The Bad Luck Wedding Cake (31 page)

The notion humbled him, but dwelling upon it became impossible when her fingers skimmed impatiently up and down his back, her nails scraping the linen shirt separating them. Tye paused long enough to shrug it off, then they touched, bare flesh against bare flesh, eager mouths mating.

She trembled and whimpered, each sound a ripple lapping away at his control. His hands stroked her, explored her, searching out those particular places that pleased her most. His mouth worked her and teased her and whispered words that made her blush.

With Claire’s untutored help, he shed the last of his clothes. When he stripped her gown completely away, she neither protested nor attempted to hide, though her smile betrayed a maidenly shyness. Tye cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand, smiled into her eyes, and reassured her with the tenderest of kisses. Then, kneeling back, he drank in the sight of her beauty. “I knew you’d be exquisite. You take my breath away.”

He pressed a courtly kiss to the back of her hand, then he turned it, exposing the tender flesh of her wrist where her blood pulsed. He laid his tongue against it and tasted the pounding, erotic rhythm. His own pulse kept time with hers, beating fierce and hot and aching.
Slow, slow, slow
, he told himself, battling his own needs while he nibbled his way up her arm.

“Hurry, Tye,” she pleaded while his hand drew lazy circles over the flat of her stomach, slipping lower and lower toward his ultimate goal.

Questing fingers found the folds of her flesh slick and wet and hot. At his touch, she stiffened and gave a little cry, a melding of pleasure and pain. “Tye?”

“Give in to it, sugar,” he urged, finding and thumbing the tiny ball of nerves in gentle, steady strokes. “Let it happen, Claire. It’s good, so very good.”

Her entire body pulsed and shuddered, and Tye’s breathing quickened right along with hers. Her ache became his. The tension swirled and spiraled ever upward, tugging them along together. “Please,” she whimpered.

It was almost his undoing.

Her first time. Slow. Take it slow
. He slipped a finger inside her, and her virgin body gripped him tight.

Tye groaned, his hand working her flesh as she twisted in a sensual, sexual frenzy. “Please,” she sobbed, the husky plea nearly his undoing. ‘Tye…oh…hurry, please.”

She surged against him, her movements sheer instinct. His own hips flexed against her, pressing, seeking to quench the heat searing his loins. Desire drove him, hammered at him, weakening his restraint. “Do it, Claire. Let go and do it for me.”

She arched against him, little noises winging from her throat, as her hands clawed at his back.

Then, finally, she stiffened, her entire body growing taut. “Tye!” she cried as her honey poured into his hand and she gave him the gift of her release.

“God, Claire.” No longer able to ignore his body’s demands, he eased her legs apart and knelt between them. Leaning forward, he probed her moist opening with the tip of his shaft. He summoned every ounce of will not to thrust hungrily inside her. “I don’t want to hurt you, sugar,” he rasped. “I don’t…”

As she gazed up at him, her eyes glowed with an unnamed emotion. She reached for him, arching her hips, taking him deeper, until together, they broke her innocence.

Tye sank into her with a groan. “Claire? Are you all right?”

“
Mmm
…” she purred and rolled her hips. “You fill me.”

Pleasure bathed him at her words. His body throbbed with the need for release, but he battled for some semblance of control. She was so hot, so tight, and she felt like…home.

It was then, in a lightning flash of clarity, that he admitted how close he was to falling in love with his wife.

In that brief moment in time, the sky lit with dreams: wife, home, family. Children of his own.

Then the dark clouds of desire came billowing back. His own climax rushed toward him, a raging storm of sensation that threatened to destroy him.
No, God. I can’t
. He met the tempest head on, braved it, battled it, and, with a wrenching shout, won.

He yanked free of her body, his life force jetting harmlessly across her stomach.

When his breath returned a million years later, he rolled off her and lay on the bed beside her. Without speaking or meeting her gaze, he cleaned her with his shirt. He sensed her watching him, but he refused to acknowledge it.

Claire wasn’t so shy. When he’d turned off the lamps and returned to bed, lying with his arm flung across his eyes and trying desperately not to reach for her again, she asked, “Tye? Why did you…?”

Because I saw a little angel with my green eyes and your blond hair, that’s why
.

“It’s a method of preventing conception,” he replied.

“Oh.”

Unreasonable anger flared inside him and he snapped, “Damned right,
Oh
. I told you this marriage won’t last. It would be beyond cruel for us to bring a child into this world under the circumstances.”

“Oh.”

Beneath the cover of his arm, he sneered and silently repeated,
Oh. Is that all she can say?

A few minutes later, he wished that were true. He flinched when she laid her hand on his belly and asked, “Is that the only method for preventing pregnancy?”

Bold little thing
. What kind of deflowered virgin was she anyway? He’d be damned before he’d discuss such things with her. “Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”

“Not really, no.”

Haunted by the vision he had glimpsed, Tye’s words turned raw and cruel. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take care of it. I won’t be trapped into staying with you.”

Beside him in the dark, his wife went stiff as a fence post

“Oh, hell,” Tye muttered, then followed the curse with a litany of words bad enough to turn the air blue three times over. Shame and frustration beat his spirit to a pulp. With every word, Claire grew colder and stiffer so that when he finally wound down, she could have passed for an ice wagon delivery.

Tye didn’t blame her for her reaction one bit.

He found her cheek in the dark and gently slid his thumb across her silken skin. “I’m sorry, 1adonna’. I know better. You are not a scheming woman, and I never should have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

He took her hand and pressed an apologetic kiss to the back of it. “What you made me feel…well, it scared me and I reacted poorly. I have all this…stuff going on in my head and it makes me crazy sometimes. You got caught in the backwash, and that wasn’t fair. I’m sorry, sugar. Forgive me?”

After a long moment, she said, “I don’t know. Kiss me again and I’ll think about it.”

The petulance in her voice cued him to her teasing. He grinned in the darkness, pleased she’d heard his apology and accepted it. His wife wasn’t a pouter, a grudge holder, and Tye was glad of it. He didn’t like pouty women. He liked Claire Donovan McBride very much.

He set about showing her how much.

Claire showed him a thing or two right back. The woman proved herself to be a fast learner.

This time when he loved her, Claire didn’t hold back. She explored him with bold hands and mouth and tongue. When she held him, stroked him, and spoke in a throaty, curious voice about the contrast between soft, velvet skin and the steel-like hardness beneath it, he damn near erupted in her hand.

Better that he had.

Because this time when she accepted him into her body, she knew what she was doing. This time, Tye had absolutely no desire to get loose. This time, when Tye McBride climaxed, he remained buried to the hilt in his wife’s soft, slick, infinitely welcoming body.

When dawn finally broke the following morning, he’d repeated his carelessness three more times.

And he’d loved every damn minute of it.

Set a white lace doily beneath the bedroom lantern for good luck
.

CHAPTER 18

CLAIRE WOKE STIFLING HOT and clinging to the edge of the bed. Groggily she shoved away the covers piled on top of her. She blinked twice, frowning as the opposite wall came into view. Blue floral wallpaper? Her bedroom was yellow.

An elbow nudged both her kidney and her memory, and the events of the previous day and night came crashing back. A cat-and-cream smile spread slowly across her face, and she would have added a feline arch and stretch if she could have moved without falling to the floor. Tye McBride hogged the bed.

After a bit of thought, she decided against launching an assault of nudges and shoves to regain her rightful share of the mattress. He’d certainly wake up then, and she found she wanted a few moments’ solitude to reflect on her feelings in the wake of the night’s events.

Sliding from beneath the covers, she lifted her robe from the floor and slipped it on, the modesty that deserted her the night before having returned with the light of morning. Thus fortified, she sneaked a look at her husband.

No wonder she’d been hot. He’d kicked all the covers off of himself and onto her.

He sprawled across the bed on his stomach, naked and tanned and Greek-god beautiful. Claire sucked in a breath as a ribbon of desire fluttered through her, then her lips tilted in wry self-amusement. Such a short trip from virgin to vixen, apparently. And how did she feel about that? Ashamed? Embarrassed? Upset?

Smug
. She felt gloriously, deliciously smug.

A smile played about her mouth as she acted the voyeur and allowed her gaze to drift over her husband’s muscular flanks. Along with being smug, she felt so wonderfully wicked. How strange that with the simple recitation of a few words, acts once labeled sinful transformed into a blessed event.

As many times as Tye had invoked the Lord’s name last night, she figured their marriage bed should be considered extra-blessed.

Outside on the windowsill a mockingbird stretched out his neck and greeted the day in song. Inside, Tye grumbled some unintelligible words and tugged a pillow over his head.

He was an exceedingly complex man. So fierce and loyal. Funny and witty and sweet. And loving. She’d never known such an openly loving man before. Tye proclaimed his love for family and friends back home in South Carolina each time he mentioned them. The vehemence with which he expressed his absolute faith in his brother’s continued existence said it eloquently, also.

But the most telling example of the depths of Tye McBride’s love were the three little girls he called his Blessings. His every word, act, and deed reflected his love for those children.

Now if only he could learn to love himself, to defeat his inner demons and forgive himself for the mistakes he had made. Claire had figured out that along with being loyal and loving, Tye McBride was wounded. The damage done by the trouble with that wicked Constance had yet to heal.

“I can help you,” she whispered softly so as not to disturb his sleep. With her love, she could help this man who gave so much of himself in order to help others. She could show him the way out of his self-doubt and back to believing in himself again. Her love could help him heal. Then maybe he could love her in return and they could forget the notion of having a temporary marriage.

It was a heady thought, one that gave her new insight into the ideas her mother had tried to convey about loving and liberation. Claire’s love for Tye empowered her in a manner she had never felt before. The feeling had carried over into their lovemaking last night, she realized, pushing along the evolution from virgin to vamp. From bride to lover.

Tye mumbled something beneath the pillow then tossed it away and rolled restlessly over onto his back. Claire’s gaze trailed slowly over him and she grinned. From bride to lover. Her da liked to say that the love of a good woman cured many a man’s ills. Perhaps in this case, her father’s dictum required a little editing. In Tye’s case, he had the love of a woman who was, for the most part, good, but who had just enough bad thrown in the batter to make it interesting.

The flesh between her husband’s legs began to lengthen and lift, and Claire jerked her stare upward to his face. Sure enough, he had awakened.

Jade eyes watched her, glowing and gleaming. “Good morning,” he said, his rough, raspy tone sending a shiver down her spine.

“Yes, it is.”

“Is it?”

“Very good.”

He smiled; a slow, satisfied, totally male smirk. Obviously Claire wasn’t the only one feeling smug this morning.

With no apparent concern for his nakedness, he rolled onto his side and propped his elbow on the bed, his hand supporting his head. Cognizant of his gaze upon her, Claire continued to brush her hair. “It’s a waterfall of sunshine,” he observed, reaching out to pull a curl.

“It’s a pain in the neck to brush when I go to bed without braiding it first.”

“If you leave it loose for me when you come to bed, I’ll brush it in the morning for you. I’ve always enjoyed sleeping surrounded by sunshine.”

Claire wrinkled her nose. “I don’t care to hear about your past amours, Husband.”

He laughed and sat up, appropriating the brush. “I’m talking the great outdoors, sugar.” He stroked the bristles through her hair. “And afternoon naps.”

“Oh.”

“There you go again.”

“What do you mean?” She almost purred beneath his attentions.

“
Oh
-ing me.”

“Owing you? What do I owe you?”

He paused and a moment later she felt his lips nibbling at her neck. “A good-morning kiss,” he murmured softly in her ear. He guided her back down onto the mattress and accepted the tribute she joyfully afforded him, a boon that evolved into more than just a kiss.

Later, they lay side by side, spent and so exhausted that Claire thought she might never have the energy to leave her bed again. Tye, however, obviously didn’t similarly suffer. After a short moment of recovery, he rolled from the bed and reached for his pants. “This is ridiculous,” he grumbled. “I’m an idiot. I should have suspected this might happen. I should have been prepared.”

“Prepared for what?”

In the process of tugging on his shirt, he tossed her a frustrated glare. “Prepared for the fact I have the self-control of a gnat.” He grabbed his boots off the floor and shoved first one foot and then the other into them and headed for the door.

Claire sat up, the sheet clutched to her chest. “Tye, where are you going?”

“The druggist.”

“The druggist? Why? Are you ill?”

“Oh, I’m ill, all right.” At the door, he paused. Retracing his steps, he walked to the bedside table and hunkered down in front of it, scanning the row of books lined up along its lower shelf. Not finding what he sought, he crossed to the matching table on the opposite side of the bed. He touched the spine of each book as he searched the titles, finally grunting in approval as he pulled one volume from the collection. He tossed it to Claire.

“Read this while I’m gone. It gives a good explanation.”

When he quit the room, Claire lifted the book and read the title printed on its cover. “
The Fruits of Philosophy
, by Dr. Charles Knowlton.”

Philosophy?
She didn’t understand.

“I think it’s Chapter Three,” came Tye’s shout from downstairs. “And while I’m out, I’ll probably run by Willow Hill and check on the Blessings.”

She heard the front door slam as she opened the book to the title page. It carried a most interesting subtitle: Or,
The Private Companion of Young Married People
. Quickly she turned to Chapter Three, the heading for which read “Contraceptive Advice.”

The third paragraph ended with the sentence, “Condoms may be purchased from many druggists.”

Claire’s stomach took a dive and she shut the book with a snap. Well, she shouldn’t be surprised. Why should one night change his mind about such a dearly held 1adonn? She’d been a fool to have hoped for more once he’d changed the way he made love to her after that first time. So Tye didn’t want to have children with her. She shouldn’t feel hurt by it. She was in no hurry to start a family. He didn’t love her yet, and a child truly should be conceived in love. Besides, with her family gone, she’d need to concentrate her efforts on getting The Confectionary back on track, not growing babies.

No matter how appealing the idea sounded.

She gave the book a long, speculative look, then slowly reached for it. The notion of growing babies might be premature this morning, but the practice of making them—or not making them, as the case might be—was quite appealing, itself.

“Besides,” she said to herself as she opened the book to intriguing Chapter Two, “We got married only yesterday. There is no rush. Once he loves me, I can bring up the issue of children again.”

She read the first two pages of the chapter, then added, “Yes, now that I think about it, I am very glad we have plenty of time.”

***

TYE EXITED the druggist’s shop and headed up Main on his way to Willow Hill. While passing the mercantile, a set of items in the window caught his eye. He stopped. Polished blue stones the color of his wife’s eyes adorned each piece of the silver dresser set. The comb, brush, and mirror seemed to have Claire Donovan McBride’s name written all over them. Without further thought, he entered the shop and made the purchase.

He didn’t feel foolish until he’d covered half the distance to Willow Hill. Not because he’d bought her a gift—it was appropriate for a man to buy his wife a bridal gift. Claire would love it and he’d love watching her use it. What bothered him was how glad he was to have a weight in his hand to counteract the weight in his pocket.

His own embarrassment while making his purchase had caught him by surprise. Because he’d always exercised the withdrawal method while engaging romantic pursuits, he had never bought this particular essential before. Hell’s bells, he’d felt like a green boy. Of course, the damned druggist hadn’t helped matters at all. Having read about the day’s nuptials in the morning paper, the fellow had laughed and made a comment having to do with locking barn doors after the horses have escaped. Tye prayed the fellow wasn’t a gossip. He sure as hell didn’t want to see this particular purchase written up in Wilhemina Peters’s “Talk About Town” column.

Tye instinctively checked his jacket pocket as he approached the house. The package remained neatly tucked away. It wouldn’t do for curious Kat to see it and ask him what was in the paper-wrapped parcel. Or, God forbid, Claire’s father.

Maybe that’s why he’d gone bashful at the druggist.

Something about carrying condoms around while in the company of the Blessings and the Donovans left him feeling more than a tad uncomfortable.

He heard Emma’s giggling as he climbed the steps of Willow Hill and he smiled at the most welcome sound. Opening the door he called out a loud hello and then the Blessings were in his arms, laughing and squealing and telling him how much they missed him. “Since yesterday?” he questioned. “It was all of a day, girls. You didn’t have time to miss me, not with all this company around the house.”

Katrina tore open his heart with a solemn observation. “Ever since Papa and Mama got lost, I miss you anytime I’m not with you.”

Tye dropped to his knees, laid aside his gift, and took her in his arms, wrapping her in a fierce hug. “Ah, Kat, it’ll be all right. I promise.”

Maribeth asked, “Do you still feel Papa in your heart, Uncle Tye?”

He started to answer by rote but instead, out of respect for these children, he stopped and considered it. “Yeah,” he replied a moment later. “Yes I do, sweetheart. Your papa is there deep in my heart just like he’s always been.” Unable to miss the skeptical plea in Emma’s eyes, Tye held her gaze and repeated, “He’s alive and doing his darnedest to get home.”

The four of them shared a poignant, hopeful moment before Peggy Donovan made her presence known by asking, “Is Claire with you?”

“Uh, no. She’s…uh…” He darned sure didn’t want to say home in bed. “She’s getting ready for our meeting with the judge later on.”

“What time is that?”

“Two o’clock.”

“Do you want us to bring the children to the courthouse?”

Tye considered the question before answering, “After their shenanigans at the wedding, I think it’s best they stay here. Besides, I don’t want them around the Wests any more than necessary. If the judge wants to see them, I’ll come get them myself.” From the corners of his eyes, Tye saw the Donovan men descending on him like guard dogs. He gave his nieces one last hug, then beat a hasty retreat—before the condoms burned a hole through his pocket and dropped at his wife’s father’s feet.

Tye wasn’t surprised to find her down in The Confectionary’s kitchen. She wore a pristine white apron over blue gingham and she smiled brightly as she greeted him. Tye was struck by both her beauty and the cloud of Magic he detected in the air. He cleared his throat. “Whatcha baking?”

A blush painted her cheeks as she met her husband’s gaze. “Banana muffins.”

Tye was struck by the need to do some painting of his own, using his mouth as a brush and her body for the canvas. Desire warred with dismay in his heart. He’d worn himself out last night, and here he was randy as a stud horse again this morning.

He watched her, unable to look away while she bent over and peered into the oven. “I debated whether to make muffins or cinnamon buns, but the muffins were quicker and I thought you might be hungry when you came home. It won’t take me but a few minutes to fry up steak and eggs.”

Buns and hunger and Claire McBride’s magic. Tye yanked his gaze away from her rear and focused on the window. He’d best get control of himself before he laid her out like a pie crust on the kitchen table. He cleared his throat. “I brought you a present.”

Her blush deepened. “I read Chapter Three.”

Tye slapped a hand against the small package in his jacket pocket. Damned if he didn’t feel his own cheeks heating. “Not those.” He ducked into the outer section of the shop and retrieved the dresser set. “This,” he said, shoving the package at her.