Kiss the Bride (27 page)

“Rage?”

“Jealousy.”

“Jealousy?” she squeaked. It was not what she expected him to say.

“Jealousy,” he confirmed. “We’re sitting in my grandmother’s living room, watching your ideas on television, and then the phone rings and we find out you’ve sold her house.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted. What we all wanted.”

“No,” Nick shouted. “I wanted to be the one who took care of her. But you… you… come into her house, into our lives, and you changed everything.”

“It was your idea to decorate the house in a Tuscan theme. I wanted to do it in something simple and chic. I wanted to make it look like some house from a glossy magazine. You’re the reason her house sold, not me. You have no reason to be jealous.”

He jammed his fingers through his hair in frustration. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“No, I don’t.” She sank her hands on her hips and watched him stride back and forth, back and forth, a caged animal desperate to break free.

He stopped pacing and came over to glare at her. “I’m jealous of that ring you have on your finger and of the man who put it there. I had to sit across the room from you tonight, watching you, wanting you, being so proud of you, and knowing I can’t have you. You fit in so well with my family. It’s like you belong there more than I do. And every time you looked over at me, smiled in my direction, it was ripping my guts out.”

His words were ripping her apart too.

“I tried the very best I could to control myself,” he said. “And whether you realize or not, you’ve been toying with me. Flirting and confiding in me, but then using that damn diamond ring as a shield from getting close.” He ground out the words.

Was it true? Had she been leading him on? It wasn’t a pretty thought. She reached out her hand to touch him. “Nick, I’m so sorry, it was never my intention to lead you on.”

“Don’t touch me,” he threatened. “If you touch me, I’m going to lose it. I’ve been hanging on by a thread ever since we kissed, and I can barely keep my hands off you.”

Silence strummed the heavy salt air, stretching between them vast as the ocean.

She felt sorry for him. And for herself. They had met at exactly the wrong time in their lives. She was spoken for and he, on the rebound, hurting from his knee injury and his grandfather’s death, couldn’t really trust what he was feeling for her.

Nick was an intensely physical guy cursed with a strong moral compass. He wouldn’t let himself act on his desires. No matter how difficult it was for him to keep them in check. She understood then why he’d gone into law enforcement. The attraction such a dangerous job held for a man like him. To Nick, the combination of a job that let him move and breathe and the justice it meted out would be the best possible career.

It would be wrong to touch him now. So very, very wrong. Compounding the problem. Making things worse.

Helpless, unable to hold herself back, she reached up and ran her fingertips along his jaw.

“You’re playing with fire, Delaney.” His eyes were dark and deadly. “I’ll burn you up.”

A hot rush of overwhelming desire surged through her. Her knees trembled. “Burn me,” she cried.

He cupped her chin in his palm. “Be very careful what you ask for, Rosy.”

“Nick.” His name slipped past her lips on a sigh.

He captured her mouth without a moment’s hesitation, fast and deep and hot.

Her lips parted for his. Eager and excited.

He splayed one hand against the back of her head, stabbing his fingers through her hair and hauling her closer.

They were chest to chest and she could feel his heart leaping against hers, quick and thrilling.

The reckless wildness startled Delaney. The stunning intensity of her feral need. Raw nature. Their passion was a brewing hurricane, threatening to roll ashore and decimate everything in its path.

How she wanted to ride out the storm! To let it overtake her, bring her down. Ruin her.

She wanted him here and now. Nothing else mattered.
All she knew was that nothing in her life had ever felt so right.

Sighing, Delaney sank against him, swept up in the feel of his calloused palms against her bare arms, the force of their tangling tongues and raspy breaths. Who would have guessed they’d be so hot together? The cool heiress and the fiery cop.

His lips trailed from her lips to her cheeks, to her forehead, to her temple where his mouth rested quietly against her throbbing pulse. The sweetness of the gesture in the wake of that fever-pitched kiss left her breathless and trembling.

She couldn’t think, could barely remember her own name. The civilized part of her brain was numbed with lusty hormones. The animal part took over. Claimed her. Each and every sensation in her body dominated by the rough, decadent touch of him.

“Take me,” she whispered.

Nick needed no more invitation than that.

He pushed her into the sand, not caring that it was damp. He was as hard as a man could get and growing harder by the second. His heartbeat spiked. It was a sudden kick in his chest, a vigorous thudding in his groin.

Any doubts he might have had about what he was doing vanished in the hazy heat of the moment. He forgot that she was engaged. Forgot that they were on a public beach where anyone could come upon them at any moment. He was consumed by a hunger so elemental it transcended everything else. He felt it to his soul, this wanting. He’d never felt anything quite this intensely.

She made him feel so real. So alive. He hadn’t realized how shut off he’d become.

And when she slipped her arms around his neck and
drew him closer still, the pupils of her eyes widening darkly, he surmised she was just as startled as he was by the power of this thing between them.

He’d grown so cynical over the years and he thought he was immune to these kinds of feelings, especially after Amber. But here he was aching with the need to explore her fully, to burrow his way deep underneath her perfect facade.

Blindly, without purposeful thought, Nick trailed his fingertips over the nape of her neck and leaned his head down to kiss the throbbing pulse at the hollow of her throat. Her silky skin softened beneath his mouth and a tight little moan escaped her lips.

His hand crept from her neck and down the hollow of her throat to her breast heaving with each inhalation of air. A simple but lingering touch that escalated the intimacy between them and felt extremely erotic.

The air smelled of electricity. The ocean crashed loudly with the darkness of his deed. Stealing another man’s woman. Time hung, suspended as they looked into each other’s eyes.

Nick could not fully comprehend the hold Delaney had over him. She made him want to chuck all his values and morals and just do what felt good. He was a lost soul, vanquished by her kiss. Nick could think of nothing else but being melded with her in any way that he could.

She rocked her pelvis against him, lithe and graceful.

Blood dove through his body, pouring out from his heart and pooling into his crotch, setting his erection in stone. He closed his eyes, grappling for some semblance of control, but it was nowhere to be found.

He kissed her again, his clashing tongue hot against hers, enjoying the glorious taste of her.

She shivered in response, a tremor quaking through her slender body. He pulled his lips from hers and ran his tongue over the outside of her ear and she shuddered even harder.

Her quick intake of breath, low and excited, in the vast openness of sea and sky, ignited his own need, sending it shooting to flaming heights.

She lightly bit his chin.

The feel of her teeth against his skin rocketed a searing heat to all of his erogenous zones and he groaned. God, she was one helluva woman, willing to walk out on this limb with him.

Nick’s lips found hers again and as they kissed, he raised a hand to touch her breast.

Her nipple poked through the material of both her silky lace bra and her silk top.

His thumb brushed against her hard little button and she responded by wrapping her legs around his and sliding her bottom against his upper thigh. The feel of her panties against the leg of his jeans was highly sensuous.

When he bent his head to gently suck at her nipple through her shirt, she gasped and clutched his head to her.

This wasn’t good enough. He had to touch her bare skin or go insane.

Sliding his hand up underneath her shirt, he unhooked her bra from behind and set her breasts free. She moved against him, mewling softly. Her usual reticence was gone, replaced by a stark hunger that shoved his libido into overdrive.

No way could he resist the mounting pleasure, nor the sweet little sound slipping past her lips.

And yet, even as he succumbed, he couldn’t help thinking that he was pushing her into this, no matter
how eagerly she responded. He wanted her. But not like this. He wanted her to come to him once she had faced the problems in her life and untangled herself from Van Zandt. He didn’t want their joining to spring from his anger or jealousy. Or from her desire to please him. He wanted her to want him unequivocally, with all her heart and soul. He would play second fiddle to no other motive.

“We’ve got to stop,” he gasped, wrenching his mouth from hers. “I can’t do this. I won’t do this. You belong to someone else, and I won’t violate your commitment. It’s wrong and we both know it.”

She drew in a shuddering breath. “Nick, no… please… don’t stop. It feels too good.”

“I made a promise to you. We can’t do this.” He shook his head. “Not as long as another man’s ring is on your finger.”

Delaney got home around midnight, her clothes damp and filled with sand. Her mind in turmoil, her soul filled with a dark roaring, like a house in a hurricane. Buffeted by a destructive force she could not control.

Thankfully, her parents were in bed. No Honey to deal with. No need to explain the wild, desperate look she knew was etched into her face.

Delaney undressed in her bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror, felt the cool tile beneath her feet. Who in the world was this woman? She was morphing into someone she no longer recognized.

Tonight, she’d almost been unfaithful to Evan. Delaney would never have believed herself capable of such a thing. Of violating her most basic principles. She shuddered to think what would have happened if Nick hadn’t had the moral courage to put on the brakes.

Searchingly, she raised her fingertips and traced the outline of her lips, raw and aching from the imprint of his mouth. Trying desperately to make sense of the emotions commanding her.

The map is not the territory,
she thought. It was a piece of paper marked with symbols and lines, a representation of a place.
You are here.
But when you were actually there, the space around you did not look like the map drawings. There was undocumented terrain and surfaces not captured. There were scents and sounds and tastes and textures no map could denote. There were secret alcoves and gradient shadows and varying shades of light and hue.

On the outside, Delaney’s external map was a glossy image—perfected by scalpel and etiquette, but her internal map of reality was distorted by her changing values and beliefs. By the filters life as a Cartwright had placed on her sense of self.

What did she want?

Where did she fit?

Who was she really?

Unable to answer these disturbing questions, she blocked them out and hopped into the shower, eager to wash away her sins.

She turned the water as hot as she could stand it and let it roll over her in heated waves, but no amount of steaming water could drown her guilt. When the water finally ran cold, she got out of the shower, dressed in silk pajamas, and climbed into bed.

Her mind kept going back to Nick and what had occurred on the beach. She tried to barricade her heart against him. To tell herself these feelings weren’t important. That hormones couldn’t be trusted, but she knew it was all a lie to salve her aching soul.

The phone, which was a private line into her bedroom, rang. She checked the caller ID. Out of area. Who was calling so late? She picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Delaney, it’s Evan.”

Guilt rushed her. Guilt, guilt, and more guilt, combined with a strange sense of relief and gratitude. Thank heavens he had called. She needed so badly to hear his voice. So desperately needed for him to bring her back to the values she had almost thrown away in the heat of passion.

“Evan, it’s so good to hear your voice. I’m so happy that you called.” She crossed her legs into a semi-lotus position.

“It’s not too late to be calling? Did I wake you?”

“No, no.”

“I’ve missed you so much, Delaney,” his voice cracked with emotion.

“I’ve missed you too.” And she had missed him, in her way, missed that he hadn’t been here to stop her from making a huge mistake.

“I was thinking about you tonight,” he said. “I think about you every night and all through the day.”

“I think about you too.”

“I can’t wait to see you. We’ve got so much to discuss.”