“I was never much of a jewelry person, although I do love necklaces on occasion,” she admitted.
I made another mental note—this one to get her a couple of beautiful necklace she could wear on the trip. Definitely one to go with whatever she’d picked out for the wedding. She hadn’t let me see the dress, of course, so I would just have to get a few different options and she could pick the one that best went with the dress.
Goddamn, when Liam found out how much I wanted to spoil this woman, he was going to die laughing. Jack was already wanting to die laughing at this whole thing. He thought Trudie was delightful and kept making jokes to me about adopting her as his little sister. If he found out I was planning to buy her jewelry and décor for my condo, I really would never hear the end of it.
“Shall we?” I asked, offering my arm. Yeah, yes, sure, it was a little old-fashioned of me to do that every time. But it seemed to help Trudie feel safe and cared for, and that was what mattered.
When we got to the restaurant, Liam and Alana were already at the table. Alana was a lovely woman, a courtside reporter, which was how she and Liam had met. She was one of the few people who could put Liam in his place and she hadn’t been all that impressed with him compared to his swooning fangirls, which had impressed him. Their courtship, to use another old-fashioned term, had been fucking fast if you asked me, and now, bam, he was married and the pressure had doubled for me.
Alana and Liam stood as we approached. “Well, well, well, look who decided to turn up,” Liam teased, pulling me into a hug. We were a touchy family, and he pulled Trudie into a hug immediately afterwards.
Trudie went stiff for a second, and I saw genuine terror cross her face, before she seemed to come to her senses and relax. Odd. I had noticed previously that she didn’t really touch people a lot, but she let me touch her, so it hadn’t been something I’d dwelled on too much. Hmm.
Alana and I hugged, and then she hugged Trudie. “You are stunning!” she said, taking Trudie by the shoulders to look at her. “My God, how did he ever deserve you?”
“Glad to know what you all think of me,” I grumbled as we sat down. It was only fair, though. Alana was a beautiful, statuesque blonde, whip smart, and with a kind heart. I’d made plenty of jokes to Liam about him not deserving her, back when they’d announced their relationship, so really this was just revenge.
Trudie sat down next to me, on Alana’s left side. Alana smiled at her, then glanced down—and paused. “Gee, Laird, how shotgun was this wedding, you don’t have a ring on her finger?”
I nearly smacked myself in the face. Buggering fuck, Jesus tap-dancing Christ, how had I forgotten the number one damn sign of a married couple? Rings on the left fingers.
Trudie laughed lightly. “Out for sizing,” she said with a smile, easy as anything. She seemed so relaxed. If I hadn’t known better, I never would’ve guessed that she was lying. “Laird is great at the big picture but not so much the details—I’m sure you know that,” she added with a wink to Liam. “The rings were too loose, I almost lost mine on day one. Luckily he knows I like things simple so there’s no fancy design to mess up with the resizing.”
Alana and Liam chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds like him,” Liam said. “God knows how he manages to keep running a publication with his head in the clouds.”
“Fuck you too, Liam,” I replied lightly. I knew Liam respected my work, just like I respected his.
“I have to say,” Trudie said. “I never would’ve pegged you for a basketball player. What’s that like?”
Liam was more than happy to launch into talk about his career. The man had been mad for sports ever since he was a kid. I was into the outdoors and sports, obviously, given my magazine, but I wasn’t like Liam. People thought I was crazy until they got to talk to him. Trudie kept asking prompting questions that would send Liam or Alana—or both of them, doing that thing where they would talk on top of each other and finish each other’s sentences—into another long story or explanation. It ended up so that Trudie and I barely had to talk at all.
“Clever of you,” I murmured as I leaned in so that my mouth was right by her ear. I didn’t want there to be a chance of Liam and Alana overhearing. And, well, it was an excuse to get right up close to her. I could feel the warmth radiating from her and the temptation to lean in all the way and brush my lips against that soft spot behind her ear was maddening.
“I’m good at thinking on my feet,” Trudie replied, turning her face so that she could whisper just as quietly back to me. It meant that our faces were only inches apart. It would’ve taken me next to no effort to close the space and kiss her.
Liam and Alana wouldn’t even have minded. They would’ve expected something like that from a newly married couple. But I hadn’t really discussed PDA with Trudie. Would she appreciate it? And I wouldn’t be doing it to sell the bit—I’d be doing it just because I wanted to. And that wouldn’t be fair.
“So,” Alana said, smiling. “Tell me how you two met?”
Here we went. This was the one thing we had definitely planned for. “I saw this lovely barista every morning when I walked through the coffee shop on the way to work,” I said. “And I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to know more about her. I even ordered a bunch of coffee that I didn’t drink, just so that I could say hi to her and get to know her a bit.”
“He was so abrupt when he asked me out,” Trudie said with a laugh. “I only learned later it was because he was so nervous.”
That was kind of true, actually. I had been rather abrupt in just asking her to be my fake wife. “I think that she thought I was stark raving mad at first, but her manager knows me and explained that I’m just hopeless when it comes to women.”
“And he’s so kind,” Trudie added. “Laird, I mean, not—well my manager is also a good person, don’t worry, but I meant Laird. When I got to actually talk with him and saw how sweet he was, how thoughtful, I was surprised but… in a good way. I wanted to spend all of my time with him.”
“Lucky for me, because I was smitten,” I said, and as I spoke I realized that I wasn’t lying. I was completely, one hundred percent fucking smitten for this woman.
Trudie smiled at me, and it hurt that she was so good an actress, that she was able to make herself look at me with such warmth that I almost believed it could be real. It certainly looked real enough. Could she tell that I was genuine when I looked at her and told her that I was smitten for her? Could she tell by the way that I talked to her that I was a goner?
I hadn’t really ever been seriously in love before. I’d had a lot of infatuations over the years, but nothing had really come out of any of them. I had briefly dated a few people but no one in the last few years—which explained why my family was all jumping down my throat.
Nobody had ever been like Trudie. No wonder it had taken me until now to realize just how far gone I was.
“You two are just so adorable,” Liam said, “I could puke.”
“Hey, you need to put up with it. I put up with you and Alana doing your cute couple thing for months.”
“We did rather rush into things,” Alana said, “from most people’s perspectives.”
“I think that if you were really solid on what you wanted, then there’s no point in waiting,” Trudie replied. “I do wish some people would wait. I see a lot of people get married too young, or before they’re ready, or because they feel like they have to. Which makes me sad. Marriage is something that should be joyful, not something you feel obligated to do or something that becomes sour because you weren’t really ready but didn’t listen to that part of you. But when you do know… you should go for it. What’s stopping you?”
“Exactly.” Alana grinned and nudged Liam. “See, she gets it!”
“Our parents are glad that we’re married, but they worried it was a bit rushed,” Liam explained. “I’m very impulsive so I think they were afraid that I’d regret the decision later on, even though Alana’s a great person.”
> “I’m glad to see they were wrong,” Trudie said. “And I’m sure your parents are, too.”
“My mom’s never been happier to be proven wrong in her life,” Liam promised, chuckling. “Anyway I’m glad to see that some of my impulsiveness has rubbed off on this wanker here. You two seem good for each other.”
“Oh.” Trudie blushed. “I’m so glad… you have no idea how nervous I’ve been about meeting you all. Laird’s family, I mean. We’re going to see them all for the first time at the wedding and everyone’s been warning me that your family is a handful.”
“It’s because they are,” I grumbled.
Liam laughed. “Well, you don’t have anything to worry about. You seem like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Which is usually more than I can say for this guy here.” He jerked his thumb at me.
“You’re a fucking laugh riot, Liam, you missed your bloody calling as a comedian.”
“Tell me more about what you do, Alana,” Trudie said, deftly changing the subject. “How did that lead to you two meeting? What was your first date like?”
Like all people in love, Alana was more than happy to talk about her job as a reporter on the court, and how that had led to her interviewing Liam a few times, how sparks had flown, and so on. I exhaled slowly in relief. We had most of our cover story down pat but it was hard to play at being in love with Trudie when I was dangerously close to being that way in real life.
The rest of the dinner passed amicably. I noticed, however, that Trudie was doing an excellent job of dodging questions about her past life. Her family, where she grew up, all of that—none of it was mentioned for one reason or another. She kept finding ways to turn the conversation back to being about Liam and Alana, or even about me.
“You’ve probably heard all of his crazy stories already,” Alana said to her at one point as I was talking about a problem we’d had with the magazine once, leading to all of my team pulling an all-nighter as we rushed to redo everything.
“You’d be surprised,” Trudie replied. “He has a lot of crazy stories. And I don’t mind hearing them again.”
It was, once more, a bloody excellent cover. Trudie hadn’t heard this story before. In fact despite all our attempts to try and come up with as much information as we could about each other, she still hadn’t heard a lot about all of my life. How could she possibly, in so short a time? That was why we’d had the lists.
Luckily, Trudie did happen to have some fun stories of her own from work in the coffee shop, so I didn’t think that anyone noticed that she was avoiding talking about the rest of her life.
“We have got to make this a regular thing,” Alana said as we wrapped up the dinner. Liam insisted on paying, and I could see Trudie forcibly restraining herself from thanking him over and over again. If she was my wife, then she’d be used to having money to pay for things and this wasn’t about money, this was about myself and my brother taking turns and being generous with each other.
“Of course,” Liam said. “I’m chuffed we got to meet you, Trudie, it’s clear that you’re a great match for my brother. I couldn’t be happier with his choice.”
Trudie blushed and when Liam hugged her, she hugged him back, not stiff at all but completely relaxed. “Thank you so much.”
Liam hugged me next. “You hold onto that one,” he told me. “She’s the best thing I’ve seen happen to you in a long time.”
It hadn’t occurred to me, until that moment, that my family might be genuinely worried about me. “Wait. Were you guys really worried about me all this time?”
Liam nodded. “Maybe Mum and Dad shouldn’t have been pushing you about marriage so much, but you’ve been barely going out with your friends the last couple of years. People have asked about you. People say you’re a workaholic.”
I tried to think back to the last time I actually went out to a party or something, a social gathering that wasn’t explicitly for work, and I couldn’t remember. Wow. I hadn’t even realized.
“But Trudie looks like she’s got a good head on her shoulders. And you’ve been taking time to relax around her. All those outings you’re doing…” Liam nodded. “It makes me glad. She stops you from being all about work and that’s great.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” I looked over at Trudie, who was saying goodbye to Alana. “Shall we?” I offered her my arm, as usual.
Trudie took it without even looking, just automatically reaching out and sliding her arm around mine. “It was really wonderful, thank you both.”
Liam and Alana waved goodbye, strolling off hand in hand, and I couldn’t stop myself from staring at Trudie. I wanted her so badly, cared about her so deeply, and apparently, she was also good for me? She was someone that my brother felt I should keep in my life.
I couldn’t stop myself. Everything that had been building in me this entire time, ever since I had met Trudie, was starting to spill over. We were on the street, right outside the restaurant—a very swanky restaurant, might I add, crowded with people—but I wasn’t thinking about any of that. Madness had possessed me and before I could think about any of the many reasons why it was a bad idea, I gently wrapped my arm around Trudie’s waist and turned her so that we were pressed up together, chest to chest.
“Laird?” she asked, looking up at me with a bit of confusion. Confusion, but no fear. She wasn’t scared of me. She trusted me.
I pulled Trudie in and I kissed her.
13
Trudie
I gasped as Laird pulled me in, confused about what he was doing. He had an odd look on his face, one that I had never seen before. It was thoughtful, but concentrated, and it sent heat through me, made me shiver. Even though I’d never seen that look before, I wanted to see it again, and again, whenever he looked at me. It was like being pinned down, a butterfly against a wall, but in a good way.
Then he wrapped his hand around the back of my head and pulled me in, kissing me.
Laird didn’t kiss at all the way that I expected. I would’ve thought that he would be gentle, and soft, like the rest of his personality. Instead he was confident and in charge, sucking on my tongue, drawing out little gasps and whimpers from me.
I had never been kissed so thoroughly before. Laird clearly knew what he was doing, and he was kissing me like he wanted to take me apart and make me melt right into the concrete. I unwound my arm from around his and got one hand in his shoulder, the other clinging to the front of his shirt in a fist. It was all that I could do to hold on as he nipped at my lips, teasing me with his tongue, darting it in just the barest bit and then pulling away again to give me slow, sucking kisses that had me wanting more.
My entire body was heating up and I could feel myself getting wet, slick sliding down and soaking my underwear. I hadn’t wanted a man like this in years, and perhaps never so badly as this.
Someone wolf whistled at us, but Laird didn’t pull away. If anything, he tugged me closer, sliding his tongue into my mouth properly, and I made a helpless noise that I couldn’t even properly name, one that I’d certainly never made before. Fuck, this felt so good, I could only hang on for the ride.
Laird finally pulled back and I gasped, my knees feeling numb, like they might give out on me at any moment. For all of his possessive kisses, Laird’s eyes were still soft and warm when he looked at me. Had anyone ever looked at me with such softness? I couldn’t remember. I felt so safe with him, so cared for, knowing instinctively that I wasn’t just a one night stand to him, and that he wasn’t going to hurt me the way that Pete had. Laird wasn’t anything like Pete.
“I’ve wanted to do that almost since the moment I first saw you,” he admitted, his voice low. His hand shifted to cup my cheek, his thumb lightly swiping at the corner of my mouth. I realized, with a bit of a start, that Laird looked nervous. “Tell me I haven’t ruined everything. That I haven’t… messed everything up, doing this.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, you haven’t. I… I wanted this.”
We
weren’t married, but it looked like the part where we were only pretending to be sexually involved was out the window. I wanted him so badly, more than I had wanted anyone in my life. I felt like I could trust him to take care of me, to make me feel good, and I wanted to surrender myself to him. To feel him inside of me, drawing my pleasure out until I forgot everything except his name.
“I want you,” Laird confessed, his accent getting a little thicker, and it made me shiver with even more heat. I loved hearing his accent, his voice. It didn’t even matter what he was saying so long as I got to hear it.
“Then take me home,” I whispered. I had never been so bold in my life before. Men had always come onto me, strongly. All I had to do was say yes. I had never been the one to do the asking. “If you want me, you have me.”
Laird’s face lit up, almost like a Christmas tree, and I giggled a little, overwhelmed at the idea that I could make someone so happy simply by saying something like that. Did he truly like me that much, care about me that much? It was an overwhelming possibility, but in the best of ways, a good way. Pete had often overwhelmed me but in a way that had made me feel small, powerless, a way that felt like I was choking.
Now it was more like I just couldn’t handle how happy I felt. I had never let myself think that Laird could like me the way that I had found I was starting to like him. How could he, when he could have any woman that he wanted? Even if he was shy around them, even if he did stumble, he could still do better than my messy ass. He could still find someone who didn’t have a past she was running from, someone who was more interesting, better educated—someone who better suited him.
But whether or not I suited him better, at least on paper, didn’t seem to matter to Laird. He wanted me. He wanted me. And I wasn’t going to step back and say no, not when I also wanted him.
Laird kissed me again, this time softly, sweetly, more like how I had imagined he would kiss when I had dared to let myself think about it. “Then let me take you home.”
Forbidden First Times: A Contemporary Romance Collection Page 27