Almost a Bride

by Jo Watson

The shape, the size…perfect.

  I heard a little gasp. It came from me and it was totally involuntary.

  “Annie?”

  Suddenly I remembered that there was a head, mouth, eyes, and brain attached to the appendage down south. I jumped backward away from the object of my fascination and banged straight into the hard wall behind me.

  “Ouch!” I screamed loudly. Why is hitting your elbow so damn painful? I grabbed it and rubbed hard, trying to quell the sharp pain shooting up my arm now. “Ooooowwee,” I moaned loudly again.

  “Are you okay, Annie?” Two hands grabbed me under my arms and ushered me to the living room. I came face-to-face with a wet, soapy Chris.

  “Sit.” His hand came around to the small of my back as he guided me onto the couch.

  But as I sat, I came face-to-face with it again.

  I slapped my hands over my eyes at the same time that Chris slapped his hands over his…

  “There’s a towel on the floor.” My eyes were tightly closed as I pointed in the general vicinity that the towels had fallen. Chris shuffled around, and I heard the soft sound of the fabric as he wrapped the towel around himself.

  “It’s safe to open your eyes now.”

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…but Trevv saw me going into the other bedroom and…”

  Chris laughed loudly and collapsed into the other couch. “That was quite a reaction.”

  “I guess I got a fright.”

  “Wow. I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment, or the biggest insult I’ve ever gotten in my entire life.”

  I felt my cheeks go red and hot again. “Good fright,” I managed to whisper.

  “Glad you approve.” Chris sounded rather pleased with himself.

  “Sorry,” I said again, trying not to look in his direction for fear that my eyes would automatically make a beeline for his crotch.

  “It’s okay. I guess we’re kind of even, considering that breast you thrust in my hand earlier today.”

  “What!” My eyes flicked up and met his. “I did no such thing. I would never deliberately thrust my breast, or thrust any other part of my body onto you for that matter.”

  A loud hearty laugh escaped Chris’s mouth. “Joking, Annie.”

  “Okay. Good. Because I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression about me, you know.”

  “What impression is that?” His voice was so damn playful and sexy right now and it was messing with my head.

  “That I’m a…a…” What was I trying to say?

  “A thruster?” he offered with a laugh in his voice.

  “There’s no such word,” I said quickly, trying to shake images of all the thrusting I was suddenly imagining.

  “As much as I want to continue this conversation, I need to get back into the shower and rinse off.”

  “Sure, I won’t look this time. Promise,” I said.

  “Why not? It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.”

  Chris got up and walked back to the shower. I heard the towel drop to the floor and knew that he was completely naked again.

  My blood started doing that hot, rapid-rushing swooshing thing again. My body seemed to react to Chris in such a primal way. A way that was totally out of my conscious control.

  God, I wanted him so badly.

  I wanted nothing more than to take my clothes off and climb into the shower with him…

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  But I didn’t. And when the shower finally came to an end, I found myself feeling extremely relieved.

  “So, I’ll take the couch tonight and you can take the bed?” I heard Chris start brushing his teeth, and I was struck by how intimate this all was.

  The bedtime routine. Washing, brushing, and then climbing into your pajamas. This is something you’re meant to do with your partner, not a stranger.

  “I can take the couch, it’s very comfortable,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I let you sleep on the couch, Annie. Take the bed.”

  The point was that I didn’t want to sleep in the bed. His bed, with his scent lingering on the pillows. But I really didn’t want to explain all that to him, either, so I accepted graciously.

  I climbed into the bed cautiously, soon discovering that it was in fact the biggest, softest bed I’d ever been in, and yes, the smell of Chris lingered. The earthy sandalwood of his cologne combining with the smell of sweet shampoo, and soap.

  Chris climbed onto the couch and turned the lights off. We lay in darkness for a while, and I was acutely aware of him breathing, shuffling, and moving his pillows around.

  “Are you comfortable on the couch?” I asked.

  “Yes. Very.”

  There was a pause.

  “If I’d said no would you have offered me the other side of the bed?” I could hear the twinkle in his voice and I smiled. Here we go again—sexual innuendos and loaded witty banter. How was I supposed to sleep if we carried on like that?

  “Maybe,” I teased him.

  “Shit! I should have said I was uncomfortable!”

  “Oh well, your loss.” I was smiling like an idiot and was glad for the cover of darkness.

  Chris chuckled, “Maybe it’s actually your loss!”

  “And how do you figure that?”

  “I’ve been told my spooning abilities are pretty good.”

  “Good night, Chris.”

  “Night night, Annie Anne.”

  I closed my eyes and started drifting off to sleep when a sudden, and very loud knock on the door ripped me back to reality. I looked over at Chris as he jolted up.

  “Hey, neighbors, thought I would bring you some more towels just in case.”

  It was Trevv! Chris and I looked at each other in total shock. But that quickly turned to absolute panic when the door handle started to move.

  “Can I come in?” Trevv asked in a suspicious-sounding voice. This was not a friendly towel run; he was trying to bust us.

  “Um…just give us a moment, we’re kind of in the middle of something…,” Chris shouted without a hint of an accent in his voice.

  “Your accent,” I hissed at him.

  “My what?” For a second or two he looked at me blankly, and then I saw the realization dawn on him. “Just give us a wee mo there, mate!” He slapped the accent on thick and proper before jumping up, grabbing his sleeping stuff off the couch, and tossing it over to the bed. I quickly arranged it so it looked like he’d been sleeping there.

  “We’re just…you know, mate. You know.”

  “Of course!” Trevv said.

  Then Chris pulled his shirt off and tossed it across the floor. He ruffled his hair and jumped onto the bed. He turned and looked at me briefly before ruffling my hair so hard it felt like it was standing up straight. Then he started tugging at my shirt.

  “Take it off,” he hissed in my ear.

  “No!”

  “Just take it off.” And with that, Chris grabbed my top, pulled it over my head, and tossed it up in the air.

  “Hey. What are you doing?” I tried to cover myself.

  “It needs to look real. You can come in now,” he called out to Trevv while pulling me into the crook of his arm.

  My first thought was how downright embarrassing this was, but then I saw the look on Trevv’s face. I was now very glad that Chris had gone to all the effort, because Trevv walked in with a look of utter suspicion plastered across his face. It was clear he had come to gather evidence.

  “You can put them on the couch,” Chris pointed and Trevv moved toward it.

  I looked over at the couch and gasped when I saw it. Shit! Chris had left a pillow there and it had not gone unnoticed. Trevv looked down at the pillow curiously, and then he slowly raised his eyes and smiled at us like a serial killer might.

  “Well, good night, you two.” He flashed us another grin and exited. “Sleep well.”

  “Shit!” Chris climbed out of bed and rushed over to the pillow. “He’s onto us.”

&n
bsp; I nodded in agreement.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit. He’s going to have a field day with this! He’s going to tell all our so-called mutual friends and everyone we know and then…”

  I wasn’t even able to finish the sentence, because suddenly Chris was on top of me. How had he managed to get across the room so quickly?

  “What are you oooohhh…”

  He forcefully grabbed my legs, wrapped them around his waist, and then, and then, he kissed me. I was in such shock that it took a moment or two to register, reciprocate, or even breathe. But the second I felt the tip of his tongue against my lips, I grabbed him and kissed him back.

  Some kind of wild, raw, unadulterated lust gripped me and I heard myself moaning. I felt myself grabbing at his shoulder and writhing under him. I ran my hands through his hair as the kiss got more frantic.

  “Oh God,” I gasped as Chris raised my hips up off the bed and fell deeper between my legs. What the hell were we doing? The loud sound of the door bursting open caught my attention. I looked across the room just as Trevv walked back in.

  “Trevv! Oh my God, what you doing here?” I was out of breath from the kiss.

  “Jeez, Trevv, do you mind…we’re kind of in the middle of something here,” Chris said, equally breathy and looking a little red in the cheeks.

  Trevv stared at us in disbelief. “Just came back to suggest you lock your doors tonight. You never know who’s wandering around out there. Watching you through the window from the flower beds,” he said before slithering out the door again.

  His words cut me to the quick. How did he know? Had he seen me? Mortifying! And worse, he was rubbing it in my face.

  “That was fucking close,” Chris said, raising his head and looking directly into my eyes. Our faces were mere inches apart, and I could feel the warmth of his breath as he spoke. “I heard him coming back so…”

  “So you thought you would attack me?”

  He smiled. It was so sexy I forgot all about Trevv. Oh God, Chris was hot. And oh God, he was on top of me. “You enjoyed it. Admit it. You’ve been secretly hoping I would attack you for ages now.”

  “No!” I said indignantly.

  “Yes you have, you naughty girl.” Chris was still on top of me even though it was totally unnecessary.

  “You know you can get off me, right?” I said, not really wanting him to, though.

  “I know.”

  “So are you?”

  “No. Not right now. I’m pretty comfortable like this, aren’t you?”

  Comfortable wasn’t exactly the word I would use to describe the feeling of lying underneath him with his previously naked man-part dangerously close to mine.

  “You’re a really good kisser, Annie Anne.”

  “I was just acting,” I said quickly.

  “Really? You were very convincing. I think I have scratch marks on my shoulders to prove it.”

  “What?” I looked at his shoulders and yes, there they were. I had clawed at him like some crazed woman, drunk on hormones and horniness. I flushed red with embarrassment.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be nice to have something to show off on the beach tomorrow.” Chris smiled down at me with a naughty expression. “Do you want something, too?”

  “Like what?”

  “Hickey perhaps?”

  “No thanks.” He was still on top of me and showing no signs of moving.

  “Do you mind if I do something? I just need to figure something out quickly.” Chris asked but didn’t wait for my reply. He leaned in for another kiss. This time I reciprocated immediately. But the kiss was totally different. It was slow and deep, and the kind of kiss you could totally get lost in. I tightened my leg grip and wrapped my arms around him. God, I shouldn’t have.

  He stopped and whispered against my lips, “I thought so.”

  “Thought so what?”

  “Strawberries. Strawberries and mint. I was trying to figure out what you tasted like.”

  He lifted himself onto his elbows once more and looked down at me again before finally rolling off. “So I better go and sleep on the…” He left the sentence open-ended as if he expected me to complete it.

  “The couch,” I said.

  “Yes, the couch.” He started to get up and then stopped. “Unless you think that might be dangerous, what with Trevv lurking around?”

  “It might be,” I agreed with nervous excitement.

  “We wouldn’t want him to come back in and see me on the couch, would we?”

  “No. We wouldn’t.” My heart rate quickened at the mere suggestion of sharing a bed with him. “We could just lock the door, though.”

  “But what if he’s the kind of guy that knows how to pick locks?” Chris offered. “You just never know what Trevv is capable of.”

  “So true,” I agreed, although the idea that Trevv might sneak back in the middle of the night and pick our lock was totally preposterous.

  Chris smiled. “So should I climb in?”

  I gave a small nod as the inside of my mouth dried up like the plains of the savanna. God, I was nervous. I hadn’t shared a bed with a man since Trevv.

  Chris pulled the duvet down and slipped in. I followed his example, and as if someone was conducting us, our heads touched the pillows and our eyes locked at precisely the same time. We stared again. I felt like a kid playing one of those blinking games, first one to blink loses. But what would the winner get?

  No one blinked. We stared until my eyes started to water and sting. “So good night then,” I said, blinking them repeatedly.

  “Good night,” Chris replied, and then he leaned in and planted a soft kiss on my cheek. “Sleep well.”

  * * *

  I’m not sure how long I’d been asleep when I was woken up by the sounds of typing. I opened my sleepy eyes and looked up to find Chris sitting on the couch, slouched over his computer. The usual menagerie surrounded him, his iPad, a few coffee cups, a Coke, and a chocolate.

  “Hey.” My voice still had that deep sleepy husk to it.

  Chris turned around fast, as if he’d received the fright of his life and slammed the computer shut.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” He got up immediately and slipped the computer into his laptop bag.

  “It’s okay.” I smiled at him. “I’m glad it’s going well.”

  “What is?”

  “Your movie—it looks like it’s going well.”

  A halfhearted smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Thanks.”

  “So you finally found your inspiration?” I had to admit a small part of me wondered if our kiss had inspired him. But that was a foolish thought. Wasn’t it?

  Chris’s eyes momentarily met mine and then seemed to drift away, as if he was looking at something behind me.

  “Go back to sleep, Annie.”

  * * *

  The sound of a message on my phone woke me the next morning. It was from Lilly; she and Jane were feeling much better and would be arriving tomorrow morning. I shuddered to think what they were going to say to all this—playing a fake couple with Chris with T-Squared right next door. Jane would definitely not be down for this, and would probably make a list of all the things that could go wrong with this plan, of which there were many. I wasn’t completely blind here; I was very aware of the consequences. They were basically screaming at me and I was deliberately choosing not to listen. I was dangerously close to feeling something very real for Chris that would probably never be reciprocated. But I also hadn’t felt so alive, so much like myself in ages. And I didn’t want the feeling to end.

  “Coffee, honey.” The rich smell of coffee wafted past me and made my mouth water.

  I looked up and smiled at my thoughtful, handsome, sexy fake boyfriend. Sometimes the world is such a cruel place. It dangles the proverbial carrot, and then whips it away.

  “Thanks, love,” I said, playing along, although truthfully it felt good saying that.

>   “So what do you want to do today?”

  I sipped the dark, warm liquid, and the caffeine instantly went to work on my sleepy brain and body.

  “Actually, I wouldn’t mind escaping this resort. Getting away from our neighbors.”

  “Sounds perfect.” And it did.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, we were in the comfortable seats of our own private speedboat—one that thankfully came with a canopy for shade, because the temperature outside at ten in the morning was already scorching. I looked over at Chris and gave an excited smile as the engines fired to life—and then the boat lurched forward and I nearly fell out of my seat. Chris suddenly grabbed the edge of the boat like his life depended on it, and I’d fucking forgotten. He hated water.

  “Are you okay?” I shouted over the roar of the engines and the violent sound of water whipping against the side of the boat.

  “Sort of.” Chris forced a smile and I moved over onto his side and sat next to him.

  “I’m so sorry, I should never have suggested this. You could have said no!” Why hadn’t he said no?

  “It’s okay.” He was trying to sound brave and upbeat.

  “Here, hold on to me.” I took his arm and wrapped it through mine.

  He gave a little laugh and indicated for me to grab onto the railing, which I promptly did—and clutched on for dear life as we started flying across the calm water, leaving a white, frothy frenzy in our wake. Very quickly the beach and the resort (along with those on it, thank God) were becoming distant memories. The sea beneath us started getting darker and darker, and we were quite a long way away from the land when the engines finally cut out.

  “This is where the dolphins pass.” The driver turned to us and pointed across the still water.

  A few other boats had also started gathering, equally eager to see the dolphins. We all sat in silence; the only sounds were those of the waves lapping against the sides of the various boats, until someone from another boat shouted, “Over there!”

  Silver fins that glinted as they caught the light appeared from all sides, rising and falling back into the water. They surrounded us, and the sea suddenly looked alive. Every now and then a dolphin would jump out of the water in all its sleek, silver-gray glory. They were the most elegant creatures I’d ever seen. Ballerinas of the sea.