The Jock (16 page)

Gwenyth
hid her smile behind a look of outrage. Well, she was outraged truth be told,
but it was hard to maintain a proper amount of ire when the man you loved was
batting his eyelashes dramatically and making kissy-fish lips. Especially when
said man was thirty-four, well over six feet in height, and had the body of a
warrior to boot. "Sam, you're being ridiculous. Etienne never asked me to
go to bed with him. He merely asked me out on a date."

At
Sam's rapidly reddening face, Gwenyth knew she'd chosen the wrong time to
inform him of Etienne's interest. "But I turned him down!" she
quickly amended.

That
seemed to placate him—somewhat. "I won't have any more of this
foolishness, Gwenyth Marie." He slashed his hand through the air.
"Never again."

Gwenyth
sat up straighter in her chair and crossed her arms defensively over her
breasts. "If you came all this way just to tell me you don't want to see
me anymore, you could have done it over the telephone. Or in an email. You
didn't have to stop me from boarding the—"

"Enough!"
Sam grunted in satisfaction at the incredulous look on Gwenyth's face. Good.
Let her be shocked into silence. He was too damn mad to want to hear her speak
anyway. "I did not come here to end it." His voice turned hard,
unrelenting. "I came to make sure that somethin' like this never happens
again." Sam glanced at his watch, then made to stand up. "Speakin' of
which, let's go. We have a plane to catch."

Gwenyth's
jaw dropped open. She had never been one given to obeying a command. Sam's
domineering attitude was suddenly too much. "This part of
we
isn't
going anywhere with
you
!" She narrowed her eyes and huffed.
"Sam, are you listening to me?"

Sam
grunted as he rose to his feet. The fact that he seemed to be paying Gwenyth's
outrage as little attention as he was her words, only served to pique her
temper all the more. "Sam! I'm not going anywhere! Let go of my arm!"

Sam
gestured toward the suitcases. "Will you carry one or do you plan to make
me carry both of yours plus my own?"

"You're
not even listening to me!"

"Amazin'ly
perceptive, Cupcake. Now pick up a suitcase," he snarled.

Gwenyth
started to hurl a choice sentiment at him, but stopped when she got a close-up
view of the look on Sam's face. Quite frankly, it chilled her to the bone and
made her regret running out on him without nary a word.

Never
in all of her life—and Gwenyth had known Sam Trevianni for twenty-one
years—never had she seen him look so angry. She rubbed the bridge of her nose
and sighed. "Please Sam. I don't want to argue with you." She nibbled
on her lip and regarded him warily. "Where is it that you want us to
go?"

Sam
drew in a deep breath, his eyes never breaking contact with Gwenyth's.
"Las Vegas."

"Las
Vegas?" She cocked her head speculatively, not understanding.
"Why?"

"Because,
Cupcake." Sam hoisted up the lighter of Gwenyth's two suitcases and handed
it over to her. "We're gettin' married."

The
plane ride to Las Vegas was, for the most part, a quiet one. Sam barely spoke a
word, grunting and gesturing instead to get his points across.

When
Gwenyth didn't touch the food that had been brought to her, Sam grunted and
pointed at it, indicating she should eat. When she failed to drink the wine
that he'd ordered in a timely enough fashion to suit him, he grunted and
pointed at her glass, then raised it to her lips and held it there. All in all,
the grunting and pointing was steadily wearing on Gwenyth's nerves. She idly
considered the fact that the comparison she'd made last week between Sam and a
Neanderthal wasn't terribly off course.

But
Gwenyth was too busy reflecting on the fact that Sam wanted to marry her to pay
his odious behavior too much attention. It seemed impossible. Like a dream.

When
Sam had first made his announcement that they were flying to Las Vegas to get
married, Gwenyth had been too shocked to protest. She was still feeling much
the same way. Why would Sam want to marry her?

And
what if marriage was merely Sam's way of assuaging his male ego after she'd run
out on him? What if he regretted marrying her tomorrow, or next week, or next
year? Could she take that chance? Or more to the point,
would
she take
that chance?

"Stop
it, Cupcake."

Since
it was the first coherent sentence Sam had uttered in over two hours, it had
the effect of gaining Gwenyth's undivided attention. "Huh?"

"Stop
it."

"Stop
what?"

Sam
sighed. "Thinkin'"

Gwenyth
narrowed her eyes. "Stop thinking?"

"That's
what I said."

She
blew out a dramatic breath. "Why?"

"Because
as of late I generally don't care for your thoughts anymore than I do your
words or your behavior." Sam inclined his head arrogantly and raised an
impervious brow. "We
are
gettin' married, Gwenyth Marie. Tonight.
As soon as this plane lands. The end. No discussion."

Gwenyth
shook her head at his ego. "Will I be permitted to think
after
we're married?" she asked incredulously.

Sam
rubbed his chin while he considered her question. "Maybe."

"Maybe?!"

He
shrugged his shoulders. "A man can only plan so far in advance. Right now
I've got my mind on which chapel we'll be tyin' the knot in. Will it be
Elvis' Chapel of Love
, or
Bubba's Barn of Bliss
?"

Gwenyth
gritted her teeth. "If you're referring to that red-roofed monstrosity on
the strip whose flashing neon sign reads:
Bag
a stag or marry your
girl: All night rodeos and marriage ceremonies performed inside,
you can
forget it." She slashed her hand definitively through the air. "I
won't have it."

Sam
merely grunted.

The
rest of the plane ride was spent in silence. It was as if both of their
emotions were too raw and unpredictable to wager speaking to the other. It was
just as well. Gwenyth needed the time to try and absorb what was happening. She
was a thinker, a planner, not at all unpredictable and spontaneous like Sam.

While
Gwenyth worried her lip and stared at the passing clouds from the vantage point
of the tiny window to her right, Sam flexed his fingers, clenching and
unclenching them, as he considered how best to get Gwen to marry him. The
knowledge that she might simply refuse to take part in their upcoming nuptials
was unnerving.

So
what was he to do? How could he force her to the altar? Times were definitely
much simpler back in the days of the Greeks and Romans when a man took what was
his and brooked no arguments about it.

Sam
sighed dejectedly. Whatever he came up with, it had better be good.

* * * * *

"Sam,
I don't know about this. I mean, what will my family say?" Gwenyth's eyes
widened nervously as a bouquet of flowers was thrust into her hand by her newly
acquired maid of honor, a bald woman of indiscriminate age who had tattoos over
every square inch of her body and a nose ring pierced through her septum.

Sam
pulled Gwenyth's hair out of its topknot and watched the curls cascade around
her shoulders and down her back. "I want your hair down for our weddin',
Cupcake." He leaned into her and inhaled the fragrance of the sweet,
strawberry-scented mane. "It's so beautiful."

Gwenyth
closed her eyes briefly against the longing she saw in Sam's face. There was a
vast world of difference between lust and love, she reminded herself, and
Gwenyth needed both before she could even consider getting married. How was she
going to tell Sam that she simply couldn't go through with this? How could she
even begin to make him understand that if he was going to give her back the
dream she'd let go of in adolescence, she had to have the whole thing?
"Sam, we need to talk," she quietly insisted. Glancing at her
formidable maid of honor, she then added, "alone."

Sam
sighed, but in the end he acquiesced with a nod. He reached for Gwenyth's arm
and gently drew her to the other side of the chapel. "What is it,
Gwen?"

Gwenyth
drew in a deep breath. There was no point in skirting around the issue of their
marriage. Holding herself steady, she gazed into Sam's eyes. "I can't do
it."

Silence
ensued for a drawn out moment. Finally, Sam asked, "why not?"

"Because
you don't want to marry me for the right reasons, Sam."

"I
don't?"

"No."
Gwenyth glanced around the all-night wedding chapel Sam had dragged her to. In
the end he had settled on a beautiful, cathedral-looking structure that would
have been a lovely setting for a wedding had it not been operated by people who
looked as if they heralded from another planet. She blew out a breath. "I
have no idea why you want to marry me," she mumbled, "but I'm certain
it's not for the right reason."

"Oh?"
Sam crossed his arms defiantly over his chest. "And just what is the right
reason?"

Because
you love me.

The
words were on the tip of Gwenyth's tongue, but she couldn't bring herself to
say them aloud. There were some things a man needed to discover on his own.
Preferably
before
the wedding ceremony.

"Listen
to me Gwen." Sam shoved his hands into his pants pockets and regarded her
uncompromisingly. "We're not leavin' here until we get married. You are
not walkin' out that door until you bear my name. How much clearer can I make
that?"

Gwenyth
raised her chin up a notch and glowered back at her so-called fiance. "I'm
not a child of five, Sam. You can hardly force me to marry you!"

Sam
shrugged his hands out of his pockets and splayed them at either hip.
"Just what is it you want from me, Gwen?" She was right and he knew
it—he had no real way of forcing her into a marriage she didn't want. The
knowledge of it was making him desperate. "I've been wantin' you for
years, Gwen. I think about you all the time. I can't bear to be apart from
you." He closed his eyes and sighed. "I need you, Gwen. What more can
I do to convince you that I'll make you a good husband?"

Gwenyth
stared at Sam with sadness in her eyes. She needed the one thing he seemed
incapable of giving, the one thing he could have said to change her mind. She
needed his love.

Against
her better judgment, Gwenyth let go of her pride and spoke from her heart.
"I'm in love with you Sam," she whispered with thick emotion in her
voice. "I've been in love with you all of my life. But are you in love
with me?"

Sam
said nothing. He peered at Gwenyth moodily as if he hated being forced into
this vulnerable position. Never in all of his life had he actually said those
three little words of "I love you" to a woman. The three words that
Gwen most wanted to hear. The three words he stubbornly refused to dwell upon
until he was certain, absolutely certain, she really did feel genuine love for
him back.

It
was easy for a woman to
say
she loved a man. Women told Sam as much all
the time. Hell, he'd heard those words from women who'd spent less than a full
night in his bed. True, Gwenyth had worshipped him as a child, but she was an
adult woman now. Hardly the worshipping type anymore—not that Sam wanted her to
be. But how could he genuinely believe she loved him when she'd been running
fast and furiously away from him since the moment they'd been reunited?

Whether
or not Gwenyth truly loved him didn't matter to Sam, though. He needed Gwen,
couldn't bear to be without her, so he'd take what he could get just now. They
could spend the rest of their lives figuring out the rest.

Gwenyth
took Sam's silence as damning. Holding her tears at bay, she forced a smile
onto her face as she handed him back the bouquet of flowers. "I can't
marry you, Sam," she intoned gently. "I'm sorry." With that, she
pivoted on her heel with the intention of walking away.

"Goddamn
it, Gwen!" Sam whirled her back around to face him. His jaw tense and
rigid, he shook her shoulders slightly. "Don't you give up on us!"

"Sam,
I—"

"No!"
Sam blew out a ragged breath and refused to let Gwenyth leave the chapel. He
gentled his voice and pleaded to her with his eyes. "If there is anybody
in this whole godforsaken world that can actually love me, Gwenyth Marie, it
has to be you. And if there is anybody here who can teach me what it means, I
know you're the one."

Gwenyth's
eyes rounded. The jade of them sparkled tremulously. "Sam, I..."

"Please,
baby." Sam shook his head helplessly. "I need you."

Gwenyth
sucked in a breath of air. It was nice indeed to see the depth of emotions in
Sam's eyes, to hear him say that he needed her and know he meant it, but
presently she was latching onto the other thing he'd said. Was it possible? Did
Sam Trevianni really believe that no one loved him?

Gwenyth
chewed on her lip as she considered the very real possibility that he was being
honest. Even as a child, Sam had always remained somewhat aloof, joining the
Jones family without ever becoming a real part of it. She had been too young to
dwell on his actions overmuch, but when she looked back at it now, as a woman,
she recalled a sad, scared little boy whose father was dead and whose mother
had never cared for anyone but herself. Sam had relished his time with her
family, perhaps even coveted it, but he had always held a part of himself back,
like a poverty-stricken child gazing through the window of a candy shop,
knowing he'd never be able to afford the ambrosia it offered.