Runaway Groom

by Lauren Layne

  His smile flashes and a moment later he’s lowering himself into the tub, his large body making the water rise to a dangerously high level.

  “Ah!” I say with a laugh, fumbling for the plug. “Hold on, let me drain some of the water—”

  Gage’s hand slides into my hair, his mouth capturing mine in a kiss so delicious, it’s all I can do not to drop my champagne flute. Not that I need it—kissing Gage is a better buzz than any alcoholic beverage.

  He tugs me forward, and water sloshes over the sides of the tub. Neither of us cares.

  With my free hand, I cup his face, loving the way the stubble of his jaw contrasts deliciously with the soft glide of his tongue against mine.

  Gage takes the glass from my hand, leaning over to put both his and mine on the floor by the side of the tub.

  Taking advantage of his distraction, I lift up to straddle his hips, my mouth trailing wet kisses over his neck. He groans, his hand closing roughly around the back of my head, holding me to him as I taste his salty skin. My lips and teeth and tongue explore the length of his neck, the little hollow at the base of his throat, his broad shoulders.

  With his hands free, Gage runs his palms over my back, his touch demanding yet patient, as though giving me the time to taste my fill.

  The more I touch, the more I want. Greedy, I press my mouth to his as my hands slide beneath the water, fingertips slicking over the hard ridges of his abs.

  Gage’s hands move up my back, fingers tangling in my hair as he tugs my head backward, leaving my throat and chest offered to his mouth.

  With one hand on the small of my back to steady me, the other in my hair to hold me still, Gage flicks his tongue teasingly over my breasts, circling closer and closer to the aching peak before moving away again.

  I moan in frustration, my hands moving from his shoulder to his head and pulling his mouth where I need it. His eyes flick up to mine at the precise moment his lips wrap around my nipple.

  I gasp, instinct driving my hips down and forward. He swears against my skin as I brush his erection, his hand sliding down to palm my ass.

  I rock against him, the pressure so perfect that I could come just like this, my nipple in his mouth, my aching center rubbing against him…

  Gage groans as my breath quickens. “Yes,” he whispers against my breast. “Come for me, just like this.”

  The hand against my ass slides around to my front, his fingers delving into the wetness between my legs.

  Gage presses a thumb to my throbbing clit, circles once, twice…

  I shatter. I’m dimly aware of my own cries, of arching back in helplessness as I ride the ecstasy, then letting him nudge me forward to drape against him as I try to get my breath.

  His breath is warm on my cheek as he holds me. “I get why you like baths so much.”

  I manage a laugh, pulling back slightly, and wincing as I realize there’s nearly as much water on the floor as in the tub.

  “I’ll call someone to take care of it,” he says, wrapping one hand on the side of the tub, then easily hauling us both to our feet and out of the cooling water.

  “Now?” I murmur, wrapping my fingers around his still-hard erection. “Or later?”

  He moans as I rub a thumb over the velvety tip of him, his breath becoming ragged as I stroke him up and down. He’s long and thick, which, if you think about it, is just plain unfair to the rest of the male population. Not only does this guy have the face, the fame, the talent…he’s also got a lot going on below the waist.

  He wraps his fingers around my wrist, drawing my hand away as he gives me a quick kiss. “I’ve waited too damn long for this to do it standing up in tepid bathwater.”

  “Too long being, what, a couple of weeks?” I ask as he wraps a towel around me, finds the bath drain, and then grabs another towel for himself. “How long do you usually have to wait?”

  He grins down at me. “You really want to know?”

  I open my mouth, then shut it, realizing that I absolutely do not want to think about Gage Barrett naked with anyone besides me.

  But when he scoops me up and carries me to the bed, I’m not thinking about any other women, or about his reputation as a playboy.

  I’m thinking about him, and how as long as I live, I will never forget how right this moment feels.

  His fingers flick open the knot of my towel, spreading the sides and exposing my naked body to his gaze. His eyes smolder dark green when they meet mine.

  I expect him to drop his own towel and join me on the bed, and I’ve never wanted anything so badly as his body on mine—in mine.

  But he proves me wrong by giving me something every bit as good.

  Gage drops to his knees at the side of the bed, pulls me to the edge, and without preamble buries his face between my legs.

  One of his hands finds my thigh, pushing my legs apart while the other slides a finger inside me. Truth be told, I’ve never really gotten this part of sex—I mean, it’s always been fine, but I thought it was overrated. But when it’s Gage’s dark head, Gage’s tongue…I get it. I so get it.

  He adds another finger as his mouth opens over me, his tongue doing clever things to clever places and making me see stars.

  “Wait,” I say on a breath, trying to tug his hair. “I’m close—”

  “Again,” he murmurs, looking up my body and catching my eye. “Come again.”

  His tongue finds and licks the exact right spot, and I do exactly as he commands, not caring that the entire hotel can probably hear my cries, not caring that I’m probably pulling his hair too hard.

  I’m still trying to remember how to breathe when he moves, pressing a kiss to my stomach and standing.

  With impatient movements, he stalks to a table in the corner, rummaging around shopping bags that weren’t there before I got in the bath until he comes up with a box of condoms.

  I scoot back a bit to the middle of the bed, managing a breathless laugh as he tears open the box and comes back to the bed. “That’s what was on your shopping list?”

  I expect him to tease back, but Gage is past teasing. He tears open the wrapper with his teeth, rolls on the condom.

  A second later, my hands are pinned above my head, his green eyes locked on mine.

  There’s one perfect moment of stillness, of want.

  Then he thrusts inside me, and I gasp, realizing now why he gave me two orgasms. He needed me wet and compliant, needed my body ready for his. Gage isn’t gentle, and he isn’t careful, and my God is it good.

  I’ve never been taken like this, never felt so female to someone else’s male, never wanted someone else’s pleasure even more than I want my own.

  I want to touch him, need to be closer. His hand still pins my wrists to the bed, so I wrap my legs around his waist. “More,” I beg.

  He growls and pounds harder, the slap of our bodies mingling with the rasp of our breathing. I’ve never had a third orgasm in my life, but I have it now, and I have it hard.

  The moment I cry out and my body clenches around his, he lets go with a groan, his big body bucking as he goes over the cliff with me.

  His face buries in my shoulder, and I think I hear him say my name, although it’s hard to hear anything over the pounding of my heart.

  Here’s the gentleness, I realize as he gathers my shaking body to his, an arm sliding beneath my head, the other moving soothingly over my side.

  We say nothing for long moments, and although I’m grateful for the chance to gather my thoughts, I’m also afraid.

  Afraid that what just happened, although spectacular, might have ruined the easy friendship that made this so special in the first place.

  Gage moves us onto our sides, planting a quick kiss to my head, before giving me a playful smack on the ass and rolling off the bed.

  “You might want to get dressed before I have someone come clean up your mess in the bathroom, Ellie. You’re really quite bad at the whole bath thing.”

  I laugh, relieved at th
e easy teasing in his voice. Relieved that we’re still us. “I refuse to take responsibility for the flooding situation. Although I vote that we clean up our own mess so that we don’t have to answer any questions.”

  “It’s the Four Seasons,” he says, coming back out of the bathroom, unmindful of his nakedness. He pokes around in the bags until he comes up with a pair of boxers. “There are no questions.”

  “That, and you’re Gage Barrett,” I say, propping my head on my hand. His lack of modesty is apparently contagious, because I’m not as self-conscious about my own nakedness as I’d expect. Plus my body’s too tired to get dressed.

  “That too,” he says with a wink.

  A moment later he’s made the phone call, explaining that there was a “situation” with the bathroom, and could someone please come up and take a look?

  I make a grumpy noise. “That means I have to get dressed.”

  “You do, only because I’m not yet ready to share your naked body with anyone else.”

  “What do you mean, not yet?” I say, sitting up and taking the fluffy hotel robe he hands me. “You make it sound like me being publicly naked is only a matter of time.”

  “Well…” He reaches down and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering against my cheek. “I mean, I am overdue for a sex tape.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not your girl,” I say, scooting toward the edge of the bed and standing.

  Gage catches me to him. “Aren’t you?”

  My breath catches. I want to be.

  But then I remember who he is. Why we’re here in the first place.

  “How long until they find us?” I ask.

  His expression flickers in disappointment, and he releases me. “Maui may be an island, but its resort status will work in our favor. Even if they figure out where we are, the hotel won’t give us away.”

  “But we still have to go back.”

  “Eventually,” he admits. “But not until we get what we came for.”

  I lift my eyebrows and glance meaningfully at his mostly naked body and then at my bathrobe-clad state.

  “Nah, that was just a bonus. We came because you wanted a nap, remember?”

  A nap on the huge, wonderfully soft bed does sound heavenly, but…

  I walk to the ice bucket sitting on the wet bar and pick it up. “How about you fetch the flutes from the bathroom and we sip champagne on the patio, watch the sunset, and hide from the shame you created in the bathroom?”

  “What about your nap?”

  I walk toward the open doors of the private terrace, pausing just long enough to give him a playful pat on the chest. “There are few things I like better than a good nap, Hollywood. But it would seem hanging out with you is turning out to be one of them.”

  I walk away, but not before I see his surprised and pleased smile.

  I smile too, because it’s true.

  Gage

  I know it’s a douchey thing to say, but the more successful I get in my career, the more famous I get, the harder it is to enjoy life.

  And now you’re thinking, Shut the hell up, you pompous dick.

  But hear me out. The money, the cars, the ass-kissing—all terrific, and I’m grateful every day.

  The truth is, though, that the wow factor wears off after a while. Sure, you can make a conscious effort to not take anything for granted, but it doesn’t ward off that dangerous moment where you look around at your life and wonder why you’re doing what you’ve been doing. And what the payoff is, really.

  Seeing Ellie Wright relish every moment of pampering at the Four Seasons?

  That’s my why.

  Although her gawking at the lobby, her gasp of delight when we stepped into the suite, her moan of pleasure when she sank into the tub…none of that can quite compare to this moment.

  To be sitting beside her on a secluded deck, her bare feet propped on my knee as we alternate between talking about nothing and companionable silence…this moment is as perfect as it gets.

  Is the realization that our time’s limited hovering over our heads? Sure.

  Are we both ignoring it? Absolutely.

  I didn’t know what my plan was when I pulled up to the valet stand. I hadn’t thought it through beyond wanting to give her something—wanting to make her happy.

  And well, yeah, to impress her a little bit, if only because she’d been so determined not to be impressed from the very beginning.

  I’d figured she’d take her bath, maybe I’d convince her to do something more interesting than sleep on the big bed, then we’d head back to the villa to face the music.

  Now, though? I can’t bring myself to end this moment. I want tonight. Hell, I want all the nights. But if this is the only one I get with her sans camera, I’m taking it.

  I pull the bottle from the ice bucket, top off her glass. “Stay with me tonight.”

  She looks over, hazel eyes startled. “What?”

  “We have the room for the night. Might as well use it.”

  “Do you have any idea how much trouble we’d be in?”

  I shrug. “They’ll be pissed, probably yell a bit, and then get back down to business.”

  “For you,” she says quietly. “The show doesn’t happen without you. They’ve got no choice but to slap your wrist and keep going. It’s a whole other can of worms for me.”

  “If the producers give you shit, I’ll say it was my idea.”

  She swings her feet off my legs and rolls her shoulders as though irritated. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll really buy the kidnapping story. And even if they let it be, what about the other contestants? You have to see those women for a couple of hours every day, sometimes not even that much. I don’t have the luxury of retreating to the master suite of the house.”

  She sets her glass on the table and walks to the railing. She leans on it, arms crossed, with her back to me.

  I feel a stab of frustration at her being so logical. I can’t even think when I’m around her. I’m trying to jump off the ledge, damn the consequences, and she’s not there. She’s still thinking about the fucking show, and that I’m not worth any kind of risk.

  “I don’t get what you want, Ellie. You don’t want to be at the house. You don’t want to be here with me.”

  She whirls around, her eyes both tormented and furious. “I’ve told you what I want. You just don’t want to hear it! I’ve told you from the very beginning that I want to go home. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be your TV girlfriend, much less your TV wife. I don’t know how I could have been clearer. You just…you don’t listen, Gage. You’re so used to getting what you want, you just steamroll right over everyone else’s wants.”

  Her outburst hurts more than I expect. And maybe that’s not fair, because she’s right. She has told me in every possible way that she wants to be sent home, and I…haven’t let her. I’ve thought of every possible excuse to keep her here in hopes that we’d round some vital corner and she’d want to stay.

  I thought we were there. I thought after what just happened on the bed, at least, we would be.

  Apparently Gage Barrett’s good enough for an afternoon fling but doesn’t even warrant a full night.

  The thought’s unfair considering how many times I’ve been out for a good lay and not much more, and maybe that’s precisely what’s bugging the shit out of me.

  It’s the first time since Layla that I’ve wanted more than the woman I’m seeing is willing to give.

  Perhaps even more alarming, she’s the first woman who makes it hard to remember what Layla looks like, or the way I felt about her.

  Ellie’s somehow eclipsing everything, and yet she…

  Wants to go home.

  Defeated, I set my glass next to hers and stand. “All right. Let’s get you back. There’ll be hell to pay, as you pointed out, and maybe that’ll get you exactly what you want: a plane ticket back to California.”

  I expect her to cartwheel back into the room and race to th
e car, but instead she turns to face me, her arms still crossed protectively against her stomach.

  “What will you do?” she asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “After I’m gone. Will you keep on with the show?”

  I let out a short laugh. “Not all of us have the luxury of requesting to go home. My contract’s ironclad, and even if it weren’t, I wouldn’t break it. I don’t want to be that guy. I know it sounds ridiculous given the context, but I want to be the guy with integrity. The one who honors his commitments. I take my job seriously, even the crappy parts.”

  Her arms drop and she gives me an incredulous look. “While I respect the integrity thing, truly, this isn’t just about your job, Gage. It’s your life. You’re going to get married. Or pretty darn close to it. How can you just keep going along with this?”

  “Don’t worry about it, sweets. Not your problem, is it?” I pick up the nearly empty bottle as well as both glasses before heading back into the room.

  She follows me inside. “I can’t play along with the farce like you can. You pretend for a living. I can’t fake something as important as a relationship, much less marriage.”

  “Good thing no one asked you to.” I toss back the rest of the champagne and set the empty glass aside. “Also, maybe you should have thought through your moral snobbery before you signed up for the show.”

  “I already told you, Marjorie signed me up.”

  “Right.” I rub my forehead and turn to face her. “It’s Marjorie’s fault you’re in Hawaii in the first place, my fault you’re still here. Tell me, Ellie, are you responsible for any part of your own life?”

  She winces, but I’m too frustrated to apologize just yet.

  Ellie runs a hand over her damp hair before dropping her arm. “Okay. I deserve that.”

  “I shouldn’t have said it,” I say quietly. “Look, you’re right. We should get back. We’ve had a good time today. It’s better to leave it with hot sex and ‘Have a nice life.’ ”

  She nods, but neither of us moves.

  “Which one will you choose?” she asks.

  “What?”

  Ellie bites her lip. “At the end of the show. Who’s the woman you’ll marry? Or maybe marry.”