Here Comes the Bride Read online

  “I want you, too, Nick. And I’m very sure.”

  He picked her up then and placed her in the center of the bed. For a moment he only gazed down at her, stretched out on the sheets. She wondered what he was thinking. That she looked so right there in his bed? That he wanted her there always? Or did niggling doubt tease at him? “Nick …”

  He didn’t allow her to finish—for fear she’d changed her mind. He slid out of his briefs, the moonlight slanting across him making him look all the more ready in his total nakedness, more fierce than a moment before.

  Her mouth went dry as he joined her on the bed. She loved the feel of him against her, hard and totally male. She went all moist with want of him.

  His hands, so slow, so sure, spread out over her. His mouth found hers in a claiming kiss, his tongue thrusting and plunging in a sensual rhythm. Desire welled in her, sending her emotions whirling, and she reached for him. He was hot and needy and powerful.

  His lips left hers and journeyed over her fevered skin, kissing, nipping. He found one nipple and suckled it. Her body peaked with rising need. With equal measure he sampled the other, teasing, tempting. His hand found the moistness between her legs and his fingers slid inside. She shuddered against his touch.

  “Oh, Nick, you’re driving me crazy.”

  “I want you beyond crazy, sweet lady. I want you in ecstasy.”

  Nick was nearly there himself. With her exquisite hold on him, he was about to explode. He willed himself to hold on, hold on until she was more than ready for him.

  His mouth tasted her skin, trailing hot little kisses down to her navel, dipping into the sweetness there, then continued the journey along the silky length of her leg, the sensitive arch of her foot, her ticklish toes. His return trip took in the other leg, back up to her thigh, to the moist heat of her. He kissed her there, finding her ready. His tongue flickered over the core of her femininity until she writhed beneath him and begged for surfeit.

  “Now, Nick,” she ordered in the sexiest, most determined voice he thought he’d ever heard.

  Nick knew he had to protect her. He searched the drawer of the table beside the bed and found the blue foil he was seeking. “Hold on, sweet love.”

  He hated the moment of interruption, but he couldn’t hurt Fiona. With fumbling hands he slipped on the protection, then poised over her, he slid into the glorious heaven of her. He waited until she’d adjusted to him, then began to move inside her in the rhythm of the ages.

  He watched her face in the soft moonlight, wanting this to be good for her. Her cheeks were flushed with passion and her hair spilled across the pillow. He buried his hands in its silk as she tightened her legs around him. Soon he was lost in abandon.

  Fiona’s body suffused with heat, the fire of passion, as she climbed with Nick to unexplored heights. Sweat beaded his face, glistening in the moonlight that slanted over them.

  This felt so right, so perfect. Her breath matched his until she thought her lungs would burst. Then she found release. It shuddered through her like waves crashing against a shoreline, never-ending. She murmured Nick’s name, called it out from somewhere deep inside her, just as Nick shuddered with the same release.

  He stayed there, holding her long afterward, caressing the damp tendrils of her hair away from her fevered face. Slowly her breath returned, her heartbeat slowed, and satisfaction, complete and thorough, ebbed through her.

  Nick kissed each eyelid that had shuttered closed with languor, then the tip of her nose. An audible purr slid from her lips and he kissed those, too, not an awakening kiss, but one of satisfied passion.

  They held each other for long moments, whispering intimacies. Fiona didn’t know she could feel so replete, so filled, so cherished. She curled into the heat of him, not wanting to lose this newfound closeness. She knew she had, without any doubt, fallen in love with this man—a man who scoffed at love, at marriage. But she didn’t want to dwell on that. She only wrapped her arms tighter around him. At least for tonight he’d shown her he was very capable of the love part.

  They awoke several times throughout the night and found each other, making love again—quick and passionate love, slow and lazy love. Both kinds were wonderful, binding her to Nick even more, sealing her love for him.

  The last time she awoke, the moonlight had faded. Sunlight flooded the room. She glanced at Nick, sleeping soundly beside her. His dark lashes fanned across his cheeks and his eyelids flickered slightly as if he was dreaming.

  What were those dreams about? she wondered. Her? What they’d shared last night? A shiver of excitement danced through her and she wanted him again.

  She wanted him in the daylight so she could watch what he did to her body with such mastery. She leaned close and brushed his lips with hers. They twitched in his sleep, then curved into a slight smile, but he didn’t awaken.

  With a sigh she glanced around the room, the room she’d taken little notice of last night. His bedroom was large and airy, the furniture a rich, tasteful cherrywood. The bed was big and soft—and wonderful for making love.

  In their passion they’d tangled the sheets hopelessly. Only one corner of the dark blue stripe kept Nick decent, barely covering his lower torso.

  But she knew that portion of his body the sheet sheathed, knew it as intimately as he knew hers. She smiled at the memory. She longed to wake him and renew what they’d shared last night, but he looked so perfect, so peaceful in sleep. Quietly she slipped from his bed.

  Finding the dress shirt he’d worn yesterday, she put it on, wrapping herself in the softness of the fabric, the male scent of him. She curled up in the big, overstuffed chair beside the bed and tucked her legs under her to watch him sleep.

  Whenever intimations of good sense intruded, she quickly shoved them aside. There’d be plenty of time for regret, self-recrimination later, when she had to return to Boston. For now she’d concentrate only on how right it had felt to be there in Nick’s arms, how natural to make love with him.

  Nick awoke to find Fiona sitting in the chair, his blue shirt draped sensuously over her, a faraway look in her eyes. The wonder of last night swept over him, the feel of her beautiful body, so tempting, so soft, so willing. She’d been a perfect lover.

  “I like the way you look in my shirt,” he murmured. She hadn’t buttoned it and the edge of one kiss-swollen breast peeked out. His body hardened with wanting her again. “Spend the day with me,” he said, not able to bear the thought of a moment away from her.

  “The day? You don’t have to go into the office?”

  He shook his head. “It’s Saturday.”

  So it was. Fiona had lost all track of time since she’d come to Nevada, one day blending into the next. But this day she very much wanted to spend with Nick.

  They made love again—slow and languorous love. Nick drew it out until she was beyond all thought, all reason, before finally giving her what she craved.

  They showered together, bathing each other and toweling each other dry with thick, thirsty towels. “If we’re going to spend today together, I’ll need clean clothes,” Fiona announced.

  “I kinda like the way you look in that towel myself.” He planted a kiss on one bare shoulder, then the top of one breast.

  She threw her head back, drinking in the pleasure of his mouth on her fresh-scrubbed skin. “Then you intend for us to stay in all day?”

  She knew they had to put in an appearance at Winnie’s. And Nick had mentioned a restaurant that made delicious pancakes.

  Nick groaned. “It’s tempting, very tempting, but I’m not sure my body can take it, sweetheart.”

  She laughed softly.

  After a quick trip to her hotel for clothes, then a breakfast of pancakes with pineapple syrup at Nick’s favorite hangout, they drove by Winnie’s.

  Camille met them at the door. “Oh, you’re just in time for brunch. I’m serving on the patio in five minutes,” she said.

  Nick and Fiona glanced at each other, then back at Camil
le. “We’ve, uh, already had breakfast,” Nick told her.

  Camille gave a knowing, catlike smile. “Together, no doubt. Well, join us for a glass of guava juice, anyway.”

  “Why did we have to come here?” Fiona asked Nick quietly once Camille had retreated to the kitchen.

  “We had to check on Auntie.”

  “Ah yes—Auntie.” Fiona only hoped Winnie wasn’t as perceptive as her daughter. She suspected, though, that the truth of her and Nick’s night together was stamped clearly on their faces.

  The swelling in Winnie’s ankle was down considerably this morning, no doubt because of Walter’s loving, nursing care. “I’ll be back on my feet in no time and ready for my wedding,” she announced when they joined her and Fiona’s father on the patio.

  “That’s wonderful,” Fiona said, then saw Nick’s jaw tighten and his shoulders take on a certain rigidity. His opinion about this wedding hadn’t changed as hers had. He refused to see that the couple were in love—deeply in love.

  A small sigh slipped from her lips. She knew that as long as his viewpoint remained overshadowed by his cases—and his past—there was no chance of a future for her with Nick.

  After a polite length of time they slipped away, but before they’d gotten completely out of earshot, they heard Winnie say, “Oh, Walter, this is so wonderful. My Nicholas and your Fiona—a pair.”

  Fiona sighed again. Winnie had that only partially right.

  “Get me away from here fast,” she begged Nick.

  He brushed a knuckle over her cheek. “I’m sorry my family is so intuitive. I didn’t mean for them to embarrass you.”

  Once they were safely in the car, Nick turned to her. “How are you at sailing?” he asked.

  Fiona relaxed against the seat and smiled. “I grew up beside the Atlantic, remember?”

  “Ah, yes. Well, I keep a small boat out at Lake Mead. Are you game?”

  That sounded like a good way to take her mind off the differences between them. She nodded.

  Sailing proved to be very distracting. Nick kept Fiona busy, helping to keep the craft upright in the choppy waters of the sparkling blue lake, but not so busy that she didn’t have time to be haunted by the beauty of his tanned body, stripped to the waist.

  His muscles bunched and rippled as he trimmed the sails, the sun glinted on his sleek, sweating torso, and Fiona couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

  Their night proved to be as active as their day. They made love, losing themselves in each other again.

  The following day they hiked the mountain trails. Nick collected wildflowers and presented them to her, claiming the scent of them reminded him of her.

  The smell of the flowers reminded Fiona instead of this desert paradise, the place where Nick very much belonged. And they reminded her of weddings.

  Would Winnie carry a small bouquet of these desert blooms at her wedding? she wondered. Or something more traditional?

  She sighed, wishing she knew how to convince Nick of the couple’s love, wishing she could make him see that her father only wanted to make Winnie happy, that they would love each other for all time.

  But Nick couldn’t believe—wouldn’t believe—that marriages could last. And flourish. And she knew that if she spoke the words of love that were in her heart, if she told Nick that she’d fallen crazily in love with him, he would only scoff.

  Plucking a petal from the bouquet, she let it fall from her fingers.

  That night they shared a candlelit supper at a nearby restaurant, then Nick returned her to her hotel. He had an early flight in the morning. To L.A. For yet another divorce case.

  Fiona hated finding herself alone in bed, for what promised to be an endless night. She beat and pummeled her pillow, restless with wanting Nick.

  “Better get used to it,” she whispered aloud to herself.

  But she feared her life had taken a turn from which she might never recover.

  Fiona found herself at loose ends the next day without Nick, but Camille quickly remedied that.

  “Without my cousin monopolizing your time, I thought you might help me shop for something to wear to my mother’s wedding,” she said in an early-morning call.

  “Oh, Camille, I’d like that,” Fiona replied. Lately her shopping consisted only of buying treasures for her antique shop, few for herself. But occasionally Elaine would drag her away from business to meander through the shops along Newbury Street or make a run through Filene’s.

  Shopping with Camille sounded like fun. And she found herself looking forward to it.

  “Mother proclaimed my meager wardrobe abysmal, something even the charity closet wouldn’t take,” Camille groaned. “A fashionable wardrobe is not high on my list of needs in India, I’m afraid. I’m a bit rusty at choosing something appropriate for a garden wedding. I’d really appreciate your advice.”

  “Then you’ve got it.”

  Fiona had never had a sister to share things with, and she felt light and buoyant when she met Camille at the Fashion Mall an hour later. It was located on the Las Vegas Strip not far from her hotel, a sprawling mall with a wide variety of stores.

  Fiona had forgotten to toss in her pink pumps when she’d hurriedly packed for this trip, so the two browsed through the multitude of shoe stores for just the pair to go with the pink suit she would wear to the wedding.

  Fiona found the perfect linen ones, then Camille talked her into trying on a pair of sexy strappy sandals as well. “What do you think?” Fiona asked, raising the skirt of her sundress and imitating a model’s waltz across the shoe salon.

  Camille gave a teasing smile. “I think they’ll send my bachelor cousin into a male tailspin when he sees you in them.”

  Nick …

  Fiona stared down at the seductive sandals for a long moment. Yes, he would find them tantalizing. They made her legs look endlessly long and her feet sexy and bare. But no matter how enticing she looked to Nick, it wouldn’t change the basic problem in their relationship.

  With a sigh she began to unbuckle the strap.

  “What’s wrong, Fiona? Don’t you like them?”

  Perhaps if she’d had a sister she would know how to share confidences, she’d know how to pour out her heart to Camille. But she’d never had a sister, and she didn’t know how to tell Camille about the pain that speared through her.

  She held the pair of sandals in her hands. “I’m not sure the shoes are all that practical. Boston has more winter weather than summer.” And she would be returning home all too soon, she added to herself.

  She was relieved when Camille bought her explanation.

  “We’ll have lunch. There’s always time to come back and get them later if you change your mind,” Camille said. “Come on, I know the perfect spot.”

  Perfect to Camille was a vegetarian restaurant, a purist way of life she’d adopted a long time ago. Fiona wasn’t into bean sprouts and varieties of endive but managed to find a vegetarian pizza on the menu, topped with enough cheese to satisfy her taste buds.

  Then it was on to more stores and a dozen boutiques to find a dress that would please Camille’s mother, yet cater to Camille’s bohemian style. By the end of the day she’d settled on one, a flouncy-skirted confection, sprigged with splashes of flowers. She’d even decided to leave off her Birkenstocks and stuff her feet into a conventional dainty pair of heels for the occasion.

  “Oh, Fiona, I’ve had such a wonderful day. You don’t know how terrific it is to have a sister at long last.”

  Fiona hugged her. “Oh, yes, I do. Now. I grew up an only child. But you at least had Nick.”

  Camille linked her arm with Fiona’s. “In a way, yes. But Nick was always a bit of a loner. He never talked about it much, but he’s always carried around a lot of pain in his heart.”

  “His mother’s death?”

  Camille nodded. “That and his father abandoning him.”

  “Oh, how horrible. I didn’t know. He never mentioned his father.”

 
; “My parents showered him with love; that’s why he’s so devoted to his aunt Winnie, but he never had … I don’t know … a sense of permanence in his life.”

  And he didn’t see it in the cases he tried, Fiona knew. He saw the worst of human nature.

  She wanted to heal him with her own love, kiss away his doubts. But could she? Was it possible?

  TEN

  The day of the wedding had finally arrived. Fiona helped Winnie and Camille put on the last-minute finishing touches.

  Her father was no help at all; he just paced the patio and generally looked confused with all the hubbub going on around him.

  Fiona gave him a hug. “Having second thoughts about the wedding, Dad?”

  “Of course not,” he replied. “You’re not going to start in on that again, are you, Fiona?”

  “No, Dad, I’m not going to start in on anything. It’s just that you seem … well, nervous.”

  “Every man’s jittery on his wedding day. We’re supposed to be,” he blustered.

  She arched an eyebrow at him. “Is that some unwritten male law?”

  He waved off her question. “Fiona, go and help Winnie with all that fussing she’s doing and leave me to pace in peace.”

  She smiled and gave him a quick peck on his leathery cheek, then went off in search of a chore that needed doing.

  Nick had promised to come by Winnie’s this morning, but he hadn’t shown up. And Fiona knew why. He still felt the same way about this wedding, but he loved his aunt too much to rain on her parade, so he was keeping his distance until the last minute.

  Over the past few days Fiona and Nick had spent every spare moment they could together. Nick’s caseload had been heavy, but they still managed to steal away for private interludes. Fiona had refused to think about the time when she’d have to leave and return to Boston. Leave Nick and the wonder of their lovemaking.

  The antiques that were her life, the shop that was her fledgling baby, paled in comparison to the thought of staying. But very soon she would need that shop and its challenges to help her forget Nick and how he could make her body sing from just his touch, his kiss.