Closing her eyes with a pleased little smile, she said, “That feels better. Thank you, Jason.”
Smiling and feeling better than he had since that smoke alarm at the hotel had gone off the night before, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
“The stories?” she reminded him with a soft chuckle.
Brushing his lips against hers one last time, he leaned back with a smile simply because he couldn’t be around her and not smile. Christ, there was just something about her…
“Right,” he said, shoving his fingers through his hair and realizing that it had been way too long since he’d had a chance to see his barber. “I’d always thought the stories were just more bullshit to screw with our heads, but as it turned out they were dead on,” he admitted on a sigh.
“I should have waited a year to bring you on a honeymoon.”
“Why a year?” she asked with a curious frown as she gently moved her feet through the water.
“Every Bradford that waited a year to take his bride on a honeymoon has always been able to give his wife the perfect trip, but every Bradford that took his wife on their honeymoon before the year mark has always wished that he’d waited.”
“I see,” Haley murmured thoughtfully as she gazed away from him to squint down at the water as she worried her bottom lip.
“And what exactly do you see?” he asked, reaching over to pluck a leaf out of her tangled hair.
“Nothing,” she said after a slight pause before adding, “Just that I don’t think that your family is cursed.”
“Then what would you call the nightmare that we’ve been dealing with?” he asked, spotting a tiny twig in her hair and decided to pluck that out as well.
“Bad luck,” she said with a careless shrug similar to the one that he’d always used when someone in his family mentioned one of the stories meant to screw with his head.
He chuckled. “You call what’s happened over the last few days bad luck?”
“Mmmhmm,” she said unconcerned as she squinted down at the pool where she was tracing lazy circles in the water with her feet.
“And the rest of my family that suffered similar circumstances?” he asked, curious to hear how she was going to argue a fact that he was only now starting to accept.
Instead of answering him, she asked, “Were the honeymoons planned or left to the last minute?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked with a frown.
“Everything. Now, are you going to answer my question?” she asked, shifting her attention towards him as she gave him another one of those sweet smiles that he loved.
“No, they weren’t planned.”
“I see,” she murmured, somehow still managing to look thoughtful as she squinted off in the distance.
“What exactly do you see?” he asked, shifting into a sitting position so that he could pull off his ruined sneakers and socks and toss them aside, deciding to join Haley and see if the cool water would help soothe the muscle that he’d pulled when he’d tried to dodge that vicious attack.
“Well, it sounds to me like it was probably more of a case of poor planning and bad luck than a curse,” she explained with a shrug.
“Bad planning, huh?” he asked as he yanked his pants up to his calf. Wincing, he carefully lowered his legs in the pool and nearly groaned with pleasure as the cool water immediately went to work on his sore muscles.
“Mmhmm,” she murmured absently as she reached up and pulled the blanket loose from around her chest.
“That’s your explanation for two hundred years worth of fucked up honeymoons?” he asked as he watched her pull the blanket loose and push it down, making him lick his lips hungrily. Even though he knew that none of the other neighbors had a clear view of their backyards, he still looked to make that no one else could see his beautiful wife strip naked.
“Well,” Haley began, dragging his attention back to her as she pushed the blanket off her lap and carefully lowered herself in the pool, “if they’re anything like you, and I’m guessing that they are, then they probably went a little overboard trying to give their wives the perfect honeymoon and ended up taking on more than they could handle.”
“That’s it?” he asked, pulling off his shirt and tossed it aside.
“That’s it,” she easily agreed with a pleased smile as she lay back in the water and closed her eyes, sighing with pleasure.
“And the ones that waited a year before they went on their honeymoons and ended up having a great experience?” he asked as he pulled his legs out of the water and snapped open his jeans.
“Their wives probably planned those trips,” she replied with a mischievous smile that had him chuckling and shoving his pants off along with his boxers.
“Is that what you think?” he asked with a grin as he tossed his clothes aside and joined her in the pool.
“Mmmhmmm, that’s what I think,” she said, sighing with pleasure as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer.
“And what would you have done differently?” he asked, licking his lips as she opened her eyes so that she could wrap her arms and legs around him.
“Absolutely nothing.”
Chapter 12
“Nothing, huh?” Jason asked, sounding amused as he leaned in and kissed her.
“Nothing,” she agreed with a moan of pleasure as he slid one hand down her back and cupped her bottom, pulling her closer to the large erection straining to get to her until it was pressing against her stomach.
“Then how,” he paused so that he could slowly kiss his way down to her throat to find that sensitive spot that he knew drove her crazy, “would a year have made a difference?”
“Because I would have packed my own bag,” she announced with a sigh of pleasure as his early morning whiskers teased her neck.
“And that would have changed the course of history?” he asked huskily as the hand on her bottom shifted to the side and-
“Oh, God,” she groaned as he slipped a finger inside her.
“What would you have done differently?” he asked calmly as though he wasn’t currently sliding his finger deep inside her at a rhythm guaranteed to have her screaming his name and begging for more in a matter of minutes.
“I-I would have,” she paused to lick her suddenly dry lips as her eyes slid shut and her head fell back as a moan worked its way free, “I never would have packed that nightgown.”
He chuckled against her skin as he began moving them through the water while his finger continued sliding inside her, teasing her and making her desperate for more.
“And that would have made all the difference, huh?” he asked as he raised her out of the water and carefully set her down on the edge of the pool, allowing his finger one last skillful thrust before he pulled his hand away.
“I never would have tripped over the bag, leaving you to come up with new and interesting ways to entertain me while I was laid up in bed, unable to partake in the best honeymoon any man could have given me, which forced you to come up with another quick plan to salvage our honeymoon.”
“I hate to burst your bubble, sweetheart,” he said, placing his hands on her knees and slid his hands down her thighs, gently pushing them apart so that he could stand between them, “but whether you packed that nightie or not, I was still planning a romantic night for the two of us. So, as you can see,” he said, pausing long enough so that he could duck his head and flick her nipple with his tongue, “nothing you could have done differently would have made a difference. I would have still gone through with my plans, which would have ended with the fire, being asked to leave, getting lost in the middle of nowhere and that vicious animal attack.”
“We never would have been stuck in that room if I hadn’t tripped over my own bag, which of course meant the fire never would have destroyed our luggage, and we never would have been forced to end our honeymoon or deal with everything that’s happened since. Like I said, Jason, it was just poor planning,” she said, finishing her explanation with a shrug while she placed her hands back on the warm pavement, dropped her head back and settled in to hear the asinine argument that Jason was no doubt about to give her in defense of his curse theory.
“Just bad planning, huh?” Jason murmured thoughtfully as she lay there, enjoying the sun for probably the last time before the weather turned sour and days like these were nothing more than a distant memory.
“Mmmmhmmm, poor planning,” she murmured, soaking up the sun.
“So, no matter what happened the last few days, it was just poor planning?” he asked, sounding thoughtful as she tried to push the past few days out of her head and focus on what remained, five uninterrupted days with Jason, a few more days of good weather and no real reason to leave their bed if they didn’t want to.