“You want to be kissed, beauty queen?”
A sound wells up in her throat. “I don’t know,” she breathes, letting me ease her toward the door. “I-I’m supposed to be mad.”
“We can work on that.” I drop my mouth to the curve of her neck, letting her feel my breath, a hint of my teeth. “Or you can stay mad. Call me every name in the book if it’ll help you stay a good girl afterward.”
Her heavy-lidded eyes fly to mine. “Are we still talking about kissing?”
I suck the smooth skin of her neck into my mouth, growling as she sobs and falls against the door. “What do you think?”
Need to get Naomi into the room. Now. I’m too distracted by her taste to keep her safe out here in the open. No cover. Without taking my mouth off her neck, I reach into her purse and close my hand around a key, sliding it into the rusted, brass lock. One wrist flick and we’re inside, Naomi flattened against me as I walk us backwards. It goes against my nature to enter a room without searching for threats, though, so as I drag my mouth toward hers, already anticipating the kiss I need more than life right now, I scan the room.
And find a wedding dress hanging in the open closet.
“What the fuck is that?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
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Username: LittleMissMorbid
So, okay. Guys. Not trying to be weird or whatever. At all.
But has anyone explored the possibility that Runaway Bride was actually sacrificed in a pagan ritual by her bridesmaids?
Naomi
What is…what in the world…is happening?
When I was a child, my mean cousins on my mother’s side used to blindfold me and spin me around, laughing as they watched me bump into walls. Of course, they were perfect angels as soon as the adults walked back into the room. Ma’am this, sir that. As the youngest cousin, it was explained to me that a fair amount of hazing was par for the course. As an adult now, I recognize what a load of horse hockey it was—and those cousins are still mean as snakes.
Right now, I may as well have been blindfolded and dropped into the spinning teacups at Disneyworld. I’ve never vacillated between so many emotions in such a short period of time. During the truck ride, I was nervous about Jason seeing my motel. Then I was touched at his open honesty. Ticked off when he tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of laundry. And then…and then I…I don’t know what I was.
Was his mouth really on my neck?
Why am I shivering?
It’s likely that I’m cold because Jason’s body heat is no longer up against mine. I’ve barely had a chance to process his question—what the (f word) is that?—before he’s moved past me to the closet, leaving me shaking in the patch of sunlight projected by the window. My stomach sinks down into my sandals when I realize what he’s seeing.
My wedding dress is hanging there like a ghost in the Haunted Mansion ride.
Why am I relating everything to Disneyworld?
“Naomi.”
“I know.”
“You know what?”
“I know it’s a wedding dress and you’re wondering about it.”
He turns with a raised eyebrow. “Thanks for the breakdown.”
Oh Lord. I almost kissed Jason, didn’t I? His mouth did something rather indecent and, fine, pretty delicious to my neck. All of it was leading somewhere. In a way that I didn’t plan or anticipate. My brain wasn’t even in control. But common sense is back behind the wheel now and screeching its outrage at me. Rightly so. Am I really so fickle a woman that I could intend to marry one man, then kiss an entirely new one three days later?
No. No, I’m not fickle. I love and respect Elijah Montgomery DuPont. He’s a good man. The best man for me. We have the same interests, our families go back generations, we already bought furniture for our home. I chose my meditation room so it would overlook the water. Plans have been made. Yes, my cold feet and impulsive decisions put everything on hold. Maybe when all is said and done, I’ll have no chance of getting Elijah back. But I will try. I have no choice, if I ever want to be accepted into the family fold again.
“I fled my own wedding,” I rasp—and it sounds so much worse when I say it out loud. My legs give way and I drop onto the edge of the bed, the weight of what I did finally sinking in. Hard. “Everyone I’ve known since childhood was there, a year of planning and meetings and tastings…and I wrote a note and escaped down the back staircase.”
So much silence passes, I have to glance over to make sure Jason didn’t teleport from the room. But here’s there, all right. Tall, wide, imposing. Intense. Nothing moves apart from a ticking muscle along his bristled jawline. “When?”
“Saturday.”
“Three days ago?” He points a lethal-looking finger at the wedding dress. “Were you changing out of this in front of my house?”
“Well, I could have worn it, but that would have been an awkward interview.”
More jawline ticking. “Not really feeling the jokes right now.”
“Sorry.” I tighten my ponytail with a brutal tug. “I just knew if I stopped moving before I found a place to stay and a job to sustain me…if I stopped and thought about what I’d done, reality would hit and I’d realize I made a huge mistake and go back to Charleston.”
A beat passes. “Was it a mistake?” The room is eerily still. “Do you wish you’d gone through with the wedding?”
“Yes. And no.”
He laughs without any trace of humor. “Let’s talk about the yes first. Because if this closet door had been closed, we’d be rounding third base on this fucking bed right now, beauty queen, and we both know it.”
“Thank goodness the door was open then, because I don’t associate with men who use terms like third base. And fucking.” I shoot to my feet in a burst of frustration. “Are you happy now, Mr. Bristow? You got me to say fuck.”
“Do I look happy?”
“Do you ever?”
His chest expands on a measured breath. I can almost hear him mentally counting to ten and am pleased to be the cause. If only so I can take a moment to square up and prepare for our next round. Although why I am going rounds with this man at all is beyond me. We don’t owe each other anything, do we? Why does it feel like we do? When his mouth was on my neck, I can’t deny there was a moment of me thinking…finally. As if some subconscious part of me had expected to find myself in his arms. But that’s crazy, isn’t it? He’s mean and vulgar and nothing like men I’ve admired in the past.
“Explain what happened.”
Oh. Oh wow. I needed this. I needed to voice everything out loud to another human being. So badly that the truth comes barreling out like monkeys escaping from the zoo. “I was standing there in my perfect dress, poised to enter optimal stain-glass lighting—”
“You just lost me.”
“I couldn’t get married. I’ve never been tested or tried. I’m so lacking in experience and mettle and strength. I’m boring. I’m not ready to be a wife to Elijah when I haven’t even lived. Who am I offering him? I don’t even know the girl who would have recited her vows.” I roll my lips together. “And then I saw her coming up the steps of the church. My cousin, Addison. My father had an affair over two decades ago, but gosh, it might as well have happened yesterday. Addison is the daughter of the woman my father strayed with. The family turned their backs on Addison’s mother. Addison, too. But I’ve never seen anyone so full of…everything. She’s lived. She’s been tested. I needed that. I need to live. To learn what I can do myself. Otherwise I have no idea what I’m bringing to a marriage.
“My mother has brought up my father’s affair every single day since it happened. We’re the wives. Girls like Addison and her mother are just distractions. She used to say that to me, over and over, before I was old enough to even understand.” I shake my head. “I think some part of me believed my mother’s nonsense about us being only wife material until I saw Addison. I believed wife material was the goal. But…can’t I be a w
ife and a distraction? Can’t she?” I turn to Jason and find him watching me with shadows in his eyes. “I don’t want to be boxed and tied up with a bow.”
The silence stretches. “What is your plan?”
“Spend some time learning me. Just…being.” I lift a shoulder and let it drop. “Maybe when I go back, Elijah won’t look right through me. I have to try, don’t I?”
It doesn’t feel right, confiding that last part to Jason. Which is why I force myself to say it. The reaction Jason stirs in me is confusing and I can’t allow it to continue. It’s wrong when such a short time ago, I was pledged to someone else. And could be again in the future.
“You’ll go back to him when this is all over.”
The question is delivered in such a flat tone, I’m not sure it’s a question. Even if it was, it doesn’t feel right answering in the affirmative with Jason watching me. So I stay silent and let him interpret my answer. Yes. I can’t escape my reality forever.
Jason’s hands flex at his sides. “You can come and go as you please just as easily from our place. I won’t get in your way.” His voice sounds rusted as he drags out the suitcase from under the motel bed, tossing it onto the mattress. “Let me know when you’re done packing and I’ll carry it down.”
With that, he leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
And I’m surprised to find the finality of that click scares me a little.
*
Jason and I do not speak on the ride home.
We do not speak as he carries my suitcase up the stairs attached to his garage, where the boat seems to sit in quiet judgment. Or when I walk into the medium-sized studio behind him, carrying the wedding dress of doom over one arm. He leaves my things beside a full-size bed and returns a few minutes later with linens and some towels, setting them on the counter of a small eat-in kitchen with an off-handed grunt.
There was tension between Jason and me from the beginning and I’ve never understood it, so I’m not going to try now. He’s a complicated man with control issues. I’ve simply been lucky enough to land in his perceived jurisdiction. Enough said.
He rubs a hand along the back of his neck, nods and stomps from the studio, leaving me standing alone among the dust motes and scent of pine air freshener.
I pace to the window just in time to catch him entering the house, the door rattling on its hinges when he slams it behind him. Without a command from my brain, I pick up my right foot and stomp it down hard, a headache creeping in through the back of my skull.
All right, maybe I’ll try and unpack the reason for the tension between Jason and me just a little before I unpack my suitcase.
Crazy as it seems, I think maybe Jason wants to have sex with me. Might as well lay it out there bluntly. I might be unaccustomed to mating rituals of the super alpha, but after his reaction to finding out I recently belonged to another man—and very well could again—there’s no denying his…attraction. I can only assume he finds it unacceptable that I’m not simpering at his feet, grateful for crumbs of attention from the almighty war god.
Listening to my brain lie to itself, I slump down into the single kitchen chair. I remember how he froze up at the beer tour, visibly incapable of explaining his hasty entrance. I remember him outside of the motel, asking me to let him protect me. Jason Bristow isn’t the kind of man who accepts attention from a woman as his due. But it’s possible he wants mine—and I’m not free to give it to him.
Where would it lead anyway? I’m a Charleston girl. This is only my temporary home. Based on what Birdie said at dinner the other night, this isn’t Jason’s permanent home, either. He’s being deployed once Birdie graduates high school. St. Augustine is only a detour.
A knock on the door brings me hopping to my feet. “Yes?”
“You naked in there?” Birdie calls back.
The tightness leaks out of my muscles, leaving me slumped against the table. “No, I’m decent. Please come in.”
Birdie slides in on a pair of striped socks, a backpack slung over one shoulder. “We’re officially shacked up, I hear.”
“Yes, it’s been quite a day.” I chew my lip. “Does it bother you? Me staying here?”
“No, I’m just surprised.” She hops up onto the kitchen counter. “I kind of pictured you staying somewhere way nicer than this. Ocean view. Room service.”
“There was free coffee in the lobby.”
“We have free coffee, too, but you have to make it before Jason gets there.” She shudders. “He makes it way too strong.”
“That doesn’t sound like him.”
“Your sarcasm is duly noted.” She seems to be thinking something over, her mouth moving in time with her thoughts. “Is everything okay? Jason was even less of a sparkling conversationalist than usual when I got home.”
“Yes, everything is fine.” I press two fingers to my forehead, trying to massage away the mounting ache. “But would you mind if we skipped the run today? I’m not going to lie to you, Birdie, I discovered wine-and chocolate-flavored beer today and everything went downhill from there in deplorable fashion.”
That surprises a laugh out of her. “And that downhill slide included my brother clubbing you over the head and dragging you home?”
“You’re not far off.”
Birdie’s ankle starts to jiggle. “I know my brother comes off like an indestructible badass—that’s because he is. Being home has been hard on him because of it. It’s like throwing the Terminator into a knitting circle. He’s out of his element just walking down the street. Now he’s obligated to play my babysitter, too.”
Picturing Jason looking for danger on a perfectly peaceful street, my heart gives a heavy thud. “You’re way more than a simple obligation.” She seems skeptical—and also like she wants the subject closed. “Anyway, what does your brother’s condition have to do with me?”
She shrugs. “Once he decides you’re in his keeping, you get the full Jason.”
This is where I should point out that I didn’t ask to be in anyone’s keeping and I’m just fine on my own, thank you very much. But I manage to keep it to myself. It’s not that hard, actually, because I’m nursing a little bubble of sympathy for the man who wasn’t physically capable of leaving me at the broken-down motel. “Is he in the habit of collecting strays?”
“Nope. Just the two in this room.” She slides off the counter and removes a notebook from her backpack, flipping it open and dropping it on the kitchen table in front of me. Bold, slanting letters are tangled up with rough sketches of dresses, shoes, crowns. It’s a work of art that reminds me a lot of Birdie herself. Kind of chaotic at a glance, but smart and focused if you pay attention. “I had some extra time in study hall today and I spent it writing down my pageant vision, like you asked. I figure you’ll be able to whip my walk into shape and get me ready for the question and answer round, but I’m stuck on one minor part.”
“Which is?”
“I have no talent for the talent portion.”
“Um. Excuse me. You certainly do.” I pick up the notebook and turn it her way. “I can’t even draw stick figures. These dresses you’ve drawn could have come from the mind of a professional designer.”
Birdie snorts. “Doubtful. But either way, it’s not like I can draw on stage.” She blows out a breath. “Anyway, that wasn’t really Natalie’s style. She would have done something more traditional like singing or dancing.”
“Can you sing?”
Red appears on her cheeks. Likely feeling that rise in color on her face, she paces away, feigning fascination with the wall. “I don’t know. I’ve never sung in front of anyone before.”
“Not even Natalie?”
“No. I was more of the listener. Not that I minded,” she rushes to add. “You’re not going to ask me to sing right now, are you? That would be on par with jogging—on broken glass.”
Lord, I really like this girl. I don’t know if we have enough time to ensure she wins the pageant, but I’m going to do
everything possible to see she does well. No more daytime beer drinking. I’m not sure there was anything adventurous about that anyway. I’m still the same predictable Naomi. No matter, though. I’ll start small and work my way up. “I was once told by a pageant coach that when I sing, wine turns back into water. She called my voice the anti-miracle.”
“Harsh.”
“You don’t know the half. She used to follow me around with a tape to check my measurements. If she was feeling particularly mean, she’d wait until after lunch.”
The younger girl pulls a face. “What a bitch.”
A surprised giggle tumbles out of my mouth. “Language.” I wait until I can talk without laughing. “How about I start singing and you join in when you’re comfortable?”
She covers her face with her hands, dropping them a moment later. “Oh God. Fine.”
I stand up and clasp my hands in front of my waist. If I wasn’t still nursing a tiny buzz from the beer, I might be more self-conscious. As it is, though, I’ve had a terrible phone call with my mother today, sipped past my limit and been almost kissed by Jason. A little laughter at my expense won’t hurt. And laugh she does. As soon as the butchered beginning note of “America the Beautiful” leaves my mouth, she doubles over with laughter and I snort on the word spacious.
Birdie lets me get almost to the middle of the song before she adds her voice to the mix.
She’s as terrible as I am.
I drop into the kitchen chair and she plops onto the ground, both of us holding our sides to contain the mirth. She seems almost surprised to be laughing at all, and it’s probably the beer, but for some reason her astonishment sends me over the edge. “You didn’t even know you were that bad. I could tell.”
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