared for the man she didn’t care one iota for.
That decided, she smiled and toasted and actually salvaged a good time, from this nightmare party. And when it was over, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Once back at the inn, in her room, she switched her slacks and sweater for her favorite pj’s, which consisted of a spaghetti-strap tank top and a pair of men’s cotton boxer shorts.
“Perfect.” She flopped on the bed, grabbed the remote, and prepared to be amused by late-night American television. The Brady Bunch maybe, or even her sister Natalia’s favorite, an old Clint Eastwood movie.
Nat, I wish you were here to argue over the remote with me. I’d even give it to you tonight.
But then the phone rang. It was the front desk. A message had been left from Her Serene Highness Natalia Faye Wolf Brunner of Grunberg.
Natalia. Her best friend. One of the few people Annie trusted through thick and thin. Nat would never let her down, never. She must be coming in early, Annie thought with giddy relief. A familiar, loving face in the midst of this horrific wedding, thank you God!
Then what the desk clerk said sank in. “Could you repeat that, please?” she asked with remarkable calm, because clearly, she needed a hearing aid.
“Yes, ma’am, I can repeat. She has poison ivy and will not be attending the wedding.”
“Poison ivy?”
“Poison ivy.”
“But…” Annie shook her head. Natalia, the leather-wearing, multipierced sister who acted so tough, and yet was afraid of animals much less the outdoors, had poison ivy? Was that even possible? “How did she get it?”
“Well—”
“Where is she?”
“I’m sorry. That’s the message in its entirety.”
“It can’t be.”
“It is, ma’am.”
Annie had no idea what the real story was, but it wasn’t poison ivy. She set the phone down and felt far more sorry for herself than her sister, who certainly had found something better and more exciting to do than
attend a wedding.
Annie would kill her when this was over. With pleasure.
Just then the door adjoining her room to another guest’s opened, and in piled a group of women, with Lissa leading the pack.
Shocked, Annie sat straight up.
“Didn’t I mention I had the next room over?” Lissa beamed. “Cool, huh? Now we can have an official girl party.”
She carried a tray filled with what suspiciously looked like makeup and accessories. Annie narrowed her eyes as the three women with her—Lissa’s sisters, and all bridesmaids—plopped on the bed. “What is that stuff?”
“The ingredients for a girl party, of course.” Lissa looked at Annie critically. “You’ve got good skin, but there’s no telling what’s just beneath the surface. A full facial,” she said over her shoulder. “We’ll all do full facials. Then we’ll start in with the pedicures. Must have good toes. Did someone bring the pink nail polish?”
Facials. Pedicures. A fate worse than death. Annie hated makeup with the same passion she hated pink satin dresses and pink satin nail polish. She wore mascara because she looked like a zombie without it, and sometimes she even remembered blush. But gloss was the most she used on her lips, and she’d never, ever, had a facial. “I don’t think—’
“You’ll have to strip.”
“Excuse me?”
“I brought this new breast cream for all of us. It’ll give us great cleavage with our dresses.”
“Lissa,” she laughed, but no one else joined her. “This is a really bad idea.”
Lissa, stirring the cream she actually thought Annie would put on her breasts, looked up. “What? Why?”
“Because…” Quick, Annie, think. “Because…”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Lissa’s smile fell. “At home in Grunberg you probably have beauticians to take care of you. You’d never have to actually do this yourself. I…didn’t think…other than I know our moms used to do this together, in boarding school. You know, give each other facials and do their hair and stuff. My mom talks about it all the time.”
With the loss of her mother twelve years before, Annie’s life had taken a drastic turn. There had been no more froufrou influence, no more pots of makeup and perfume lining her mother’s room. Back then, Annie had already developed the tomboy side of herself, but without her mom, there’d been no stopping her. And she’d never looked back.
Lissa studied the cream in her hands. “I just thought for old times’ sake…” She started to gather up the things she’d bought. “Never mind. I didn’t mean to insult you. This all probably seems tacky to a princess, doesn’t it?”
Annie sighed inwardly and managed a smile in Lissa’s dejected direction. “You didn’t insult me. Really. I just didn’t expect—”
“I know. Forget it.”
“No, this is your wedding,” Annie said, feeling about an inch tall. “And whatever you want, goes.” God help me. “If you want to slather sh—stuff all over your face—”
“And breasts,” Lissa’s youngest sister Sharise added helpfully.
“And breasts,” Annie said bravely, suppressing a shudder. “Then okay. That’s what we’ll do.”
“Oh, Annie. Really?”
Annie looked into Lissa’s hopeful face and made herself keep smiling, even as she renewed her vow to kill her sister Natalia at the first opportunity. “Really.”
“You first?” Lissa held up the cream.
“Uh…” Annie tried not to shrink back. She did manage, barely, to keep her hands at her sides rather than cover her breasts, which is what she wanted to do. “Well…”
“Do you want me to do it?”
“No!” Annie lowered her voice and let out a little laugh. “I can do it, thanks.”
“You sure? My mom says your mom loved to be fussed over.”
Her mother had loved being fussed over. A manicure or new hairdo had been her greatest joys, which she’d loved to share with her daughters.
They had all spent many an afternoon together, Annie’s sisters and their mother, lounging in their castle home after school, waxing poetic over some new nail color they’d discovered, while Annie had chomped at the bit to get back outside and mess herself up all over again.
She lifted the cream with a hopeful expression.
Mom, I hope you’re laughing in heaven. “I’ve got it handled, thanks.”
8
A GIRLIE PARTY was every bit as bad as Annie feared it would be. Which is how she found herself with curlers in her hair—so tight to her scalp she’d never need a face-lift—her entire face slathered in a mud-colored mask guaranteed to “pull out all those nasty wrinkles you haven’t yet developed,” and her nails painted the most atrocious color of pink that Lissa promised would match her new dress.
Goodie.
But all of it paled in comparison to the sensation of ice-cold cream applied to her breasts with the promise to “uplift and rejuvenate.”
“Not that you need any rejuvenating,” Lissa said cheerfully after the equally torturous removal of said cold cream. “You have great breasts.”
“Um…thanks. I think.”
“No, really.”
Annie covered herself back up with the spaghetti-strap tank top and wondered if Kyle had thought so, too. Then she got mad at herself for wondering such a stupid thing and switched to wondering how long before she could kick everyone out of her room without insulting them.
Then someone knocked at the door.
“Grand Central Station,” she muttered, and hopped off the bed, passing by a mirror and nearly leaping out of her skin at the sight of her curlers and mask. Please let someone have screwed up and sent room service up with ice cream.
With fudge to pour over the top.
Beneath her top, her breasts brushed against the soft material. They felt the promised revitalization, and were extremely sensitive. She wondered if Kyle would notice when she once again put on the dress from hell the day after tomorrow. Then she wondered why she cared what he thought.
She would have laughed at herself, but it’d crack the face mask, and if she cracked it, she was afraid Lissa would insist she start over.
If she had to start over with this beauty regime, she might go postal. And since weddings were supposed to be happy events, she took a deep breath and sucked it up.
Not that it was easy. For all her self-proclaimed inner strength, she felt a little fragile. A little vulnerable. The events with Jimmy had taken their toll, no matter how she told herself it shouldn’t. “Sucking it up,” she reminded herself. With a sigh, she hauled open the door, prepared to kiss the feet of the room-service attendant bearing ice cream.
But the person standing on the other side of the door was not room service bearing ice cream.
Kyle stood there holding up the doorjamb with his broad shoulder, looking big and edgy and even yummier than she remembered.
“That’s twice now,” he said.
She was just stunned enough to repeat him. “Twice?”
“That I’ve made you speechless.” He tapped her nose. “I have to say, I’m fairly speechless myself, Princess.”
She gasped and brought her hands up to her face, remembering she looked like the Bride of Frankenstein. “Oh my God.”
“Kyle?” Lissa came up behind Annie. “Honey, what are you doing here? This is girls only. Now scat. We’ve got facials and manicures and breast treatments going on.”
Kyle stopped short. “Breast treatments?”
“Yes, they enhance and smooth,” Lissa’s sister cheerfully told him. “We’ve all been creamed.” Her hands went to the buttons of her blouse. “Want to see—”
“No,” Annie said quickly, stepping in front of her. “I’m sure Kyle here can use his imagination.”
“Yeah. My imagination.” Kyle was looking a little unfocused. A little dazed.
Until his eyes met hers. “How about you, Annie? Want to show me what you’ve creamed?”
“Very funny. Now get the hell out of he
re.”
“You sound a little hostile there. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you didn’t want me to stick around—Hey!”
She’d put her hands on his chest and pushed. Big mistake. Not the push, but her hands on his chest. First of all, she didn’t budge his solid mass. Second of all, her entire body quivered in delight at the feel of him beneath her hands.
Pathetic. She really was. “Just get out.”
Lissa was grinning stupidly at them. “You two really do have a thing for one another.”
“What?” Annie managed to laugh through her mask-stiffened face. “Don’t be silly.”
“It’s adorable.”
“It’s crap,” Annie said.
“I didn’t know princesses could say crap,” Kyle said.
“You like each other,” Lissa insisted. “I can see it all over your faces.”
“Lissa, my face has an inch of green stuff on it.”
But Lissa wouldn’t be deterred. “I’ve heard all about stuff like this, how under immense strain and pressure, especially under the threat of death, people who are polar opposites—and believe me, the two of you are polar opposites—come together.”
“We did not come together,” Annie said, flicking Kyle a dark look when he simply lifted a brow.
“Know what I think?” Lissa continued to bestow a proud, happy look at them. “I think there was more than a kiss. I think you did the wild thing.”
“Okay, here’s what I think.” Annie didn’t care if her hands were going to tingle forever, she put them back on Kyle and once again tried shoving him out the door. “I think we need to get rid of the single male ruining our female party.”
“Oh, Annie, that’s so sweet,” Lissa said, putting her hands together. “I didn’t know you were so into it.”
“I’m…into…it,” she puffed, trying to budge the unbudgeable Kyle. “Help, please.”
“No, you know what?” Lissa let out a smile that didn’t ease Annie one bit. “We’re done here. I think we’ll just leave the two of you alone. In case you have more…wild things to do.”
“Funny,” Annie said, but started to panic when the girls all packed up their stuff and headed for the door. “Wait! Don’t go! My face—”
