by Amelia Wilde
“Come for me, pretty thing. Come so I can hear you.”
I don’t hold anything back, eliciting a guttural wail as the juices pour over my own fingers.
“Enjoy your shower,” he says softly, my ragged breathing finally slowing. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”
30
Gideon
I do my very best to give Kennedy some space for the rest of the week. Enough of my friends from college have gotten married that I know how nerve-wracking things can be the week before an event like this. I believe Kennedy when she says that the mother of the bride has it all planned out, but when she texts me on Tuesday afternoon, it’s to tell me that Leah’s mother is in full meltdown mode over something involving a florist and an ice sculpture.
Is an ice sculpture really the most appropriate decoration for a wedding? ;)
I knew you’d understand…
From Tuesday to Friday, she’s so swept up in last minute planning and fittings and emergency meetings with the bridal party that I don’t have a chance to see her at all.
Which is probably for the best, because the moment I see her I’m going to want to whisk her into my car and drive us to the airport. Nearing the end of August, the heat in the city is oppressive. On the drive to work, the buildings seem to hang over me, crowding out all the available space, and every muscle in my body cries out to be doing something on the verge of recklessness, or at least doing something that’s as far away from here and out in the free open space as possible.
With Kennedy by my side.
The only silver lining is that it leaves plenty of time open in my schedule to plan for our next destination. I’d forgotten completely about her friend’s bachelorette party, but after the way this week seems to be going, I’m sure Kennedy will be as anxious as I am to flee the city.
On Thursday night, I call her, and in the background I hear the soft hum of a sitcom on TV.
“Hi, pretty thing.”
“Hi, handsome.”
“Am I interrupting?”
“Only reruns.”
There’s a rustling noise, and then the volume on the TV goes down even lower so that I can’t even make out the laugh track. “Are you prepared for tomorrow?”
Kennedy sighs. “If anything else goes wrong, I’ll probably lose my mind.”
“This is exactly why frequent vacations are a must for sustaining one’s mental health.”
She laughs, sounding worn. “I told my boss today that I was going to be taking some time off. She wasn’t exactly thrilled.”
I frown. “You don’t go away very often, do you?”
“No, and that’s probably why she usually loves me so much. I took a couple of days off before Leah’s bachelorette party, but those are the only days I’ve been out of the office since…” She pauses, thinking. “Since I started working there, I think.”
“You’ve never taken any vacation days other than that?”
“Nope.”
“That is criminal. Did you tell her we’d be gone for two weeks?”
“I told her I’d be gone for two weeks,” Kennedy says coyly. “I’m not about to spread more rumors about the time I spend with you.”
“More rumors?”
“You do at least glance at the gossip sites, don’t you?”
“Not usually. Half of what they post on there is bullshit, and the other half is stuff I already know.”
“I guess we’ve been a topic of conversation.”
“Over what? The bachelorette party?”
“Over…jet-setting off on some kind of vacation.” Kennedy laughs again. “I never thought stepping out of an airplane was a photo-worthy event, but somebody thought it was.”
Typical. Some of the paparazzi like to stake out the airport in case anyone noteworthy flies in or out. “Did they identify you by name?” If they’re dragging Kennedy into the limelight over that, I might consider sending some of my people to have a talk with them about privacy and how miserable I could make it for them if I decided to be a vindictive person.
“No. I’m a mystery redhead.”
“That’s accurate. You had a mysterious allure to you that night in the club.”
She yawns again, and the sound of it fills me with a strange tenderness that I can’t remember ever feeling for another person. Not even for Andrea.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, pretty thing,” I tell her. “Get some sleep.”
“I can’t say no to that,” she murmurs. “Good night, Gideon…”
Then the line softly clicks off.
Kennedy emerges from her apartment building the next morning at ten o’clock looking refreshed and wide awake, and every single cell in my body is screaming that it wants to strip off the terrycloth outfit she’s wearing and claim her all the way to the Westbury Manor. As soon as she slides into her seat, I can’t resist raising my hands to her face, pulling her toward me for a kiss that’s like lightning and thunder and sex all rolled into one.
When we come up for air, Kennedy raises both of her hands. “Gideon, you’re going to have me all distracted and—”
“Wet?”
She blushes. “Yes, wet, for the entire day.”
“Would that be the worst thing?”
Kennedy looks at me, her eyes shining. “No,” she whispers, and leans in close to me again.
I hit the button to raise the privacy screen between the front and back sections of the car, and Kennedy scrambles over on top of me, straddling me in her lightweight terrycloth shorts.
“What the hell is this outfit? I’m not complaining, but—” I run my hands under a tight-fitted tank top that says MOH on the front.
“It’s for the bridal party,” she says, dragging her lips down the side of my neck. “Don’t ask.” She’s hot under my touch, her skin unbelievably soft, and she kisses me like we’ve been apart for months instead of days. “Is this what it feels like?”
I make a sound that’s somewhere between a question and an answer and tug her shorts down along with her panties, throwing them both to the floor. It takes only another moment to unzip my pants, letting my cock spring free.
“Being crazy about someone,” she murmurs into my ear, and her next move is to sink down on top of me, enveloping my shaft in one sensual thrust, taking in my complete length all at once. She’s right about being wet. She’s absolutely soaking, and I can’t get enough of it. I can’t get enough of her. The energy radiating from her is bright and clean and uncomplicated, like being in this car again has reminded her that she can cut loose every once in a while and the world won’t come to an end.
Or maybe she’s as horny as I am.
It’s a quick, hot fuck, and the moment I raise my hand to rub my thumb across her clit, Kennedy arches backward, impaling herself on my cock. It’s all it takes for her to come, her pussy squeezing so tightly around me that it pushes me over the edge into an orgasm so intense, so explosive, that I’m worried we’re rocking the car right off the road.
The next thing I know, Kennedy is scooping up her clothes from the floor, putting them on, and sliding back into her seat, pulling the seatbelt over her chest and buckling it with a firm click. When she looks at me again, her eyes are glowing. “Let’s go to a wedding,” she says.
“Let’s go to the airport.”
She laughs, then grins, and my heart beats fast and warm.
31
Kennedy
There is no better way to ride to a wedding. That’s what I’ll say about that car ride. No better way at all, especially when you’re about to spend a full day of your life standing next to your radiant best friend as she marries a man who is decent and kind and attractive.
Up until I met Gideon at the club that night, I thought Leah’s fiancé Jared was the most anybody could hope for in the way of a husband. He’s tall and lean, has sandy-colored hair and laughing blue eyes, and more than once I’ve watched them together and felt an embarrassing spike of jealousy.
Not anymore
.
Gideon’s dark hair and heavily muscled body is all I’m thinking about, even as I step out of his car with a spring in my step, my entire body feeling liquid and warm. When I turn to wave at him, I can’t see him through the tinted windows of his car, but I don’t have to see him to know that he’s wearing a sexy grin.
At the entrance to the manor, I hitch my purse over my shoulder and adjust my shorts. Leah got us all fancy lingerie to wear underneath the bridesmaids’ dresses, but even so, I’m glad my panties were spared from our activities.
The door swings open before I’m quite ready for it, and I jerk my hand away from the waistband of my shirt and look into the laughing eyes of the uniformed butler who’s waiting inside.
“Wow,” I blurt out. “Leah’s mom really went all out.”
He’s on the younger side, someone I might have been momentarily attracted to before the bachelorette party, and he allows himself a small smile. “Ms. Carlisle?”
“That’s me.” It occurs to me that I never checked if my hair was mussed, and I raise a hand and pat at it, trying to give him a smile that’s all confidence and gives no indication that I had hot sex in the back of a billionaire’s car. By the look in his eyes, I’m failing. I fall back on my brisk office demeanor. “Has the rest of the bridal party arrived?”
“Indeed,” he says, stepping back to let me pass by. “They’re in the bride’s dressing area. I’m to tell you that mimosas are waiting.”
I roll my eyes before I can stop myself. Leah must be determined to “break me out of my shell” at her wedding today, even though I’m the one who’s going to coordinate all the details that her mother can’t be counted on to handle, like holding up her wedding dress if she has to pee, and making sure she doesn’t drink too much before she walks down the aisle. Not that she’s a totally insensible person, but there’s a reason I was chosen as her maid of honor over others, like Cassandra. Beyond the fact that we’ve been friends the longest.
That moment with the butler is the last quiet moment I have for the rest of the day.
Leah’s dressing room is a whirlwind of laughter and clinking glasses, her mother hovering over it all with a mood swinging wildly between a kind of practiced calm and barely disguised panic. At one point, clutching a champagne flute half-filled with her eighth or ninth mimosa, she stands up, slaps her hand to her forehead, and gasps like she’s witnessed a murder.
“What is it, Mrs. Morgan?” I rush to her side, putting a comforting hand on her elbow.
“I can’t remember if I marked down lilac napkins or iris.” She looks at me with wild eyes. “Oh my God, Kennedy, what if it was iris? What if it was iris?”
I gently press her back into a sitting position on the antique sofa that graces the center of the bride’s dressing room. It’s nestled up to a coffee table that’s currently piled high with everything one might need to make several hundred mimosas. “I’ll run down to the banquet hall and check.”
I hustle down to the banquet hall and peer at the napkins, which are probably the most inconsequential detail imaginable, what with the complicated centerpieces and strings of lights looped and laced overhead. Leaning down, I take a closer look at one. I can’t tell if it’s lilac or iris…or lavender. So I go back to the dressing room and tell Mrs. Morgan that they’re definitely lilac, without a doubt.
I can’t catch my breath between having my makeup done and my hair styled, joining a furious storm of chattering as everyone pulls on their dresses, pausing in the middle of helping Leah put on her dress so the photographer can get some artsy shots of us arranging the folds of the ball gown, being photographed a thousand times at least, and daydreaming about Gideon.
Leah’s eyes shimmered when I told her he was coming as my date. “I already had the place card made up,” she whispered. “He’s seated right near the head table.”
“Perfect,” I told her, beaming, even though with every minute ticking by I get more and more nervous. Gideon is about to see me all made up and dressed to the nines as a member of a bridal party. I’ve never been this person in front of him before—this person with flawless makeup and a life outside of our sensual getaway.
Before I know it, it’s time for us to walk down the aisle, one by one. The other girls go first, until finally I’m the last one waiting ahead of Leah. One last deep breath, and I’m stepping down the aisle at the measured pace we spent hours practicing last night. Everyone’s eyes are on me—they’re waiting for Leah, but for one single moment I’m the main event—but all I can think about is whether Gideon’s eyes are on me.
My heart beats a little faster and my hands are shaking. Maybe he decided not to come. Maybe he decided that it’s best to keep whatever this is between us under wraps. Maybe he, like any normal man, thought it would actually be pretty terrible to attend a wedding with a bunch of perfect strangers so he could spend his afternoon waiting around for the woman who isn’t even his girlfriend to detach herself from the wedding party and dance with him.
I take my place at the front of the gathering and look out over the luscious backyard to where Leah is waiting to take her trip down the aisle, most of her dress hidden.
That’s when I spot him.
He’s sitting two rows from the back, right on the aisle, and even as the music swells, he keeps his eyes firmly on me.
His smile is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and all of me flushes hot again. I love you, Kennedy Carlisle. The sound of the rain that night, his voice confessing those words—that memory is reflected in his face right now.
I can’t stop looking at him.
That is, right up until Leah’s dress is filling my vision. Jesus, I need to be ready to take her bouquet, to hand her tissues, focus all my attention on her and not on the gorgeous man who’s perched in one of the cheap seats, waiting for me.
Leah steps up to the canopy attached to her father’s arm, Jared glowing nearby, and then it all starts.
Somewhere far in the distance, even though the day right now is sun-soaked and hot, a boom of thunder echoes across the sky.
32
Gideon
I can’t take my eyes off Kennedy.
She’s wearing the same dress as all the other bridal attendants—it’s a light shade of purple, somehow form-fitting and ethereal all at once—but there’s something about the way she stands, graceful and tall and self-assured, that makes me want to interrupt this entire ceremony and ask the priest to marry us instead.
It’s by far the most ridiculous urge I’ve ever had to suppress.
For one thing, interrupting her best friend’s wedding would be a great way to make Kennedy hate me, and probably forever. For another, we could plan our own wedding, and I’m certain it would be nothing like this one.
I cock my head to the side as the priest runs through the opening of the ceremony and Kennedy lifts her chin, eyes traveling back and forth between the priest and her best friend, checking again and again to see if she’s all right. What kind of wedding would Kennedy want? She’s clearly no stranger to planning—nobody becomes a successful travel agent for such high-profile and demanding clients without being able to anticipate, plan, and execute with the best of them—but the vision that comes to mind when I picture Kennedy in a white dress isn’t in some high-class venue on Long Island.
It’s of her in a white dress, her bare feet in the sand outside the resort or private retreat of our choosing, and only a few close friends and family in attendance. I can practically see it now—the way the dress drapes over the fine curve of her hip, her hair lifting gently in the seaside breeze, her face glowing with happiness.
Kennedy looks up, over Leah’s head, and a fleeting expression of concern moves over her face like a cloud passing over the sun. Then she’s smiling again, serene and calm, like she’s aware that the second photographer is clicking away constantly and she’s going to appear in hundreds of photos for Leah to choose from. If I know Kennedy at all—and how could I not, after last weekend on Virgin
Gorda? —she’s the only member of the bridal party who’s that aware of every single thing happening around her. The bridesmaid at the outer flank of the wedding party lifts her hand to cover a yawn.
Point proven.
Kennedy lifts her head again, and this time, I hear it, too. It’s a sound so low that it’s barely within range, but once you hear it, it’s unmistakable.
Thunder.
If Leah is lucky, whatever storm we’re hearing echoes of at Westbury Manor will stay that far away, never touching this venue.
The thunder reminds me of the storm on the island, when I told Kennedy I loved her, the flashes of lightning illuminating the happiness on her face.
Kennedy sneaks a glance out into the audience, inclining her head only the slightest bit, and I catch her gaze and smile. She smiles back, and there’s a layer of shyness there that peeks out from beneath her poise. She’s standing in the glow of the bride, and she can’t help but know what kind of comparison I’m drawing.
What are you afraid of?
The question comes unbidden to my mind, but I have nothing to do during the vows except answer it. I’m not afraid of heights. I’m not afraid of flying. I live for adrenaline.
But Kennedy doesn’t.
Kennedy doesn’t, and there might be a time when all of the attraction that exists between us—all that molten-hot need—might not be enough to make up for that. Not for her.
That’s the only thing I’m afraid of. I’d rather jump off a thousand cliffs than be faced with the possibility of her coming through the door one night and telling me that it’s over, that she’s had enough. Even a beach wedding and a white dress might not head that off. My heart twists in my chest thinking of the hard line of Andrea’s mouth, the way she looked me straight in the eye, compassionless, and told me that things were finished between us.
The end of the ceremony catches me off guard, I’m so lost in thought. I get to my feet a few moments too late, and as the bridal part streams by, an older man sitting next to me touches my elbow.