The Substitute Bride (The Great Wedding Giveaway Series Book 7) (15 page)

“I refuse to be careful anymore,” she said, and the fervent huskiness of her voice made it sound strangely like a vow.  Or a prayer.  “That’s not who I am.  That’s not what I want to be.”

He smiled, though the tension rippling through him allowed only a small curving of his lips.  “What do you want to be instead?” 

“I want to be foolish.  I want to be brave.”  She lowered her head to his bare chest and kissed him.  Her lips were hot.  “Most of all, I want to be
alive
.”

He understood.  He’d felt that mad craving for life, years ago, when his family was falling apart, and he saw no hope anything would ever get better.  He’d wanted to run, to fly, to sing and dance and make love in the back of his truck and pitch scorching strikes...and experience everything that would help him feel alive.  Before it was too late.

“I want that for you, too,” he said.  And he did.  He wanted to give her everything she wanted—to
be
everything she wanted. 

But he wasn’t sure he could hold out much longer.  He breathed deeply, trying to slow the hot-ice shivers that were circling, tightening, forming dangerous currents and spirals of sensation. 

He hadn’t felt this close to a premature orgasm since he was fourteen, but here it was, and he couldn’t seem to control it.  Without a single direct touch from her, his erection throbbed. 

“Be careful,” he said again, stupidly.  As if she hadn’t already shown him she hated the word.

She must not have heard him, because she pulled her hands from his shirt and dropped them into the hot, dangerous space where their bodies met.  She found the aching swell between his legs and began to stroke it through the denim.  Up, down...and again.  And again.

He groaned.  His head fell back, and his eyes closed helplessly.  Why fight it?  He couldn’t possibly win.  And oh, the rhythm of climax had such a painful beauty.  First the hot, twitching flick, like a tongue of fire.  Then the deep swoop, as if something tugged on the bones of his pelvis, the muscles of his thighs.  Then another flick of heat, and then another pull... 

Over and over, faster, hotter, faster, until he couldn’t think, couldn’t speak...

Couldn’t stop.

And yet, somehow, at the very last minute, he did.  Somehow he willed the blind machinery of his body to slow down, and then to stop.  Reluctantly, resentfully...with angry jabs of ebbing electricity...his body obeyed.  The invisible lava, which had been pulled from his veins and pooled between his legs, retreated.

Even so, he remained painfully erect and swollen.  Her fingers had stilled, sensing a change, but he knew the victory was temporary.  The minute she began again...

“This isn’t right,” he said, because he had to.  He was a man, not an animal...he had to keep telling himself that.  But he sounded hoarse, out of breath, as if he’d just fought a dragon, a battle, a war.  “You’re unhappy, Marly.  I can’t take advantage—”

To his surprise, she finally smiled—for the first time since arriving.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m taking advantage of
you
.”  She teased her fingers across that swollen place between his legs.  Just once, and lightly.  But it was enough to remind him how completely in control she was. 

It was getting more and more difficult to remember exactly why he was supposed to resist this.  Something about being a man...a gentle man...

“We should talk first,” he said, but even he could tell how half-hearted the words sounded. 

“We can talk tomorrow,” she said.  “Or, when tomorrow comes, we can pretend this never happened.  I don’t really care.  All I need is tonight.” 

She moved her hand again, cupping him with her hot palm.  “Please, Drake.  I’ve dreamed about this for so long.  Just for tonight, help me make the dream come true.”

––––––––

S
he’d lied, she thought as, through the slumbering haze, she felt his lips move over her, rousing her from her brief, sated sleep.

“Again?” she murmured as the honey of desire seeped into her veins one more time.  She touched his silken hair with drowsy fingertips as he nuzzled between her legs.  He nudged them apart hungrily, kissing her thighs, burrowing deeper, then deeper still... until with a sleepy purr she shifted, loosened her hips, and spread for him.

With a triumphant growl, he moved in, stretching out between her legs, and focused his kisses on the sensitive, quickly hardening bead that seemed to nest at the center of her existence.  He teased it with his tongue, waking it all over again, even though she’d told him, before they slept, that she was spent.

Oh, yes, she’d lied to him.  She’d
never
had this dream.  She’d never imagined, in her wildest fantasies or her deepest sleep, that such violent, exquisite pleasure was possible.

And she’d never imagined it could be so easy.  In her entire life, she’d never experienced an orgasm she didn’t have to fight for.  Yet here, half asleep and half bruised with all the climaxes this night had already held, another one was coiling inside her.

She didn’t have to tighten, or focus, or strain for the perfect angle.  She didn’t have to do anything but lie there and let him suck softly, until, in some deep, unseen place, she slowly began to ripple and shudder.  The feeling spread up and out with waves of shivering sensation.  Cold and hot, tightly coiled and dangerously untethered, all at the same time.

All night long, each fall had been just a little different, each one unique, as if her body were a kaleidoscope made of a million tiny pieces, capable of creating numberless versions of bliss.  Depending on whether he was suckling, or plunging inside her, whether he was rough or tender, whether he wanted to make it last or make it explode, her body would create a new joy.  She might buck, or arc, or cry out, or swoon almost to a faint.  She might feel cold, or hot, made of liquid, or made of stars.  She might see fireworks behind her eyes, or colors that didn’t exist outside her own mind.

She didn’t have to choose, didn’t have to make any of it happen.  Her body shifted the kaleidoscope, created the moment, in a ritual as reflexive and natural as breathing.

This one was going to be slow and sweet.  She didn’t open her eyes, focusing instead on his lips.  She imagined that little, throbbing bead between her legs—it was a candle flame, her secret fire that only he could start.  He made the flame dance, and then he made it grow.  He let it flicker, and then he coaxed it back to life.  Finally, he built it to such a height that the rest of her body caught fire, too, and she felt herself dissolving in circles of throbbing, quivering heat.

When it was over, she could have drifted right back to sleep...or perhaps she’d never been awake at all.  She couldn’t move—didn’t care that she had no sheets, no modesty...she hadn’t even closed her legs.

She could feel the night air cooling on the wetness he’d left behind.  She loved the way that tiny chill made her feel.  If she weren’t so sleepy, she might come again, just thinking of his hot, wet tongue.

Wanton
, she thought groggily.  She was wanton.

And it was wonderful.

And then, like a wasp stinging its way into her dreams, the telephone rang.  Drake groaned.  Maybe he’d ignore it.  Maybe it was only a dream, itself.

But she felt the mattress shift as he sat up.  And she heard his voice break the silence.

“Hello?”

She understood it was bad news, even before he said another word.  She could tell by the way his shoulders tightened, and how the air in the room went suddenly ice cold.

He never did say more than a few syllables.  Short, ominous questions like “When?”  “Where?” “How bad?”  And then, at the very end, simply.  “I’ll be there.”

She sat up, too, and clutched the sheet to her breasts.  “What is it?”

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I have to go.  Are you all right to drive?  I’d take you home, but...”

“That’s okay.”  She knew there wasn’t time—that much was obvious. 

She stared at his bare, beautiful back.  His voice was as clipped now, speaking to her, as it had been when he spoke to that unwelcome messenger on the phone.  He was already wrapping his watch around his wrist, and fumbling on the floor for his jeans. 

“What is it?” she asked again.

“It’s Fly.” 

He turned, finally, and the pain in his face startled her.  She had already accepted it must be terrible news, but she hadn’t understood
how
terrible, until she saw his eyes. 

“He’s had a stroke.  They say I should hurry.  They don’t know how long he’s got.”

––––––––

D
awn was still more than an hour away when Marly finally got home.  In the chilled night air, under the watchful eye of Copper Mountain, she climbed the outside staircase quietly.  Then she let herself in on tiptoe, easing the key into the lock, so that no scrape of metal against metal would wake her mother.

It wasn’t that Marly feared being caught sneaking home at such a guilty hour.  “Caught” was no longer a relevant word for her. 
Caught
. 
Sneak
. 
Guilty
.  None of them belonged in her vocabulary anymore.

They were a child’s words.  And, at long, long last, Marly no longer felt like a child.

In fact, she was eager to talk to her mother.  She had so much to explain, so much to apologize for, and so much to ask.  The hour until Angelina’s six o’clock alarm went off would seem very long.

To her surprise, when she stepped inside the apartment, the first thing she saw was Angelina, sitting at the kitchen table, her head pillowed on her forearm, sound asleep.  Just as Marly had been the other night.

Marly stood over her mother for a long minute, looking down at her elegantly coiffed head.  Her hair was still neat in its French twist, but the light from the overhead fixture sparkled on a few gray hairs.  Those were new since Marly had left for college.

Nine years.  She had missed nine whole years.

And she wasn’t exactly being the model daughter, now that she was home, either. How much real sleep had her mother managed to grab here, waiting for Marly to come home?

She should have called.  She should’ve risked the argument, so her mother wouldn’t have to worry.  Not calling had been cowardly and selfish.

One more hour was all her mother had, and Marly wouldn’t steal that.  Angelina never reset her alarm, never hit snooze, as most people did.  She always stood up instantly and began her day, whether she’d had a good night’s sleep—or none at all.

Quietly, Marly slipped out of her shoes, fished her laptop out of her satchel, and curled up on the sofa.  She made sure the computer’s sound was on mute.  Then she opened her email and clicked
compose
.

Dear Evan and Gloria
, she began. 

She worried her thumbnail, suddenly unsure how to continue.  But she supposed it was like anything she wrote, privately or professionally.  She’d just have to start putting words down as honestly as she could, and letting the story tell itself. 

Thank you for your affectionate note, in which you asked for my forgiveness, and for my understanding.  You have them both.  Yes, it’s been difficult.  But we’ll get through this, one step at a time.  For now, I just want you to know I’m back home in Marietta with my mother, and that I’m well.  And that I wish you only the best
.

She looked at her watch.  Those meager six sentences had taken twenty minutes to write.  She’d rearranged clumsy words, eliminated emotional words, replaced ambiguous words with simpler ones. 

The goal was to create a message that was both honest and kind. 

Most importantly, she wanted to be sure nothing bitter had seeped between the lines.  How would it help her, if Evan carried a rock of guilt around the rest of his life? 

The three of them, Evan, Gloria and Marly, had found themselves in an impossible situation.  There had been no easy answer, so Evan had made the decision he sincerely believed had the best shot at a happy ending.  What more could he have done?

The minute she hit
send
she felt a lovely lightening of her spirit, as if someone had trickled cool water over a burn.  She leaned back, stretching her weary body against the soft cushions, and smiled.

She now could gauge exactly how heavy a burden that stony, injured silence had been—if only because she saw how light she felt without it.

Next, Marly had planned to get started on her Copper Mountain column, but she couldn’t seem to focus.  Her mind kept drifting back to Three Horses, to that small, Spartan room with its simple four-poster bed and the white cotton curtains fluttering at the open window.

Giving up, she folded her laptop shut carefully and set it beside her on the cushions.  Then she simply sat, half dozing, half dreaming.  Soon, she noticed lemon-pale dawn light outlining the window shades with a neon brilliance.  Sunrise.  If she looked out the western windows right now, she’d see Copper Mountain glowing gold.

Six o’clock came...and went.  And still her mother slept.  Marly got up and put coffee on.  She wanted to call the hospital, for an update on Fly, but she stopped herself from picking up the phone.  They wouldn’t tell her anything—medical privacy rules were far too strict for that.  She’d wake her mother for nothing.

Six-fifteen, then six-thirty.  Her mother must have forgotten to set the alarm.  That one fact alone told Marly how distraught Angelina had been as she sat here, listening for Marly’s footstep on the stairs. 

With a sudden rush of tenderness, Marly knelt beside her mother’s chair.  She laid her hand gently on that delicate shoulder.  Her mother was still young, she realized with a small shock.  She was only forty-five.

“Mom?”  She spoke softly. “Mom, it’s six-thirty.”

The words might as well have been a cattle prod.  Her mother’s eyes flew open, and she straightened with a jerk.  One minute, she was asleep, her mouth looking young and soft.  The next minute she was wide awake, fully aware that she’d slept in the kitchen, and lucid, too, about the reason she’d done so.

Her willful, disappointing daughter had not come home all night.