“I’d like to make a toast,” Jeff proposed, pouring each of the adults a glass of wine. He raised his glass, and everyone followed suit. “To Kane and Megan. May your love endure good and bad times.”
“Here, here!” Karen clinked her glass to Megan’s and Kane’s, starting a chain reaction around the table that ended with gales of laughter from the boys.
After dinner, Jeff and Karen took Andrew home with them for the weekend, explaining to him that Megan and Kane needed time alone to get acquainted. Without Andrew’s incessant chatter, the drive home was strangely quiet, but an undercurrent of sexual tension hummed between them. They both knew what would happen tonight… the beginning of their honeymoon.
Jeff had insisted that Kane take the next week off and go somewhere with his new bride, but the thought of being alone with Megan for seven days, with nowhere to escape if he needed to, kept Kane from accepting his boss’s generous offer. At home, at least, he was free to come and go if the events of the past week suddenly overwhelmed him or if the thought of the future sent him into a panicked state.
Keeping his gaze trained on the beam of headlights illuminating the road, he turned into his dirt drive and parked the car near the house. Silently, they exited the car and walked toward the porch. Moonlight glittered off a silver ice bucket perched on the porch railing, the neck of a champagne bottle sticking from the rim.
“Looks like the word has spread,” Kane said in a wry tone. He unlocked the front door, flipped on the porch light and came up behind Megan, thrusting his hands deep in his pants pockets. A light evening breeze blew, carrying the feminine, floral scent of his wife. He resisted the urge to bury his face in the fragrant hollow of her neck and forget about the impromptu wedding gift sitting on his porch.
“There’s a card,” she said, picking up the small white envelope propped against the bucket. “Let’s see who it’s from.”
He’d seen the envelope, but he hadn’t been about to touch it. But he was curious as hell who’d signed it. “By all means, let’s.”
“You don’t have to be so flippant about it.” She slipped a manicured nail beneath the flap while giving him a chastising look, tempered by something soft and infinitely sexy.
He pulled on the knot of his tie, loosening it from around his neck. “I just can’t imagine anyone in this town going out of their way to congratulate us.”
She frowned as she quietly read the message. “Well, whoever it is, they want to remain anonymous.” She flipped the card toward him.
Kane’s heart leaped into his throat. He stared at the bold script on the small card with wedding bells adorning one corner. Pure panic swamped him. She gave him a peculiar look, and he knew he had to think fast or sink even faster. “I have horrible night vision,” he said abruptly, squinting at the card. “What does it say?”
Her puzzled expression faded, replaced by a dramatic sigh. “Congratulations and best wishes-a friend” she recited breezily, then stuffed the card into the envelope. Turning, she patted his cheek and grinned sassily. “Your sparkling conversation at Andrew’s birthday party must have won over a few people.”
He wanted to laugh in relief and frustration. Instead, he gently grabbed her wrist, willing away the awful, sickening feeling churning in the pit of his stomach. Rubbing his thumb over the pulse in her wrist, he intentionally gave her something other than that damned card, and his reaction to it, to think about. “Regardless of who sent the champagne, I plan on enjoying it.”
Her lashes fell to half-mast. “Sounds good to me,” she said, her voice throaty.
Reluctantly, he released her. He picked up the ice bucket in one arm, opened the door for her with his free hand, then followed her inside the dark house. He set the champagne on the coffee table, switched on a lamp and shucked his coat and tie. He popped free the first three buttons on his shirt to give him some breathing room.
While he wrestled the plastic cork from the bottle, Megan turned on the stereo to a mellow station playing ballads, adjusting the volume to fill the sudden awkward silence between them.
This was their wedding night, and even though they both knew what the result would be, he didn’t want to rush through the preliminaries leading up to their lovemaking. They had all evening, all weekend, and he wanted to fill himself with every nuance of Megan, savor everything about his wife.
He had no fancy champagne flutes, so he retrieved two glasses from the kitchen and filled them with the bubbly drink. He handed one to her and they clinked them together in a silent toast and drank deeply. Powerless to keep his hands to himself any longer, he took Megan’s glass from her and set the pair next to the ice bucket.
“Isn’t it a tradition that the groom gets to dance with his bride?” he asked, drawing her into his arms without any protest from her. He didn’t claim to be Fred Astaire. He just wanted to hold her, touch her, drown in the light, floral scent of her. In other words, he wanted to drive himself crazy, and dancing close seemed like a damned good start in accomplishing his goal.
Her lithe body flowed into him. She tucked one hand in his and wrapped the other around his neck, a tremulous smile on her lips. “This hasn’t been a very traditional wedding.”
“Depends on whose tradition.”
She laughed throatily and curled tighter against him. “We’re making our own?”
“We could.” He smoothed a strand of hair from her flushed cheek, curbing the impulse to pull the pins out of her hair and sift his fingers through the silky mass. Soon, he thought. “We’ve got a lot of years ahead of us. We should make the best of it.”
Her beautiful smile fell away, and her lashes swept downward in an attempt to hide her emotions. But he knew she was thinking about their conversation about keeping secrets. God, he could give her anything but the truth, a shocking revelation that could easily tear apart the fragile vows that bound them. Coward or not, he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
Wanting her to forget everything but them, he swept a hand down her back, ran that same hand over her bottom and squeezed. Her breath hitched in her throat and her eyes flew open, wide with arousal. Her soft sigh rolled into a quiet groan of need. In an instant he was hard and aching.
Tipping her chin up with his thumb and forefinger, he lowered his head and captured her parted lips in a deep, openmouthed kiss that she returned fervently. Her fingers slid into the hair at the nape of his neck, and she clung to him. A raging need pounded through him, threatening the tight rein on his control. With effort, he ended the kiss and set her away from him.
They both gasped for breath, but he managed to catch his long enough to say, “If we don’t stop now, we’ll be on that couch making love with half our clothes still on.”
Looking dazed, Megan dragged her tongue over her bottom lip, still damp and swollen from his kiss. He suppressed a groan and the urge to follow through with his threat.
“Megan,” he warned thickly.
She smiled at him, a vixen smile that beckoned and cajoled. “I…I think I’ll go change,” she whispered.
Her sultry invitation was clear, but he didn’t follow her into his bedroom, opting instead to give her some time alone to prepare for their wedding night.
Half an hour and two glasses of champagne later, he entered his bedroom. The lights were off, but the room glowed from the five candles she’d lit and placed on the nightstand and dresser, giving the room a romantic ambience. The sweet scent of vanilla permeated the air, swirling around his senses like a potent aphrodisiac.
She’d turned down the bed, the bedspread folded neatly at the end of the mattress and crisp sheets pulled aside. Already she’d made her mark on his bedroom, having moved her clothes and personal belongings there that morning.
He heard a sound behind him and turned. His mouth went as dry as dust as he stared at the apparition in front of him. Nothing in his wildest fantasies came close to setting his blood on fire as the sight that greeted him.
This was no fantasy. Megan was a flesh-and-blood woman, sexy, sensual and tempting. She wore a silky peach nightie that reached mid-thigh, the flowing hem flirting enticingly as she shifted on bare feet. He dragged his gaze up, over the shadowed valley at the juncture of her thighs to where sheer lace cupped and molded her breasts.
Her hair spilled around her shoulders and shimmered like burnished gold in the candlelight. He nearly groaned at the sweet promises in her gaze. In that moment he selfishly wanted to take everything she was willing to give. And he hated himself because he had nothing to give her in return. His heart was empty, his soul too full of dark secrets to ever be redeemed.
But tonight he didn’t want to disappoint her. Tonight he’d be everything she wanted him to be, if only for a few hours.
