by Alexis Angel
I can see her temper boiling just beneath the surface, ready to break. But she’s a smart girl. She’ll put two and two together…eventually.
“You know what I think, Elsa?”
“I’m all ears.”
“I think you two have been playing us. All of us—the public. Your shareholders. The lot. I think you’ve been dealing with dirty fucking laundry, Elsa—and I think it’s all going to blow up in your face. Soon.”
It’s shitty of me, but I can’t help it. I just smile back at her.
“You’re not wrong,” I admit. “But you’re not exactly right, either. By all means, Lis. Keep digging. Just know that my laundry may be dirty, but my conscience is completely fucking clean.”
I leave her with that—because I wasn’t kidding about the mommy yoga thing. If I don’t get there in time, that bitch Patricia Kirkland-Sterling will take my spot.
“Elsa!” Lis calls after me.
I sigh, turn and raise an eyebrow at her.
What can I say? I’m in a good mood today. I’ll let her get in one more.
“Are you going to do it?” Lis asks. “Tanner. The wedding. He says he’s waiting for you…are you going to show up?”
I laugh—the deep, hard kind that makes me feel like the baby’s little feet are fluttering inside me.
“I’m not doing your job for you, Lis. You want to dig through dirty laundry, you should be prepared to get your hands dirty, too.”
Chapter 32
Tanner
The wedding bells are ringing in the cathedral overhead, and the smell of freshly-cut roses is in the air. I’ve donned my finest tux and my best bow-tie—now, all I’m waiting for is my blushing bride.
But Elsa Blakely doesn’t blush.
In fact, as of right now, Elsa Blakely still isn’t here.
Part of me is so sure she’s going to show; I’d bet all twelve inches of my cock on it.
Another part of me—a part significantly smaller than my massive fucking cock, for the record—worries.
Maybe she really is done with me this time.
Maybe she won’t show up at all.
If she doesn’t, all these fucking people are going to be pretty damn pissed. It takes a lot of clout to get an invite to the Sharpe-Blakely wedding—and I would know, considering that I addressed most of the invitations myself.
I wanted these people to see that I had invited them with my own handwriting, had taken time out of my busy day to put their names on the envelopes in ink.
Maybe then, they’d get the message, you know? My time is worth three million dollars a minute, and I chose to spend it putting my high school calligraphy classes to use while addressing wedding invitations.
It might not say a lot to some, but to these people? These fat cats and industry giants?
It says more than you’d think.
This isn’t a fucking game for me anymore—and I’m here to prove it.
I want Elsa Blakely to be my wife, and if she stands me up...
Well, there are worse ways to spend a Saturday, I guess.
Fucking Elsa. I haven’t seen her since that glorious fucking fight.
My only communication with her has been through Lis fucking Langley. Anything else was out of the question, for reasons I’m not exactly at liberty to expose quite yet.
I’m pacing outside of the church—confident, but not over confident. I know only too well what a hard woman Elsa Blakely is to pin down. So, I’m not about to go counting anything a sure win until I see her on the other end of the aisle before me, all dolled up and dressed in white.
“Nervous, Sharpe?” a smug little voice says from behind me.
“You wish, Langley.” I turn and smile my million-dollar smile at her. “Tanner Sharpe: Nervous Wreck at the Aisle. Your papers would sell themselves.”
Lis Langley, in her soft pink formal dress, shrugs. “They already do. But if Elsa doesn’t show...”
“Oh, she’ll show,” I reassure her, adjusting my cuff links.
In fact, if Elsa’s not showing, I’ll eat my own dress shoes.
They’re Italian leather. Expensive. Soft but very durable.
Actually, if my estimations are right, she’ll be showing about six months or so at this point.
“You seem sure of yourself.”
“Oh, I am. I mean—really, Lis. Just look at me.”
Lis pulls a face. “Not my type. Him, on the other hand...”
My best man, Nathan Hudson, comes up behind me and claps me on the back. He’s got golden blonde hair and the eyes of a Swedish prince—he’s a fucking looker, and I’m man enough to be able to admit it.
And the way Lis is looking at him...
“Nathan, Lis. Lis, Nathan.” I can feel the sparks flying between the two of them before I even finish introducing them.
I swear; I even see Lis shiver as he shakes her hand.
“A pleasure, Lis,” Nathan says. “Ah, Tanner...”
I nod, straightening my bow tie and taking a deep breath.
It’s time.
They have to play the wedding march twice. Every hoity-toity, elbow rubber in the congregation is holding their breath.
By the end of the song, the second time around, even I’m finding myself waiting to exhale.
Monique, Marge, and a half-dozen of the Dirty Little Angel models are dressed in matching pink bridesmaid gowns and waiting for Elsa on her side of the church.
And me? I’m staring down those double doors at the other end of the aisle like I’m challenging fate itself to keep Elsa Blakely from me.
So, when she throws those doors open and stands there between them—clad in white lace, framed by sunlight and six months pregnant with my firstborn child—I’ll admit it.
I fall in love with her all over again.
“Tanner Sharpe,” she says, and I fall in love with the way my name sounds on her tongue.
“Elsa Blakely,” I shot back at her.
“You rat fucking bastard,” she snarls, and the whole congregation gasps.
Not just because she’s swearing inside this beautiful cathedral I booked for us, but because
as Elsa marches into the church, they get the first good look at her that they’ve had in six months.
Looks like we did a better job of keeping this pregnancy thing under wraps than I had even hoped.
“Darling,” I coo at her, grinning like a jackass. “You haven’t changed one bit.”
“Cut the shit, Tanner!” Elsa snarls theatrically, tossing her hair and veil back over her shoulder. “I want you outside. Now! We’re settling this once and for all.”
“Is that so? What do you think you’re going to do, Elsa? Fight me?”
“Outside!” she snarls again, marching out.
I just look at the congregation and shrug. What can you do?
I follow her out, feeling our entire audience get up to spectate.
The fight that ensues outside isn’t important. We say a bunch of bullshit that we don’t mean—mocking at reopening old wounds that have long since scarred over and throwing some more snappy insults back and forth.
Elsa and I have always known how to put on one hell of a show. I can tell from the tension in the air around our audience that they’re buying it, too—every last ‘Go to hell’ and ‘Fuck you.’
It’s almost fun, bickering with Elsa like this.
Staged, scripted and artfully choreographed.
But not nearly as fun as what comes next.
She slaps me first, insulting my manhood and accusing me of a dozen other transgressions that I’m sure I’m entirely guilty of.
When she tries to slap me again, I catch her wrist.
For a moment, we’re closer than we’ve been in six fucking months. I’m touching her again like it’s the first time, breathing in her scent. Locked in battle like this, watching the way her chest heaves with passionate fury, seeing her eyes close as she takes me in just the same...
Elsa fucking Blakely is the lov
e of my life.
Which makes what comes next even more fucking enjoyable really.
“Are you ready?” I ask her softly—so softly that no one else can hear us.
It’s just me.
And her.
We’ve spent so much time conspiring against each other...it’s a nice change of pace, finally getting to conspire together.
“For you? Always,” Elsa purrs back in a sexy little whisper.
That’s when I make my move. I drop her wrist and storm away, obviously shattered by her last insult.
And Elsa?
Elsa chases after me, bridal gown and veil flowing behind her, and she shoves me into our very expensive, gold leaf, twelve-tiered Madagascar vanilla buttercream and rosé flavored wedding cake.
That’s what makes the guests gasp once.
The second gasp comes when I grab her and take her down with me.
The cake is a fucking goner.
We crash into it, smashing it to bits on impact and breaking the table under it. I borrowed it from a buddy who owns some professional wrestling venues. He taught me how, when it gives out beneath us, to use my body to shield Elsa and our unborn child from harm.
Which means that when the cake splatters to the ground, and we fall down on top of it, Elsa winds up straddling me, lips pulled back in a snarl as she shoves fistful after fistful of cake onto my face.
“How could you do this to me, Tanner?!” she sobs in a tone so convincing probably half of the guests will always kind of hate me, even after this is over, and they won’t even know why.
“Do this to you?” I shout back. “Elsa! How could you do this to me?”
“You son of a bitch. You got me pregnant and abandoned me!”
“Elsa, no! I would never abandon you—in fact, I’ve been waiting for you for all these months! I love you, darling—I need you—”
Reads like a fucking soap opera, right?
It ought to. I hired one of the writers from Days of Our Lives to turn over the stupid fucking script.
See, this—all of it—the fight, the cake wrestling, the overblown melodrama and the last six months?
All part of our master plan, believe it or not.
As Elsa’s lip quivers and her final fistful of cake drops to the ground, I think I can even hear Lis Langley’s little red pen scribbling in her notebook so fast that she’s going to end up starting an actual fire on the page—instead of just a journalistic one.
“You...you mean that?” Elsa simpers.
“With every ounce of my soul,” I say gallantly.
Then, it’s time for the show stopper.
Our lips collide, slick with layer cake and buttercream. I’m groping at her tits, she’s unfastening my belt, and we’re licking the cake off each other’s skin like complete fucking animals.
“Marry me, Elsa!” I proclaim.
“Oh, Tanner!” She swoons like a heroine on the cover of a Harlequin novel, and I lick the cake from her cleavage like a dirty fucking Fabio.
“Say it,” I order her. “Say it, for everyone to hear.”
“Oh, Tanner, I do! I do!”
“I do too,” I tell her, and we share a look that tells me we’re both about to dissolve into laughter if this carries on for much longer. “A thousand times. Every day. For the rest of my life.”
And our guests—our poor, confused fucking guests—well, I don’t think they know whether to applaud or just get into their fancy cars and go home with the understanding that there is such a thing as too much excitement for one night.
Honestly, I don’t fucking care either way.
I scoop Elsa up in my arms and carry her into the cathedral, shutting the doors behind us.
We did technically say our ‘I do’s, after all.
And with Elsa in my arms...
I might not technically be her husband yet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some husbandly duties I’d like to attend to.
Chapter 33
Elsa
Chocolate ganache and strawberries peel off me and cascade down my couture wedding gown.
I paid a fucking fortune for this custom-designed dress, tailoring it to my massive bump, and now, it’s imprinted with wedding cake.
They warned me that a wedding dress is only a one-time wear and that I shouldn’t have spent as much as I did on it. But it’s my fucking wedding dress, and I will not be seen in anything less than spectacular.
Despite my body not being exactly how I pictured it would be on my wedding day, it’s still my—our—wedding day.
And I will—and do—look drop dead gorgeous.
But as I’m learning, life with Tanner is always an adventure. And one that I’ll never be able to plan for, so a few alterations will be needed occasionally.
I grab a handful of wedding cake, decorated with pink and white roses, and chuck it at Tanner’s face.
Distracted by my last successful hit, he barely notices, and it splatters on him. He gasps in surprise, and I laugh hysterically.
He looks so damn good in that tuxedo, especially now, covered in the finest and most delicious cake I’ve ever tasted.
If we weren’t in the middle of a cake fight, I would’ve taken a fork and eaten the cake all by myself—well, with the help of our baby. It’s a special occasion after all, and mommy does have her cravings.
Picking cake off his face, he slides a piece into his mouth, eats it, and licks his fingers one by one, his steel eyes penetrating me as he does, and my body convulses with desire.
His powers will never cease to amaze me. I’m dripping wet, hot, and needy as we’re standing in a church garden, surrounded by tulips and hydrangea bushes, and smothered in wedding cake.
Watching him work his magic, my eyes glaze over in heat. He’s a treat for the eyes. And I’d be more than happy to have him as an accompaniment to the cake.
Tanner and chocolate—a woman’s real-life fantasy.
He lunges toward me, and I run away from him.
“No, Tanner! Stop!” I laugh, loving how playful we are.
A crowd of whoever the fuck watches us, in awe of both of our casual vows and unconventional cutting of the cake.
They shouldn’t have expected anything less. What we have is the farthest thing from a vanilla relationship. Hell, our cake exemplifies how eccentric we are, with darker desires and a bump to prove it.
I run back into the church and try to find a place to hide in quickly.
Ah, a confessional booth!
I sprint toward it, but he catches me in mid-leap.
“You can’t get away from me now!” He laughs at the back of my neck. “Mrs. Sharpe.”
He smashes another piece of cake in my face, and I yell in shock.
“Ah! Fuck!”
His grin widens, and he begins to lick the painted frosting on my neck and exposed shoulders.
I lick and bite my lips, relishing the feeling of his tongue and the cake frosting on my skin.
He grabs my breasts from behind and hums as he continues to devour me.
Guiding me forward, we find ourselves in the confessional booth—where I was planning to hide from him—and he shuts the door behind us.
He pushes me forward, grabbing my waist. My hands fall to the back of the booth, holding me up.
“You taste fucking delicious, angel,” he grunts, while quickly freeing me from my dress.
“I know. I’m sure the wedding cake adds some sweetness.” I smirk, knowing how wonderfully edible I am.
My ivory dress falls to the floor, leaving me in a custom-made lingerie set that we designed for our bridal line.
I’m obsessed with this piece; that’s why I chose to wear it on my wedding day. It’s specifically for those who don’t follow the archaic rule of marriage before sex and those who might’ve conceived a child out of wedlock.
Mommies, especially pregnant ones, need to feel sexy, too, and that’s exactly what this lingerie does.
He gazes down at me, making my knees weak and m
y cunt vibrate.
Taking me, he turns and pins me up against the sliding window.
Let’s hope the priest doesn’t see this, though it’s sanctioned now.
I tug at his jacket and pull it off him. Then, my fingers fumble at his buttons, loosening them. He unties his bowtie, leaving it dangling around his neck.
A piece of cake falls on his now bare chest, and my mouth reaches for it. I suck it in, lick the leftovers, and nip my way up to his neck, wanting to taste more of this intoxicating combination.
He lifts my left leg and wraps it around his waist, a move he usually does, considering it makes it easier to find my cunt with the bump.
“I’m loving this new flavor of cake,” I mumble into his neck as I eat everything I had thrown at him.
As I taste the sweetness of his cologne intermingling with the rich, creamy chocolate, my body warms in ecstasy, and I feel a new craving emerge.
“We might have to go into the cake business next,” he says with a wink.
Hell, we’re already making our way into the bridal industry, so why not?
His right hand tugs at my sensitive, heated skin, then makes it way to my clit.
Grabbing my ass in one hand, while holding my leg up with his arm, he massages and firmly rubs my clit with the other. He slides a finger into my wet pussy, and he continues to thumb my clit in a deliberately slow and gentle pace.
I stop eating him, and my head falls back, crashing into the wooden wall behind me.
“Yes, Tanner, yes!” I cry out.
His lips fall on mine, and he tenderly kisses me.
I gasp when his fingers leave me, making me feel empty and greedy.
“Why are you stopping?!”
Using those same fingers, he picks up a piece of cake in my hair and slides it into my mouth.
His eyes widen, and his expression darkens with lust and excitement as I have a taste of the cake and his fingers drenched in my pussy juices.
My eyes close because of the pleasure, finding myself to be just as appetizing as the Tanner-flavored cake mix.
“Do we have a winner?” he says as his mouth lingers over mine. He bites my lip and sucks on my tongue. “I say we do. That’s fucking divine.”
My body and nerves surge with the energy and tension between us, and I feel like I’m either going to cry because of happiness or combust in pleasure. It’s a heavy feeling, and I fucking love it.