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It occurred to her that Nick’s restless drive to get on with it, the way he was so hot to buy a ring even when his funds were tapped out, the way he was so eager to tell everyone…it was sort of like the way she’d been when she got engaged to Justin. It hadn’t felt real to her, so she’d carried on and told the whole world to make it feel more real.
So he was still feeling insecure. And after what they’d gotten up to all night, too. Wow. She had her work cut out for her to soothe this guy.
A rush of tenderness came over her for Nick, and for the lonely, vulnerable boy he had once been. She was going to make him realize that this thing was for real. That she was for real.
Starting right now.
She got up, circled the table, and sat down on Nick’s lap. She cupped his face in her hands, and slowly, tenderly, publicly kissed him.
There were wolf whistles, cheers, even some scattered applause. She ignored it all. She could hardly help doing so, especially when he dug his fingers into her hair and returned her kiss as only he could.
When she finally came up for air, his eyes were closed with bliss, his face had hot streaks of red along his cheekbones, and his erection prodded her bottom. “When was check-out time, anyhow?” he muttered.
“Eleven,” Becca informed him.
He glanced at his watch. “Great. Let’s go back on upstairs.”
She started to laugh. “Oh, come on! We’ve already brought down our bags, and it’s only twelve minutes, so—”
“Who needs bags? Twelve minutes is enough. You done with breakfast?”
“Yes, but I—” She squeaked as he stood up, dumping her off his lap and dragging her up the big staircase that curved up right outside the entrance to the grand dining room.
They got on the road considerably later than they’d planned. Twelve minutes stretched to thirty-five, and he’d even tried to follow her when she retreated into the shower. She’d had to shove her lust-crazed Romeo bodily out the bathroom door, and lock it, just to get a few minutes’ peace to put herself back together.
She sat in the truck, on her tingling, tenderized bottom and sneaked amazed peeks at him as he drove. God, he was handsome.
And he was her fiancé. He loved her. Wanted to be with her forever. It was like a dizzy dream, and she never wanted to wake up.
Nick was nothappy with the situation as it stood.
Another fierce, heated argument in the hotel parking lot had gone nowhere. Becca was in danger and she clearly did not yet know what the fuck she was dealing with, despite a good, long look on that goddamn island. But he was hog-tied, for the first time in his life, by the effort to meet her halfway. To act like a fucking team player.
To act like a fiancé. A husband, even.
He couldn’t throw his weight around now. He wanted to marry her, for fuck’s sake. She had the upper hand. It was making him nuts.
He’d had a really bad moment when she’d driven off in her rental car, waving at him. A stab of panic, like he might never see her again.
Ease down, bozo. He had to stay mellow. No panic, no freak-outs. Things were relatively mellow right now, and he had to be too, or risk scaring her off. He would not fuck this up. Not now that he was almost convinced that something so good might actually be in his grasp. That he might have more going for him than he’d ever dreamed possible.
That amazing, sweet woman. With him. Every day. Wow.
Engaged.His heart practically jumped out of his chest whenever he thought about it, which was every other second, if not more. It was like the positive equivalent of pressing down on a bruise. Instead of pain, he got a rush of pleasure, a tangle of random erotic images, a tingle in his balls. He wanted a ring on her finger. To marry her quick, before she had a chance to come to her senses and change her mind.
Love.He’d thought it was something that happened when a guy’s glands went nuts. When hormones tragically overtook him. A dangerous chemical imbalance that led a man into life-destroying choices.
Well, his glands were officially nuts. He was overtaken by hormones, and that’s where he wanted to stay surrendered to them for all time, flat on his back, crying uncle, with Becca on top of him, riding him like a cowgirl. With that smile on her face that made him laugh and cry like a fucking idiot.
A fuckinghappyidiot.
He wondered what kind of ring she would choose. That thought was quickly followed by wondering how he was going to pay for it. Maybe he could sell one of his motorcycles. Or a couple of guns.
He put all that mental noise gently aside as he approached Diana Evans’s block. He circled the big, comfortable 1930s bungalow style house, surrounded by trees, rhododendrons and hydrangea bushes. A deep-set porch girdled the entire house.
Nick parked on the next block and assessed the other houses as he walked by. Not much activity. No kids playing, no one washing cars or trimming hedges. The approach to her house was screened by foliage.
He had a bunch of possible cover stories ready on the tip of his tongue as he climbed the stairs to the front porch. But when he knocked on the door, it gave way, swinging inward at the pressure, and he had a sudden, cold premonition that he wasn’t going to need them.
