Becoming Lizzie’s husband was confusing. The weight of the ring on his finger. The fake vows. The bachelorhood he’d lost. The make-believe wife he’d gained.
Earlier someone had imposed a “kiss and clink” ritual, where the bride and groom had to kiss whenever glasses were clinked together. So far, at the reception, Max and Lizzie had locked lips at least ten times. But he could have kissed her a thousand times and not gotten enough.
He leaned over and said to her, “Is it okay if I tell you again how beautiful you look?” He’d already told her how breathtaking she was, but he thought it bore repeating.
She softly replied, “You can say whatever you want, as often as you want.”
“Then I’m going to say it every chance I get.” With her sparkling gown and wild red hair, she was a seductive sight to behold. He wanted to haul her off to bed tonight, to strip her bare and relish every part of her. But that wasn’t part of the arrangement.
In the next alluring moment, a whole bunch of glasses clinked in the background. Max hastily obliged. He cupped Lizzie’s face and slanted his mouth over hers.
He’d yet to use his tongue. He wanted to, but it didn’t seem appropriate with everyone watching. Still, he made sure that his lips were parted, just enough to entice a sigh from Lizzie.
No one would ever suspect that they weren’t lovers. But Max knew. He craved her with every breath in his body.
Later, they engaged in their first husband-and-wife dance, with a well-known DJ spinning records. They’d chosen Queen’s “You’re my Best Friend,” a classic soft rock ballad, for the opening song. Some of the lyrics included professions of love. But this was a wedding, and they were supposed to be projecting that type of sentiment, even if it wasn’t true. Mostly, though, the song made sense, with how deep their friendship was.
As they swayed to the beat, holding each other close, Max ran his hand along the back of her gown, where it laced like an old-fashioned corset.
“Was it hard getting into your dress?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Sheila helped me.”
Of course, he thought, her maid of honor, who was one of her old sorority sisters, a high-society girl, much like Lizzie. “She’s probably used to dealing with these types of events.”
“Yes, she is. But I had a team of assistants, too, a hairdresser, a makeup artist, a manicurist.”
Max had gotten ready by himself. He hadn’t wanted anyone, not even his brothers, straightening his tie or pinning his boutonniere to his lapel. He’d needed to spend his last few hours of being single alone. “Who’s going to help you get out of your dress?”
“I can do it myself.” She spoke quietly, with the colors from the chandeliers raining down on her. “I just have to be careful not to damage it.”
He looked into her eyes, curious about what she had on under it—the mysterious lingerie that kept invading his mind. “You can come to me if the laces give you any trouble.”
She nearly stumbled against him. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I don’t know.” He steadied her in his arms, wondering what the hell he was doing. He’d just invited her to his room, crossing a line that wasn’t meant to be crossed. “I honestly don’t.” He couldn’t be sure what would happen if they gave in to the temptation of being together. Would they regret it afterward, would they survive the heat? They’d been so careful not to jeopardize their friendship, and now they were drowning in a sea of unholy matrimony. “Maybe we should both forget that I ever suggested it.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “We should block it out.”
He was trying. But the back of her dress kept getting in the way. He couldn’t seem to stop from touching it.
The reception continued, with dancing and drinking and party merriment. During the removal of the garter, Max knelt beside Lizzie’s chair, asking the Creator to give him the strength to endure it.
He’d been obsessing about her lingerie, and now he was getting to cop a husbandly feel of her sheer white stockings. They were the kind that stayed up all by themselves.
No hooks, no fasteners.
While he was still on the floor, with his hand lingering on her thigh, Jake called out, “Hey, Max, did you know that in earlier, bawdier times, wedding guests used to follow the couple to their bedchamber and wait for them to undress so they could steal the bride’s stockings and toss them at her and the groom until they hit one of them in the head?”
“That’s not funny,” Max called back, even if he and Lizzie laughed right along with everyone else.
“It was for luck,” Jake assured him.
Yeah, Max thought, because at least the old-time groom had been lucky enough to bed his bride, even if one of them had gotten softly pelted in the head.
As he looked up to meet Lizzie’s gaze, preparing to slide the garter down, a group of jovial guests clinked glasses, daring him to kiss the graceful sweep of her leg.
Accepting the challenge, he pressed his lips to her ankle, being as gentlemanly as the moment would allow. But damned if he still didn’t want to peel off every jeweled-and-beaded stitch of fabric she wore.
By the time Max and Lizzie cut the cake, the sexy tone had already been set. He fed her a piece of the frothy white dessert, and when some banana-cream filling stuck lusciously to her lips, he leaned forward and kissed it right off her mouth.
Holy. Mercy. Hell.
She returned his salacious kiss, with camera phones flashing and recording every detail. For better or worse, Max felt wildly, sinfully married, their tongues meeting and mating.
Logic flew straight out the door. Desperate to have her, he whispered hotly in her ear, “Come to my room later and let me undo your dress,” repeating his earlier offer and meaning every word of it.
Although Lizzie went beautifully breathy, she didn’t respond, leaving Max waiting and wondering if his wife would succumb to his request.
Or leave him hanging.
* * *
The mansion was empty, the guests and staff gone. There was no one left, except Max and Lizzie. They stood on the second-floor landing, silence between them. In one direction was the master suite and in the other were her accommodations. She stalled, not knowing which way to go.
He watched her through pitch-dark eyes. In the low-level light, they looked as black as his licorice-toned hair.
So deep. So intense.
She struggled to tame her desire. “Sleeping with you wasn’t supposed to be an option.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “It doesn’t have to affect our friendship, not if we don’t let it.”
“How?” she asked. “By only doing it this one time and never again?”
“That seems like the safest way to handle it.” He moved a little closer. “But it’s up to you, Lizzie.”
There was nothing safe about how much she wanted him. Or about the fear of love that kept burrowing its way into her thoughts. If she told him what was going on in her mind, would he still be willing to go through with it?
“I can’t,” she said, fighting the feeling. “No matter how much I want to.”
“Are you sure?” Roughness edged his voice: loss, disappointment.
She nodded, trying her darnedest to be certain.
He said, “Then sleep well and think of me, and I’ll think of you, too.”
She imagined him, alone in his bed, fantasizing about her. “I better go.” Before she crawled all over him. She could still taste the cake they’d kissed from each other’s lips.
The sweet creaminess.
Lizzie turned away, but he didn’t. She sensed him, standing in the same spot, tall and sharp in his tuxedo.
She headed toward the guest wing. Again, there was no movement behind her, no masculine footsteps, echoing in her ears. He remained as motionless as
a statue.
She stopped to breathe, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she lost her reason.
He was still there.
Lizzie ran to him, her dress swishing with every beat of her bride-in-jeopardy heart. He pulled her tight against him, lifted her up and carried her the rest of the way to his room.
She kept her arms looped around his neck, hoping she survived the night without falling in love with him.
He took her into his suite, past a royal blue sitting room and into the area where a big brass bed took precedence. This was the place where he slept each night, she thought, where he dreamed, where they would be together.
“Just this once,” she said, stating the rules, making sure she repeated them. “Then never again.”
“Yes,” he replied, putting her on her feet. “This is the only time it’s going to happen.” He moved to stand behind her. “On our wedding night.”
She felt his hands on the back of her dress, working the ties. Wonderfully dizzy, her vision nearly blurred.
He loosened more of the fabric. “It’s so soft and pretty.”
“The material between my skin and the dress is called a modesty panel.” But she wasn’t feeling very modest. Soon she would be half-naked. The only garments she had on underneath were lace panties and the thigh-high stockings he’d run his hands over earlier. Her gown had been structured so she didn’t need a bra.
Still standing behind her, he helped her remove the dress, allowing her to step out of it. She didn’t turn around, and he didn’t ask her to. But she heard his sharp intake of breath as he closed in on her. Lizzie shivered, immersed in his nearness, while he skimmed his fingers along her spine.
“Look how bare you are,” he said, following the line of her tailbone.
Yes, she thought. With her upper half clothes-free and only a wisp of lower lingerie, she was mostly bare.
Remaining where he was, directly behind her, Max circled her waist and reach around to the front of her panties. When he slipped a hand inside to cup her mound, she gasped on contact.
“You’re smooth,” he said, his voice raspy against her ear. “I’ve thought a lot about...”
The style of bikini wax she favored? She leaned back against him, stunned by how detailed his curiosity was. “You wondered about that?”
“All the time.” He kept touching her, moving farther down, until he spread her open with the tips of his fingers.
Lizzie nearly came on the spot.
He rubbed her, teasing her, making her warm and slick and wet. He used his other arm to hold her in place, pressing it firmly across her breasts. Her nipples went unbearably hard.
There was something dominantly provocative about what he was doing and how he was doing it. He had all the power.
Her groom. Her husband.
She couldn’t see his expression or the flashes of heat that she suspected were in his eyes. But she felt every insistent touch.
“Are you going to come for me, Lizzie?”
She gulped her next breath. “I almost did.”
“Yes, but are you going to do it for real?”
She nodded, as he continued his intimate quest, using her as his bridal plaything.
“This is just the beginning,” he said.
“Of what?” she asked, feeling deliciously dazed.
“Of how many times tonight I’m going to make you come.”
Her heart raced, spinning through her body like a top. “When am I going to get to do things to you?”
“You already are.” He bumped his fly against her rear, showing her how aroused he was. “But I’m not anywhere near being done with you, so that will have to wait.”
She closed her eyes. Every second of his stimulation brought her closer to the countless times he promised to invoke pleasure.
Lizzie moaned. Was the arm around her breasts getting tighter? Were his fingers strumming harder and faster? He kept his hand inside her panties, creating massive amounts of friction.
Her dress was on the floor beside their feet, so close they could have stepped on it. But neither of them did, not even when she came.
She convulsed in a flood of carnal bliss, shimmering and shaking, the back of her body banded against the front of his.
He nuzzled her neck and said, “Let’s take these off now, shall we?”
She wondered what he meant, until she realized that he was talking about her panties. Blinking through the haze, she did her shaky best to recover.
He divested her of what remained: the panties in question, her shoes, her stockings, even the colorful diamond earrings he’d given her. He did all that while he was still standing behind her.
After there was nothing left to remove, he turned her around so he could view her nakedness.
“Damn,” he said. “You’re even more gorgeous than I imagined.”
She couldn’t think of a response, at least not one that wouldn’t leave her mewling like a kitten at his feet. He was still fully clothed. If this was strip poker, she would have lost the moment he’d unlaced her gown.
He spoke once again. “I want you to turn down the covers and get into bed.”
So he could finish what he started? She was eager to do his bidding, but nervous about it, too. He was looking at her as if he meant to hold her captive for the rest of her life.
But she knew that wasn’t the case. Tonight was their only night. The only time they’d agreed to be together.
Wondering what it would be like to stay with him, to be his forever wife, she fought her fears, reminding herself that this was just sex—hot, dreamy sex—where love had nothing to do with it.
Ten
Max gazed at Lizzie, gloriously naked in his bed, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders and the soldered ring set that sealed their union glinting on her finger. She looked as much like a bride now as when she’d walked down the aisle. Wilder, he thought, more sensual, but a bride just the same.
He picked up her dress and placed it on a nearby chair, along with her panties and stockings and earrings. The only item left on the floor was her shoes. They weren’t glass slippers, but they had a fairy-tale quality nonetheless. The entire wedding had seemed that way. Which was part of its allure, part of how it had been designed, he thought, fooling their guests into believing it was going to last forever.
And now he and Lizzie were alone, immersed in one married night of romance. The anticipation in her eyes excited him. And so did her ladylike moments of shyness.
“Don’t cover up,” he told her, when she began to pull the sheet over her body.
She released it, giving him an unobstructed view once again. Mesmerized, he stood where he was, drinking in every beautifully bare part of her. Her nipples were as pink and pretty as he’d imagined, and his fingers were still warm from where he’d touched her.
Finally, Max removed his tux and draped it over the back of the same chair where he’d placed her dress.
“I never knew you were so meticulous,” she said.
“Normally, I’m not.” By tomorrow, the careful placement of their clothes wouldn’t matter. But for now it did.
Once he was naked, he joined her in bed and took her in his arms. He kissed her with gentle passion, and she roamed her hands over him, her glitter-polished nails skimming the ridged planes and sinewy muscles that formed his body.
She paused when she came to a scar, a cigarette burn—a pale circular mark of childhood torture. Although the majority of them had disappeared, some of the deeper ones, mostly on his chest, remained visible.
“Max?” Still lingering over the scar, she lifted her gaze to his, her voice soft and compassionate. “Have other women asked you about these?”
“Yes.” Other women, other lovers. “But I’ve never told them what th
ey are. I just tell them what I tell everyone who is curious enough to question me about them. That I had a bad case of measles when I was a kid that left me scarred.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Your measles tale. I always thought that seemed like a believable story, even if I knew the truth.”
Max nodded. Lizzie was privy to the pain his mother had inflicted on him because he’d shared those gut-wrenching secrets with her.
“I’m so sorry for what she did to you,” she said.
“I know you are.” She’d told him that many times before. But hearing her say it now distressed him. He didn’t want to be reminded of the abuse, not while they were being intimate. He moved her hand away from his scar, imploring her to stop touching it, letting her know it was off-limits.
A wounded look came into her eyes. Clearly, she wanted to comfort him, to do what she’d always done before. But Max couldn’t bear to accept what she was offering.
When he turned down the bedside lamp, trying to shift gears and create a softer ambience, she asked, “Are you sure that being together like this isn’t going to affect our friendship?”
“We can’t let it,” he said, even if a change was happening already. A discomfort he couldn’t deny. But there was more at stake, he thought, than just the two of them. “We’re going to co-parent a child. He’s going to need us to stay close.”
“But not this close,” she said.
He climbed on top of her, preparing to kiss his way down her body, to turn their troubled closeness into mindless pleasure. “Everything will be okay, Lizzie.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.” Max licked her nipples, going back and forth, exploring each one. After tonight, they would do whatever was necessary to resume friendship.
But for now...
For now...
He moved languidly, enjoying the taste of her skin. He flicked his tongue over the delicate gold piercing in her navel. She’d gotten it while they were still in high school. It was the only rebellious thing she’d ever done, other than becoming friends with a nerdy kid like him.
Paper Wedding, Best-Friend Bride Page 12