Part 6 (2/2)
Kelly snickered. ”Do you have some sort of wicked plot going on?”
”Maybe.”
”He really got on your bad side,” Kelly said. ”I haven't seen you look like this since Melissa La.r.s.en told your whole cla.s.s that you'd slept with her boyfriend. What did Mitch.e.l.l do?”
”Nothing. It's not like that.” Although it was exactly like that.
”Seriously, what did he-”
”Nothing,” Deanna said quickly, waving a hand when she heard Mitch.e.l.l coming into the house again. ”Now, shh, don't say anything.”
Deanna was smiling sweetly as Mitch.e.l.l came up again, and this time Kelly was smiling sweetly too.
He pulled to a stop, looking at them warily. ”What's going on?” he asked, looking from one to the other.
”Nothing,” Deanna a.s.sured him, wis.h.i.+ng her sister wasn't smiling quite so fakely.
”Were you talking about me?”
”Maybe a little.” She took his arm to pull him back into the bedroom so he couldn't start to interrogate Kelly. ”It's not every day that a girl has a marriage of convenience, and it's natural her sister might want to hear about it.”
Mitch.e.l.l chuckled as he picked up the last box. His hair was slightly mussed, and he was sweating slightly in the heat. He looked even more attractive than he had before. ”Maybe I want to hear about it.”
”Well, you can't.” She gave him a little swat, hoping that was something an easy-to-manage wife might do, and she followed him down the stairs, wanting to get out before her grandmother returned.
If Grandmama arrived, they'd have to do the niceties, which would mean they'd be stuck here for another hour at least.
Mitch.e.l.l didn't linger, so maybe he had the same idea, and soon they were on their way south toward his house, the boxes of beads in the back of his car.
They were stopped at a light when she recognized that Mitch.e.l.l's gaze was on her face again.
”What?” she asked, pus.h.i.+ng her hair behind her ear and not having to pretend the feeling of self-consciousness.
”You look beautiful today,” he said, his voice huskier than normal.
She dropped her eyes. She'd expected this. It was clearly part of the nice-act he was putting on to keep her doing his bidding. ”Thank you.”
”I've never seen anyone with eyes like yours before.”
She'd actually heard this from other people-her eyes were a very unusual shade of light green-so it was possible that he meant it. ”I always hated them when I was a kid. I had teachers who used to think I was wearing eye makeup, since my eyes were so light and my eyelashes so dark.”
”They're gorgeous. All of you is gorgeous.”
She blushed, and it was for real, since there was a note in his voice she couldn't help but like. Almost a caress.
She reminded herself to get a grip, though.
She couldn't forget that he hadn't been pleased by the prospect of six months without s.e.x. He would want to have s.e.x, and he wouldn't be able to go outside their marriage to get it.
Which meant he would want to have s.e.x with her. He'd agreed too quickly at the contract negotiations. He probably thought she would easily succ.u.mb to his advances, and her behavior at the engagement party must have confirmed this fact.
He no doubt believed that he'd have no trouble talking her into s.e.x with him tonight. She wasn't opposed to letting him believe so for now. Let him think she was every bit as silly and spineless as he believed.
It was Mitch.e.l.l who would be surprised and disappointed when he spent his wedding night alone.
After a brief flicker of concern when Deanna acted so skittish at the wedding, Mitch.e.l.l was pleased with how things were going.
Deanna was easy to get along with, and she seemed to get more beautiful every time he saw her. It wouldn't be hard to work out an arrangement that worked for him-a wife who didn't cause him any trouble and a willing s.e.x partner.
He was getting more excited about the s.e.x partner idea as the evening went on.
They'd gotten to his place, and he'd carried her beads into the sitting room of her suite, which he'd had fixed up for her last week. Deanna seemed happy with everything, and they'd both been in good moods after they'd showered, rested, and had dinner together on the terrace that overlooked the river.
Mitch.e.l.l asked her about her bead work, since he was sincerely interested in it and impressed by how good she was at it. Then she asked about his family, and he told her some about his sister and mother.
She seemed to want to hear about his mother's history with the Darlington Cafe. He'd started by only sharing a few minor details, but at her questions he told her more, until he was spilling all kinds of stuff he wasn't in the habit of talking about-including how his mother would come back from working at the restaurant late when he was just a boy and he'd be awake so she'd fix them both pancakes.
They split a bottle of wine so he was relaxed and satisfied as they fell into silence. The breeze brought with it the tang of salt and the sweetness of magnolias from the tree at the corner of the house. Deanna's eyes looked huge and otherworldly as they gazed up at him, and he couldn't help but wonder what she was thinking.
Despite her docile demeanor, she seemed to have depth, like there was far more going on under the surface than she ever revealed to the world.
He wanted to know what it was, what was simmering under the surface. He wanted it to break the delicate prettiness of her quietude.
He put down his gla.s.s and shook himself off slightly, looking away from her at last. What the h.e.l.l was he even thinking? He'd like to get her into bed. That was probably all that was prompting his weird, intense thoughts.
It was still early-not even eight. Usually he worked out in the evenings, but if Deanna would like to go straight to bed, he would have no objections.
”What do you do in the evenings?” he asked.
She gave a little shrug. ”It depends. There were always jobs to do around the house. It was really falling down around our heads. But otherwise, I'd just do some beads and watch TV or something.”
”Well, you're welcome to do that here, if you'd like. You can watch the big screen one downstairs, if you want.”
If she went into her own suite and closed the door, it would be harder to ease into s.e.x.
”Okay. Thank you!” She beamed at him, and he felt another surge of desire overtake him, along with that feeling from before of wanting to know what was really going on under the surface.
It had been a long time since he'd been as consumed by l.u.s.t as this. He wasn't even sure where it was coming from.
An hour later, they were both in the media room, seated on the floor in front of the couch.
Mitch.e.l.l wasn't actually a fan of sitting on the floor, but Deanna had set up her beads there, and he wanted to sit next to her.
She hadn't brought all the tins of beads down-just one that seemed to be a random mix of all different colors and styles. She was working on what she told him would be a fancy clutch, but she'd just started so he had no way of ascertaining what the finished product would look like.
He watched her, though, as much as she watched the old movie she'd turned on.
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