Sisters in White Read online

  Danica shivered. She knew what he wanted. She’d been thinking of Tell Me ever since he’d first coerced her to tell him what she wanted. She didn’t want to respond. She wanted him to do just what he was doing, nothing more, nothing less.

  He brought both hands to her neck, raising her to a sitting position, rubbing, stroking, his fingers digging under her hair to the base of her skull, kneading her muscles into submission.

  Danica’s head fell back with a moan, and he moved his thumbs to the soft divot behind her ears. His touch was like a drug she couldn’t get enough of, like a dream she never wanted to wake up from.

  “Touch me,” he said.

  Danica opened her eyes and blinked away the haze of her arousal. Blake’s dark, desirous eyes pleaded with her. He was telling her. Tell me, she thought.

  “Where?” she whispered, hardly believing she was asking him.

  “Anywhere,” he said, then closed his eyes as she rubbed his thighs in the same slow, sensual way that he’d touched her. She worked her way down to his knees, spending extra time on the soft, delicate skin behind them.

  She caressed her way back up his legs to his strong, wide hips. Oh, his delicious hips. She was so close. One slip of her hand and he was hers. Her hands seemed impossibly small against his body. She kneaded her fingers deep into the tension hidden in the fibers of his muscles. The movement pushed the bubbles to the side, and she dropped her eyes to his impressive erection. She was surprised at the surge she felt within her loins; the desire to lift herself onto him was almost too much to resist. But no, she held back. She gave his body every bit of loving attention that he’d given hers, touching, loving every inch of his flesh. Kneading, massaging, caressing him, until she knew there was no doubt in his mind that she loved him as much as he loved her.

  When she reached his neck, Blake opened his eyes, and the sleepy, lusty look he gave her made it almost impossible for her to finish what she’d started. She tried her damnedest to blink away the heat of attraction, rubbing his neck, pushing her fingers up along his hairline, until she grasped his skull as he’d done to her and applied pressure with her fingertips and thumb. The motion pulled her forward, out of the water.

  The cool air hit her wet breasts, sending a shock through her. She gasped, closing her eyes while she regained control. If he could touch all of her and not take her, she could be just as strong. She slid her hands to his shoulders, pushing and pressing with all of her might. His eyes were open now, watching her breasts sway with her efforts. Just knowing he was watching her heightened her arousal. His warm breath mingled with the cool air, and her body responded instantly, aching for his mouth to touch her, taste her.

  She opened her eyes and met his heated stare, slowly lowering herself back into the tepid water.

  Blake grabbed her arms before she could settle all the way down into the tub. Her body trembled from the cold. He pulled her against him, chest to chest, eye to eye, then kissed her softly.

  Danica thought she might just melt into him, until her body and his became one gooey mess of love. He stole her thoughts with another soft kiss, then guided her back down into the tub while he stood, grabbing a thick white towel, and then helped her up to her feet.

  He wrapped her lovingly in the towel, then, still naked, his erection never faltering, he took another towel from the rack and bent to dry her feet, moving up her calves slowly, careful to dry every spec of her shivering skin. He took tender care as he dried her hips, her belly, and the low curve of her back, working his way up her chest and down her arms.

  Every nerve in her body felt electrified. Every breath a shallow, careful movement. She kept waiting, wanting, hoping he would take her to the next level, touch her in the ways he had before the bath. He’d created a fire within her that craved him.

  He tucked the dry towel around her and dried himself, then took her hand and led her to the bed, where he laid her back upon the rose petals.

  Blake rolled her over and hung the towel over the chair. She lay on her stomach, naked; even the warm air of the room felt erotic as it danced across her skin. She felt the bed dip by her knees as he positioned himself with one knee on either side of her. He kissed her spine to the curve of her shoulder.

  “Blake,” she whispered.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Take me. Love me.”

  Blake took something from the nightstand drawer, then resumed kneeling above her. She heard a cap unscrew, then winced as liquid dribbled along her backside and spine. The cap screwed on, and then something landed on the bed. She opened her eyes and saw a dark bottle beside her.

  Blake’s strong palms worked the oil along her shoulders and down her back, slipping, sliding, gliding up the curve of her ass, where he worked it along her backside, then down the slope of her inner thighs. The oil warmed beneath his touch, leaving a trail of fire behind.

  She moaned, unable to restrain the pleasure from escaping her lips. She gripped the bedspread in her fists as he spread the oil along her inner thighs, so close to her sensitive skin that she could feel her body tugging toward him, wanting him.

  “Blake, please,” she pleaded.

  He slid his hands up along her sides, spending extra time on the sides of her breasts, then lowered his body on top of hers.

  “Please what?” he asked.

  The weight of him was too much. She needed him, every inch of him.

  “Please...” She heard herself begging for sex, and the embarrassment she expected never came. She had to have him, and now they were husband and wife. She didn’t need to be cautious or shy.

  “Please make love to me,” she said, and closed her eyes again, waiting for him to flip her over. When he didn’t, she felt his heat filling the space between them.

  He slid his hand down her side and drew her legs farther apart. He held himself up with one elbow, his arm shaking as much as Danica’s body trembled. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to take what any man would with a naked, spread-eagle woman lying facedown beneath him in a sex-induced coma. Part of her hoped he wouldn’t, and another part of her hoped he would. She bit her lower lip, gripping the edge of the mattress. She was ready. Whatever he wanted to take, she’d give; whatever he wanted to give, she’d receive.

  She didn’t expect his fingers to slip beneath her hips and touch her in fast, expertly positioned strokes. She didn’t expect to buck into him as she pinned his hand beneath her grinding hips. And she surely didn’t expect to be begging him to be inside her.

  “Now. Please. I need you. Inside. Put it inside.”

  He slipped his fingers in and out until the teasing escalated and her body was in the throes of the most intense orgasm she’d ever experienced. Her nerves clenched, her toes curled under, every muscle in her body constricted, and her breathing caught and held. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the waves of thunder to pass. Just as she opened her eyes, he slid his fingers out and she released her breath in one loud rush of air.

  “Tell me,” he whispered.

  “Can’t,” she huffed.

  “Tell me, pretty girl.”

  She couldn’t imagine enduring any more than her body had. She knew it was selfish not to tell him what he wanted to hear. She forced the words from her mouth, certain she’d disappoint him. She had no energy left. She lay still beneath him. Spent. She wasn’t even sure she’d said the words aloud.

  “Take me. Love me. Become one with me.”

  She felt his hand on her bottom and held her breath.

  When he slipped deep inside of her, she felt it all the way to her core, slow at first, then harder, deeper. He didn’t take her from behind. He entered her center, and before she had time to wonder why he hadn’t taken what any other guy would have felt was his to claim, she was peaking again, arching up as he met her clenching body, thrust for thrust, in his own beautiful orgasm.

  Their bodies glistened with sweat and oil. They panted, their fingers intertwined, as they lay beside each other.

 
“Why didn’t you...you know?” Danica asked in the wee hours of the morning.

  “Hmm?”

  Danica closed her eyes. He had to be kidding. “You know. I was there for the taking. Oiled up, ready.”

  “Yeah.”

  She turned her face toward him.

  It was then, eye to eye, no pretenses, no hidden agendas, no barriers, that he said the words that swept away any concerns that might have crept in.

  “I wasn’t even sure I’d enter you at all tonight. You filled me so full of love, your touch made me feel so close to you, that I didn’t need more.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You said to become one with you. I did the only thing that could bring us closer than we already were. I’ll never take anything from you that you don’t want to give.”

  Her voice failed her.

  As she drifted off to sleep, Danica realized that the romance she wanted had been right there all along—in Blake’s eyes, in his touch, in his words. All she had to do was open herself to him.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Danica couldn’t stop looking at her wedding ring. Wedding ring! She’d been up for an hour, had already showered, dried her hair, and dressed. She watched Blake step out of his towel and into his jeans. The shyness she’d felt just two nights earlier no longer plagued her. Something inside her changed. She felt it from the tip of her head to the ends of her toes and in all the naughty places in between.

  “I love you,” Blake said as he pulled a white polo shirt over his head.

  “I love you, too.”

  “I know you do.” He kissed her on her forehead. “We leave tomorrow. You know, there’s still time to book a honeymoon.”

  In the last few hours, when it was just the two of them in their room, without the chaos of her parents or the outside influence of Mother Nature, Danica had felt like they were already on their honeymoon.

  “I thought we agreed that we’d take our honeymoon after the bliss of the wedding had passed.” She loved the idea of traveling with Blake, but she knew that the wedding wouldn’t be easy with Kaylie, their mother and father, Lacy and Madeline all in one room, and the idea that they’d go from one whirlwind event directly into another without time to process or breathe made Danica a little nervous. She worried that the honeymoon might be dampened by the stress of the wedding.

  “We did, and I’m fine with that. I’ll go wherever you want, whenever you want.” Blake’s ski shop had really taken off the previous year, and her youth center was also doing well. They could easily afford a honeymoon at any destination they chose.

  “Greece is still looking good,” Blake said with a grin.

  “Australia, too,” Danica added. “I don’t know where I want to go. I only know that I feel like I spent a full week away with you in the last twenty-four hours, so everything else is just gravy.”

  “Whipped cream.”

  “Dirty boy.”

  He pulled her against him. “Only with you, babe. Only with you.”

  They found everyone lounging around the pool. Some looking a little worse for wear than others. Kaylie and Chaz sat at the edge of the baby pool while Trevor and Lexi splashed in the knee-high water.

  “There they are,” Kaylie teased. “I thought Blake might have done you in.”

  “Ha-ha,” Danica sneered. “How did my favorite niece and nephew do last night?”

  “Great. Mom’s at the gift shop with Madeline.”

  “What?”

  “I know, right? Who would have ever thought that they’d get along?” Kaylie patted the space beside her. “Sit.”

  Danica sat in her shorts with her feet in the water.

  “So?” Kaylie whispered. “Was it everything you ever dreamed of?”

  For the hundredth time since they’d arrived in Nassau, heat flushed her cheeks. “I never dreamed about my wedding night. But if I had, I can guarantee you that it wouldn’t have come anywhere close to last night.”

  Kaylie squealed and hugged her.

  Blake gave her a knowing look, and she licked her lips, feeling the rush of anticipation from the evening before like a tickling of fingers along her spine.

  “How about you?”

  Kaylie leaned forward and whispered, “Un-freakin’-believable.” She tossed a toy in the water for Lexi. “I swear, I never remember my boyfriends being that hot.” She screwed up her face like she was thinking. “Maybe you have to marry a man to really get him to put in effort.”

  They both laughed.

  “Everyone leaves tonight but us,” Kaylie said.

  “I know. But that’s good. We’ll have a nice, quiet evening.”

  “I still can’t believe you’re not going on a honeymoon.”

  “We will. I’m in no hurry.” Danica looked at Blake and knew that no matter where they were, their love would carry them through. They could live in a cardboard box, and she wouldn’t love him any less.

  “Well, I am. I love my kids, but a week in Las Vegas without them? Sleeping in, having a drink once in a while. Going dancing? Gosh, it’s been forever since I’ve done those things. Last night was like a dream.” She poked Danica in the ribs. “Even with your last-minute guilt trip.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  Kaylie shrugged. “No worries. The drama is all over now, and we made it through unscathed.”

  Danica spotted her mother and Madeline headed their way, with Lacy trailing behind them.

  I’m not so sure about that.

  “Look what we got for the kids!” Their mother pulled out an inner tube with a Mickey Mouse head. “Chaz, can you blow this up? We got Donald for Trevor, too.”

  Danica watched Lacy take off her gauzy cover-up, lay a towel down, and relax into the lounge chair in her bikini. She had sunglasses on, but Danica could feel her eyes on her mother. Why did everything have to be so painful? Danica wished she could just throw her hands up and say, Mom kissed Dad. Okay? But since you’ve already done that to her, it shouldn’t matter, right, Madeline? No hard feelings? And in this fictitious world of hers, Madeline would look at her mother and smile. She might even touch her arm thoughtfully and say, Oh, Helen, it’s okay. Whatever happens, happens, right? And then they could all go back to their happy little bubbles of life where none of this ever came into play again.

  But that would never happen.

  And Danica knew from the scowl on Lacy’s face that she’d never drop it from her memory bank until it had been dealt with. She took a deep breath and went to Lacy.

  “Move over,” she said, pushing Lacy’s legs over with her butt. She took the glasses from Lacy’s eyes and felt like she was replaying the scene with Kaylie the day her father had arrived. Why were her sisters so stubborn?

  “Hey,” Lacy said. She had heavy bags under her eyes.

  “Ugh.” Danica put the glasses back on her. “Why do you look so tired?”

  Lacy shrugged.

  “Drink too much last night?”

  Lacy lowered her shades and looked at Danica over them. “I wish.” She righted them again.

  “Then what’s up? You’re following Mom like you’re ready to pounce.”

  “I wasn’t following them. I just came out of the hotel after them.”

  “Lacy.”

  “Danica.”

  How could someone she just met already feel so much like a real sister? “Look, Kaylie doesn’t know anything about what happened. Do you feel the need to tell her? Do you really want to hurt her like that?”

  “Kaylie? How did this become about her?”

  “Because once you bring something like this out in the open, it’s going to affect everyone they’re involved with.”

  “It doesn’t have to. It only has to affect them.” Lacy leaned forward and removed her glasses. “See that woman over there?” She pointed to Madeline. “She’s my mother. How can I look at her and know that he—our father—pushed her feelings aside like that? Would you be able to? If the tables were turned, could you look at your mother every day
and know she might find out one day? And that it might hurt her even more, finding out that you knew the whole time and could have told her, but you chose not to?”

  “Okay, I get that. I really do. So, let’s talk to them, but can we please do it without Kaylie and the rest of the family around?”

  “You don’t have to be involved. I just want my mom to know.”

  Danica looked at Lacy then, really looked at her. She saw how the anger, or perhaps guilt, had stolen the spark from her eyes. “Lacy, we’re sisters. If you want support, I want to be there.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I really do.”

  Lacy slipped her glasses back on and embraced Danica, whispering a thank-you in her ear.

  “Let me just tell Blake; then I’ll ask Mom to go for a walk, and maybe you could ask your mom? We could meet down at the beach?”

  Lacy nodded, slipping her fingers beneath her shades. Danica had a sneaking suspicion that she was wiping tears from her eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The sand was warm beneath Danica’s bare feet as she and her mother walked toward the water’s edge. A warm breeze blew through her hair, and she looked up at the cloud-free sky.

  “I can’t even believe that yesterday happened. Look at that sky, Mom. What are the chances that the one sudden storm during our trip would be on our wedding day?”

  “That’s Murphy’s Law for you.” Her mother had on a pair of dark blue capris and a white T-shirt, over which she wore an open navy blouse, which blew with the breeze.

  “You look really nautical today.” It was nice to spend a little time with her mother. She put her toes in the water and turned to look at the hotel. She wanted to remember every single detail of the hotel, the beach, even her mother, right then, at that very moment. As the minutes passed, she could almost forget about what her parents had done. She could almost forget that she was sneaking off behind Kaylie’s back. And if Lacy hadn’t been heading directly toward them, scowl still in place, she might have been able to pretend that she wasn’t about to open a whole new can of worms.