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How I didn’t shiver, I’d never know.
I blinked up at him again. “Thank you?”
He smirked and returned to the bathroom while I wilted on the bed once more.
I was so stupid. I should have let him rub the cream into my aches. Was it too late to call him back?
I heard the sounds of him brushing his teeth and accepted it was.
We’d be sleeping in another motel tonight after the wedding ceremony, wouldn’t we?
He was right that we could lie about consummating the marriage, that I could sleep with someone I actually knew, but I’d be crazy to lie about that when I wanted his hands on me more than I’d ever wanted another’s touch.
Tonight, I had the Deep Heat as an excuse.
There was no way in hell I wouldn’t react to his hands on me, and if I could encourage him, maybe it would lead to more.
Maybe…
If he was interested.
He didn’t seem interested.
Or I could have been misreading the signs.
I wasn’t very good with this kind of stuff because I wasn’t supposed to be.
It wasn’t like I’d had the regular life lessons that all women did by my age.And the few experiences I had were marred by Kris’ murder which was the result ofmy whorish behavior.
Father’s words, not my own.
Regardless, I had a choice.
Tonight, I’d have a husband.
It was down to me if it was in name only or not.
15
DIGGER
We madeit to Las Vegas in excellent time.
The second stop at a diner, with MaryCat wilting into me, I’d let her chill out over some waffles with eggs and bacon and two coffees, then I’d rode us hard and hadn’t taken a break until we got here because I knew if we stopped again, she’d fall asleep.
I’d never had to think about another person this much, and with the long journey, my mind didn’t have much else to do but wonder about her.
Ordinarily, on a run, we’d be watching out for cops, trying to stay under the radar, but I wasn’t doing anything wrong for once, so my mind just had to focus on the automatic stuff like watching the road and trying not to get a boner when her hands slipped down my waist as she wiggled around for a more comfortable position.
When, with the sun sputtering its final few rays behind us, we rode past the sign for Las Vegas, I had to laugh when she hollered, “Wooohoooooo!”
I felt her relief warring with her exhaustion, and though I knew we could head directly for a wedding chapel, I didn’t.
Instead, I stopped off at a jewelry store in a strip mall I’d looked up at that last diner.
It wasn’t anywhere fancy, not like where Bill Murphy would go to buy a ring for her, definitely no Van Cleef & Arpels, but it was better than what they’d sell in the chapels.
When we pulled up outside the mall, parking next to a fifteen-foot Christmas tree with flashing lights that could trigger a seizure, and the engine quieted, she asked, “Why are we stopping?”
