The Wedding Favor (16 page)

Jack’s snort called bullshit on that. “If you wanted Annemarie, you’d have found a way to get at her. You don’t want her.”

“That’s what you think. If you recall, it was me that got the first handful.”

“Yeah, and you dropped it like a hot coal.”

Giving up on the T-shirt, Ty yanked a white button-down out of his armoire, punched his arms through the sleeves. “If I did, it’s only because I made a promise to Isabelle. Even though I’m not really keeping it, she thinks I am. I can’t have Annemarie comparing notes with her about what a stud I am.”

“Uh-huh.” Jack wandered to the window, looked down at the terrace. Made a tsking noise. “Looks like you should’ve put more muscle behind that jab.”

“What the hell?” Ty pushed in beside him. Winston had moved Vicky’s foot and taken the seat beside her. By the looks of things, he was doing his best to get her attention by rubbing her arm and bending her ear. And the poor kid was too messed up to fend him off.

“For fuck’s sake!” Stepping away from the window, Ty scrabbled with his buttons while he stomped into his boots.

Jack didn’t attempt to conceal his amusement. “Isabelle’ll skin you if you start another fight.”

“Yeah, I got that message loud and clear. Doesn’t mean I can’t defend myself if he starts one.” He plowed his fingers through his hair, the extent of his grooming. “Close up when you leave,” he said over his shoulder, and strode out the door, the sound of Jack’s laughter following him down the hallway.

W
inston sat with his back to the door, so he missed Ty’s entrance, a thumbs-hooked-in-the-pockets amble that said he hadn’t a care in the world.

Moseying over to take the seat across from Vicky, he spread an amiable smile around the table. Beside him, Isabelle spoke just two words. “Be nice.”

He patted her arm. “Don’t you worry, honey, I’m sure Winnie won’t be instigating any more fights.” He grinned at Winston, who glared bullets back at him.

“The name is Winston,” he clipped out. “I’ll thank you to remember it.”

Ty tapped his temple. “Got it right here in case I ever need it. Winnie.”

He shifted his smile away from Winston’s clenching jaw and onto Vicky. “How you feeling, honey?”

“Hi, Ty.” She giggled.

Winston fumed. “How much did you give her?”

Ty ignored him. “Sugar, you know you’re supposed to keep that foot up. Give it here.” Reaching under the table, he hooked a hand around Vicky’s ankle, propped it on his thigh.

“For God’s sake!” Winston turned to Matt. “This hillbilly overdosed Victoria. Do something.”

Matt glanced at Ty. “What’s she on?”

“Vicodin. Five hundred milligrams, as prescribed.”

Matt’s eyes shifted back to Winston. “Vicky gets drunk on half a beer. You ought to know that, since you were engaged to her.” To Ty, he added, “We should halve the dose.”

“Way ahead of you.”

Adrianna sniffed. “It’s no longer your concern, Brown. You’ll give the pills to me.”

“No, I won’t.” Ty met Cruella’s eyes. “When she’s up to it, I’ll give them to Vicky.”

Steam shot out of her ears. “Victoria is
my
daughter.
I’ll
take care of her.”

“By shoving her at Winnie? Hell, that’s child abuse in my book.”

He felt a sharp pinch on his thigh. Isabelle again. But he’d had enough of being pulled in different directions. He rounded on her. “What do you want from me, Isabelle? Who should I make nice to now? Vicky? Or her bitchy mama? ’Cause I can’t do both.”

She flinched like he’d slapped her. He felt instantly awful.

Damn it, his whole purpose this weekend was to make Isabelle happy. He was usually so good at that. Making people smile, putting them at ease. It should have been simple, but somehow he kept screwing it up. Now he’d lost his handle on it so completely that he’d just snapped at his favorite person in the world.

He was coming unglued and he didn’t know why.

“I’m sorry, honey.” He meant it from the bottom of his heart, and Isabelle, the sweetest girl he knew, forgave him on the spot. Which only made him feel like a bigger heel. Could he possibly look any more despicable?

Then Vicky trilled a giggle. “Ty kisses really good.”

He dropped his head in his hands.

Chapter Fourteen

S
tanding on one foot in her midget bathroom, Vicky plopped two Alka-Seltzer into a glass of water and glumly watched it fizz.

It probably wouldn’t help, because even though her head weighed fifty pounds and her stomach quivered like jelly, this wasn’t a normal hangover. She was coming down off a narcotic high, and she doubted whether any of the numerous over-the-counter meds she routinely carried when she traveled would help.

She fingered the Vicodin bottle. Another pill would get her over the hump . . .

And that’s exactly how people got addicted to painkillers. She pushed the bottle away. She’d just suck it up.

The fizzing subsided and she took a sip. Ugh. She forced another. Anything that nasty had to help.

Hobbling out of the tiny bathroom, she plunked down at the dressing table and stared at the disaster staring back in the mirror: pasty skin, puffy eyes, dry scaly lips, all topped off by a rat’s nest. A magnifying mirror was attached to the table by a swing arm. She made the mistake of looking into it. “Agghh!” Gaping pores, shaggy brows, fuzzy teeth. And she’d gone out in public like this! It was unprecedented. If she weren’t in the wedding party, she’d grab a cab and head straight to a spa.

But she
was
in the wedding party. That was her dress hanging on the bathroom door: ivory lace over peach satin, strapless, cocktail length, as clingy as a mermaid’s skin. Her five-inch peach-silk heels would have looked fabulous with it. Her open-toed “granny” sandals, not so much.

At a knock on the door, she squared her shoulders. Isabelle poked her head in. “Do you need help getting dressed?”

“Isabelle, you’re the bride. I’m supposed to ask you that.”

Isabelle inched into the room. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

Vicky pointed a finger at her. “Don’t you
dare
worry about me. Ty promised to carry me down the aisle if he has to.” Like he’d carried her up to her room after she threw up her breakfast all over the terrace.

Good Lord, how could she face everyone after that?

She vaguely remembered making some embarrassing remarks too, but most of what happened before she tossed her croissants was a blur. Her only clear memories were snapshots of Ty. Cradling her foot on his knee. Scooping her up and delivering her here. Promising to help her get through the wedding.

That last had been extorted by tears. It turned out that he was helpless against tears.

“I think he likes you,” Isabelle commented.

“Well, at least he doesn’t seem to hate me anymore.”

Isabelle cocked her head. “Why would he hate you?”

She could have kicked herself. “Don’t mind me, I’m just feeling sorry for myself.” She gestured at the dress. “That’s the most beautiful bridesmaid dress I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful dress, period.”

Isabelle beamed. “Vidal tweaked it, but it’s my design, to coordinate with my gown . . .”

Vicky listened to her ramble on about it while she sipped at the Alka-Seltzer. It seemed to be helping after all. At least she didn’t feel like puking anymore. Not that there was anything left in her stomach.

After a few minutes, Isabelle wound down and Vicky managed to shoo her out by convincing her that she could get herself dressed.

First, though, she had to get herself showered. Her head still wasn’t up to hopping, so she hobbled into the shower on her heel, foot sealed in one of the handy Ziploc bags she always carried with her, and washed her hair standing on one foot. After toweling off, she wiped a clear spot on the steamy mirror and tried to call her reflection an improvement.

With plenty of time before she had to get dressed, she wrapped her hair in the damp towel and limped to the bed, hoping a catnap would deflate the bags under her eyes. Curling up in the kitteny comforter, she closed her eyes, just for a minute . . .

“Vicky! Open the damn door!” It was Ty, hammering it with a fist.

“Hang on already,” she groused. “What’s your problem, anyway?”

She hopped on one foot to the door, pulled it open.

He goggled at her. “What the hell are you doing? Why aren’t you dressed?”

She hopped back to the bed and sat down. Yawned hugely. “What’s the rush?”

“Are you nuts?” He stabbed a finger at the clock.

Three-thirty.

“Shit!” She leaped to her foot. “Shit, shit, shit! I fell asleep!” She hopped around in a circle, unable to decide which way to go first. The towel drooped over her eyes. She whipped it off. “Oh God, my hair!” It hung in soggy ropes.

“Your hair, is right!” Ty practically shouted. Cinching her waist with his hands, he lifted her straight off the floor like she was five years old, rushed into the bathroom, and set her down in front of the mirror. Yanking the blow dryer off the hook, he pushed it into her hands. “Do something,” he ordered, and sped out into the bedroom.

She fumbled the dryer, managed to get it going, and was making headway when Ty came in waving peach panties and a strapless bra. Snatching them out of his hand, she shot him a don’t-get-too-comfortable-with-my-underwear look. He ignored it, racing out and closing the door behind him.

Her hair was a frizz bomb, but it couldn’t be helped. As soon as it was dry, she shed her robe and, handicapped by the tiny room and her now-throbbing-again toe, struggled into her underwear. But when it came to getting into the dress, she quickly discovered that she needed help. And Ty was the only one around.

The time for modesty had expired while she napped, so without a second thought she opened the door and hopped out into the bedroom wearing only a peach thong and a miracle of engineering that shoved her B-cups up, out and together, serving them up like peaches on a plate so it looked like she had a lot more going on than she really did. Ty’s eyes popped out of his head.

“Jesus Christ,” he cried, “are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Down boy.” No time to blush. “I need help with the dress, and you’re it.”

“No way. I’ll get Lil.” He tore his eyes away and headed for the door.

“You can’t get Lil,” Vicky called after him. “She’s helping Isabelle. They’re probably at the chapel already.”

He faced her with an expression of utter male exasperation.

“Come on,” she snapped her fingers, “just hold it down and open.”

Muttering a litany of grievances, Ty knelt on one knee, holding the dress down where she could step into it. She gripped his shoulder, put her bad foot through first. But when she tried to balance her weight on her heel and lift her other foot, she wobbled like a Weeble. She tried to step back but her foot caught in the dress. She started to topple backward. Her arms pinwheeled.

Ty dropped the dress, wrapped both arms around her thighs. She grabbed his head, mushed his nose into her peach panties. His other knee came down on the dress. She heard the fabric rend.

“No!” she cried, shaking her foot harder, trying to free it from the shredding silk.

“I’ve got you!” Ty’s voice was muffled. “Hold still!”

She couldn’t. With the dress binding her foot and his arms binding her thighs, she felt like she’d been trussed. Every instinct shrieked to break free. She kicked out with her foot; the fabric rent more. Swung out with her arm; the bedside lamp hit the floor. And like a tree felled by an axe, she went over backward, helpless to break her fall.

Somehow, she landed on Ty. Face to face, chest to chest.

She lifted her head, dragged in a breath. Gazed down into his whiskey eyes. “What happened?”

“
What happened?
” He snorted a laugh. “You want me to summarize?”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean how did you end up underneath me? I was falling backwards . . .”

“Sugar, I couldn’t face another trip to the emergency room with you.”

So he’d spun her around and taken the brunt of the fall. The man liked to pretend he was molasses in January, but he truly had lightning reflexes. And damn it, it really turned her on. She let her palms spread out on his chest, that magnificent wall of muscle hidden under a perfect black tux.

Yikes! Tux! She hadn’t even noticed that he was dressed for the wedding! And now he was lying in the shards of the lamp. She had to get off him right away.

Bracing her knee on the floor between his legs, she wasn’t completely surprised to feel good old Mr. Hard-on against her thigh. She couldn’t even blame him for it, since she was laid out on top of him wearing page 42 of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue, her naked ass cheeks cupped in his hands.

She had to admit, she liked the cupping. But still, it had to be said. “You can get your paws off my ass now.”

He squeezed. “Honey, there
has
to be something in this for me.” He squeezed again. “If I wasn’t such a gentleman—”

He waited out her derisive sputter.

“If I wasn’t such a gentleman,” he went on, “I’d tell you that all your hours on the Precor have definitely paid off.” His palms stroked her cheeks. Around and around. Then he spanked them lightly. “Now get up before I quit being a gentleman.”

Okay, she had to admit this too: She didn’t want to get up. She liked his hands where they were, rough palms grazing her smooth ass. She liked her bare skin against his satiny tux, wanted to rub along it like a cat. She liked his hard chest under hers. His flat stomach. The hot pressure of his arousal against the inside of her thigh. All of it together made her feel warm and slumberous and sexier than ever before in her life.

In the heat of the moment, her scruples, her ethics, her worries about the future all melted away. Without thinking, she slid her thigh along his erection. Up, and down. He let out a moan. “You’re killing me, sugar.” His hands started roaming, one gliding up over the small of her back, along her spine; the other curling down and around, to her heated core. That one drew a humming from low down in her throat, a primal sound of seduction that had his arms tightening around her, his teeth scraping her collarbone. She squirmed her nakedness against him, her softness against his hardness.

“Honey,” he managed, devouring her throat, finding her wetness with his fingers and smearing it up and around and back again to the source. “Honey . . . wedding.”

“No!” she moaned from the bottom of her sex-starved soul.

“Later,” he panted out as his fingers delved into her bra. “I’ll fuck you later. All night.”

Later wouldn’t cut it, and no matter what he said, his hands, his lips, and his rock-hard cock were all about now. It wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge.

Never once in her sadly limited sex life had she played the aggressor, yet this new, sex-crazed Vicky shoved her hand down between their writhing bodies, flicked the tab on his waistband, and unzipped him like a pro.

When she fisted him, he jerked. “Back pocket,” he blurted. “Left side.”

She dug out the foil packet with her other hand, ripped it open with her teeth. Straddling his hips, she sheathed him, wondering briefly how she’d take him all in. Then his thumb hooked her panties, pulled them aside, and his big hands closed around her hips, lifting her, guiding her. “Take it slow, honey,” he got out on a strangled breath. “But not too slow or I swear to God it’ll be too late.”

She was so slick that he was inside her before she knew it, a tight fit, but she handled it. He held on to her hips, fingers digging in, eyes locked on hers, holding back while she adjusted to him. When she started to ride, he clenched his jaw, held himself still while her palms flattened on his chest.

For one long minute, a dozen deep, delicious strokes, she kept control, set the pace, while sweat beaded his forehead and his muscles twitched and quivered.

Then in one explosive move, he jackknifed up, a kind of forward somersault. She landed on her back, two hundred pounds of frustrated cowboy flattening her to the rug. Pushing up on his arms, his beach bum hair falling in his blazing eyes, he said, “Sorry, honey, I’ll make up for it later,” and drove into her, driving what little control she’d held on to right out of her head. With a will of their own, her legs locked around his hips, pulling him deeper. Her fingers clawed the rug. Her head wanted to thrash, but he shoved a hand in her hair. “Come with me, baby. Come with me now.”

She couldn’t. She absolutely couldn’t come like this. She never had. Coming was a project best left to her own hands, in the privacy of her own room. She couldn’t possibly—

And then she did. She did! Her eyes popped, she gripped his arms. “Holy shit!” she cried out, as everything in her, every muscle and tendon and drop of blood contracted down to one solitary cell . . . then exploded into a billion brilliant shards.

“Oh my God,” she gasped out when she could speak at all. “Oh my God. Oh my God,” on each heaving breath. “What in the world was
that
?”

Ty had collapsed on top of her, face buried in her throat. Now his laughter bubbled up, vibrating through his chest. He rolled onto his back, pulling her over on top of him. Cupping one big palm around the curve of her bottom, he used his other hand to brush the hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

“That,” he said flatly, “was the best fuck I’ve had in years. Maybe ever.”

He was grinning at her, his eyes twinkling, actually twinkling, and her stomach fluttered, an unfamiliar sensation. She grinned back at him helplessly, caught in his spell.

His fingers stroked her cheek lightly. Skimmed her shoulder, the swell of her breast. One fingertip tucked inside the top of her bra like he belonged there. Slid along the edge to the deep crevice in the center. “Perfect,” he murmured, letting it rest there, snug between her smushed-together breasts.

Her skin heated up. The flush spread upward, from her nethers to her hairline. How did he do this to her, make her warm and fuzzy and horny all at once? Everything was different with him, she felt more like herself, for better or worse. And he turned her on until she lost all control. She’d attacked him, for God’s sake! Pulled his pants down and ridden him like a cowgirl!

And then . . . then she’d had an orgasm
while he was inside her
. A real one, not a fake one.