I rummage through the vanity drawers until I find some makeup wipes. Fortunately, my disaster-proof hair has survived Hurricane Huxley without a single curl out of place. But my makeup is a hot, streaky mess.
I dab under my eyes to catch the last of the mascara without damaging the foundation. Then I move to my lips, where Huxley has smudged my lipstick on both sides with his kisses.
Ah, memories.
“Olivia, are you still in here?” Huxley’s voice reaches me through the crack in the door.
“Yeah, I’m here. Hold on.”
I turn the lock and let him in, closing the door firmly behind him to block the other guests. A tuxedo jacket and a thong are not proper wedding attire, no matter what Huxley says.
When I turn around, I notice that Huxley has a garment bag slung over his shoulder. How did he find a dress so quickly?
My heart leaps. Maybe this wedding isn’t fucked after all.
“Is that it? Is that my dress?”
Though the anticipation is killing me, I take a moment to manage my expectations. The dress might be ugly. It might be the wrong size.
But at least I won’t be naked.
“Yes, it is. Here you go,” he says proudly, lifting the bag to reveal its contents.
Inside is the cutest sundress I’ve ever seen. It’s not technically a bridesmaid dress, but the color is a perfect match. It has a flattering A-line skirt and crisscross straps that won’t slip off my shoulder while I walk.
It’s even in my size.
I’m the maid of honor, so it won’t matter if my dress isn’t identical to the other bridesmaids’ dresses. At least it’s coordinated.
And instead of an annoying train, there are soft ruffles in the back. Those will look like waves, I think.
More importantly, Huxley won’t trip on them and strip me naked again. Not unless I want him to.
I look back at Huxley. “I’m stunned. This is…perfect. Where did you find it?”
Huxley gives me a mischievous smile. “Well, I was on my way to the bridal shop when I saw a woman walking by who was wearing this same dress.”
As he tells me the story, he removes the dress from its hanger and helps me lower it over my head. I tingle all over when he brushes his fingers against my bare skin.
“I asked her where I could get a dress like that, and she said, ‘Here. Take mine.’ She took it off right in front of me. What a nice lady, right?”
Something tells me Huxley is not being completely honest with me right now.
“Really?” I ask, fishing for the truth. “Did she offer you her strapless bra, too? Because I think I might need one with this dress.”
“Oh, shit,” Huxley continues, not missing a beat. “I asked her for her bra, but when she took it off, it fell in the gutter and went down the storm drain. I felt kind of sorry for her. She looked like she needed the support.”
“Don’t we all need a little support?” I ask, but the dress muffles my sarcasm. I poke my head through the neckline just in time to look at him skeptically. “You are so full of shit, Huxley. Where did you really get the dress?”
He laughs, and for once, I laugh with him. Even though he’s being his usual idiotic self, it doesn’t seem quite as obnoxious now that I know he can joke around and still get his work done.
I turn around and wait for him to zip me up in the back.
“It’s yours, Princess,” he assures me. “I called the bridal shop to see if they had any more dresses like yours, but the answering machine said they were closed. So, I looked through all the bedrooms in this huge-ass mansion until I found a closet full of dresses. Cute bedroom, by the way. How’d I do?”
I give him a kiss on the cheek, trying to remember when I would have bought this thing—and trying not to think of Huxley Athens snooping around my childhood bedroom. “I love it. It looks like something I would’ve picked out myself.”
Women as rich as the women in my family rarely wear the same dress twice, especially not to an event where they’ll be photographed. So it’s not completely out of the question to have more clothes than you can keep track of—the maids usually take care of that
I feel around inside the dress, looking for tags, but I don’t find any. That means the dress hasn’t been worn before and is probably safe.
I’m actually grateful that Huxley was able to find this treasure from the depths of my closet.
Grateful for Huxley. It feels so weird saying that.
Until just a little while ago, the wedding was supposed to have a designated start time for each phase: the ceremony would be followed by the cocktail reception and then dinner. In between, the bride would toss the bouquet and cut the cake, and then we’d get our bubble wands ready for the bride and groom’s departure for the honeymoon…followed by their hasty annulment, I’m sure. I could set my watch to it.
Now, I’d have to get a fucking time machine if I wanted to keep it on schedule.
“What are you thinking about, Olivia?” Huxley is staring at me with that concerned, caring look that makes it so hard for me to remember how wrong we are for each other.
I sigh.
“I was just thinking about how drastically I’ve had to lower my expectations for this wedding.”
Huxley bursts out laughing.
This is not the reaction I was expecting from him after all I’ve been through today, and I’m not pleased.
“How is this funny?”
“You, lowering your expectations.” His fingertips brush my jawline. “Do you really mean to tell me that I’m anything but an upgrade from that piece of soggy Wonderbread that you were calling a date?”
“Are you saying that you’re my date now, Huxley Athens?”
“Maybe I am, Olivia Vandercliff.”
Huxley pulls me toward him for a hug. I rest my head on his shoulder and let him rub my back.
“See? Even when things don’t go according to plan, they can still turn out just fine,” he says.
He’s right. Today has been full of surprises. Most of them were bad, but at least one of them was hot as hell. And the day isn’t over yet.
“Should we go look for Emma and Theo?” I suggest. “Maybe they’re in my closet, too.”
He shakes his head. “No fucking way. My brother’s a big boy. He can find his way to his own wedding. You and I are going out for a drink.”
Huxley
“The Hamptons is littered with bars and restaurants,” Olivia says, not even trying to hide her disgust, “and you take me here for a drink?”
What can I say? I like to see her off-kilter a little. And bringing her to a strip club is definitely knocking her off her perfectly poised-and-coifed path. But that’s not what I tell her.
“They have the best margaritas here. I promise.”
“That’s like saying you buy porn magazines for the articles,” she says while waiting for me to open the door for her.
We enter the Shakespeare and are instantly enveloped in the musky scent of perfume, sweat, and pheromones. There’s no mistaking the purpose of this club.
“That’s crazy,” I say, leading her to a table in front of the stage. “Why look at pictures of naked women when you can have the real thing?” I motion up to the stage, where a dancer is ending her song in nothing but her birthday suit and a huge smile.
While the DJ teases that the next dancer coming up soon, a cocktail waitress walks over to take our orders.
“Two top-shelf margaritas on the rocks, with salt,” I say, handing her my Amex Black Card to start a tab.
“You always order for other people?” Olivia asks as I watch the waitress walk away.
“You need tequila in the worst way,” I say as I turn to her.
“You’re not wrong,” Olivia says after a few moments, then she leans back in the chair like she wants to relax, but just can’t. No doubt about it, she needs alcohol in her. For starters, at least.
Fingering her back in the powder room is just a teaser for all I want to do bo
th to her and with her. I want to put it all—my fingers, my tongue, and, especially, my dick—in her; but for now, I’ll settle for settling her post-wedding nerves with a drink.
The waitress brings our drinks, and Olivia starts soaking hers up like she’s a sponge. She visibly relaxes, sinking into the chair.
She’s the kind of beautiful that is inarguable. It doesn’t matter if you prefer blondes over brunettes, or like a thick ass—Olivia is gorgeous.
But, when she’s relaxed and not wound so tight? My dick is springing to action right in front of me.
And the next dancer hasn’t even made it on the stage yet.
Just then, the next dancer does just that, sashaying onto the stage and practically leaping onto the pole, twirling around, her dark hair flowing behind her.
“Enjoying the view?” Olivia asks.
I take my eyes off the stage to find Olivia staring at me intently. “What can I say? She’s good at her job.”
I reach over and brush my fingers along Olivia’s bare knee, just where her sundress ends.
“Have you ever thought of dancing?” I ask, slowly moving my eyes from her legs up her body to her eyes, drinking her in along the way.
Instead of brushing my hand away, Olivia leans in and says, “Who says I haven’t?”
Fuck. I’m hard as a rock now. “What would I have to do to get you to show me your moves?”
“You couldn’t afford me,” Olivia practically purrs, and then crosses and uncrosses her legs. I look down and watch her, thinking how I would give anything to fall to my knees and bury myself into her pussy.
“That’s probably very true,” I say, “but give me a chan—”
“Does she look like—” Olivia interrupts me, looking at the smoking brunette writhing and grinding on stage, her top already off. I take a moment to actually look at her face instead of her tits and ass, and see what Olivia has to be seeing right now, too.
“Huh. She looks just like Lauren,” I say.
There’s no denying that the dancer on stage right now looks just like Senator Keen’s daughter, Lauren. Since Lauren was a bridesmaid, we’ve had lots of opportunities the last few months to see Lauren up close.
Just, not quite this close.
“Do you think it’s her?” Olivia asks, slurping up the last of her margarita through the straw. I gesture to our waitress for another round.
“Even if I did think the Senator’s daughter was moonlighting as a stripper,” I say, “it’d be pretty ballsy of her to schedule a shift the same day she’s supposed to be in your sister’s wedding.”
“Not if she planned to cut out early like everyone else,” Olivia says, taking a new glass from our waitress. “Didn’t you think it was weird that everyone was gone when we came out?”
“I guess,” I say, but, honestly, anyone other than Olivia wasn’t really on my mind at the time.
“And Emma and Theo?” Olivia asks, getting worked up. “It’s one thing for the wedding party to—poof!—disappear. But the bride and groom? They’re kinda essential to a wedding, you know?”
“They’re adults,” I counter. “They can do whatever they want, even if that means ditching their own wedding.”
“I’m serious, Hux,” she says. “What if something happened to them? What if they’re hurt?!”
“Oh, come on. They’re not lying dead in a ditch somewhere. It’s obvious what happened to them—they got cold feet.”
“Cold feet?” Olivia asks, raising one sexy eyebrow.
“Call it what you want, then, but the end result is the same. They realized they were fucking wrong for each other, that this wedding was a huge mistake, and they cut their losses. Better late than never, right?”
“You’re a bigger cynic than I am, aren’t you?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I say, then wink at her.
Her gentle laughter is interrupted by one of the roving strippers coming up to her. Her stiletto heels make her one of the tallest women I’ve ever seen. Her bright red hair is stick-straight and hangs right about to her waist.
The red-haired stripper puts a hand on each of Olivia’s chair arms and leans in close.
“Wanna show off for your man?” she asks her, sitting on one of the chair’s arms. “Get him all hot and bothered watching me give you a lap dance?”
Even in the darkened club, I can tell Olivia is starting to turn red. I reach over and grab her hand.
“Yes, darling,” I say. “Let her give you a lap dance. For me.”
Olivia snatches her hand away, both rolling her eyes at me and giving me a death stare. It’s impressive that she can do that all at once. Her ability to multitask bodes well for our future endeavors.
“No, thank you,” Olivia says to the stripper as I chuckle. A true salesman, the stripper doesn’t miss a beat as she slides off Olivia’s chair and steps over to mine.
“What about you, handsome?”
I look from the stripper to Olivia, who now has her arms crossed over her chest. She’s trying to be stern, but I don’t think she realizes that she’s pushing her tits up and slightly out from the top of her sundress.
And there’s no way I’m going to tell her. I’m enjoying the view too much.
Instead, I turn to our red-headed friend and say, “Sure.”
“What the hell, Huxley?” Olivia demands. “Don’t you think we have more pressing concerns right now, namely our siblings gone missing?”
“Oh,” the stripper says, standing up. “My mistake. I thought you were a couple. I didn’t realize…”
“No, no, no,” I say, putting my head in my hand. I raise my head up and say, “First thing, we’re not related. My brother, her sister. That’s who we’re talking about.”
The stripper nods in understanding, still poised on my chair’s arm, surveying the two of us. And judging, I’m sure.
“And second,” I say, turning to Olivia, “they’re grown-ass people. They can take care of themselves. I’m getting a lap dance from someone,” I continue, leaning in close to Olivia. “If you want to keep talking about this shit show of a wedding and our screwed-up siblings, I suggest you give me one instead.”
From her quickening breath and the vein I see pulsing at her neck, it’s clear she’s more than a little intrigued by the idea. A slow smile spreads across her face, making me slightly scared about what she might do next.
Instead of laying into me for having the nerve to proposition her, she turns to the stripper.
“Is there a private room we can use?” she asks, and the woman nods and points down the hall. Olivia stands up and grabs my hand. As we walk toward the room, she says over her shoulder, “Put it on his tab.”
Olivia
“Sit down, so I can get this over with,” I say, practically pushing Huxley into the plush velvet chair.
“You can be as bossy as you want,” Huxley says, “but you can’t hide the truth from me. I saw how turned on you got when that stripper suggested a lap dance.”
As maid of honor for my sister’s fucking wedding, I’ve had a nonstop to-do list going for months. Nowhere on that list did it say to give the best man a lap dance—and yet, here I am.
I let out a big sigh, and then lean down to a seated Hux. He might think he has the upper hand, but I’m about to slap the shit out of that hand.
“Here are the rules,” I say. “Keep your hands to the side because there will be no touching. And never forget that this is just a dance. It’s not going to go any further than that.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Hux says, although his grin makes me believe he’s a rule breaker.
I turn to the touch screen and scroll through until I find an appropriate song.
“I can offer you some song suggestions,” Hux says from behind me.
“I’ve got this,” I say, waving him off.
This might be my first lap dance on Huxley’s lap, but I’ve done this enough times that I know what song I like to grind to best. Plus, unlike other da
nces where the end result is to move on to some other sexy activity, today, I have one goal and one goal only: get this over with so Huxley will help me look for Theo and Emma.
If I make him a little uncomfortable and sexually frustrated in the process? That’ll just be a bonus.
As the music starts, I walk over to him in time with the pulsing beat. I need this to be over with as quickly as possible—we have two missing siblings, after all—so I decide to bring out the big guns early.
I steady myself on each of the chair’s arms so I’m directly in front of him. Judging by the way he’s already staring at me, he’s putty in my hands, and we should be back on the road in no time. I try not to make my smugness so apparent as I tease him with a gentle hair flip, then I flip my head back like a supermodel coming out of the water.
I turn around and sit with my back to him. When I do, I can feel his bulge hitting the small of my back. Before I can make my next move, Huxley reaches around and grabs me by my waist to start pulling me back against him.
Slapping his hands away, I turn to face him and wag my finger.
“No touching, remember?” I scold, like a teacher reprimanding a naughty schoolboy.
“But, it’s so damn hard,” Hux says without a twinge of remorse.
“I know,” I say, looking down at the bulge growing in his pants. “I can see.”
“Oh, honey, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Despite myself, I feel my pussy get wet at the very thought of that bulge growing even larger.
“Oh,” I say before I can catch myself. I can’t help but stare at his crotch and imagine all the things I’d like to do to Huxley if it wasn’t for my damn responsible side.
Determined to focus on the task at hand and not on how good I imagine it would feel for that massive cock to sink into my wet cunt, I straddle him so we’re face-to-face. Staring deep into his eyes as he stares back at me, I wrap my arms around his neck.
I’m not sure if the music is still playing or not; it seems like the two of us are in our own little bubble right now.
Summer of Love_A Runaway Bride Romance Page 5