Infinity + One (39 page)

It seemed only fitting that their roller coaster journey should include an actual roller coaster ride, and when Bonnie protested, telling him that she got a little motion sick, he promised her he would distract her. He wanted to distract himself. Not from what he’d just done or the promises he had made, but from the fear of what was to come. The roller coaster promised flight, speed, and a suspension of time. And he wanted all of those things. Her proximity would taunt him all the way to Los Angeles—sitting by her, his ring on her finger, lust in his veins, and not a damn thing he could do about it.

So they stood in the line, keeping their faces averted, their eyes on each other, and waited to ride the roller coaster. They sat on the very back row—Finn had plotted exactly where they needed to be in the line to slip into the last car, and when the coaster began to collect speed, he pulled Bonnie’s face to his, and kissed and cradled her through the loops and turns, ignoring the ride and the wind whipping around them, his lips and tongue mimicking the climb and plunge of the ride, the pounding of the rails echoing the pounding in his chest, the squealing of the brakes on the final stretch reminding him that the ride was over, for now, and another was just beginning.

THIS JUST IN. We have confirmation that Bonnie Rae Shelby and Infinity James Clyde were spotted in Las Vegas on Saturday, and that a marriage license was issued for one Bonita Rae Shelby and Infinity James Clyde, putting to rest speculation that the singer was an unwilling accomplice in the crime spree that spreads across the US. It’s not surprising that Bonnie Rae Shelby’s album and download sales have hit record-breaking levels as people are tuning into this story. Reports of sightings of Infinity Clyde and Bonnie Rae Shelby have started to pour in from literally all over the country. Everyone is transfixed with this story, and no one seems to know what to believe. Is this a case of a beautiful young superstar being kidnapped and held against her will? Or is this a scenario where a captive falls for her captor?

BONNIE’S EYES WERE wide and trusting, watching him. Studying him. For all her sass and her salt, she could be very sweet. Very tender. Very serious. She was perfectly still, abnormally so, and there was a flush to her cheeks that hadn’t been there before. He could see her pulse. It thrummed wildly, and somehow that settled his own nerves, knowing she was afraid. She shouldn’t be afraid. He would take care of her.

He walked toward her but stopped two feet in front of her, suddenly not eager to rush. Miraculously, a new bus had arrived in Primm, and they had boarded her without incident. In fact, the final four hours of their trip had gone seamlessly, contradicting Finn’s rising certainty that they would never make it to LA. But it had been the longest four hours of his life. He and Bonnie had both been vibrating with the rumbling bus the entire way there, adrenaline, lust and eager anticipation making the final stretch of their journey almost unbearable.

There had been no police waiting at the end of their journey, no Bonnie and Clyde style ambush outside the venerable hotel. Bonnie had called ahead, giving the concierge the name Bear had instructed her to give. Their cab was directed to a special entrance, and a doorman was waiting to escort them in a private elevator to the top floor. He hadn’t blinked or looked twice at either of them, his face as expressionless as a royal guard, and he took their garment bags with the utmost care and even bowed as Bonnie tipped him with a practiced hand. And then he’d left them in their suite, the most opulent rooms Finn had ever seen, and closed the double doors quietly behind him. They’d each taken a minute to freshen up in separate, luxurious bathrooms, and amazingly enough, Bonnie had finished before him and now stood in the center of the room as if she stood in the center of a stage, waiting for the music to begin.

It was after three o’clock in the morning, in a suite in a very famous hotel, the balcony doors slightly open to welcome in perfumed air to brush their fevered skin, and they were alone. Finally. Two feet apart and about ten feet from a huge, beautiful bed. Finn reached for Bonnie’s hand and twisted the little band that circled her finger.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, the question almost inaudible it was so soft.

Her eyes rose from their hands and held his, a small smile lifting one corner of her mouth. The she stepped forward and stood on her tiptoes placing her cheek to his, smooth against rough, and he kissed her neck, making her shiver.

“Mirrors,” she said in his ear.

“Mirrors?” he asked.

“Reflections,” she said.

Finn lifted his head, raising his eyes to the ceiling above the entire pedestaled sleeping area, to the mirrors that made the ceiling a reflection of the room below. He’d noticed them immediately when they’d walked into the well-appointed room. He was sure Bear hadn’t known about that feature when he’d booked the room for the two of them. He was quite sure he’d booked the suite because there was a fold out bed in the private sitting area and a door in between. It was a room fit for a rock star or a princess, or someone who was a little bit of both.

“Remember what I told you about mirrors? How sometimes it’s hard to look at my own reflection?” Bonnie asked.

“Yeah.” Finn caught his own gaze in the overhead mirrors as if he were looking down on himself. Bonnie lifted her eyes as well, and they stared at each other, at their upturned faces and clasped hands.

“When you’re with me, beside me, in front of a mirror, I don’t feel that way. When I’m standing next to you, I know exactly who I am. I don’t see Minnie. I don’t lose myself in memories of her. I just see us.”

Bonnie stopped as if she couldn’t continue, and he saw her chest lift and release, a steadying inhale and exhale, before she finished. “At the boutique, I saw you standing behind me, beside me, and I felt whole. Not a piece, not a half, not a part. Whole.”

It was her turn to twist the ring on his finger. “So now . . . I’m thinking about mirrors. And watching you make love to me.” And she looked away from his reflection above her head and met his gaze, and Finn had to close his eyes and concentrate, committing himself to care so that he didn’t toss her bodily onto the bed and ruin the only first time they would ever have. He must have worn an intensely focused expression because Bonnie smoothed the groove between his scowling brows with her fingertips.

“You aren’t thinking about numbers are you?” She spoke only inches from his lips, and he closed the brief distance so he could feel her smile in the curve of the kiss, teasing him, and he left his eyes closed and enjoyed the sensation of the barely-there touch of her mouth.

“I’m thinking about subtraction,” he murmured, moving his face gently from side to side so that his lips brushed hers softly, back and forth.

“You are?” he could hear the smile again and nipped at it with his teeth.

“Yes. I am.” His hands slid up beneath her shirt, the silk of her skin warm against his flattened palms. She caught her breath, and Finn paused, waiting for her to release it, the flutter of air tickling his tongue when she did. Then he moved his hands higher and pushed her tank top up and over her head. He didn’t open his eyes, but he took her lips again, his hands spanning the smooth length of her back as he kissed her, open-mouthed.

He slid his hands from her back to her hips, to the waist band of her jeans and found the button, releasing it and pushing it aside as he unzipped them. He slid her jeans around her hips and felt her shift, sending them down her legs and pooling at their feet.

“See? Subtraction,” he whispered.

“I think I like math,” she breathed, and she stepped fully against him, away from her clothes, away from the dainty pile of lace he had fingered sightlessly, only to discard because he longed for what was beneath.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he murmured, and opened his eyes slowly, unable to resist any longer, filling his vision with dark eyes and parted lips, with rosy skin and slender shoulders. His eyes clung to the hollow at the base of her throat before he drank in the rise and fall of her breasts, of her belly, the softness and the slope of her hips and her thighs, and he fell to his knees before her, pressing his mouth to the curve of her stomach, wrapping his arms around her trembling legs.

Her hands gripped his hair and splayed across his back, pulling his shirt from his shoulders, briefly separating his mouth from her skin as she tugged it over his head, and then she was on her knees as well, as if her legs wouldn’t hold her. And so Finn held her, rising to his feet as he swept her up and laid her on the pale duvet that made her look like a fallen angel languishing on a cloud. And she opened her body to him, entreating him to lay with her. And he humbly obeyed.

Above their heads, the mirrors bore silent witness of a man and his wife engaged in the pulse and pull of passion, in the warmth and weight of wanting, in the falling away of fear and forever to a moment so ripe with the present, with now, with need, with never let me go, that there was no before, no after, no tomorrow or yesterday.

And it was perfect and untouchable.

A FEW FEATHERS had escaped from the duvet and Finn pinched them between his fingers, setting them gently on my head.

“I’m making you look like an angel,” he said sleepily.

“An angel who has been rolling in the hay.”

“In the feathers,” Finn corrected.

“The feathers,” I amended. “An angel who has been rolling in the feathers all night long.” Which wasn’t far from the truth. Which was why I couldn’t keep my eyes open. “Whenever I think of angels, I think of Minnie. And now, I think of Fish too.”

“Fish wasn’t an angel.”

“He’s your angel. Your guardian angel,” I whispered. “And Minnie’s mine. They brought us together, Finn. I’m sure of it. You and me? We couldn’t have happened without divine intervention, and you know it.”

Finn sighed, but it was more a chuckle than a groan, and I smiled sleepily with him.

“If I weren’t so tired, I would make myself a headdress and a little costume out of those feathers and dance for you. I didn’t get the chance in Vegas. And I promised Minnie.”

“You promised Minnie you would dance for me?”

“Ha,” I yawned the word. “I promised Minnie we would dance topless in Vegas.” I was drifting off, the feel of Finn’s fingers making circles on my bare back, so soothing I could no longer stay awake.

“Bonnie Rae?”

“Hmm?”

“There will be no topless dancing in Vegas, baby.”

“Yes, there will be, Huckleberry, my handsome husband. But you can be the only one in the audience, okay?”

“Deal,” he murmured.

And I burrowed my head into his chest and fell asleep, wondering how I’d ever fallen asleep without him.

And I dreamed of mirrors and angels.