Once Upon a Wedding

by JoAnn Ross

  “Then it’s going to be the best stock ever made,” she said, lifting her lips to his.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I HAD A FANTASY,” she admitted as they walked, hand in hand, into her bedroom. She’d painted it an eggshell buff that added a golden glow. A wrought iron four-poster bed added to the antique feel, while the draped netting created a lush, dreamy vibe. The room looked like it was bathed in champagne.

  “I’m a big fan of fantasy,” Bastien said in a voice as silky as her duvet. “What a coincidence,” he said as she confessed the sex-against-the-door scenario. “I had the same one when I walked in. Perhaps because I attacked you the moment that bellman had left our hotel room in Paris.” The sex had been quick, hot, and the memory of that ravishment possessed the ability to thrill after all these years apart.

  “I attacked you right back,” she reminded him.

  “That you did,” he said as he closed the bedroom door. He pressed Desiree against it, causing every muscle in her body to quiver with memory. “Brace yourself, cher.”

  Before she could respond, his head swooped down and his mouth was on hers, the kiss hard, deep, erotic. There was no soft, slow seduction as there’d been their first night. No playful sex as they’d had so often shared, too high on life from performing to go to sleep. This was what she wanted. She needed him to take her, to claim her, to break through the last of those emotional protective barricades she’d built during their years apart.

  She couldn’t tell if the room or her head was spinning as his mouth broke away from hers and nipped first one bare shoulder, then the other, just sharp enough that she knew her skin would show his marks in the morning.

  Then, just as he had in her fantasy, he caught her wrists, lifted her arms above her head, pressing them against the wood of the door as his other hand dove beneath her pretty flowered tea-length dress, pushing aside the bit of lace she wore beneath it to slide his fingers into her. She was already wet, needy and ready. Desiree arched her hips to that wicked hand as his mouth reclaimed hers, swallowing a sound that was part moan, part laugh at how, yet again, their minds and bodies were in perfect sync.

  “There are some men, with lesser egos, who might find being laughed at in such a moment emasculating,” he said. “But I take it as a challenge.” He thrust deeper, bring her to climax with a flick of his thumb.

  “That’s one.”

  He released her arms, turned her around so she was facing the door and unzipped her dress, allowing it to fall in a flowered puddle to the floor. Her bra was next with a single snap of the hook, and then he slowed the pace, kissing a line from the nape of her neck, down her spine, and lower, as he pulled her undies down her legs.

  “Step out of your shoes,” he instructed. The lace underwear that was down around her ankles was next. Then he kissed his way up her body again, his mouth tasting what his fingers had readied.

  “I want to watch you.” He nipped at her inner thighs, the way he had her shoulders, branding her with his teeth, then soothing the skin with his tongue. “I want to see your eyes, watch your face, when I take you.”

  Her knees were weak as he turned her yet again, to face him. As he did, she saw herself in the tall mirror leaning against the wall. She was naked, and her skin, deepened to a dusky rose, gleamed with moisture, while Bastien remained fully dressed. The erotic contrast had her feeling helpless as his hands moved over her, cupping her breasts. His fingertips, roughened from years of guitar strings, scraped her nipples, causing an ache between her thighs.

  “Tell me you want me,” he said, his hands growing more possessive, more arousing, as they moved over her, demanding more.

  “I do,” she managed.

  “Say it.” He pressed the straining zippered placket of rough denim against her bare flesh. “Say my name.”

  Lost in a world of slick, sinful sensation, she could deny him nothing. The ability to trust completely, to give every bit of herself, was born from knowing she was deeply, truly loved. “I want you, Bastien. I need you.”

  She gripped his shoulders and moved her hips against him, drawing forth a ragged male groan that was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard. He reached between them, freeing himself, then, taking a condom from the pocket of his jeans, tore the wrapper open. He was big, stone hard and, miraculously, hers.

  “I’m going to take you,” he said as he rolled the latex over himself.

  “Finally.” She panted the word.

  It was his turn to laugh. Then as Desiree clasped his shoulders, he drove into her, filling her, ravishing her against the door of her pretty champagne-colored room, setting off an orgasm that streaked through her like flaming, brightly colored Mardi Gras fireworks.

  * * *

  THEY FINALLY MADE it to the bed. Lying on the one-thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets Sarah had given her for a housewarming gift, Desiree watched Bastien pull his T-shirt off to reveal a deeply tanned chest with the same mouthwatering abs she’d loved to run her hands over. She could easily spend the rest of her life watching him undress over and over again. Like a GIF, she thought with a laugh. She could use it as a screensaver on her laptop, although she’d never get any work done.

  “You’re laughing again,” he said, as his hands pushed down his unfastened jeans.

  “Not at you.” As her wandering eyes followed his happy trail down to his obliques, she wondered how anyone who cooked for a living could maintain such an amazing body. “I’m just happy.”

  “I’m glad.” He kicked off those pricey Italian loafers, leaving his long, lean feet bare. She’d never realized how sexy bare feet could be until today. He pushed a pair of navy boxers down his legs, stepped out of them and joined her in the bed. “Now that we’ve taken the edge off and fulfilled that fantasy, let’s see if I could make you even happier.”

  * * *

  MUCH, MUCH LATER, after he’d proven to be a man of his word, they were sitting in her kitchen eating the best étouffée she’d ever had in her life. And having grown up in New Orleans, that was saying something.

  “Your grandmother taught you well,” she said. She’d claimed his linen shirt as her own and was wearing it with her undies, while he had, sadly, put that T-shirt and jeans back on for cooking. “You also chose the name of your restaurant well. This is truly sensational.”

  “Thanks, but the company is what really makes the meal. I’ve missed being with you.”

  “Me, too. With you. And not just for the mind-blowing sex. When I left Paris, it felt as if I’d torn off a limb. I kept waiting for you to show up in New York.” She took a piece of bread and spread it over the plate to mop of the last bit of sauce. “You never did.”

  “You weren’t ready.”

  “You had no way of knowing that.”

  “You’re right. I didn’t. But it was the opportunity of a lifetime for you,” he said. “It’d be like me being able to study under Lester Young, John Coltrane, or Charlie Parker. How many people can say they were there, in that very kitchen, creating pastries with arguably the most famous pastry chef in the world?”

  She laughed. “I don’t think that’s the type of thing that will make it into my obituary. Fortunately, I have no desire to be famous. While you, on the other hand, are a world-renowned musician.”

  “For songs I wrote for you.”

  “I wondered about that,” she admitted. She’d also sung along while baking, which had made her heart ache, at the same time the songs had her feeling as if he was still with her. Just a little. “You know how the French call an orgasm la petite mort?”

  “The little death.”

  “That’s it. That’s how I felt. But not in the amazing orgasm way. But in a lonely way. As if you’d died to me. I grieved for a long time.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “I was the one who left.”

  �
�If it’s any consolation, I felt the same way. Which is why I wrote the songs. They served as somewhat of a catharsis as I’d imagine I was singing them to you.”

  “Once again we’re so in sync,” she murmured, no longer fighting the fact that in so many ways, they fit together perfectly, like two pieces of a beautiful puzzle. “Because I’d sing along and imagine I was singing with you.” She blew out a long breath. “So here we are. Where we belong, if you’re honestly set on building your restaurant here.”

  “I never say anything I don’t mean,” he said. He gathered up their plates, took them over to the dishwasher, then made two cups of espresso with hearts in the foam.

  “How long did it take you to learn that?” she said, duly impressed.

  “I’ve been practicing awhile,” he admitted. “To show off for you. Here’s the idea I was thinking about earlier and was going to mention to you before we got sidetracked... What would you say to us singing again?”

  “Professionally? Even if wanted to, which I don’t, what would we do with our businesses?”

  “You mentioned Brianna’s uncle is renting out space to artisans.”

  “I did and he is.”

  “What if I had a studio built there? That album you bought, my last one? I produced it at a studio in New Orleans and had it engineered there. We could do the same thing.”

  She thought about that. “Wouldn’t we have to tour to promote it?”

  “It’s a new world. We can put some selected singles on a website. I already have live performances on YouTube.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “I’ve watched. Along with thousands of other people.”

  “Who bought the album while I was in New Orleans working in grand-mère’s café. The only singing I’ve done in public over the past two years has been in a few local clubs. That performance on YouTube was at the House of Blues. We could make some extra bucks doing what we’d enjoy anyway. Pay for some trips, put some away for our kids’ college—”

  “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself, Bastien Broussard?”

  “You talked about wanting children. Did you change your mind? Because it’s okay if you have.”

  “No. I just believe we should wait until the restaurant is up and running and we’ve adjusted to living a normal life together.”

  “We’ve plenty of time,” he agreed. “That’s totally your call. I was at the airport, waiting for my flight, when CNN ran an article about women in their fifties having children.”

  She slapped his arm. “I don’t want to wait that long. I’ve watched Kylee and Mai with Clara and as darling as that baby is, she defines high-maintenance. Also, while I realize there’s nothing wrong with having a baby without a formal marriage, Papa’s a little old-fashioned.”

  “That’s like saying the Pope is Catholic,” Bastien said with a touch of laughter in his eyes. “I was getting to that. I should have waited to mention the college part. The reason I came here was to propose. I had it all planned out. But then I found you bustling around with cake for the wedding, and the next thing I knew I was off looking for a uke. Then we were singing, and the reception didn’t seem the right place.”

  “It would have taken away from the brides’ day,” she agreed.

  “Then I wanted to show you my restaurant first, so you’d know what you were getting into, and then there was the sex—which was mind-blowing, don’t get me wrong. But that got me sidetracked again with the conversation about maybe singing together again, and kids, and the plan fell apart. But the most important thing of all is that I wanted to propose, Desiree Marchand, heart of my heart.”

  “That was on your latest album.” He’d sung it in both English and French, couer de mon couer.”

  “So what do you say?”

  “How about just asking me straight-out?” she suggested.

  He dropped to one knee, took her hand in his and placed it over his beating heart. “Desiree Marchand, will you be my wife and let me love and cherish you all the days of my life?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I can’t think of anything that would make me happier than becoming your wife and loving and cherishing you all the days of my life.”

  “Thank God.” He blew out a breath.

  Bastien stood up, drawing her into his arms as they sealed their pledge with a kiss.

  Then, as Desire laughed, her now-freed heart felt so light that she could feel it floating up and out the French doors, over the moonlit harbor.

  * * * * *

  Lose yourself in the magic, charm and romance of the Pacific Northwest, as imagined in New York Times bestselling author JoAnn Ross’s heartwarming Honeymoon Harbor series! Read on for a special preview of Snowfall on Lighthouse Lane, coming November 2019!

  Snowfall on Lighthouse Lane

  by JoAnn Ross

  CHAPTER ONE

  October

  Washington State coast

  AIDEN MANNION WATCHED the fishing boats chug along beneath a gray quilted sky from the deck of his family’s vacation house. Out on the horizon a storm was brewing, bringing to mind all the ships that had sunk into the sea off this wild, rugged Washington coast. Including ancestors from the Harper side of his family.

  Life, as he knew firsthand, could be dangerous. Anything could happen. You could be hit by a taxi while sightseeing in Times Square. Run into a tree headfirst while shushing down a diamond run pretending you were Bode Miller. Or you could be a cop who got up one morning, headed off to work on the joint police/Homeland Security Department detail you’d been assigned to and, out-of-the-blue, end up in the ER getting a slug dug out of your thigh while your partner was being wheeled off to the morgue.

  He took a long drink of coffee. It was black and thick and sweet. It was his thirtieth day waking up without a hangover. “Which has to be an improvement, right?”

  “Too bad no one’s around to give you your one month chip.” The dry response had him realizing he’d spoken out loud. It also made him laugh for the first time in a very long while.

  “You always were a smart ass.”

  “Takes one to know one, dude,” his former partner shot back with that flash of grin that was the last thing Aiden remembered seeing before all hell broke loose. When Bodhi Warfield’s ghost had first appeared on the ferry headed to Honeymoon Harbor, Aiden had thought he was a hallucination. That was weird because, after attending Bodhi’s funeral—with all the pomp and ceremony that occurred when a police department lost one of their own—he’d purposefully waited until he’d gotten here to the coast house to start drinking. Having witnessed too many drunk driving deaths during his LAPD patrol days, no way was he going to risk causing another.

  But after drinking himself to oblivion for the first several weeks and, waking up with a hangover the size of Mt. Olympus, he’d come to the conclusion that being a drunk was getting boring. So, he’d just stopped. Cold turkey. The same way he’d quit the cops. But Bodhi had continued to hang around.

  “Don’t ghosts get cold?” Aiden asked.

  Bodhi glanced down his California beach-tanned chest at the Hawaiian print board shorts he was wearing instead of the leather biker dude duds he’d been wearing when killed. “Surfers are too chill to get cold,” he said.

  They’d been an odd couple. The laid-back surfer—who’d changed his name from Broderick to that of Patrick’s Swayze’s surfer bank robber character from Point Break, then had joined the cops mostly to piss off his liberal psychologist professor parents—and the Marine turned vice cop who still carried an edge from his bad boy days. But that difference had made them a great team. Like Starsky and Hutch. Men in Black’s Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Lethal Weapon’s Murtaugh and Riggs, and Miami Vice’s Crocket and Tubbs, who even Bodhi had reluctantly admitted would win on the chill factor.

  “But hey,” his partner would say, whenever the topic would come up, “they were
just actors playing roles. We’re the real deal, Mannion.”

  And they had been. Until they weren’t.

  “Someone’s coming,” Bodhi said.

  Apparently death gave you preternatural senses, because it was another few seconds before Aiden heard the car rumbling across the bridge over the creek, fed by glacier waters that would soon be icing up for the winter.

  The house had been built on the cliff where the mighty Pacific—ill named, Aiden always thought, since there was nothing peaceful about it—constantly warred with the land. The towering sea stacks offshore, many with trees still growing atop from when they’d been part of the mainland, were proof that wind and water would always eventually win.

  Built for a whaling captain nearly a hundred years ago, the house was two stories with a widow’s walk around the top. Seth Harper, who’d taken over his family’s construction company (which had originally built the house) and was engaged to Aiden’s sister, Brianna, was the only person, other than his immediate family, who knew what had gone down the night Bodhi had lost his life. The night Aiden had lost his way.

  The driveway was long and lined with towering, shaggy Douglas fir trees. He walked around to the front of the wraparound deck and watched the familiar SUV come into view.

  “It’s your dad,” his partner said, without even bothering to look up.

  Seems to be.” He knew his parents worried, but he’d reminded them that he was no longer that wild ass boy who’d gone off to war. All he needed was a little time to adjust. Something he could do better on his own. During their twice a week check-in phone calls, he hadn’t shared the fact that he wasn’t exactly alone.

  “He’s bringing change.”

  “And you know that how? What, is my life written down on some big Life and Times of Aiden Mannion board somewhere?”

  Aiden had been raised Catholic, but life had turned him a hard core agnostic. Had it not been for his former partner’s ghost showing up, he would’ve gone full-out atheist, but maybe there was something to the life after death thing, after all.