It sat on my floor, pages bent underneath it's own weight, until this very moment. And I'm the girl who yells at people who crack the spine of my paperbacks and dogears my pages.
Yeah.
The Virgin Bride said, "Wow!"
Chapter Four
Our insipid hero waltzes into the master bedroom, where Kelsey is brushing her teeth. They talk boringly about their situation, and Brady tells her that they could have offered to put off their wedding night. I don't see how that would have made the situation better, since obviously Dani and Beau wouldn't have left, but whatever. I just read the damn thing.
Kelsey takes the opportunity to remind Brady that their wedding night will never happen. Brady is a dick and starts brushing his teeth in such a way that Kelsey can't get by him to get out the bathroom door. At this point I'd wet a towel and snap it at his manly bits, but I think I've shown numerous times in the previous three chapters that Kelsey is unable to do anything intelligent ever.
They talk more about Kelsey's sisters and how she's not competing with them (that is a lie). There's more hemming and hawing and it's revealed the Kelsey is settling! Awww. She could settle for a lot better than Brady, even with her stupidity, just sayin'.
The two get in bed, still talking about their marriage because, well, what else would you talk about in this situation? Kelsey explains that they have to sleep in the same room, otherwise Dani would tell Wade that their marriage was fake and they'd lose the ranch. Seriously, I am SO BORED with this that I honestly have nothing worthwhile to quote yet.
Brady whines about the bed being small. Once again, if I were Kelsey, I'd tell him he'd be welcome to sleep on the floor if that's how he felt about it.
Oooh, quote time.
"It's a double." It should sleep two.
"Which would be fine for me alone," Brady conceded, sighing and staring at the ceiling again, "but with you in here...it's going to be awfully darn hard to sleep here without touching each other."
OMG COOTIES.
Kelsey gets another one of her ridiculously stupid ideas, plucked right from the movie Easy A, which came out like nine years after this book was published. I would say I wasn't above accusing Cathy Gillen Thacker of time travel, except this concept isn't entirely original even in Easy A or Virgin Bride.
She decides to get rid of Dani and Beau by... PRETENDING TO HAVE LOUD RAUCOUS SEX. This scene was literally painful to read. Litrally. It gave me a headache and everything. Also nausea. But that might be my Crohn's, so who knows.
Kelsey raised her knees beneath the covers, braced her arms on either side of her, and began to rock back and forth suggestively "Let's see how loud we can get this bed to squeak."
How about not?
Brady once again proves he's the slightly smarter one of the pair, and is properly horrified. However, he isn't horrified enough to not notice the tantalizing warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips.
"No." The flush in Kelsey's cheeks increased and the soft edges of her lips curled merrily (C: wtf are the soft edges of your lips, anyway? The CORNERS? the LIPLINE? Can anyone help me out here?). "Actually, if you want to know the truth-" she paused and waggled her eyebrows at him teasingly "-when it comes to bright ideas, I'm 'in the zone' today."
Kelsey, if you mean "totally ridiculously childish and moronic and tempting Catherine's patience and wrath (which you DO NOT WANT TO TEMPT... ask my brother)" then sure, you are so in the zone. You go, Glen Coco.
Brady is having a hard time controlling his sexual urges, because he's in a constant state of arousal (he still hasn't had his priaprism checked out. for those of you who are concerned about the state of Brady's manroot). He also doesn't agree with Kelsey, and she tells him that it would make sense if he thought about it.
Sweetie-pants, I've thought about it more than probably anyone else in the universe would want to, and trust me, you make as much sense as non-alcoholic beer.
I totally just stopped reading and reviewing to watch How I Met Your Mother (the episode with "Sandcastles in the Sand") with my brother. I wanted to watch another episode to delay the inevitable, but sadly, my duty lies here. Or... I got cold and the dog was passing some wicked gas. Yeah.
More talky talk about Dani and Beau and them being there, and really, how much can they talk about this?! Kelsey explains her reasoning, which is nonsensical and simply a rehash of everything they've said before, and begins moaning. Brady is turned on. She begins to rock back and forth again, and I feel dirty just reading this scene. I'd probably feel less dirty reading an actual sex scene, which says something.
For a virgin, she was remarkably adept at simulating the sounds of lovemaking. Too adept for Brady's comfort. The hard-on he'd had earlier sprang back to life with near painful consequences. He knew much more of this and they'd both have reason to regret her impetuousness. She thought she'd been shocked before...
- Kelsey probably has either watched a prono, or even an R rated flick with a hot and heavy sex scene .Not that difficult to figure out, Brady.
- Brady's priaprism went away!
- And came back with a vengeance
- And will shock Kelsey with it's engorgenedness.
Kelsey threw her head back against the pillows, exposing the long slender column of her throat and, beneath the scooped neckline of her undershirt, the tempting uppermost curves of her breast and the jutting imprints of her nipples. Shutting her eyes, she rocked all the harder and moaned again, even louder.
Is it really necessary to act like a slut when no one can see it? Yeesh.
Brady can hear Dani and Beau moving into the hallway, because they're dirty, dirty eavesdropping voyeurs. And even though I can think of thirteen alternate ways, Brady realizes there's only one way to shut her up. And that's by climbing on top of her and delivering a "traffic-stopping kiss." Great descriptor, there, Thacker. Since they're in a bedroom and all.
Kelsey, the little vixen she is, melts into the kiss instead of stiffening up in shock. Because being attacked by some guy that you're certain you're not having sex with is just sexy, guise!
His body ignited. And so did his soul.
I laughed so hard at this. First of all, dowse the horndog with water. Second of all, really? His soul ignited? Getting past the laughable idea of a man thinking this in the first place, what does that even mean?
Kelsey had known, after the way she had panicked earlier, that Brady expected her to fight him off. Which was, precisely, why she hadn't. She didn't want him thinking he could second-guess her, when the truth was, he just couldn't.
Thacker, step away from the commas. Kelsey, stfu. You just want to make out with Brady and you know it. Which she does, as she explains in further inner monologue. Lots of fiery kisses and talking about climaxing for the first time in her life. Now, I know a lot of people read erotica and romance for the sex scenes, but here's the thing. I don't. Unless they're as laughably bad as in The Pleasure Chest. I really don't want to hear about someone's sex life. And thus the crux of a lot of my problems with the romance genre. I acknowledge this and recognize it as a failing to be impartial in my reviewing of romances.
But whoever said I was going to be impartial?
Kelsey is frustrated that she's so old and doesn't know what the fuss is about sex. Um. Sweetie-pants, get over yourself, seriously. Sex is everywhere, all the time, every time. You've even experienced yourself how pants-wettingly awesome Brady's kisses are. Maybe you should use that brain you might possibly have to figure this out.
Wait, what am I saying? Kelsey doesn't have a brain. Just a few mothballs rolling around in her noggin.
Brady tastes hot, male, and forbidden. Hot is discerned by one's sense of touch, not one's sense of taste. I have no idea what male tastes like, and believe me, I don't want to know. I assume forbidden tastes like deep fried oreos, but I've only had deep fried twinkies so I cannot attest to this.
Hey, I'd make out with a guy if he tasted like plain oreos, so there you go.
Kelsey decides she's not afraid, and right then, Brady stops his assault.
Brady's all upset, and berates Kelsey by saying he told her they weren't going to do this anymore. You're the one who sexually assaulted her, dumbass.
Brady wants to go take a shower, for obvious reasons, but Kelsey said the others would hear it (I don't know why they wouldn't assume it's post-coital, but apparently they would immediately know it's a cold, cold shower up in this bitch). Kelsey very unhelpfully suggests that she could go with him and they could make more sex noises. Kelsey actually says in her inner monologue that it's a brilliant suggestion.
Not only is Kelsey as dumb as a clod of dried up play doh (that weird color that happens when you mix up colors, which my mother never let me do), she's got some hubris going on there.
Brady's all hot and bothered, but he decides to stay in the tiny bed with Kelsey instead of, oh, I don't know, SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR. He orders Kelsey to stay on her side of the bed (at that point, I'd sleep on the floor myself, but... once again I am not in this novel).
Kelsey begrudgingly follows orders and starts thinking about what might have happened if she didn't chicken out when the author is all like OMG NEXT MORNING. I hate that. I do it sometimes in my own writing, but I acknowledge that it's clumsy. Yeesh. Brady is gone, but there are people moving around downstairs so she pulls on a robe and goes to check out the situation.
Brady is cooking for Dani and Beau, and Kelsey realizes that he does, in fact, own the place. Because this is 1870 and all a woman's property goes to a man upon marriage. Yikes. Kelsey's mad that Brady acts as if nothing had happened the night before. Dani and Beau are right there, did she expect him to act like he had blue balls or something? She wanted him to act like newlyweds, and now she's angry he's not acting upset or whatever.
Beau makes some small talk about location shots for a movie (remember? Beau's a MOVIE STAR). Kelsey feels like a fool (go with the feeling) because she never thought of renting out the ranch for movies! Kelsey, that is not a reason to feel like a fool. Not a lot of people would think of that, even if their brother-in-law was a movie star. Besides, this is in Texas, and most ranches that are used for movies are in fact, in California. Now if she was in California and felt like a fool, then I would be okay with that.
Breakfast continues, and Beau announces their plumbing will be fixed that day. Apparently, the bought the fake sex noises thing and are clearing out. When they leave, Kelsey asks Brady what she told them. And he says some bullshit about how he would never hurt her. Now, he may feel that way, but so far all I've gotten from Brady is that he wants to have hot lovin' with Kelsey and not much else. Bravo, Brady, way to make me believe you actually care about anything but your priaprism.
Then he goes on and implies that he wants the marriage to work, that what they have is important. I'm getting whiplash from all the sudden changes of opinion (but Beau does want to have hot lovin' with Kelsey and we all know he thinks with his manroot). Kelsey agrees, and so they decide that since they have ill-gotten funds, they decide to go buy some stock and riding tack.
Kelsey decides she could get used to taking meals with Brady, and sleeping with him even though he won't have sex with her. Beating a dead horse, but this is so annoying. These two do a lot of not thinking about kisses and sexy bodies, so much that I really wish they would do it so I wouldn't have to hear about how amazing the other one is. It's really dull, and not written in an engaging way. Even with my most hardcore crushes/puppy love stages of relationships, I didn't sit there eating pancakes and fantasizing ad nauseum about how a guy kissed and how I wanted his body while trying to talk business. Actually, most of my fantasizing tends to be emotional, so maybe that's just me and my own quirks.
Brady talks more business, and Kelsey is lost in how gorgeous he is, and how he resembles an outlaw. Maybe I'm just used to more straight up fiction, but is this type of endless commentary on one's looks common in romance novels? I don't even think the Pleasure Chest had this much (outside of Stede's silken stubble), and that novel was rife with sex scene after sex scene.
In any case, Kelsey realizes her thoughts are due to them being married, which does make a bit of sense. Married people have sex, and she's married to Brady.
She'd been married to Brady less than a day, and already she could feel herself changing--for the better.
Nope. Still no sign of intelligent life in that dome of hers.
With Brady rounding out this chapter with more business talky talk, we come to Chapter 4's anticlimactic end.
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