Just My Type (13 page)
She couldn’t deny it. Mac was going to be hers forever. No matter who else came along, what else changed or shifted in her family, she would have Mac. Sam and Dani could shop for furniture, have their private, only-them dinners, and Jessica and Ben could go to baby classes and buy their condo in Aspen.
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Just My Type
She could get her own furniture, her own dinners and condos. With Mac.
The fact that Mac had agreed to it so absolutely, though, gave her pause. His friends were the center of his life. He’d do anything to keep their little family intact. So in his mind, this was a major sacrifice on his part.
Or was it simply a surrender?
In the end it didn’t matter. She was getting what she wanted and if he didn’t want it for the right reasons yet, he would. She’d make sure she was the best thing to ever happen to him.
“When?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow, but simply said, “Tomorrow morning. Before we leave.”
“We’re eloping?”
“Yes.”
“We’re leaving them out of all of it?”
“They might try to stop it, or talk us out of it.”
She acknowledged her brother would very likely try. It scared her to think he might succeed. “You’re right. We should do it tonight.”
“Why the big hurry? We’ll get it done before we get home.” He sounded like he was talking about a root canal.
She stepped out of her condo and onto the little porch with Mac. “Because the sooner we have the wedding, the sooner we can have the honeymoon.”
He backed up a big step. “Tomorrow morning. Ten a.m. Down on the beach. It’s all set up. You have a spa appointment at eight. They’ll deliver your dress there.” She grinned up at him. He’d thought of everything. “That’s amazing, Mac.”
“Yeah.” He said it gruffly.
She noticed he was staring at her mouth.
She licked her lips. “How about a night-before kiss?” she asked.
He took a half step backward again, then paused and swore under his breath. He stepped forward, grasped the back of her neck in one big hand and pulled her forward into his kiss.
Within a few seconds she was on tiptoe, her hands fisted in the front of his shirt, straining to get closer. The heat of his kiss quickly started a fire burning along the path of her veins and nerves, spreading rapidly throughout her body. Wedding schmedding. They should start the honeymoon right now.
He let her go just as quickly as he’d grabbed her and she stumbled slightly as he stepped back, away from her.
“See you tomorrow,” he said and turned and disappeared down the lamp-lit walk toward his own condo.
73
Erin Nicholas
She pressed her lips together, still tingling from the combination of the kiss and the knowledge Mac had just accepted her proposal and arranged their wedding.
Their
wedding
.
She carefully stepped through the door into the condo, softly shut the door and clicked the locks into place and walked calmly to the bed. Then she let out a loud
whoop
, jumped up onto the mattress and started bouncing up and down squealing and laughing.
This thing just kept getting better and better.
They were married by ten thirty-nine. It was fortunate that St. Croix was a very popular wedding—
including elopement—destination and no one had even blinked when asked to throw a ceremony together in twelve hours.
It would have taken thousands of dollars, months of time and still not yielded results as beautiful as standing on a white beach by the deep blue of the ocean, a gentle breeze blowing, surrounded by tropical flowers.
Their witnesses were two native girls who worked at the resort, a tourist couple from Indiana that Sara had met at the spa and assorted other people enjoying the beach at the same time.
Sara didn’t care a bit. She was sure their friends and her sister would insist on a reception, or perhaps, a repeating of the vows since they weren’t there. Their absence on the biggest day of her life was the only dark spot in the day, but the elopement made sense and…she wanted it.
Mac was hers now. Her lawfully wedded husband.
She was ecstatic.
He’d looked directly into her eyes when he’d recited his vows, he’d held her hands as she repeated hers and then he’d kissed her so sweetly and tenderly she’d gotten tears in her eyes. Just as she had when she’d stood at the end of the makeshift linen aisle laying on top of the sand and met his eyes for the first time since donning her wedding dress. He looked wonderful, dressed in white linen pants, a white silk-blend shirt open at the collar and barefoot, standing on the sand waiting for her with an easy smile.
He’d looked stunned for a moment upon seeing her in the simple white silk dress. The bodice was a halter, bordered by pearls that tied behind her neck. Another sash wrapped around her waist and tied just below her shoulder blades, leaving the back of the dress to plunge low, making a bra impossible. The hem ended just below the knees and she padded barefoot onto the beach. His daze didn’t last. His eyes heated as they followed her down the aisle and by the time she’d joined him in front of the officiate he was looking at her with a smile she would definitely term loving.
It had been wonderful.
They’d toasted with champagne, and eaten amazing rum cake, an island specialty.
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Just My Type
It wasn’t until the limo pulled up in front of the airport and the driver unloaded her bag from the trunk—the bag she hadn’t packed and certainly hadn’t brought with her to the wedding—that Sara realized her wedding night was not going to be spent in St. Croix.
“We’re going home?” She turned accusatory eyes on Mac. “Now. Just like that?” He nodded, without looking at her, and got out of the car.
“We won’t be to Omaha until midnight,” she pointed out.
“Twelve nineteen,” Mac said, shouldering his bag and pulling the handle out on her rolling suitcase.
He headed for the sliding doors leading to the check-in desk for their flight.
Fine, he wanted to be high-handed and just do everything his way, then she could follow his lead. As they stood in line, Sara flipped open her cell phone and dialed.
When the operator answered she said, “I need the number for the Hilton Hotel, downtown Omaha, Nebraska.”
Mac turned to look at her, but didn’t say a word. Sara chose to fuss with the collar of his shirt while she waited to be connected.
“I am returning tonight, after midnight, and need to book the honeymoon suite,” she told the woman who answered at the hotel.
“How many nights?”
“One.” She gave the woman her name, address and phone number, then reached into Mac’s front pants pocket and withdrew his wallet. He made no move to stop her as she removed his credit card and read the necessary information into the phone.
As she disconnected, she looked up. He was watching her with mild amusement.
“You live in Omaha.”
“Yes.”
“You missed some rent payments?”
“No.”
“Rat problem?”
“No.”
“Sold your bed to pay for groceries?”
“No.”
“So nothing wrong with your place that would keep you from sleeping there?”
“No.”
“Yet, I’m paying three hundred dollars to sleep in a hotel for just a few hours.”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not invited?”
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Erin Nicholas
“I didn’t say that.” She moved close and smiled up at him. “I was saying no to the sleeping part of your sentence.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, then his attention dropped to her mouth. He sighed. “I guess I’d better rest on the plane. I’m an old man, you know.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that. You’ve been keeping up with two women at a time and using positions that could cause injury.”
She had to laugh it off. His recitation of his sexual preferences in the resort shop the other day had been like being punched repeatedly in the gut. She’d known, for a long time, about Mac’s reputation. She just hadn’t allowed herself to think about it. It was strange how she’d been able to separate the things she knew and the things she’d found on the Internet from Mac and real women. Then after he’d talked about the things he wanted, that she couldn’t provide, she’d let herself think about Mac having sex with other women. And she’d hated every single second of it.
He didn’t laugh it off, however. Instead, he just stood looking at her.
“Sir?” A voice interrupted their stare down. “Sir, please move ahead in line.” Mac checked them in—she wasn’t surprised to find he’d somehow managed to get them on the same plane on the way home—and then took her hand as they walked to their gate. Nothing more was said about his sexual past, or their sexual future.
They drew attention as they walked. Not Mac as much, maybe, but she did in her white wedding dress and the pink and white flowers still threaded through her hair. She wasn’t about to remove them, though.
She wanted the whole world to know she was married and if Mac didn’t want to make a spectacle out of them, then he should have taken her back to the condo before heading to the airport.
The condo with a bed. Which she knew was part, if not all, of the reason they
hadn’t
gone back.
What a chicken.
She pulled out her reading material as they settled into two seats in the gate area. Which got Mac’s attention.
“What the hell is that?” he whispered.
“A catalog.”
“So I see.” He glanced around. “Is that appropriate for reading in public?”
“Everyone else here is reading for pleasure or work. This is a little of both for me,” she whispered back.
“What have I done to deserve this?” he groaned.
“I think most men would be jealous of you having a wife who is studying a sex-toy catalog,” Sara told him. “It’s not all raunchy. I mean look at this: cotton-candy-flavored body powder.
Great for licking
. I’m so getting that.”
Mac tipped his head back, covered his eyes with his hand and groaned again. “Please don’t.” 76
Just My Type
“Oh, I am,” she told him. “And these chocolate body pens. You use them to write on each other…then lick it off.”
“Yeah, you could have stopped with chocolate body pens. It’s kind of self-explanatory.” Mac shifted in his seat and Sara hid a smile. He’d been getting his way all day—and last night when he’d gone back to his condo—if she felt like torturing him a little, she would.
“Do you like piña colada flavor?” she asked.
“No. Not at all.”
She smiled. “Well, there’s lots of choices. How about lemon meringue?”
“No.”
“Bubble gum?”
“Definitely not.”
“Beer flavor?”
That opened his eyes. “What do they have in beer flavor?”
“Nothing that I’ve seen yet. I was just making sure that if I find something I can order it without hesitation.”
He sighed. “What are you looking at?”
“Edible massage lotion.”
“What’s with all the edible stuff?”
“That’s just the catalog section I’m in.”
“I’m not interested.”
A quick glance at his lap told a different story. “Then I’ll flip to a section you are interested in. Oh, look, the nipple-clamp section.”
Mac surged to his feet. “I’m going to get something to drink.” Sara felt a surge of satisfaction. She was getting to him. Which was exactly what she wanted. He was
not
going to ignore her and he
was
going to be thinking about their wedding night. And all the nights after that. Maybe even some daytimes.
Sara crossed her legs, settled back in her chair and smiled up at him sweetly. “I’ll be waiting right here for you. Honey.”
77
Chapter Six
Finding a drink was a weak, but usable excuse to get away from his sexy, sweet-smelling, seductive wife. Mac felt a shiver trickle down his spine. His
wife
.
In the morning light, with a decreased blood alcohol level, an almost restful night of sleep and not seeing Sara for several consecutive hours, he was pretty sure he’d overreacted with the whole marriage idea.
Marrying her was a rash decision, over-the-top, ridiculous really.
He hadn’t stopped the ceremony though. Once he’d seen her standing at the end of the aisle he decided that while he was showing Sara what a mistake she’d made, he could also enjoy having her for as long as it was possible.
Which was almost worse than never having her at all. After all, how could an addicted gambler be expected to only play one hand of cards and then get up and walk away from the table?
Having her and
having
her were two different things, of course. He couldn’t sleep with her. For one, that was what she wanted. She’d gotten him this far with her manipulations, but things were about to change for Princess Sara. She was going to learn that Mac didn’t give in. If he was on the losing end of a game, he simply changed the game.
Secondly, he couldn’t sleep with her and then give her up.
So he was going to take it one step at a time. For the time being, he had to avoid the Hilton’s honeymoon suite. And there was only one way to do that.
He sent a text message to Danika.
We’re landing at 12:19.
The minute Sam and Jessica heard Sara was back, they’d be there no matter what time it was.
Mac decided to enjoy the walk down the hallway of the airport while Sam still liked and trusted him.
Because he knew the first thing out of Sara’s mouth when they landed would be…
“We got married!”
They’d just passed the security gate and were heading up the hallway toward the baggage claim when Sara saw her sister, brother and in-laws. She ran toward them, the lightweight white dress she’d worn for the past fourteen hours flowing behind her.
Just My Type
She was so beautiful. The smile on her face positively glowed. Her hair was escaping the elaborate twist the spa had done for her that morning and she’d been asleep against his shoulder for the past four hours, but she was gorgeous. And for just a moment, Mac stopped walking and simply watched her hug her siblings and tell them her big news.