3 Brides for 3 Bad Boys (25 page)

"I noticed." He was big all over.

Crowding her closer to the car, his brown gaze went dark with a reaction she'd gotten to know very well six weeks ago. Passionate desire. He wanted her, and if the feral look in his eyes hadn't given him away, the huge hard-on pressing against her stomach would have.

She couldn't go this route again. "No."

"I need to kiss you, Fayre."

He cut her off with his lips.

Lips that she knew, a mouth she remembered, a kiss she'd craved throughout the hours of their wedding night and every darn day since.

He kissed her as though his mouth remembered her, even if his mind didn't. He knew exactly how much pressure she liked, how to get her lips to part for his tongue, how to coax a response even when she didn't want to give one.

Her hands slid up his chest of their own volition, not stopping until they were locked behind his neck. She didn't have to push her body into his because he was doing it for her. Pressing her into the heated metal of her car door, his equally hot body molded every inch of her front.

And the kiss turned carnal, two hungry mouths attempting to devour each other under the hot Mexican sun.

He tasted good, even better than she remembered. His body was so hard, so big and so strong. She knew intimately how much pleasure her body was capable of experiencing with it, and the knowledge did as much to heat her insides as the feel of his mouth rocking over hers.

His pelvis thrust toward her, making both of them moan.

Remembered pleasure arced through her body as he touched her in ways that had haunted her dreams and left her sleep broken with unsatisfied longings.

His hands came down and cupped her buttocks, pulling her body up until their pelvises matched. She spread her legs and locked them around his hips, increasing the pressure of his hardness against the place that needed it most.

Groaning, he broke his mouth away from hers and kissed her face, her eyelids, the sensitive spot below her ear. He licked it, and she arched her neck, wanting more. His body continued to move against hers as if he was making love to her with their clothes on. Pretty soon, she was going to climax.

He nuzzled into her neck. "Angel, you smell so good."

Fayre erupted like a Fury who had found the mythological Orestes, shoving at Colton, trying to get away, and she felt every bit as volatile as those three beings were supposed to have been.

"I'm not…" She unwrapped her legs from around him and tried to push him away at the same time. "Your angel. That's Candy,
remember?"

How could she have been so stupid? Again?

She'd been seconds away from letting him make love to her again, and she wasn't even his angel!

"Let me go."
She couldn't stand having him touch her and knowing it was another woman he'd wanted that night.

He wasn't listening. His lips were still wreaking havoc on her neck, and his big hands kneaded her backside with a lot more skill than a man who professed to be so conservative with women should have.

She tried to grab his hair, to hold his head away, but there was nothing to take hold of in the black hair cropped so close to his head. Feeling desperate, she shoved her hand in front of his mouth, preventing him from kissing her again.

His lips were hot, and his tongue flicked out to caress her palm.

It took every bit of her resolve to stick with her decision to cut off the kiss.

"Knock it off, Colton. I'm not making this mistake with you again."

His head came up, his expression dazed, his lips still pressed against her sensitive palm.

He mumbled something into her tingling flesh that she didn't understand, so she warily let her hand drop. He didn't try to kiss her again, but he looked as though he wanted to.

"It wasn't a mistake."

Maybe not for him. "Oh, yes, it was, and I'm not repeating it. I should never have trusted you in the first place." He reared back, looking offended.

Finally free of his hold, she sagged against the car, not completely over the effects of his seduction techniques. "You can trust me."

"That's why you left me without a word. Get a grip, Colton. You're just another bad choice in men for me in a long line of them. If I were nearly as smart as I want to be, I would run for cover the minute I think I can trust a man, because that's a sure sign I can't."

"If I'd been in my right mind, I would never have left you."

"If you'd been in your right mind, you would have taken Candy to supper, not me, and none of this would have happened."

Or maybe it would have, only with Candy playing center stage just like she did in the follies and Fayre fading into the background. The idea made her stomach cramp again, and she glared at him.

"But I didn't take that other woman. I took you, and now we're married. You can trust me from here on out, Fayre. I'm not the type of man who dumps on women."

She remembered him saying something very similar on the night they met.

"Because you figure your dad dumped on your mom and you were the result."

His jaw went taut, but he didn't answer.

She didn't need him to. He'd told her all about it the night they got married.

"Your perception of dumping and mine must be really different, because you
are
the guy who walked out without a word and left me naked and alone in bed."

He rubbed his hand over his head in what she'd come to realize was his gesture denoting frustration. "I've regretted doing so ever since."

"That's so easy to say now."

"It's true, damn it." His big body vibrated with intensity. "I wanted to call, to apologize, but I couldn't remember your name."

"Like that's supposed to make me feel better?"

He glowered at her. "I planned to come back to Vegas and find you. I wanted to apologize."

"Right." But could it be true? She so desperately wanted it to be true, but then she gave herself a mental kick. What difference would an apology have made? He wasn't saying he had planned to come back and try to establish a relationship or something. "I don't need your remorse."

"But I am sorry, honey. I'm sorry I left you still sleeping in my bed. I'm sorry I can't remember anything. I'm s—"

"Apology accepted. Now will you just let me leave?" She couldn't stand one more
sorry.

He shook his head. "You're not being rational right now, Fayre."

"I'm being perfectly sensible. We both made a mistake, and the most
rational
thing to do now is to rectify that mistake. Which we'll do tomorrow at the Puerto Vallarta courthouse."

His hand snaked out, and before she realized what was happening, he'd unlocked her car door, popped her trunk, gone around to it and bent down to rummage inside. When he stood up, he had her suitcase, her makeup bag and other sundry items belonging to her.

"What do you think you are doing?"

"We need to talk."

She rolled her eyes. "Stealing my suitcase isn't going to make me talk to you."

"Isn't it?"

He banged the trunk shut, closed her car door and put the keys in his pocket.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you really think you can blackmail me into talking to you?"

He didn't even bother to answer. He just started walking back to the boat. He'd turned the corner around the taverna before she let it sink in that he really had no intention of even discussing his incredibly
irrational
behavior.

She realized something else at the same time. Without her car keys and the stuff Colton had confiscated from her trunk, she couldn't go anywhere. She barely had enough money in her pocket to buy herself dinner; she definitely didn't have enough to get one of those rooms above the taverna.

Of course, she could always tell them to bill Colton.

Only the thought of going back into that smoke-filled room made her nauseous, and she really didn't want another run-in with the local male population.

But she'd be darned if she was going to tamely follow Colton to his boat like a pet dog or something.

If he could be stubborn, so could she.

She sat down in the dirt on the side of the car that was in the shade. It wasn't the side facing the road that led around the taverna, but she had no intention of watching for him like some lovesick teenager anyway.

He'd figure out soon enough that his little game wasn't going to work, and he'd come back.

She'd just have to wait him out.

Twenty minutes later, she smiled to herself when a shadow longer than her car fell over her. It hadn't taken him very long to figure out she wasn't budging. She schooled her features into an unemotional mask before looking up. He wasn't the type of man that would respond well to gloating when he was beaten and might feel the need to prove himself.

She didn't get a chance to say anything gloating or otherwise because he bent over and picked her up just like he had when she'd suffered morning sickness in the bar.

And darned if she didn't feel just as safe as she had then.

It was an illusion. She knew it was, but still, the feeling persisted.

"What do you think you are doing?"

"Kidnapping you."

C h a p t e r S i x

H
e said it so calmly that she didn't get the meaning of his words right off. When she did, she about choked on her own breath.

"What do you mean? Kidnapping me? You can't do that."

"I'm doing it." He said it with irritating complacence.

"You can't." Okay, maybe he could, since he was carrying her toward his boat without the least difficulty. But he couldn't get away with it. "I'll go to the police.

I'll press charges."

He looked down at her, and it was only then that she realized he wasn't nearly as calm as he was putting on. "We're in rural Mexico, Fayre. You're my wife, no matter how you want to look at it. As far as the local police are concerned, this wouldn't even rate typing up the complaint. They'd laugh you right out of their office."

She said something really foul, and he smiled a not very nice smile.

"Exactly. Accept it.
We are going to talk.
We are not going to file for divorce tomorrow, and you
are
going to take a lot better care of yourself than you've been doing."

"Kidnapping is not taking care of me." She couldn't believe she had to point that out.

"It is when you're intent on being self-destructive."

"Self-destructive was marrying you. Divorce is me waking up and finally getting a little self-protective."

"Are all pregnant women this illogical?"

"I am not illogical."

"You are when you try to imply that divorcing the father of your child before you even discuss options is the smart thing to do. It's not."

"You are not my husband!" He couldn't remember the marriage, therefore it was null and void in her mind.

"I have a marriage certificate that says I am."

"You have… "

"It was in your trunk, sitting on top of some other papers. I grabbed it along with your passport and money."

"Larceny is a crime."

"What's mine is yours, baby, and vice versa. I can't steal from you because you're my wife."

"So, you're saying if I went down to the bank and withdrew all the money in your checking account, that wouldn't be stealing?"

"As soon as we get this little issue of divorce worked out, I'll take you to the bank myself and put you on my account."

"You're crazy." No way was he going to put a virtual stranger on his accounts.

He owned his own mining company. "You're rich, for goodness' sake. I could drain your accounts and take off."

"You won't." He said it with such authority she called him crazy again.

"No, crazy was leaving you alone in that bed and running away like a scared adolescent."

They had reached the boat, and he carried her on board. "Do you want to sit in the pilot house with me, or would you rather rest in the cabin?"

"You're not listening to anything I say," she accused.

"I'll listen if you tell me which you'd prefer. I promise."

"I don't want to be on this boat at all."

"Don't worry. The ride to Luna Island isn't that long. Are you worried you'll get sick again?"

"If I do, I'm going to throw up on your shoe."

He looked singularly unworried by that threat. "Then I'll have to hope you don't get sick, won't I?"

His scent was getting to her, so was that tone of voice. It wasn't just reasonable.

It was indulgent. He talked to her and looked at her as though she was something, someone … to be cherished.

"I know it's all a ruse, so don't think you're going to fool me."

"What, angel?"

She stiffened at the endearment, but since he was neither drunk, nor under the influence of overwhelming passion, she couldn't accuse him of not knowing what he was saying.

"You don't care about
me.
I'm just a duty to you, me and my baby."

His smile was even more indulgent and tender than his voice had been. "You're too beautiful and sexy to be a mere duty to anyone."

She harrumphed, and he kissed the tip of her nose.

"It's true, and believe me when I tell you, I'll never look at our child as anything but
our child.
Not a duty, not an embarrassment and never a mistake."

His expression had turned serious again, his eyes boring a message into her that she was terrified of believing.

She'd been let down too many times in the past.

Most recently by this very man.

She had to remember that, but it was getting harder and harder to concentrate on how he'd hurt her. He seemed so intent on fixing it.

Colton carried Fayre's things to the house he'd been using as a base while excavating for lithium on Luna Island.