Full Throttle (Fast Track) (21 page)

Love. Funny how that very small, unexpected word could change everything. Rhett bent over and murmured in her ear, “I love you.”

Shawn started and gazed up at him. Her eyes were wide in the dark backseat of Harley’s car, but they were open and honest. “I love you, too.”

What more could a man ask for? Nothing, as far as Rhett was concerned.

When they went inside and kicked off their shoes and hung up their jackets, Rhett loved the way Shawn waited for him at the top of the kitchen landing, her hand out for his.

There was no question in her eyes.

She knew he was going to make love to her. She knew that whatever he did to her, he would put her pleasure first, that she would be satisfied. The way she let him lead her down the hallway, the way she waited in the doorway for him to undress her, the way she kissed him with a deep fervor and abandonment, satisfied Rhett in return. He had never known that he could be this happy, that the restless agitation that had burned inside him would be eased by Shawn’s open affection and perfect willingness to submit to his aggressive desires.

He urged her back down onto the bed, reaching back to flick on the light so he could see her body. She blinked as the harsh overhead light hit her eyes, but she didn’t complain. She knew he wouldn’t go down on her if she did, and that made his mouth hot, his cock throb. Stripping off his own clothes, Rhett took his time, touching her everywhere with teasing, light touches, skirting her clitoris until he felt her quivering, goose bumps on her skin, her need growing more and more urgent.

“Put your ankles on my shoulders,” he told her. He suddenly needed to be inside her.

She did so without question and Rhett entered her, and even without stimulating her with his fingers or tongue, he found her wet and welcoming. Knowing that she got aroused just from his fingers brushing over her bare skin, that she knew her pleasure was a guarantee, was almost as arousing to him as the tight fist her pussy made around his erection.

Breathing hard as he gripped her shins and pumped them both to desperation, Shawn sought his permission with her eyes.

“Yes?” he asked, willing to grant any request she might have at that moment, his body tight and alive, his heart swollen with the knowledge that she loved him.

“Can I come? I really, really need to come.” Her lips were wet, her eyes glassy, her hand lifting off the mattress, then fluttering back down as she remembered she could not do whatever she had been planning to.

Rhett wondered if she’d been intending to bite one of her fingers, to suck it, or if her plan had been to twist and tweak her own nipple with the pads of her fingers.

“Not for another minute,” he told her. “I want to come with you. You’ll know when.”

“Oh,” she panted in agony, her head turned to the side, her legs trembling from the position.

“Suck on your finger,” he told her. “It will help.”

She did without hesitation, though the widening of her eyes and the clasping of her body onto his cock told him that it hadn’t made it any easier for her to hold back. It had made it worse, which was his intention, he had to admit. Watching her struggle to hold off her orgasm, her lips frantically wrapped around her finger, sucking it in and out like she was substituting it for his cock, heightened his own frantic desire.

When he squeezed her legs tight and let himself go, pumping his hot ejaculation into her, Shawn was immediately there with him. Her orgasm blended with his, her cries of anguished ecstasy ringing in his ears, as he held her and gave in to his body, gave in to her. She owned him, there was no question about it. Shawn had his heart and his body, and hell, even his soul, and he felt the most profound satisfaction and sense of triumph that he’d ever felt in his twenty-five years of life.

As he fell onto the bed next to her and pulled her into his arms, their bodies warm and sticky, her fingertips fluttering over his chest, he was inclined to believe there was such a thing as destiny. “Scarlett, you’re one hell of a woman,” he told her.

Her response was to kiss his shoulder. But a moment later, she asked, “What’s your middle name?”

He was so content, he didn’t even get annoyed with his least-favorite subject. “I’m sure you can guess.”

“Your mother seriously named you Rhett Butler Ford?”

“Yep.”

She didn’t laugh. “I’m named after my father, who took off and left my mother and two little kids living in an RV.”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter where a name comes from, it’s whether you live up to its original intention.” Rhett yawned and reached down to drag the blanket up over their bodies.

“True. Which is why I was wondering how you’d feel about me being Shawn Hamby Ford.”

Rhett looked at her in astonishment, his heart squeezing. “I would be honored.”

This was real. And they both knew it.

“Now are you going to turn the light off?” she asked.

He grinned. “I was hoping you would.”

“I didn’t turn it on,” she pointed out.

He couldn’t argue with that. As he sighed and lumbered out of bed and across the cold room to flick the switch, he said, “Next week, I install the Clapper.”

She giggled. “I dare you.”

“Done.” Then he was back in bed, and she was in his arms, and the world was a perfect place.

SHAWN
looked at herself in the mirror, Eve and the twins hovering around her, fussing with the long, flowing skirt of her white dress that Charity and Sandy had chosen off the rack at a retail store. She looked like a real bride.

And she promptly burst into tears.

“What’s wrong?” Harley asked, reaching out and taking her cold hand in hers.

“You’ll mess up your makeup!” Charity shrieked, horrified.

“I’m sorry.” Shawn managed to stop the tears almost as soon as they started, sniffling and widening her eyes to keep herself under control. “I can’t help it. I miss my grandparents.”

It was the truth. But she also was realizing that not only did she look the part, she
felt
like a true bride. She was in love with her groom. She wanted to spend her life with him, regardless of the reasons they had come together in the first place.

How nuts was that?

Rhett had told her he loved her the night before, and she believed him. For the first time ever in her life, she had looked into the eyes of a man and seen that she was cherished by him. It was wonderful. It was wacky. It was overwhelming. She wasn’t sure how a woman was ever supposed to be prepared to fall in love, but she hadn’t been. Instead of enjoying their mutual emotions, she was still a ball of anxiety, because who was to say what was going to happen when six months had passed? It was too soon to ask Rhett for a real commitment, regardless of their legal marital status. Pressuring him or even asking could smother the spark of their newfound love. It had merely been the post-sex relaxation that had allowed her to say something about taking his last name, and while he had agreed, it could have been purely because he knew his family would expect it.

Despite everything he had told her, he still hadn’t said what was going to happen when he had a hundred grand in hand.

It was a lot to have swirling in her head when she was staring at herself in the mirror, looking every inch the part of a woman pledging her love and her life to her new husband.

“I’m going to puke,” she said, her stomach suddenly clenching in a violent spasm, bile clawing up her throat.

“Holy shit!” was Eve’s opinion as they all glanced frantically around the lounge area of the restroom of the Hamby Speedway banquet room for some kind of receptacle.

Sandy had come into the room in time to hear Shawn’s last words, and as Shawn covered her mouth and desperately breathed through her nose, Sandy cut through the girls and took charge. “Give her some space!”

Taking her firmly in hand, Sandy pushed her down into the deep sofa opposite the vanity area, and she sank down gratefully.

“Head between your knees,” Sandy said gently, pushing her shoulders forward and kneeling down to lay the back of her hand on Shawn’s clammy forehead. “You’re okay, you’re going to be fine. Just try not to swallow so much.”

Shawn started to calm down at the soothing tones of her mother-in-law.

“What’s wrong?” Harley asked. “You’re already married, no need to be nervous.”

“She’s not nervous,” Sandy said, running her hand down Shawn’s cheek in a way that made her realize in thirty-two years she’d never gotten that kind of touch from her own mother. It made her miss her grandmother even more. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you, sweetie?”

Shawn sat up straight at those words. “What? No! I mean, I don’t think so . . .” Was she? She supposed it was possible. She and Rhett had been having sex like it was going out of style. She was on the pill, but she tended to take it at various times of the day, which was a bit of an instructional violation. But still, what were the odds? Rhett would have to have supersperm.

Given he had eight siblings, and six of them had produced sixteen children, maybe that wasn’t so out of the question. Fertility was a Ford virtue.

“Well, we’ll know in a week or two. But for now, I think you should skip the champagne tonight and stick to ginger ale to settle your stomach.”

“Yeah, okay.” Truthfully, the thought of alcohol did make her want to gag. Oh, Lord. What if she was pregnant?

“Whoa,” was Eve’s opinion on the matter.

Sandy hugged her and Shawn melted into the warmth of that embrace. “Welcome to the family.”

“Thank you.” She meant that most sincerely. She had deceived Rhett’s family, and they were showing her nothing but love. She was truly grateful for that.

Especially given that her own mother chose that moment to come into the room. “What’s going on, Shawn? Why are you serving so many beef products?” she said by way of greeting.

Raising her head, Shawn swallowed hard. “Mom, please. Everyone was nice enough to help me with this party, I don’t want to hear any criticism.”

“I’m just saying.” Her mother pouted, her long hair loose from its usual braid, gray streaked throughout since she didn’t believe in using chemicals to dye it. Her dress was more of a wrap-and-sari combination in a vivid purple, which Shawn knew was not a color that could be achieved with natural dye. So, as usual, her mother selectively chose her moments to be environmental.

Still feeling a little weak, she took a deep breath and was standing up, holding on to Sandy’s arm, when Rhett came into the room, with a pointless knock on the door as he was already entering.

“This is the ladies’ room,” Charity told him.

“I’m coming to see what’s taking so long. Everyone is here, and they’re devouring the appetizers.”

He looked very handsome in his suit, his tie straight, a jaunty red for the Valentine’s Day theme, and Shawn willed him to meet her eye. She needed him to look at her, to reassure her. He did, giving her that sexy smile that she had first noticed in The Wet Spot, her insides turning to liquid.

“Hey, beautiful. You ready to do this thing?”

She nodded, immediately feeling better, then immediately after that freaking out that she needed him to make her feel better.

He held his hand out for her.

She took it.

 • • • 

SHAWN
looked a little green, but Rhett knew she was nervous about being the center of attention. He found it interesting that for a woman who ran a business and had spent all those years on the youth racing circuit, she wasn’t comfortable with entertaining. Parties and anything that could be classified as an event seemed to generate nerves. Yet in his mind, every weekend at Hamby Speedway during the season was an “event.”

Maybe it was just that she didn’t really like wearing dresses, which was a damn shame, because she was a knockout in them. Especially this one. It looked every inch what he would imagine a bridal gown to be, from the strapless fitted top, to the flowing skirt that looked a little like soft-serve ice cream to him. He wanted to lick her.

“You hungry?” he asked her, as they moved down the hall, her friends and their mothers following them. “There is enough food in there to feed the fans at the Daytona 500.”

It was an inane thing to say, but he wanted her to relax. He squeezed her hand a little and she squeezed back.

“I actually have an upset stomach,” she said. “I think I’m having stage fright.”

“It’s just our friends and family. And the hard part is over. If you didn’t faint in that courthouse,” he murmured to her, “I think you’ll be fine. I mean, let’s face it, it takes a strong woman to agree to put up with me for even six months.”

She gave a brittle laugh, but the tension lines in her forehead smoothed. “True. You are a whole lot of something, Rhett Butler Ford.”

He winced. “Don’t trot out the middle name unless you’re pissed off at me. Or I may not contain my spankings to the bedroom.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

She smiled up at him, and he was glad to see she was genuinely amused and looking less sallow. “Don’t try me,” he teased. Then he pushed open the doorway to the banquet room that his sisters had spent the last two days decorating.

“A big Charlotte welcome to the brand new Mr. and Mrs. Rhett and Shawn Ford!” his brother-in-law Mark boomed as they stepped into the room.

Mark had gotten a microphone from God knows where, and he appeared to have nominated himself for MC/DJ, an iPod and speakers set up behind him.

Even Rhett wasn’t quite prepared for the loud pronouncement of them as man and wife and the thundering applause and hoots and hollers that followed. For a second he just blinked.

Shawn murmured, “Good Lord, it looks like Cupid shart in here.”

Rhett choked back a laugh and managed to smile and raise their clasped hands together in a victory shake. Then he fought the urge to drag Shawn through the crowd and the explosion of pink and red hearts, and took a nice, steady pace instead. He wasn’t exactly sure where they were supposed to go, so he took the opportunity to just stop every few feet and greet guests and receive hugs from ancient great-aunts and his grandmother.

Suddenly he wasn’t sure this party had been such a fabulous idea after all, because while he knew for certain he loved Shawn and she loved him, they had gone about this all ass backwards. Instead of taking their vows in a church with family present, meaning each of those words they’d spoken, they had stood before a judge and lied through their teeth. It left the stain of dishonesty on this party, and that pissed him off. He didn’t want there to be any whiff of falsity to the night, and while he was used to being hugged and cosseted from female family members, the truth was, he didn’t have his brother’s easy charm. Playing host wasn’t any easier for him than it was for Shawn to tackle the hostess role.

So as soon as they had reached the head table, crowded with giant vases of red flowers, he deposited Shawn in a chair and went for some liquid fortification. Shawn shook her head when he asked if she wanted a drink, already turning away as her mother swooped down on her like a purple dragon. He’d barely exchanged five words with her, and he had to say quite honestly, he despised her mother. From her made-up first name of Mati, stolen no doubt from the legendary spy, to her insistence that marriage was for the weak-minded, she grated on his nerves.

Rhett had kind of always thought marriage was for the monogamous, but go figure. He ordered a shot of whiskey from the bartender.

“Eight dollars,” the bartender told him.

He didn’t even have his wallet on him. “I’m the groom.”

“I’m sorry, sir, that doesn’t matter.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Rhett turned to go find someone to bum a ten off of, when he almost ran into his father.

“Let me buy you a drink, son.”

“Thanks, Dad,” he said, more relieved than he cared to admit. He wasn’t usually one to crave alcohol, but neither did he usually have this much emotion churning inside him like a cement mixer.

“Whatever he wants,” his father told the bartender. He handed the bartender a hundred dollar bill. “For the rest of the night so we don’t have to keep doing this every time he or his bride need to wet their whistle.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Rhett was touched.

His father smiled at him and held his hand out. They shook. “Congrats. I hope you and Shawn will be as happy as your mother and I have been.”

Yeah, that was a lump the size of a baby’s fist in his throat. “Me, too,” he said. He meant it with every bone in his body.

“My youngest married.” Nolan Senior shook his head. “Damn, I must be old.”

“Nah.” Rhett clamped him on the shoulder. “You still have a lot of Saturday afternoon delights with Mom ahead of you.”

“Don’t be smart, boy.” But his father did laugh, even if the tips of his ears were a little pink.

Rhett grinned and raised his glass. “Cheers.” He drank the shot of whiskey and felt the slow burn down his throat, knocking through that lump in there like Drano. That was better.

Somehow as various brothers-in-law and uncles and cousins came up for a drink, Rhett found himself trapped at the bar for over an hour. During which he might have done another three shots. Feeling pleasantly buzzed, he finally made his way over to the buffet of food and attempted to load himself up a plate. After he dropped the slotted spoon in the green beans three times, his Aunt Trudy took his plate from him and not only spooned up his beans for him, but went down the whole line, loading him up with eats.

“Don’t trip on your way to your table,” she told him with a wink. “And lay off the whiskey if you want to make your bride happy tonight.”

Ha. As if that was ever an issue. His chest inflated with more than a little manly pride. “How do you know I’ve been drinking?”

“I married your Uncle Georgie, didn’t I? That man has pickled his liver.”

Rhett couldn’t really argue with that. Georgie was a pretty hard-core drinker. He’d been known to fall asleep with his forehead on the bar top in his local watering hole, then rousing long enough to order another one before passing out again.

“I smell it on you.”

“Oh.” That was his stellar whiskey-stunted brainiac reply. “Good party, huh?” he asked, feeling satisfied with the way it was turning out. Sure, there was an excess of pink and Ford relatives, but everyone was happy and having a good time. Mark was spinning tunes, or more accurately, had hit play on the playlist, and there was some early dancing starting up, still a little timid and demure at this point. Another hour, the jackets and the ladies’ shoes would come off, and the hip shaking would begin in earnest. Just like a real wedding. It felt like a real wedding.

Which reminded him. He hadn’t seen Shawn in quite a while.

“Excuse me, Aunt Trudy. I need to find my beautiful wife.”

“Where the hell have you been?” Shawn snapped at him when he returned to the table, balancing his plate with one hand while swiping a deviled egg off the pile with the other.

“I went for a drink.” He pointed to his plate. “And food. Do you want me to get you some?”

“I want you to not abandon me again like that. God, I just met a thousand relatives all on my own. Eve brought me a plate.” Shawn was sitting down, and her dinner was really just a pile of shredded biscuits with some uneaten ham next to it.

“Do you want something else?” he asked. “I can go back up for you.” He sat next to her and kissed the side of her head. “Sorry. I got waylaid by congratulations.”