Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step. Liz Talley

of themselves. Do you want me to try to make them ashamed? Because I will,” he promised. He could shame sweet, little old ladies for Jane.

      “I don’t think you could. I don’t think anyone could. I don’t think they have any shame. They never have!”

      He hated asking. Really, he did, but he figured he had to know, because he was still afraid Leo had something to do with this. “So…Jane…what happened, exactly? To make you so upset today.”

      She looked too embarrassed to tell him.

      This was going to be bad. Really bad.

      “It was about…picking and choosing,” she said finally. “Or…actually…not picking and choosing. Leo not having to pick between them, because…well, first, Gram said he had chosen her and that he was going to tell Gladdy everything.

      But he didn’t, and when I tried to tell Gladdy instead, she said maybe he would choose, but maybe he wouldn’t have to.”

      Wyatt shook his head. “Because Gladdy doesn’t want him anymore?”

      “No, because Gram and Gladdy might…share.”

      Wyatt figured he must not have heard her right. Or understood.

      “Share…?” And then he got it. No, surely he hadn’t gotten it. “Share…Leo?”

      Jane nodded, looking truly horrified.

      Yeah, this was bad.

      “You mean.” Wyatt had really disturbing pictures of sharing in his mind. “Take turns with him? One gets him one night and another…the other? Like on a schedule or something?”

      “I don’t know,” Jane cried, looking pitiful and sad again.

      “Like they’d really put up with him going from one bed to the other?”

      Jane pressed her hands over her ears. “I don’t know! I really don’t want to know!”

      “God, neither do I,” Wyatt agreed. “That man’s eighty-six! Something like this could kill him.”

      “I would think so!” Jane whimpered.

      “Your aunt really said something about her and your Gram…sharing Leo?” Wyatt couldn’t quite take it in.

      Jane nodded. “She said it wouldn’t be the first time!”

      “With…they’ve already…shared Leo?” Oh, please, don’t let it be that, Wyatt thought. He couldn’t take it. It was too much.

      “No. It was another man. Years ago. During the war. I’m not even sure which war. I was too horrified to ask. But apparently, there was a war on, men were scarce and they were lonely. This man showed up and they liked him, but they didn’t love him or anything like that, and he stayed around for a while, and they…shared. It worked, Gladdy said. Got them all through a difficult time, and. I don’t know. That’s what she said.”

      “Damn, the women in your family are just full of surprises,” Wyatt said.

      Jane nodded, then started whimpering again. “Sharing? I mean, is this what modern women are putting up with these days, and calling it a sex life?”

      “Not the ones I know,” Wyatt assured her.

      “Either that or. I mean, don’t tell me that he’s not going back and forth, because they’re all. You don’t think they’re all in that bed together, do you?” she cried, tears falling once again. “Surely that’s not what they meant!”

      Wyatt shook his head. “No way. Not at eighty-six—”

      “Even with drugs?”

      “I don’t think any drug is that good,” he tried to reassure her.

      “Because I would never do that, Wyatt. No way. If that means I’m a prude, so be it. I’ll be a prude. But I just can’t do that.”

      “I promise, you don’t have to do that.” He would never ask her to share, or to take part in any kind of sharing, except the one-man, one-woman kind of sharing. Jane would be plenty enough woman for him, he decided.

      “I just.” She sniffed, looking thoroughly defeated. “I’m not the most…adventurous woman. I know that. I’m cautious. I’m careful. I admit that, but I’m not some kind of sexual dinosaur, either! At least, I didn’t think so. Until now.”

      “Oh, Jane. I’m so sorry,” he said, tucking her head to his chest once again. Poor thing. She was just overwhelmed by the hijinks of three sexually adventurous, eighty-something-year-olds.

      Who wouldn’t be?

      Wyatt let her cry a bit longer, rubbing her back, stroking her hair, trying to be a gentleman, promising that this would be okay somehow.

      He really hated to see her this upset, especially about that ugly word—prude. He was fairly certain she wasn’t a prude. And even if she did have some…prudish tendencies, he was sure he could fix those, that they couldn’t withstand the kind of effort Wyatt Gray was willing to put forth on her behalf.

      An effort he was eager to extend for Jane.

      He just wasn’t sure if she’d be happy about that or call him names in return, and he was seldom so uncertain with any woman. But this was Jane, and Jane was different. He tried patience, more soothing, more gentlemanly behavior, and then, when he wasn’t sure he could stand it any longer, she finally stopped crying.

      And then, finally, he kissed her.

       Chapter Eight

      One minute, Jane was devastated, thinking she was a prude and just unable to get the image of all that sharing out of her mind, and the next, she was lying flat on her back on the couch with Wyatt stretched on top of her, kissing her.

      Not grabbing her, mauling her, rushing her. Just kissing her. Lazily, luxuriously, longingly. Jane wasn’t sure she’d ever been kissed like that before.

      He tasted like cinnamon and coffee. Sweet. A wicked little zing that rattled around her whole body from head to toe. His lips were the softest things she’d ever felt and he smelled glorious, and the weight of his big, hard body on top of hers, the heat, the power.

      Jane did not feel like a prude at all.

      She did exactly what she wanted to in that moment—something she had seldom wanted to do in her life with a man. She opened herself to him completely, throwing herself into the moment, kissing him back, feeling her heart pound and her body go limp. He had a hand in her hair, tearing it down from what was left of her hairdo after her tangle with the bush. He freed her hair and then stroked through it, holding the side of her face in one hand, nuzzling his nose against her ear. Then his mouth found the sensitive hollow of her throat, her neck.

      She arched against him, heard him groan, thought about how she could just happily dissolve into a puddle in his arms, and let him do whatever he wanted to with her. Just like that.

      His mouth came back to hers, and she felt his thrusting tongue. Jane thought about taking him into her body in another way. Heat pooled between her legs. A pulse throbbed. He wanted her, too. His body told her so as he rocked gently against her.

      It was as if every sexual thought Jane had ever had came roaring to life, right here in this room, on Wyatt’s couch.

      “I am not a prude,” she said proudly.

      He lifted his head a fraction of an inch, grinned down at her. “No, you most certainly are not.”

      He started kissing her again.

      It felt glorious, sweet and wicked at the same time, overwhelming.

      And then Jane remembered—they were in Wyatt’s office, in the middle of the afternoon. His secretary was coming back to give Jane first aid for her skirmish with the bush at Remington Park.