Say You Do

by Weston Parker

  “Who says it got me hot?” It was a stupid question and I knew it. When she reached down to cup my rock-hard cock through my slacks, I dropped my forehead against hers and groaned. “It wasn’t the wedding planning. I swear. It was just you. It’s been days since I’ve been inside you, Luna. Days.”

  “Days?” She gasped in mock surprise and ran her palm up and down my shaft, making me hiss when she suddenly removed her hand. “Okay, I get it. I’ll come over soon, I promise, but we can’t do this here. Anyone could see us.”

  “As far as the only person who knows who we are in this hotel is concerned, we’re a newly engaged couple hunting for a venue. I’m sure she’ll understand if we get caught fooling around in the garden.”

  Luna laughed but shook her head and put some more space between us by ducking out from under my arms and stepping away from the wall. “Maybe she would understand, but I’ve told you before that I’m not interested in exhibitionism.”

  I slammed my fist into the brick and dragged in a deep breath, then forced thoughts about rotting garbage and clubbing baby seals through my head until my erection waned. “Fine, but never say I don’t respect your wishes.”

  “I never would,” she said. “In case you were thinking about using this little incident against me later, just remember that I was in no way teasing you at all today. I was simply there and you got horny. No need to take it out on me.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle and wag my brows at her. “Yeah, we’ll see. Anyway, if we’re not going to have a quickie, can we get out of here?”

  “We need to talk about the venue first and see if there’s anything specific in any of the venues here we like. Otherwise, we might just end up having to come back.”

  I squeezed the back of my neck but nodded and led her to a small metal table placed in the garden. In full view of all those prying eyes I’d been trying to escape, thank you very much. I really was trying not to push her on the public-sex thing.

  “What do you think?” she asked as she extracted some pamphlets Andrea had given her from her purse.

  “I like it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s between the garden and the rooftop. The view from up there is incredible and I think Jenny would like to have the ceremony in a garden.”

  Luna looked impressed, widening her eyes as she dipped her head to the side. “You were actually paying attention? Because it kind of looked like you were stuck in your own head while we were on that tour.”

  “I was, but I’m very good at assessing things while thinking about others. What do you think?”

  She sighed and lifted her shoulders as a sad smile spread on her lips. “I like it too, but it’s outside of the price range we were given. The only reason I even came here was because you insisted, but it’s not within budget, so it’s a no. I was actually hoping that lower package of theirs would be in the budget, but even that is way above what they can afford.”

  “But you like it?” I made a vague gesture toward the building. “Out of all the venues we’ve looked at, do you like it best?”

  She chewed her lip but eventually nodded. “Yes, I do. It’s gorgeous. I love that the ceremony could take place in a garden as lush as this. It really feels like we’ve escaped the city when we’re down here, but then the rooftop has that classic urban, city-wedding feel to it. I really do love it.”

  “Then we’ll take it.”

  Luna let out an exasperated sigh and frowned at me. “No, we won’t take it. I literally just told you it’s not in budget. Those are a real thing, you know? Budgets.”

  “I know.” I rolled my eyes at her and sat back. “I need to get them a gift anyway and I think this would be a nice one.”

  “You want to get them their venue as a wedding gift?” she asked slowly, her eyes widening as far as they could go. Then she laughed. “Two things. Firstly, only you. Secondly, good luck with that, buddy.”

  “Thanks.” A smirk curved on my lips. “I’m taking both of those as compliments. Anyway, what are you doing tonight? Want to come over?”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.” She averted her gaze and dropped it to her lap. “I’ve got to work out a few things for the shop, but soon. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, of course.” If she had to work, it really was okay.

  Not for the first time, though, I had a feeling there was something she wasn’t telling me. It had been pretty clear the other day that she was upset, but I’d stuck to my guns not to interfere in her business if she didn’t want me to know what was going on.

  I couldn’t help wondering what it was, though. For some reason, it was really starting to bug me that she hadn’t talked to me about it, even if she had no obligation to tell me and I had no right to know.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  Chapter 21

  Luna

  The scent of chicken and potatoes grilling in the oven wafted through April’s apartment, children’s songs Adi loved playing on the TV. I sat on the floor in the living room with the little girl, both of us staring hard at the puzzle pieces spread out on the coffee table.

  April flipped through the magazine on the couch, getting up every so often to check on dinner. “Are you two making any progress?”

  Adi looked at the piece she held in her hand, then pursed her lips. “No, Mommy. I think this one is too difficult.”

  “It’s not too difficult, honey. We’ll figure it out.” I slipped a piece into place. The picture on the box was of a beautiful country cottage set against a forest, and while it wasn’t exactly an easy one, Adi and I loved to challenge ourselves by building these. “It’s just the outer edge giving us some trouble because it’s grass and forest. As soon as we move on to the cottage and the ducks in front of it, we should be okay.”

  Adi sighed at the piece in her hand again but then nodded. “You’re right. We’ll figure it out. We always do. Have I told you about Todd?”

  My ears perked up and I exchanged a look with April, who was trying to hide her smile. “No. Who’s Todd?”

  “He’s a new boy in my class,” she said, her tone becoming almost dreamy. “He moved here from Arizona. Did you know Arizona is in the desert?”

  “Yeah, I did.” I smiled at her and leaned forward a little, lowering my voice. “Do you like Todd?”

  Adi paused for a beat, then flushed beet red and nodded. “I think I do. Mommy says it’s okay to have a crush at my age. Do you have a crush on anyone? None of my friends have crushes.”

  “None of your friends have crushes they’ve told you about,” April said gently. “You haven’t told them about your crush, either. Remember?”

  “I guess so,” she said, her teeth sinking into her lip as she looked expectantly at me. “So do you have a crush?”

  An image of Cyrus that day when he asked me to go to Italy with him jumped into my mind. He’d looked so darn handsome and sweet.

  It was more than that, though. I loved how playful and gentle he could be with me when he was generally so commanding and alpha with everyone else.

  Unfortunately, I knew I wasn’t allowed to have a crush on him. “No, not at the moment. I have had crushes in the past, though. Do you want to tell me about Todd?”

  She nodded enthusiastically, then proceeded to spend the next ten minutes telling me everything there was to know about Todd from Arizona. When she was done, my heart was practically bursting with excitement for her. “He sounds like quite a catch, sweetheart. You have good taste.”

  “Unlike the two of us,” April murmured, but Adi didn’t catch it in all her excitement. Eventually, she jumped up to go wash her hands before dinner and left April and me alone.

  I sighed wistfully as I popped my chin down on my elbow where I sat cross-legged on the carpet. “I hope I have a daughter someday. You’re so lucky to have her.”

  April set the magazine down on her legs. “If you want a daughter so badly, you can always have Adi.”

  She came back into the room at that exact moment and made the same face tha
t April made so often, which made my friend sigh. “Fine. You can’t have Adi. She’s all mine.”

  “Gee, thanks, Mom,” she retorted.

  April chuckled and caught Adi’s wrist as she walked past, pulling her down into her lap and tickling the little girl until she was limp from laughing so hard. “It was just a joke, pretty baby. You know I’d never really give you away.”

  Adi gasped for air and tried to swat her mother’s fingers away from her as she squirmed. “Maybe I’ll give you away.”

  “Maybe you should.” April threw her head back as she joined in her daughter’s laughter. The two of them made the perfect picture of happiness, despite the occasional difficulty in their circumstances.

  Unable to resist, I picked my phone up off the table and snapped a quick shot of them, then texted it to April before locking the device again. I giggled at their antics as they wrestled on the couch, April let Adi get some tickling in as well before she lifted her hands in surrender.

  “I give up. I give up.” Adi punched the air in victory, hopping off her mother’s lap and taking a lap around the room.

  April’s brown eyes sparkled with laughter. “Okay, okay. Jeez. We get it. You won. Come on back over here quick, would you?”

  Adi eyed her suspiciously but did as she asked. When she got close enough, April took both of her hands. “You know I love you, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then you know that everything I say comes from a place of love?”

  “Sure.” Adi frowned. “Why?”

  April pointed toward the bathroom. “Because I’m about to say you’re a big liar who hasn’t washed her hands yet. I didn’t hear the tap and you weren’t away nearly long enough to have washed them.”

  Adi opened her mouth to argue, but when April arched a brow, she let out a deep sigh and hung her head as she marched out of the room again.

  April tapped the side of her nose. “I know things.”

  “We’ve already established you have Mom powers,” I said as I stood up and brushed off my behind. “We’ve also already established that Mom powers are better than superpowers every day of the week.”

  April got to her feet as well, then reached out to squeeze my arm. “You’re going to be a great mother someday. Just, you know, get the sperm from the donation bank so you don’t have to deal with a man who had to ejaculate for you to get it.”

  I wrinkled my nose and groaned. “Thanks for that lovely visual.”

  “Hey, you’re the only one around here getting some on the regular, so don’t give me that. Don’t pretend you’ve never seen a man ejaculate. I bet you’ve seen it at least once this week.”

  “Not this week actually.” I sighed. “I’ve been really busy at the shop.”

  I didn’t elaborate because I didn’t want her to worry, but I’d spent most of my nights this week in front of my computer. Trying to come up with ways to reach my targets wasn’t as easy as I hoped it might be, and in the meantime, all that red on the spreadsheet kept blinking at me.

  “Uh oh,” April said, eyebrows raised. “Trouble in paradise already?”

  “It’s not paradise and there’s no trouble with Cyrus.” Except that he wanted to take me to Italy and I didn’t know how to turn him down without telling him I couldn’t close up shop for an entire week. Especially not now.

  I also couldn’t afford to hire someone to stand in for me while we’d be gone, so I was bang out of luck with that trip. April narrowed her eyes at me. “What’s going on then? Why haven’t you seen him this week?”

  “I’ve seen him. I just haven’t hooked up with him for a few days.” In fact, it had now been almost a whole week since the last time we’d slept together. Not for lack of trying on his part, but I was struggling with putting my worries aside for long enough to take him up on any of his invitations to come over.

  My best friend clearly wasn’t buying what I was trying to sell, though. “I thought all you had with this dude was a friends-with-benefits relationship. So where are all the benefits?”

  “They’re…” I tried to think of a way to answer her that wouldn’t make her suspicious but came up blank. “They’re just on hold for a while. We’re both super busy at the moment.”

  “Too busy to fuck?”

  “April,” I admonished her, sending a pointed stare down the hallway. “Adi’s going to be back at any moment.”

  “That girl washes her hands more thoroughly than a surgeon before he, or she, performs open heart surgery. That’s how I knew she hadn’t washed them earlier. Don’t worry. We have time.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s nothing to talk about anyway. Like I said, we’ve seen each other. Everything is fine. We’re still friends. We just haven’t gotten together for anything outside of wedding planning this week.”

  “How are things going with you two then?” She crossed her arms but jerked her head to show me she wanted me to follow her to the kitchen.

  “It’s good. Like I said, we’re just friends who hook up from time to time. It’s actually really going well.”

  April got some plates and silverware out, shooting me a look as she handed it over so I could set the table in the breakfast nook while she got back to the food. It was an almost seamless routine for us by now.

  “I know it was my idea to sleep with him, but I didn’t mean you should keep doing it. You know that, right?”

  I frowned at her as I set out the plates. “What are you talking about? Why shouldn’t we keep doing it? I just told you it’s going really well. We have a lot of fun together and he really is a friend.”

  April sighed and stopped moving after pulling the tray out of the oven. She turned in place to look at me, her protective mittens coming up to grip the back of her neck.

  “That’s a terrible relationship for you to be in. Sooner or later, you’re going to want something more. Fucking a really hot friend repeatedly without developing feelings isn’t easy, Luna. Not even for me. Why do you think I never sleep with anyone I actually like?”

  “That’s ridiculous.” I set the silverware down with a clatter and rolled my eyes at her. “This is the first time that I’m happy with someone without any delusions of it being or becoming something more. Trust me. I’ve got this. I’ve even already got my exit point planned if it should ever come to that.”

  Worry clouded April’s eyes. “I just hope it’s not the other one who has delusions then.”

  I stared at her for a beat, then burst out laughing. “Cyrus? No. You can trust me on that, too. He’s not the type to harbor any of that particular kind of delusion. Stop worrying about us, April. We’re fine. I swear it. Totally and completely delusion free.”

  Chapter 22

  Cyrus

  There was something seriously wrong with me. It was the only thing that explained why I was driving all the way over to Luna’s shop to invite her to dinner when I could have just texted her.

  I parked in her loading area around the back of her shop, reflecting briefly on the day I’d met her when she’d been arguing with that delivery driver right there, but then pushed the memories back and let myself in.

  More and more often these days, I found myself having to push thoughts and memories of her aside. Fucking only one woman for an extended period of time is messing with my head.

  I knew it, but I had zero motivation to do anything about it. Late one night earlier this week, Luna had turned me down again.

  Frustrated that she kept dodging me and wouldn’t tell me what it was about, I’d considered calling up one of my regular hookups from before I’d met Luna. Janet was a flight attendant who had texted me that very morning telling me she was in town for a night.

  As I’d started typing up a reply, knowing that she’d have been there in the blink of an eye if I’d actually sent it, I deleted it instead. Needless to say, I was confused as fuck about what was going on with me.

  If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have thought I was developing feelings for Luna. Since that w
as out of the question, I chalked it up to spending so much time with her lately—both in and out of bed.

  Luna was startled when I emerged through her inner door, pressing her hand to her heart when she realized it was me. “Holy crack in a reindeer-shaped cracker. What are you doing here and why did you come in through the back?”

  “I like to use the back door from time to time.” I couldn’t help the smirk that formed on my lips or the wink that followed.

  Luna’s brows rose and she shook her head fast as she let out a nervous-sounding laugh. “Not with me, you don’t. Still doesn’t answer my other question. What are you doing here? We didn’t have plans to meet up today.”

  “No, we didn’t,” I said and closed the door behind me before sauntering over to her. She was behind the counter, but I figured we were way past the point where she stayed behind it and I was on the other side.

  Walking right around it like I had so many other times now, I slid my hands up her back and into her loose hair, then angled her head and brought mine down to greet her properly.

  Our kiss was almost bruising in its intensity, Luna’s arms winding around my neck as if she, too, was operating on pure instinct instead of what was best at this stage.

  When I eventually broke the kiss, her nipples were hard under her soft pink T-shirt, her lips were swollen, and both of us were breathing a little harder than normal. I flashed her a grin and nipped at her lower lip. “See, now that’s a good, ‘hello, buddy.’ What’s with all the ‘what are you doing here’ stuff?”

  “That’s not how one says hello to a buddy.” She tried to level me with a glare, but it just made me laugh.

  While Luna could be pretty damn fierce when she wanted to be, right now, she just kind of looked like a kitten who had slipped on some fake claws. We were still so close together that I ran my nose along the length of hers. “It is when you’ve got the kind of relationship we do.”

  She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Fair enough. What are you doing here, though? Or did you just get tired of waiting and decided to come claim a quickie in my arrangement room?”