Drop Dead Gorgeous (2 page)

In a flash I saw how our lives together would have to be: I'd have to have my own television, which meant I'd have to have my own television-watching room… which meant Wyatt's house would have to be remodeled, or at least reconfigured. I cheered up immensely at this thought, because I'd been wondering how to break the news to him. I really like his house, or at least the basic layout of it, but the decoration is strictly man-alone, which means it's barely habitable. I needed to put my stamp on it.

"You don't know who Buffy is?" I
whispered,
my eyes big with horror. Play it for all it's worth.

He all but whimpered.
'
'Please
.
Just tell me why you've decided you can't marry me."

A rush of well-being filled me. There's just something satisfying about hearing a grown man whimper. And if Wyatt didn't actually make the sound, he came pretty damn close, and that was good enough for me, because, believe me, he's
not
the whimpering type.

"Because
Blair
Bloodswortb
is too cutesy to be bearable!"
Oh, God, I was beset by B-words. "People would hear that name and think, okay, she has to be a blond nitwit, one of those people who snaps gum and twirls her finger in her hair. No one would take me seriously!"

He rubbed his forehead as if he were getting a headache. "So all this is because Blair and
Bloodsworth
both start with a B?"

I cast my gaze upward.
"The light dawns."

"That's a load of bullshit."

"And the bulb just burned out."
Aaargh
! When would the avalanche of B-words stop? This always happens to me.
When something starts bugging me (
aaargh
again!)
I can't get away from the alliteration.

"
Bloodsworth
isn't a cutesy name, no matter what the first name is," he said, scowling at me. "It has
blood
in it, for God's sake.
As in blood and guts.
That isn't cutesy."

"What would you know? You don't even know who Britney and Buffy are."

"And I don't care, because I'm not marrying them. I'm marrying you.
Soon.
Though I think I may need my head examined."

I wanted to kick him. He made it sound as if I were a trial, when I'm really very easy to get along with; just ask any of my employees. I own and operate a fitness center, Great
Bods
, and my employees think I'm great because I pay them well and treat them well. The only person I have trouble getting along with, except for my ex-husband's current wife who tried to kill me, is Wyatt, and that's only because we're still jockeying for position—Wyatt and I, that is. The problem is we're both alpha personalities, so we have to stake out our relationship territories.

Okay, I also didn't get along with Nicole Goodwin, a psycho bitch copycat who got murdered in the parking lot at Great
Bods
, but she's dead so she doesn't count. Sometimes I almost forgive her for being a psycho bitch, because her murder is what brought Wyatt back into my life after an absence of two years—don't get me started on
that
—but then I'd remember what a pain in the ass she was even when she was dead, and I get over that brain fart in a hurry.

"Let me save you the psychiatrist's bill," I said, narrowing my gaze at him. "The wedding's off."

"The wedding's on.
One way or the other."

"I can't go through life as Blair
Bloodsworth
. Though…" I tapped my finger on my chin and stared out at my night-shadowed patio; the Bradford pear trees beyond the patio were lit with strings of white lights that made my tiny backyard into something special. It was a very pretty sight, and I'd miss it when I moved into Wyatt's house, so he had to make it up to me somehow. "I could keep Mallory as my last name."

"No way in hell," he said flatly.

"Women keep their own names all the time."

"I don't care what other women do. You're taking my name."

"I'm already established in the business community as Blair Mallory. And I like my last name."

"We're going to have the same name.
Period."

I smiled sweetly at him. "Oh, that's so nice of you, changing your last name to Mallory. Thank you. That's such a perfect solution, and only a man who's really secure in his masculinity could do that—"

"
Blair
." He got to his feet, towering over me, his level dark brows drawn together in a V over his nose. He's six-feet-two, so when he towers over someone, he does it right.

Not to be towered over, I got to my feet, too, scowling right back at him. Okay, so there's still that ten-inch difference in our heights, but I went on tiptoe and pushed my chin up so we were almost nose to nose. "Expecting me to change my name while you keep
yours
is
archaic
—"

His eyes were narrow, his jaw set, his lips a thin hard line that barely moved as he spit out words as if they were bullets. "In the animal kingdom, the male marks his territory by pissing on it. All I'm asking you to do is change your last name to mine.
Take.
Your.
Pick
."

My hair all but stood on end, which is a really stupid expression, because how else would it stand? It isn't as if it can stand on middle. "Don't you dare piss on
me!
" I shrieked in outrage. Wyatt can push my buttons faster than anyone else, which I guess keeps things even, but that was why it took a few seconds before the mental image sank in and my shriek abruptly turned into a sputter of laughter.

He was so angry and frustrated it took him a second longer, but as he snorted his gaze dropped to where my robe had come completely open and his expression changed as he reached for me. "Don't bother," he growled as I reached for the belt to retie it.

Sex with Wyatt tends to be tempestuous. We have chemistry out the
wazoo
, or wherever chemistry comes from. I like the hell out of it, because that means I can pretty much count on an orgasm or two, but it also means that even though we've been engaged for a couple of months now the urgency hasn't slacked off much, and he'll take me down wherever we happen to be, unless we're in public, of course.

He didn't strip me out of the robe, since it wasn't in his way, just out of my underpants. The robe saved me from getting carpet burn on my butt, because he laid me on the dining room floor, spread my legs, and moved into position between them. His green eyes were
glittering
with lust and possessiveness and triumph and some other
unnameable
male things as he settled his weight on me.

"Blair
Bloodsworth
," he said in a tough tone, reaching down to position his penis. "No negotiation."

I caught my breath as he pushed into me, thick and hard and so damn exciting I could barely stand it. I dug my nails into his shoulders and tightened my legs on his hips, trying to hold him still even though my heartbeat was stuttering and my eyes were closing.

He hooked his left hand around my knee and pushed my leg wider, allowing him to go deeper, all the way. He shuddered, his own breathing hard and raspy. No matter how shattered I was by our lovemaking, he was right there with me.

"All right," I gasped, with my last thread of sanity. "But you owe me! For the rest of our lives, you owe me." No negotiation, my ass; what did he think we'd been doing?

He growled something unintelligible, rocking against me while he bent his head to kiss my neck, and I literally saw stars.

We were both sweaty and exhausted and very happy twenty minutes later when he raised his head and smoothed a tendril of hair out of my face. "One month," he said. "I'll give you exactly one month from today. We're either married by then or we do it my way, regardless of where it is or who can be there. Got it?"

Huh. I know a challenge when I hear one. I also know he wasn't kidding. I had to kick things into high gear.

Chapter Two

I called Mom first thing the next morning. "I lost an argument with Wyatt, and we're getting married within the month."

"Blair Elizabeth. How did that happen?" she asked after a shocked pause, and I knew she was asking about the first part of my statement.

"Strategic battle," I said. "Stupid of me, but I just realized last night that my name will be Blair
Bloodsworth
, so I told him I was keeping Mallory as my name and he hit the ceiling, and the upshot of the outcome is he either pisses on me to mark me as his territory, or I take his name."

She stopped laughing long enough to say "So now he owes you" before succumbing again. I love my mom; I don't have to explain anything to her. She gets me immediately, maybe because we're so much alike. Knowing Wyatt's stubbornness and the deviousness of his mind, plus some other char-
acteristics
such as possessiveness, etcetera,
the
outcome of our argument last night had never been in doubt unless I wanted to break up with him, which I didn't, so I had maneuvered to get the best terms possible. He
owed
me. Eternal debt was good.

"
But
… he gave me an ultimatum. We're either married within the month, or we'll do it on his terms."

"And those terms would be?"

"If I'm lucky, a courthouse wedding.
If not, Las Vegas."

"Ugh. Not after Britney. That's tacky."

See? It's like I'm her clone.

"That's what I thought, but he made it a challenge. I have to kick the plans into high gear."

"First you have to
have
plans
. '
Get married' isn't exactly a plan. It's an end result."

"I know. I was trying to be considerate of everyone's schedule, but that's out. Twenty-nine days from today—since this challenge officially started last night—we're getting married, and people can either reschedule whatever they have scheduled, or they'll miss it."

"Why twenty-nine, and not thirty?
Or thirty-one?"

"He'll argue that since there are four months with thirty days in
them, that
constitutes a legal month."

"February has twenty-eight."

"Or twenty-nine.
It can't make up its mind, so it doesn't count."