His Bahamas Affair (The Albury Affairs) (4 page)

He turned to face the
door he’d just come from, placing Riana’s hand on his arm when he was bumped
from behind. He stumbled forward. “What the…”

“Oops. You really
should be careful. We don’t want you to fall and break your leg so soon now do
we,
Uncle
Weno
?”
Loraine spoke with a smile on her face before she turned and moved a few steps
forward.

Something about that
smile and the look in her eyes frightened Reno. Not even the fact that she was
a knockout in that dress distracted him from the silent threat.

He turned to a
snickering Riana. “What was that about? And what did she mean by so soon?”

“
Cwazi
Wowi
?” Riana responded, mimicking Aurora voice with a
raised brow.

Reno nodded with
understanding and chuckled softly. It was after one of their video
conversations when he’d said those words. Loraine had come up with a crazy idea
to go to the resort and stay for a few days in disguise just to see how Riana
was doing for herself because Riana had forbade her from leaving school to
babysit her. Aurora had been eavesdropping and the next thing he knew, she was singing
Cwazi
Wowi
up and down the
resort.

“Hey, if the shoe
fits…”

Riana chuckled, shaking
her head. “Just kill each other after I’ve left for my honeymoon? I don’t want
to be stuck here as a potential witness against whichever one of you survives.
Why do you call her that anyway?”

He moved forward as the
bride’s maids began their walk. “Really? You’ve been friends with her for
almost six years and you’re asking me that?”

Riana shook her head.
“Not to her face. The
cwazi
part is a huge
deterrent.”

“Coward.” When the
bridal march began, he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Come on baby sis,
let’s get you married.

* * * *

Loraine watched the
couples’ first dance with mixed emotions. She was truly happy for them, but yet
again she was envious. Riana stared up at her husband like a gold digger would
stare at a fifteen carat diamond; like he was complete perfection and the best
thing in the world. And Allan—this is where the envy came in—looked down at her
like there was no one else in the world but her. Like she was his center and
his life line and nothing else existed but her.

God,
why can’t I find a guy who looks at me like that, with so much love?

This was one of the
things that she always knew, wished she could teach her parents and
grandparents: that true love and happiness didn’t come from money. Considering
how fake and sad her grandparents’ marriages were, one would think it was
self-explanatory.

She wrapped her arms
around her mid, hugging herself tightly. Between the nightmares about the
psycho and lacking that special someone since, she felt so alone. The feeling
drowned her.

She chuckled to
herself, watching Aurora try to imitate her parents’ dancing with Mark as her
partner. Amy was cooing beside Loraine like a proud mother, sighing at the
young love—
eye roll
—and Matthew just
kept saying ‘my poor son’, but the silly smile on his face belied his words.
They’d tried to get them off the dance floor a few times but Aurora would have
none of that. Seconds of being carried away, she would drag Mark back to the
dance floor. The third time someone went to remove them she clutched tightly to
Allan’s pants leg and whined, loudly. And that’s all it took to get her to
stay. Allan took a second away from staring into his wife’s eyes to shake his
head no and Aurora, once again, got her way.

Allan could never say
no to Aurora.
The sucker better learn
that two letter word fast if he doesn’t want to be turned into a bigger sucker
and have Aurora run circles around him.
Loraine thought with a laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

The husky whisper in
her ear made her body slightly tremble, his hot breath touching her ear like a
soft caress.

“Are you cold?”

She had to hold herself
still when his breath touched her neck. “No,” she whispered back.

Loraine didn’t
understand her reaction to him. Yes, she’d spoken to him a number of times on
the phone, and even
Skyped
, but this was the first
time in almost three years of their interaction they’d met face to face. But
even then, during the
skypes
and the phone calls, the
sound of his voice, of his laughter as he regaled her of Aurora’s frolics, his
smile, even his sad expressions when he told her about Riana’s depression,
always sent a flutter in her belly. She’d always chalked it up to him being the
only man she was social with at the time, but that excuse was flimsy with him
so close to her he was breathing on her neck. She had been a little stunned
when she saw him walk into the restaurant and Aurora had tackled him before the
ceremony.

He’d laughed at her
antics, and Loraine remembered thinking he had the sexiest laugh she’d ever
heard. And his smile—completely shivers down the spine worthy. He was a
handsome man, with a clean shaven chiseled jaw, a slightly cleft chin and eyes
that matched Riana’s—brown with flakes of green. In those few minutes that
she’d seen him for the first time, she thought about running her fingers
through the short curls that sat on top of his head, while the sides had a
closer shave. And that was just his head.

The rest of his body,
though enclosed in a black tux, was droll worthy. First, he looked hot in a
tux. Not many men could carry it well, but he knocked it out of the park! His
shoulders were broad and wide, hinting of a hardness that only came with
athletes. His arms were equally large. When he flexed his arm, raising a glass
of champagne to his come-kiss-me-lips, she thought the jacket would rip over
the bicep. And how the jacket spread over his chest…
Oh my!
She just wished she could see the rest of his over six foot
frame without the hindrance of the tux.

She felt his fingers
run lightly up and down her arms and she had to swallow a shaky gasp. There was
no way she was going to let him or anyone else see how much he affected her.
But as far as him knowing, if her body kept trembling at his ministration, it was
hopeless to try an act aloof.

“I thought you said
you’re not cold?”

She heard the laugh in
his voice and forced her body to stay completely still. The arrogant ass knew
exactly what he was doing to her!

“What do you want,
Reno?” She was proud her tone was dry and she sounded a little bored.

She felt him shuffle
closer, his chest pressing into her back and his body heat hit her like she was
in a sauna.
What the hell is he doing to
me?

“Right now, a dance
would be great.”

“Sorry, but I dance
with the best man only.”

His hands slowly slid
down her arms until they reached hers, entwining their fingers. Loraine was
glad he was behind her and couldn’t see her eyes flutter closed, but she was
sure he felt her suck in a trembling breath.

“Actually, I convinced
him to dance with his wife, which wasn’t difficult at all.”

“I bet,” she responded
grabbing at the scrambled thoughts that floated through her hazy mind as Reno
drew circles in her palms with his thumbs.

How is it, when her
first high school boyfriend did that, the tickle annoyed her. But when Reno did
it, she couldn’t think of anything else but pressing her hips back into his?
How the hell had they gotten to that point anyway? Earlier on, she wanted to
rip him a new one for teaching Aurora to call her ‘
Cwazi
Wowi
’ and now she wanted nothing more than to rip his
clothes off and have crazy sex with him. Something she had never felt in her
life since she discovered raging hormones.

“So, may I have this
dance… or do you wish to have another kind of dance entirely?” The huskiness of
his voice deepened.

She took a deep breath.
“Would there be a difference?”

He chuckled softly,
leaning down to graze her shoulder with his lips and Loraine found herself
turning her head to his.

He pressed a light kiss
on her jaw before he moved to her ear to whisper, “Well, yes. We can’t do the
other dance in front of over thirty people. I don’t think that’s the kind of
entertainment they are expecting.”

“Yeah,” she swallowed
hard, “but foreplay in public is just as scandalizing.”

He laughed hard, his
body shaking with it. “Touché! I promise to keep my hands in the safe zone and
put the appropriate space of half a foot between us.”

Loraine shook her head,
trying to clear it. “I don’t even know you!” she said, more to herself and her
misbehaving body than to him. Her panties were already drenched and he’d done
nothing but caress her lightly and breathe into her ear.

She felt him push her
forward and her body obeyed as he directed her onto the dance floor. Matthew,
Amy, Melody and the other groomsman she didn’t know had already joined the
couple.

“You know me,” he
began, turning her around to face him but Loraine kept her eyes down. “I’ve
spoken to you over the past few years more than I have to anyone else.”

She looked up at him
under her eyelashes, just enough to keep her head from being muddled. In other
words, she just stared at his cleft chin. He took her hand in his, placing his
other hand on her waist while her free one rose to rest on his shoulder.

Are
you kidding me!
She thought feeling the corded muscle
under her hand.
A resort owner should not
be this buff! What reason does he have to keep his body so perfect!

“True, but the only
reason for that was because we were both worried about Riana.”

His shoulder flexed
under her hand and the grip on her hand tightened, swallowing her hand
completely.

She held back a groan,
from pure sexual agony.
He keeps this up,
and I’m going to be like a bitch in heat!

When he went silent,
she gave in and looked up at him. He was staring to the side, a shy smile
playing on his lips, and when she followed his gaze it was settled on Riana.
She was cuddled in Allan’s arms, her head on his chest, her eyes closed and a
sweet smile on her lips. She looked content and at peace, happy to be in his
arms.

“She doesn’t resemble
the lost girl she was two months ago.”

Reno grunted his
response.

She looked back up at
him and noticed the glisten in his eyes and her heart warmed. She moved the
hand on his shoulder close enough to his face to caress his cheek with her
thumb.

“It’s wonderful to see
how much you love her. You did a great job with her and Aurora.”

He grunted again, the
arm at her waist tightening as he pulled her closer to him until they touched
from chest to knee. She went willingly, knowing there was nothing sexual about
it. He needed the closeness, to be comforted. Reno looked like a boy who’d just
had to give up his favorite toy to a kid who needed it more. He was sad about
losing it and yet happy to give it up to someone who’d love it very much.

He’d had the same look
on his face when he handed Riana over to Allan at the altar. He’d hugged her, a
little longer than normal, before he stepped to stand behind Matthew. For a
second, Loraine thought he was about to pick Riana up throw her over his
shoulder and make a mad dash for the exit.

She couldn’t even
imagine the pain he must have gone through, being forcefully separated from her
when he was deported all those years ago. And it must have hurt even more those
four years he couldn’t go back to the States to see her after he forced Riana
to stay.

Loraine wrapped her
arms around Reno’s waist as they swayed from side to side, pressing her head
against his chest over his heart, loving the rhythm of the hard beat. His arms
came around her, wrapping her tightly against him as he rested his chin on the
crown of her head.

“This wasn’t exactly
how I planned my seduction.”

She smiled. She had a
feeling he was after sluty wedding sex when he hit on her. “What? Showing your
soft side and letting me see you aren’t the Don Juan you want me to believe you
are?”

He chuckled, and she
loved the feel of his shaking chest against her cheek. “Yeah, something like
that.”

She turned her head up
to look at him, her eyes meeting his for a breathless second before she spoke.
“Don’t worry. The night is young and you have time to try again. I promise to
act like it was your first try and I haven’t seen the big teddy bear you are.
I’ll even act like a bitch, with the eye roll and disgruntled sighing.”

His eyes sparkled, the
little green in them, more visible as he chuckled, shaking his head. “You are
crazy, Lori!”

She smiled at the warm
feeling that filled her chest. “No one has ever called me that.”

“What, Crazy Lori? To
your face? I think that brave soul would be Aurora.”

She punched him and
liked the resistance she met in his corded chest. “No you ass! Lori. Everyone,
including Riana calls me Loraine.”