3 Brides for 3 Bad Boys (17 page)

She would have thought he would be too busy, but he made the time to see her.

He also insisted on eating every meal with her and would have gone shopping with them for the wedding dress if her mother hadn't thrown a hissy fit.

"You going to let me in?"

She stepped back. "Sure, but why are you here?"

Their wedding was the next day, and he'd said nothing about coming over tonight.

He came inside and shut the door. "I brought you a present."

"Oh, no… I don't want… " She didn't know what she wanted to say. They'd seen the lawyer earlier today, and Carter had transferred the five hundred thousand dollars into an account with an investment firm in her name.

They'd also signed pre-nups, and she was feeling sort of weird about all the money stuff.

"It's really a present for me." He took her arm. "Come on. You can open it in the living room."

He pulled her to sit beside him on the couch and then dropped a gift bag from Victoria's Secret in her lap.

She could feel the blush already starting, and she hadn't even removed the pink tissue yet.

"I want you to wear this under your wedding dress tomorrow. I want to think of it on you."

She stared at him. His eyes were the color of the sky at midnight, and they mesmerized her with their intensity.

"What is it?"

He leaned forward and kissed her. Just once, but with enough impact to steal her breath. He'd done a lot of that in the past three days, but he never let it go beyond a casual kiss. No inferno kisses burning up their bodies with need. "Open it and find out."

So she did, pulling the tissue out and dropping it on the floor. Then she pulled out a bra that made the one she'd bought to wear under her dress look like it should belong to her grandmother. This one was a demibra made of off-white satin with just enough boning and padding that she knew it would push her cleavage up to a whole new level.

"I don't wear push-up bras. I'm too big."

"Wear it, just this once for me."

She swallowed and made no promises. Then she pulled out a pair of panties that looked like a triangle of satin and some ribbon. "It's a thong."

Oh, my goodness.
Nice women raised in New Hope did not go around wearing thongs.

He winked. "They're going to look great on you."

She bit her lip and pulled the remaining item out of the bag, wondering what it would be. It was a pair of stay-ups. Thigh-high stockings with rubberized lace to make them stay up.

She fingered the sheer, silky fabric.

"You want me to wear all this under my wedding dress?"

He brushed her hair back from her neck and rested his warm hand there. "And nothing else. Will you do that for me, honey?"

She lifted her gaze from the lingerie to his face. His features were rigid with an emotion that left her feeling breathless. "I've never worn stuff like that. I'll feel silly."

"No, you won't. You'll feel sexy knowing you're wearing it just for me and that I know, too. You'll get hot thinking about me trying to undress you in my mind."

"During my wedding ceremony?" She was doing that Minnie Mouse thing again.

He leaned forward and kissed her again, lingering in a way he hadn't done in three days. "Yeah," he said against her lips.

Then he kissed her like he meant it, and she lost track of where she was, or anything else. When he stopped kissing her, she was in his lap with her hands buried deep in his hair and the press of his erection against her hip.

"So, are you going to do it?"

"Yes."

"Good." He kissed her on the tip of her nose. "I like it that you're so shy. You're practically a virgin."

"You can't be practically a virgin." And he didn't need to rub in how much more experience he had than her. "You are, or you aren't, and I'm not." Despite the fact it had been so long since she'd last made love.

No way would Carter ever have gone six years without sex. She doubted he could go more than a few weeks.

"Aw, honey, you're so cute when you get all offended and bristly."

"Did you want me to wear those scraps of silk, or not?"

He kissed her again in answer, and this time when they came up for air, she collapsed against him. "I want you."

"I want you, too, and tomorrow night I'll have you."

It sounded like a threat as much as a promise, and she shivered.

He smiled that wolf's smile again and stood up, setting her gently on the sofa. "I better leave now, or I won't leave at all."

"It was your idea to wait until tomorrow night," she reminded him.

"Yes, it was. You may not know the power of anticipation, little innocent, but I do."

"If you'd wanted a more experienced woman, I'm sure you could have gotten one and could have paid a whole lot less than half a million dollars for the privilege," she said, feeling stung by his teasing.

She was too sexually frustrated to find much of anything amusing at the moment.

It was his turn to look frustrated. "I'm not paying you to go to bed with me."

"Whatever." Which told him he could think what he liked, but she knew the truth.

"Watch it, sweetheart. I'm on a hair trigger, and I don't think you want to deal with the consequences if I go off."

She stood up, ignoring the lingerie scattered around her, and put her hands on her hips. "Are you sure about that?"

He laughed. "Wait until tomorrow night and find out."

"If you're so worried I can't handle you—" She didn't get the chance to finish.

He'd crossed the room in three long strides and put one arm around her and the other hand over her mouth. "You're going to handle me all right. Just the way I want. And for the record, I don't want a woman who is more experienced. I want you."

He moved his hand, but when she opened her mouth to answer, his was there.

Hot lips devoured her own until she was clinging like ivy to his powerful build.

He pulled back and peeled her away from him. "Hold that thought. Hold it real tight."

Stupefied from desire, she just watched him walk away. She didn't move again until several minutes after she heard the front door close.

Boy, that man could kiss.

Carter went to meet his brothers at the Dark Herring after leaving Daisy's house.

Colton had flown in that morning so he could be there for the wedding, and he and Rand said they wanted to celebrate Carter's upcoming marriage with him.

The other men were already sitting at a small table in the back when he got inside the bar. Colton had a coffee in front of him. Carter had been surprised to discover his younger brother didn't drink. At all. Rand, on the other hand, was sipping on whiskey. Carter ordered a screwdriver from the bar before sitting down to join them.

"You look mussed," Rand said, his mouth curved knowingly.

Carter finger-combed his hair, realizing he had done nothing to tame it after the incendiary kiss he'd shared with Daisy. "I went by to see my fiancée."

He liked the way that sounded, but he was going to like the word "wife" even better.

Colton didn't smile. The big man hardly ever did, from what Carter could see.

His younger brother wasn't dour, not really. Sober probably described him best.

Sober and conservative. He and Rand were almost total opposites, and yet, since meeting, they'd gotten along like … well, like long, lost brothers.

"So, you're not merely marrying the woman to fulfill Hoyt's stupid will?" Colton asked, sounding suspicious.

"Wanting her doesn't mean loving her," Rand pointed out.

Carter hadn't been expecting this, but maybe he should have. Neither of his brothers was the shy type, and he didn't think it would sit well with them if they thought he was getting married for their sakes or even for his mother's.

"I want to marry Daisy," he reassured them.

"Why now?" Rand asked.

"What do you mean
why now?"

"You came home from New York after a four-year absence, and all of a sudden you're engaged to marry one of your employees, a woman you've never dated and haven't seen in four years. I have a hard time believing it doesn't have anything to do with Hoyt's will."

"And if it does?"

His older brother's eyes narrowed. "If that's the case, it's a stupid thing to do."

"Marrying Daisy is not stupid."

"It is if you're doing it just to keep Sloane Electronics. The will is so screwy, any good lawyer worth his retainer could break it."

"Not without a lot of media fanfare," Carter pointed out.

Colton shifted his linebacker-sized shoulders. "So, you
are
getting married because of it."

"It plays a part," Carter admitted, "in the timing anyway, but marrying Daisy isn't all about the will."

"Do you love her?" Colton asked, sounding curious, but not condemning.

"I want her. Obsessively." Would his brothers understand that kind of desire?

He'd never felt it before Daisy, and he doubted another woman existed in the world that he would react to with such strong libidinous tendencies.

Rand considered him, and Carter felt as if he was being probed for secrets.

"Phoebe told me you left because you were sexually attracted to another woman.

Was that Daisy?"

He saw no reason to deny it. "Yes."

"You've wanted her for four years?" Colton asked, having heard the story of Carter and Phoebe's aborted engagement from Phoebe the first time they met.

She said family shouldn't have secrets from each other.

Carter nodded. "And I'm going to have her."

"Is it true you're paying her to marry you?" Rand sounded just like anyone's older brother interrogating him about doing something he didn't agree with.

It was odd, but Carter found it didn't irritate him.

"How did you hear about that?"

"Your banker is also my banker."

And confidentiality was not what it was cracked up to be in a small town like New Hope. "He damn well better not have told anyone else."

Carter didn't want Daisy embarrassed.

"I told him that. I don't think it will be a problem. He doesn't want to lose the business of both Alexander Computers and Sloane Electronics."

"Thanks."

"So, what gives with the money?" Rand asked, proving he wasn't easily sidetracked.

"I don't want her feeling trapped in the marriage if she wants out later."

Both of his brothers nodded, and he knew they understood his reasoning.

"Is she marrying you for the money?" Cotton asked.

"You're pretty damn blunt."

Colton almost smiled. "It's a family trait from what I can tell."

"The answer is that I don't know. I don't think so, but I have to tell you, at this point I also don't care." Which wasn't strictly true, but close enough. "If I don't make love to her soon, my balls are going to turn blue and fall off."

Both his brothers laughed. It was the first time he'd seen his younger brother do so, but Colton got serious again pretty fast. "Is she holding out for marriage?"

"No. I'm the one that's insisting on waiting for the wedding night."

"She's special, then." Rand sounded satisfied by the thought.

"Yes, she is." Daisy Jackson was very special, and soon she would be his. He couldn't wait.

C h a p t e r S i x

C
arter stood at the front of the small church, impatient for Daisy to walk down the aisle. Although the guest list was limited, he'd insisted on observing as many traditions as possible. He wanted Daisy to
feel
married, not like a woman who was being paid to go to bed with him.

Rand and Phoebe were there, making eyes at each other and smiling like idiots.

Colton was his best man. That had been Rand's idea. Carter thought it was a good one. His mother sat in the front of the church, pretending none of the others were there. She'd deigned to speak with Daisy's parents earlier, but only to cover the most basic social niceties.

Appearances again.

He really didn't care. As long as she maintained a courteous demeanor with his wife and her family, his mother could continue to live in her frozen world of social pretense. But he'd made it clear to her that if she did anything to make Daisy unhappy, Carter would cut her right out of his life. He didn't think she'd miss him, but it would hurt her pride to have a public rift between them.

He had no doubt she'd play nice.

The organ music started, swelling to fill the small church. Daisy's sister came down the aisle first, smiling to beat the band. She was very happy for her older sibling and had told Carter as much.

He forgot all about Bella and her approval because Daisy was there. Framed in the entryway, she looked so sexy, his cock stood up and saluted. Her dress did an incredible job of outlining her curves, while appearing old-fashioned with its antique lace and full skirt. The neckline put enticing cleavage on display that would have made him drool if his mouth wasn't so dry. Her make-love-to-me-while-I'm-wearing-them spiked heels made her calves look long and enticing.

Oh, man, he was going to embarrass himself in front of the minister and their guests. He tried reciting stock prices in his head as she walked down the aisle toward him, but lost focus for anything but her when her pretty brown eyes met his.

She looked nervous and a little scared.

He didn't want her scared. Or nervous. Regardless of the reasons for it, this marriage was going to be good.

The passion was going to be fantastic.

He caught her gaze with his own and put his hand out to draw her to him.

Someone made a choking noise that sounded like a stifled laugh, but he ignored it.