Drop Dead Gorgeous Read online

  He didn’t strip me out of the robe, since it wasn’t in his way, just out of my underpants. The robe saved me from getting carpet burn on my butt, because he laid me on the dining room floor, spread my legs, and moved into position between them. His green eyes were glittering with lust and possessiveness and triumph and some other unnameable male things as he settled his weight on me.

  “Blair Bloodsworth,” he said in a tough tone, reaching down to position his penis. “No negotiation.”

  I caught my breath as he pushed into me, thick and hard and so damn exciting I could barely stand it. I dug my nails into his shoulders and tightened my legs on his hips, trying to hold him still even though my heartbeat was stuttering and my eyes were closing. He hooked his left hand around my knee and pushed my leg wider, allowing him to go deeper, all the way. He shuddered, his own breathing hard and raspy. No matter how shattered I was by our lovemaking, he was right there with me.

  “All right,” I gasped, with my last thread of sanity. “But you owe me! For the rest of our lives, you owe me.” No negotiation, my ass; what did he think we’d been doing?

  He growled something unintelligible, rocking against me while he bent his head to kiss my neck, and I literally saw stars.

  We were both sweaty and exhausted and very happy twenty minutes later when he raised his head and smoothed a tendril of hair out of my face. “One month,” he said. “I’ll give you exactly one month from today. We’re either married by then or we do it my way, regardless of where it is or who can be there. Got it?”

  Huh. I know a challenge when I hear one. I also know he wasn’t kidding. I had to kick things into high gear.

  Chapter

  Two

  I called Mom first thing the next morning. “I lost an argument with Wyatt, and we’re getting married within the month.”

  “Blair Elizabeth. How did that happen?” she asked after a shocked pause, and I knew she was asking about the first part of my statement.

  “Strategic battle,” I said. “Stupid of me, but I just realized last night that my name will be Blair Bloodsworth, so I told him I was keeping Mallory as my name and he hit the ceiling, and the upshot of the outcome is he either pisses on me to mark me as his territory, or I take his name.”

  She stopped laughing long enough to say “So now he owes you” before succumbing again. I love my mom; I don’t have to explain anything to her. She gets me immediately, maybe because we’re so much alike. Knowing Wyatt’s stubbornness and the deviousness of his mind, plus some other characteristics such as possessiveness, etcetera, the outcome of our argument last night had never been in doubt unless I wanted to break up with him, which I didn’t, so I had maneuvered to get the best terms possible. He owed me. Eternal debt was good.

  “But…he gave me an ultimatum. We’re either married within the month, or we’ll do it on his terms.”

  “And those terms would be?”

  “If I’m lucky, a courthouse wedding. If not, Las Vegas.”

  “Ugh. Not after Britney. That’s tacky.”

  See? It’s like I’m her clone.

  “That’s what I thought, but he made it a challenge. I have to kick the plans into high gear.”

  “First you have to have plans. ‘Get married’ isn’t exactly a plan. It’s an end result.”

  “I know. I was trying to be considerate of everyone’s schedule, but that’s out. Twenty-nine days from today—since this challenge officially started last night—we’re getting married, and people can either reschedule whatever they have scheduled, or they’ll miss it.”

  “Why twenty-nine, and not thirty? Or thirty-one?”

  “He’ll argue that since there are four months with thirty days in them, that constitutes a legal month.”

  “February has twenty-eight.”

  “Or twenty-nine. It can’t make up its mind, so it doesn’t count.”

  “Got it. Okay, twenty-nine days from today. That means you’ll be getting married on the thirtieth day. Will he count that?”

  “He has to give me the full thirty days, so, yeah.” I grabbed the pad and pen I’d been using the night before and started writing down items. “Gown, flowers, cake, decorations, invitations. No attendants. No tux for him, just a suit. This is doable.” A wedding didn’t have to be fancy to be memorable. I could do without fancy, but I refused to do without pretty. I’d originally thought maybe one attendant for me and a best man for him, but I was paring as much as I could.

  “The cake will be the problem. The other refreshments can be gotten anywhere, but the cake…”

  “I know,” I said. We both took deep breaths. A wedding cake is a work of art. It takes time. And people who do good wedding cakes are usually booked solid, for months in advance.

  “I’ll take care of the cake,” Mom said. “I’ll call in favors. I’ll get Sally on the job, too. She needs a distraction now, to get her mind off Jazz.”

  That was a sad subject. Sally and Jazz Arledge were on the verge of seeing a thirty-five-year marriage dissolve if they couldn’t work out their problems. Sally was Mom’s best friend, so we were solidly on her side, even though we felt sorry for Jazz because he was so clueless. Sally had tried to hit Jazz with the car and maybe break his legs, and really he should have let her do it instead of jumping out of the way, because then she would feel the scales had been balanced and she would have forgiven him for getting rid of her priceless antique bedroom furniture, but I guess survival instinct tripped him up and he did jump out of the way and Sally hit the house instead, and the airbag deployed and broke her nose, which made the situation even worse. Jazz was in big, big trouble.

  “I’m opening today so Lynn is closing”—Lynn Hill is my assistant manager at Great Bods—“and I’m going shopping tonight,” I told Mom. “Heavy shopping. Any suggestions?”

  She named a few shops, and we hung up. I figured we’d talk several more times during the course of the day, as she kept me updated on how she had marshaled forces. My sisters, Siana and Jenni, would be called to action, that was for certain.

  My immediate goal was plain: find a wedding gown pronto, so there would be time for alterations if any were needed. I’m not talking about a fairy-tale wedding dress; I’ve already had one of those, when I married the first time, and it didn’t work: there was no fairy tale. What I wanted this time was something simple and classic that would make me look like a million bucks and make Wyatt go almost blind with lust. Hey, just because we were already sleeping together was no reason why I should forgo a memorable wedding night, right?

  There had to be a way I could keep him away from me for the next month, to make damn certain he was blind with lust. So far, though, when it came to Wyatt I wasn’t real great in the keeping-away department. He has a way of overcoming my few and pitiful defenses, mainly because I go blind with lust for him.

  I thought I might have to go live with his mother for the duration. That would put a crimp in his sexual expectations—though he’s perfectly capable of kidnapping me and carrying me away to his lair for a night of blissful raunchiness. God, I love that man.

  It occurred to me that if he couldn’t have sex, neither could I. Going an entire month without him…maybe I could get him to kidnap me more than once.

  See? I’m truly pitiful, a fact he has used to his advantage more than once.

  Oh, man, the next few weeks looked like fun.

  Wyatt called my cell early that afternoon. I was in the middle of an intensive workout—because I own Great Bods, I have to keep in shape or people will think it must not be a great place—but I stopped to take the call. Not that I knew it was Wyatt, because I didn’t until I saw his number in the Caller ID window; with all the activity that had been started that morning, Mom could have been calling.

  “I think I can get out of here on time, for once,” he said. “Want to go out for dinner?”

  “I can’t, I have to go shopping,” I said as I went into my office and closed the door.

  He had a man�