The Bride Wore Blue (16 page)

I
t was a big wedding, a big, bright afternoon affair, an extravaganza worthy of the most romantic movie production Hollywood could ever stage. Blue insisted. He wanted all of his family and friends to meet his bride and see how happy he was and to share their special day.

If the congregation in the packed church thought it odd that the maid of honor wore a tuxedo and a blue silk ribbon to hold back his jet black hair, and that the ring bearer had four feet and a tail, they didn’t say as much. They only smiled indulgently, some of them dabbing at their eyes as a glowing bride and an adoring groom exchanged vows and rings and a long, lingering kiss.

They flew in the Cessna from the Cities to Crimson Falls to honeymoon. Maggie insisted. Getting her into the plane was no longer a problem. Getting acres of shimmering ice blue satin and French lace into the cockpit was.

“I should have changed,” she said with a laugh as Blue shoved the last of the billowing train inside and closed the cockpit door.

“Not on your life.” His look left no room for debate when he climbed in the other side. Making sure Hershey was set in the back, he tugged his black tie loose, undid the top button of his pleated shirt and fired up the engine. “I’m only planning on one bride in my life, Stretch. And I’m only figuring on one wedding night. When that gown comes off, I’m going to be there.”

A delicious shiver of anticipation sluiced through her blood in anticipation of the night ahead.

“Did I tell you yet how beautiful you look?” he added, his eyes going smoky and dark.

She leaned toward him, her eyes glistening with hope and love and a delicious, suppressed desire. “You’re pretty beautiful yourself.” She touched a hand to his hair, then threaded her fingers through the glorious golden mass of it and leaned in to his kiss.

A cold nose on her cheek had her pulling back with a laugh. “Yes, Hersh. You’re pretty awesome, too. I don’t know why your master couldn’t have sprung for a new collar, though.”

Blue angled his head around to study the collar in question. It was the same one Maggie had been holding when Hershey had bolted for the poacher. He’d repaired the torn leather with massive amounts of duct tape.

“He likes his collar that way, don’t you, Hersh? It gives him kind of a macho, heavy-metal look—a must for all pit bull wannabes.”

Maggie had to fight the urge to pinch herself as they flew north with the aid of a light tail wind and a cloudless sky. This much joy, this much rich, vital emotion was foreign to her. But she knew that her life with Blue would be full of everything it had been lacking before he came into it. She
was going to enjoy getting used to the wonder of it all. Starting now.

“James Dean,” she murmured.

“What? I didn’t catch that.” Blue angled a look her way, raising his voice to be heard above the engine’s roar.

She leaned toward him with an amused grin. “I’d always wondered what J.D. stood for. I had to marry you to find out.”

A crooked smile tilted his beautiful mouth. “So now you know where I get my romantic tendencies. My mother was completely enamored with James Dean during her pregnancy.”

“Well, I’m completely enamored with him now.” Her hand on his arm reinforced her words. He covered it with his own.

“I loved your family. Your mom and dad are wonderful. And your brother—he’s even a bigger flirt than you are. I’ll bet Sandy has to keep on her toes around him.”

“Cary’s all show. He’s a big goon over Sandy and their girls. We Hazzard men cherish our women.”

That night, sequestered in the honeymoon room at the Crimson Falls with nothing but a bed, a bottle of champagne and each other, he showed her just how much.

The gown, lovingly removed by strong yet gentle and exquisitely sensual hands, lay in a pale blue pool on the floor by the bed.

He made love to her like it was the first time, the only time, the last time, pleasing her, teasing her, prolonging her pleasure until she cried from the wondrous gift of his love.

“You’ll pay for this, Hazzard,” she murmured when she could find the strength. “You’ll pay dearly.”

He ran a hand along the silk of her back, close to exhaustion himself as he drew her snugly against his side. “I think you just stole my line. But go ahead, steal away. With you, Maggie mine, I’ve got a feeling paybacks will be heaven.” Then he drifted off to sleep.

When J.D. woke up, his bride was sitting on the bed beside him, a roll of duct tape clutched in her hand. He blinked sleepily up at her, a smile rising at the flushed, rosy look of her in the darkened room.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, wanting to brush back the fall of hair that tumbled across her face in a tangle of chestnut-colored satin. He tried to lift his hand, but couldn’t move it.

He twisted his head around on the pillow, squinted and finally realized his wrist was taped to the brass head rail with duct tape. A moment later, it registered that his other wrist was bound, as well.

He met her eyes again, a question lurking in his. She answered with a beguiling look infused with mischief, passion and love.

“Payback time?” he ventured with a crooked, hopeful smile.

“Payback time,” she whispered, sparking desire to fire through his blood and couple with the sweetest anticipation he’d ever known.

She set the roll of tape on the dresser by the bed, then, never taking her eyes from his, slowly draped her breathtaking, gloriously naked self on top of him.

He groaned at the delicious contact of her soft, supple heat pressing to his. Bit back a moan and strained against the constraints of the binding tape when she slid slowly against him, creating an explosive, erotic friction that stole his breath and made him moan.

“Duct tape,” he breathed, barely able to mouth the words as he arched against her hands and her mouth as she did wonderful, wanton things to his body, “changed… my…life.”

He felt her smile against his skin, felt himself sink completely under her spell as the moon peeked in through the open window, lining her with gold.

“I love you, Maggie.”

“I know,” she whispered, just before she drove him over the edge.

Later, much later, after his silver bonds had been broken and he’d pulled her beneath him, the groom wore a very satisfied smile—and the bride wore nothing but Blue.

* * * * *

The first book in the exciting new
Fortune’s Children
series is
HIRED HUSBAND
by
New York Times
bestselling writer
Rebecca Brandewyne

Beginning in July 1996
Only from Silhouette Books

Here’s an exciting sneak preview…

Minneapolis, Minnesota

A
s Caroline Fortune wheeled her dark blue Volvo into the underground parking lot of the towering, glass-and-steel structure that housed the global headquarters of Fortune Cosmetics, she glanced anxiously at her gold Piaget wristwatch. An accident on the snowy freeway had caused rushhour traffic to be a nightmare this morning. As a result, she was running late for her 9:00 a.m. meeting—and if there was one thing her grandmother, Kate Winfield Fortune, simply couldn’t abide, it was slack, unprofessional behavior on the job. And lateness was the sign of a sloppy, disorganized schedule.

Involuntarily, Caroline shuddered at the thought of her grandmother’s infamous wrath being unleashed upon her. The stern rebuke would be precise, apropos, scathing and delivered with coolly raised, condemnatory eyebrows and in icy tones of haughty grandeur that had in the past reduced many an executive—even the male ones—at Fortune Cosmetics not only to obsequious apologies, but even to tears. Caroline had seen it happen on more than one occasion, although, much to her gratitude and relief, she herself was seldom a target of her grandmother’s anger. And she wouldn’t be this morning, either, not if she could help it. That would be a disastrous way to start out the new year.

Grabbing her Louis Vuitton totebag and her black leather portfolio from the front passenger seat, Caroline stepped
gracefully from the Volvo and slammed the door. The heels of her Maud Frizon pumps clicked briskly on the concrete floor as she hurried toward the bank of elevators that would take her up into the skyscraper owned by her family. As the elevator doors slid open, she rushed down the long, plushly carpeted corridors of one of the hushed upper floors toward the conference room.

By now Caroline had her portfolio open and was leafing through it as she hastened along, reviewing her notes she had prepared for her presentation. So she didn’t see Dr. Nicolai Valkov until she literally ran right into him. Like her, he had his head bent over his own portfolio, not watching where he was going. As the two of them collided, both their portfolios and the papers inside went flying. At the unexpected impact, Caroline lost her balance, stumbled, and would have fallen had not Nick’s strong, sure hands abruptly shot out, grabbing hold of her and pulling her to him to steady her. She gasped, startled and stricken, as she came up hard against his broad chest, lean hips and corded thighs, her face just inches from his own—as though they were lovers about to kiss.

Caroline had never been so close to Nick Valkov before, and, in that instant, she was acutely aware of him—not just as a fellow employee of Fortune Cosmetics but also as a man. Of how tall and ruggedly handsome he was, dressed in an elegant, pin-striped black suit cut in the European fashion, a crisp white shirt, a foulard tie and a pair of Cole Haan loafers. Of how dark his thick, glossy hair and his deep-set eyes framed by raven-wing brows were—so dark that they were almost black, despite the bright, fluorescent lights that blazed overhead. Of the whiteness of his straight teeth against his bronzed skin as a brazen, mocking grin slowly curved his wide, sensual mouth.

“Actually, I
was
hoping for a sweet roll this morning— but I daresay you would prove even tastier, Ms. Fortune,” Nick drawled impertinently, his low, silky voice tinged with
a faint accent born of the fact that Russian, not English, was his native language.

At his words, Caroline flushed painfully, embarrassed and annoyed. If there was one person she always attempted to avoid at Fortune Cosmetics, it was Nick Valkov. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, he had emigrated to the United States, where her grandmother had hired him to direct the company’s research and development department. Since that time, Nick had constantly demonstrated marked, traditional, Old World tendencies that had led Caroline to believe he not only had no use for equal rights but also would actually have been more than happy to turn back the clock several centuries where females were concerned. She thought his remark was typical of his attitude toward women: insolent, arrogant and domineering. Really, the man was simply insufferable!

Caroline couldn’t imagine what had ever prompted her grandmother to hire him—and at a highly generous salary, too—except that Nick Valkov was considered one of the foremost chemists anywhere on the planet. Deep down inside, Caroline knew that no matter how he behaved, Fortune Cosmetics was extremely lucky to have him. Still, that didn’t give him the right to manhandle and insult her!

“I assure you that you would find me more bitter than a cup of the strongest black coffee, Dr. Valkov,” she insisted, attempting without success to free her trembling body from his steely grip, while he continued to hold her so near that she could feel his heart beating steadily in his chest—and knew he must be equally able to feel the erratic hammering of her own.

“Oh, I’m willing to wager there’s more sugar and cream to you than you let on, Ms. Fortune.” To her utter mortification and outrage, she felt one of Nick’s hands slide insidiously up her back and nape to her luxuriant mass of sable hair, done up in a stylish French twist.

“You know so much about fashion,” he murmured, eyeing her assessingly, pointedly ignoring her indignation and efforts to escape from him. “So why do you always wear your hair like this…so tightly wrapped and severe? I’ve never seen it down. Still, that’s the way it needs to be worn, you know…soft, loose, tangled about your face. As it is, your hair fairly cries out for a man to take the pins from it, so he can see how long it is. Does it fall past your shoulders?” He quirked one eyebrow inquisitively, a mocking half smile still twisting his lips, letting her know he was enjoying her obvious discomfiture. “You aren’t going to tell me, are you? What a pity. Because my guess is that it does—and I’d like to know if I’m right. And these glasses.” He indicated the large, square, tortoiseshell frames perched on her slender, classic nose. “I think you use them to hide behind more than you do to see. I’ll bet you don’t actually even need them at all.”

Caroline felt the blush that had yet to leave her cheeks deepen, its heat seeming to spread throughout her entire quivering body. Damn the man! Why must he be so infuriatingly perceptive?

Because everything that Nick suspected was true.

* * * * *

To read more, don’t miss
HIRED HUSBAND
by Rebecca Brandewyne,
Book One in the new
FORTUNE’S CHILDREN
series,
beginning this month and available only from
Silhouette Books!