A Drive-By Wedding Read online

  “I can believe that,” Jeth muttered. Then, “Are they always like this?”

  “Yeah.” She shrugged. “Pretty much ever since I’ve known them, anyway. And my grandmother says they only get worse with age. And since one of my great-grandmothers is a hundred and something and still going strong, and the other is ninety-five or -six and still jetting all over the world, I believe her. She thinks irreverence keeps them healthy.”

  “Ah,” Jeth said. What else could he say?

  He turned to survey the room. The drapes were plaid, sturdy and dark but not overwhelming. There was a set of bunk beds on one wall, a double bed and a crib; a mismatched but utilitarian table and chairs sat atop a large braided rug near the windows. Two twin-size futons doubled as chairs in front of a fireplace, and a rough armoire arrangement acted as closet and chest of drawers. At the back of the cabin a door opened into a three-quarter bath of dubious vintage.

  The shower was a luxury, Allyn told him, as most of the camp’s visitors made use of the modern showers off the main hall. There were modern restroom facilities up there, too, although many of the cabins had toilets. Some of the more isolated cabins made use of outhouses and outdoor showers and—

  In short, Allyn blathered. She knew she was blathering, but self-consciousness had a habit of bringing that out in her. And she was, to say the least, self-conscious. It was one thing to spout invitations in front of people where nothing could happen to the man who lit one’s fire, quite another to find oneself tucked into a darkened room with him by one’s family, wondering how to get out of the awkward situation and still keep her dignity intact.

  “We need to talk about sex,” she blurted out of nowhere—and buried her face in her hands, scarlet to the roots of her hair.

  Well, that simplified that. Obviously there was no way she was going to keep her dignity intact.

  A strangled sound reached her ears. She peeked between her fingers to see Jeth struggling not to laugh.

  “Do we,” he said mildly. Not a question, more a statement of curiosity.

  “No.” She waffled. “Yes.” She glared at him. “Quit laughing at me.”

  His lips twitched. “But you’re funny.”

  “I don’t want to be funny, I want to handle this—you—”

  He choked on amusement, and her glower increased with the redness of her throat.

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I meant deal with this thing that keeps happening between us, because I mean it’s really started to get to me, and they’re off somewhere expecting…. God knows what they’re expecting, they’re just lunatics, and you’re no help because I look at you and my brain rattles even though I’m a more than reasonably intelligent woman—at least according to my academic records—and then we both say no sex, then one of us winds up kissing the other and everything inside me melts and I really want to understand why, and they think we’re on our honeymoon and they’re giving us time alone to…well, you know, be together, and I want and I don’t want and it just seems really awkward to have your mother and her sisters and their mother kind of setting you up and saying have at it especially when it’s all a lie and—”

  “Allyn.” A gentle command.

  “—I’m really confused right now, but I’m not other times and that just makes no sense because even though I’ve never done it I know what goes where and why and really, it’s just nature, isn’t it? But then they come along and I want to make love with you, Jeth, but it’s so embarrassing knowing they’re lying in wait with their nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more-say-no-more and their whoo-hoo and their so-what-do-you-think and I just—”

  “Allyn.” Still gentle but more insistent this time; he stepped close, and she ducked away. He turned her face toward him with a finger under her chin, bent his head and kissed her. “Shut up and let me love you.”

  Shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t, sang the wise man inside his head.

  Jeth wasn’t in the mood for either wisdom or shouldn’t. He was in the mood to hold Allyn Meyers close and relieve her embarrassment, her curiosity, her obvious need.

  To give her himself—what there was of him to give—before he left her safely with her family and slipped away with Sasha without telling her goodbye.

  He laved her mouth open with his tongue, made a foray between her lips. Whispered against them, “I want to love you, Allyn. Love me. Let me.”

  “Okay,” she agreed readily, blurrily, dissolving against him. “If you’re sure. If you want to. If it’s not too much bother.”

  He buried his face in her neck on a laugh that was mostly a groan. Slid his hands down her waist and over her rump to bring her tight against the painful stiffness hidden behind his zipper.

  “I want,” he assured her. “Judas, do I. And it’s definitely no bother, trust me.”

  “Oh,” she said breathless. She moved her belly against him. “Oh. That feels—is that what it feels like? Like your jeans are too tight?”

  Jeth shut his eyes and grimaced with pleasure and with strain. “My jeans are too tight. And the more you do that the tighter and more uncomfortable they’re getting.”

  “Oh.” She put space between them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I mean, should I—should we—should one of us…loosen them?”

  Jeth grinned. “That’d help, yeah, and we’ll get to it eventually. We’ve got the whole day, remember? No rush.” He pressed himself into the hollow of her thighs once more, bent his head and nuzzled the skin beneath her ear. “This is one of those things where anticipation is part of the pleasure—even when it’s, um, cramped anticipation.”

  “That’s what, um— Oh!” She gasped and liquefied against him when his teeth grazed a particularly sensitive spot, rested her hands on his biceps to steady herself. “That’s what the novels say, but, um— Oh, geez, Jeth!” She arched into him, tilted her head to grant him better access to her neck and throat. “What are you doing? That feels—that feels—I can’t believe how that feels. I can feel that everywhere, every—” She moaned when he pulled her hips against him and rubbed. “—everywhere, even in my breasts, and my stomach feels weird, is it supposed to feel weird? Are my breasts supposed to ache? Oh, please, Jeth, please. Touch me. Do something.”

  He smiled against her throat, amused, delighted, awed by her willingness to tell him what she felt. “Like this?”

  He traced his hands lightly up her sides, let his thumbs graze the outside of her breasts, up and around to her collarbone; outlined the V neck of her camisole to the upper edges of her breasts; ran his thumbs back up and over her collarbone, shaping, teasing…seducing. His tongue and mouth followed everywhere his fingers led, tasted….

  Heat.

  He locked an arm around her waist when she inhaled sharply and arched against him when his tongue dipped behind her camisole and into the valley between her breasts. Her moans were becoming whimpers of encouragement, her movements ineptly designed to bring him into greater contact with her breasts, her skin. She tried to slip away from him to get rid of her top. He locked his hands with hers and refused to let her.

  “Slow down, Allyn. There’s no hurry. Trust me.”

  “I do. I can’t…ooh…” Breath sobbed out of her. “It’s too hot for clothes, Jeth, please, I want it off, I need it off.”

  “Wait,” he ordered gently. “We’ll get there, I promise. Just let me make this good for you, Lynnie. Let me….”

  She rose against him, pulled his head to her chest, offering herself to him. “It’s good already, Jeth. I don’t know if I can stand it getting much better.”

  “Trust me,” he whispered, picked her up and carried her to the double bed, settled her on it and came down beside her. “It’s going to get a lot better, and you’ll be able to stand it.”

  “Okay,” she agreed breathlessly. “I’ll try.” She undulated to fit herself more tightly to him, stretched to give him greater access for the explorations that were making her skin tingle, her body wet, the secret place between her th
ighs ache. “Is this the time we should exchange medical histories?” she gasped. “I mean it’s not like we had blood tests before the non-wedding or anything.”

  “I’m clean,” Jeth murmured, smoothing the sweat off her chest with his lips. “I get tested every six months. I haven’t been active in over a year.”

  “Bully for you,” Allyn mumbled—a little churlishly. She had, after all, saved herself for him—whoever he might have been.

  Jeth laughed and raised his head, looked at her, eyes gleaming. “What, you know me four days and you’re jealous?”

  “Well…” She considered him for a minute. “Yeah. If I could wait, so could you.”

  He grinned, showing no repentance. “You are the most contrary woman I have ever known. I had a weak moment or two. I had no idea you’d be coming along. Sue me.”

  “Maybe later,” she sighed, laced her fingers behind his neck and pulled him into the most mind-numbing kiss he’d ever received. Pushed him away when he was sure he was drowning. Ran her hands restlessly over his chest and made another pronouncement. “I got stuck on a needle when we were cleaning a beach ’bout eight months ago. Two tests, both clean for everything.”

  “Good.” He was nearly beyond caring.

  She was just getting started. “Do you have any condoms with you?”

  He nuzzled her neck, her throat, slipped to her belly and nibbled his way beneath her camisole to graze her skin. “What?”

  “Condoms.” The muscles of her stomach contracted, her hands gripped the bedspread, pushed her up to meet his mouth. “Do you have some?”

  “Not with me,” he murmured—then, realizing what he’d said, he yanked himself away from her and sat up with an oath. “No. Damn. I don’t. Judas. How stupid can I be? I can’t protect you.”

  Allyn followed him up, slid her hands under his T-shirt and up his back. “You don’t have to protect me.”

  “Yeah,” he said flatly, pulling her arms around his waist and twisting to look her in the eye. “I do.”

  “No,” she told him firmly. “You don’t.” She kissed him silent when he would have protested again. “I can protect myself. My mother got pregnant with Becky and me when she was in high school, Becky thought she was pregnant before she graduated high school. I couldn’t make my mother smarten up because I didn’t exist at the time—not to mention I wouldn’t be here now if she had—and Becky wouldn’t use the condoms I went to the school infirmary and got for her. I’ve never used any, but that doesn’t mean I don’t go prepared.”

  Jeth’s grin was slow, reluctant and appreciative. He relaxed slightly in her embrace, rubbed the side of his head against her cheek. “A Girl Scout?”

  She kissed his ear. “Uh-uh. Eyewitness to possible disaster.”

  He chuckled, twisted and pushed her onto the bed with a deep, concentrated kiss. “Where are they?”

  “Huh?” Her turn to be foggy and vague, to reach out and try to drag him back. “Oh, um, in the van. In one of the small end pockets of my big duffel bag. With my extra underwear.”

  “Panty raid.” Jeth leered at her. “Never been on one of those.”

  Allyn rolled her eyes. “Don’t get carried away. It’s just practical cotton stuff, nothing exciting.”

  “Anything you wear is plenty exciting,” Jeth muttered under his breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He leaned down and kissed her senseless once more. “Save my place. I’ll be right back.”

  He left at speed, winking at her as he went.

  When he was gone, Allyn sat up and loosened her hair, pulled off her clothes and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to decide how to be her most provocative. Her skin felt moist and tingly, puckered and goose-bumped with self-consciousness. She wrapped her arms about herself and drew up her knees. It wasn’t as easy to be naked and waiting as she’d thought—or she wasn’t as brave as she’d hoped, nor as ready to take this step as she’d imagined. Biting her lips, she pulled her camisole and underwear on. Yawned and decided against the underwear. Crawled under the sheets and decided against the camisole, but jerked it on before she even got it off.

  Wondered distractedly if the way women were shown seducing men in film and on television really worked. Decided to practice.

  Legs akimbo, she tried draping herself seductively across the bed with the sheets positioned just so. She realized she had no idea what seductive looked like when she was doing it because she’d never had any use for the deliberately provocative look nor ever once figured out what it was men supposedly found so almighty sexy about the pouty lips and flicking tongue things women on TV and in the movies did to lure and tease them. Then she tried to determine what it was Jeth found sexy about her, wondered if there was any way she could build on that.

  Decided she was overthinking the situation the way she’d sometimes overthought her exams, so she shut her eyes and tried to let herself float in that place where nothing existed but the moment, the feeling, the act.

  She’d read love scenes, experienced the gut-deep wrench the words pulled out of her, but she wasn’t sure she believed reality could be shaded like words, that making love with the proper man could be quite so…intense that some women fainted or felt transported to an altered state.

  That making love with the right man would change your life and your outlook, make you part of each other no matter how far apart you later became, how much distance sat between you.

  It made Allyn consider her choices. Made her wonder if she was making the right one. Or if she was only falling under the spell of the moment—the intense and immediate desire for a family of her own that had so unceremoniously been fulfilled….

  The enforced closeness of the past several days with Jeth…

  The hostage syndrome that Gabriel occasionally talked about where she, the hostage, fell in love with her captor because he’d brought her to depend upon him, made her part of his plans and his life.

  Made her trust him for her well-being.

  In some odd way trusted her for his.

  Suddenly miserable with indecision, Allyn looked toward the door through which Jeth would soon return, then buried her face in her pillow. She couldn’t think. She didn’t want to think.

  She wanted to go on pretending to be Sasha’s mother and Jeth’s wife.

  She wanted to be both.

  But she wanted to be sure she wanted to be both for the right reasons and not simply because Jeth inflamed her body, knocked her heart senseless and had kept her in close contact with him—albeit partially by her own choice—for four days.

  Oh, hellfire and salvation. She just wanted to be.

  Marine biologist, mother, wife…

  Exhausted from a long night’s drive, an interminable morning’s grilling by her family and way too much Jeth to think and dream about, Allyn couldn’t help herself. She fell asleep.

  Jeth would have sworn he hadn’t been gone that long.

  Bemused and more than a little frustrated, Jeth stared at Allyn’s one exposed long leg and bare hip, the hiked-up and tight-stretched camisole that left almost nothing to his imagination.

  His groin tautened at even the suggestion of imagination. He stifled a groan and crushed the box of condoms in his fist. Without her underwear and shorts, and not quite modestly covered by her shirt and the sheet, she presented the most delectable picture of innocence and titillation he’d ever seen; he wanted to immerse himself in the portrait, to lose himself in her, avail himself of her secrets—discover what made her tick at the same time that he discovered what would make her gasp and scream and faint with pleasure.

  In short, he wanted a lot; more, he knew, than he was ready to admit, more than could possibly be good for either Allyn or him—although he had a feeling getting involved with Allyn would be a lot better for him than it could ever be for her. Where he was darkness, she was light; her presence could heat the world in which he dwelled; her absence…

  He didn’t want to consider what her absence might m
ean. It’d be so much easier to leave her if he didn’t know.

  Judas. His mouth twisted with self-deprecating laughter. How had he gotten from autonomy to here? To feel that now might stretch into forever in a blink, in a caress he knew without doubt she would return.

  Laughter faded. Of their own volition his fingers stretched out, hovered above her hip. He pulled them back. No, he couldn’t. He shouldn’t. Her slumber gave him an unexpected out, a moment to think clearly, to let sanity reign. He should take it.

  He let his gaze rove her body again, take in more than the exposed skin, the surface offer of sexual relief. This was Allyn; she believed in him without reason, helped him because she chose to, offered herself to him the way she had to no other man. Knowing that, he didn’t want to be sane. He wanted to be crazy and worry about the consequences later.

  But of course there was that niggling but….

  But his shorts were already three sizes too small from the mere taste of her mouth on his tongue. But if he got into bed with her now, it would be days, weeks, months before he’d want to get out again. He didn’t have that kind of time. Sasha didn’t have that kind of time. And because she was important enough to him for Sasha’s enemies to use her against him—Allyn didn’t have that kind of time, either.

  Hell, it was too complicated. Go, stay… The answers were vague and full of negatives from all angles. Take her with him, leave her behind. Either way was fraught with dangers—for her, for him and most especially for Sasha.

  His original intent had simply been to get them all to Tucson where he’d once been certain his home office could help him sort out Sasha’s safety, would make sure the toddler was not returned to the men who would do him irreparable harm. Unfortunately, Jeth was no longer certain he could trust his home office any further than he trusted the guys with whom he’d worked in Baltimore. There were simply too many things that didn’t add up about this whole assignment—now that he was no longer too bent on self-destruction and self-loathing to realize it. Hell, if it hadn’t been for Marcy….

  Awareness almost breached the fringes of consciousness before fading. There was something about this that seemed almost familiar, too similar to what had happened three years ago, but damned if he could place it. Too focused on the moment instead of on the things that made it up. That’s what his father would tell him. And damned if his father didn’t have the gall to be right more often than not.