Dream & Dare (8 page)

Shaken, she felt naked and vulnerable, too, and she shouted right back. “I don’t know what I want! I’ve never known what I want! I don’t even know how to know what I want!”

“Well, figure it out! Because I want to marry you!” With that, he turned, opened the door, and stormed out.

She stood where she was, gaping at the empty doorway. Then she heard him say, “Get out of the girl, Blue. Let’s hit it.”

He was leaving? He’d said
that
to her—yelled it at her—and now he was leaving? She ran out to the living room just as the front door slammed closed. Hoosier could always get it to close on the first try.

Gina stood in the kitchen, pulling her bra back over her tits and then finishing the new rip in her shirt, tearing it off her shoulders. “What you do to piss him off?”

“Go to hell, Gee,” Bibi snarled and stomped back to her bedroom. Her brain felt packed to the rafters.

And her heart hurt.

~oOo~

He was back within ten minutes. Bibi was in her room, changing out of her work clothes. She’d gotten down to her bra and panties when she heard the front door wrench open and then slam shut. She stopped and listened, not sure if it was Gina leaving or what.

Then her bedroom door opened, and Hoosier was there. He had his kutte on now; he must have grabbed it off the back of one of their dumpster chairs in the living room on his way out. He was so handsome, standing there in his faded jeans, scuffed boots, and plain white t-shirt, the leather kutte over his shoulders, his arms showing a gallery of tattoos. His dark hair, with just those scant threads of grey, was a little shaggy in a way that suited him. He needed a shave, but she liked it that way.

For a couple of seconds, they simply stared at each other. Bibi didn’t bother to cover her near-nakedness.

Then Hoosier said—in his familiar, calm, low drawl, “Marry me, Bedelia Beth. Come with me to Vegas. We’ll get married and stay in a fancy suite and have room service all weekend. Or we’ll go out and take in the town, hit the tables. Whatever you want.”

“Hooj, I…” She wanted to say yes. She wanted him to take care of her. She wanted him to love her forever and never cast her aside.

“What do you want, baby? Tell me what you want. I’ll give you everything I can.”

Why couldn’t she just say yes? The word would not come. “I want…I want to not be so pathetic. I don’t want to just depend on you for everythin’. I want to know how to want things
I
want, and I don’t even know how to do that. I’m just a leech, suckin’ off everybody else. I want to not be scared of gettin’ left behind.”

He walked into the room, to her, and cupped her face in her hands. “You’re young, not pathetic. You think I’d spend time with a leech? You have a fire in you, Cheeks. It lights me up. I want you to have whatever you want. I won’t get in your way while you figure out what it is. But I can still take care of you. I’ll never leave you behind. I mean what I say. I don’t throw words like ‘love’ and ‘marriage’ around like they’re trash. If you really love me, then let me take care of you. Marry me.”

“We’ve only known each other a little.”

“Who cares? How long did you know that guy you came out here with? You grew up with him. Dated him all through high school, right? Time doesn’t make you know a person. Trust does.” He bent down until his lips hovered over hers. “Do you trust me, Bibi?” he breathed, the words almost soundless. “Do you?”

She did. God help her, she really did. “Yes.”

“Then let me take care of you. Marry me.”

It was the only thing she knew she wanted.

FIVE

Hoosier laughed when she came out of the bathroom of their hotel room dressed for their wedding.

Bibi put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “If you want me to marry you, you probably shouldn’t laugh at my dress.”

“That’s not a dress, Cheeks.” He came to her and put his hands over hers. “That’s underwear. But I like it fine. Didn’t figure you for a white dress and a veil, anyway.”

She looked down at herself. He’d told her a couple of times that he didn’t think she was really a punk, and maybe he was right. She didn’t know what she was. She liked the clothes, though. She liked that they weren’t ‘normal,’ and that she could make an outfit out of almost anything.

Like this: she’d cut the lace bodice out of a fancy red negligee she’d found at the vintage shop, and she’d sewn a couple of inches of red tulle on the bottom. It made a kind of corset with a peplum. She had a knit micro-mini and fishnets under it, both black. The black suede booties she called her ‘witch shoes,’ and her stacks of black jelly bracelets completed the look.

It pleased her greatly to think that her mother would have taken one look at this wedding ensemble and come over with an acute case of the vapors.

With that thought, Bibi realized that she’d done it again—dressed for, or against, somebody else. She’d never thought about why she did the things she did until Hoosier had pointed it out.

Now she felt stupid. “Is it dumb?” she asked, and then realized, again, that she’d deferred the opinion to somebody else.

He lifted her chin and smiled down at her. “Most of you is uncovered, so as long as you stay close to me, I like it.” Trailing a hand up the back of her thigh, he added, “I love the seams on these stockings.”

“They’re tights, not stockings,” she sighed, swaying a little at his touch.

“Okay. They’re indecent, whatever they are. I like indecent.” With a light kiss at the corner of her mouth, he ran his fingers through her hair. “And I like that I can touch your hair. But what do you think?”

She really thought about that for a moment. “I like it. I feel sexy.”

“You are sexy.” He winked at her. “So sexy I think I want to marry you.”

Pushing him back a little before they ended up in their wedding bed before the wedding, Bibi frowned up at him. “It’s more than that, though, right? Am
I
enough? For the rest of your life?” She was still struggling with the truth that this man loved her as much as he said he did. She believed him, but it was hard for her to think of herself as someone with much to offer.

At her question, he frowned back at her, then pulled her to sit down on the bed. He squatted before her, and, still holding her hand, he said, “I need you to hear this, Beebs. Of course it’s more than that. Maybe I see something you don’t. If that’s true, then I’m gonna help you see it. I saw it before I said a word to you, and I see it every day. There’s fire in your heart and steel in your gut. I want to take care of you, but you already take care of me. That’s what you do—you take care of people. You do what you need to do and find something worthwhile in it, whatever it is. You see what people need, even if they can’t even see it. And, baby, your heart is wide open. You put on that smartass front, and you’re good at it. It’s sexy and cute. But the truth is you’re the least cynical person I ever met. You trust first, even when you think you shouldn’t. I think I fell in love with you when you first got on my bike that night. You trusted me to take you home. I could see in your eyes—these huge, beautiful brown eyes—that you knew it wasn’t the ‘smart’ thing, but you did it anyway. I live in a world full of suspicious, cynical people. Feeling that trust from you—I don’t have words for how it made me feel, or for how I feel about you.”

Moved nearly to tears, Bibi cupped Hoosier’s cheek in her palm. “Those are pretty good words. I think you did okay.”

He turned his head and kissed her palm. “Am I enough for you? Till death do us part?”

Six weeks had passed since that first night. All she knew about his history was that he’d grown up on a farm in Indiana. He’d had two older brothers, but both had died in Vietnam. He’d been distant from his parents since he’d rebuffed the idea of taking over the farm. She knew he was a mechanic, and that he was a member of the Desert Blades, but he refused to go into even basic details about that part of his life, and, other than Blue, his best friend, she hadn’t met anyone else he knew. He’d come into her life, not the other way around.

If she married him, she guessed that wouldn’t be the case anymore. And honestly, she was taking a big leap of faith to marry a man who was so unknown.

But she did know him. She knew
him
. And he was right: she trusted him implicitly. It was like she could tell. She knew, she was certain, despite the voice in her head that insisted she couldn’t possibly, that he was worthy of her trust.

“Yes.”

A grin smoothed his brow and opened his face, and he stood. “Then let’s get hitched.”

~oOo~

They were married in a little chapel on the strip. Nothing special, but not too tacky, either. Considering all the ways her wedding was nothing like the one she thought about when she was in high school, with Joel, the ceremony was traditional. Jerome Andrew Elliott and Bedelia Beth Ladue vowed their love and commitment, until death did them part.

Hoosier surprised Bibi with a beautiful set of rings—a white-gold claddagh with a big diamond for the heart, and a thin band of diamonds to match it. She didn’t have a ring for him. He’d proposed only a week before, and she was broke. And he already wore five rings on his hands, so she wasn’t sure how he’d wear another, anyway.

At that moment of the little ceremony, Bibi stared at her glittering finger and felt awkward and lost. “Oh, Hooj. They’re beautiful. But I don’t…I didn’t…”

He chuckled and kissed her cheek. “It’s okay, Cheeks. I got a better idea, anyway. That’s next.”

When the minister—she supposed he was a minister—declared them man and wife, Hoosier bent her back over his arm and kissed her breathless, his hand clutching her ass. A couple of people who worked there and served as witnesses threw handfuls of rice over them. Then they took pictures—a few from the 110 camera Bibi had brought with her, and a few with a ‘professional’ setup that they could buy and have sent to them after they were developed.

And she was married.

Holy Moses.

~oOo~

The thing that was next—and, in Hoosier’s estimation, better than a ring—happened at a tattoo shop a ways off the strip. When they went in, Hoosier greeted a couple of the men working there as friends, and introduced her as his wife. There was hugging and backslapping, and Bibi was happy. This was a part of his life. Not the life he lived in L.A., but a part of it nonetheless.

They were there for a couple of hours, and when they left, Bibi felt like she had new friends, too. Garth and Patch, Hoosier’s buddies, who were calling her Beebs by the time they’d said goodbye.

And Hoosier had new ink. On the inside of his left forearm, in elaborate script:
Bedelia
. The dot on the ‘i’ was a tiny claddagh.

He was right: much better than a ring.

~oOo~

He carried her over the threshold. And had arranged for champagne to be waiting for them in the room. They each drank a glass in honor of the day, and then Hoosier poured them each another. He handed her hers and took a long drink of his, finishing it off. Then he set his down and pulled on the little satin ribbon at the front of her corset.

She stood, sipping her champagne, and let him undress her. The bubbles hit her hard; they hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But she didn’t care. It was more than the champagne making her feel like her feet floated above the floor. She took a big drink and set her empty glass down next to his.

As he pulled the ribbon, the corset loosened and slid down, exposing her breasts. Hoosier stopped and stared, his hands going to the sides of her waist and holding her fast. “Everything about you is beautiful.” Cupping a breast in one hand, he bent his head to it and sucked deeply, teasing her nipple against the roof of his mouth.