Inked Ever After (5 page)

“I look good on you,” she whispered.

He caught her eyes in the mirror and then turned to her, a
devilish smile on his face. “Yes, you do. Not that I’m complaining, but why
aren’t you wearing a bra?”

“It looks like the wedding dress I’m getting doesn’t allow
for one.”

He grimaced. “Elle’s idea, right? Maybe I should have paid
more attention to the dress.”

“Maybe you should have.”

He slid his hand to the lace at the top of her stockings and
her garter belt.

“Love the white, virginal underwear.”

“Good. I’ll be sure to wear something similar for the
wedding. Although I’m not sure the dress allows for panties either.”

“Fuck, baby,” he cursed in a low growl. “You come to our
wedding without a bra
and
without
panties, and I can assure you we won’t make it to the reception. Hell, we’ll be
lucky if I’m not inside you the second you say yes.”

Of that, she had no doubt whatsoever. “Duly noted, honey.”

“If you’re taking requests, then this hairdo needs to go,”
he added, grabbing the loose knot at the back of her head and unraveling it. “I
want this gorgeous hair of yours flowing around you as you walk down the aisle
to me.”

Her chuckle was shaky at best. “Why? So you can drag me into
your lair in the event I refuse to marry you?”

He cupped her neck, locked gazes with her. “No, so I can
feel it against my body as I make love to my wife for the first time.”

Her eyes filled, and her lower lip began trembling.

Make love. Yeah, no matter how hard they fucked, and they
did, it was always making love. It had always been, since the beginning, even
when she’d stubbornly refused to admit it.

“You got it, baby,” she somehow managed to say. “Hair down
it is.”

She blinked fast, praying for the tears to stay at bay. Man,
she was a wreck. She was going to take up tai chi, chi-kung, or whatever shit
would help her survive this. Thank God she had a self-defense class with Mike
down at the gym today. It was great for stress relief, especially as he always
let the girls kick his ass. And not only his ass, but the collective asses of
the rookies Max sent their way from the kickboxing session.

She kissed him fast and then tightened her embrace, hiding
in his neck again.

“Baby—”

She didn’t say anything, just shook her head imperceptibly.

He let out a long breath, his fingers sinking in her hair.
“What am I going to do with you?” she thought she heard him murmur.

His next words she understood. “You know you can trust me,
right?”

She nodded into his throat, not trusting herself to talk
without breaking down.

“Let’s get out of here, princess,” he said. “There is this
new Thai place I want to take you to.”

“Love you, baby,” she mumbled, her face still buried in his
neck, embarrassed the only thing she seemed to know how to do was hide and
repeat she loved him.

She was spending so much energy trying to keep it all
together that she was exhausted, emotionally and physically, her body literally
aching from the strain. But James deserved the very best in this world,
certainly a happy bride, dammit, not a guilt-ridden, sorrow-filled one, and by
God, she was going to give it to him, even if it frigging killed her.

She took in a deep, calming breath and, lifting her head,
offered him a blinding smile. “Let’s go.” As he lowered her to the floor, she
noticed there was a certain expression on his face she didn’t know how to read,
but she was so relieved he wasn’t pushing the matter that she decided to let it
go.

One disaster averted. A gazillion to go.

* * * *

“What bug crawled up your ass, man?” Max grunted as he
landed on the basketball court. “I thought we were just unwinding until Jack
and Cole got here. You need me in top form if we want to beat them. Those
grandpas are damn hard.”

“Sorry,” James said, holding his hand out and helping him
up. “I didn’t intend to come at you this strong. I’m just a bit pissed.”

“No shit.”

James lifted his shirt and cleaned the sweat off his face
with it. “The situation is getting worse.”

“You mean Tate, right?”

For all his easygoing and laid-back attitude, his little
brother was very observant. As a matter of fact, he was the only one who had
noticed Tate tensing whenever his aunt tried running wedding details by her.
Under different circumstances, Cole would have noticed too, but nowadays
Christy had him tied up in so many knots he hardly knew which way was loose.

“Yeah, she’s freaking out about the wedding and trying to
hide it from me.”

Well, she was trying to conceal it from everyone, not that
he gave a shit about that. She was a very reserved, fiercely independent person
and had all the right in the world to her privacy, just not from him.

Max shrugged. “For the record, I would be freaking out too
if I had to marry you.”

“Fuck off.”

His little brother’s lips twitched. “Just saying, man.”

“I found my woman on the verge of a breakdown yesterday
after spending the morning running wedding errands. Which is actually nothing
new, as I’ve been finding her like this for a while already. The worst part of
it? She tries to put up a front for my benefit. I went to the bridal shop
earlier because I knew she was going to be in a bad shape. She was barely
breathing, her face a mess from crying, and she has the gall to tell me she’s
got something in her eye. How stupid do I look to you?”

Max cocked his eyebrow. “Really? Do you want me to answer?”

He’d walked into that one all by himself. “Never mind,”
James said.

She’d never been able to hide shit from him, much less now that
she was wrung so tight and her acting skills were slipping fast. Not to mention
she was running out of excuses. Credible ones, that is.

“Even when it’s too blatant to deny she’s freaked out, she
comes up with the shittiest excuses ever. The other day I caught her crying her
eyes out on the deck, and guess what she said.”

Max looked at him expectantly.

“Cat allergy.”

“You don’t have a cat.”

“Exactly.”

Max laughed. “Sucky liar.”

“Yep.” What was going to be next?
Honey, I wasn’t crying. I was just sweating profusely through my
eyeballs?
Please. Most times he felt like throttling some sense into her.
Still, she was trying so hard to keep her anguish from him. It gnawed at his
soul.

“She loves you,” Max stated. “No fucking clue why, but she
does. The problem is she’s hurting.”

“I know.”

His woman was a fighter, but she was grieving, and this
wedding was bringing all those feelings to the surface. She’d always wanted a
big ceremony in her parents’ backyard—her family around her, her father walking
her down the aisle, giving her away. Her brother standing beside her. James
would gladly bust his ass to give Tate everything, but that wasn’t within his
power.

She was in pain, and instead of coming to him for help, she
was pretending everything was okay.

Even though James didn’t approve of her crazy ways, Elle was
doing a great job at distracting Tate, and he loved his future sister-in-law
for it because if his woman was still struggling, Elle was doing much worse,
never mind what she let others see or what she herself believed.

Max walked to the bench and opened a bottle of water. “You
just need to talk to her.”

Right. Easier said than done.

He’d tried talking to Tate, asking whenever he saw her
withdrawn or sad, but she always played her moods down. She was just tired or
stressed from work, nothing for him to worry about. Yada yada. The second he
insisted and brought up the wedding, she shut down or changed the subject.
She’d even started using sex to distract him. Which he, being a man, didn’t
have anything against. At all. Still, not very conducive to solving their
current impasse.

“It started small, but it has developed into this fucked-up
situation where she freaks out while pretending not to freak out, and I pretend
I don’t notice she’s freaking out and pretending. A fucking mess.”

Max chuckled. “You can say that again, man.”

“I’ve been letting it slide, but this isn’t going to play
with me anymore.”

At first James had been baffled about the situation. He knew
how to deal with an extremely combative and confrontational Tate building walls
between them to push him away, as she’d done at the beginning of their
relationship. He knew how to deal with the sweet, giving woman who loved him
and didn’t have any qualms showing it, which was what he’d been getting since
their engagement. This avoid-conflict-at-all-costs, pretend-everything-is-fine
Tate was a new creature. She’d never been one to shy from a fight, always stood
her ground, never giving an inch. Not now. She wasn’t fighting him or directly
pushing him away, but she was holding back on him. Retreating into herself.
Protecting herself as if expecting a huge disaster to befall her at any given
moment and she wanted to be prepared.

Whenever she thought no one was around to notice, she’d curl
into herself on the sofa and hide behind those walls of hers to grieve. Her
eyes sad. Her smile sadder.

Seeing her like that was breaking his heart.

“What are you going to do?” Max asked after taking a swig
from the bottle.

“What am I going to do? I’m taking the kid gloves off.”

His first impulse had been to confront her and call her on
her bullshit, but she’d looked so fragile the couple of times he’d tried, he’d
decided to give her some leeway. He was done with that approach now.

As he took the bottle of water Max was offering, he saw Jack
coming toward them.

“Ready to shoot some hoops?” Max asked when Jack reached the
basketball court.

“Ready to shoot someone, all right,” Jack muttered, dropping
his bag on the bench.

“Why? What’s up?” James asked.

Jack’s expression hardened. “What’s up? Look at this,” he
said and shoved his cell in front of James’s face.

“New phone, man?”

“No, you asshole. Look at the fucking message. I’m not
listed, and you can count with the fingers on one hand the people on this whole
planet who know my number. So can you fucking explain this to me?”

Confused, James grabbed the phone and opened the message
while Max peeked over his shoulder.

Yo Borg, here r ur
marching orders 4 the wedding dress op. Ignore them at your own peril. Champagne
and burgundy r IN. Try not to clash too badly. This message will autodestruct
in 5 seconds.

PS—If it blows in ur
hand and u lose ur trigger finger, don’t say I didn’t warn u.

Elle

At the end there was a line of rather offensive emoticons,
some of which he hadn’t known even existed.

James lifted his eyes in time to see Jack’s temple vein
pulsing. Scratch pulsing. About to burst actually. Max’s grin split his face.

For the life of him, James couldn’t keep the laughter from
exploding out of him. Neither could his brother.

“I liked that little cute ninja down there, the one without
pants,” Max said, pointing at the screen.

“What exactly is ‘IN’?” James managed to let out between
laughing fits.

“Fuck if I know,” Jack answered.

“Now that Elle has violated your phone, you should whack
her. You know, as a matter of national security.”

Jack shook his head in dismay and turned to James. “I bled
for you. This is how you repay me?”

That got them laughing even harder.

It took a while before James could talk again.

“Thanks, man,” he said, giving Jack a pat on his back.
“Somehow you made my life seem so much better.”

Jack scowled. “Glad I could help, asshole.”

A couple of days later, James entered Rosita’s around 11:00
a.m. and headed for the kitchen, where he could hear voices. The restaurant
only opened in the evenings, but every Thursday, Tate and her chef Nils came in
early and tried new recipes while they waited for the suppliers.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he said as he approached Tate, greeting
Nils with a nod.

“Hey yourself,” she answered with a smile, throwing her arms
around his shoulders and bringing him down for a kiss. “What are you doing
here? A slow day in the world of security alarms?”

No, it wasn’t. The company he’d founded had more business
than he and his two partners, Zack and Sean, could keep up with, and now that
he’d adapted to Tate’s late working hours so they could ride back to Alden
together most days, he was spread a bit too thin. Thank God Elle was back in
Boston helping out so his woman didn’t have to be at Rosita’s all the time.

He shook his head. “You’re taking the day off.”

“I am?”

“Yep. As a matter of fact, you are taking two days off.
We’re getting out of Boston.”

“But I can’t,” she floundered. “We’re trying a new recipe, and
we start prep at five. Tonight Elle has a shift at the airport and—”

“Not anymore. Elle will be here in time for prep and dinner.
I’ve already arranged it with her. And Nils will take care of the suppliers and
try the recipe by himself.” Besides, Tate was a cooking disaster—a hazard to
herself and everyone else—and trying this recipe mainly consisted of her
sitting at the counter, chatting with Nils, and eating whatever he came up
with. Which was good, because last time she’d helped out in the kitchen, she’d
all but chopped a finger off.

She looked at Nils. “But—”

Her chef shushed her away with a smile and a wave of his
hand. “Go.”

“James, you’re very busy at work. And we have an appointment
tomorrow to sample wedding cakes.”

“I’ll get you there. Don’t worry.” James lifted her, and
holding her by her ass, he began walking out of the kitchen. “Now, grab your
purse and say bye to Nils, princess. We are out of here.”