It will never work. You’re just going to get hurt.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I was in my room,” he said, “thinking about you. And then I wanted to see you again.”
“And you didn’t go down to the beach?”
“I texted Henry. He told me you skipped the festivities.” He walked slowly around the room, examining it like he hadn’t already been in here (albeit with seven strippers). “Why’d you decide not to go?”
I shrugged. “Just didn’t feel like it.” I paused and then added, “A lot on my mind.”
His green eyes met mine. “Me too.” He abandoned his exploration and walked toward me until he was only two paces away. “What’s on your mind, Alice?” he asked.
“You,” I said honestly. There was no point beating around the bush. “What was the goal tonight? On the beach?”
His face betrayed no emotion. “To apologize,” he said.
“That’s all? Henry probably would have sent a check.”
“I’m not Henry.”
I crossed my arms. “So that was it? You wanted to apologize? Well you did. Why are you here now?”
If I sounded upset, it was because I was. It was hard enough to resist this magnetic attraction to Mac when he was across the hall. Now, with him standing three feet in front of me, the pressure to stand still, to not walk up to him and rest my hands against his broad chest, to look up into those glittering green eyes, threatened to rip me apart. My heart ached as I stood my ground.
“What is it you want?” I asked, the irritation in my voice fading to something close to pleading.
“I want you, Alice,” he said. His jaw was clenched, his handsome features strained with the effort of the words.
“No,” I said softly. “After all this, you don’t get to have me. You’ve said it enough times. You want a quick lay and to move on the next day. I’m not that. And I’m not falling for it.”
In response, he took a single step closer. The distance between us shortened and the air around me crackled with his presence. An intoxicating scent of pine and danger. The smell was a battering ram to my defenses, but I held strong. Because I knew that if we went any further, I wouldn’t be able to just move on tomorrow. If I had Mac now, I’d want him for life.
“What did I just say?” he murmured. He took another step forward and lifted a hand to my chin. “I don’t want a quick lay. I want you.”
With those words, my last defenses fled my body along with my last shred of reason. We both started forward at the same time. Our lips crashed together, his tongue immediately finding mine as those thick arms wrapped around me and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and mashed my mouth to his, drawing his scent in with every breath as his mouth dominated mine. He pressed me against the wall beside the door, consuming me, enveloping my body with his.
There was no going back now. I’d given in and there was absolutely nothing I wanted more than to have him right here on the couch. But the image of Beck and the girls stumbling on this scene was not a good one.
“Bedroom,” I gasped, breaking away long enough to get the single word out. He recaptured my mouth, kissing me like a man starving for something he hadn’t had in a long time, if he’d ever had it at all. But he must have understood the half-panted word because he pulled me away from the wall and walked us across the suite, still kissing, to my bedroom.
How he knew which one was mine was a question for later. Right now, there was only one thing on my mind: How would Mac Walsh’s exquisite cock feel inside me?
I wasn’t going to find out right away though. Mac lowered me to the bed and finally broke away. He knelt, one toned quad on either side of my waist, and pulled his shirt off, revealing his thick chest and cut abs. I reached up, finally able to run my hands over them. He smirked at my obvious interest before grabbing my hands at the wrist and firmly pressing me flat to the bed, kissing me deeply yet again.
His muscled body, freed at last from his shirt, hulked over me like an eclipse and I could feel the hardness of his cock pressing into my stomach. It felt even larger than I remembered it looking and wished Mac would give me back my hands so I could explore properly.
But it quickly became clear that we were going at his pace. Which was agonizingly slow. Finally he left my mouth and kissed my jaw and then my neck. I gave a soft moan and wriggled my hands, pushing against his. He let go but almost immediately disappeared, working down, feeling at my breasts, my ass through my clothes.
Speaking of which, I was wearing way too many. Hands free, I managed to rip my loose t-shirt off just as he pulled at my pajama pants, taking them down to my knees where I kicked them the rest of the way off. Now I was naked, but Mac still had his pants on, concealing his length entirely. It looked like that was going to be a later stop on the program because Mac was going even lower now, all the way down to my core, hot and spasming from the want pounding in my head.
He attacked my clit with his mouth, tonguing the sensitive nub as sparks exploded up and down my body. I tensed and moaned loudly at the attention. When I felt one of his long, thick fingers enter me, my eyes rolled into the back of my head. He stroked at that spot inside me, grinding against my clit with a precision and competence many men brag about having but none had ever demonstrated to me. It was too much, explosive. I clamped my legs around his head and bucked, jerked, against him as my world exploded in pleasure and passion.
After I was finally able to recover, I relaxed against the bed, panting and staring up into those green eyes. He smiled down at me. “Ready for round two, love?” he breathed in that deep, smooth voice.
I felt it against my leg and realized that he’d been able to get out of his sweat pants at some point without me even noticing. His length strained against me, hot and throbbing, beating a thump of its own.
“Hell yes,” I groaned. I didn’t have to say anything more. Mac lined himself up against my sopping entrance and pressed firmly inside me. I gasped as he filled me, sliding deep and steady, stretching me wonderfully.
Just as he’d kissed me, Mac fucked like a man deprived. Deep, intense, strong strokes, pulling in and out and pushing me further than any man had ever taken me. I’d never in my life had the sensations that pulsed through my body and I was vaguely aware that I might never find them again. I finally understood what is was to find that somebody, that one. And as the both of us climaxed against each other, the orgasm faded with thoughts of a future.
My eyes opened with the dawn. Mac slept beside me, one large hand resting on my back. He was warm, comforting.
Last night had been incredible. The first time was an experience I’d never felt before. And I couldn’t just chalk it up to the end of a dry spell; the next two times had been just as amazing.
But that was last night and today was today.
Today the wedding guests would arrive. Today I’d be running around the resort, helping Mariana prepare everything. Tomorrow was the wedding, the one I’d spent so long waiting for.
And the next day? Back to New York. Back to my job. Back to reality.
I glanced at Mac. You’re only fooling yourself. Were the events of this week really enough to change a lifelong impression of love and marriage? The sex was amazing. Mac was amazing. But he was still Mac — the man who’d never settle down. And I couldn’t change that. If I expected to then I’d, again, learned nothing.
This was only temporary. And that was fine. It was okay. If I really cared about him, I’d make it easier for him. And I really believed I did.
So with that thought in mind, and the pressing list of to-dos for the wedding looming ahead, I slipped out of bed, dressed quickly, and left the suite. I’d get started on the day. And Mac would wake knowing that there were no expectations here.
None at all.
19
Mac
I woke up satisfied. The weight of the wedding that had been draped over my shoulders for the past months was curiously absent. Alice had come alo
ng with her flashing brown eyes and her testing, taxing, exhilarating attitude, pinched my burden between her thumb and index finger, and tossed it in a long arc out of sight and out of mind.
If only for a little while. As I woke further and shifted in Alice’s sheets, the realization dawned that today was going to be different — for numerous reasons. The guests would be coming, already now flying commercial or private, homing in on our resort. They’d come with presents and cards and congratulations for the happy happy couple and, from my experience with weddings, they’d come in three distinct groupings.
The first group would be the singles, like myself and the other Knights. They’d spend most of the weekend doing shots, loudly singing, and dancing badly and wildly. They’d boldly talk about plans for their own weddings, what they wanted to serve and that ever-idiotic question of ‘band or DJ’, while simultaneously screwing everything that wasn’t nailed down in a ‘committed relationship’. They’d be the fun ones, but also the most delusional.
The second group would consist of those formally acknowledged ‘committed relationships’. They’d regale everyone who’d listen with stories of their own dumb weddings and frequently insist that the spark had never faded. The rest of the weekend would be spent carefully watching each other to make sure the other didn’t have too much fun — him sneaking drinks behind pillars and mournfully watching Group One, her drinking mimosas like a twenty-two year old at brunch and talking shit about him to her gaggle of allies. They’d be the least fun and yet somehow the most praised, the golden ideal of a successful life.
The third group was the natural end to the progression of time: They were the great and powerful divorced. They’d climbed the mountain, bought into the bullshit, and escaped the other side, wounded warriors with two kids that hated them and an ex sipping martini’s in a track suit all the way to the bank. They would spend most of their time as missionaries, spreading the Bad News to Group One, repeating their gospel with the fire of the burned: Do Not Get Married. The remaining time would be spent in the bar with their peers, and they’d come in two distinct breeds of alcoholics — either party-monster, second-wave-of-youth, drunk-until-dawn or, conversely, same-bar-stool-for-two-days-straight, blank-stare-of-regret-and-abject-misery. They would be the most avoided, not because they weren’t fun (which they weren’t) but because, like youth at a funeral, nobody wanted to see that shit at a wedding.
I’d been part of a splinter group of Group One for years, the few non-delusional singles that partied with the rest of them and rolled their eyes at the bullshit. I’d never considered a wedding at all, and even as I lay there in Alice’s bed, I still wasn’t. But I was considering something else that I never had before.
What was going to happen once we got back to New York? On Sunday, would we give each other a quick hug and a ‘thanks for the memories’?
For the first time in recollection, I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to see Alice again. Okay, I wasn’t saying I wanted a full-time girlfriend and a leash and collar around my neck, but it wouldn’t hurt to see her once and a while. Or once a week. Right?
Would that small give, that tiny chip in my stone wall, bring the entire structure crashing down? At Keegan and Jules’ wedding next year (which, blagh) would I transition from my own small but proud singles’ grouping into the masses of Group One? Would I really give a shit about a band or DJ?
I was thinking overtime and history indicated that was never a great idea. Just get through the weekend, Mac. Have fun. Screw Alice. A lot. And think about this back in New York.
Hell, maybe I wouldn’t even care once I landed back in my city. Maybe the powerful Mexican sunshine was frying my brain and giving me delusions. I was Irish after all; my people were never much for the sun.
So I rolled over on my back and stretched an arm out, reaching for Alice’s softness in the dim light. My arm landed on blankets. I blinked, felt some more though I immediately knew the truth.
She wasn’t there.
I sat up and confirmed it with my eyes. The spot beside me was achingly familiar. Empty.
I stared at the space for several heartbeats, my jaw clenched so hard my teeth threatened to splinter under the pressure. Then I shook my head and laid back down, rolling over on my side.
Okay, that would make it easier then. This was a hookup. I did hookups. I was good at them. I didn’t have to read into any of this. I didn’t have to consider anything more.
I was free again.
By noon, the resort had exploded with people. I thought the place had been bustling before, but I quickly realized that the week had been pretty quiet comparatively. As I walked down from my suite where I’d spent the morning eating room service and watching television, the halls were packed with weekend guests, many of whom were here to celebrate this joyous holy matrimony.
The wedding guests were easy to pick out of the crowd. They were issued black wristbands upon check-in so the resort knew who to charge for everything they bought. As I walked down the main hall of the resort, every other person I saw seemed to be wearing one, dragging luggage and talking in groups.
I looked for Alice as I walked, but didn’t see a glimpse of her. Nor did I see any of the others. I did notice some people I recognized from the Tempest, and Edgar Lorne, bodyguards in tow, wandering around greeting people. I quickly left the main area before I could get pulled into some bullshit conversation.
I walked down to the pool in search of the group, but again no luck. Then I checked the buffet hall where we’d eaten most of our breakfasts and lunches. Not a sign of any of them.
Finally I called Henry.
“Where are you?” I asked him.
“With Mason and Sam,” he said. “We’re making sure our tuxes fit after all those steak dinners. Where have you been?”
“In my room,” I said. “Are you going to the pool afterward?”
Henry laughed. “Dude, the wedding is tomorrow. No pool for a minute. I’d get your ass up here and try your own tux on.”
I muttered something like maybe and hung up. Okay, Sam, Mason, and Henry might be busy, but what about Keegan?
* * *
Mac: Where you at?
* * *
Keegan: Banquet hall. Come over.
* * *
That sounded a bit more promising. After asking directions from an employee, I went in search of my tall friend and prayed that Jules wasn’t with him.
He was sitting at a white-clothed table on his phone in the middle of a massive, high-ceilinged room filled with tables, a stage, and a dance floor. Unfortunately, sitting next to him was Jules. She was talking to him, ranting about something. She fell quiet when she saw me approach and an annoyed expression landed on her face.
“What do you want?” she asked. Keegan looked up at her tone and grimaced at me.
“Hey Mac,” he said.
I ignored Jules completely. “Mornin’ mate. What are ya doing in here?”
He snorted. “Morning? It’s well past that.”
“All relative.”
He shook his head. “Well, to answer your question, I came in with the girls to check out the space.” He nodded toward a door. “They’re in the kitchen.”
As the words left his mouth, the door swung open and a collection of the last people on Earth I wanted to see right now came out.
Sarah and Beck led the way. Behind them followed Mariana, Alice, and for some unholy reason, Margot. They were laughing like someone just finished telling a joke and looked way too happy about it.
Three out of five sobered once they saw me standing there. I ignored the abrupt change in the air and grinned. “Afternoon ladies,” I said. “Prepping for tonight?”
I watched Alice, but she wouldn’t meet my eye. Mariana seemed overly interested in the centerpieces adorning the tables. Only Margot maintained steady eye contact. But it was Beck who answered me.
“Yep! Remember, the rehearsal dinner is at six. Did you go to the fitting with the guys?”
<
br /> “Yeah,” I lied. “Everything’s looking good.”
A silence descended that was equal parts awkward and terrible. My easy smile somehow persisted.
“Well,” Beck said, after a solid three beats, “we’re going to go check on the flowers. Feel free to hang out if you want.”
I nodded. “Thanks,” I said. Then I turned to Alice. “Can I talk to you? Just for a moment.”
Her eyes flicked to Beck’s and then to mine. There was confliction there, but then she nodded. “Sure. Just for a moment.”
I turned and walked back toward the hall, hearing her soft footsteps following me. This hadn’t been part of the plan. But, like usual, there wasn’t really any plan. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say to her.
Once we were out of eyesight in the hallway, I turned to face her and immediately bit back a wince. It was maddeningly difficult to be alone with her. My feet wanted to take a step closer. My mouth wanted to cover hers again. I held them both in line.
“So…” I started.
She crossed her arms and looked down. Those brilliant browns wouldn’t meet my eye. “What?” she asked.
“You left this morning.”
Her mouth tightened into a straight line. “Yeah,” she said. “Sorry. I just… The wedding. There’s been a lot to do. I couldn’t stay.”
It was an excuse and we both knew it. If she wanted to stay, she would have.
“That’s fine,” I lied. “I didn’t expect you to.”
A strange expression passed over her face, one that might have been regret or maybe it was disappointment. However it just as likely could have been relief. I apparently wasn’t as good at reading Alice as I thought I was. Last night I’d really thought she would stay.
The Groomsman: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Billionaires of Club Tempest) Page 18