He stirred; I heard and felt the change in his breathing that came with waking. I skimmed my fingers over his chest in swirling patterns, relishing every ripple of muscle and the hard, taut planes I wanted to run my tongue over. I pressed a soft kiss at the base of his sternum and then flicked my eyes up to his face when a sleepy rumble worked its way up from his chest. His eyes blinked open and found me watching him. A lazy smile spread across his lips.
I felt a little pang thinking I’d missed out on this smile last time.
“Good morning,” I pushed myself up on my arms and hovered over him, dropping my lips to brush over his once.
His arms curled around my lower back and he groaned. “A very good morning.” And then he did more than brush his lips over mine. He kissed me deeply and there was nothing chaste about it. That’s when he seemed to become fully aware that we were both still naked. His rough hands found my bare ass, hauling me up his body, and it was quite a while before either one of us even thought about leaving the bed.
Surprisingly, Kellen and Shae didn’t knock at our door or even send a text. It was lunch time before we heard from them. By then we’d dressed and ordered room service for breakfast, eating so much French toast and eggs and bacon that I didn’t think I would be hungry again all day.
“Should I be worried that we didn’t hear from you two at all last night, or this morning?” Shae asked when I answered her call. “Did you kill him, or kick him out of the room, or are you two good?”
“We’re good.” I glanced at him sitting on the couch, feet up on the coffee table reading something on his phone as he reached for one of the leftover pieces of cold bacon on my plate. I smiled. “Yeah, we’re really good.”
“Yeah?” Shae asked. It was both hopeful and disbelieving.
“Yeah.”
I could practically hear her grin. “So, do you guys want to go get lunch and then do something? Kellen and I have been sitting on the pool deck all morning. We’re fine to stay here, and the fruity drinks just keep coming, but we thought we’d see if you two wanted to hit The Strip.”
“Actually, I think I could use a day just lounging by the pool. We can go out tonight if everyone feels like it.”
Luke looked up and gave a nod that he approved.
“Sounds perfect. We’ll see you two when you get down here.”
The remainder of the day was spent lounging in a private cabana on the pool deck in between dips in the water to cool off when the desert sun grew too hot. Shae hadn’t lied about the drinks either. They were tasty, cold, and bottomless. We kept a nice buzz going all afternoon.
We made new friends in the pool, inviting them to join us in our cabana, and pretty soon we were all drinking and laughing and making plans to meet up for dinner later that night.
Not before I got my gondola ride though. I made sure of that. The whole experience was amazingly cheesy and romantic and I loved every second of it, even if I could tell Luke was only there to indulge me. He smiled, winked, and held my hand the whole ride.
My heart beat excitedly in my chest and even when the ride was over, I didn’t slip my hand out of his. So, this is what it felt like? I think I owed Taylor Swift and Nicholas Sparks an apology. They’d had it right.
I enjoyed dinner and seeing The Strip at night for the first time. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. The sights, sounds and activity were almost enough to overload a person’s senses. A few times I wished I could unsee something, but then I’d laugh and change my mind chalking it up to the Vegas experience. I wanted to stop at every bar, casino, and club we passed. I wanted to see everything, and like Nashville, I knew I’d have to come back to make that happen. It was one of the best nights I could remember having, and yet still all I could think about was what would happen when Luke and I got back to the suite.
When we finally did, my dress hit the floor before the door had even latched. My back was bouncing off the mattress a second later when Luke tossed me down on it. Before he could crawl over the top of me, I stopped him and said in a husky undertone, “I think it’s only fair that since you guys wouldn’t take us to the Magic Mike show, that you put on a little show for me here.”
He froze, halfway down to the bed already, his hands pressing into the mattress next to my thighs. “Is that so?”
I nodded and he pushed himself up. “You want me to strip for you?” He wore a wolfish grin.
“You must have learned a few tricks over the years,” I teased. “So, show me what you got.”
If possible that grin became even more predatory. We hadn’t bothered hitting the lights upon entering the room, the only illumination came from a lamp left on. I watched in the near dark as he slid something out of his pocket–his phone. He walked over to connect it to the Bluetooth speaker on the stand by the TV. I recognized the first notes of The Weeknd’s Earned It when they rang out through the quiet room. I couldn’t help the delighted laugh that bubbled up.
All trace of humor was wiped away when he turned back to me and his heated gaze connected with mine. The smirk still touched his lips, but his eyes were dark and teeming with sinful thoughts. I swallowed, feeling my heartrate kick up and heat flood my body. I scissored my legs, shifting as a delicious ache throbbed low in my belly. With the first step he took toward me, my nipples hardened beneath the lace of my bra and desire pooled low in my belly.
His slow movements were graceful and masculine and I tracked him all the way to the foot of the bed, the music now thrumming through my body. He didn’t waste time with any flashy moves or hip gyrating. He didn’t need to. He already had me enthralled. He reached behind his head, grabbing at the back of his shirt and slowly tugging it over his head. My eyes dropped to his abs as inch by inch they were revealed to me.
Hot damn. Forget Magic Mike.
The shirt hit the floor and his jeans were the next to go. He took his time sliding the belt from the loops before popping the button and tugging the zipper down. Then the faded denim was shoved down his thighs and I couldn’t help biting my lip when I saw the bulge straining against the tight black boxer briefs he was left standing in.
His fingers hooked in the waistband and then they too were slowly shoved down. I released my lip when his thick, hard erection sprang free. He stood there gloriously naked, all that golden tanned skin stretched over lean muscle. His body had a sinewy beauty that made my heart and other parts of me pulse.
He smirked and wrapped his around his length, slowly stoking it, once then twice. I sat up eagerly, about to crawl across the bed to get to him, but he released his erection and then his hand closed around my ankle. He gave a hard yank, dragging me closer to the end of the bed. Then he raised my left leg up, placing a kiss on the inside of my ankle, following it with another just a little higher, and then another, and another until he was kneeling on the bed, kissing his way up my leg to the crease of my thigh. I closed my eyes, blocking out all sensation except the sensual beat of the music and his hot kisses on my skin. His lips feathered over my hip and then my ribs as his hand skimmed up the other side.
My chest heaved and my core clenched in anticipation of his mouth sealing over my breast, but he merely grazed the tip of his nose over my aching flesh, brushing it over my nipple and then dragging his lips over my collarbone to my neck. He kissed and licked a lazy trail to my ear as his thumb caressed the underside of my breast, denying me the contact where I really wanted it.
His warm breath fanned across my cheek. “Last night I made love to you, and worshipped this body. Tonight, I’m going to fuck it like we both need me to.” A shudder rippled down my spine and goosebumps broke out over my flesh that left me tingling everywhere.
And oh sweet mercy did he keep his promise.
He gave me everything I needed and more. Hard. Fast. Holding nothing back. He took me places I’d never been, used my body in ways it’d never been used that would leave me deliciously sore in the morning.
His back would still be covered in welts and scratches from t
he way my fingers dug into him and raked his skin raw in desperation when I was too beyond words and coherent thought to get out my plea of ‘Harder. Faster. More.’
I didn’t even remember falling asleep after we were done because I think I passed out with him still on top of me after he collapsed. I was boneless and breathless and mindless and a bunch of other lesses. I would have slept all the way through morning had I not woken up needing to pee urgently. Luke was on his back beside me sleeping hard. He didn’t stir at all when I climbed out of the bed or when I came back after peeing and brushing my teeth.
I leaned over him and pressed a light kiss to his lips which tasted of mint and not the whiskey he’d had on his breath earlier, which meant he’d already used the bathroom at some point after I blacked out. I was asleep again within minutes of snuggling under the covers. The next time I woke, the sun was breaking through the gaps in the drapes and I was alone in bed.
I could hear the shower running through the partially ajar bathroom door. The thought of how good a hot shower would feel on my tired, achy body made me groan. I decided to surprise Luke by joining him. He didn’t hear my footsteps on the marbled floor, nor did he turn around when I slipped into the shower behind him and wrapped my arms around his torso, pressing my chest to his back and flattening my palms against his hard stomach. I pressed a kiss against his shoulder blade and then slowly let my hands wander lower.
By the time we got out of the shower, we were both thoroughly clean and we were cutting it close getting packed up and out of there by check out.
We weren’t the only ones moving slow this morning. It wasn’t until we’d all made it through that first cup of coffee at breakfast that we started perking up. Shae and I got in a bit of morning shopping before we had to roll out of Vegas. We had another near seven-hour day in the car ahead of us before we reached our final destination.
I expected my dread to grow with every mile closer to California, but even when we crossed the Nevada border, I couldn’t find it in me to worry. Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe I should have been preparing myself for the worst, but instead I was oddly at ease. I knew the reason for that was sitting in the driver’s seat. He wasn’t just going to be pretending to be my boyfriend. The relationship we’d planned to fake for my family’s benefit was now very real, and even though it had only been nine days since we’d left South Carolina, I had changed a lot through the miles.
The biggest change being that I was no longer intimidated by the prospect of facing my family. Nobody was bursting my bubble. It took this whole mess with Luke to make me realize that not only did I not have to be something I wasn’t for him, but I didn’t have to be something I wasn’t for them either. I could accept that they were who they were, and they would always be my family. Whether or not they accepted me didn’t change that or matter to me any longer.
I liked the person I was becoming, the me I was discovering I could be. That was enough. It had to be. I was the one I had to face in the mirror. Not them or anyone else.
I placed a call to my mother when we were about an hour from my grandparents’ to let her know we would be arriving.
She of course couldn’t let me go without making it known just what she thought of us missing the dinner this evening.
“Sorry Mom, traffic has been terrible,” I lied and then she told me not to expect them to leave any food out for us. She didn’t need to worry though, I never would have expected it. I’d planned it this way intentionally, wanting to limit family interaction as much as possible.
“Guess now is a good enough time to start filling you guys in on my family,” I sighed once I’d hung up with my mother. They all listened intently. “Regina and Neil, that’s my parents. Dad’s a big shot lawyer. Took over his father’s firm a few years ago. He’s a typical shark. Mom’s a socialite. The vineyard where the wedding is being held is owned by her parents, Roger and Louise Elliott. They were never doting grandparents. I don’t even call them Grandma and Grandpa. Just Roger and Louise. Then there’s Elaine and Philip. They’re my dad’s parents, or Grandmother and Grandfather. They’re not very nice either, and none of them like me.
“My sister, Tabbi, is a year younger than me. She was the spoiled princess who could do no wrong and was always pleasing to my parents. Her fiancé’s name is Jonathon. I don’t know anything about him other than they met in college. He’s probably a rich asshole if my parents approve of him. Then there’s my brother Mitch,” I trailed off for a second as I realized just how much I actually missed him and how much our falling out had hurt me. “He’s … he’s a good brother. And a good guy, but he cares too much about what our father thinks.” I didn’t go into the personal details like I had with Luke. “We don’t talk much because I can’t stand the way he lets my parents run his life. He’s never stood up for himself. Even followed in my father’s footsteps and became a lawyer despite that he always wanted to be a teacher.”
“I also have a handful of aunts and uncles and a slew of cousins that will all be there. The only one you need to know is my Aunt Liza. She’s my dad’s sister, but the two of them are as different as Tabbi and I. I lived with her for a while before I moved to South Carolina. She was good to me. We were close for a while, but then she got cancer and I kind of pushed her away when I chose the profession I did, knowing she wouldn’t approve.” I regretted that now. I hoped I’d get the chance to talk to her tomorrow and tell her how sorry I was for the way I acted back then, for shutting her out at a time when she was going through hell, when she’d been the only person there for me when I’d been going through my own hell.
“She has a daughter Morgan, but she never married, hence she was kind of the shame of the family until I came around and stole that title. I don’t know my cousin well. She was shy and quiet and I think for most of our childhood she thought I was crazy and avoided me so I wouldn’t get her in trouble. She was two years older than me and off at college during the year I lived with her mom.” I doubted she liked me much more now than she had when we were kids.
I spared a few more details about my family, just so they would know what to expect, which was pretty much for everyone to act like assholes, and then drunk assholes once the wine and scotch were brought out. But hey, at least we could get drunk too.
It was just after seven when the Range Rover pulled into the long, winding, circular drive that led to the house at the vineyard. An entire childhood of memories came flashing back along that drive.
Me getting yelled at for sneaking into the vineyard to pick grapes.
Me getting yelled at for convincing Mitch and Tabbi to play hide and seek in the vineyard–not that I had to try hard to convince them, still I got all the blame.
Me getting yelled at for digging up worms in Louise’s flowerbed.
Then there was the time I got grounded for a month at fourteen for sneaking into the wine cellar. Little did my parents and grandparents know it was neither the first nor last time I did it. Same with the time they caught me making out with the landscaper’s son. I got two months for that, but at least they didn’t know that the next time I saw him, to spite them, I let him get to second base while I went right to third in the garden shed. It was my first hand job. His as well and he came all over me in about thirty seconds. All in all, pretty unfulfilling.
Good times. So many fond memories of my grandparents’ house.
“What are you thinking about?” Luke cast a sideways glance at me as he slowed the car once the house came into view. “You got all quiet.”
“I was just remembering the time I let Juan, my grandparent’s landscaper’s son, feel me up while I gave him a hand job in the garden shed as revenge for getting grounded for two months prior to that when they caught me kissing him.”
At the look on Luke’s face I shrugged and said, “Hey, you asked.” Shae and Kellen cough-laughed in the backseat.
“Does this Juan or his father still work for your grandparents?” Luke’s eyes narrowed and this time I laughed.
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br /> “Don’t worry, it was a very forgettable experience. I haven’t even thought of him until just now, so even if he’s still around, you have nothing to worry about.” I gave him a teasing wink.
Not surprisingly, nobody rushed out the door to greet us when we pulled the car to a stop in front of the house. Kellen leaned forward between our seats to glimpse the house that sat back nestled in a cluster of trees–Southern Magnolias and Star Magnolias and California Sycamores, none of them good for climbing. Their purposes were aesthetic only, though I’d certainly given them each a go as a child. Another memory hit me of the time I broke several branches on one of the Magnolia trees. Louise had not liked that.
Kellen let out a low whistle as he took in the grand structure in its entirety; more mansion than house with its pillars and balconies and three stories that nearly cleared the top of the tallest trees around it, stretched out over nearly the length of a city block with nine bedrooms and ten baths. If asked, my grandparents could readily spout the square footage with pride.
We hauled our luggage up the stone drive to the wide French doors where I didn’t bother knocking. It would drive my parents and grandparents crazy if we just barged in, which is exactly why I did.
“Just leave your bags here,” I told them once we stepped into the marble entryway.
My mother was coming down the grand, curved staircase and paused near the bottom step, taking in all our bags with disdain, but then she plastered a false smile on her face as she finished her descent and came to greet us. She didn’t bother with a hug, just stopped before our little foursome, the disapproval with which she took me in, barely concealed. “You know, Cecilia, you could have left your bags for the staff to retrieve.”
I did know that, but it was more fun to pile them up in the entryway and witness her displeasure. After all this time, I still couldn’t resist the small rebellions.
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