Full Throttle (Fast Track) (19 page)

So what did it all mean? She had no clue. All she knew was that the last week had been one of the best of her life. She was pumped about the opportunities she and Rhett were planning for the track, she was pleased to have a partner to even discuss them with, and while she’d never been lonely in her house before, Rhett fit into her home perfectly.

But here at his parents’ house, the images of his siblings and their spouses blending on one long wall of happiness and expectation, Shawn felt torn between wanting this to be real and horror with herself for violating something so clearly sacred. The Fords weren’t her family. They respected marriage. Shawn found that she herself did, more than she had ever realized before all of this.

“What did we get ourselves into?” she asked with a laugh that was intended to sound casual, jovial, but sounded shaky instead. She meant regarding the party, but the truth was, it could be said for the entirety of what they had been, and were, doing.

But Rhett just shrugged, still looking at the pictures, not her. “The party will be fun.”

She wanted to scream that that wasn’t what she meant. She wanted to very pathetically ask him how he really felt about her. She wanted to say that she was grateful to him.

Instead, she copped out and joked, “At least we can get drunk. We’re practically obligated to drink champagne, so we might as well take advantage.”

Rhett finally looked at her. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Good point. It will loosen you up.” He leaned closer to her, his breath caressing her cheek and causing her to shiver. “Then I can take you up the ass like I’ve been wanting to.”

Hello. Shawn had never engaged in that particular activity, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. “We’ll see.” If he wanted to kick up the kink, honestly, she’d prefer they dust off her vibrator. The back door had never been a fantasy for her.

But he just gave a slow, seductive laugh that had her hoo-hah heating up. “Since when do you call the shots? We do what I want, and you’ll like it.”

The fact was, she probably would. He hadn’t been wrong yet.

“OH,
no. No. Absolutely not. As in hell no,” Shawn said, in case there was any doubt in anyone’s mind. She was not going to ride the mechanical bull. “This isn’t a real bachelorette party because I’m already married, so I do not need to act like an idiot.”

She was perfectly content to sit at the sticky table in the country western–themed bar and drink her beer while she moved her feet to some Tim McGraw tunes. Simple. Worked for her.

Charity had other ideas. She was dressed in nothing but a denim vest with fringe dangling at her ta-tas, a tiny denim skirt, and hot pink cowboy boots. “Don’t be a spoilsport!” she said, wetting her lips with yet more lip gloss and fluffing her blond hair. “Cut loose a little.”

“I think you’re being loose enough for all of us,” Eve told her with a grin.

“Bitch.” Though Charity didn’t look particularly hurt. “I want to dance! You old ladies can sit here like a bunch of lame-os, but I’m going to dust off my two-step. Harley, you coming?”

Her twin shook her head rapidly. “No.” She looked like she would prefer to paint her naked body with honey and go strolling through a bear’s den than dance on the floor with a multitude of skimpily dressed women and one drunk fifty-year-old man who was aiming too high with his flirtations.

Shawn was with Harley on this one.

Eve shook her head when Charity asked her. “I can’t dance. I look like I’m being electrocuted.” She sipped her beer and glanced around. “Man, I do not miss being single. This is a meat market, and not the freshest cuts, I have to say.”

“Thanks,” Harley said with a frown, pumping her straw furiously up and down in her fruity drink. “That’s very helpful to those of us who are single.”

Oops. “You don’t want anyone here anyways,” Shawn protested. “There isn’t a guy here worthy of you.”

“That argument gets stale when you haven’t been on a date in a year.”

“I can sympathize with that,” Shawn said. “Before Rhett I was on a dry spell that had the trees begging the dogs to lift a leg. When you least expect it, you’ll meet someone.”

“I doubt it,” Harley said. Then she smiled, “But this is your night anyway. Though I have to admit, I’m having trouble keeping track of Rhett and Nolan’s sisters. There’s just so many of them, and their names all seem to end in ‘y.’”

“Tell me about it,” Shawn agreed. Five of Rhett’s sisters had come and were at the bar ordering drinks. “They all look similar, too, and the only one with a stand-out name, Rachel, is the one who lives in California. The rebel.”

Eve snorted. “Yeah, she’s so rebellious that she works as a CPA.”

“You know, to people like Sandy and Nolan Senior, and my grandparents, and your parents, leaving the Carolinas is akin to seceding from the South. Unless you move to Georgia.”

“Then they just think you’re being stubborn.” Eve grinned.

Danny, Sammy, Andy, Melissa, and Dawn, the Ford sisters, came back to the table, various drinks in hand.

“It’s too bad Jeannie couldn’t make it,” Andy said. “But Asher was projectile vomiting.” Given the way she was swaying her hips to the music and grinning, the sympathy seemed more like relief that it wasn’t her stuck at home with a sweaty kid.

“So tell us gossip about Rhett as a kid,” Eve said. “So we can shame him tomorrow.”

Danny laughed. “He was spoiled, I can tell you that. Dad wanted another son, which is why half of us girls have male nicknames. I don’t think Mom cared one way or the other, but there is no question he was her baby. And ours. We used to put him in our old dresses.”

The image of Rhett dolled up made Shawn snort. “That must have been a sight to behold. He’s so . . . masculine.” Immediately, she felt the heat in her cheeks. That didn’t sound right. It sounded very smitten and girly. Yikes.

Melissa rolled her eyes, lifting her drink, which looked an awful lot like straight bourbon. “He wasn’t born six two with rock-solid biceps, you know. He was a scrawny enough little kid. With a freakish ability to never blink. For a while we were sure he was Damian from
The Omen
reincarnated. Mom was a little pissed about that when we started calling him JB, for Jackal Baby.”

Eve laughed. “That sounds like something I would have done. I love it.”

“Would have done?” Shawn asked. “Hell, you still would.”

“True.”

Danny set down her drink and stripped off her hoodie. “Okay, I never get out of the house. Ever. I am going to dance. I may be too old for this shit, and I may be happily married, but sometimes a woman still needs to shake what the good Lord gave her.”

“Charity is already out there. She’s the one surrounded by a cloud of White Diamonds. She thinks wearing an Elizabeth Taylor scent will attract older men with money.”

All the sisters went out to the dance floor. They didn’t try to drag Eve, obviously knowing their sister-in-law well enough to realize she couldn’t be dragged anywhere, not even out of a burning fire if she had decided she wanted to stay and get a tan. Harley was no match for them, though. One tug, and they had her. Shawn bailed by saying she wanted to talk to Eve. Which she did, so it wasn’t a total lie.

“Do you really want to talk to me?” Eve asked, shifting her chair closer to Shawn’s to be heard over the music. “Or were you just trying to get out of dancing?”

“I wanted to ask you something.” It was a weird thing to ask, but hell, Shawn was curious. She’d never been married before. “How often do you and Nolan have sex?”

Eve spit out the beer she’d been sipping and choked. “Goddammit, Shawn! Will you fucking warn me if you’re going to ask something like that? I almost drowned from my Heineken.”

“Sorry. But I am serious. Like, what is normal when you’re married?”

“Well.” Eve wiped her mouth with a cocktail napkin and then rubbed it down the front of her tight shirt. “I would say on average, it’s three times a week. It would probably be more like four or five if our schedules didn’t keep us apart. Why? Is Rhett falling asleep watching TV instead of banging you? He’s only twenty-five, for crying out loud.”

Shawn coughed. “No. Um, it’s kind of the opposite. We’ve had sex every day for the last ten days. I was just wondering if, you know, that’s normal. And if, maybe at some point, it’s going to slow down.”

Eve’s jaw dropped. “Ten days in a row? Are you serious?”

Shawn nodded.

“Are they quickies, or are they like actual sexual events?”

Oh, they were not quickies. “Actual events. Usually at least an hour, most closer to two.” And every day had been a little more freeing, a little more arousing, a little more all-encompassing. She’d never been so in tune with her body, never had so many orgasms in such a short span of time. It was amazing and wonderful and, frankly, scary as hell.

“Holy crap. I think I need to have a word with my husband.” Eve laughed. “Though, honestly, at some point I think that would just be overkill for me. Nolan and I have a rocking sex life and that would just cut into my sleep schedule. So, how do you feel about it? Is it boring or something? Is that why you’re asking?”

That most definitely was not the problem. “No, it’s not boring at all. I love it. It makes all the sex I’ve had before look like child’s play. I was just wondering if at some point we’re going to have a sexual crash, and then it will be nothing. Or if I might be doing harm, you know, like wrecking my vagina or something. I would think it needs a break at some point.”

“It’s not a Walmart worker. It doesn’t need an hour for lunch.” Eve made a face at her.

“I know.” Shawn laughed. “It just seems like it can’t be good for it.”

“Well, ask it. Like ‘Hey, vag, how are you feeling today?’ If it feels beat up, tell Rhett to give it a rest for twenty-four. Otherwise, I think you’re good. I mean, isn’t that what it was designed for?”

“True.” Sucking down her Guinness, she shook her head. “Who would have thought I would be worried about getting laid too frequently? Sam and I had sex once every two weeks.”

“That’s because he was banging random chicks the other thirteen days.”

“Thanks for the reminder. See? This is why I question Rhett’s behavior. It’s out of my realm of experience.”

Eve laughed. “I think you just need to enjoy the fact that your husband is so into you. Though now when I look at him I’m going to be watching to see if he’s popping Viagra or something. Two hours? What the hell?”

“He’s twenty-five,” Shawn reminded her. “He is erect or semi-erect on average eighteen hours a day.”

“I’m going to puke,” was Eve’s opinion.

Harley came rushing back to the table and dropped into a chair, her eyes wide.

“What’s wrong?” Shawn asked her.

“Cooper’s here.”

Uh-oh. “Your boss?”

“Yes. He’s dancing.”

Cooper Brickman was a man-whore driver who Harley had just started working for as a nanny/prison guard for his obnoxious twelve-year-old niece. It was safe to say Harley had a King Kong–size crush on him, though he seemed like the last person on earth she would be interested in. But there was no accounting for attraction. Shawn was just worried she was doomed to unrequited lust.

“So dance with him,” was Eve’s suggestion.

“He’s my boss!” Harley looked aghast and downed half her rum runner in one gulp. “I can’t dance with him! Besides, he’s dancing with Charity. I need another drink.”

“You might want to sip the next one,” Shawn suggested. “And tell Charity you have a thing for him so she isn’t horning in. You shouldn’t have to sit here and watch them dancing together.” She could see them out there on the crowded dance floor. Charity was engulfed in Cooper’s octopus grip, his hands lower on her back than was strictly appropriate.

“You’re identical twins and he’s hitting on Charity. Don’t you think that means he’s actually interested in you?” Eve asked.

“No! There is nothing identical about Charity and me.” And she crossed her arms over her chest in a clear signal that she wanted to pout about it, not talk about it.

Danny and Sammy came back over, tossing back their hair and laughing. “Come on, we’re riding the mechanical bull! Who’s in?”

“I’ll do it,” Eve said, tossing a smirk her way. “And I dare Shawn to do it.”

Damn it. One of these days she was going to pass on a dare. She was going to be mature enough to realize it didn’t matter in the slightest if she didn’t rise to the bait. That her worth as a human being was not based on how many challenges she could accept and accomplish.

That day was not today.

This was her bachelorette party and she was not going to be shown up. So she shrugged in total nonchalance. “I’ll do it. It looks easy.”

Eve laughed. “Talking smack, huh? Twenty bucks says you can’t stay on for forty-five seconds.”

Shawn tried to remember her previous experiences watching other women ride the bull at various bars around town. Usually they took it easy on them, preferring the setting that bounced the bull up and down, creating a crowd-pleasing breast jiggle. Once she’d had the misfortune to see a woman get tossed off in a miniskirt, flashing the whole bar her girl bits. Shawn was wearing jeans, and she had enough strength in her thighs from playing volleyball and doing yoga that she was confident she could hang for forty-five seconds.

“No problem.” She turned to her sisters-in-law. “Who wants to lay down their money? Me or Eve, who can stay on the bull longer?”

“Oh, Lord,” Harley mumbled.

Purses were flung open and money was waved around.

Shawn eyed the bull from across the room and sized up her competition. Eve had the advantage of wearing jeans with some spandex in them. Otherwise, it was a level field.

She cracked her knuckles and strode over to sign the waiver.

 • • • 

RHETT
watched his brother-in-law going for some kind of basketball shooting record and decided he was bored out of his mind. He didn’t want a bachelor party with strippers or to wind up puking in the backseat of Jared’s car, but hell, he wanted something a little more exciting than an adult-oriented arcade. His sister’s husbands all had kids and didn’t get a night to themselves very often, so they were all pumped to be drinking beer and playing Skee-Ball, but Rhett was feeling understimulated. Nolan didn’t look to be having that great of a time either, though he had managed to score a boatload of tickets off the water pistol game.

“What do you think the girls are doing?” he asked Nolan, when his brother came strolling over to him, tickets dangling out of his back pocket like paper sausages.

“I think they’re getting drunk at the bar and egging each other on to see who can dance the most like a stripper.”

“I wish we were there to see that.” He did. Most sincerely. He missed Shawn. He didn’t want to deny her the fun of a girl’s night, but he thought they would both have more fun if they were together. “We should crash their party.”

“Are you crazy? Do you want to lose your nuts the day before you get married? Or celebrate being married, since you are already married?” Nolan shook his head. “You’ll just piss Shawn off, you know.”

“I don’t think so.” He didn’t. “She’ll think it’s funny. The guys did it in
Mamma Mia
and every woman in existence loves that movie.”

“
Mamma Mia
?”

“The musical. The dudes crash the bachelorette party.”

Nolan gave him a long sidelong glance. “I’ve never seen it. And it scares me that you have.”

“That’s because you’re like a hundred years older than me. When I was a kid, I had a pack of sisters who wanted to see every chick flick in existence. I saw
Bridget Jones’s Diary
at ten years old.
Pretty Woman
at five. Five years old.” He held one hand up to make his point. “That ain’t right. And they conned me into
A League of Their Own
by telling me it was a baseball movie.”

Nolan snorted. “Well, why did you go?”

“Because I didn’t have a choice. The girls were babysitting me.”

“Where was I? I feel kind of bad, little brother. I should have tried to save you from time to time.”

“You were always at the track or chasing tail.”

Nolan grunted in acknowledgment of the truth behind that. “Where was Mom?”