by Kat Cantrell
That would be a dead giveaway to anyone who bothered to notice. And she liked the idea of keeping this encounter secret. Their own little wedding party.
Explosion imminent, she rolled her hips until the angle increased the pressure the way she liked it. Hendrix grabbed one thigh, opening her even wider, and that was it. The orgasm ripped through her and she melted against him, going boneless in his arms until his own cry signaled his release.
He gave them both about five seconds of recovery time and then let her legs drift to the floor so they could hold each other up. Which she gladly did because he’d earned it.
“That was great for starters,” she muttered against his shoulder because it felt expected that she should reiterate how hot—and not meaningful—this encounter was. “I can definitely report that took the edge off, but I’m nowhere near done.”
There was so much more to explore. Best part? She could. Whenever she felt like it, since they’d be sleeping in the same bed. Married sex had a lot to recommend it.
Someone rattled the doorknob, nearly startling out of her skin.
“You have the key?” a muffled voice from the other side of the wall called.
Oh, God. They were about to be discovered.
Seven
Where was her underwear? It was so dark in here. Had she kicked them to the left? Panic drained Roz’s mind and she couldn’t think.
The doorknob rattled again. Whoever it was probably had no idea that the bride and groom were in the closet. But they were probably packing a cell phone with a camera. They always were.
Stuffing her fist against her mouth, Roz jumped away from the door and knelt to feel around for her panties, dress impeding her progress like a big white straitjacket for legs. Hendrix fumbled with his own clothes. His zipper shushed, sounding like an explosion in the small room. At least he’d gotten that much covered. Any photographs of this tryst would be of the dressed variety. But still not the commemorative moment they’d like captured digitally for eternity.
The door swung open, spilling light into the closet, and Roz had a very nasty flashback to a similar moment when she was twenty, with the obvious difference this time being that she was wearing a wedding dress and the man tucking in his shirt behind her had recently signed a marriage license.
Two white-coated waiters stared at her and Hendrix and she’d like to say her years of practice at being caught in less-than-stellar circumstances had prepared her for it, but it was never as easy as tossing her hair back and letting the chips fall where they may.
Besides, she refused to be embarrassed. Everything was covered. Married people were allowed to be in a locked closet without fear of judgment—or she wouldn’t have bothered to go through with all of this. The wait staff was interrupting her, not the other way around.
She shot to her feet and it was a testament to her feigned righteous indignation at being disturbed that she didn’t break an ankle as one of her stilettos hit the ground at an awkward angle.
“Um, sorry,” the one on the left said, and he might as well have hashtagged it #notsorry.
His face beamed his prurient delight, like something naughty was showing, and she had half a moment of pure horror over not actually locating her underwear. She tugged on her skirt to make sure it wasn’t caught on itself, but then Hendrix came up behind her, snaking an arm around her waist. Claiming her. They were a unit and he had her back.
She leaned into him, more grateful than she had a right to be.
“Can you give us a minute?” he said smoothly to the interrupters and actually waited for the one waiter’s nod before he shut the door in their face. Brilliant. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
Hendrix flipped on the overhead light, the white lace scrap on the floor easily identifiable at that point. But instead of letting her fetch her panties, he tipped her chin up and laid a kiss on her lips that had nothing to do with sex. Couldn’t. There were people outside who wanted inside this closet and they’d been busted.
“I wasn’t finished, either,” he murmured against her mouth by way of explanation.
She nodded, letting his warmth bleed through her via their joined lips, mystified why that sweet, unnecessary cap to their closet hookup meant so much. Eventually, he let her go and they got everything situated well enough to mix in polite company again. Hendrix reopened the door and they slipped past the waiters hand in hand.
Her husband’s palm burned against hers. She couldn’t recall the last time someone had held her hand, like they were boyfriend-girlfriend. Or whatever. They were married. Nothing wrong with holding hands. It was just...unexpected.
“You okay?” Hendrix said softly, pulling her to the side of the short hallway that led to the reception area. His attention was firmly on her, but before she could answer or figure out why his concern had just squished at a place inside, more people interrupted them.
Why couldn’t everyone leave them alone so she could spend about a dozen hours exploring why everything with Hendrix felt so different now that she’d signed a piece of paper?
Hendrix’s arm went tense under her fingers and she turned. Her father. And Helene. They stood at the end of the short hall, varying expressions of dismay and relief spreading across their faces.
Oh, God. The very people they were trying to help with this scandal-fixing marriage. Now it was obvious to everyone that she couldn’t resist Hendrix, that she had something wrong with her that made it impossible to wait for more appropriate circumstances before getting naked with the man.
“We got a little concerned when we couldn’t find you,” Helene said with a smile. “But here you are.”
Her father didn’t smile. He crossed his arms and even though he could look her in the eye when she wore stilettos, she still felt small and admonished even before he opened his mouth. Marrying Hendrix had been a last-ditch effort to do something her father approved of. Looked like that had been a vain effort all the way around.
“Glad to see that you’re dressed,” her father said and it was clear that he was speaking directly to his daughter.
The for once was implied and sure enough, flooded her with the embarrassment she’d managed to fight off earlier, after being discovered by wait staff. Thank God their parents hadn’t been the ones to fling open that door.
“That’s not really your concern any longer,” Hendrix said to her father.
She did a double take. Was he sticking up for her?
“It is my concern,” her father corrected. “This marriage isn’t guaranteed to remove all of the social shame from the photographs. Additional fodder could still be harmful and Roz is quite good at feeding that fire.”
“Still not your concern,” Hendrix corrected mildly and his hand tightened around hers.
As a warning to let him handle it? She couldn’t speak anyway. The knot in her throat had grown big enough to choke a hippopotamus.
“Roz is my wife,” Hendrix continued. “And any bad press that comes her way is my responsibility to mitigate. She has my name now. I’ll take care of her.”
Okay, there might be crying in her immediate future.
“Hendrix,” she murmured because she felt like she had to say something, but that was as much as her brain could manufacture.
With that, her husband nodded to his mother and swept Roz past the inquisition that should have ruined her day. Instead, Hendrix had relegated that confrontation to an insignificant incident in the hall.
How had he done that? She snuck a glance at him. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”
He shot her an enigmatic smile. “I did so have to do that. Your father should be proud of you, not throwing you to the wolves.”
“Um, yeah. He’s never really appreciated my ability to keep my balance while having sex against a door.”
Hendrix laughed at th
at, which actually made her relax for what felt like the first time all day.
“I appreciate that skill.” He waggled his brows and guided her back into the reception where they were swallowed by the crowd, none of whom seemed to notice they’d been gone.
If it was at all possible to receive an indicator that she’d made the right decision in marrying Hendrix Harris, that moment with her father had been it. Half of her reason for agreeing had to do with gaining approval from a man who had demonstrated time and time again that she could not earn his respect no matter what. That possibility had been completely eliminated...only to be replaced with a completely different reality.
Her husband wasn’t going to take any crap from her father.
Maybe she didn’t have to, either.
And that’s when she actually started enjoying her wedding day.
* * *
Despite Paul Carpenter’s comments to the contrary, the wedding had apparently gone a long way toward smoothing over the scandal. The snide looks Hendrix had witnessed people shooting at Roz when they’d gone to the florist, and even to some degree during their one date, had dwindled. There were lots of smiles, lots of congrats, lots of schmoozers.
And what kind of crap was that?
It was one thing to have an academic understanding that they were getting married so that Helene Harris for Governor didn’t take unnecessary hits, but it was another entirely to see it in action. Especially when he was starting to suspect that some of the issue had to do with what society perceived as his “bad taste” to have mixed it up with the wild Carpenter daughter.
He was fixing it for her. Not the other way around. What was just as crazy? He liked being her go-to guy. The dressing-down he’d given her father had felt good. No one deserved to be judged for a healthy sexual appetite when her partner was a consenting adult.
He needed to get the hell out of here and make some wedding day memories at home, where his wife could do whatever she so desired without anyone knowing about it.
“Let’s go,” he growled in Roz’s ear. “We’ve been social for like a million hours already. Everyone here can suck it.”
“Including me?” Her gaze grew a hungry edge that had all kinds of appealing implications inside it, especially when she dragged it down his body. “Because coincidentally, that’s exactly what I had in mind.”
“Really?” His groin tightened so fast it made him light-headed.
“True story,” she murmured. “Or didn’t you get the memo earlier that I wasn’t done?”
Wheeling, he waved at his mother and snagged Roz’s hand to lead her to the limo that waited patiently for them at the curb of the North Ridge Country Club. He’d paid the wedding coordinator a hefty sum to manage the logistics of the reception; she could handle whatever came after the departure of the bride and groom.
The limo ride took far too long—a whole ten minutes, during which he kept his hands off Roz like a good boy because this time, he didn’t want quick.
Slow would be the theme of his wedding night.
Except his wife smelled divine and she cuddled up next to him on the roomy leather seat, letting her fingers do some serious wandering over his lap. Strands of Roz’s dark hair had pulled out of the bun-like thing at her crown, dripping down in sexy little tendrils, and all he could think about was how it had gotten that way—his fingers.
He’d like to tug on a few more strands while deep inside her.
By the time the limo pulled up to the house, which his housekeeper had lit up for their arrival, his hard-on could cut glass and his patience had started to unravel.
“Inside,” he growled. “Now.”
To help her along, he swept her up in his arms to carry her over the threshold because it seemed like a legit thing that people did on their wedding day. She snuggled down into his embrace, looping her arms around his neck, and then got busy testing out his ability to walk while she nibbled on the flesh near his ear. Her tongue flicked out, sending a shower of sparks down his throat, and he stumbled, catching himself immediately. Wouldn’t do to drop his new wife.
“Unless you’d like our wedding night to be memorialized with a trip to the ER, I’d suggest waiting five seconds for any more of that,” he advised her, which she pretty much ignored. Now that he was on to her and better able to compensate, he walked faster.
They cleared the double front door, barely, as she’d started exploring his collarbone with her lips. There was no way he was doing stairs in his current fully aroused, highly sensitized state, so he let her slide to the ground and hustled her to the second floor.
Roz beat him to the gargantuan master suite that he’d yet to christen properly. He shut the doors to the bedroom behind him. In Vegas, they’d had a strict rule that no surface would go untouched. His bedroom’s decor had been pulled together by a professional and contained solid pieces stained with a shade of espresso that was so dark, it looked black. Not one Carpenter piece in the bunch, not even the woman beckoning him with a hooded, enigmatic expression that portrayed her very naughty thoughts.
Good God she was gorgeous in her white dress. She had the fullest lips that needed nothing extra to be lush and inviting. He could write poetry to her mouth for a decade. And her eyes...they did a thing where they were both transparent and mysterious all at the same time.
Would he ever get tired of her face? What if they were the kind of couple who actually stayed married on purpose, affording him the opportunity to watch her age? One day he might wake up and wonder where her looks had gone. But he didn’t think so. She’d still be Roz inside and that was the part he wanted with a burning need he scarcely recognized.
And need was supposed to be his wheelhouse. When he couldn’t quantify something related to sex, that was a problem. It felt too much like the intimacy that he religiously avoided.
No, the real problem was that they weren’t having sex yet. Sex eliminated all of the weirdness with pure mechanics of pleasure. And while he was busy composing sonnets to his wife’s beauty, she was standing there staring at him like he’d lost his mind, likely because he hadn’t made a move on her yet.
Clearly, he was slightly insane. What was he waiting for?
Striding forward, he did the one thing he hadn’t been able to do thus far. He spun his bride to face away from him, undid the catch on her zipper and yanked it down. The strapless dress peeled from her body, baring her back and oh, yeah, that was nice. Her spine beckoned and he bent to fuse his mouth to the ridges, working his way down until he hit the hollow above her buttocks. Laving at it, he adding some lip action until he earned a sharp little gasp from her.
This was what he’d come for. Blinding, carnal pleasure. All of the other internal noise? Not happening. The faster he got to a place where he couldn’t think, the faster all of the stuff inside that shouldn’t be there would fade.
That spurred him on enough to want more. Easing the dress down her hips, he pushed her gently, encouraging her to step out of it. That sexy little thong that he’d thus far only felt was indeed amazing in the light. It formed a vee down between her cheeks like an arrow pointing the way to paradise and he groaned as he recalled how much time he’d spent pleasuring her in that exact spot while in Vegas. It was worth a repeat for sure.
Falling to his knees, he slid his tongue beneath the lacy bands, following the dip down and back up again. He accompanied that with a leisurely exploration of the backs of her legs, ending with a nice tour of the covered area between her cheeks. That’s when her legs started trembling, whether from excitement or exhaustion he couldn’t be sure. He’d have to come back later.
Right now, his bride needed to be more comfortable. He had a lot more where that had come from.
He picked her up in his arms again and without the binding dress, it was so much easier. And more rewarding as her bare breasts were right there for
his viewing pleasure. That was a much better place to focus his attention.
Laying her on the bed, he looked his fill as he stripped out of his own clothes, impressed that he’d found the stamina to take the time. The last sock hit the floor and the appreciation in Roz’s gaze as she watched his show thoroughly stirred him.
The closet gymnastics had done nothing to take the edge off. Roz was dead wrong about that. He wanted her all over again with a fierce urgency that demanded absolute surrender.
Crawling across the mattress and up her body, he took the liberty of kissing his way to the perfect globes of her breasts, licking one bright, hard tip into his mouth. Her flesh rolled across his tongue. Divine. He sucked harder and she arched up off the bed with a tiny gasp. Not enough. Teeth against the tip, he scraped at it while plucking at the other one with his fingertips.
She felt exquisite in his hand. Silky. Excited. She pushed against his mouth, shoving her breast deeper, and he took it all, sucking her nipple against the roof of his mouth. That had driven her wild once before.
It did again. That simple movement got her thrashing under him, driving her hips against his painfully hard erection. The contact lit him up and felt so good, he ground into her stomach with tight circles. Inside. Now. His body was screaming for release, shooting instructions to his muscles to tilt her hips and drive to completion.
Not on the agenda. Not yet. He had to slow it down.
Grabbing her hips, he peeled away from her luscious body and kissed down the length of her stomach until he hit her thighs. That lacy thong covered her and as much as he hated to see it go, it went.
He pushed her legs open and kept going. Gorgeous. The faster he sated her, the slower he could go because she was making him insane with hip rolls that pushed her closer to him, obviously seeking relief from the fire that was licking through her veins.