Saving the Bride

by Kira Blakely

  Agnete scuttled off to fulfill our order at the pop-up bar in the corner. The atmosphere was rustic, despite the presence of resort staff. The couple across from us were wrapped up in each other, making out, the woman straddling her partner—who just so happened to be the dude in the robes who’d married the couple.

  I shook my head and focused on Katie instead of the craziness here. “You wanted to talk?”

  “Didn’t you? You were the one who said you don’t even know me,” she replied, shifting closer so she wouldn’t have to shout over the music and laughter. “What did you mean ‘it’s dangerous out here?’”

  I eyed her and opened my mouth to reply, but the waitress arrived with our drinks just then. I thanked her, took the beer, and downed half of it in a few gulps.

  “Thirsty?” Katie asked, although she had polished off half of her drink as well. She smiled at me, tilting her head to one side, her breasts peering out of that dress. That fucking dress. “What?” She frowned at my scrutiny. “You’ve got a weird look on your face.”

  “Do I?” People didn’t usually get a good read on my face.

  “Yeah, totally. So, you were telling me why I’m in danger?”

  I took a breath. Did I owe it to her? I could shove her on a plane back to New York and call it a day. Can you though? This woman was stubborn as hell. She didn’t follow instructions, and she took control too often.

  “Hello? Earth to Logan Wright,” she said, and clicked her fingers in front of my face, then finished off the rest of her drink. “Are you having an aneurysm or something?”

  “Charming,” I replied, then leaned in and brushed the hair from her neck and away from her ear. I plugged it so she’d hear me over the music, then touched my lips to the shell and whispered, “There are dangerous men after me. They’re waiting for me to slip up, and if they realize that you’re here with me, they’ll hurt you too. I don’t want that to happen, Jinx. You’re going to leave before it’s too late for you. I’ll buy your ticket, pay for whatever you need to get out of here.” I finished and sat back.

  Her neck had broken out in goosebumps. My gaze strayed to her breasts. Her nipples poked the fabric of that cursed dress.

  “I’m not leaving,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this is where I need to be.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Explain that, Miss—”

  “Hendrickson,” she said. “Took you long enough to ask.” Katie placed her hands in her lap and twisted them together. She was nervous. “I— Well, I guess I can’t leave, because this is where I want to be. I’m not really a novelist. That’s just what I want to be.”

  “Oh?” So, she’d lied. Instantly, the walls which had lowered slightly with her slammed back up and into place. Trust no one. That had been my motto for the longest time.

  “I write for a magazine at the moment,” she said, “but my dream is to be a traditionally published author. I’d love to write fantasy novels, and that’s part of the reason I was here, I guess. To follow the dream. I was going to meet with a publisher here, and one of his contacts, an author I met on Twitter. But that fell through.”

  “I see no reason why you can’t leave.”

  “Because I don’t want to,” she replied firmly. Her thigh was pressed against mine, her dress still hiked up slightly. “And, you know? Generally, I don’t do things I don’t want to do. What about you, Mr. Wright? I don’t mean to be blunt, but you were balls deep in me a couple of hours ago, and I still don’t know much about you. Tell me, why are you in trouble?”

  “That’s need to know information.”

  “Well, if I’m involved in this somehow, don’t you think I need to know?” she asked, and her face hazed slightly. I blinked to get rid of it and finished the rest of my drink. Christ, was I drunk already? One drink and I was fucked? Since when did that happen?

  “No,” I replied.

  Katie scrubbed her face, then swiped sweat from her forehead. “Shoot, are you hot? It’s so friggin’ hot here.”

  “I agree,” I said, and offered her my arm. “Let’s walk down to the ocean.” It’d give me a chance to figure out my next move. My phone was silent, and it didn’t feel like a good thing. Marino would be furious. If Katie’s appearance had ruined what chance we had to nab that man…

  “So, you won’t tell me why I’m in trouble or why you are,” she said, as we rose from our seats. She stumbled into me, and I caught her and held her upright. “But will you tell me more about who you are? I’d like to know the type of man I slept with.”

  I laughed and swerved between the tables, the sands lurching around me. What the hell was this? Something was wrong. Very damn wrong. We trekked away from the tables, the music, and the partying, and stopped at the shoreline.

  Katie rested her head on my shoulder. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “A businessman.”

  “Is that all?”

  “A bachelor.”

  “Why?”

  “Because relationships are complicated.” The answer was trite. Perhaps she deserved a better answer than that. “I married the woman I thought was the love of my life when I was eighteen. She cheated on me with my best friend. The same best friend who set me up when we were boosting cars. I was sent to prison.”

  She peered up at me, blinking. “Wow.”

  “Not many people know. I’ve taken great pains to keep my past private. It doesn’t help having tattoos and a record when you’re trying to close deals.”

  “And sell jets, right? Luxury jets.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “What about you? You have a sob story to share?”

  “Not really. I’ve just been into work for most of my life. I guess I never really put stock in the whole ‘get married, settle down, have two and a half kids’ thing. White picket fences aren’t my style. I’ll tear through the fences on my way to the next big adventure.”

  “Is this your next big adventure?” I asked.

  She tottered in the sands, then flopped down on them. “You tell me.”

  I sat down beside her, frowning. “Are you okay?”

  Her face swam in and out of view. “Now I am.” She crawled into my lap, gripping my face in her hands, and kissed me. “Make love to me.” Her words slurred. “Here on the beach.”

  “Something’s wrong.”

  “Something’s always wrong. But with you, it’s all right,” she whispered.

  My hands traveled down the front of her dress and back up again to her breasts. I cupped them through the fabric and lost track of the world.

  Images flashed through my mind.

  Beauty and sex. Naked bodies. Katie swaying from side to side in my arms, dancing. A man in multicolored robes, a veil, laughter. The pop-pop of firecrackers, the brightness of the rising sun.

  I held her and fell into darkness.

  Chapter 8

  Katie

  Sunlight turned the insides of my eyelids bright red and brought me searing back into consciousness. I groaned and tried to lift my arm, but couldn’t.

  “What—?” I couldn’t finish the sentence. The inside of my mouth was drier than the Sahara desert. I opened my eyes. My head throbbed like I’d been struck with a hammer, and I squeezed them shut again. “What?” I repeated, trying to wriggle my arms and legs.

  Nope, still couldn’t move.

  One, two, breathe. This is totally okay. You can’t remember anything about last night, but still, totally fine, right?

  No, not right. I was spontaneous and adventurous, but I didn’t do blackout drunk. I hadn’t fallen into that writer’s trap yet.

  “You can do this,” I muttered and forced my eyelids open again. It took a gargantuan effort to keep them that way. Slowly, I lifted my aching head—or, rather, the brick that had replaced it—and looked around.

  Except there was a very big man in my way. Logan’s face was smooshed against my chest, and the rest of his body was intertwined with mine. He was shirt
less, and there were hearts drawn in Sharpie all over his cheek and his back.

  Hot look.

  Beyond Logan was the cabana, now empty apart from a few snoring couples passed out on the loungers or in the sand. The remains of the day’s party were being cleaned away by resort staff in their uniforms. They picked between the people, lifting empty glasses and bottles or plates of food from the tables.

  “Good god,” I whispered. “What time is it? What the hell happened?” I shook my head and instantly regretted it. Pain sprouted behind my eyes but I kept them open. This wasn’t a disaster. It couldn’t be a disaster. I wouldn’t let that happen.

  I wormed my arm free of Logan’s and poked him in the ribs. “Hey! Hey, billionaire, wake the hell up.”

  He groaned and nestled against my breasts which were, thankfully, still tucked beneath my dress. At least I wasn’t tits out on the beach.

  Panic shuttled through me, along with a dawning realization: I couldn’t remember anything, and I was almost entirely positive that I’d had one drink last night. One. I wasn’t a lightweight unless they’d given me illegal vodka.

  Or something else.

  Thoughts of spiked drinks and the night I’d met Logan came back to me. I poked him again, and again. “Hey, hey, hey!” Each “hey” was punctuated by a poke. “Hey, wake up, right this second. Right now.” If he could remember what’d happened, it would give me some relief at least. He’d saved me once from a bunch of creepy losers; maybe he’d done it again.

  But then, why would we still be here? Why not back at the bungalow, warmly tucked away in our beds? Oh god, had we had sex again? Out here on the beach?

  I wracked my brain again.

  Okay, we’d stumbled upon the wedding party. We’d spoken to the bride and groom, sat down, and talked about what’d been going on. We’d had a drink, and I distinctly recalled going down to the water’s edge and him mentioning he’d been engaged once, and in jail. And then… had I kissed him?

  I increased the severity of my pokes to Logan’s side. “Wake up!”

  “Fuck,” he groaned. “All right, all right. I’m up, Jeeves. Put a call in to Jessica and ask her to cancel my morning appointments.”

  “Who the hell is Jeeves?” I asked.

  “Huh?” Logan peeled the side of his face from my breasts and squinted around at the beach, the horrifically bright sun, and the waves washing up on the shore behind us. “What the fuck?”

  “Yeah, my sentiments exactly. You mind getting off me?”

  “Shit,” he grunted and scrambled to get up. He tripped, caught himself in the sand, then finally righted himself. “What the hell?” Logan ruffled his hair, sexy even in his groggy, hungover confusion, and then offered me his hand.

  I took it, and he hauled me to my feet.

  “Do you remember anything about last night?” I asked, dusting the sand off my dress. “Like… anything at all?”

  Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “No. And I feel like I drank all the alcohol on this damn island. Which is impossible, since I only remember having one drink—” He dropped his hand, touching it to the front of his boxers, anger flashing across his expression. “Where the hell are my pants? And my shirt?”

  “Yeah, nice new tats by the way,” I said, and pointed at the hearts plastered all over him. “Very in vogue. As for the clothes, I have no idea.”

  “Come on,” Logan said and took my hand. “I gotta sit down before my damn head explodes, and we’ve got to figure out what happened last night.”

  “Judging by what I’ve seen so far, we had a good time,” I replied. “Maybe a little too good.” The attempts at humor were my way of dealing with whatever this was. In all my life, even during my college years, I had never gotten blackout drunk, and I had certainly never woken up under a half-naked man.

  Logan led me to one of the tables and sat me down then did the same himself. He massaged his temples, rubbed those massive palms together and placed them on the table. “My phone,” he said. “Fuck.”

  “Your phone?”

  “My phone was in my pants. Without it I’m—” He cut his sentence off and looked over at me squinting, and not because of the light this time. There was suspicion in his gaze. “You really don’t remember anything?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m lying. I secretly drugged you to get you on top of me.” I paused for effect. “Of course, I don’t remember! What motivation would I have to lie, for Pete’s sake?”

  “Well, somebody around here has to know what happened.” Logan leaned back a little and waved to one of the resort staff who was in the process of packing a big container full of dirty dishes and spent beer bottles.

  The guy jumped and hurried over, leaving his work behind. “Sir,” he said, and halted beside the table. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I’ll say,” I muttered, and rubbed my eyes this time. God, that hammer still hadn’t quit, and I was absolutely parched.

  “Were you working the beach this morning?” Logan asked, right away.

  “No, sir, I’ve only just clocked in,” the guy replied. “Uh… is there anything I can get for you?”

  I dropped my hands and opened my mouth to answer, but Logan overrode me.

  “Do you know anyone who was on duty this morning? I want to speak to them, right now,” he said, brusque as all hell. There was something about the way he spoke, as if he expected everyone to just jump to it and that was the end of the matter.

  It was equal parts annoying and hot.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the young man continued, shifting his weight from one foot to another, “I have no idea who was on duty this morning. I can try to find out. In the meantime, would you like something to eat? To drink?”

  The word “eat” brought on a tide of nausea. “I’d like a water,” I managed.

  “Make that two. And some aspirin if you’ve got it,” Logan put in.

  The guy rushed off to do our bidding, and we sat in silence, staring at the carnage before us, offset by the ocean breeze and the turquoise waves. Trouble in paradise.

  The staff member hurried back with two glasses of water and some aspirin, and we both tossed it back. Water, sweet water—it was a relief, the cool aqua trickling down the back of my throat helped me out, all right. I was at least fifty percent better after the first three sips.

  I closed the bottle up and placed it on the tabletop.

  “All right,” Logan said. “Let’s go over what we remember from last night.”

  I picked my memory again. “The last thing I remember is being down there on the beach and… well, ahem. Well, I kind of think I threw myself at you? I remember kissing you.”

  Logan skewered me with that dark stare and worked my lips together. “I remember that too,” he said, his voice deeper than it’d been a couple seconds ago. Hunger flashed across his expression and disappeared again. “I remember a little more than that. I— Shit, well, shit.”

  “What is it?”

  “I remember pulling your dress up, and you didn’t have anything on underneath,” he said. “And then I slipped inside you.”

  I squirmed slightly on the bench. It was insane, but him saying it turned me on just a little. Okay, a lot. Whatever. Focus on the issue at hand. You’re here to do an exposé on this guy, and you can’t even remember what happened last night.

  “Anything else?” I asked, breezily, though my voice cracked a little in the middle of the sentence.

  “No,” he said and cleared his throat. “That’s about it. Fuck, what the actual fuck is going on here?” He closed his fist around the plastic bottle and crushed it. It popped and splashed water on the tabletop.

  “Easy Hulk,” I replied. “We’ll figure this out.”

  “I don’t like being out of control.” Logan shifted the bottle across the tabletop. “I don’t do unexpected surprises.”

  “I’m the exact opposite,” I said and reached for the bottle. The sun glinted off my finger, and I blink
ed at the glare. Wait a second… what? What is on my finger? I twiddled the digits on my left hand, staring.

  Horror set in. My stomach clenched hard. “Oh no,” I whispered. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no.”

  “What?” Logan’s perfect brow wrinkled. “What’s wrong?”

  “Well, you remember last night?”

  “No, and frankly I’m concerned that you haven’t been following the thread of this entire conversation,” Logan said.

  I thwacked him on his insanely buff bicep. “No, dude. Oh my god, I think I’m going to be sick. This is not happening.”

  “Easy,” he said, and massaged my shoulders just below the base of my neck. His touch was gentle, but still, my entire body jolted back and forth from the motion. “Easy.”

  “Remember when we arrived last night and we saw the guy in the multicolored robes and the bride and the gr— … gr— …”

  “Groom,” he added, helpfully.

  “Yeah, that one. Oh god, and they came over and told us to join in?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I think we joined in. Literally.” I lifted my hand off the bottle and placed it right in front of his nose, then twiddled my ring finger, showing off the cheap, bright yellow band on it.

  Logan stopped stroking my back. His jaw dropped. “What the— What? How?”

  I nodded frantically. “We’re married. That technicolor dude—”

  “No.”

  “I know!” I covered my face with both hands. This was a disaster. I was married to the man I was supposed to be investigating, under penalty of death. It couldn’t get any worse than this.

  Logan was silent and stiff at my side. I didn’t bother checking on him. He was probably in the same state of shock I was.

  “Fuck,” I whispered.

  “No,” he repeated. “No, this is fine.” His voice was gruff, and the bench wobbled as he rose from it. “Katie, it’s going to be fine.” He took me by the elbow and lifted me from the seat.

  I stood and stepped out onto the sands, shaking my head and holding back emotion. I wasn’t much of a crier. I’d learned from my mom that crying didn’t help much in a tough situation. When my father had left when I was younger, she’d never cried in front of me, but instead had only kept me smiling, laughing. I’d follow her example, even if it hurt like hell to hold back. “How is this ‘fine?’” I managed and kept my tone even. “We’re married.”