Please Say I Do

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “Hallie,” he whispered in reply.

  “Don’t stop” she said.

  He propped his head on his hand and regarded her thoughtfully. “What will you do if I stop?”

  For maybe half a second, she wished she had on her glasses, but decided this situation didn’t call for twentytwenty vision. Only twenty-twenty resolution. “I’ll die” she said matter-of-factly. “Then I’ll haunt you. You’ll never be able to kiss another woman for the rest of your life. I mean it.”

  He smiled, a slow, lazy, seductive smile. “I believe you.”

  “Then kiss me again. And again. And—”

  Pressing his finger to her lips, he let it slide with torturous lethargy down her chin to her throat, to the hollows of her shoulders, to the knot of fabric that kept her covered. “There’s no hurry,” he said, his gaze following the track of his fingertip. “No hurry at all.”

  Hallie hardly felt the tug that untied the knot, was barely aware of the sarong unwrapping around her. Her focus was on the ache inside her, the desire she knew was unfolding in her eyes and reflected in the gaze he returned to her. She was aware only that she wanted to make this experience as new and novel for him as she now knew it would be for her. His warm, willing flesh met her warm, willing breasts and she melted into the feel of his bare arms around her bare shoulders, the awareness of his lean, muscled body pressing against her with a tender but adamant request.

  He slipped his hand under the elastic of the bikini bottoms—the only bit of clothing between her and nudity. Hallie tensed. “I love spandex,” he said.

  “It’s the new style,” she replied, breathless. “Lingerie that goes from bath to beach.”

  “To the floor.” He rolled the stretchy material to her thighs and then pulled the bikini pants down and off in a move she couldn’t help but admire. She usually had to coax off anything so elastic, but Rik didn’t seem to have a bit of trouble. He just manipulated her legs and the elastic and—

  The fear encroached on her newfound resolve, the doubts clamored behind the closed doors of her memory. She couldn’t do this. With every tiny step toward intimacy, she was growing more tense, remembering past attempts, past frustrations. She would freeze. Rik would get angry. He’d try to hide it, but she would know. He’d tell her to relax and she’d try. But it wouldn’t work. Why had she ever started this when she knew how it would turn out, how nervous and anxious and tense she would be? How—

  “Hallie?” His voice was close and comfortable against her ear. His hands stopped touching her intimately and pulled her into his embrace. “Tell me your fantasy. One you’ve never told anyone else.”

  She couldn’t do that. Not even if she was fully clothed, much less while lying naked in his arms. But the words poised on her tongue and began tumbling out; precisely because she was naked. And vulnerable. And desperate to distract herself from the remembering. “I’m dancing,” she began softly, letting the words unfold as they would. “And people are watching, but I don’t care. I’m completely uninhibited, completely unaware of the admiring eyes on me. I feel wild, free, desirable. I’m a vamp, a seductress, a tigress awakening from a long sleep. Then one man steps out. He takes me in his arms and we dance together, our bodies so close it’s impossible to tell who leads and who follows. We could be Astaire and Rogers, we’re so good together, so perfectly in sync, so completely aware of every move the other makes.” She stopped, blushing in the circle of Rik’s arms, wondering once again how she could be so confident, so very secure in every area of her life except this one. “Sounds like Fantasia meets Dirty Dancing, huh?”

  “It sounds very intriguing.” His hand stroked her shoulder. Down to her elbow. Back to her shoulder. Elbow. Shoulder. Elbow. Shoulder. A long, smooth stroke that kept her from bolting up and locking herself in the bathroom. “Very cutting edge.”

  “It’s silly. I won’t even do the hokey-pokey in front of my friends.”

  His hand absently soothed a wayward tendril of her hair. “As long as we’re fantasizing, cast me as your dance partner.”

  Hallie sighed. “I can’t dance, but I’d be better at that than I am at this. That’s for sure.”

  Rik shifted beside her, rolling her onto her back and pinning her with a tender gaze and a gentle pressure. “Who told you you can’t dance? And whoever it was, I beg to differ.”

  She frowned up at him and was glad she couldn’t see very well. Otherwise, she’d be half in love with him already. “Your turn,” she said. “Tell me your fantasy…unless it’s the same old run of the mill, standard—”

  “Okay, okay,” he interrupted. “Here’s my fantasy. An updated one strictly for your benefit. I’m locked in a hotel room with a beautiful woman with a knockout of a haircut. She’s beautiful. She’s smart. She’s hot…and she wants me. But she’s been mistreated by men in the past and she doesn’t trust me, either. She’s afraid, which is understandable. But suddenly she stops being afraid. She stops worrying. And she stops talking. She kisses me like she really means it, and then she kisses me again.”

  “And then…?”

  His smile was warm and winsome. “That’s up to her.”

  “But it’s your fantasy.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Exactly.”

  “My purse is there.” She pointed in the general vicinity. “Inside my briefcase.”

  “Do you need your purse? Right now?”

  “We need the condom inside my purse. Right now.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that, couldn’t believe she was actually in need of the packet she’d carried for God only knew how long. “Unless you carry one in your hip pocket”

  “No,” he said, and she was charmed to see him redden a little at the thought. “I’ve been—”

  “In the jungle. I remember. Well, I only have one, so…”

  “I’ll get it,” he said, and did so, shedding the last of his clothes before returning to the bed and her.

  He barely had both knees on the mattress before she was reaching for him. She wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled him down to her, her lips parted with invitation and sheer, sensual yearning. Rik was different, she thought. She was different with him. It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to be held and touched and desired. She wouldn’t spoil it

  She sank into the mattress, into the welcoming hoilows beneath her, his welcomed weight above her. Whatever happened was out of her hands….

  No, it wasn’t. Rik had told her to fight for her pleasure, to claim it, take it for herself. In the past, she had reached this point of arousal before and either plunged ahead with a wild, frantic hope that somehow all would be well, or withdrawn, letting sex happen to her, trying to ask as little as possible. But not this time.

  When his hand grasped her breast and his thumb flicked the nipple to an aching peak, she took possession of her response and gave back kiss for kiss, touch for touch, need for need. She gave her lips, her breath, her heart. Where he touched her, she burned, and she made certain he felt her heat. She wanted him. She wanted nothing but him. She wanted everything he had to offer her.

  Passion spilled over the edge of restraint and he hungrily took her breast into his mouth, bringing her arching up against him. His hands never slowed their steady, intoxicating, seductive sweep from one end of her body to the other. She cupped his hips in her palms, pressed his hardness to her and parted her legs to allow him entry as a terrible, wonderful anticipation flooded her senses.

  He entered her with care, but no hesitation, taking her from the point of her greatest dread to the point of unbelievable pleasure in an instant. Their lips met and clung as he began to move inside her. Sensation followed pulsating sensation, and she could only cling to him, trusting him to guide her through the maze of emotions and desires. He was forever gentle, excruciatingly tender and desperately intent on fulfilling her fantasies. Fantasies she hadn’t had the courage to share with him, but that he seemed to know anyway. When release came in great, gulping, wondrous spasms, Hallie cal
led out his name, “Rik. Rik.” His mouth came down to hers then, in a long, slow, wet kiss that lasted the rest of the night.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  Waking to the sound of Babs Brewster’s voice was not Rik’s idea of a morning in Paradise, but he did his best to be cheerful. “Good morning, Mrs. Brewster.” He yawned into the phone as Hallie stirred to life beside him. “You’re up bright and early.”

  “It’s eleven,” Babs informed him promptly. “And I was trying to find that wedding coordinator. The desk clerk rang through to you again by mistake.”

  “Hmm.” Rik glanced at the huddled lump under the sheets and smiled. “The phone lines must still be messed up. I guess you’ll have to try the call again.”

  ‘I’ll do that” Her tone of voice was perfectly pleasant, so Rik figured he only imagined the word “moron” tacked on, by inflection, to the end of her sentence. “Do you and Jack have plans for the day?”

  “Plans?” he repeated, distracted by the bare leg Hallie drew from beneath the covers and draped over the top of the tangled sheets. “Uh, yes. Yes, I do.”

  “Dan had planned to play golf, but with this nasty weather, he’s going a bit stir-crazy. Would you mind if he joined the two of you?”

  Rik tried to concentrate. He really did, but there was an inch or two of bare hip emerging from under the sheets and he just- couldn’t focus on conversation. “What?” he said hoarsely. “He wants to join us now?”

  Babs’s sigh was classically impatient “No, not this minute. Later. Whenever you and Jack do whatever it is you’re planning to do.”

  Rik suddenly recalled Lynn, Sam and Big Bird and their places on his agenda…and Jack’s. “Oh. My plans with Jack. That doesn’t happen until later this afternoon and I’m not sure Jack will want company then. But he’s probably not doing a thing now. You ought to call him, Mrs. Brewster.”

  “I tried. He wasn’t in his room when I phoned a little while ago.”

  “Hmm.” Rik smiled into the one eye Hallie had open, wanting to kiss her awake…and back under the covers with him. “I can’t imagine where he might be.”

  “It seems to me no one is where they’re supposed to be when I call,” Babs said pointedly.

  “Darn weather,” Rik said with feeling.

  “Humph,” she said, and hung up.

  Hallie stretched and slipped out of bed. Rik made a grab for her but missed as she headed for the bathroom. “Hey, come back here.”

  She tossed a sleepy, sexy smile over her shoulder and he went weak with wanting her. “No,” she said resolutely. “I have things to do.”

  “So do I and you’re at the top of the list”

  She paused in the doorway, one hand on the frame, as she looked longingly back at him. “I have to work.” But her tone waffled with lack of conviction. “Babs is going to be calling any second now.”

  “Don’t answer the phone.”

  “I’m here to work, Rik, and I’m getting a late start as it is.”

  He stretched back on the bed, hands behind his head, content to watch her just standing there, her hair all tousled, her body language indecisive, her face tinted with the look of a woman well loved. “I’ll help,” he offered. “I have a luncheon appointment at twelvethirty, but until then I’m yours to command.”

  “You’re offering me a whole hour and a half of your day?”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “It will be the best hour and a half of your day, kiddo.”

  The phone rang and she pursed her lips. Rik waited, willing her to ignore the insistent intrusion—and everything else in the world except her desire to be with him. The hesitant, uncertain woman of last night was gone, though, replaced this morning with organized, efficient and no-nonsense Hallie Bernhardt of Bernhardt Bridal. But he wasn’t fooled. She had been magnificent, once she got past the idea she was inept in the art of lovemaking. He’d thought he would be her mentor, gently instructing her in the myriad pleasures possible between a man and a woman. But she’d developed her own style rather quickly and he’d spent most of the night marveling at her innate expertise. Early on, he’d made a fast trip to the hotel gift shop for a box of condoms, but there had been a couple of moments during the passion-filled night when he feared he’d underestimated her enthusiasm and endurance. At the time, he wasn’t sure if he wished he’d bought the economy-size box or if he merely prayed she’d tire out before he was forced to confess that he wasn’t really Superman.

  “What are you smiling, about?” she asked, then added, “Never mind. I don’t care what you say, I’m getting my glasses.”

  “The better to see me with?”

  Her gaze dropped like a rock to the sheet draped across his lower body. “The better to get a good look at—”

  “Now, now,” he said hastily. “Remember my sensitive male ego. It may be large, but it’s extremely fragile.”

  “I was going to say, the better to get a good look at the room service menu. Don’t men think about anything but sex?”

  “Well, sure. Let’s see. There’s football, basketball, baseball, soccer. Work, food, helicopters, electronics, the space program, politics…” He broke off with a frown. “No, basically, it’s sex right down the line.”

  Hallie shook her head and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door—firmly—behind her. Rik smiled, pleasure uncoiling inside him like the warmth of good scotch. Stretching lazily, he settled more comfortably against the pillows to consider what had happened to him somewhere between yesterday afternoon and today. Hurricane Hallie. She’d swept into the hotel bar, into his sights, and nailed him.

  He’d been minding his own business—well, trying to mind Jack’s, anyway. But definitely not looking for a relationship. And now he was in one. At least, he thought this had all the markings of a relationship, plus the added benefit of being with a real, live person. Not just an imaginary, maybe kind of thing, as Stephanie had been. Of course, being mostly imaginary, Stephanie had the advantage of being whoever and whatever he wanted her to be. Reality hadn’t been a true consideration.

  And until last night, Rik had preferred it that way.

  He noticed in a glance a single plumeria petal on the pillow next to him and picked it up. There was no way of knowing where the rest of the flower was now. Petals were probably strewn from the elevator to the door of the thirteenth room on the thirteenth floor. But at least one petal had made it into bed with them, much the worse for wear, and the scent remained. He closed his eyes, inhaled the crushed fragrance and remembered Hallie, taking his breath away with a look, stealing his reason with a kiss, slipping into his heart when he wasn’t looking.

  HALLIE WIPED THE STEAM from the mirror and checked her appearance, wishing she had a hair dryer, real underwear and a book on the etiquette of postseduction small talk. Last night had been perfect, in practically every way. Rik had been fiercely tender, a wonderful lover. If she thought about it for ten seconds, she could imagine herself in love with him, could imagine a lifetime with him, home, family, the whole nine yards. But she mustn’t let her imagination run wild. Just because she’d finally found a man with whom sex was good… Oh, okay, not good. Phenomenal. Well, that didn’t mean she had to fall head over heels in love with him. Probably the best reason not to. Rik had his own agenda. She had hers. She was Boston. He was Tarzan. She had a wedding to plan. He might be in love with someone else.

  Swallowing hard, Hallie scrubbed her freshly washed hair with a towel, then used one corner of the terry cloth to wipe more condensation from the mirror surface. Rik had been her brave, bold experiment, her fantasy come to life. She had no reason to be disappointed because it couldn’t last.

  With a frown at her water-streaked reflection, Hallie lifted her chin. It was this room, she thought. This unlucky thirteenth room. Where else would someone as unlucky as she find the man of her dreams?

  Beyond the closed door, she heard the phone ring. Pulling her with shrill insistence to the reality of another
woman’s wedding, another bride’s dream come true. In this instance, it was more like the mother of the bride’s dream come true, but the point was, Hallie was merely a labor-saving device, a bridge between everything that could go wrong and the beginning of a happily-everafter. And last night had been merely a perfect moment in a not-so-perfect life. It was just a good thing she hadn’t been wearing her glasses then.

  If she could have gotten Rik into focus at any time during their long, loving night, she might have believed, quite foolishly, that she was lucky in love, after all.

  “YOU HAVE TO DO something about this.” Babs gripped Hallie’s arm with the strength of a determined mother. “I promised Stephanie a weddingcake with a fountain and you promised me she could have it. Now that horrible Jacques person is leaving because of the hurricane and the cake isn’t ready and something will have to be done.”

  Hallie tried for a confident, leave-it-to-me tone of voice. “I’ll take care of it, Mrs. Brewster. But you’re going to have to trust me. Jacques is temperamental and he takes special handling. Let me do the talking. Please.”

  “All right, but when we leave his office, I want to have that cake in my pocket. Not literally, of course, but you understand my meaning.”

  “Perfectly,” Hallie said.

  Unfortunately, Jacques didn’t understand the first thing about mothers of brides. Within two minutes of their arrival in his office, he referred to Babs as a fruitcake—pronouncing it in four insulting syllables. Not an auspicious beginning. Two minutes later, Babs accused him of being a kitchen nazi with the IQ of an apple strudel, and it was all downhill from there. Hallie wanted to tell them both they didn’t have a brain cell to spare between them. But diplomacy was her stockin-trade and she jumped in decisively when the opportunity came.

  “We’re going to stop yelling and start talking,” she announced. “Mrs. Brewster? Let me talk to our chef in private. Jacques, sit down before your blood pressure hits the danger zone.” Amazingly, they did as directed, and Hallie reopened the negotiations, resigning herself to the hassle of shipping chocolate-marshmallow cookies to the island for the rest of her life.