Kiss the Bride (6 page)

Goose bumps dotted her skin at his appreciative stare. Her breasts prickled, her nipples tightened, and her throat closed off.

And Delaney was terrified he would notice how her body was betraying her desire.

She felt trapped, and the thought sent a shiver through her that she couldn’t dismiss as being chilled. It was June in Houston. Hot, humid, sticky. Plus, she was startlingly aware that her thin plastic raincoat was molded tightly against her curves.

So was the good-looking stranger.

What had she gotten herself into? His lips hovered above hers, and she made the deadly mistake of staring at his mouth.

Anticipation raced her heart.

Perturbed by both his mocking and her stupidity for listening to her friends and dressing up like this, she splayed her palms against his chest and pushed. “Get off me, you big oaf.”

Usually, she wouldn’t have been so rude, but this was not a normal circumstance, and the roguish expression on his face was just begging for a bad-mannered comment.

“You’re freakin’ gorgeous,” he murmured. “What gives? You shouldn’t have to throw a tarp over a guy to get him to go out with you.”

“Off!” She tried to sound tough and bitchy, but she wasn’t good at tough and bitchy, and she came off sounding more scared than anything else.

“Yes, ma’am.” He rolled to one side.

“And give me that back.” She sat up and snatched the dildo from his hand.

He laughed then, a rich, melodious sound rolling over her like a spring breeze, and she almost liked him for it.

Almost.

Then a shocking thought occurred. What if Evan came out of the clinic and caught her like this? Sitting half naked on the ground like some deranged Victoria’s Secret model. The notion was enough to propel her to her feet. Quickly she belted her raincoat closed and jammed the lurid sex toy back inside her pocket. She had to get out of here. Her mission of seduction had failed miserably.

Well, it wasn’t a totally failed seduction; the oddly familiar stranger was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her for dessert. Unfortunately, she’d managed to arouse the wrong man.

Breathing heavily, Delaney snatched up the tarp and spun on her high-heeled boots, striding for the sanctuary of her car.

“Hey, lady,” the guy called after her.

She wanted to keep walking, but years of good breeding wouldn’t allow her to ignore him. Frustrated, she turned and snapped, “What is it?”

He stretched out a hand. “Could you help me up here? Seeing as how you’re the reason I ended up on my butt in the grass.”

For the first time she noticed the brace strapped to his right leg. He was impaired.

Guilt flooded her. She slapped three fingertips across her lips. “Oh, my, I’m so sorry.”

“ ’S’all right.”

“How did you do that, you know, with an injured leg?” she asked, hurrying back toward him.

“Do what?”

“Flip me onto my back.”

“I’ll never tell.” His smile was pure wickedness.

Delaney felt something start to unwind inside her. Something she could not name, but it had been bound up tight for a very long time. Her breath escaped her lungs, rushing out over her lips. She stepped closer. She was looming over him, but it felt as if he were the one dominating her personal space and not the other way around.

How was that possible?

Clutching the tarp to her chest with one hand, she put out her other hand to help him up.

He took it.

His palm was hard and calloused, his grip strong. Her skin burned. Dumbfounded, she felt herself dissolving. Becoming something else, someone else. Her jaw dropped open. No words came out. What was there to say?

“Give me a tug.” His fingers closed more tightly around her hand.

She yanked him to his feet and then he was standing right in front of her. Eye level.

He wasn’t but a couple of inches taller than her own five-foot-nine height. Barely but distinctly, he leaned in
toward her. Close enough for his black T-shirt emblazed with the Harley motorcycle logo to brush the sleeve of her raincoat. And for Delaney to feel the heat of his breath on her cheek.

A thermal wave of energy hit her and she battled the urge to push her body against his. The sensation was so compelling, Delaney realized that if she didn’t move away right this instant, this very macho male was going to kiss her.

Defensively crossing her arms over the tarp and holding it close to her chest, she turned. Moving as quickly as she could in the damnable stilettos, she raced for her silver Acura.

Fingers trembling, she fumbled the keys from her pocket, jabbed them in the lock, wrenched the door open, and tumbled inside.

Consumed by remorse, she squeezed her eyes closed. Her breath came in heavy, irregular gasps.

What if Evan had seen them?

Where was Evan? Her eyes flew open, her gaze tracking to the digital clock in the dash. Twelve-twenty.

She tossed the tarp in the backseat, then took her cell phone from the console and flipped it open. She started to punch in Evan’s number, but then saw she had one missed call. She entered the code to hear her messages.

It was her fiancé.

“I’m sorry to do this to you, Laney,” Evan’s recorded voice said. “But I’ve got an emergency at the hospital. Rain check?”

Rain check.

Delaney looked down at her pink raincoat and then stared up at the cloudless sky. It might be sunny and hot, but she couldn’t shake the feeling there was one hell of a thunderstorm heading her way.

T
wo days had passed and for some bizarre reason, Nick couldn’t stop thinking about the sexy vixen who had ambushed him outside the orthopedic clinic.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he could see how she’d looked walking away from him, rolling and swaying, as if she were gliding on an ocean wave. Serene, calm, untouched by external circumstances. He wished he’d had hours to watch her, study her—okay, all right,
ogle
her.

Her light brown shoulder-length hair, streaked with enticing blond strands, had been styled in a straight sleek style that underscored her cool-as-a-cucumber aloofness. She wasn’t voluptuous like the women he usually dated, like his ex-wife, Amber. Yet in spite of her athletic figure, she had sufficient curves. He’d gotten a pretty good look at what she’d been hiding underneath that raincoat.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Something about her compelled him in a way no one woman had in a very long time, and it shook him. He thought he’d washed his hands of all that romantic junk.

She looked like a woman who had a lot to say, but never got to say it. Nick found himself wishing he could be the
one to hear what was inside her head, learn the secrets she kept closed up behind those sphinxlike lips.

What was it about this particular woman that got to him? Was it her unflappable calmness that made him ache to rumple her? Maybe it was her wide, slightly crooked mouth that seemed out of sync with the rest of her? That mouth was the most interesting part of her beauty, precisely because it didn’t fit.

Or perhaps it was her eyes—sharp, smart, and green as an oasis. Looking into the depths of her made him feel like a traveler lost in an enchanted forest. Of course, it could have just been the sizzling underwear peeping from behind the raincoat and her unexpected willingness for adventuresome sex play.

A shudder passed through Nick. Whatever the cause, the woman was F-I-N-E, fine.

He’d been damn tempted to ask for her phone number, but it was clear from the huge rock on her ring finger she was deeply involved with someone else. And to Nick’s way of thinking, there was nothing more off-limits than a woman who was spoken for. Too bad. A little sexual healing would have been a very nice way to pass his recovery time until Dr. Van Zandt got back from Guatemala.

Yeah, right, like you would ever have a chance with her even if she wasn’t engaged. She’s filet mignon, and you’re a hot dog.

Determined to burn her off his brain, Nick decided a workout was in order.

He ambled out to his pickup truck, favoring his achy knee, and drove over to Gold’s Gym. Strenuous cardio was out of the question, but he could do upper-body strength training, and Doc Van Zandt had endorsed swimming.

After twenty minutes in the lap pool, Nick emerged winded, with water trickling down his bare chest and abdomen. He dried off with a thin white cotton towel, his heart punching hard against his rib cage, his lungs burning. Fatigue weighted him, but his thoughts were still locked on his mystery woman. He kept picturing her on his bed, in that girly pink raincoat, knowing full well that she was wearing next to nothing underneath.

What was the inexplicable pull? Where had it come from, this continual, aching need that had dogged him for two long, agonizing days?

He hit the weight machines. Working out his triceps, his biceps, his pecs. He pushed himself until his arms quivered, desperate to sublimate his sexual desires with exhaustion. But this time, instead of easing his mental torture, exercise seemed to have fueled it. He was doubly aware of his body, of his physical needs.

Face facts, Vinetti, you can’t have her. The woman is already spoken for.
Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Because she was strictly off-limits. Dammit. What the hell was so special about this one?

His cell phone rang.

Relieved to finally have something else to focus on, Nick snatched up the cell phone from his gym bag and punched the talk button. “ ’Lo?”

“Nicky, it’s your nana.”

Immediately the muscles at his shoulder blades tensed and his grip tightened around the phone. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, yes. I just needed to talk to you about something.”

“What’s up?” Sweat ran down his forehead and he swiped it away with his gym towel.

“I’m ready to go through your grandfather’s personal
effects. Could you drop by tomorrow afternoon, say three-thirtyish, and help me start packing things up?”

Nick hesitated.

It wasn’t that he had anything else to do tomorrow. Nor was it that he minded in the least helping his grandmother. He’d move heaven and earth for her. What he hated was the thought of saying good-bye to his grandfather once and for all.

Nick had been just seven years old when his father, his two younger brothers, Richie and Johnny, and his sister, Gina, had moved in with Nana and Grampa in their three-story Victorian on Galveston Island. Over the course of the last year, everything in Nick’s life had changed. His bride had left him on their honeymoon. His knee had gotten mangled, forcing him off the job he loved for weeks, and his grandfather had passed away. He simply wasn’t prepared to handle any more changes.

“Are you sure now is the right time?” he said. “It’s only been two months.”

“It’s time,” she said. “It’s got to be done.”

“There’s no reason we can’t wait a while longer.”

“Yes, there is, Nicky. I’m selling the house,” she said, her firm tone telling him she’d brook no argument.

Nick couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d reached through the phone and punched him squarely in the gut. “Nana, no, absolutely not. You can’t sell the house.”

“I can’t talk about this now. There’s someone at the front door. We’ll finish this discussion when you come over tomorrow afternoon.” And with that, she hung up on him.

The dial tone mocked his ear.

Nana had hung up on him!

Feeling as if he’d just gone fifteen pulverizing rounds
with a heavyweight boxing champ, Nick slipped his cell phone back into his gym bag.

All right then, if that’s the way it was going to be, he’d look at the upside. At least he had something to do besides fantasize about the woman in the raincoat and fret over his knee—confront his grandmother and convince her she couldn’t sell the only real home he’d ever known.

On Sunday evening, Delaney got her rain check.

Evan took her to La Maison Vert, the only five-star French restaurant in Houston. He wore a tux. She had on a little black cocktail dress. The decor was elegant, the service impeccable. And the pan-seared, pecan-encrusted mahimahi bathed in a rich buttery caper sauce was definitely worth the three additional hours on the treadmill the extra calories were going to cost her.

It should have been a magical evening.

Instead, Evan talked nonstop about his work, spoiling the romantic mood. Any other time, Delaney wouldn’t have minded. Evan was passionate about his job and she was a good listener, but tonight she found herself wishing that he were half as passionate about her as he was about medicine.

She’d still planned on seducing him, but extreme embarrassment—following what had happened outside Evan’s office—caused her to give up on the hostage-taking fantasy and go for something a little lower key. She had reserved a room at the Hyatt and worn a dress that showed lots of cleavage with sexy underwear underneath, and she’d ordered oysters on the half shell for an appetizer.

But Evan hadn’t wanted any.