CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
SHAWN was glowing in the triumph of beating Eve by exactly two seconds. Eve was taking it well, joking that she had thrown it so that Shawn could win at her own bachelorette party.
“It was the only kind thing to do,” Eve told her. “And by the way, I have a feeling my thighs are going to be killing me tomorrow. Good thing it’s Sunday. I have a few days to recover.”
Shawn grinned at her. “Yeah, it’s harder than it looks, I’m not going to lie.”
“Look behind you,” Dawn said, pointing. “It looks like our party has been crashed. I swear, what were they thinking?”
Shawn and Eve turned and there were Rhett and Nolan and the other guys, watching them from across the room. “How long have they been here?” she asked, her heart starting to race. Just the sight of her husband got her blood pumping.
“Long enough that they caught both your final rides. Voyeurs.” She sounded disgusted.
Shawn wondered if she was a disgrace to wives that she actually wanted her husband to be there. And that it actually turned her on that he had seen her ride a bull. “I wonder whose idea it was to come here?”
“It had to be Rhett or Nolan. The other guys, one, know better. Two, they don’t really want to see us. Y’all are still in the honeymoon phase, but never fear, the need to see each other all the time will wear off.”
Somehow Shawn didn’t think she would be like that. Given that her adult relationships had never been particularly all-encompassing, romantic, or devotional, she found that with Rhett, it was totally different. She both loved and was terrified by her need, her want, to be with him.
“Maybe I don’t want it to wear off,” she murmured as Rhett started toward her, his stride confident, Nolan immediately falling in step behind him.
“It’s not practical,” Dawn stated.
Something about her tone had Shawn wondering if Dawn and her husband were not quite okay. But she wasn’t about to ask her here, not now.
“If Shawn doesn’t care that the guys are here, then I don’t suppose you should,” Eve told her. “It’s her bachelorette party.”
“I don’t mind,” Shawn said.
In fact, when Rhett came over and smiled at her, immediately pulling her into his arms, she didn’t want to do anything other than kiss the stuffing out of him. So she did.
“Mm. That was an awesome greeting,” he murmured in her ear, stroking his hands down her back. “Nice bull riding.”
“I have strong thighs.”
“Something I’ve always admired about you.”
“So what are you doing here?” she asked him.
“I was bored. I missed you. I thought if we’re already married, why shouldn’t we spend the night partying together, instead of separately?”
“Sound logic,” she told him. “Though you may have pissed your sisters off.”
But he just shrugged. “It’s not their night. It’s ours. And I found myself wanting to dance with my wife.”
Oh, damn, he was just so . . . much. It wasn’t charm, it wasn’t being smooth, it was something else. Something . . . more. He looked at her like that, and she melted. She gave in, she opened to him, she forgot who she was, and wanted nothing more than to be with him, to please him. It was exhilarating. Awful.
“Are you asking?” she said, to remind him that outside of their bedroom, she called the shots, so to speak. Not that she did, really. Rhett was by nature a dominating personality, and even when he was being polite and thoughtful and offering to cook dinner or change her oil or take her to the movies, he tended to initiate the order of their days. She didn’t mind, not really, because if she said no to anything, he would change gears without question. If she wanted pasta instead of steak, he would go to the grocery store and get pasta, so she didn’t care that he had a strong personality.
But she worried that she should.
“Yes. Will you dance with me, Shawn, my beautiful wife?”
“I would love to.” The ease with which he used the word wife made her feel warm inside. It made her wonder if he was wondering what she was wondering—that maybe they shouldn’t automatically dismiss their relationship as temporary, as fake. That maybe it could be, should be, something real.
As they swayed to the music with more feeling than any particular skill, Shawn smiled up at him. “Are we going to survive this party tomorrow?”
“It will be fun.”
“I’ve never seen you in a suit.”
“I’ve never seen you in a wedding dress. I’m not sure my blood pressure will be able to handle it.”
His hands were warm on her waist, and he was inching farther south than was really appropriate for a public place, but she let him for now. Once he reached her ass, she would stop him, but for now she was enjoying his touch. “I don’t think you’re that delicate. You’ll be fine.”
“There is delicate, then there is vulnerable. You have no idea how vulnerable I am with you,” he said, his voice low and near her ear.
Shawn shivered, the pulsing beat of the country ballad reverberating through her feet, her breasts, her inner thighs. Or maybe that was just him. But the room was warm, the lighting low, their bodies close and intimate, and she was barely aware that anyone else existed.
“I don’t see how I can make you vulnerable,” she whispered, inching her fingers up to stroke the back of his neck. He smelled like cologne and beer. He didn’t usually wear cologne and she found it appealing, like he had kicked his own manly scent up a notch. “I think it’s the other way around and sometimes it pisses me off.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
She hadn’t really meant to say that, or to get into a discussion about their relationship on the sticky dance floor, but her doubts were getting the best of her. She wanted so much to be with Rhett in a way that was real, yet at the same time it freaked her out. Shouldn’t she want to be independent? Shouldn’t she be ticked like his sisters that he had crashed her girl’s night?
“I don’t know,” was her cop-out response.
But Rhett shook his head. “Don’t pull that. You know you can trust me. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
Shit. How did she explain her jumbled thoughts and feelings?
“It’s just that . . . well, I think about you every day, Rhett. I want to please you, I want to be with you all the time . . . I feel like I’m being absorbed by you. It scares the shit out of me.”
Just hearing her own words had her heart rate increasing. It sounded crazy. She was crazy for him.
He didn’t look particularly alarmed. His nostrils flared and if anything, he looked aroused. “That’s funny, because I feel the same way, yet my understanding was that this is how falling in love works, Shawn.”
“Falling in love?” she asked dumbly. Was he saying he loved her?
“Yes. Falling in love. Which is what I’m doing.” He softly brushed her hair off her cheek. “Do you think that is what you’re doing?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe. Yes.” Way to commit. She mentally kicked herself. Then she took a deep breath and added, “Yes. I am falling in love with you.”
She’d never said those words to anyone. Not even to her high school boyfriend, who she had been sure she would spend the rest of her life with. She’d never told a man she loved him. While this was still one step away from that, it was pretty damn close. Her cheeks burned with the overwhelming realization of what was happening. This was it. This was major.
He smiled at her. “So what do we do now?”
Hell if she knew. “I guess we dance. And we live together. And tomorrow we have a wedding reception.”
Rhett’s thumb rubbed over her bottom lip. “So pragmatic. Where’s the romance, darlin’?”
That made her grin back at him, relieved that he knew her so well already that he was lightening the mood. That he was allowing her to steer this conversation. “Read a novel,” she told him. “You’re barking up the wrong tree if you want a gushy girl.”
“Oh, I think I can get you to gush a little . . . you get more romantic in bed than you realize.”
“I wasn’t aware that begging was romantic,” she said wryly.
But Rhett shook his head. “That’s not what I was referring to. I was thinking more about the way your eyes darken and your skin flushes and the way your fingers trace my face like you can’t quite believe I’m real.”
It was true. She did all that. And she blushed anew to realize that he was so aware of her and her reactions. “Sometimes I wonder if you are real,” she whispered. “Sometimes I think that I’m going to wake up with the clock rewound and find none of the last two weeks has happened.”
“How would that make you feel?”
“Heartbroken,” she told him truthfully.
“Me, too.” His green eyes were shiny with sincerity.
A tap on her arm made Shawn jump. She glanced over and saw Eve and Nolan watching them in amusement.
“You do know you’re slow dancing to nothing, don’t you? The music stopped sixty seconds ago.”
Oh, Lord, she was right. The dance floor was completely empty except for them.
“But the rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum,” Rhett said, deadpan.
Shawn lost it, laughter spilling out. That was such a Rhett comeback, and she loved it.
Nolan shook his head. “Bro, my hat is off to you. You managed to find the one woman in the world who doesn’t think you’re a freak.”
• • •
RHETT opened the back door of Harley’s car for Shawn and eyed his wife’s backside as she climbed in.
“I saw that,” Eve told him, sliding past him to follow Shawn into the car.
“I don’t care,” he told her with an unrepentant grin. “And why aren’t you going with Nolan? Not that I don’t enjoy your presence thoroughly, but I would think you’d want to go home with your husband.”
“He has to drive Jared home. He’s shit-faced. I’m dead on my feet, so I’ll get back faster this way.”
“So Harley’s dropping you first, then us?”
“Yes. It’s on the way,” she said defensively.
It was a toss-up whether it was or not, but Rhett didn’t care to argue. He was damn happy. Happy as a dead pig in the sunshine. So he just smiled at her and got in the car. “Switch seats with me, Eve. I want to sit next to Shawn.”
“Kiss my butt,” was her reply. “You can fondle her later. I’m not climbing over the top of you so you can sit next to her. God, so high school.”
“You are tired,” he commented. That was a bit sharp even for Eve.
“I’m exhausted. I drank just enough to dance like a fool, but not enough to not feel the crash. So don’t piss me off or I’ll cream your corn.”
“I’m not afraid of you, big talker.” Rhett leaned around her to talk to Shawn, intentionally getting his elbow in Eve’s face. “Baby, I hope we don’t need to be anywhere first thing tomorrow because I’m not ready for sleeping yet. I’ve got at least two hours in me.”
“Gross,” was Charity’s opinion from the front passenger seat.
He just laughed. Shawn smiled at him, bundled up in her coat. Eve pinched his arm.
“Move it,” she said.
Settling back, he found himself feeling very conversational. “So Harley, you’re quiet up there. Did you have fun?”
“It was fine,” was Harley’s clipped reply from the front seat.
Charity snorted.
“Wrong question, hon,” Shawn told him in a warning voice.
Was it wrong that he was more interested in the fact that Shawn had called him “hon” than whatever was bothering Harley?
The thought guilted him into saying, “I’m sorry, Harley. Didn’t mean to poke a sore spot.”
“I didn’t know you were crushing on him,” Charity exploded at her sister. “If you would actually share something with me once in a while, I wouldn’t have kissed him. You know, it’s really very hurtful that you won’t let me in, Harley. I tell you everything.”
“Wait, so this is my fault?” Harley asked in shock, taking a turn a little hard and running them over the curb.
“Maybe I should drive,” Rhett suggested. “Were you drinking, Harley?”
“No. I cut myself off three hours ago because that’s what I do,” Harley said. “I am the driver and the wallflower while Charity gets drunk and dances half-naked with the guy she totally knew I was into!”
“I’m out,” Rhett said, turning to Eve. “I can’t do the girl-fight thing.”
“Don’t look at me,” Eve said, shrugging. “My suggestion to arm wrestle it out isn’t really practical at the moment.”
But Shawn had it under control. She was already leaning forward, murmuring to the twins, reassuring Harley that Charity had not known about the guy and suggesting to Charity that if she wanted her sister to confide in her, she should consider allowing her a word in edgewise on occasion.
Rhett leaned against the window and watched her sort the whole mess out in a matter of minutes. After they pulled into Eve’s apartment complex and Harley parked the car, there were tears and hugs and apologies, and then suddenly all was okay. It was, in his eyes, as miraculous as Moses parting the Nile.
“That’s why I leave this stuff to her,” Eve told him. “See you tomorrow with my happy face on.” She gave him a smile and got out of the car after he opened the door and stood up to let her pass.
“Thanks. Shawn is pretty amazing, isn’t she?”
“I’m glad to see you realize it,” she told him. Then with a wave to her girlfriends, Eve went into the apartment building she and Nolan had recently moved into after the sale of her condo, and Rhett waited to make sure the door firmly closed behind her.
“Eve’s in. We can roll.” And with his sister-in-law safely home, he could cuddle with his wife. His wife. That’s right.
She came willingly when he urged her to tuck in up against his side.
“I’m freezing still,” she said. “It must be thirty degrees out tonight. I know I can always count on you to warm me up.”
He moved his eyebrows up and down.
She laughed. “Well, yeah, there’s that, but what I really meant was that you radiate heat all the time. Your body temperature must be ten degrees higher than most people.”
“I think I would be dead if that were the case.”
Shawn rolled her eyes. “Smart-ass.”
He really enjoyed that Shawn was perfectly comfortable giving him shit. It was one of the things he loved about her.
Love. Funny how that very small, unexpected word could change everything. Rhett bent over and murmured in her ear, “I love you.”
Shawn started and gazed up at him. Her eyes were wide in the dark backseat of Harley’s car, but they were open and honest. “I love you, too.”
What more could a man ask for? Nothing, as far as Rhett was concerned.
When they went inside and kicked off their shoes and hung up their jackets, Rhett loved the way Shawn waited for him at the top of the kitchen landing, her hand out for his.
There was no question in her eyes.
She knew he was going to make love to her. She knew that whatever he did to her, he would put her pleasure first, that she would be satisfied. The way she let him lead her down the hallway, the way she waited in the doorway for him to undress her, the way she kissed him with a deep fervor and abandonment, satisfied Rhett in return. He had never known that he could be this happy, that the restless agitation that had burned inside him would be eased by Shawn’s open affection and perfect willingness to submit to his aggressive desires.
He urged her back down onto the bed, reaching back to flick on the light so he could see her body. She blinked as the harsh overhead light hit her eyes, but she didn’t complain. She knew he wouldn’t go down on her if she did, and that made his mouth hot, his cock throb. Stripping off his own clothes, Rhett took his time, touching her everywhere with teasing, light touches, skirting her clitoris until he felt her quivering, goose bumps on her skin, her need growing more and more urgent.
“Put your ankles on my shoulders,” he told her. He suddenly needed to be inside her.
She did so without question and Rhett entered her, and even without stimulating her with his fingers or tongue, he found her wet and welcoming. Knowing that she got aroused just from his fingers brushing over her bare skin, that she knew her pleasure was a guarantee, was almost as arousing to him as the tight fist her pussy made around his erection.
Breathing hard as he gripped her shins and pumped them both to desperation, Shawn sought his permission with her eyes.
“Yes?” he asked, willing to grant any request she might have at that moment, his body tight and alive, his heart swollen with the knowledge that she loved him.
“Can I come? I really, really need to come.” Her lips were wet, her eyes glassy, her hand lifting off the mattress, then fluttering back down as she remembered she could not do whatever she had been planning to.
Rhett wondered if she’d been intending to bite one of her fingers, to suck it, or if her plan had been to twist and tweak her own nipple with the pads of her fingers.
“Not for another minute,” he told her. “I want to come with you. You’ll know when.”
“Oh,” she panted in agony, her head turned to the side, her legs trembling from the position.
“Suck on your finger,” he told her. “It will help.”
She did without hesitation, though the widening of her eyes and the clasping of her body onto his cock told him that it hadn’t made it any easier for her to hold back. It had made it worse, which was his intention, he had to admit. Watching her struggle to hold off her orgasm, her lips frantically wrapped around her finger, sucking it in and out like she was substituting it for his cock, heightened his own frantic desire.
When he squeezed her legs tight and let himself go, pumping his hot ejaculation into her, Shawn was immediately there with him. Her orgasm blended with his, her cries of anguished ecstasy ringing in his ears, as he held her and gave in to his body, gave in to her. She owned him, there was no question about it. Shawn had his heart and his body, and hell, even his soul, and he felt the most profound satisfaction and sense of triumph that he’d ever felt in his twenty-five years of life.
As he fell onto the bed next to her and pulled her into his arms, their bodies warm and sticky, her fingertips fluttering over his chest, he was inclined to believe there was such a thing as destiny. “Scarlett, you’re one hell of a woman,” he told her.
Her response was to kiss his shoulder. But a moment later, she asked, “What’s your middle name?”
He was so content, he didn’t even get annoyed with his least-favorite subject. “I’m sure you can guess.”
“Your mother seriously named you Rhett Butler Ford?”
“Yep.”
She didn’t laugh. “I’m named after my father, who took off and left my mother and two little kids living in an RV.”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter where a name comes from, it’s whether you live up to its original intention.” Rhett yawned and reached down to drag the blanket up over their bodies.
“True. Which is why I was wondering how you’d feel about me being Shawn Hamby Ford.”
Rhett looked at her in astonishment, his heart squeezing. “I would be honored.”
This was real. And they both knew it.
“Now are you going to turn the light off?” she asked.
He grinned. “I was hoping you would.”
“I didn’t turn it on,” she pointed out.
He couldn’t argue with that. As he sighed and lumbered out of bed and across the cold room to flick the switch, he said, “Next week, I install the Clapper.”
She giggled. “I dare you.”
“Done.” Then he was back in bed, and she was in his arms, and the world was a perfect place.