Hustled To The Altar

by Dani Collins

  “You’re going back to Greenbowl.” He tried to drag her back up the ramp.

  “No, I’m not!” She broke free, stood her ground. “Quit trying to send me back to Greenbowl. I’m not quit—Hey! Is that why you talked to Jacob about reconciling? You were trying to make me leave town for my own safety?”

  His heart was racing and he was still close to blowing a gasket. “Of course.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Con, why not reason with me instead of putting together that elaborate, over the top—never mind. I’m forgetting who I’m dealing with.”

  “Exactly. And look who I’m dealing with. I just told you about Felix’s goon show and you refuse to leave.”

  “I’ll quit if you will.”

  “Quit in the middle of a game?”

  “Oh, right. I might as well suggest you become a vegetarian. Or talk about your feelings. Or get married.”

  “You don’t want to. Why would I?”

  “I just told you I want to get married.”

  “Look around, cookie. If you want suburbia so damned bad, why aren’t you already there with Jacob Noose-around-your-neck?”

  She stepped forward, opened her mouth, looked ready to spew a stinging comeback. At the last second, she seemed to change her mind, because once again he had a great view of her backside as she walked away from him. He always appreciated the sight, but he hadn’t meant to aggravate her again.

  The ramp leveled and they faced a bank of yellow mesh cages. Renny stopped at the second cage, pointed through the mesh. “There it is.”

  She didn’t sound angry. Maybe he hadn’t offended her irreparably when he’d drawn her a picture of herself. Nevertheless, he had to quit reacting emotionally.

  “Mr. Laramie didn’t expect us to be able to reach through this, did he?” she asked.

  “Where’s your pocket fisherman when you need one?”

  “I thought you had one.” She lowered her tone to a Mae West imitation. “Or are you just happy to see me?”

  He chuckled, relieved. Hell, he was delighted. “That’s the Renny I’ve been looking for all day,” he said.

  Dipping her head to rest her crown against the mesh, she groaned, “Oh, Con.” Turning, she leaned against the yellow cage, looked up when she heard the elevator in motion and wound up looking at him. “You bring out the worst side of me.”

  “I resent that.” He moved forward to lean his shoulder next to hers. “I happen to think it’s the best of you.” He’d never been more sincere in his life.

  “Not marriage material, though, am I?” She kept her tone light, her expression almost bland, but he heard her resignation, saw her tension and underlying hurt.

  “Ah, cookie.” Regret closed his throat. “I don’t want to marry anyone. Quit thinking it has anything to do with your past or the woman you turned into. I like the woman you are, Ren. I wouldn’t be here unless I wanted to be with that woman. It pisses me off when you refuse to let her come out and play. Especially when she wants to so badly. Come on, cookie. Let her go.”

  A few hours ago, Con had kicked in the door of Renny’s outward façade and had revealed the woman hidden inside her. That woman had been out on day passes with Con before. She was impulsive. Fun loving. And, he was right, desperate for freedom. That woman was the real Renny.

  Renny knew she should think this out, but only one semi-logical thought penetrated the glow of acceptance she was feeding on: Con knew what he was getting. He wanted a risk taker and that’s what she was.

  It was a risk to turn the necessary quarter step and press herself into the hollow of his body, but she did it. It was a risk to slide her arms around his neck and lift herself up until her lips touched his. She did that, too. It was a risk to let history and consequence fall away, but she disregarded both so that, for a few minutes, she could live in this moment, with Con, the man she loved. Because this was where she wanted to be.

  He grunted and fit her closer against him, slanting his head to capture more of her mouth. There was nothing tentative in the way Con kissed. He was an all-or-nothing man and he threw himself into lovemaking with abandon.

  Lovemaking. Oh, yes, that was a risk she was definitely in the mood to take.

  Threading her fingers through his hair, she pulled his head closer, increasing the pressure, securing the contact of their mouths, accepting his tongue. Excitement jolted straight to the pit of her belly.

  “Finally,” he murmured, and tried to slip his kisses down her neck. She drew him back, kissed his lips and gave him her tongue. He groaned and his hands tightened on her body, roaming, pressing, cupping, caressing and holding. Holding her so tight it hurt, but it was a good hurt.

  She could hear the sound of their breaths, hissing erratically as they fought for air. And she felt his hand moving down her thigh, beneath her skirt, sliding beneath her underpants and drawing them a little ways off her buttocks, hesitating long enough for it to be a question. Her fingers clenched in reaction and her breath shuddered as she moaned and wiggled in capitulation.

  It was a surrender—to him and to the inevitable. Oh, the lies she had told herself today, beginning with the belief that she could be near Con without succumbing to her need for him. It was sexual need, yes—she acknowledged her physical desire for him as his hand worked to push her panties down and down, until they fell around her ankles—but it was an emotional hunger, too. As she stepped out of her underpants, stepped closer to Con, she stepped into unconditional acceptance. She couldn’t fight such a weapon.

  Working her hand between them, she tried to unfasten his pants. His hands got in the way. She let him do it and moved her own hands to the back of his neck, holding their kiss, the longest kiss of her life.

  He drew her down, guiding her legs so she straddled his thighs as he knelt and the hot silk of his erection pressed against her belly. She shifted, felt his arms support her as she guided him into her, not as physically ready as she could be, but impatient for the connection. She accepted him exquisitely slowly, in a way that froze their kiss and opened their eyes.

  Her position put her at eye level with him and they broke the kiss as she rocked, sharing breaths that caught as she gradually worked him into her.

  When he was fully seated inside her, he clenched his teeth and pulled her tightly against him to bury his face in her neck. His body trembled with strain, and she curled her arms around his neck, cradled his head and kissed his ear, her embrace almost comforting while her body raged with heat and hunger.

  “This is what you want. Say it,” he said, his lips hot against her neck.

  “Oh, God, yes, I want you.”

  He eased back, allowed a little space between them, and moved his hand down the front of her body until he was touching the spot where they joined. His initial caress startled her, sending a sharp sensation zinging through her thighs, deep into her, making her body clench involuntarily and drawing a murmur of pleasure from both of them. He became more aggressive, determined, guiding her up the scale of pleasure with gentle but sure strokes of his thumb.

  It was a tortuous sensation, too good, and she squirmed, almost wanting to get away. Her movement caused him to stroke her internally and from there she became lost in the pleasure, moving, clenching, arching, trying to capture the elusive, most intense feelings and climbing the invisible wall of arousal, taking him with her. His hips rocked beneath her and she could see the tiny drops of sweat on his forehead, see the flush of excitement across his cheeks, hear his sounds of pleasure matching her own.

  Her body grew tense as she drew closer to the peak. She felt as though walls pressed on her from both sides, compressing her on Con, narrowing her focus to the sharp line of pleasure running through the center of her body.

  His movements became short and rhythmic, nudging her closer to her climax, crowding her toward the edge, catching his breath when the first flutters detonated inside her, around him, plunging off the cliff, taking her with him.

  He wrapped his arms around her a
nd held her tight against him, all the way on him, as orgasm ripped through both of them, tearing cries of pleasure from their throats.

  When the final pulses came more slowly than their heartbeats, he trailed his fingertips to her breast and gently cupped it. She arched into his palm, drawing a groan and a last clench of pleasure from both of them. Resting her cheek against his shoulder, she licked the taste of him from her lips and opened her eyes.

  And saw Jacob’s ring through the yellow mesh cage.

  Oh, hell. She hadn’t properly broken up with Jacob yet. This had to be the lowest thing she’d ever done. She had abandoned self-control, had pretended past and future didn’t exist, had let herself believe that indulging her deepest desires was actually an expression of her true self and therefore pure. But, as usual, her conscience had arrived to torture her in the aftermath. This was why she didn’t let that crazy lady out of the blocks.

  “I need that ring back.”

  She felt Con tense. “Careful, cookie, I’m liable to get confused as to which one of us you’re cheating on.”

  He probably thought he was being funny, but she wasn’t amused. If she could have gotten off him without his help, she would have, but she was in an awkward position and her legs were still trembling. She settled for straightening her spine and lowering her brows with resentment.

  “Careful, handsome, I might think you’re making a claim.”

  She waited for him to make one, realizing when he said nothing that the real risk she had taken here had been expecting that her love for him would be returned. Maybe he did love her, but he would never tell her. He expected her to do all the surrendering.

  She might have, if reality hadn’t intruded with the distant sound of the service elevator settling into place at the far end of the ramp.

  Panicked, she scrambled to find her feet.

  Con held her in place for an extra second and his laugh had a malicious edge to it.

  “Don’t,” she said, feeling as though the words scraped her throat raw.

  He pushed her up and off him.

  She wobbled and he steadied her while she stepped into her underpants. “I need something—”

  He patted his pockets, came up with a couple of paper napkins. They had a silver Samosa Madness logo. She added prompting a craving for curry to his list of crimes and folded them into her underpants before yanking her skirt into place.

  The doors opened and they heard male voices in the distance.

  She looked toward the ring, as if it might have moved when the earth had.

  “You’re not going to marry him. Admit it,” Con said.

  Renny didn’t have a morally correct choice here. Con wanted her admission of defeat, and, after she had been intimate with him, maybe he deserved it. On the other hand, he wasn’t saying, Marry me instead. He wanted to hear it for his own satisfaction. That infuriated her.

  “I thought we were playing by your rules. No commitments, no guarantees?” she said, stalling.

  That shocked him. She saw it in the way he froze with his shirt half buttoned, scowling while he computed this new view of the board. But if she had shocked him, she had surprised herself more. It was a brilliant strategy to hit that man with his own modus operandi and she had to swallow back a great big “Ha!”

  A bellman and a man in blue coveralls walked down the ramp toward them. They halted as they saw Con buttoning and zipping. Their faces went red.

  Renny felt her own face flush with heat, shook out her hair and forced a laugh. Hugging Con’s arm, she said, “They fell for it. They think we had sex.”

  Both men’s shoulders sagged and they chuckled.

  “Get some new material,” Con murmured.

  “Get a new act,” she shot back.

  “Should we come back?” the bellman teased.

  “No,” Renny assured him. “We’re glad you’re here. The ring is right there.” She pointed it out.

  “Bring it to our room. We’re going for a walk,” Con said.

  “Not a cigarette?” the maintenance man asked, moving toward the yellow mesh with a set of jangling keys.

  Renny laughed with the rest of them as Con steered her past the men and up the walkway.

  “I want the ring,” Renny said, trying to slow him down.

  “Screw the ring.” Con marched her back to the service elevator. He was thoroughly pissed. For a moment there, after the sex that had reconfigured his brain cells and before she had brought up the ring, he had felt closer to her than he’d ever felt to anyone in his life. Then she had started making digs about his inability to commit. And what the hell was with her fanaticism about the goddamned ring?

  “This obsession of yours isn’t healthy,” he told her. “Why do you still want that ring? To give it back to him?” Please, God.

  She twirled her finger in the tails of her hair as she studied him, something he’d seen her do often when she was concentrating on her next move in a game.

  “Why wouldn’t I still marry Jacob?”

  “Hello? What the hell was that?” He pointed down the ramp.

  “That was an impulse. I told you. You bring out the nutcase in me. It doesn’t change the fact that marriage is important to me.”

  He didn’t like her offhand attitude. Not when he was ready to jump to full throttle. He wanted some evidence she was as emotionally affected as he was. “Tell me something. What’s the attraction of marriage? Do you see it as a declaration that you’re the ultimate winner? ’Cause all it really proves is you’ve worn a man down to the point of surrender.”

  That lit her pilot light. She poked him in the chest and said, “Right there, that’s the reason we never made it as a couple. You can’t let go of your need to compete long enough to see that marriage isn’t a contest. Your partner isn’t your opponent. There is no finish line. If you want to see marriage as a game, at least frame it correctly. Marriage is about the play. You go around the board together, giving your best to your partner so you can progress as a team.” She walked her two fingers through the air. “Oh, heck, look at this.” She showed him her middle finger.

  “Cookie, I’ve seen one of those before and I usually respond in kind.”

  “I’m showing you my broken nail, doofus. These are mine, you know. I’ve been babying them for a month and now I’ll have to get a fake one. Man, that ticks me off.”

  “You’re ticked off?” Con was angry. He didn’t do angry. He hadn’t worked up the energy to be angry since his early years, when trashing his room had won him a one-way ticket to his grandmother’s house. He was deliberately overlooking the broken door in the suite, of course. If he started thinking of Renny with Jacob, really imagining her sharing her life with another man, he’d need a chemical straitjacket inside of ten minutes.

  “Here they come.” She straightened and smiled at the bellman. He held the ring in front of him like he was lighting the Olympic torch.

  Con stepped forward, whipped out a couple of fifties and exchanged them for the ring. “One for your friend. ’Preciate your help.”

  When he turned back to her, Renny held out her hand.

  “Do you have a hundred dollars?” he asked.

  “Don’t be like that.” She wiggled her fingers, still holding her palm up.

  He dropped the ring into his shirt pocket.

  “You are such an ass.” She pivoted into the elevator.

  The maintenance man looked uncomfortable as he tucked away the fifty the bellman handed him. The bellman looked amused. Con followed them into the elevator, trying to look his good-natured self when he really wanted to leave Renny in the basement until she was ready to admit she loved him and wasn’t going to marry that milquetoast Jacob.

  Maybe he should tell her he loved her. No, not now. Not when he wanted her love so badly he felt eight years old, barely able to withstand the pressure inside his chest.

  When they reached the lobby, Renny thanked the men and crossed to the public elevators. “Okay, fun’s over. I’d like th
e ring now,” she said.

  “Tell me what you’re going to do with it first.”

  “Tell me why you need to know—wait. Knowledge is power, right? Strategy for Beginners, right?”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “Why do you always have to have the advantage?”

  “Because it’s better than the alternative.”

  “The alternative being . . . trust?”

  “Are you telling me I can trust you to give him back his ring?”

  “There you go again, looking for guarantees.”

  He held her back from entering a full elevator and waited for an empty one. When they entered, he said, “The truth now. Tell me you’re not marrying him.”

  “You know what I want? I want you to remember how you reacted when I asked you to marry me. It took a lot of guts on my part and that risk didn’t pay off. Don’t expect me to take it again. Besides, this is the woman you’re so fond of.” She indicated herself with a sweep of her hands. “Fun with no false expectations. Just like you, Con. We’re finally on a level playing field.”

  He didn’t want a level playing field, not when it meant he had to feel this awful shifting sand under him. Had she felt this awful when he had rejected her proposal? The moment was imprinted on his brain, but not because the proposal itself had been a big deal. He had dismissed the proposal. Everything that came after, however—her reaction, her silence, her disappearance, her engagement, all that had made the moment profound.

  Now her refusal to give him reassurance left him feeling hollow, dissatisfied and hurt, dammit. It left him feeling like taking a trip to Europe with his grandmother.

  “So you’re . . . getting even?” he asked, fishing for guidance because he felt as though she’d dropped him into a game way above his skill level.

  “Of course not.” The elevator stopped on their floor and they stepped off.

  “It’s okay. I understand wanting to get even. If that’s what you’re doing, you can have your pound of flesh. When you asked me to marry you, my reaction sucked. I know that.” There. Now maybe she would admit she wasn’t going to marry Jacob.