Honeymoon from Hell V (10 page)

“
Goddamn it, woman!” he
snapped, resisting the urge to let her go so that he could rub his
poor abused nipple. “Stop attacking me!”

“
No!” she said with a pout
that he absolutely refused to find adorable, especially while his
nipples throbbed from their most recent attack. “You have this
coming!”

“
For making you the
happiest woman on earth?” he demanded in outrage, wondering for the
life of him why she wasn’t on her hands and knees thanking god for
her good fortune instead of maiming him.

Had to be the hormones, he told
himself as he glared at the small woman in his arms. There really
was no other way to explain her ungrateful behavior. She had
absolutely no idea how much work and planning went into kidnapping
someone, otherwise she’d start showing some goddamn
appreciation!

Just thinking about all those long
hours he’d spent scheming, calling in favors so that certain
officials would look the other way when they saw the name Bradford
on the flight lists. It had taken him a lot of time and effort to
make this happen, but that didn’t seem to matter to the annoying
woman trying to make another grab for his nipple.

“
You kidnapped me! Drugged
me! Dragged me around Vegas! Didn’t bother to wake me up for our
wedding! You’ve avoided me for most of this trip, ignored my
questions, pissed me off and then when I had enough of your
bullshit, you kidnapped me again! Dragged me back across state
lines, fed me nothing but stale junk food, and forced me to sit in
a car with three Bradfords who couldn’t seem to stop arguing about
which ban was whose fault, further confusing me and making me want
to go for your nuts!” she finished on a rant, confirming his
suspicions that she’d made plans to go for his balls as well as
making him reconsider his decision to wait until later to do a junk
food run, because clearly she needed sugar soon or she was going to
kill someone.

Since that person was going to most
likely him, he decided that perhaps now would be a good time to
check out the kitchen and see if there was any chocolate that might
help soothe the wild beast within his normally sane, beautiful
wife.

Careful not to make any
sudden movements, he wrapped his arms around her, sort of thankful
that she’d stopped crying, but since she was now focused on
violence he sort of wished that she’d return to the crying since he
would leave his balls intact and it was probably something that he
could fix with a box of donuts and a chocolate
milkshake.

Christ, he could go for a chocolate
milkshake and a box of donuts, he thought with a heavy sigh,
wondering if his cousins had been considerate enough to leave them
fully stocked, but knowing his cousins they’d probably eaten every
fucking thing in the house each time his mother or one of his aunts
went shopping.

Selfish fucking bastards, he thought
with a grumble as he gently placed his wife on the bed next to him,
reached over and grabbed hold of his wheelchair and slowly, or so
very fucking slowly, shifted away from her and closer to his
wheelchair, his only means of escape.

“
You finally feel like
talking?” his seriously pissed off wife asked in a tone that did
not convey the overwhelming love and affection that she should be
feeling for him. But, it did make him move his ass faster, sensing
that it could end badly for him if he didn’t get out of there right
now.

“
Umm, sure,” he said
absently as he tightened his hold on the wheelchair and used his
hold to drag himself off the bed as casually as he could manage it
and sat down.

“
So,” Jodi said,
unfortunately following him so that by the time his ass hit the
chair, she was straddling him and had her arms wrapped loosely
around his neck, but he was no moron.

She could turn on him at any
moment.

His only hope was to get them into the
kitchen and distract her with a shitload of food before she could
remember that she was pissed at him and renew her vicious attack or
worse, start crying again. God, please don’t let her start fucking
crying. He’d take anything else, do damn near anything else if it
meant that he wasn’t forced to sit there helplessly while his wife
cried her heart out.

“
Why don’t we talk about
Vegas?” she suggested in a light tone as he felt the arms around
his neck tighten slightly, but it was enough to let him know that
he was going to make it out of this room alive if he didn’t start
talking.

“
Sure,” he agreed casually,
making his body relax as he placed his hands on the large wheels,
hoping it wouldn’t tip her off to his intentions. “What would you
like to talk about?” he asked as he gave the wheels an experimental
push to see what she’d say, but they moved a foot and she didn’t
respond, he decided to keep playing along.

“
Oh, gee, I don’t know,”
she said with a slight shake of her head a sigh, “maybe we could
discuss the kidnapping?”

He blinked at her as he asked, “What
kidnapping?” right around the time that he gave the wheels another,
firmer, push towards the door and what he hoped was his
salvation.

“
Oh, you know the one where
your father and cousin drugged me, somehow got me on a plane to
Vegas, somehow managed to find someone to marry us even though I’m
pretty sure that I was still unconscious at that point and then for
shits and giggles you decided that it would be fun to add ignoring
me to list of fun things to do to pass the time. Does that refresh
your memory, hmm?” she asked with an endearing smile as she ran her
fingers lovingly through his hair, but he wasn’t fooled.

Not one fucking bit.

This woman was pissed and out for
blood.

His blood.

Since she was obviously pissed and
there was absolutely no way to make her forget about the
“kidnapping,” drugging, and the hundred little things that they’d
been forced to do to her to get what they wanted, he decided to
take a different tactic, one that would put him on every Bradford’s
shit list, but was guaranteed to save his ass.

“
It was Jason’s idea,” he
said even as he sent a silent apology to the annoying bastard who’d
stuck his neck out for him.

He hated to do it, hated to fuck over
someone that he cared about so much and had gone through so much
shit to help him, but then again, what choice did he
have?

“
Really?” she said
absently, looking a little distracted and not really sounding like
she believed him as she continued to toy with a short lock of his
hair.

“
Yes,” he said firmly with
a nod as he pushed the wheels ever so slightly in the direction of
the bedroom door, praying that they’d find something, anything to
distract his wife in the kitchen before it was too late.

“
I see,” she murmured,
sounding thoughtful as he sat there, trying to resist the urge to
squirm in his chair.

“
I’m glad that you do,” he
said, swallowing hard as he tightened his grip on the wheels
and-

Oh, fuck no…

She set the brakes.

Chapter 12

“
So, you’re a victim in
all this?” she asked, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes as
he looked her in the eye, letting his bottom lip tremble and said
with heavy, tortured sigh, “Yes.”

“
I see,” she said, forced
to look away before she started laughing, because there was just
something so unbelievably cute about a large man like her husband
trying to pout his way out of trouble.

It was definitely the Bradford pout,
she thought even as she couldn’t help but compare it to Jason’s,
who’d most likely perfected the pout before he’d left the womb.
Jason could probably pout his way out of anything, but not Danny.
For some reason the large ex-marine just couldn’t pull it off. It
was adorable even if he couldn’t pull it off.

“
They
made me do it,”
he said in a mock whisper
that had her biting her lip and struggling not to laugh.
“I’ve never felt so dirty before…so
used…”

“
And this, um, ban?” she
asked, relaxing her hold around him as she settled more comfortably
on his lap as she managed to keep a straight face as she looked him
in the eye.

All humor vaporized from his
expression as he bit out, “Political bullshit meant to keep us
down.”

She couldn’t help but frown at that as
she slowly said, “From a buffet?”

“
Yes,” he said without any
hesitation.

“
And from Vegas?” she
asked, unable to hide the doubt in her voice, because really, how
did an entire family manage to get themselves banned from a
city?

“
A simple
misunderstanding,” he murmured as he looked away.

“
I see,” she said with a
frown, trying to figure out how that was even legally
possible.

“
Besides,” he said,
bringing her attention back to him and away from all the terrifying
possibilities running through her head, “it’s not
important.”

Since that ban apparently applied to
her now, she thought it was kind of important, but since it was
also something that was probably going to terrify her, she decided
that it was probably a conversation left for a later time. Right
now they had other things to focus on.

“
Okay, so how exactly would
that explain you ignoring me and refusing to touch me since you
left the hospital?” she asked, not realizing how much his
disinterest had really hurt until that moment.

He sighed heavily as he wrapped his
arms around her and hugged her for the first time in days. “The
curse,” he said unhappily as though that explained it
all.

She waited for more, a better
explanation, something that started off with, “We’re not fucking
crazy, but…”, however, nothing else followed except for a sigh of
relief that told her that he was not only done, but that a huge
weight had been lifted off his chest by telling her.

Unfortunately for her, having him wrap
all the bullshit over the last couple of days with the phrase, “The
Curse,” really wasn’t all that enlightening. It definitely didn’t
explain things like the kidnapping, the quick elopement that she
really couldn’t remember, why they were all stuck sharing the same
hotel room with his cousins and father or why he did everything
that he could to make sure that they were never within touching
distance.

On top of that they’d been forced to
flee the state like criminals, surviving on whatever stale junk
food they could find in vending machines, out of the way convenient
stores and fast food joints that should have been condemned years
ago, which sadly, she was pretty sure that a few actually had been.
When they hadn’t been scavenging for stale food to fight over,
they’d all been jam packed in a rental car that smelled like feet
and ass.

It had made the trip truly
memorable.

Not that she was ever going to forget
about the time that she got kidnapped, dragged across state lines
and came back married to a man that was apparently paranoid.
Granted, it appeared that the majority of men in his family were
paranoid, but that was a problem for another time.

Right now they needed to settle a few
things, find something to eat and hopefully sleep for the next
month without having to worry about doctor’s appointments, trying
to figure out a way to eat non-stop to appease the very demanding
babies shifting anxiously inside her, reminding her that it had
been at least an hour since the last time she’d ate, and just relax
and enjoy being in his arms without worrying about hospital staff
or his family barging in and ruining what little time they had
together.

“
Any chance that you could
explain this whole curse thing as well as the need to drug and
kidnap me to get married while we roll into the kitchen and make
pancakes?” she suggested, undecided whether or not she was going to
share the pancakes once they were done, but that really depended on
how well was he able to satisfy her curiosity.

Otherwise…

She’d probably have one cranky
Bradford on her hands, but on the bright side, she’d be pleasantly
full and ready for a nap. Grinning that sexy grin of his, he
reached down, released the brakes on his wheelchair and carefully
pushed them towards the extra wide bedroom door and down the
hallway towards the large country-style kitchen that his brothers
and cousins had designed for them.

As soon as he’d rolled them off the
polished wood floor and onto the smooth, shiny kitchen tile, she
was climbing off his lap and headed towards the cabinets, searching
for everything that she needed to make her famous fluffy buttermilk
pancakes and nearly weeping with relief when she found everything
that she needed and more.

Setting a large mixing bowl on the
kitchen island, she grabbed the eggs and a whisk and gestured for
Danny to continue, hoping that something he said would help her
make sense of this past week or at the very least make that
paranoid side of her that demanded that she say goodbye to
everything in the world she owned and make a run for it, but she
figured that she owed it to their babies for her to hear him
out.

Besides, she was starving and the
pancakes wouldn’t be done for twenty more minutes so she figured
she’d give him a chance to explain what happened before she ate all
the pancakes, grabbed her stuff and made the walk of shame back to
her father’s house where she would have to move back in, knocked up
and in need of her daddy to make everything better.