"promises are meant to be broken."

"not this one."

a challenge? she loved a challenge. keely would do everything in her power to make him eat his words-preferably while he was eating her.

smirking, she tucked the garter in the front pocket of his tux jacket. "if you change your mind, all you've gotta do is wave the white garter and surrender to me."

"not happening."

she shrugged. "we'll see. now scram so i can get dressed and we can get out of here."

three hours later jack was this goddamn close to saying fuck it, pulling off to the side of the road in nowhere wyoming and fucking keely until she couldn't walk.

it figured his ornery cowgirl couldn't just sit back and accept that he wanted to wait. no, she'd decided to turn it into a game of make jack sweat. within ten miles of driving away from the wedding reception, she'd offered to give him a handjob.

he'd declined.

then she'd offered to give him a blowjob.

he'd declined.

then she'd asked if he minded if she took the edge off herself by masturbating.

he minded. a lot. he said as much.

but she'd just laughed, slipped her fingers beneath her sundress and proceeded to get herself off.

twice.

god. if he didn't have any willpower now, how was he supposed to survive the next eleven hours?

"what are you thinking about?" she prompted.

as if the vixen didn't know. "how absolutely exquisite you looked today. how lucky i am. how happy i am that you married me." jack lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. "what are you thinking about?" she opened her mouth and he warned, "besides sex."

"i've actually been thinking about my dad's wedding gift. it was a shock." her frown morphed into a sneaky smile that never boded well for him. "but then again, he did give us the section of land that's closest to their house."

jack groaned. "i knew there had to be a catch."

"it'll be handy to have grandpa and gran-gran so close when we have kids." she paused. "how many times did you get asked during the reception when we're gonna start a family?"

"i lost track after seventy."

keely laughed. "i rather liked seein' you skirting the issue, jack. but as long as we've got time to kill, maybe we ought talk about kidlets. since it's something we haven't discussed."

the last two months since they'd set the wedding date had been a whirlwind. opening keely's clinic, setting up his office space in her building, meeting with his clients across the country to explain he was only changing his physical address, not the nature of his consulting business. he and keely had been apart more than either of them liked, which was why they needed these two weeks alone.

"okay."

"i'm thinkin' i'll want seven kids."

he nearly wrecked the car, his head whipped around so fast. "seven? are you fucking serious?"

"yep. that's only one more than cam and domini have, and they're doin' fine."

"their house and their lives are a goddamn zoo, keely." when she smirked, he realized he'd been had. "very funny."

"but i do think we could handle six."

"no way."

"fine. how many do you want?" she demanded.

"two."

"two? that's it? i already feel bad for our two poor babies, practically raised alone." she made the most pitiful-sounding sigh.

jack rolled his eyes. "last time i checked there were almost twenty-seven mckay and west cousins for jack junior and little keely to play with. that's plenty."

"fine. five kids."

"nope. but i'd agree to three."

"four."

"we'll see." four ankle biters sounded good to him, but he had to keep some negotiating power with his wife.

his wife who'd gotten very quiet all of a sudden.

"keely? you okay?"

her hand tightened around his. "just thinking. as much as i wanna have a ton of kids with you, not right away, okay? i want you all to myself for a while first."

keely's sweetness always surprised him, always moved him, always humbled him. "deal."

"but i definitely think we should get lots of baby-making practice in. starting now."

"you aren't going to give this up, are you?"

"not until you give in."

"i will gladly give in to you as soon as we hit the villa. until then-"

"until then you're giving me an excuse to relive my most memorable sexual encounters. great idea."

keely's eyes took on an unholy gleam before she looked away.

the car went silent. except for her occasional sighs.

sighs he recognized.

this was driving him fucking insane. which sexual encounters was she reliving? she'd better not be thinking about any man other than him. ever.

"you do make such a sexy sounding rumble when you're jealous, jack. it's cute."

"cute?" his hands tightened on the steering wheel. "fuck that. i'm not cute."

"true. you're definitely too hot to merely be cute." keely peeled his fingers free from the steering wheel and clasped his hand in hers, setting their joined hands on her lap. "and so you know, husband, i was thinking of you, because i completely forgot every man after the first time you touched me."

"such a silver-tongued cowgirl." jack relaxed because she knew just how to soothe him. "what memory were you reliving?" so much for his insistence they forgo discussions about sex.

"the one after our fake engagement party. when you just..." she sighed. "you rocked my world, gq."

it'd been a hard and fast encounter, as they'd both been drunk on the lust that'd shimmered between them for eleven years. lust that'd finally hit the boiling point. he'd taken her on the floor of her apartment, which yeah, the i-need-you-right-fucking-now feeling was hot as hell, pinning her to the carpet and fucking her brains out. although, he still held some regret that's how their first time together had played out.

is that why you're so insistent on doing this differently?

"and then i got to thinking about how we christened my office at the clinic."

an image of keely, stripped naked and spread out on the top of her desk, flashed in his mind. that'd been a hot tryst, mostly because it was so unexpected. his cowgirl certainly liked to mix things up. he murmured, "and then we christened my office." as soon as they'd caught their breath, she'd crooked her finger and led them to his office, where she'd draped herself over his drafting table and he'd nailed her from behind. then they'd gone at it in the conference room.

dammit. now he was getting hard.

he glanced at her and realized while he'd been reliving the jack and keely sex show, she'd dropped their joined hands between her legs and was covertly rubbing his hand right where she wanted it. he stiffened his fingers and slid them free of her grasp. "nice try."

"but we were sharing, jack. connecting."

"you are trying to connect my fingers with something, all right," he said dryly.

keely let loose the deep throaty laughter that made him think of slamming body parts and sweat-soaked sheets.

damn her. he was still getting hard.

"but you know which one of our many, many, many, many times of getting down and dirty sticks out in my mind?"

jack had gotten stuck on the many, many, many, many times portion of her question. "ah. no, but i'm sure you'll tell me. in detail. in explicit detail."

"last month. when you'd been gone for three weeks. i heard you running up the stairs to the apartment. you dropped everything you were carrying in front of the door and kissed me, such a deliciously long, slow kiss. then you whispered, 'i love you' and took me to bed. and we stayed in bed the entire day. twenty-four whole hours of mad, passionate love, wrapped together, napping, only to wake up and go at it again. it was amazing."

"i agree. it was amazing."

she fell silent, which surprised him. but he didn't push it. then she said, "lemme see your left hand."

"why?"

"i just have this need to look at your wedding band, so i know this isn't some kind of dream and we really are married."

"seems surreal, doesn't it?" jack held his hand across the console.

keely turned the ring on his finger. "will it take some time for you to get used to wearing it?"

"i'm already used to it. it's never coming off."

she smiled. "so you like it?"

that she'd managed to keep the design and style of his wedding band a secret from him was a miracle for her, his little hater of secrets. "it's perfect. why?"

"i thought it might bother you i didn't try to match them."

the wide band wasn't too feminine or too plain. it wasn't white gold like hers, but platinum. "keely. i love it. it shows how different we are but how well we fit together."

"well, that's a relief."

jack's thumb swept across her new wedding band, comprised of diamonds and sapphires, nestled beneath her eleven-karat diamond engagement ring. "do you like yours?"

"it's really flashy, so of course i adore it."

"the sapphires reminded me of your eyes."

"such a flatterer, but don't stop. you could start talking about my other physical attributes. i could strip nekkid if you need a reminder of what my body looks like without such constricting clothing."

jack laughed. "nice try."

comfortable silence fell between them for several miles. then she yawned.