by R. R. Banks
The soon-to-be wife of a wealthy executive.
An executive’s wife.
Whoa.
My wedding gown was hanging in the closet of an empty bedroom upstairs, my veil beside it and my shoes on the floor beneath. Another room was filled with other gowns, shoes, and accessories, waiting for my bridesmaids to arrive later that morning to get ready for the wedding. Noah had gone to spend the last few days at his parent’s house so that we could preserve some of the excitement of the first time we would see each other at the ceremony, and I was already feeling lonely for him. It was strange to miss him so much even though I had seen him at the beginning of the week, but it was also thrilling. I couldn’t wait to see him. I couldn’t wait to say those vows and link us together.
The doorbell rang and an instant later Robin swept into the room carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand and a pair of flutes in the other. He poured me a glass, settled onto the couch beside me, and poured himself a glass. We sat together, sipping the bubbly drink in silence with our heads leaned in to rest on each other. We didn’t need to say anything. It felt like it had all been said, and anything else that might need to be said was expressed just through the touch of our heads and the sound of each sip. It was enough. I just needed him there with me. His presence was calming, taking the edge off the nervousness that I was feeling thinking about the ceremony ahead. He had been there with me always, seen me through everything. It was because of him, even though there was a time that I resented him for it, that I had found Noah when I did. Even if I had stayed around the office long enough to be there for the buyout and met Noah anyway, I doubt that I would have had the confidence to even consider approaching him, especially considering he would be my boss.
Now he was going to be my husband.
Noah held my hands tightly between us as we gazed into each other’s eyes. I was so lost in the green expanse of his gaze that I barely heard the officiant as he started our ceremony. We had spent many long nights planning the ceremony, piecing together different traditions and integrating some of our own favorite readings and quotes to make a wedding that was exactingly ours. We had carried that theme throughout the entirety of our wedding weekend. Friday night’s party at The Diamond Mine had initially struck Robin as strange, considering my very close, personal knowledge of both the owner and the back room, but it had felt completely natural to choose the club as our party venue. Not only had Damien’s account with the agency funded a large portion of the wedding through my commissions and bonuses, but it seemed right to include places and people that had proven significant to the building of our relationship. The weekend before our wedding our bridesmaids and groomsmen had faced off in a fierce baseball game umpired by Lee and had a lunch catered by Grey, whose hidden talent as a barbecue master had recently resulted in him and two of the other bikers in his gang teaming up to buy a food truck. A large, whimsically wrapped wedding gift had arrived at the house the week before and I could only imagine that it was a painting from Michael. Shane had sent a congratulatory letter and an offer for us to join him on the ranch for a weekend anytime and another envelope that had arrived the same day contained a thumb drive that held a song Sam had recorded during his latest performance, a cover of my favorite song.
I knew the real names of these men now, but I rarely thought of them with those names. To me, they would always be their aliases, integral elements of my journey to self-discovery and to the altar where I now stood with the man of my dreams, the only man who had ever been able to look into my soul and see who I really was and could be.
“Do you, Snow Whitman…”
I drew in a breath as I heard the officiant starting my vows. My heart was trembling in my chest and I felt tears slipping out to rest on my cheeks.
“I do,” I said when the moment came.
I didn’t know if I had managed to get my voice loud enough, but Noah smiled and I knew that he had heard me. I tried to focus as much on the rest of the ceremony as I could, wanting to remember every moment and how I felt. Suddenly the officiant was declaring us husband and wife and I felt a surge of pure joy through my heart.
“You may kiss the bride,” he said.
Noah reached forward and took my waist. He drew me close to him, gazing into my eyes as he slowly lowered his mouth to mine. The kiss was tender and sweet, but passionate in a deep, unexplainable way that went beyond just the public expression of our union to something within us that was now fully linked to one another.
The kiss hadn’t ended when our guests burst into applause and cheers and Noah and I laughed, causing our mouths to part, but our foreheads to touch. The officiant presented us and we turned to our guests briefly before running down off of the altar and up the aisle toward the waiting horse drawn carriage that would bring us through the sprawling, beautiful grounds and to the reception venue.
The next hour was a blur of pictures before it was finally time for us to enter the party that was already in full swing. When we stepped inside I gasped at the sight of the tables arranged throughout the space, each one arranged abundantly with decadent desserts. The center of the room held an elevated table featuring a towering cake decorated in sparkling sugar flowers and ribbons crafted out of fondant in pale, pearlized shades of lavender and blue.
I turned to Noah who smiled back at me.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“You did this?” I asked breathlessly.
“I knew that you wanted a reception with only desserts. I’ve been planning the menu for months and baking for the last two weeks. It’s killed me to keep it a secret.”
I was mesmerized by the elaborate display of desserts and I started to walk around the edge of the room so that I could look at each table. I had seen three sweets-laden tables when my eyes widened at the sight of the table ahead of me. I gathered the gauzy layers of my skirt and rushed toward the table, turning to stare open-mouthed at Noah, who laughed back.
“Doughnuts!” I gasped.
My new husband nodded and came to my side, wrapping his arm around my waist to cuddle me up against him.
“I know that we have your doughnuts back in the breakroom now, but I figured that you could never get enough.”
“Never,” I said, tilting my head to look up at him.
Noah pressed a quick kiss to my smiling lips, looked at me for a moment, and then captured my mouth again. The pressure of his lips parted mine and our tongues lightly massaged each other. Both of his hands wrapped around my waist and he turned so that I pressed to the front of his body. My hand slipped away from my skirt and I felt it swirl around my legs then pool at my feet as I ran my hands up Noah’s chest and settled them at the back of his neck to hold myself into the kiss. This was everything and I couldn’t wait to share forever with Noah.
And a doughnut.
THE END
Her Hunk
R.R. Banks
Chapter One
Eleanor
“Why now? Why fucking now?”
The gold and red carpet felt rough beneath my feet, making them sting as I ran down the narrow hallway. There was nothing like the corridors of the lower levels of a cruise ship to make me regret that extra serving of cheesecake. I had removed the heels that I had so carefully chosen for the night after I started running and they were dangling from my fingers now. No way in hell I was going to let them go. The terrifying-looking goomba behind me might be getting closer, but I wasn’t about to drop those shoes. That didn’t mean that I was going to twist my ankle on them and go out like one of those simpering blondes in a 50’s horror movie though, so I would just keep holding them from their straps and contemplate all of the ways that I could use them as a weapon if the need came along. As I ran, my heart pumped fear through my veins, causing the blood to rush in my ears and blur all sound around me. I tried to listen for the sound of the man chasing me, but I couldn’t hear it. Was it possible that I had actually gotten away from him?
I knew those three months I spent cru
ising would have some actual real-world benefit at some point. Using my extensive knowledge of the layout of most ships in this cruise line wasn’t exactly the benefit I was hoping for, but at that moment, I would take it.
There was no one else in the seemingly endless hallway, but I couldn't decide if that was helping me or if it was making my frantic run more terrifying. If there was someone else there, they might help me, or could act as a deterrent for the man chasing me, even if they didn’t realize that they were doing anything. I could just pause sort of near them and hope that their presence would spook the man and make him go away. Kind of like those tiny home security system signs that people stick in their front yards even if they don’t actually have an active system. Of course, considering the luck that I was having that night, I would run right into the protective arms of the man’s partner.
I finally came to a curve in the hallway and took a moment to orient myself as I followed it. I wasn’t sure how long I had been running and was starting to lose track of how far I had gone and where in the enormous cruise ship my haphazard course had brought me. Had I run past the hairdresser three floors up, or four? Were there more levels of interior rooms below me or had I gotten all the way down to the bottom of the guest portion of the ship? The thought of being this far down always unnerved me. Even though I knew in the logical part of my mind that it wasn’t the case, whenever I roamed this far into the lowest passenger levels I felt like I was going underwater. There was a reason that I had always avoided the submarine rides onshore. And at amusement parks. Or sticking my head under the surface to rinse my hair in the bath.
I had been in the nightclub on one of the high decks when I started running. A bartender that had been trying really hard to flirt with me but was a bit too “cucu-kachoo, Mrs. Robinson” for my taste had just handed my drink to me across the glowing surface of a serpentine black bar that was reminding me of my younger days in a way that I wasn’t sure I appreciated when I glanced over my shoulder and saw the men step into the room. Even through the flashing strobe lights in the dark club I recognized them and my heart sank. The cruelness in their expressions sent chills through me and I knew instantly that Virgil had sent them. I dropped the drink from my hand and started to run, not looking back over my shoulder even as the people around me shouted their protest at the sound of the glass shattering and me forcing my way through the undulating bodies crowding the dancefloor. I had hoped that whoever these men were, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with me in the chaotic lights and dancing masses.
I heard shouting behind me as I burst out of the club and started toward the stairs. The men had obviously seen my escape and weren’t thwarted by any of the people trying to ride out the last gasps of the night locked in a messy tangle of anonymity and hormones. I ducked into the first stairwell and leaned against the wall for a second to pry the shoes from my feet. They were not sprint-friendly and the experiences that I had had in the past with men much like these told me that I wasn’t going to be slowing down again soon. From there I took the stairwells, corridors, and decks in a seemingly nonsensical pattern that had me weaving and backtracking my way through the massive cruise liner without consideration for who might see me or what anyone might think of me. At that point, it didn’t matter to me what I needed to do or who I needed to use to get away. I wasn’t above flinging myself on a stranger for a diversionary make-out session, or taking a tremendously-overdressed dip in the zero-entry pool if I needed to.
Why did it have to be a ship? Why did I have to be stranded out in the middle of the fucking ocean where I couldn’t just disappear into a store or hop out a window and get away?
I saw the door to another stairwell ahead of me and quickened my steps to try to get to it faster. I paused just outside it and leaned close to the door, trying to listen for any indication that they might have chosen that stairwell in their pursuit of me. It was quiet. It seemed that I might have actually confused them enough to get away. At least for now. Satisfied that I was safe for the moment, I pressed the brushed silver bar to open the door and slipped inside. The dizzying flights of steps spiraled up through the decks and then rippled down deeper into the ship, confirming that I hadn’t actually found myself in the bowels of the levels. I let my eyes follow both paths, trying to determine which would be a better choice. The last time I had gone through one of the stairwells I had gone down, so I decided this time I would go up, hoping that I wasn’t just backtracking myself right into their path. The move would make me end up right back where I had been, but maybe I was going to run out of bad luck for the week.
I started up the steps as fast as I could. Even though I was clinging to the handrail like any good responsible stairwell-user, my feet tangled beneath me and I stumbled onto the stairs ahead of me.
Perfect. I was a dumb blonde from a 50’s horror movie.
Muttering a few creative obscenities, I pushed myself up and continued down the stairs. I ran past three decks before choosing the door that led out of the stairwell. I had taken only a few steps when a massive figure stepped out from a small alcove and reached out for me. I screamed and tried to escape the man's grip, but he turned me around and covered my mouth with one strong hand. Despite my thrashing, he seemed to have no trouble controlling me, and I eventually gave up, not having any energy left in me to fight against his strength. He picked me up off the floor and pulled me backwards into the alcove with him. I felt his mouth come to my ear and the heat of his breath burning on my skin.
"Be quiet," the man hissed.
The voice sounded distantly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. In my life, a familiar voice wasn’t something so completely out of the ordinary and many of the voices that were so familiar didn’t belong to people I would particularly enjoy meeting in a desolate hallway, so it didn’t give me any sense of confidence. I screamed harder against the man’s hand, but his grip tightened.
"Shut up," he demanded into my ear. "Unless you want those guys to find you, I suggest that you quiet down. You’re going to be lucky if every person on this deck hasn’t heard you by now."
I stilled at his words. His grip loosened and he lowered me to my feet again.
"If I take my hand away, are you going to scream again?" he asked.
I shook my head compliantly.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure, you motherfu-"
The man pressed his hand against my mouth harder to force me silent.
"That wasn't very convincing, Eleanor. Now, I’m going to let you try that again. Are you going to scream if I take my hand away?"
I shook my head and the man drew his hand slowly away from my mouth. When I didn’t make any noise, he slowly withdrew his arms from my body until I was free of his grip.
"How do you know my name?" I asked, turning to look at him.
As soon as I saw him, my stomach dropped a little further.
Well, shit.
“Hi, Eleanor,” Hunter said.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
I knew that my voice sounded a little icier than it probably should have, but I hadn’t been prepared to see the young, gorgeous man in front of me again, and the circumstances being what they were, I wasn’t feeling exactly friendly.
“I’m assuming the same thing that you are,” he said, appropriately defensive in response to my bitchiness. “Noah and Snow sent me on this cruise as a thank-you celebration after their wedding. Though…” he hesitated, scrutinizing me, “I admit that I don’t really understand why they would send you. I was under the impression that it was just me, Snow’s friends Robin and Fawn, and a couple of Noah’s relatives. I didn’t realize that you and Noah were so close. I know that I’m certainly not that close with my third-grade teacher.”
I forced myself to withhold the grimace that tried to contort my face. That split-second lie had come right on back and bit me in the ass. Of course, that meant that I was going to have to come up with another one. That’s how lies work. They are like potato
chips. There’s never just one. You always end up reaching into the bag and coming up with another. Sometimes you have to slather a little dip on it. Since I didn’t really know how to talk myself out of what I had already told him or how to explain in a few seconds what was actually happening, I went for the dip.
“We spent a lot of time together when he was younger,” I said. “I was his teacher, but I was also his babysitter. And my husband was his Cub Scout leader.”
Too far?
Hunter narrowed his eyes at me from behind the glasses that I still hated. This man was in serious need of contacts. His eyes were a gorgeous crystalline green and framed by lashes so long and full they looked like they had come packaged and emblazoned with the name of some celebrity du jour. They didn’t belong behind glasses, particularly not the thick black-rimmed ones that he was wearing.
“Interesting,” he finally said. “I don’t really see Noah as the Cub Scout type.”
“Oh, he was,” I said, swept up in the lie now so that I couldn’t even stop myself even though I knew that I was rapidly falling down a very steep slope. “Making fires. Hiking the trails. Making s’mores. The whole thing.”
“I thought that s’mores were more of a Girl Scout thing.”
I fell silent. I didn’t know where to go from there. I had reached as far as that particular lie would take me.
“S’mores,” I said, nodding.
“Uh-huh,” Hunter said, nodding back at me.
At that moment, we both heard a stairwell door close and he leaned around the entrance to the alcove to look in the direction of the sound. He suddenly stepped back in, grabbed me by my waist again, and spun me around so that my back pressed to the wall and his mouth crushed down on mine. I was so shocked that I couldn’t even kiss him back. We had been in this position before and it hadn’t ended well for me. I was just getting to a point when I started accepting the kiss when he pulled back and stepped up to the entrance to the alcove again to look both directions. I could hear footsteps running in the opposite direction and I knew exactly what he had just done.