by Diana Palmer
“Jodie!” Margie yelled. “Where are you?”
Alexander lifted his head. He seemed as dazed as she felt.
“Jodie!” Margie yelled more insistently.
“On my way!” Jodie yelled back.
“Sisters are a pain,” he murmured on a long sigh.
She smiled at him. “I’m sure it’s a minor disaster that only I can cope with,” she assured him.
He chuckled. “Go ahead. But tonight,” he added in a deep, husky tone, “you’re mine.”
She flushed at the way he said it. She started to argue, but Margie was yelling again, so she ran toward the house instead.
Alexander stared hungrily at Jodie when she came down the stairs just before the first party guest arrived the next evening. They’d spent the day together, riding around the ranch and talking. There hadn’t been any more physical encounters, but there was a new closeness between them that everyone noticed.
Jodie’s blond hair was long and wavy. She was wearing a red dress with a long, ruffled hem, an elasticized neckline that was pushed off the shoulders, leaving her creamy skin visible. She was wearing high heels and more makeup than she usually put on. And she was breathtaking. He just shook his head, his eyes eating her as she came down the staircase, holding on to the banister.
“You could be dessert,” he murmured when she reached him.
“So could you,” she replied, adoring him with her eyes. “But you aren’t even wearing a costume.”
“I am so,” he argued with a wry smile. “I’m disguised as a government agent.”
“Alexander!” she wailed.
He chuckled and caught her fingers in his. “I look better than Derek does. He’s coming as a rodeo cowboy, complete with banged-up chaps, worn-out boots, and a championship belt buckle the size of my foot.”
“He’ll look authentic,” she replied.
He smiled. “So do I. Don’t I?”
She sighed, loving the way he looked. “I suppose you do, at that. There’s going to be a big crowd, Margie says.”
He tilted her chin up to his eyes. “There won’t be anyone here except the two of us, Jodie,” he said quietly.
The way he was looking at her, she could almost believe it.
“I think Margie feels that way with Derek,” she murmured absently. “Too bad his brothers wouldn’t stay.”
“They aren’t the partying type,” he said. “Neither are we, really.”
She nodded. Her eyes searched his and she felt giddy all over at the shift in their relationship. It was as if all the arguments of years past were blown away like sand. She felt new, young, on top of the world. And if his expression was anything to go by, he felt the same way.
He traced her face with his eyes. “How do you feel about short engagements?” he asked out of the blue.
She was sure that it was a rhetorical question. “I suppose it depends on the people involved. If they knew each other well…”
“I’ve known you longer than any other woman in my life except my sister,” he interrupted. His face tightened as he stared down at her with narrow, hungry eyes. “I want to marry you, Jodie.”
She opened her mouth to speak and couldn’t even manage words. The shock robbed her of speech.
He grimaced. “I thought it might come as a shock. You don’t have to answer me this minute,” he said easily, taking her hand. “You think about it for a while. Let’s go mingle with the guests as they come in and spend the night dancing. Then I’ll ask you again.”
She went along with him unprotesting, but she was certain she was hearing things. Alexander wasn’t a marrying man. He must be temporarily out of his mind with worry over his unsolved case. But he didn’t look like the product of a de-ranged mind, and the way he held Jodie’s hand tight in his, and the way he watched her, were convincing.
Not only that, but he had eyes for her alone. Kirry didn’t come, but there were plenty of other attractive women at the party. None of them attracted so much as a glance from Alexander. He danced only with Jodie, and held her so closely that people who knew both of them started to speculate openly on their changed relationship.
“People are watching us,” Jodie murmured as they finished one dance only to start right into another one.
“Let them watch,” he said huskily. His eyes fell to her soft mouth. “I’m glad you work in Houston, Jodie. I won’t have to find excuses to commute to Jacobsville to see you.”
“You never liked me before,” she murmured out loud.
“I never got this close to you before,” he countered. “I’ve lived my whole life trying to forget the way my mother was, Jodie,” he confessed. “She gave me emotional scars that I still carry. I kept women at a safe distance. I actually thought I had you at a safe distance, too,” he added on a chuckle. “And then I started taking you around for business reasons and got caught in my own web.”
“Did you, really?” she murmured with wonder.
“Careful,” he whispered. “I’m dead serious.” He bent and brushed his mouth beside hers, nuzzling her cheek with his nose. “It’s too late to go back, Jodie. I can’t let go.”
His arm contracted. She gasped softly at the increased intimacy of the contact. She could feel the hunger in him. Her own body began to vibrate faintly as she realized how susceptible she was.
“You be careful,” she countered breathlessly. “I’m on fire! You could find yourself on the floor in a closet, being ravished, if you keep this up.”
“If that’s a promise, lead me to a closet,” he said, only half joking.
She laughed. He didn’t.
In fact, his arm contracted even more and he groaned softly at her ear. “Jodie,” he said in a choked tone, “how do you feel about runaway marriages?”
“Excuse me?”
He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes with dark intensity. “Runaway marriage. You get in a car, run away to Mexico in the middle of somebody’s Halloween party and get married.” His arm brought her closer. “They’re binding even in this country. We could get to the airport in about six minutes, and onto a plane in less than an hour.”
“To where?” she burst out, aghast.
“Anywhere in Mexico,” he groaned, his eyes biting into hers as he lifted his head. “We can be married again in Jacobsville whenever you like.”
“Then why go to Mexico tonight?” she asked, flustered.
His hand slid low on her spine and pulled her hips into his with a look that made her blush.
“That is not a good reason to go to Mexico on the spur of the moment,” she said, while her body told her brain to shut up.
“That’s what you think.” His expression was eloquent.
“But what if I said yes?” she burst out. “You could end up tied to me for life, when all you want is immediate relief! And speaking of relief, there’s a bedroom right up the stairs…!”
He stopped dancing. His face was solemn. “Tell me you wouldn’t mind a quick fling in my bed, Jodie,” he challenged. “Tell me your conscience wouldn’t bother you at all.”
She sighed. “I’d like to,” she began.
“But your parents didn’t raise you that way,” he concluded for her. “In fact, my father was like that,” he added quietly. “He was old-fashioned and I’m like him. There haven’t even been that many women, if you’d like to know, Jodie,” he confessed. “And right now, I wish there hadn’t been even one.”
“That is the sweetest thing to say,” she whispered, and pulled his face down so that she could kiss him.
“As it happens, I mean it.” He kissed her back, very lightly. “Run away with me,” he challenged. “Right now!”
It was crazy. He had to be out of his mind. But the temptation to get him to a minister before he changed his mind was all-consuming. She was suddenly caught up in the same excitement she saw in his face. “But you’re so conventional!”
“I’ll be very conventional again first thing tomorrow,” he promised. “Tonight, I
’m going for broke. Grab a coat. Don’t tell anybody where we’re going. I’ll think up something to say to Margie.”
She glanced toward the back of the room, where Margie was watching them excitedly and whispering something to Derek that made him laugh.
“All right. We’re both crazy, but I’m not arguing with you. Tell her whatever you like. Make it good,” she told him, and dashed up the staircase.
He was waiting for her at the front door. He looked irritated.
“What’s wrong?” Jodie asked when she reached him. Her heart plummeted. “Changed your mind?”
“Not on your life!” He caught her arm and pulled her out the door, closing it quickly behind them. “Margie’s too smart for her own good. Or Derek is.”
“You can’t put anything past Margie,” she said, laughing with relief as they ran down the steps and toward the garage, where he kept his Jaguar.
“Or Derek,” he murmured, chuckling.
He unlocked the door with his keyless entry and popped out the laser key with his thumb on the button. He looked down at her hesitantly. “I’m game if you are,” he told her. “But you can still back out if you want to.”
She shook her head, her eyes full of dreams. “You might never be in the mood again.”
“That’s a laugh.” He put her inside and minutes later, they were en route to the airport.
Holding hands all the way during the flight, making plans, they arrived in El Paso with bated breath. Alexander rented a car at the airport and they drove across the border, stopping at customs and looking so radiant that the guard guessed their purpose immediately.
“You’re going over to get married, I’d bet,” the man said with a huge grin. “Buena suerte,” he added, handing back their identification. “And drive carefully!”
“You bet!” Alexander told him as he drove off.
They found a small chapel and a minister willing to perform the ceremony after a short conversation with a police officer near a traffic light.
Jodie borrowed a peso from the minister’s wife for luck and was handed a small bouquet of silk flowers to hold while the words were spoken, in Spanish, that would make them man and wife.
Alexander translated for her, his eyes soft and warm and possessive as the minister pronounced them man and wife at last. He drew a ring out of his pocket, a beautiful embossed gold band, which he slid onto her finger. It was a perfect fit. She recognized it as one she’d sighed over years ago in a jewelry shop she’d gone to with Margie when they were dreaming about marriage in the distant future. She’d been back to the shop over the years to make sure it was still there. Apparently Margie had told Alexander about it.
They signed the necessary documents, Alexander paid the minister, and they got back into the car with a marriage license.
Jodie stared at her ring and her new husband with wide-eyed wonder. “We must be crazy,” she commented.
He laughed. “We’re not crazy. We’re very sensible. First we have an elopement, then we have a honeymoon, then we have a normal wedding with Margie and our friends.” He glanced at her with twinkling eyes. “You said you didn’t have to be back at work until next week. We’ll have our honeymoon before you go back.”
“Where, exactly, did you have in mind for a honeymoon?” she asked.
Three hours later, tangled with Alexander in a big king-size bed with waves pounding the shore outside the window, she lay in the shadows of the moonlit Gulf of Mexico. The hotel was first class, the food was supposed to be the best in Galveston, the beach was like sugar sand. But all she saw was Alexander’s face above hers as her body throbbed in the molasses slow rhythm of his kisses on her breasts on cool, crisp sheets.
“You taste like candy,” he whispered against her belly.
“You never said I was sweet before,” she teased breathlessly.
“You always were. I didn’t know how to say it. You gave me the shakes every time I got near you.” His mouth opened on her diaphragm and pressed down, hard.
She gasped at the warm pleasure of it. Her hands tangled in his thick, dark hair. “That was mutual, too.” She drew his face to her breasts and coaxed his mouth onto them. “This is very nice,” she murmured unsteadily.
“It gets better.” His hands found her in a new and invasive way. She started to protest, only to find his mouth crushing down over her parted lips about the same time that his movements lifted her completely off the bed in a throbbing wave of unexpected pleasure.
“Oh, you like that, do you?” he murmured against her mouth. “How about this…?”
She cried out. His lips stifled the sound and his leg moved between both of hers. He kissed her passionately while his lean hips shifted and she felt him in an intimacy they hadn’t yet shared.
He felt her body jerk as she tried to reject the shock of invasion, but his mouth gentled hers, his hands soothed her, teased her, coaxed her into allowing the slow merging of their bodies.
She gasped, her hands biting into his back in mingled fear and excitement.
“It won’t hurt long,” he whispered reassuringly, and his tongue probed her lips as he began a slow, steady rhythm that rippled down her nerves like pure joy on a roller coaster of pleasure.
“That’s it,” he murmured against her eager lips. “Come up against me and find the pressure and the rhythm that you need. That’s it. That’s…it!”
She was amazed that he didn’t mind letting her experiment, that he was willing to help her experience him. She’d heard some horror stories about wedding nights from former friends. This wasn’t one. She’d found a man who wanted eager participation, not passive acceptance. She moved and shifted and he laughed roughly, his deep voice throbbing with pleasure, as her seeking body kindled waves of delight in his own.
She was on fire with power. She moved under him, invited him, challenged him, provoked him. And he went with her, every step of the way up the ladder to a mutual climax that groaned out at her ear in ripples of satiation. She clung to him, shivering in the explosive aftermath of an experience that exceeded her wildest hopes.
“And now you know,” he whispered, kissing her eyelids closed.
“Now I know.” She nose-dived into his damp throat and clung while they slowly settled back to earth again.
“I love you, baby,” he whispered tenderly.
Joy flooded through her. “I love you, too!” she whispered breathlessly.
He curled her into his body with a long yawn and with the ocean purring like a wet kitten outside the windows, they drifted off into a warm, soft sleep.
“Hey.”
She heard his voice at her ear. Then there was an aroma, a delicious smell of fresh coffee, rich and dark and delicious.
Her eyes didn’t even open, but her head followed the retreat of the coffee.
“I thought that would do it. Breakfast,” Alexander coaxed. “We’ve got your favorite, pecan waffles with bacon.”
Her eyes opened. “You remembered!”
He grinned at her. “I know what you like.” His lips pursed. “Especially after last night.”
She laughed, dragging herself out of bed in the slip she’d worn to bed, because it was still too soon to sleep in nothing at all. She was shy with him.
He was completely dressed, right down to his shoes. He gave her an appreciative sweep of his green eyes that took in her bare feet and her disheveled hair.
“You look wonderful like that,” he said. “I always knew you would.”
“When was that, exactly?” she chided, taking a seat at the table facing the window. “Before or after you accused me of being a layabout?”
“Ouch!” he groaned.
“It’s okay. I forgive you,” she said with a wicked glance. “I could never hold a grudge against a man who was that good in bed.”
“And just think, I was very subdued last night, in deference to your first time.”
She gasped. “Well!”
His eyebrows arched. “Think of the possibilities.
If you aren’t too delicate after last night, we could explore some of them later.”
“Later?”
“I had in mind taking you around town and showing you off,” he said, flipping open a napkin. “They have all sorts of interesting things to see here.”
She sipped coffee, trying to ignore her body, which was making emphatic statements about what it wanted to do with the day.
He was watching her with covert, wise eyes. “On the other hand,” he murmured as he nibbled a pancake, “if you were feeling lazy, we could just lie around in the bed and listen to the ocean, while we…”
Her hand poised over the waffle. “While we…?”
He began to smile. She laughed. The intimacy was new and secret, and exciting. She rushed through the waffle and part of the bacon, and then pushed herself away from the table and literally threw herself into his arms across the chair. He prided himself on his control, because they actually almost made it to the bed….
Two days later, worn-out, and not because of any sightseeing trip, they dragged themselves into the ranch house with a bag full of peace offerings for Margie which included seashells, baskets, a pretty ruffled sundress and some taffy.
Margie gave them a long, amused look. “There is going to have to be a wedding here,” she informed them. “It won’t do to run off to Mexico and get married, you have to do it in Jacobsville before anybody will believe you’re really man and wife.”
“I don’t mind,” Alexander said complacently, “but I’m not making the arrangements.”
“Jodie and I can do that.”
“But I have to go back to work,” she told Margie, and went forward to hand her the bag and hug her. “And I haven’t even told you about my new job!”
“What about your new husband?” Alexander groaned. “Are you going to desert me?”
She gave him a wicked glance. “Don’t you have to talk to somebody about ranch business? Margie doesn’t even know that I’m changing jobs!”
He sighed. “That’s all husbands are good for,” he murmured to himself. “You marry a woman, and she runs off and leaves you to gossip with a girlfriend.”