22
Gavin
I walk her up the steps, my hands on her hips. It takes a very long time to get to my apartment. The stairs creak and groan, especially because we stop every third or fourth one for a kiss. I kiss her behind her ear, and she shivers. I file that away, knowing I’ll want to kiss her there again and find out if it elicits the same reaction.
She stops, turns, and plants a kiss on my lips. I nearly tumble backward because it’s that powerful, and it goes to my head.
I steady myself. “I almost fell.”
“You better not fall down the steps,” she says.
“Get your ass up to my floor, then, and stop distracting me from . . . walking.” I smack her ass.
“Far be it from me to distract you with my rear end.”
“It’s a highly distracting ass.” We make it up a few more steps when I tug on her jeans. “Just testing to see how quickly they come off.”
“Why don’t you find out once we’re in your apartment?”
She’s been here before. We’ve done the whole Netflix-and-chill thing. But we legit watched Stranger Things. Tonight, I’m pretty sure there’s no Netflix ahead. Just chill.
Once we’re inside my apartment, I reach for her, slide my hand around her waist, and bring her close.
We’ve kissed before, but this time I know it’s not ending there. This time, I know we’ll be making it to the other room. We’ll find out what happens when friends turn into something more. It’s scary and thrilling to know someone so well and for it to suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly at all, zoom to the next level.
I clasp my hands on her face and kiss her deeply, exploring her mouth, taking my time. As I do, I’m struck with a thought from out of left field.
I’ll have a lifetime of kissing her.
Whoa.
I don’t know why my brain leaped to that thought. I try to shake it off, because now isn’t the time for contemplating futures and forevers.
But the thought stays in the back of my mind.
Or maybe it was there already, and now it’s in the front of my head.
I can’t let it go. Can’t unsee it. Can’t unfeel it.
Because this seems like the kind of kiss that won’t end, that’ll lead to more nights and days together.
This kiss feels like the start of our life together.
And I’d like it to include lots of kissing.
We find a rhythm quickly, a cocktail mix of soft and slow, then hard and fast, then deep and sweet. So damn sweet. I tug on the waistband of her jeans, breaking the kiss. “Okay, now I mean it. We need to get these off right now.”
“You need to get me off right now,” she says in a husky whisper.
I groan in appreciation, amazed that Savannah has this dirty piece to her. “I like learning this side of you.”
She runs a hand up my chest, sending heat down my spine. “I like learning your sides too.”
Once we’re in the bedroom, we make quick work of our clothes. She’s soft where she should be soft, and curvy where she should be curvy, and firm where I want her to be firm. But most of all, seeing her stripped bare does it for me. I go from rock hard to rock harder.
Judging from the way her eyes roam over my body, she likes what she sees too. She places her hands on my pecs, then trails them down my arms and back up to my face. “You’re totally fucking hot.”
“And totally fucking ready.”
She slides her hand down my abs and grasps my erection. I close my eyes and shudder.
“That feels spectacular,” she whispers.
“Couldn’t agree more.”
We make our way to the bed, and I find a condom, but I don’t put it on right away.
We kiss more, touch more, explore each other. My hands map her body as they roam down her stomach, along her thighs, over the curve of her ass. She’s just as frisky as I am, taking her own inventory, and we’re both panting, groaning, and so damn aroused. I push her down on her back, grab her wrists, and thrust them over her head. “I need to get inside you now. I can’t wait any longer.”
She gives me a seductive, sexy smile. “So don’t wait.”
I roll on the condom and enter her.
Holy hell.
It takes me a moment to collect myself because this feels so damn good. And so right. I’m inside the woman who’s been my best friend, who’s been a fake date, who’s been in the friend zone, and who’s most definitely sliding all the way out of that zone tonight.
Because as I move with her, I’m keenly aware that it’s not just fucking. I’m making love to her, and everything feels entirely different between us. When she says my name in that breathy gasp, I’m sure we’re both feeling it, the same flash of possibility.
She loops her arms around my neck, pulls me close, and falls apart beneath me. I follow her there to the other side.
* * *
A little later, I run my hand through her hair and whisper in her ear. “I have a feeling we’re going to be doing that for a long, long time,” I say.
“Me too.”
The next morning, after we say goodbye and I tell her I’ll see her tonight, I call Eddie. “Dude, I have officially met the woman I’m going to marry, and I think you’re going to love her.”
“Dude, I already love the Sav-meister. She’s awesome. Also, I knew it, and to celebrate how smart I am, I’m shopping for a new beer bong. Meet me at the diner and tell me all about it.”
At lunch I make my announcement. “She’s the one for me. It’s that simple.”
He slams a hand on the table and beams. “Knew it. Called it. Love it.”
“Yeah, me too,” I say.
* * *
The trouble is, once I propose a few months later and then ask Eddie to be my best man, he tells me he can’t wait to share all my stories in front of our friends and family.
Gulp.
23
Savannah
I can’t stop staring at my ring. I show it off to Piper and Sloane one night over pool. Actually, I show it off every time I see them.
Well, they’re both happily betrothed themselves, so it’s all good.
“It’s the size of a baseball,” Sloane says.
“No, it’s grown to dinosaur-egg size,” Piper corrects.
I look at it yet again. “It’s the world’s most amazing ring. It gets bigger and better every time I look at it.”
Sloane squeezes my shoulder. “That’s because you love him more and more each day.”
I go all soft inside. My heart is mushy, and it’s wonderful. “I do. I really do.”
Sloane arches a brow. Piper arches one of hers.
“So,” Sloane begins, “this is where you admit it.”
“Admit what?”
Piper laughs. “Oh, that’s funny. Like you don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” I ask.
Sloane rolls her eyes. “It totally happened like a romance novel.”
“Where everything turns into something,” Piper puts in.
“Where fake dates lead to more,” Sloane adds.
“And where true love wins the day.”
What can I say? They were right. I square my shoulders. “You told me so.”
They both clap and cheer.
And everything goes fabulously as we plan our wedding, until the night we’re out to dinner with my parents, Gavin’s parents, and Eddie.
After Eddie orders a beer, he chuckles.
“What’s so funny?” my dad asks, amused and curious.
He lifts the glass. “Oh, I was just thinking about this time I bought a beer bong the size of a baseball bat. It was the best one ever. Got me wondering how quickly this brew would go down one. Hey! Idea! Should we do that at the wedding?”
My shoulders tighten. I meet Gavin’s gaze. He nods at me, whispering an “I know.”
We both know.
We’re going to need a new best man.
Otherwise, everyone is going to know about the beer
bong the size of a baseball bat and the plunger named Fred.
And really, those stories are best kept private.
After all, my crocheting aunt Ellen would likely faint, and we can’t have that at our nuptials.
I run through the options with my fiancé, who’s 100 percent onboard. Eddie is too. Wait, make that 110 percent on board. “Guys, I hate writing speeches. Plus, I’d rather dedicate all my focus on picking up bridesmaids,” he says when we discuss the problem of Fred the plunger and the baseball bat–sized bong.
The next night over a plate of jalapeño nachos, Gavin and I debate replacements—other friends, and even colleagues. But everyone else feels wrong.
I turn to Piper. My good friend is a wedding planner after all. She has to know someone.
I meet her at a bookstore after work, where I find her flipping through a romance novel. She smiles then beckons me closer. “I have someone for you. I happen to be good friends with the city’s premier best man for hire.”
A few weeks later, Gavin and I meet her English friend at our favorite bar, where I’m instantly sold.
Interlude
Spencer
All seems well, doesn’t it? She’s satisfied. He’s satisfied. They swept past their issues. Even the issue of Eddie and the plunger and the beer bong.
That means we can chat about something else.
Let’s talk about big gestures . . .
Say you’re a gentleman of the world. Now say you reach that point in your wooing of a special lady where you’re thinking it’s time to go all in. To let her know. Maybe throw a parade.
Some women like parades.
Some women hate them.
What I’m saying is the gesture needs to matter to her.
The gesture may not be what you expect, but sometimes it’s exactly what you need to do.
24
Enzo
I nurse my drink at Gin Joint, reflecting on the helpful bartender’s advice. She’s busy catching up with another customer, an Englishman who seems to have come from a wedding, judging from the tux and bow tie.
“How did it go tonight? Were you charming and fabulously engaging, all while bestowing the necessary attention on the groom?” the bartender asks the man.
“Of course. I was thoroughly believable as I waxed poetic about what a fine chap he is and how I knew it’d last forever,” he answers.
“There is no better best man for hire in all of Manhattan.”
“None at all,” he says.
I consider that job for a moment. An interesting career, to be sure. One I never knew existed.
“And when I told the story of the groom’s big gesture to win his bride’s heart—the moment where he stood outside her window and professed his love—there was not a dry eye in the house.”
That’s interesting too.
Between this man’s talk of big gestures and the bartender’s remark about quitting my job, I start to formulate a plan.
By the time I finish my drink, I know what I need to do, thanks to the helpful bartender and her best man for hire. I don’t know their names, but they both in their own way have given me exactly the advice I needed.
Yet a man must be a man of his word. As I leave the bar, I call Gigi and ask her to check the clause in my contract with Wu Media.
“You’ve fulfilled all your contractual obligations,” my agent tells me. “But you do know you get a huge bonus if you exercise the option and re-up with the company?”
She tells me the figure, and it is tempting. But not as tempting as the woman I’ve fallen for.
“As long as I have done what I promised, then I must let the deal go.”
I ask Gigi to tell the client, since that’s the proper way to handle such matters.
After all, some things are bigger than work.
Bigger than brand campaigns.
She can’t leave her company.
But I can.
25
Valerie
I see red.
It billows out of my eyes and swirls around me.
My assistant has sent me an email from Enzo’s agent about the termination of his contract, and I stare at it from my bed.
How could he simply up and quit? Is he going to leave the city and never come back? Will this be the last I see of him?
I dial Kingsley, and I tell her what he just did.
She fumes. “He better have a damn good reason.”
“Right? How on earth could he just walk away from the contract without telling me first? We’ve become friends after all.”
“You’d better march over to his place and see what it’s all about.”
“As if I’m doing anything else.”
I say goodbye and hang up. I pull on a jacket, straighten my skirt, slide into my flats, and call my driver. Once outside on Fifth Avenue, I sweep into the car, slam the door in a dramatic fit of frustration, and give the address to Enzo’s sublet. He’s only been renting it for a few months—he hasn’t even moved to New York. For all I know, he could be returning to Madrid.
Then it hits me.
He has all the reasons to leave. I haven’t given him any to stay. Last time I saw him, I reminded him that we could only be friends.
Instantly, I change my mission. I need him to stay. I might be mad at him for walking away from his role as the face of my company when he could easily have re-upped with us for millions, but the idea of him leaving . . .
That ruins me.
A few minutes later, I arrive at the sleek skyscraper, thank my driver, and then head inside and tell the concierge I’m here to see Enzo De la Rosa.
The man gives me an impassive look. “Excellent. He’s expecting you.”
My brow furrows. “Expecting me?”
The man simply nods.
“How can he be expecting me?”
“He is.”
I march to the elevator, press the button, and then head inside when the doors open. How on earth could he be expecting me?
But at least he hasn’t left yet.
I ride up to the twelfth floor, step out of the elevator, head down the hall, and am about to bang on his door when he opens it, wearing a wicked grin.
“And what do you have to be so smiley-faced about? Because you’re leaving me?” That came out a little tart. I guess I’m still annoyed.
He gestures to me. “Because you’re here.”
“I’m here because you didn’t tell me first that you weren’t continuing with Wu Media. I had to find out through my assistant that your agent said you’re through. That’s so upsetting, especially since I didn’t get to tell you how I—”
He grabs me by the hand, tugs me inside, and kicks the door closed with his foot. He cups my cheeks. “No, what would be truly upsetting is if we never did this.” He hauls me in for a kiss—an absolutely searing kiss that makes my body sing and my brain go haywire.
It’s unexpected, but it’s also completely inevitable. It’s wondrous and hot, and it’s wildly passionate too.
His lips explore mine as he bends me backward, taking over this kiss, letting me know that he’s in charge.
He murmurs and moans, his tongue stroking inside my mouth, and all my systems go into overdrive.
My skin sizzles, my blood heats, and I’m hot everywhere. I’m enveloped in longing for this man as he kisses me with a fire that is not red-hot. It’s white-hot.
I don’t believe I’ve ever been kissed like this, but it is the only way a woman should ever be kissed.
He breaks away to say, “Don’t you understand? I did it for you. I did it because I’m mad about you, Valerie. I’m crazy about you. Someone had to make the big gesture. It might as well be me.”
I tremble. I’m filled with desire as well as something new. Emotions. Happiness. All at an intensity that says there is so much more to us than our newfangled friendship and our crazy chemistry. There’s something brewing that could be real, that could be lasting. “You did it for me?”
He nods.
“For us. You can’t quit your company. But I can. So I did. I left so we no longer have anything between us.”
My heart expands in my chest. “I came here to tell you not to leave. That we need to find a way to be together.”
His grin grows impossibly wider. “This is the way. Because I did that all for us.”
I run a hand through his hair, my tone softening even more. “You did that for us?”
“You mean so much more to me than a job. I want you more than work. And if that was our only barrier, it was my job as a man to knock it down.”
I swoon.
I melt.
This man does everything to me. I set a hand on his chest, covering his heart. “You are the most incredible man I’ve ever met. And I want you to take me to bed.”
He stares at me, his eyes smoldering, his expression full of desire. “In my bed, I will take you, and have you, and fuck you, and make love to you, and pleasure you all night long. I only have one rule.”
“What’s that?” I’m vibrating with lust.
He scoops me up in his arms and carries me, never breaking eye contact. “I’d like to be in charge of your pleasure.”
“You can make all the rules.”
In his bedroom, he strips me quickly, finds a tie, and binds my wrists to the bedposts.
He takes off his shirt, striding around in only a pair of shorts. “I want to marvel at how beautiful you look on my bed. And then I want to go down on you and taste you coming on my lips.”
I shiver and grow even hotter when he crawls up the mattress, kissing me all over, kissing my neck, my breasts, then working his way down my body where he settles between my legs.
I’m going to go off like a rocket. He already has me so on edge, racing toward the finish line.
He presses his mouth against me, and I groan his name. Nothing has ever felt like this. It’s like he’s worshiping me. His moans are obscene and alluring at the same time, as he licks and kisses and sends me into overdrive.
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