I wasn’t thinking straight when Lowe looked at me with those mesmerizing eyes and suggested we go on a thrill ride. I would have done anything he asked.
I shrug. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Oh God, Mely,” he says with a nervous laugh and squeezes my hand. “Let me see if I can get you off this thing.”
Then he turns and calls over his shoulder in the direction the attendant went. Lowe was ignored, or the guy didn’t hear us, but then loud music starts blasting and my blood pressure skyrockets. My nails dig down into the back of Lowe’s hand with pure fear guiding my actions.
He’s a gentleman and doesn’t pull away, but calls out, “Close your eyes. It will be over fast.”
Yes, that’s exactly what I want to hear because “fast” is the speed by which I want to be launched one hundred feet into the air.
“Oh, this was stupid,” I call out in a quavering voice, my gut tightening hard. “So, so stupid.”
“We could have done something more stupid,” Lowe calls back and gives me a reassuring squeeze, which I know is hard with my nails embedded in his skin.
“Nothing more stupid than this,” I call back, pressing the back of my head into the cushioned headrest and slamming my eyes shut.
Lowe squeezes my hand again and laughs. “We could have gone to one of those gaudy wedding chapels and got married by Elvis. Or to that sex club we walked past… what was it called? The Wicked Horse or something like that.”
This makes me laugh. For a brief, glorious moment, I forget my fear. I open my eyes and lean forward to look at Lowe. He grins back at me and says, “See… forgot all about—”
I shriek as the cylinder shoots into the air. A string of curses flies out of my normally clean and fairly wholesome mouth, as I find vulgarity to be tedious. Lowe bellows out a laugh as we fly to the top, pause for a few seconds, and then I shriek again as we free fall back to earth.
Please, sweet baby Jesus. Let me live and I’ll never do anything stupid again.
♦
Lowe presses me into the door of his hotel room and kisses me hard. Pulling back only slightly so he can speak against my lips, he asks, “Can I carry you over the threshold?”
Yup… appears we could do something stupider.
But I don’t care. I laugh because I’m drunk, I’ve fallen for a beautiful man, and it appears I now have him as a husband. My hands slide into his hair and I pull his mouth back to mine. He pushes against me, his mouth opening, and the kiss goes a million degrees hotter than it’s ever been.
“Let’s consummate this marriage, Mr. Mancinkus,” I say into his mouth, and then give his lip a bite, which causes him to groan.
Lowe’s head pulls back but he doesn’t go far, looking hard into my eyes. “Regrets tomorrow?”
“You mean, am I going to question the fact that we got drunk, somehow decided it would be ‘fun’ to get married by Elvis, and now I’m shackled with a hot, gorgeous husband?”
“Something like that,” he mutters.
I laugh and slide one hand from his hair to his cheek. “You and I are so going to be ashamed of ourselves tomorrow morning, and we can worry about it then. But right now, you and I don’t have one thing holding us back from getting one hundred percent acquainted with each other on a carnal level.”
Lowe gives a mock groan of passion and leers at me in dramatic fashion. “I love it when you talk dirty, Mely.”
Giggling, I pull him back down for another kiss. Within moments, it ignites so hot we’re grinding against each other. It’s then I realize I’m unbuttoning the front of his shirt and reaching inside.
“Okay, let’s slow this down just long enough to get inside,” he says as he grabs my hands and pushes them away. “Don’t want everyone seeing my wife like this.”
I don’t laugh as Lowe reaches into his back pocket. I think we were both willing to do something utterly stupid by getting married, assuming we could easily get an annulment, but hearing Lowe say, “my wife” slams into me so hard that my knees start to buckle. I put my hand on Lowe’s shoulder to steady myself as he pulls out his room key and slides it into the electronic slot. He pushes it open and props a hip against it.
“Mely?” Lowe asks, and I find myself blinking my eyes to focus in on him. “You okay?”
I worry at my lip a moment and then ask him hesitantly, “Is there a chance this wasn’t a stupid idea?”
“What?” he asks with a stunned look on his face.
Oh, crap.
Crap.
He wasn’t feeling that same thing I was. If I called him my husband, he wouldn’t get all fluttery or have that feeling of rightness with the world that I experienced just for a moment.
“Never mind,” I say quickly as I turn away from the door to go to my room next door. “We’re drunk and this was just silly. We can rectify it in the—”
“Oh no you don’t,” Lowe says as he grabs me by the elbow and pulls me into him. “You do not get to start with the regrets yet.”
I pull my arm out of his grasp, and I’m mortified that perhaps I thought this was more than just drunken foolery, so it makes me grumpy. “Oh, so sorry, Lowe. I shouldn’t have regrets yet until you consummate the marriage. Wouldn’t want you to get blue balls or anything?”
Lowe just stares at me a moment, his face blank, and I think he might laugh at me, which would totally ease the tension, and then he’d forgive me for being such a bitch in this moment.
Instead, his eyes harden and he grits out. “I think being your husband gives me the right to spank your butt for that assumption about why we’re standing here right in this moment, but instead, I’m just going to chalk this up to you being unsure of what’s going on here.
My eyes narrow at him because he’s managed to make me feel foolish, and this is confusing since I have no clue how I should be feeling. “Then please enlighten me, Lowe. What the hell is going on here?”
Rather than answer me, his face softens and then I’m swept up in his arms. My own lock around him tight as he turns sideways and we step into his hotel room.
“First,” he says as the door swings shut behind us. “I’m carrying you over the threshold as promised and as a southern gentleman, it’s something I’m bound to do or else my mama will box my ears when I get home.”
I giggle and lay my head on his shoulder, because as confused as I am and as mad as he just was, Lowe at his core lets humor lead the way.
My belly starts to flutter as he strides into the room and lays me down on the bed. I go dizzy when he crawls on top of me, but just hovers on his hands and knees to look down at me seriously.
“Mely,” he says softly. “You and I just did something goofy fueled by alcohol. I can’t speak for your family, but mine will roll their eyes and go with the flow of it. Or… we did something that maybe was going to happen one day down the road anyway. If that’s the case, then this is going to make a hell of a story for our children.”
More fluttering in my belly at the thought of Lowe and me sitting in our house one day, surrounded by little kids.
“I know this is fast,” he continues, and I bring my focus back. “You and I have operated at one speed only since the day we met in the courtroom that first time. And that’s fast. Passionately fast.”
“But we haven’t even—” I start to say.
“No, you and I haven’t been intimate yet, but everything else we’ve done to get where we are right now has been done with passion. You get we have that between us, right?”
I nod. It’s so clear we have that.
“So, let’s stop worrying about it tonight, and when the alcohol clears tomorrow, we can decide what to do. But I say whatever we decide, we do it without regret, because I like you a lot, and I think you like me. Nothing we’ve done has been so stupid that we can’t still be friends after it’s all said and done.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief over his words, knowing that come tomorrow morning, Lowe won’t hate me and I won’t hate myse
lf for our rash actions, or vice versa.
“One more thing we need to discuss,” he says seriously.
“Okay.”
“I want you, Mely,” he says in a deep voice. “You’re lying under me right now. We have a piece of paper saying we don’t have to wait another minute if decorum or propriety are concerns. I’m not much of a religious man, but right now under the eyes of God, your body is mine and mine is yours.”
“Oh, good God… is it possible to climax from words alone?” I murmur.
If he keeps talking that way, I’m going to find out.
Lowe smiles at me. A lazy, sweet smile but his eyes are heated. “This isn’t happening tonight unless you tell me in all honesty you’d have me in your body regardless of that marriage license. I think you and I were headed there soon anyway, but—”
“Lowe,” I interrupt him, bringing my hands to his face. “I would never think you did this just to get in my panties.”
“Others might,” he points out softly.
“I don’t care what others think,” I tell him firmly. “Only you. And if you care what I think, then yes… regardless of that license, I want you to make love to me. I have for a damn long time, and all the kissing and fooling around so far just isn’t enough. No matter what we did tonight or we do tomorrow morning, I want you. All of you. In every way.”
“Okay, you had me at the ‘make love’ proclamation,” Lowe says with a low laugh, bending his head down to graze his lips over mine. “But that ‘in every way’ really has me thinking dirty thoughts. Any objections to getting naked with me like right now, Mrs. Mancinkus?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” I tell him, and then his mouth is on mine.
We consummate the marriage…
Three times before we go to sleep.
CHAPTER 23
Lowe
I collapse on top of Mely, my sweaty body pressing hers down into the mattress. Rubbing my cheek against hers, I mutter, “I can’t get enough of you, Mrs. Mancinkus. I knew it would be good. Just didn’t know it would be this good.”
Mely laughs, tightening her hands around my back. I can feel her heartbeat still galloping hard through her chest wall right into mine. “You’re going to have to let me out of bed, Lowe. I’ve got to meet with Paula and her husband in a few hours.”
I roll off Mely with a groan, and then pull her right into the side of my body. Her arm goes over my waist and her face presses into my neck. I look to the window and the early morning sunlight shining in. To say that we made the most of our wedding night is an understatement. If Mely didn’t have her design appointment soon, I’d insist on room service breakfast and another round of sweaty, marital bliss before we even bothered to think about what to do with the rest of the day.
We’re silent for a while, both of us trying to regulate pulse, breathing patterns, and such. We definitely share a “vigorous” appreciation for all marital rights in the bed.
Mely’s voice is soft and sated when she asks me, “What do you want to do for the rest of the day after I get back from my appointment?”
I smile to myself. If I had my druthers, we’d stay in the hotel room the rest of the day and evening. But I know what she’s asking, and it’s time we talk about what to do.
Planting one hand into the mattress, I pull myself up to sit against the headboard before dragging Mely over me so she’s straddling my lap. Face to face is best for this conversation.
She immediately makes a grab for the sheet to cover herself, but I yank it from her hands. “Don’t cover that up. Not until we decide what to do, and until that time, you’re still my wife and I like looking at you naked. Okay?”
Mely rolls her eyes at me but drops her hold on the sheet, instead putting her hands on my chest where she looks at me with more seriousness than I’ve ever seen in her eyes. “What should we do?”
“Are you hungover?” I ask her instead. “Headache? Upset stomach?”
“Lowe,” she says with exasperation. “We just had sex. And I’ll gladly have it again with you later regardless of what we decide to do about—”
I lean forward and kiss her hard to shut her up, just as quickly leaning back to stare at her. “Baby… you are dynamite in the sack but you nearly broke me a few minutes ago, so I need more time to recharge. I merely ask how hungover you are because I want to gauge how drunk you were last night.”
Mely blinks at me several times as she comprehends what I’m saying. Her lips curl slightly as she shakes her head. “I’m not… hungover at all, actually.”
“Me either,” I say pointedly.
Truth of the matter is, we’d had several cocktails but over a really lengthy period. Sure… we were buzzed by the time we stumbled into the Chapel O’Love or whatever the hell that place was called where we decided to just peek inside as a lark. But neither of us were as drunk as Cooter Brown, that’s for sure.
“Maybe it wasn’t all that crazy what we did,” I suggest to her.
“But we hardly know each other.” A damn valid point in return.
“What I know I really like,” I say with a charming grin.
She grins back at me, but just a moment before lowering her eyes to my chest. When she looks back up, the smile is gone and her expression is grave. “What about what we don’t know about each other?”
“I snore,” I admit.
“I heard that last night,” she says dryly.
“I sometimes drop my towel on the floor after my shower and don’t pick it up.”
She snickers. “So you’re saying we should move in with each other, huh?”
I let my smile drop, only so she knows I’m never kidding about this. “Mely… I’ve never felt for another woman the way I feel for you. That’s the honest-to-God truth. I’d be around you 24/7 if I could, because you’re just that magnetic to me. I know we’re doing everything backward and wrong, and we sure as heck didn’t start off right. But I do know that I want to be with you. Marriage paper or not, I want to be with you, and frankly… if that’s for the rest of my life, I’m really okay with that.”
Mely sucks in air even as her eyes soften. “You have quite a way with words, Lowe.”
“Not really,” I say. “If I was really any good, I would have gotten in your panties a lot faster.”
With almost a cackle, Mely slaps lightly at my chest and tosses her head back. I’m slightly distracted by her breasts, which are now hovering right in my line of sight, but when she looks back to me with those clear blue eyes, I think my life really starts.
“Okay,” she says, her eyes still shining with amusement but also with excitement. “Maybe we should give this a try. Not rush off to get an annulment.”
“We’re crazy for doing this,” I warn her.
“Totally,” she agrees as she wiggles on my lap, and well, hello there Lowe, Jr.
“You realize we just now made this decision, so it’s probably already gossip in Whynot right now, right?”
Mely snickers and leans in to kiss me on my jaw, then slides her mouth to my ear. “I think I’m going to like being the talk of the town with you.”
Lowe, Jr. now has his second wind and wants to join in on the conversation.
I bring my arms up to band around her waist, but before I even know what’s going on, Mely’s rolling out of bed and grabbing her clothes off the floor. “I’m going to head over to my room to get in the shower.”
“Oh, hell no,” I mutter as I lean over the side of the bed and make a grab for her.
She giggles and jumps away from me. I absolutely ache as I watch her shimmy her panties up her legs, but I know she should get ready for this appointment. Mely has the luxury of picking and choosing what work she does, but this could be a huge design project for her and I understand that.
So I flop onto my back and stare at the ceiling as she gets dressed.
Then her face is in my line of vision as she bends over me and presses her lips against mine in a sweet kiss. “I’ve got to go. I should be
back in time for lunch.”
“Naked room-service lunch?” I ask mischievously.
“Is there any other kind?” she quips. Before I can even think of a comeback, she’s breezing out of the room.
My wife.
I watch the door for several long moments, and with a sigh, I reach over to the nightstand to grab my phone. I pull myself back up to lean against the headboard and dial my mama. She needs to be the first to hear the news.
“Hey, honey,” Mama answers on the second ring. “Enjoying Vegas?”
“It’s a city I’d only ever been able to take in small doses, but this has been a great trip so far,” I tell her.
“Do any gambling?”
“A little. Didn’t win anything.”
“See any shows?” she asks, and I can hear pans rattling around so I assume she’s up cooking an early breakfast for my dad and Colt or washing up after.
“Nah,” I tell her. “Not my thing.”
“What have you done then?” she asks a little distractedly as I can hear my dad say something in the background.
“Got married by Elvis,” I say, and then I hear something loud crash to the floor.
“Lowe Christopher Mancinkus,” my mama gasps. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Not joking,” I tell her solemnly.
“Is she pregnant?” she asks in a low whisper and I can tell she’s moved away so my dad can’t hear.
“Who?” I ask, just to pull her leg a little.
“Mely, of course,” she says harshly and I can tell she’s getting frustrated.
“Who says I married Mely?” I have to bite down on my tongue not to laugh. “Maybe it was a Vegas stripper.”
“Lowe,” she says through gritted teeth. “What is going on?”
I do laugh this time, but I keep it short and not overly mocking toward my mama. “We had a little too much to drink yesterday, and we went into this little chapel just to check things out, and honestly… we thought it would be hilarious at first, and we knew we could get it annulled, and well… we did it. And then we woke up this morning, and it wasn’t so funny anymore.”
Stubborn as a Mule Page 18