Sitting in the back of the limo on the way to the reception, Sed held Jessica’s left hand between both of his. He stole glances at her as if he were in elementary school and experiencing his first crush. Her dress was soaking wet and stained with dirt and something green he hoped was just algae. Her make-up was entirely gone, except for the two dark smudges beneath both eyes. Her hair was a limp, tangled mess with a twig of seaweed lost in its strawberry-blond waves. He refused to inform her of the ocean’s reminder of what they’d done in its surf.
His woman had never looked more beautiful. Not even the first time he’d seen her and she’d stolen his heart. She’d been riding a Ferris wheel on the boardwalk and he’d stood there at its base like an idiot the entire time, watching her laughing face return with each loop around. She hadn’t looked more beautiful when he’d proposed the first time or the second. Nor the first time he’d witnessed her sexy O-face or the hundreds of times he’d seen that blissful expression since then. She hadn’t been lovelier when she told him she was pregnant. Not even when he’d stared up the aisle when she’d called his name and he saw her racing toward him in her wedding dress, dazzling in detailed perfection. No, he decided, she was most beautiful at that very moment—sitting beside him quietly, completely bedraggled, and unaware of how giddy it made him that she was his wife.
Of course, giddy wasn’t an emotion Sed Lionheart displayed outwardly. That didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.
Jessica fiddled with her wedding ring, rubbing it into her flesh as she stared at her lap.
“My mother is going to kill me for showing up at the reception looking like this,” she whispered.
“I thought you decided you don’t care what she thinks.”
She pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth and swallowed several times.
“Are you okay?” he asked. The woman had seen her share of morning sickness the first couple months of her pregnancy, but recently it had become a rarity.
“All things considered.” She dropped her head back to look up at him. “I don’t care what she thinks, but it still hurts my feelings when she yells at me.”
“I thought she just made you mad.”
“Well, yeah, that’s how I always react when I get my feelings hurt.” She blinked at him. “All this time with me and you didn’t realize that?”
“Uh…” He flicked his gaze to his clasped hands, which were resting on his knees. “Of course I realized that. But sometimes you get mad because you’re angry, right?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “But not often.”
All those times she’d been spitting mad at him was because he’d hurt her feelings? Why hadn’t she told him that sooner? And why was he such a bonehead that he hadn’t figured it out on his own?
He slid an arm around her lower back and pressed her against his side. “I’m sorry for making you mad all the time.”
She released a breathless laugh. “No, you’re not. You purposely make me angry so the passion blazes between us. I’m on to you, Lionheart. I know what you’re up to.”
“Well, I do think you’re hot when you’re pissed off, but I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“I know you don’t mean it. Otherwise I would have killed you in your sleep by now.”
He laughed. “I’m glad you’re more intelligent than violent.”
She looked down at her folded hands and then licked her thumb and tried to rub a spot out of her skirt. “I just hope Mom doesn’t nag me. I’m happy—the ceremony, the beach, now. All the moments I’ve been alone with you today have felt perfect, even if they weren’t what I envisioned. The rest of the day has been one disaster after another. I can’t imagine what will be thrown at me next.”
“I’ll run interference,” Sed said. “I honestly don’t mind. Your mother can’t stand me anyway. I doubt she’ll ever forgive me for knocking you up before we were married.”
Jessica snorted. “She still doesn’t believe that I got pregnant intentionally. Like I’m too stupid to remember to take my birth control pills. Just because that’s the reason she had me, doesn’t mean I’ll make the same mistakes she did.”
“If she gets too unbearable, I’ll send her packing. Okay?”
Jessica shook her head. “No, I want her there, even though I’m sure she’ll be unbearable. She’s going to be heartbroken that I didn’t wait for her to give me away.”
“Unfortunate.” Sed smiled. “But not really. It meant a lot to me that you gave yourself to me.”
Her jade-green eyes widened, as if she hadn’t realized how perfect that little split-second decision had been. Because the woman struggled to let go of even an inch of her independence, he would never forget her giving herself to him so willingly.
“It did?” she asked.
“Yeah, because I know how independent you are. I think by giving yourself to me you’ve finally realized that resistance is futile. You’re mine and mine alone. I’ll never let you go.”
“As long as I allow it,” she challenged.
“And how long will that be?”
She smiled. “Until the day I die.”
“Beyond death,” he insisted.
“That’s still up for negotiation.”
“You know you’ll never be able to resist me with a halo.” He winked at her.
“A halo? Won’t that get in the way of your horns?” She extended her index fingers on either side of her head.
“I’ll just wear my halo at a cocky angle over one horn. It’ll be sexier that way. You won’t know what hit you.”
She laughed and wrapped both arms around his neck. “I do love you.”
“Beyond death?” he asked.
She looked up at her eyebrows as if contemplating what his request entailed. “Yes, beyond death.”
He grinned. “I love it when I get my way.”
She poked him in the ribs. “I let you get your way,” she said.
“And why’s that?”
“Because you’re even more wonderful when you’re happy.”
“I am definitely happy.”
“And I’m dedicated to keeping you that way.”
“I want to do the same for you. So about your mother…”
Jessica released a heavy sigh and rubbed at her forehead with her hand. A hand, he noted, missing the ring that she’d been wearing for months—the one he’d carried in his pocket for two years after she’d flung it at him in anger. Had she finally decided she could be done with the cheap piece of shit once and for all?
“I’ll try to get along with her,” Jessica said wearily.
“And if you can’t?”
“I’ll ask her to leave,” she said.
“I don’t mind stepping in and—”
She covered his lips with a finger and shook her head. “No sense in increasing the tension between the two of you. I can handle it.”
He nodded, knowing she liked to handle her problems on her own. He’d just be there to support her if and when she needed him. Sometimes he wished that she’d let him rule her life, fix anything that needed fixing, but then she’d be a lot less interesting and he’d probably have never fallen so hard for her. It was the challenge of Jessica Chase—Lionheart—that kept him coming back for more. Their compatibility in the sack didn’t hurt either.
“Where’s your ring?” he asked, lifting her left hand in his.
“Are you blind? It’s right there where you put it.”
“Your other ring,” he clarified.
“Oh.” She showed him her right hand. “You’re supposed to wear the wedding ring closer to your heart, so I switched it to my other hand for the ceremony and forgot to switch it back.”
He took her hand in his and grasped her engagement ring with his fingertips.
“Allow me,” he said.
He removed the ring from her right ring finger and slowly slid it onto her left to rest against her wedding band.
She shuddered beside him, and he glanced up to find her smoldering
gaze on him.
“Why was that so erotic?” she murmured.
“Slowly sliding things into holes is always erotic,” he said with a grin.
“It is when you do it.”
The limo pulled to a halt. Sed tugged Jessica into his arms and kissed her deeply, knowing the next few hours would be chaos and they’d have no opportunity to be alone. And when they finally were alone together that evening, he had some romantic dinner plans in store for her and some rather lame words he planned to sing while there. He couldn’t wait to see her face when they reached their rendezvous point. He was a bit less sure about the song. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever written before. She might hate it.
The door was opened from outside, and Sed reluctantly pulled away from Jess’s soft, warm lips. He stared into her eyes and said, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“You can count on me, you know. For anything you need or want. You can always count on me.”
She cupped his face between her hands and pecked him on the lips. “I know that. You can count on me as well.”
Sed slid from the limo and extended a hand inside to help Jessica out of the car. All their friends and family were standing in a huge crowd outside the reception hall waiting for them. Their cheers of excitement died as soon as Jessica exited the vehicle. Their slack jaws and wide eyes were probably due to Jessica looking like she’d been rolling around on the mud in her wedding dress. And that was pretty close to the truth.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Sed’s mom separated from the crowd and rushed over to them. “What a terrible time for it to rain.”
Jessica offered Sed a naughty smile before turning her attention to her new mother-in-law. “I actually thought it was good timing,” she said. “I know I look a mess, but I couldn’t be happier.”
Mom wrapped both arms around Jessica and squeezed, swaying slightly with girly giddiness. “I’m so glad you’re not upset. I was worried that you’d be devastated.”
“You can’t stop the rain,” she said.
But nothing had forced them to make love on the beach in it. Except their insatiable lust for each other.
“It’s a good thing you’re level-headed,” his mom said. “You’re going to need a lot of patience to put up with my bullheaded son for the next sixty years.”
“Level-headed? Jessica?” Sed sputtered. “I think you have her confused with someone else.”
His mom gave him a loving smile over Jessica’s shoulder. “Compared to you, doll? Yeah, she’s the level-headed one. I can’t wait to see how your kids turn out. I predict they’ll be a bit challenging to raise.”
Sed’s stomach did a back flip. He wanted eight of them, but if they were all as stubborn as himself and their mother—combined—perhaps he should pare that number down by a few.
His mom tugged away and searched Jessica’s face. Scowling, she pulled the strand of seaweed from Jessica’s hair. “How did you end up with seaweed in your hair?”
Jessica’s eyes widened, and she glared at Sed. He shrugged and shook his head as if he hadn’t noticed it.
“That was some wind,” Jessica said, her cheeks pink.
The photographer sidled over to join their little group. “Do you still want me to take pictures?” he whispered.
“Of course,” Jessica said. “Just pretend I look beautiful.”
“You do look beautiful,” Sed said gruffly. His chest puffed with pride because she was his.
Without warning, Jessica’s mother came at her with a hairbrush. “Dear lord, what a disaster! This will be remembered as the worst celebrity wedding ever in the history of Hollywood. Thank God I was only responsible for the reception.”
Jessica tried to avoid the hairbrush while Sed worked very hard at holding his tongue.
“A, I’m not a celebrity,” Jessica said, cringing when the brush landed in her hair and caught on a snag. “B, we are not in Hollywood. And C, I don’t care what you think.”
“And D,” Mom said, “what’s important is the kids are happy. Right?” She smiled in her ever friendly way, but Stella just scowled at her.
“Celebrities owe it to the world to have fairy-tale weddings,” Stella said. “It gives us regular people something to dream about.”
Sed opened his mouth to argue that celebrities didn’t owe the world anything—not that he considered himself a huge celebrity in the first place. Celebrities had the right to privacy and bad-hair days and cellulite and stretch marks just like everyone else. But he remembered his promise to Jessica and slammed his mouth closed. His teeth clicked together so hard, his ears rang. It was damn hard to hold his tongue when Jessica’s mother was around. Stella was far more outspoken and opinionated than her daughter. And as his opinions always clashed with the woman’s, it wasn’t as if he enjoyed arguing with her. Or watching Jessica try to hold her own. He had half a mind to shove Jessica back in the limo, steal her away without attending the reception, and deal with his wife’s fury later.
While Jessica and her mother argued about Jessica’s ruined hair and her ruined dress and her ruined flowers and her ruined wedding, Sed’s muscles grew tighter and tighter with tension. If his mother hadn’t placed a comforting hand on his elbow, he would have exploded.
“Are you going to say something?” Mom asked quietly.
“Jessica doesn’t want me to interfere.”
“Do you always let her get her way?”
Sed flushed. “Pretty much.”
“You have to pick your battles,” Mom said.
“Yeah.” At his mother validation of his choice, he felt a bit better about staying out of Stella and Jessica’s escalating argument.
“I think this might be the one you should pick.” Mom patted his back. “I’ll see you inside.”
So she wasn’t validating his choice after all. He considered clinging to his mother’s leg and begging her not to leave him with the mother-in-law that came with his new wife, but he wasn’t a three-year-old. He felt almost as helpless as one at the moment. And what must Jessica be feeling having to deal with Stella directly?
“Um, excuse me,” Sed said, trying to gain their attention.
“Those stains will never come out of that dress!” her mother was screeching. “Jesus God, do you even remember how long it took you to pick it out, Jessica Chase? You must have tried on a thousand gowns.”
“Jessica Lionheart,” she corrected. “And it’s my dress, mother. If I want to tie-dye it and wear it in the Thanksgiving Day parade, that’s my prerogative.”
“Do you know what your problem is?” Stella said, eyes narrowed dangerously.
“You! You are my problem.”
Stella shook her head, sending silky blond locks dancing about her spray-tanned shoulders. “No, your problem is that you think only of yourself, Jessica.”
Sed took a step back as Jessica’s jaw went hard, and her eyes sparked with anger. She’d leveled him with that look on a few occasions. They never ended well.
“It’s my wedding day!” Jessica bellowed. “I’m supposed to think of myself today. My love for Sed and his for me are the only things that are supposed to matter today. You’re the one being a selfish shrew.” She threw her hands up as a plea to the heavens. Or maybe she was praying for a lightning strike to be sent in her mother’s direction.
“Um, sweetheart?” Sed again tried to break into their tirade exchange. He happened to agree with his wife, and not only because he didn’t want to face her wrath.
“Me, selfish?” her mother yelled. “Do you know how much time and effort I put into planning this reception?”
Jessica pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “How could I not know that? You’ve reminded me no less than a million times.”
“Our guests are waiting.” Sed placed a hand against Jessica’s back, hoping to propel her gently in the general direction of the front door. “We’re already late. We wouldn’t want the lobster bisque your mother selected to get cold.”
“I d
on’t even like lobster bisque!” Jessica yelled and stormed up the cement steps to the entry doors of the reception hall.
“She’s under a lot of pressure,” Sed explained to the startled photographer who had yet to find an opportunity for a candid shot that did not involve flailing hands and angry faces. But at least they were on their way inside. Perhaps Sed could keep Jessica and her mother separated for the rest of the afternoon.
Where was a brick wall when he needed one?
“Speak to her, Sedric,” Stella said. “She’s being completely