Spider Game (47 page)

Trap had even given her dance lessons every night so they could dance after they were married. Trap seemed good at everything he did. He was graceful, fluid even, like a cat, and when he moved across the floor to the music, his rhythm was impeccable. In the privacy of their home, she loved it. She loved the feel of his body against hers, the masterful way he guided her steps, the shared laughter. She didn’t feel awkward at all. She actually felt happy. His woman. But not here. Not in front of them all.

Trap gently moved Nonny out of his way. “Baby, you should have called to me the moment you started getting nervous. There was no need for you to get so frightened.”

She moistened her lips. “This is important to you.” Her voice was low. A confession when she hadn’t even told him what a coward she was.

“
You’re
important to me. Talk to me. What’s wrong?” He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his side, under his shoulder, shielding her the way he did with his body.

“There’s too many people,” she admitted, her fingers finding the lapel of his elegant jacket. “I can’t walk out there in front of them with all of them staring at me.” A small shudder went through her body. “I know they’re your friends and you want them here. I want them here for you as well, but I can’t seem to move.”

She was close to tears. Too close. It would ruin the makeup Pepper had so carefully applied for the photographs. Nonny explained the importance of pictures and showed her several of the family albums. Pictures of her four grandsons decorated the walls. There were beautiful photographs of Gator and Flame as well as Wyatt and Pepper in the parlor and along the wall above the stairs. Cayenne wanted to line her walls with pictures of Trap and her, or just Trap. She wanted her home to feel the way Nonny’s house felt.

Trap bent his head to hers, his strong fingers under her chin, tilting her face toward his. “Baby, you don’t have to go out there alone. This is our ceremony. We get to make up the rules.”

“I’ve already ruined everything because you aren’t supposed to see me ahead of time.”

“Do you think I’ve ever, in my life, given a flying
fuck
about the rules? I haven’t. That’s the answer, babe, I’ve never cared about rules. You don’t want to walk out there alone, without me, we walk out together. The girls can go ahead of us. No one’s going to care. They’re just happy you got me all wrapped around your little finger so they can give me hell whenever they feel like it.”

She couldn’t help it. He made her want to laugh. It was such a Trap response. “You can’t swear in front of the girls. Nonny told me if you keep it up, she might have to wash out your mouth with soap. I like kissing you and you might not taste as good.”

Trap grinned at her, completely unrepentant. He kept her pinned to her side. “Let’s do this, Pepper. Nonny, you get them to start the music and we’ll get married. The sooner we’re married, the sooner I get to have you in my bed.”

Cayenne frowned at him. “I was just in your bed.”

“Yeah, baby, and once I had that taste of you, I needed more. It wasn’t enough.”

“Trap!” Nonny said sharply. “We have children in the room.”

“With Wyatt around, Nonny, I think those girls are going to grow up knowing what their men are going to be expecting.”

Nonny shook her head, raised an eyebrow at Pepper and pulled open the door to signal to Wyatt to put on the music. She went first, followed by Pepper and the triplets, who solemnly flung flower petals in all directions. Trap kept her clamped to his side, his large body protective, partially shielding her as they followed the little girls.

It was a very short walk. Rows of chairs had been set up in the room with a path between them so the wedding party could make their way to the minister. Cayenne found her heart beating so hard she feared Trap would hear it. He knew she was nervous because she was trembling uncontrollably. She didn’t look at anyone, just stared straight ahead, concentrating on Trap. The feel of his hard body moving so close to hers. His breathing. The strength in his arm as it wound around her waist. His massive chest where her hand lay.

Baby, thank you for doing this. I know it’s scary for you, but once it’s done, you’re legally my wife and I’m your husband. I’ve always been yours, but this makes it official to the rest of the world.
 

She felt his fingers flex on her waist.
I want to make you happy.
She did. More than anything else, she wanted Trap happy. She knew the demons he had. She had her own, but she never had a family to lose. Now that she saw Nonny, Wyatt and Pepper and their daughters, she understood what having a family meant. He’d had that and it had been ripped from him. She couldn’t undo the past, but she wanted to do everything in her power to give him something just as beautiful. Maybe, if she was lucky, even more so.

It was a very short ceremony. She repeated the vows in a low voice. Trap sounded firm. He never once took his arm from around her until he had to in order to put the diamond band on her finger, pushing it next to her diamond engagement ring. Pepper had gasped when she saw the ring, but had just smiled when Cayenne asked her why.

Trap’s expression, the look in his eyes, when the minister pronounced them man and wife, had tears burning close. She knew, in that moment, she’d done something huge to make him happy. His kiss was everything she’d come to expect. Hot. Hard. Commanding. Demanding and possessive. Catcalls and whistles erupted along with applause.

Trap didn’t leave her side after the ceremony either. He did most of the talking to the GhostWalkers as everyone celebrated with copious amounts of food. The music started and Trap whirled her onto the dance floor, holding her close to his body, enfolding her into his arms as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

“You are,” he whispered. “Have no doubt that I’ll always take care of you, Cayenne.”

“I plan on taking care of you,” she told him, meaning it.

She vowed silently to love him better than anyone else could possibly do. She moved in his arms to the rhythm of the music, drifting on a tidal wave of love. Of need. So close to him, it was impossible not to feel hunger for him. Pepper and Nonny had bought her an outfit for bed, one she was more than delighted to show him
before
going to bed, but she didn’t see why she would want to wear it
in
bed. Still, they told her he would love it, so she knew she’d wear it.

“Phone’s for you, Trap,” Wyatt said, tapping him on the shoulder.

“I’m a little busy.” Trap didn’t look up, his arms around Cayenne as they moved across the dance floor.

“I think you’ll want to take this one,” Wyatt said. “It’s an assistant who is holdin’ for Violet Smythe. The Violet Smythe in the running to be a candidate for the vice presidency. The same Violet Smythe who was married to Senator Ed Freeman who set up Jack and Ken Norton from Team Two in the Congo. The same woman who betrayed all the women in Whitney’s compound when they were prisoners being forced to be with men they didn’t want to be with.
That
Violet Smythe.”

The room went instantly silent. Ryland Miller, head of Team One, Gator’s team, stepped away from the wall where he’d been lounging. “She recently pulled the plug on her husband. He’d been in a vegetative state for some months. We believe she did so on Whitney’s orders. It’s rumored she might actually be paired with Whitney, but no one has confirmed that as of yet. Clearly she is in league with him.”

“Why would she be calling Trap?” Draden asked.

Trap shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t have anything to say to the bitch.”

“Trap,”
Nonny snapped. “Do not refer to a woman as a bitch, even if she is one.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” he muttered, not looking in the least sorry.

Later, Cayenne was fairly certain that she was going to hear all about Violet Smythe, and he wasn’t going to be calling the woman Violet or Smythe.

“Take the call,” Wyatt said. “We need to know what she’s up to.”

Trap sighed. “This is fucking annoying. It’s my wedding day. I don’t want to talk to, or have to listen to, a lying bitch, but if you think it’s necessary, Wyatt, I’ll do it. Did you set up to record the conversation?”

Wyatt nodded. “We’re on it. Put her on speaker so we can hear.”

Trap threaded his fingers through Cayenne’s and tugged until she followed him across the room to the phone. The room was so silent, she was certain they could have all heard the proverbial pin drop. He clamped her to his side, one hand at her waist but fingers sifting through the thick strands of hair curling at the hollow of her spine.

“Dawkins here.” He sounded abrupt. Rude. Annoyed.

“Please hold for Senator Smythe,” the voice intoned.

Trap waited until the silver voice spoke in his ear. “Dr. Dawkins?”

“Next time, if there is one, you want to speak to me, don’t have some joker tell me to hold for you. You want to talk, be on the fucking phone.”

There was a small silence. “I understand, Dr. Dawkins.” The voice was strictly neutral now. “I wanted to talk to you about something important as well as exciting. I’d like to do that in person and hope you’ll accept my invitation to a ball. It’s actually a fund-raiser to raise money for the presidential campaign. More importantly, I would like to have a meeting with all the top scientists we have here in the United States. I’m running with the presidential candidate on a platform that is very dear to me. I’d like the United States to be the country to find the cure for cancer. I don’t doubt that it can be done if I can bring all our top people together to work for the same goal. Not for glory or money, but to actually help mankind. There isn’t a family untouched by cancer. The formal invitation will be in the mail for you and your wife. I know you’re getting married, Dr. Dawkins, and I would very much like to meet you and your wife. Are you at all interested?”

Curing cancer. Trap turned his head to look at the woman standing in Gator’s arms. Whitney had used her body, even when she was a child, to experiment with curing cancer. He actually
gave
her cancer repeatedly. No one would ever pass up a chance to meet with the top researchers in their fields when they came together to find a cure for cancer.

“I don’t work alone. Dr. Fontenot is my partner. I’m also in the military and I run missions.” He wanted to make that clear.

“I understand. I know Wyatt Fontenot works with you, and of course, he and his wife are also invited.”

“I’ll be bringing a security team.”

“We’ll have plenty of security, Dr. Dawkins.”

“I bring my own or I don’t show.”

“Of course. I look forward to seeing you.”

Trap hung up the phone and turned to the others in the room. They’d all been able to hear the entire conversation.

“She’s up to something,” Flame said. “She may be bringing all the top researchers together, and maybe they’ll even find a cure, but she can’t be trusted. Not for a minute. She’s up to something.”

“I agree,” Wyatt said. “The question is, what is it? What does she really want?”

Ryland shrugged. “The only way of knowing is for Trap and Wyatt to meet with her. Trap will be bringing a very large security team with him.”

CHAPTER 19

T
rap closed his fingers around Cayenne’s slender wrist – the wrist adorned with a brilliant emerald bracelet. He found he suddenly preferred emeralds when he’d always been a diamond man. Cayenne subsided on the leather seat of the limousine and looked up at his face. He knew what she saw. He’d gone where he always did when he was in public, his face stone, no expression, no emotion.

He tightened his fingers until they shackled her, until they were a shackle around her small, delicate wrist. “You don’t leave my side for any reason, Cayenne. Do you understand me?”

Wyatt, sitting across from them, glanced at Trap sharply, but turned his head and looked out the darkened window at the spectators lining the streets. He didn’t say a word, and Trap knew he wouldn’t. This was between Trap and Cayenne and Wyatt wouldn’t interfere – unless he thought Trap would lose his mind – a distinct possibility.

“Trap.” Cayenne’s voice was soft. Gentle. Loving even. “We have nearly two full GhostWalker teams here for security.”

“I don’t fucking care.” He bit the words out, yanking her closer to him. She looked so damned serene, not at all as if they were going into a major ambush. “This isn’t a party, baby, this is a fucking nightmare. A trap. They have something planned, and that something could be another attempt to kill you. When I tell you to stay at my side, I mean no more than an inch from me. I want to feel your hand on me at all times.”

She continued to look up at him, her eyes as green and vibrant as the bracelet on her wrist and the necklace at her throat. She had no idea what they cost, and probably would be upset with him if she did know, but he liked seeing them on her. The earrings in particular, framing her face and surrounded by the cloud of dark hair, highlighted the green of her eyes. She took a breath.

“Honey, I’m not going to leave your side.” Her hand came up, fingers brushing at the lines etched deep in his face.