The Wedding Audition (12 page)

Except all she’d done was bail on a celebrity marriage. He’d failed to save a good kid who’d put himself at risk to help a friend. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about that day and what he might have done differently. For the life of him, he couldn’t come up with a scenario that would have resulted in the boy walking away. But even if he’d excised some of the guilt, he still felt humbled by the way the kid had put himself on the line for a friend.

Antony Marks had a sense of purpose. A rock-solid moral compass that was rare to find in one so young. After years of undercover work where right and wrong only came in shades of gray, Wynn found a lot to admire in that.

“That’s why you’ve been staying in rural Alabama. So no one will see you before the trial.” Annamae peered up at him from the phone, eyes roaming his face as if testing it for signs of the man he’d once been in that pressed uniform. “No one recognizes you here so far from home.”

He hardly knew himself anymore, either. He sure did recognize attraction though. And this hunger for Annamae wasn’t going away anytime soon. Her slow, thorough perusal of him amped up the heat he’d been trying to ignore.

“Short of plastic surgery, there’s not much I could have done to hide in Miami unless I locked myself in a hotel room for the year. It’s taken the justice system months to crank the trial up on the docket with the Dimitri family lawyers filing continuances every damn day. I couldn’t live that way and didn’t want to put a protective detail at risk, especially for that length of time.”

Enough lives had been lost to Dimitri family ruthlessness. They’d brought a new, effective business model with them from a global drug trade, their wealth and connections providing a protective veneer and plenty of champions among the rich and famous. They would defend Serge Dimitri with everything they had.

“Still, wouldn’t they consider the work worth their while to make sure you’re safe to nail this guy?” Annamae kept her focus on the case, her sharp mind working through the details in a way that impressed him.

“I have been safe.”

“So safe I got through the front gate,” she pointed out, arching a brow at him.

“You’re … unexpected.” Something about her had gotten under his guard before she even opened her mouth when he’d seen her at his front gate that first time. He touched her chin lightly, thinking about their kiss earlier.

“Me?” A grin stole over her features. “I think that may be the nicest compliment anyone has ever paid me.”

“How so?” He stroked her jaw lightly before his hand slid away again.

“I’ve always been the normal one, the beige backdrop to my flamboyant sisters.” She laughed lightly, touching her head, “Although maybe my ever-changing hair color isn’t so beige anymore.”

“It’s not your hair that draws me.” He wondered how anyone could see her as ordinary. Everything about her sparkled with energy, intelligence. Vibrancy.

“Clearly, my hair wouldn’t,” she muttered self-consciously.

He clasped her wrist. “You don’t need to say things like that.”

“I’m not looking for compliments.” She went very still under his touch.

He loosened his hold, his thumb caressing the inside of her wrist.

“I know.” He stroked up her arm, his hand learning the feel of her as he skimmed a touch up to her face again. “It’s your eyes. They’ve drawn me from the start. Not wise for a man in my position.”

But right now, with his nerves raw and his libido on overdrive, he couldn’t find the will to resist.

*

Have a fling,
Annamae
.

She didn’t want her grandmother’s voice in her head right now. Not when Heath—that is,
Wynn
—looked at her like she was even more appealing than the strawberry pie she’d made. Yet she kept remembering Hazel Mae’s matter-of-fact prescription for getting over a bad breakup. Have a fling!

“What are we doing?” she heard herself ask, then winced since she sounded incredibly clueless. “I mean—I know where this is going. But—”

“I know what I want.” Wynn’s hands moved to her shoulders. “I’m one hundred percent clear on that. But I should make a run around the perimeter of the fences. Scan the camera feeds just to be safe. That’ll give you enough time to decide if we want the same thing.”

She opened her mouth then realized she had no idea what to say to that. She closed it again.

“But would you consider giving me five minutes to persuade the outcome of your decision before I go?” His palm shifted so he cupped her chin, his thumb running along her lower lip in a way that inspired wicked, carnal thoughts.

Her eyes fluttered for a moment before she realized how easily she played into his hands. Instead, she gave his thumb a bite.

His dark laugh didn’t sound at all deterred. “That works, too.”

Her cheeks burned. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“I hope you’re here when I get back, Annamae. I can’t wait to find out what a lie you’ve been living with this whole good girl, beige thing.”

He strode away before she’d even caught her breath, the taste of his thumb still salty on her tongue.

Bagel barked at him as left, as if asking him to come back. If Annamae weren’t careful, she’d be panting after him soon too.

Oh wait, she already was.

Her heartbeat pounded. She couldn’t take a steady breath—and it didn’t have jack to do with her asthma. All this heady sexual hunger had Wynn Rafferty’s name written on it. Her eyes ate him up even now as he vanished into the barn to retrieve his truck.

Had she been living a lie as the good girl?

She knew he’d been teasing her and yet, in a lot of ways, she had. She’d taken her role so seriously, she’d let it dictate her life, her choices. And she’d been sleepwalking through her life for so long she hadn’t even noticed. Wynn was giving her a chance to make this decision for herself, so she wasn’t going to play the scene just for the hell of it. She would choose.

And she wanted him.

Not because her grandmother said she should have a fling or because she’d realized that she and Boone hadn’t loved each other enough. She would sleep with Wynn because she was wildly attracted to him. Because being with him made her feel a quivery excitement she’d never experienced before. And possibly even because she was a little bit her father’s daughter after all.

An adventurer.

Rising out of her chair, she went back inside the house. She pulled the hair tie out of her topknot and freed the newly colored caramel strands, the hue closer to her natural color than anything she’d worn in years. While Bagel made himself comfortable among the cats in the living room, Annamae took the stairs up to Wynn’s bedroom.

Slow. Deliberate. With purpose.

“I am having an affair, tonight,” she told the black and white kitten she found curled on a crisply made bed.

The kitten sat up at this news, folding her tail neatly around her feet as she seemed to listen.

“I know,” Annamae replied like they were old friends. “Phone the press, right? But could you use a throwaway phone so they don’t show up and climb those apple trees with a telephoto lens?” She ran a hand over the gray quilt folded at the end of the California king-sized mattress propped on a simple platform. The only other furniture in the room was a nightstand, bare of anything save a lamp and a book about grafting heirloom fruit trees.

“Mew?” The kitten’s conversational skills were better than most of her stepsisters’ who’d never been terribly concerned with Annamae’s life.

In their defense, she’d never told them she was about to have a torrid affair, so maybe that was an unfair comparison.

“How many cats does the man have?” she wondered, peering under the bed to see if there were any more felines hidden away.

Maybe the kitten was incensed, because she jumped down from the bed and skittered out the door in a hurry, her paws slipping a little on the hardwood floor as she left.

She settled in to read about tree grafting, a topic sure to settle her nerves, if not put her to sleep. But it was actually more interesting than she’d imagined. Wynn had flagged pages about disease-resistant varieties, in keeping with his organic approach to farming. Maybe he could use some pecan mulch…

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the stairs creaked in the hallway.

“Wynn?” She bolted upright.

The creaking on the stairs stopped.

Panic gripped her.

“What if it wasn’t?” a familiar voice asked, as the creaking continued. He stood in the threshold of the bedroom then, studying her as he leaned a shoulder into the doorjamb. “What if I was a hired gun sent to take out anyone in the house?”

“Then I’d be very disappointed in my watch dog who never barked when the door opened downstairs.” She set aside the book. “Welcome home, by the way.”

His eyes flared with heat. “It is a hell of a welcome, I have to say. When I didn’t see you downstairs I thought…”

Her pulse fluttered with nerves. Or maybe it was just anticipation.

“You thought I’d chickened out.” She felt brave that she hadn’t. She also liked that she’d surprised him. In a good way.

“Before I left, you asked me what we were doing,” he reminded her. “You looked a little spooked.”

She wondered why he still stood in the doorway. Why he hadn’t come closer. Touched her.

By now, she was really, really ready for him to touch her.

“I’m not now.” She remembered that he’d wanted her to think this through. To be sure. “And you’re right… I’m not nearly as beige as I thought.”

One second he stood in the doorway. The next he loomed over her, inches from the bed. He tipped her chin up to see her eyes, studying her.

“You’re sure about this happening between us. Now. Tonight.” It wasn’t a question. That crooked grin of his tipped his lips in a half-smile.

“Didn’t I say as much?” Her heart pounded harder at his touch. His nearness. She tipped her cheek so that he touched more of her.

Then, wanting even more, she rose up on her knees so she was almost eye-to-eye with him where he stood beside the bed. The warmth of his hard body beckoned.

“I think country living is turning you sassy, Ms. Jessup.” He stroked a finger down the length of her neck, pausing in the hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse did a crazy dance.

“It’s not easy holding my own with a surly landlord looking for any excuse to toss me out on my ear.” She had to steady herself with a palm against his chest.

She was gratified to feel that his heart slugged a fast pace too.

“Yet you have the power to put an end to all the surliness.” He leaned closer, the heat and earthy smell of him reaching out to her.

Her breasts grazed his chest with delectable friction.

“Do tell,” she urged, her voice whispered now that their lips were mere inches apart.

“It’ll be better if I show you.” His hand slid around the back of her neck, pulling her to him.

She had a brief impression of his hungry eyes and then his mouth claimed hers.

And Annamae spontaneously combusted. In a good way.

Heat radiated through her, burning her inside and out. Wynn held her where he wanted her, guiding her where he wanted her and she loved it. Loved how her body answered his like they’d been communicating this way for years instead of moments. No awkwardness. No worry if she was doing something right. This kiss didn’t ask questions. It answered them.

Her arms wound around his neck, drawing him down to her. On to the bed. On top of her. The hard, heavy weight of his body sinking into the cradle of hers felt like a homecoming. Like he belonged exactly there. A long sigh hissed between her teeth, the pleasure so sharp and sudden she didn’t know what to do with it all.

Then his hands were in her hair, sifting, sinking. Annamae closed her eyes to shut out some of the sensations overwhelming her, needing to anchor herself in the moment before she floated right away on a wave of pleasure. She’d pick through what it all meant later. Right now it was just her lips on his. Her breasts flattened against his chest. The hard length of him pressing against the fly of his jeans to tease her thighs.

His arms banded around her and she felt like a part of him already, and they hadn’t even taken their clothes off. As if she could lose herself in this. Him. It was scary and incredible at the same time.

“Clothes off,” she murmured against his mouth. Needing to take this feeling to its explosive conclusion.

That was the problem with scary, incredible things. As much as she wanted to savor it, the suspense about how it would all turned out was killing her.

“I knew you were going to be a wild woman in bed.” He shifted his kiss from her lips to her neck and then lower, his hands skimming her t-shirt up and off so there was nothing between his lips and her breasts but a kind of exotic Italian lace bra from her mother’s European negligee shopping jaunt last season.

Wynn made it clear he was only interested in what lay beneath it, however, his fingers working the clasp as if her barely B-cups were something to write home about. Expensive lace cast aside, he drew the tip of one breast in his mouth, making her toes curl and pleasure coil between her legs.