by Taryn Quinn
That explanation was as good as any other, so I was running with it.
“She fell, Tish, and April’s freaking out. Her grams is basically like her mom to her. She offered to send her guy in her place. He’s smokin’ hot, but you know, I didn’t think he’d fit in her dress.”
I grinned. “Probably not. But what does this have to do with—no.” Horror dawned. “I just shimmied into this dress with considerable difficulty, and now you want me to wiggle into another?”
“Please? I can’t ask anyone else, and the vibe will be all off. And the pictures will be uneven. Besides, you and Lucky are like such matched bookends.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re both so tall, and you look amazing together. Not that I’m insinuating you are together. Or have been together, probably amazingly. Which might be why you try not to stand too close to him so no one else gets burned by the sparks you two keep throwing off.” She coughed delicately into her fist. “Or something.”
I wasn’t blushing. In fact, I was almost sure I didn’t even have the capability despite my hair color. I was immune to such shows of embarrassment.
“You’re seeing things, Blondie.”
Yeah, yeah, so he’d been spending most nights here until we’d had that stupid fight. Not a fight exactly. Dammit, he shouldn’t have touched my sanctuary.
“Even that. You adopted his nickname for me. You two just fit. Everyone says so. But Caleb says—”
“Who is this ‘everyone’, and what does Caleb say?”
The polished blond dude who was probably Lu’s brother or cousin twice removed moved forward and laid his hand on her shoulder. “Caleb says you’re lovely in that dress, so why have you exchange one lovely dress for another? Right, Lulu?”
She mumbled under her breath before brightening. “You’re right, X. He’s right. Why not buck tradition? Every part of this wedding is different from the norm. I’d be honored if you would stand up for me and not only because you and Lucky belong together—”
“She can’t help matchmaking.” X put his hand over her mouth and she giggled. “Damn these in love people who assume all the rest of us should be as happy.”
She pried off his hand. “I haven’t given up on you, X.”
“Tell me about it.”
Watching their sibling teasing made me hunch my shoulders. My brothers would be here soon, and normally, I’d be excited. I was now too, but I was also worried. Seeing Co when I was keeping stuff from him about his best friend made everything so much more difficult. But I didn’t want Jimmy to cause me to lose anything else.
Like, oh, your sense of trust? Your faith in men? Your belief that a man could just want you for you and not for some ulterior motive?
“I’ll do it,” I said suddenly. “I’ll even wear the stu—stupendous maid-of-honor dress. Assuming it fits me. Is April short?”
“No, she’s almost as tall as you. Ish. It’s perfect.”
“Sure, if you don’t mind me flashing some leg at a family event.”
“Don’t worry. Caleb’s sister-in-law is attending too, and she’s already here so she can’t get stuck in that snowbank like the others. She’ll make any needed alterations.”
“What others? Snowbank? My beater car can’t make it through any heavy-duty snow, Lu.”
She waved me off. “Already taken care of. Your chariot awaits. Just hurry up and finish getting dressed. Thank you, love you, see you soon.” The screen went black.
“What the hell? What kind of chariot could make it here in this weather?”
Since I was alone, I did not get an answer.
With a sigh, I clomped over to the window, hiking up my dress so it didn’t drag across the floor. I hadn’t put on my torture device heels yet. Why did women insist on tormenting poor innocent toes that were so much happier in Chucks or my perfectly broken-in boots?
Outside, white obscured my vision. There was so much snow that it was starting to cling to the windows themselves, never mind pile up on the sills.
Normally, on a night like this I’d be curled up, remote in hand, watching something schmaltzy I probably wouldn’t admit to in mixed company. Or any company.
Hell, it was the holidays. I was allowed to watch some cute 90s teen queen meet her small town’s mysterious innkeeper who was the only one who could help her make five-hundred centerpieces for the Christmas charity craft fair in two days.
More than that, I was entitled. Holiday spirit, dammit. I had it too. Sometimes.
Out of the swirling snow, a pair of headlights appeared. The truck swung into my driveway, and my heart went wild, fluttering in my chest.
Apparently, I was no better than the 90s teen queen without the cute factor and with an additional half a foot of height.
“Chariot indeed.”
Something dangerously close to excitement and pleasure hummed along my skin as I hurriedly finished getting ready. I gave my hair the quickest blowdry known to man while I worked my kind of magic with a curling brush and hairspray. Good enough. The storm would wreck it anyway, and no one had invited me for my wizardry with hair styling tools.
God help them if they did.
I went to grab my leather jacket and realized a girly furry stole thing would probably work better with this getup. Whatever. Like I had one of those. If they wanted Tish Burns, they were getting her, leather and all.
I stuffed the damn shoes in a bag and put on my most ridiculous snow boots. Ezra called them my moon boots because of their shape, but hey, they kept my feet toasty and I wasn’t ruining my regular boots with this crap.
How could snow come down so fast? It had only been a few hours since I’d looked outside. Flurries were one thing, this stuff quite another.
Then I opened the door and faced the mountains of snow between me and the truck waiting patiently in my drive.
Too late to rethink my plan to dress before I got to Dippy Acres?
I shut my eyes and prayed for patience. I was going to have to take this dress off again and put on some freaking snowpants. Fuck my life.
My phone went off and I slammed the door, leaning against it as I read Lucky’s text and sent one of my own.
Open your door, Ruby.
I have to change.
Open your door, Ruby.
“Open your door, Ruby,” I mimicked, doing a quick sweep for Dusty just to make sure he wasn’t curious enough to dart outside. My cat wasn’t dumb enough to go wading in snow, but before today, I would’ve said I wasn’t dumb enough to get myself roped into a wedding.
It took all kinds.
The cat was nowhere in sight, so I had to assume he was curled up somewhere and enjoying himself far more than I was. He had a full bowl of food and fresh water so he was set.
I yanked open the front door again, ready to march outside and yell at Lucky that he could hold his ass while I changed into something that wouldn’t cause immediate frostbite to my lower limbs.
But I didn’t expect him to be standing right there.
The sight of him in an eggplant purple tux and a sweeping dark coat with his hair long and loose and sprinkled with snow like confetti took my breath and my irritation away.
So, his massive height and the breadth of his freaking shoulders had something to do with it too.
“You opened the door.” Plumes of frosty air streamed from his lips, oddly fascinating me.
I blamed them for being distracted enough that he managed to lift me straight off the ground, pull the door shut, and cart me across the snow to his truck before I marshaled the wits to scream.
Either that or my lungs had frozen. Holy crap, it was cold.
He muscled me into the front seat and something about the action reminded me I was in motion not of my own doing. I brought my leg up and jammed my knee hard into his inner thigh, dangerously close to where his prized possession rose up like a hungry beast.
Such a shame it was caged in those restrictive tuxedo pants.
�
��You nearly nailed me,” he panted in my ear.
Which did not remind me to be mad, gotta say. I hadn’t had my hands on him in days now. His warm breath and soap scent and huge arms clamped around me made me feel decidedly fond of him actually
“Remember that next time you get handsy.” I poked his insanely broad chest, shaking loose a moderate snowstorm in the cab of his truck.
“Oh, yeah?” Daring me now, he slid his big bear paws down under my ass and cupped me against him. My fault for not disabling that armed menace in his trousers when I’d had the chance. “What are you gonna do when I make you come all over my pants?”
Say thank you, I needed that?
No. Wrong answer.
Brain, come back online. Anytime now would be awesome.
“You absolutely cannot do that. There’s no…dry cleaner at Hoppy Acres.”
He lifted his head, his green eyes dancing with mirth in the low light. “Happy.”
“No, not particularly, but it is what it is—” He started to laugh and I thumped him in the gut, not checking my strength one iota.
He only laughed harder, the ass. And then I was laughing too, and he was kissing me and I sort of forgot to be cold when we were generating a massive amount of heat.
This was a very unwise idea. We were already probably behind time-wise to get to this shindig and now I was Lu’s main squeeze in the wedding party. I probably shouldn’t be late.
I definitely shouldn’t be writhing and moaning as he let out a sound of torment while he filled his hands with my breasts.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you, Ruby. Let me look at you in this dress.”
“Please don’t,” I gasped. “It’s not truth in advertising.”
His laughter was loud and baffled but it didn’t stop him from trailing hot, wet kisses down the side of my throat to my cleavage. “Says who?”
“Me. It’s the damn shaper. I’m not built like…this.” I was rapidly losing oxygen in this cramped front seat, which didn’t make sense considering he was still hanging out the open door. I wasn’t sure he could fit on top of me if he didn’t, but it didn’t seem right for his ass to get frostbite for his trouble.
“Too late. Already did.” His long fingers spanned my cheeks as he tilted my face upward. “Now I want to look at you out of it.”
“We’re outside.” Speaking was getting harder by the second. “Your ass is going to freeze if you pull down those pants.”
“Aww, worried about me, Ruby?” He licked his way up my throat and then found my mouth, sinking in with a primal noise that made me try to clench my legs around his tree trunk thighs.
“Just because I have a use for you.”
“That so?”
“Oh, it’s so.” I grabbed his backside and hauled him more onto the seat, dragging his hard cock over my cleft just the way I needed.
We both groaned and laughed when the sudden forceful movement rocked the truck.
I sucked on his lower lip and skipped the formalities, shoving my hands down the back of his pants so I could cup his truly bitable ass. “Gotta say, Thor, I appreciate your control.”
“Control?” He gasped out a laugh as his icy fingers delved into the stupid shaper to caress my needy breast. My yelp made him laugh harder as he found my nipple. “My dick is an icicle. I’m not entirely sure I can thrust.”
“Let’s find out.” I pinched his cheeks and he jerked against me, proving he could just fine. “See, I had faith in you.”
“That was just the feeling returning. Fuck, look at this thing. Your tits are sky-high.” His reverence as he jolted up to get a better look made me snort, then choke on a laugh when his head bounced off the ceiling. “Ouch, Jesus. You’re killing me, Ruby. Literally.” He rubbed his head and grinned down at me with pure joy in his eyes.
My belly rioted, heaving in a way that did not entirely match the situation. I hadn’t eaten much today. A sandwich at lunch with some chips. Probably needed to cruise by the dessert table before the ceremony and see if I could steal a damn cupcake or something.
Then he slid his hand up my thigh and found the rest of my foundational garments—also known as the thong I’d had no choice but to wear to avoid panty lines. His reaction was a litany of swear words uttered with a devotion I hadn’t known he possessed.
“I want to eat you. Have to.” He was already sliding backward. I wasn’t entirely sure his legs hadn’t folded beneath him. “Can crouch on the—”
“What? No. No. No eating. If I can’t, you can’t either. Pussy or otherwise.” I was giggling like a maniac. “Get up here, you oaf.”
I scrambled backward across the front seat, bumping and scraping both my limbs and my pride, then I pulled him upward all the way into the cab. He managed to shift enough to get the door closed behind him and fit himself between my thighs, rutting against me hard enough to send my head into the driver’s door. He immediately grabbed my head, muttering apologies between kisses as we writhed against each other.
This time, he sucked his fingers into his mouth, warming them, before he slipped his hand into the shaper to tug on my painfully hard nipple. Pure need speared through me, landing between my legs so that I couldn’t do anything but arch against him and beg.
Nonsense words. Pleas. Vague threats and ones that weren’t so vague when he made me wait.
His mouth replaced his fingers on first one nipple then the other. I almost couldn’t take the infusion of pleasure from his tongue and the razor skim of his teeth. Mindlessly, I ran my hands through his long hair, laughing again through my sighs when I hit the crunchy, frozen part courtesy of the snowstorm. Then his wet fingers slipped over my pussy and I exploded. Just one brush against my clit and I was gone, shaking against him and holding on as if the parts left of me would disintegrate if I didn’t.
“Missed that sound so much.” His big hands framed my face until my heavy lids lifted and focused on the world captured in his green eyes. It was cold as hell beyond the bubble of heat between us, but when I was trapped in his gaze, I couldn’t feel it.
Nothing else existed except him.
Except us, and the me I became when I was with him. I fought it with everything I was even as I rushed toward it again and again.
I turned my head and nipped the pad of his finger, tasting myself there. That same twist in my belly had me swallowing hard, but he didn’t know of my internal struggle. He yanked down his zipper, fighting through layers of fabric to get to my favorite part of him.
Well, only one of my favorites of his. There were many. I just wouldn’t admit it.
My head revolved. I didn’t know if it was still attached. That was a new aftereffect to an orgasm, even an incredible one. Add in the touchy stomach and I didn’t know if I wanted more or to cross my hands over my lady business.
Was I hungry or nauseated? Lovesick? Was that an actual thing? Probably not. And I wasn’t that anyway.
I hoped.
He lifted his hard, heavy cock and circled the tip over my clit. I forgot about my belly and my head and anything but yanking the dress up my thighs to give me enough room to wind my legs around him. I couldn’t get close enough. I was a vine around his big body, touching whatever part of him I could reach and begging for things I couldn’t name.
No matter how he sated me, it was always temporary. And when the need came back, it was ten times as intense.
Drowning me just like he was devouring me with his hot, urgent kisses. His tongue lashed mine and I moaned, bowing up into him until his cock dipped into me and he surged forward to the hilt in one slow roll.
Heaven, perfection, destruction—all at once.
“Fuck, shit, dammit. No condom.” His agonized expression hit me down deep, and I started to laugh the laugh of someone who had lost their mind.
Or really wanted another orgasm.
I rocked against him, urging him on. Telling him without words he better not fucking stop anytime soon. My nails sank into his ass, and he drove forward with a long groan, l
etting loose in a truly spectacular fashion considering the confines of the front seat. His head hit the ceiling more than once and mine hit the door and the pain only made the torturous need climb higher. My thighs were shaking with it, my nipples diamond points that throbbed against his tongue when he sucked them deep. I dragged my hands through his hair, pulling with enough force that my nails scored his scalp. His grunts were like liquid kerosene poured on the fire inside me, and his desperate strokes pushed me closer to that edge from which I’d never come back.
I knew it like I knew my own name.
Yet when I reached the pinnacle, I still pinwheeled into the dark, arms out, as if I believed I couldn’t ever fall. Not when he was with me. On me. In me, filling up all the spaces and gaps down deep that no one had ever touched before him.
Or would after.
He panted my name into my ear. His version of it, the name that had become mine as much as my own.
“Ruby. My Ruby.”
And as he stilled before that last mad thrust inside me, spilling himself into my depths, I clutched my arms around his back and shut my eyes.
Just like that, I knew something else too. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t used a condom. Didn’t matter that we were reckless together because it had only taken once to change everything.
I knew.
Nineteen
For a little while in the truck, I was sure I had finally reached her.
It wasn’t the first time. We always had pockets of understanding and laughter in between the petty arguments and sniping and insanely hot sex. But she always locked down. Sometimes I could even physically see it happening. The shields dropping to block away any emotion she didn’t want me to be privy to.
But not only me. She hid them from herself too. That was the only way a woman as responsive as she was could only play half the notes on the guitar and pretend she covered the whole damn G clef.