by Zoe York
Daphne smiled, a sense of relief falling over her. So there, she added in her head. Don’t judge me. You don’t know me.
“And honestly, this whole thing has been quite bittersweet. I’d buried that part of my life, and to know that it could have gone so very badly, so incredibly sideways had I stayed here with him…maybe I’d be dead now too. Who knows?” Maybe she was laying it on too thickly.
Maybe she didn’t care.
“I’m glad you weren’t caught up his destructive lifestyle,” Gill said, and it was believable. It wasn’t exactly friendly, but it was genuinely kind.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll get Will’s estate details sorted out as soon as possible.” The lawyer paused. “And I’ll see myself out.”
“Catch you the next time I’m in California,” Daphne called out as the door closed on the lawyer.
Will threw himself on the couch and started laughing.
The smile stayed on his face as the room fell silent. Daphne looked at him, really looked at him, and then got up and moved around, checking out the suite.
Every time she looked back at him, he was still grinning.
“Are we going out for lunch, or ordering room service, or what?”
“Sure. All of the above.”
She rolled her eyes. “Does a place like this have a really hot shower?”
He laughed again. “It’s through there. I’ll order food up while you have a soak.”
She was tempted to invite him to join her, but once she was standing under the heavy spray, she was glad she was alone with her thoughts. Her rioting, traitorous thoughts.
He thinks he loves you competed with maybe you could love him, too and don’t be a fool. She loved the water. She loved hard work and falling asleep feeling like she’d accomplished something tangible every single day.
She didn’t love privileged men, or rough men, or any kind of man, really.
But when she toweled off and wrapped herself in a fluffy hotel robe like nothing she’d ever felt against her skin, and she quietly padded back into the living room, she found him standing at the window, his back to her.
And her heart ached. Like it wanted to leap out of her chest and run and jump on him, clinging to his back like a spider monkey.
Was wanting your organs to attack a person some kind of love?
How the hell was she supposed to know?
“Perfectly adequate shower,” she said.
He turned. “Did the job?”
“Yep.”
“I’m sorry about—”
“—Look, I’m sorry,” she said at the same time.
He exhaled. “Do you want to go first?”
She waved her hand. “Sure. I don’t know.”
“Please.” He moved to the couch and sat, legs wide, leaning forward. As if he really wanted to listen.
She took a deep breath and stayed where she was. “We’ve found ourselves in quite the unusual thing here, haven’t we?”
“We have.”
“And I’m sorry about the drama, and also about not knowing how to feel about all of this.”
“I don’t expect you to return my feelings.”
She almost kept going, but the way he said that tripped her up. He didn’t expect her to return his feelings. Not yet, not now, but just… he didn’t expect.
Crossing the room, she leaned against the armchair across from him. Closer, but still some space between them. “One-sided affection is a hard thing to live with.”
He shrugged.
But she knew. She’d spent her entire childhood wanting to feel love from her mother, and it had never really come. She hugged herself, as she’d learned to do, and suddenly felt her old loneliness in a new way.
It was sad. And for all Will’s privilege, it was sad if he felt some of that, too. “We’re both a little bit broken, aren’t we?”
“Most people are.” Deflection.
And maybe he wasn’t wrong to do that.
She didn’t know.
A deep quiver shook inside her. She didn’t know anything.
You know Will is your friend.
Oh, but it was so much more complicated than that. The quiver tightened and throbbed, and she sank into the chair.
He just looked at her.
“What?”
“When do you want to go home?”
“Why?” Her voice was tight now too, and the air in the room was thick.
“I want to give you a night in Vegas to make up for your last trip here. I’m sorry that your second trip hasn’t been better. I want to fix that. That’s what I was going to say before.”
“Oh.”
“I was thinking that I wanted to give you a do-over on our wedding night, and then I realized that you got screwed twice. I want to fix both of them. You had two less than ideal wedding nights. I want to spend a good amount of time giving you amazing nights. And days.”
“Meh. A wedding night is like virginity. It doesn’t matter. It’s an artificial thing that we put way too much importance on.”
He gave that some thought. She liked the way his mouth pulled together in a thoughtful pinch. “But cake,” he finally said. “I owe you a wedding cake.”
“By the ocean?” This time, her attempt to be funny sounded hollow to her own ears. Could hear that desperate edge that she felt?
“I think that’s how the song goes. And since it’s our song, after all, we should—”
She flew into his arms, everything breaking at once. Her resolve to keep some distance, the dam that shored up her confusing and complicated emotions. All of it.
He caught her and let her bury her face in his neck.
“I don’t need cake,” she whispered. “Shut up.”
“But do you want it? Because I promised to protect you, and honor you, and cherish you.”
“Nothing there about cake.”
“It would fall under cherish, I think.”
“Those weren’t real vows.”
“Felt pretty real at the time.”
He wasn’t wrong. She’d forgotten those feelings, and it had just been a few days ago. Warmth flooded her limbs as she tried to sort out this new wave of emotion.
“You’ve become my best friend, Daphne. My chest hurts when I think of harm coming to you. How is that not love?”
“I don’t know what love is,” she finally admitted.
He brushed his lips against hers. “Let me try to show you. Give it a chance. Try it on for size.”
“With kisses?”
“With anything you want.” He cupped her cheek. “Anything. Just name it.”
She wanted to feel him inside her again. Hear him call her baby and watch his face go soft and then hard. Unfiltered.
Catching his hand, she kissed his knuckles, then brought his fingers inside her robe. “Show me,” she whispered. “Touch me. That’s what I want.”
He tugged the cotton terry aside. “Like this?”
She nodded quietly.
His fingers grazed her skin, raising a line of goosebumps. His thumb skated along the same path, pushing harder, bringing heat. Her breasts grew heavy as he played with them, drawing lines around and around, until he closed in on her nipples.
Then he cupped her flesh and urged her in, rising up on her knees so he could suck on her. She loved his mouth on her skin, how he pulled so much of each breast into the hot, wet space. The hard pull, the soft release. Over and over again, until she was shaking and grinding against him.
When she went for his belt, she found him hard already. His erection sprang loose when she unzipped, his head dropping back against the couch, and the sound he made was perfect. Unholy and delightful.
She needed that, too. Not just for him to show her, but for her to have this—a reaction, some control.
He pushed her robe away, leaving her naked and bare on his lap.
He remained fully dressed, except for his cock, standing proud and ready from his open fly.
This seemed f
air. He’d bared his soul, and she hadn’t been ready to do the same. Now he had her entire body for consumption. She could give him this right now.
It felt an awful lot like taking, though, as he guided her hips, his fingers tight against her skin. Up and down, an endless rhythm of pleasure. She pushed hard against him on each delicious sink, wanting more of his thickness, more of that rough rub deep inside her. And when he lifted her up, pulling out, that empty ache made her cry out.
His name at first. Then simple words. More. Yes. No. Please.
They’d only done this twice. How could it be this right, this familiar already?
She looked down at where they were joined. The tight fit of his cock inside her body, the slick sheen of her arousal on his skin.
The smell of the bodies.
It was erotic and delightful, dirty and fun.
But it was the look on his face when he followed her gaze, the irreverent need there, and then the quick, searching glance as he found her eyes again.
That was what she needed him to show her. Again and again, that look. She’d never get enough of it.
She wanted to watch him move beneath her, on top of her, forever.
This is love, she realized. It didn’t hurt. It was wonderful.
Smiling, she curled over him and kissed him. Wet tongues, swollen lips, flashing teeth. Swallowed gasps. And then, as emotion collided with intense, growing arousal, she pressed her forehead against his, closed her eyes, and rode his body hard to the peak of her climax.
He held her the whole way, never ceasing his steady, amazing thrusts until she pressed her hands to his chest. Enough.
He got the message right away. He traced the damp tendrils of hair on her cheek. “You’re beautiful,” he said simply. “Just like this. The most beautiful woman in the world.”
She smiled weakly. “Thanks. I feel like a hot mess.”
Deep inside her, his cock flexed. “A sexy, gorgeous, fuckable woman.”
“Okay. Good.”
He rolled his hips, and she realized he hadn’t come yet.
“Your turn,” she whispered, rising up on her knees again.
He shook his head. “No condom.”
No problem. She scrambled off and slid to the floor between his knees. Smiling up at her husband, she wrapped her hand around his throbbing length. “Now it’s my turn to show you,” she whispered.
He breathed her name and reached for her cheek, rubbing his fingers against her skin.
Her heart bounced happily. Yes, this was right. “I’m trying it on for size,” she said, again working her way up to it. “And it feels right.”
“Daphne,” he groaned.
She smiled. “I love you, Will.”
Then she ducked her head and showed him just how much.
Chapter Twenty
“Say it again.”
Daphne shook her head and glanced out the window of the plane. They’d just crossed over Florida and had turned south, ready to start their gentle descent. “I’ve said it enough over the last twenty-four hours, don’t you think?”
“One more time before we land.” Out of the corner of her eye, Will grinned. “Come on, baby. Give it up.”
“I love how obnoxious you are,” she said sweetly.
He squeezed her knee. “Close enough.”
She giggled and turned to look him right in the eye. “And I love everything else about you. Last night was magical.”
They’d recreated her first wedding night, sans the wedding part, and without the awful feelings. Instead of feeling pressure to win money, she happily donated five hundred bucks straight from Will’s pocket into the loudest slot machines she could find. They hit a nice bar, then a seedy bar, did a lot of people watching…and the whole time Will let her lead. Whatever she wanted to do, he followed agreeably, until she dragged him back to the suite and ordered up a bottle of the most expensive champagne on the menu.
“That’s one wedding night repaired,” Will had said. “One down, one to go.”
“I wouldn’t change a thing about our wedding ceremony,” she said.
He just gave her a little shrug.
If he wanted a re-do at some point, though, she wouldn’t stop him. It was as much for him as her, of course, and in his case, it was his one and only wedding. He deserved it to be everything he wanted—even if that meant a giant to-do with fancy people flying in from all over the place.
She could suffer through that to make Will happy.
Even though they’d left Las Vegas in the morning, they were flying against the time zones, so now it was nearly dinner time.
“What are you smiling about?” Will asked.
“Thinking about how food-oriented I am. You know, dinner options.”
“What do you want to do?”
“We can call people when we land, see if anyone is up for a get together out at Villa Sucre?”
“Sure.” He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Or we could all go out. Grilled fish and a bucket of beers by the ocean?”
“Ohh, that sounds good too.”
“I’ll send out a blast when we land. We can head back to the boat to drop our stuff and get changed first.”
She turned his hand around and kissed his fingers. “That sounds like fun.”
Will had driven them to the small airfield just outside Petite Ciotat, so his Hummer was still waiting for them, hot in the late afternoon sun. He unlocked, slung their bags in the back, then got in the driver’s seat and rolled down the windows. Beside him, Daphne was tapping on the screen of her phone.
After a beat of silence, “Cake by the Ocean” started playing.
“It’s our song,” he said.
Her cheeks turned pink. “Yep.”
“It’s sweet.”
She giggled. “It’s really not sweet. The song’s not about cake, you know that, right?”
He did not. “What?”
“The band is Swedish, and it’s about Sex on the Beach. The drink. They forgot the name of the drink. Hence, Cake by the Ocean.”
“We got married to a song about a party girl shot?”
“We did.”
He tipped his head back and howled. Shit. That was something.
“And it’s our song,” she repeated, reaching across the console between them to squeeze his forearm. “You know what that means, right? We need to have sex on the beach for real.”
“That is happening. Tonight.”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “It could happen right now.”
If only. “We have people to meet.”
“They’ll wait.”
He grinned. They would. But one thing at a time. “Let’s go get changed and see what happens.”
When he parked at the marina, she waited for him, and he went around to her side. He’d never thought this would be his life—helping his wife out of the car, holding her close, kissing her gently before taking her hand to walk home.
Home. A modest sailboat belonging to a woman with more spirit than he could ever have hoped for.
Daphne swung her arm, taking his along with it. Every bit of his supreme happiness was echoed in her body, on her face.
They turned to head along the dock, then both skidded to a stop.
Daphne, because she had no clue. And Will, because he had no clue it would be like this. Her boat was strung in every possible direction with lights, up the mast, along rails, and in the wires. The entire shape of it glowed, and even from this distance, they could see a banner stretched across the cockpit.
And beneath that was a group of smiling, waving people holding champagne bottles aloft.
“They return,” Mick called out, and the group let out a big cheer.
“Welcome back,” Cara hollered. “How was the honeymoon?”
Beside him, Daphne let out the sweetest, softest sound he’d ever heard her made with her clothes on. She glanced up at him. “What did you do?”
“I made some calls yesterday.”
She picked up
the pace, practically dragging him along now. But when she hopped aboard, she skidded to a stop in front of the two people present she hadn’t met before.
Maybe he should have warned her about this part.
“You’re the brother,” she said, pointing at Quinn.
Will’s twin gave him an amused look over her head. “I am. Quinn Parry, welcome to the family.” He held out his hand, then slid his arm around his wife. “And this is Leah.”
“Love your boat,” Will’s sister-in-law said, and that was it. Everyone else faded away for a few minutes as the two women shared a couple of rapid-fire stories about sailing, and then Arielle swept in with a magnum of what looked like very reasonable Prosecco.
Will winked at Daphne’s best friend, and she wiggled the bottle at him. They all had his number, and he didn’t care in the least.
“Can we toast to the new couple?”
Daphne glanced back over her shoulder at Will, her eyes soft. He closed the gap between them and wrapped her in his arms, her back to his front. “Yes, please,” he rumbled. “Everyone raise a glass to my bride, who I dragged out on a bit of a last-minute adventure, and have now returned safely to her home, only to find it invaded by creatures.”
“You told us when and where, dude.” Brayden flipped him the bird.
“Ah, yes. That’s true.”
Daphne shrugged within the circle of his arms. “I love an impromptu party. So…let’s party!”
There was food and drink and more food and then more drink. Someone brought a guitar, and a few people sang, and then as the sun set in a gorgeous, flaming orange-and-purple ball on the horizon, they put on music and just talked.
For hours.
At one point, Quinn dragged his brother forward to the bow and they sat on the edge, swinging their legs at the water. “I hear you put some miles on the company jet the last three days.”
Will shrugged. “It happens.”
“Not by you, it doesn’t.”
“Special circumstances.”
“In Vegas? What happened, was your marriage here not valid?”
He coughed. “Not exactly. It’s…a long, private story. As far as everyone else here is concerned, we went to my place in Coronado and that’s it. I just wanted to show her my world.”