The Next Santini Bride

Angela studied the faces surrounding her, both familiar and strange. Dozens of Marines were sprinkled through the crowd, and she had to admit there was something about a man in a Dress-Blue uniform. It was an unfair advantage, really. No red-blooded woman, especially one who’d been living a celibate life for more than three years, could resist.

And the simple truth was, Angela didn’t want to resist. She’d made up her mind what she was going to do the minute her sister Gina had told her that Dan was known on base as the king of the one-night stands. And she wasn’t going to back out now.

“Want to try to finish our dance?” Dan asked, breaking into the thoughts swirling ceaselessly through her mind.

She inhaled and swiveled her head to look at him.

“For starters,” she said bravely, and watched as desire flickered in the depths of his eyes. She half turned to set her champagne glass on the closest table, then he took her hand and led her through the crowd. Angela’s gaze fixed on his broad back, narrow hips and long legs. A curl of anticipation unwound inside her, and her mouth went dry.

Ever since the night before, Angela hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. Sure, he was tall, dark and gorgeous. So were most of the other guys in the room. But there was something about First Sergeant Mahoney that made her blood boil and her usually cautious nature want to fly out the window.

And just for tonight, she was going to let it.

As they came to the middle of the dance floor, the music changed, shifting from a fast-paced, rock and roll number to an old Frank Sinatra standard. The voice of Ol’ Blue Eyes swept into the room and was welcomed like an old friend. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn Dan had planned it this way.

Dan pulled her into his arms and pressed her body to his. Her mouth went dry, and her head swam. She wasn’t sure if it was the four or five glasses of champagne or the heady sensation of being held by a man again that was making her feel almost dizzy. And she didn’t care. It was enough to be feeling again. To be experiencing that swift, sure punch of desire. The lick of flames at her center. The pooling warmth that threatened to collapse her knees and rob her of breath.

His right hand dropped to the curve of her behind as he eased her around the crowded dance floor. Subtly he pulled her tight against him. Hard and strong, his body pressed into hers, letting her know what she was doing to him. A rush of confidence filled her. She could still attract a man. Apparently the past three years of being a mom and a widow hadn’t robbed her of her abilities to be a woman.

On his shoulder her left hand clutched at the fabric of his uniform. She leaned her head back to look up at him and struggled to continue breathing as he kept her pressed tightly to him.

“I sure hope I’m reading you right,” Dan said, staring down at the woman he wanted more than his next breath.

She swallowed hard, then smoothed her left hand across his shoulders and down his back. “Trust me on this. If you weren’t reading me right, you’d have known by now.”

“Fair enough,” he said, nodding, “but just to be safe, I’ll say it plain. A simple no will end this. Now.”

She stared at him, and he saw his own reflection in the soft-brown of her eyes. “And what does a yes get me?”

Dan’s body tightened even further which he would have thought impossible a minute or two ago. Damn. He hadn’t been expecting this. Stand up at his friend’s wedding and end up sleeping with the friend’s new sister-in-law?

“Lady,” he said on a soft exhale of breath, “a yes will get you any darn thing you want.”

She gave him a slow smile that set a match to the dynamite stacked inside him.

“That covers a lot of territory, First Sergeant.”

“Yes ma’am,” he promised, his brain filling with images of the night to come, “it surely does.”

“Good,” she said, and moved even closer to him, taking what little of his breath was left. “Then it’s a date? After the bride and groom leave?”

“If I can wait that long,” he said.

“It’ll be worth the wait,” she assured him, and stepped out of his arms as the song ended.

“Damn straight,” he said tightly. He watched her as she moved back through the crowd, headed toward her sister. Her shoulder-length, dark-brown hair curved under at the ends and swung gently with each step she took. She wore a dark-pink bridesmaid’s dress with a high collar, long sleeves and a full skirt that fell to her feet and brushed the floor in a soft, swishing sound as she moved. And that dress looked so damn good on her, he wondered if there was any way to convince Nick and Gina to take off on their honeymoon now.

“You’re sure, honey?” Maryann Santini asked for the fiftieth time in the last ten minutes. “It just doesn’t seem fair, all of us leaving you at the same time. I mean, Nick and Gina of course deserve their honeymoon, but it doesn’t seem right for me to take off on a cruise right now.”

“You and Margaret have been planning this for weeks,” Angela reminded her mother patiently.

“I know, but now Jeremy’s going to be gone, and even Marie and Davis are leaving town for a week.”

Angela smiled at the thought of her eight-year-old son, but as much as she loved him, she was glad he’d asked to spend the weekend with his best friend. Especially now. With the plans she had for later tonight, home was no place for her son tonight.

“I’ll be fine, Mama,” she said, giving her mother a quick hug. “I’m a big girl, remember? I don’t need a baby-sitter for heaven’s sake. I’m actually looking forward to spending some time alone.” Not completely alone, of course, but her mother didn’t have to know that.

“All right, then,” the older woman said, obviously still not convinced. “I’ll only be gone ten days, and…”

The rest of her mother’s words drifted into a stream of sound as Angela watched the last of the wedding guests filter out of the hall. The past two hours had crawled by. All she’d been able to think about was being alone with Dan Mahoney. It had been so long. So long since she’d been held, kissed, touched. Her body burned with an intensity she’d never known before. Every square inch of her skin seemed alive with sensation, as if she could almost feel his hands on her already.

“Are you listening to me?” her mother asked, laying one hand on Angela’s forearm.

She jumped slightly, then tried to laugh it off. “I’m sorry, I must be tired.”

“Actually your eyes look a little feverish,” Mama said, frowning. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

Oh, she was feverish all right, but it was nothing aspirin could cure.

“I’m fine, Mama,” she said, looking past her mother to the car pulling up opposite the doorway. “Look, there’s Margaret now. You’d better hurry or you’ll miss your plane.”

“All right then,” Mama said, giving into the excitement of her first cruise. “You take care and make sure you lock the house and—”

“For heaven’s sake, Mama,” she said, impatience stampeding through her, “go.”

“Okay, I’m going.” Shaking her head, she hurried to her friend’s car, opened the door and got in. Then with a wave of her hand and a honk of the horn, she was off.

Angela pulled in a deep breath and blew it out again. Alone. Finally alone. Jeremy had gone home with his friend Mike, the caterers would clean up the mess in the hall, Mama was taken care of. And that meant that for the first time in too long, Angela Santini Jackson, mother, daughter, sister, widow, could be, for tonight, anyway, simply Angela.

She headed for the parking lot on suddenly shaky legs. Her stomach spun, her mind raced as she asked herself if she was doing the right thing. This was so not her.

She just wasn’t the one-night stand kind of woman.

Rounding the edge of the old brick building, she dug in her purse for her keys, and when she looked up, she saw Dan Mahoney, spotlit in the soft yellow glow of a parking lot lamp, leaning negligently against the hood of his car. Arms folded over his chest, feet crossed at the ankles, he stared at her from across the lot, and even at a distance Angela felt the power, the hunger in his gaze.

Her heartbeat quickened, and the parts of her body struggling back to life throbbed and hummed with an electrical pulse. She paused only briefly, then started toward him. Her heels tapped loudly against the asphalt and kept time with the pounding of her heart.

Her car was parked just a few spaces away from his. She stopped at the driver’s side door, unlocked it and then looked at him.

He straightened up, moved over to her car and leaned both forearms on the roof. “So, Angela,” he said softly, his voice whispering along her spine, “do we still have a date?”

She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at him again. If she said no, he’d leave, no harm done. There it is, she told herself. One last chance. One final opportunity to back out. To forget about the craziness of what she’d been planning and go back to her house alone.

She could pack away the box of condoms she’d purchased the night before and slide into her empty bed. She could dream her dreams and do without the soft slide of this man’s hands on her skin.

Instead of feeling a man’s arms around her, she could sit in the darkness and regret not having had the courage to take what she wanted. To, for once, put her own needs ahead of everyone else’s.

The chilly, damp air swirled around her, and in the soft tendrils of fog blowing in off the ocean, he looked almost otherworldly. As if he was only the dream image of a man. But she knew he was all too real, and that’s exactly what she needed. What she wanted.

There would be no backing out.

Not tonight.

Swallowing hard, she said only, “I haven’t changed my mind.”

He nodded. “Me, neither.”

Oh, my. The flash of desire glinted in his eyes and set off sparks deep within her. Her heart galloped, and she sucked in a gulp of air before opening the car door with a shaky hand. Then she looked directly into those amazing eyes of his and said, “You can follow me to my house.”

He gave her a slow smile and nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Three

Damn. He felt as keyed up as some randy teenager in the back seat of his father’s Buick. Dan kept his gaze locked on Angela’s taillights as she drove along the narrow streets toward her home. She made a left, turning onto a residential block that even in the darkness looked quiet and cozy. A Leave It to Beaver kind of neighborhood that ordinarily would have set off his internal radar and had him running in the opposite direction.

But not tonight.

Tonight there was nowhere else he’d rather be. Angela Jackson had dogged his mind and haunted his every thought since the moment he’d met her, and now he had to have her. If she’d sent him away, he would have had to crawl. His body was so eager for the joining that a no from her might have killed him.

Expectation whispered inside him and his body, already hard and ready, tensed further as she signaled a left turn into a driveway.

He glanced at the California bungalow-style house as he passed it. Then, making a U-turn in the middle of the block, he came back around and parked at the curb. Shutting off the engine, he took a moment to listen to the profound stillness. Slowly he swiveled his head to watch her climb out of her car.

Silhouetted against the backdrop of the porch light, he couldn’t see her face, but he read her tension in every line of her body. Her tall, slim figure swayed a bit, and her floor-length skirt rippled around her.

Grabbing his keys, he got out of the car, locked it and shut the door with a solid thump that seemed to echo off the silent houses staring at him with dark windowpane eyes. Walking around the back of his car, he headed toward her. She didn’t move, simply stood there, waiting for him.

His heart thundered in his chest, and when he came close enough to read her expression, even that beat accelerated. Desire, need, hunger, all shone in her eyes, feeding the emotions nearly strangling him.

He reached out and laid one hand on her forearm. She shivered. Whether from eagerness or hesitation, he couldn’t be sure. To satisfy the gentleman still crouched at the feet of the beast within, he forced himself to say softly, “Angela, if you don’t want this, just say so.”

She laughed shortly and tipped her head back to look up at him. “Want it?” she repeated, her voice thick and husky. “Dan, I want it so much it scares me.”

That’s all he needed to know. Turning her around, he led her toward the house and the brightly lit porch. They took the steps together, already moving as one, setting an unconscious rhythm. She fumbled with the keys, dropped them and Dan bent down to scoop them up.

“That one,” she said.

He nodded, jammed it home and turned it. The lock snicked open, he turned the knob and ushered her inside. He stepped in right behind her, closed and locked the door, then turned to look at her.

Their gazes locked.

A heartbeat passed, then another.

Angela dropped her purse.

He let the keys clatter to the hardwood floor.

Then she was in his arms. He didn’t know how she got there. He didn’t remember moving toward her. He didn’t know or care how they’d come together. He only knew that he couldn’t seem to hold her close enough.

Taking her mouth, he plundered her, parting her lips with his tongue, sweeping past any defenses she might have raised if she’d had time to think. He claimed her mouth fiercely, thoroughly. Again and again, his tongue mated with hers, twisting, twining, exploring and tasting. He sought her treasures, her secrets, and once he found them, searched for more. His hands moved up and down her back, over the curve of her behind where his fingers grabbed hold and squeezed, pulling her tightly to him.

Pressing her body to the straining, hard arousal that had tortured him all night brought a wave of pleasure so deep and rich it staggered him. He wanted more. He wanted it all.

Shifting his hands to the front of her dress, he slid them up, up past the swell of her breasts, to the wide collar that dipped so enticingly across her shoulders. He skimmed his fingertips across her skin and smiled to himself when she trembled in his grasp.

He tore his mouth from hers, and while she struggled to draw air into heaving lungs, he bent his head to kiss the curve of her neck. To taste the warmth of her skin, to tantalize her as she did him.

“Oh, my,” she said on a short sigh, and tipped her head to one side, “that feels so—”

“Good,” he finished for her.

“Beyond good,” she assured him and leaned into him, pressing her breasts against his chest.

“I want to feel you,” he said, letting his hands slide to the zipper at the back of her dress.

“Oh, yeah,” she muttered, “that’d be good.”

He smiled and tugged at the zipper, letting his fingertips trail along the line of exposed flesh as he went.

She shivered, and he groaned. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and that fact fed the fires. Nothing stood between him and the feel of her breasts in his palms. The zipper went down, down, to just above the curve of her butt. Smooth skin called out for his touch and he obliged. Running his palms up and down her back, he worked the dress off and let it drop to a pool at her feet.

Angela stepped out of the fabric and kicked it aside.

The chill air in the room crawled over her body, and she hardly felt it. Her blood was boiling, and that was enough to keep her warm. She watched him watch her, and for the first time in years, worried about the lacy pattern of stretch marks across her not-entirely flat belly.

She wasn’t exactly a cover model, after all. But when he lifted his hands and cupped her breasts, she stopped thinking. Who could care about stretch marks when his thumbs were stroking her already-pebbled nipples?

Angela rocked on her heels and closed her eyes. Sensation after sensation poured through her. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, she was awash in the glory of feeling. It had been so long, so terribly long since her body had known the touch of a man.

She opened her eyes again and looked up into his heated gaze. Apparently, the same hunger tearing through her had a grip on him, too. Boldly, she reached up and fumbled with the brass buttons on his uniform tunic. Licking her lips, breathing hard, she worked at them until the Dress-Blue jacket was unbuttoned, unbelted, hanging open. She laid the flat of her hands against his white T-shirt-covered chest and felt the slam of his heartbeat against her palm.

Then he growled…actually growled…and yanked her to him. In seconds the rest of their clothes were gone, tossed aside, and she was held flush against his warm, naked, outrageously muscled body.

His hands swept up and down her back, then up and around to caress her breasts again. Every square inch of her body was electrified. Every nerve pushed to its breaking point. Desperate need coiled within her, building, growing, blossoming until she thought she might be consumed by it—and still she wanted more.

Dropping to the floor, he cushioned her head with his forearm and let his right hand slide down her length to the apex of her thighs. She held her breath, arched her back and lifted her hips in anticipation. His fingers dipped into her warmth, and her body exploded.

“Dan!” she cried, and clutched at him as a wild rush of tremors coursed through her. One after the other, tumbling into each other, never giving her a chance to catch her breath, the tiny explosions went on and on.

He held her tightly as the unexpectedly fierce climax claimed her. She rocked her hips against his hand, buried her face in the crook of his neck and rode the wave of sensation that carried her into a place she hardly remembered.

And when it was finally over and the last tremor shivered through her, she looked up at him. Good heavens, they’d hardly begun and she’d already finished. How mortifying was that? In a ragged voice she said, “It’s been a long time. I’m sorry that happened so quickly.”

He shook his head and smiled before leaning down to brush a kiss across her mouth. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not.”

Then he reached behind him for his trousers and fumbled one-handed for the pocket. Pulling out a foil-wrapped condom, he looked down at her. “I could use a little help with this, since I’ve only got the one free hand.”

Keeping her gaze locked with his, she reached for it, tore it open, then slowly sheathed him. His eyes closed at her touch, and he moved closer. Angela wrapped her fingers around him, caressing him with smooth determined strokes. He arched into her and in seconds, her breath was coming fast, need coiled again inside her and she shifted into him, urging him to cover her. To fill her.

“Enough!” he muttered thickly, suddenly and moved to position himself between her thighs. Angela stared up at him as his fingers toyed with her tender flesh, smoothing, touching, exploring. She twisted and writhed in his grasp, giving herself up to the amazing things happening to her. In the glow of the foyer light, she watched his eyes darken and narrow with want and need, and she planted her feet firmly on the smooth wood floor and lifted her hips to welcome his first hard thrust.

She gasped at the intrusion, and a moment later felt her body adjust to his presence. Again and again he moved within her, setting a wild, fierce rhythm that she rushed to meet. She lifted her legs to lock them around his hips, pulling him tighter against her and deeper within her. Each time he withdrew, she wanted to moan the loss of him, and each time he rejoined their bodies, she wanted to shout at the glorious rightness of it.

He leaned over her, bracing his weight on his palms. Locking his gaze with hers, he set a soul-shattering pace that ended in a climax so powerful, so incredible, all Angela could do was hold on and hope she survived long enough to enjoy the afterglow.

And when she heard him groan tightly, she wrapped her arms around him and cushioned his fall.

Minutes…or maybe hours…flew by before either of them had the strength to move. Dan finally shifted to one side of her, pulling her with him, drawing her head onto his shoulder.

“That was,” she said, and heard the hollowness in her own voice, “amazing.”

He chuckled, and the sound rumbled through his chest. “Amazing is a pretty good word for it,” he admitted, letting his hand slide up and down her arm.

“Well,” she said, still enjoying the ripples of satisfaction trembling through her body. “I guess we could get up off the floor, huh?”

“What’s the hurry?”

She tipped her head back on his shoulder and looked into hungry green eyes. “Hurry?” she whispered, then cleared her throat and tried again. “No hurry, but…well, we are finished and—”

“Finished?” he asked with a shake of his head, “We’re just getting started.”

“We are?” Oh, Lord, her heart was sure to pound right out of her chest any minute.

“Oh, yeah,” Dan said, and shifted slightly to raise up on one arm. Trailing his fingertips along her body, from breast to hip, he smiled at the row of goose bumps that danced in his wake. “This time we take it slow.”

“This time?” she repeated. Heck, she hadn’t recovered from the first time yet. Or the second mind-numbing climax. She had just spontaneously combusted all over her mother’s shining wood floor.

Oh, she would never dust in here in peace again.

“This time,” he said again, and rolled her onto her stomach before she could argue with him.

The cool wood planks beneath her lent another erotic touch to the moment. Spread-eagled on the foyer floor was not an image she’d ever had of herself. Yet here she lay, naked and eager for round two.

Then she felt his mouth at the base of her spine. His lips and tongue moved on her flesh and Angela shivered, clenching and unclenching her fists on nothingness, futilely looking for something to hold on to.

He spoke, and his breath brushed against her skin. “I’m going to start at your spine, Angel,” he said. “Because your spine is connected directly to your brain. And this time I’m going to make love to your mind as well as your body.”

Oh, my, she thought and let her eyes close.

He kissed her, running his lips and tongue along the column of her spine, tasting her, learning every curve, every line. He’d wanted her so badly right from the start and now that he’d had her, enjoyed her, felt her body cradling his, it wasn’t enough. He wanted even more of her, and this was a first for him.

Usually, when that initial rush of desire had been sated, he was content, and ready to move on. He didn’t want commitment. Relationships. Now, though, with this woman, all Dan could think of was more. More of her. More of them.

His hands drifted over her flesh, and when she stirred beneath him, he knew her body, too, was flickering back into life. Back into need. At the nape of her neck, he nibbled at her skin until rows of goose bumps dotted her back and shoulders. She writhed beneath him, but he didn’t ease her discomfort, instead, he stoked it. With touch after touch, kiss after kiss, he fed the fires engulfing them both and hoped they’d be consumed by them.

And when touching her wasn’t enough any more, he turned her over, scooped her into his arms and muttered, “Bedroom?”

“Upstairs,” she whispered, locking her arms around his neck and laying her head on his chest. “Hurry.”

“You bet,” he said, and took the stairs two at a time.

“Second door.”

“Right.” He went up to it, stepped into a cool, mint-green room with a lacy cover on the bed and more lace covering the windows, where moonlight tried to peek through the patterns of frothy fabric.

Walking directly to the bed, he reached down with one hand and swept the coverlet down to the foot of the mattress. Then he laid Angela down atop the pale-green sheets and stretched out beside her. Dipping his head to her breasts, he took first one nipple and then the next into his mouth.