Preston didn’t seem deterred at all. Instead he nuzzled right up against my underwear, tugging at it playfully with his teeth. He winked at me, dragged my underwear down—and then his tongue was curling against my folds and I was gripping his hair like there was no other way to anchor myself. Like I would float away if I didn’t hold on.
God, it felt so good. I had no idea that it could feel like this. I’d been curious about it, but I had always wondered if it didn’t just feel kind of weird to have someone’s tongue inside of you. But this was—oh my God. His tongue curled inside of me, lapped eagerly through my soaking folds, and swirled around my clit. I was in ecstasy. I couldn’t stop moaning, and soon I was thrusting against his mouth, desperate for more.
“You’re so fucking hot, holy shit,” Preston murmured, pulling back to kiss my inner thighs. He sounded pleased and turned on, and I thrilled to know that he was getting off on making me feel good. “Now this is really enjoying yourself, sweetheart.”
The endearment made me melt a little. I couldn’t be sure, but Preston didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would use endearments lightly. Maybe—it was possibly wishful thinking on my part but just maybe—this could be the start of something more between us. Something meaningful. Something perhaps even beautiful.
Preston moved back in between my legs, sliding his tongue in and out of me, then moved up and dragged the flat of it against my clit. My orgasm came screaming at me, moving through my body, and I came hard into his mouth.
Oh my God. I had never felt anything like that before. I was floating, I was flying. This was so much better than just touching myself on my own.
I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.
1
Preston
FIVE YEARS LATER
I fucking hated destination weddings.
And skiing. God I hated skiing. Look, it was the classic ‘rich person’ winter sport but honestly if you asked me it was way too much trouble. Who wanted to go tramping out into the freezing snow wearing all of this equipment, strapping these crazy things to your feet, and then go screaming down a hill with the wind in your face and possibly crashing into trees? I’d rather just stay in the fuckin’ lodge with hot chocolate, thanks.
Why’d you need to drag everyone out to a destination for your wedding, anyway? Your wedding was about you, sure, so go and get married wherever you wanted I suppose but why make everyone pay a bunch of money to fly out and see you? It was just so rude, if you asked me. It would be so much easier to just have the wedding ceremony in your home town, with everyone you knew, and then spend the money going to the destination you wanted for your honeymoon. Like what the hell.
Then again, I was talking to the wrong crowd when it came to things like thinking about other people and not spending a fuckton of money. Look, my family was rich, that was a fact, and I was a lawyer so I’d only gotten richer since then. Just because you had money didn’t mean you had to be a pretentious dick, but some people in my family hadn’t gotten the damn message.
My cousin Chad was one of them.
Look, Chad was a fun guy if you wanted a good time in the city. If you wanted to know the best clubs, if you wanted a buddy with you on vacation, if you wanted to have a great time with no responsibilities… then Chad was your man.
But man, that guy’d had life handed to him on a silver platter and he wouldn’t know responsibility if it’d hit him in the face with a two-by-four. And now we were all paying for it. Well. By ‘all’ I meant mostly me. See, my family had decided that the responsible lawyer in the family should be the one to help make sure that this whole thing didn’t get out of hand, so they were sending me down early to keep an eye on things.
Ugh. Vail, Colorado. The quintessential ski town. I was not a fan. Oh, sure, okay, it was beautiful, really. I wasn’t being sarcastic there. I truly did think the natural beauty was lovely. And if you had asked me to come here in the summer to do a bit of horseback riding and hiking, I would be happy to join you. But oh no, middle of February? No way. Hell, it wasn’t even Christmas, the only time of year where you could really get into the whole snow thing. It was Valentine’s Day weekend.
Because, y’know. For some reason that was what everyone wanted. Getting married on Valentine’s Day.
Personally, I thought Valentine’s Day was a bit overrated. You shouldn’t have a day where you felt like you had to be nice to your significant other or else. The pressure that was on people to be all romantic was absolutely nuts. Not that I would know about that. I hadn’t really had any serious relationship this entire time.
It was driving my mother nuts.
Maybe, in my heart of hearts, I could admit that some of my crankiness about this whole thing was the feeling of… loss. I’d had my own girl that I’d thought I could have something with, but then she’d gotten away from me. I still wasn’t entirely sure how I fucked things up, but it had been years now, and, well.
I supposed I was more of a sap than I wanted to be, given that I was still mooning over a girl I hadn’t seen since college. Fun.
Anyway, here I was, at the lodge, making sure that all of Chad’s frat bro groomsmen were getting in on time and double-checking that everything was okay. Of course, that wasn’t really my job. That was the job of the wedding planner, and I trusted whoever was hired, if only because Chad and my family would spare no expense and would get the best wedding planner on the market. But my aunt and uncle would want me to confirm that I’d seen everything myself, double checked it with my own two eyes, or hands, whatever, so I was doing my best.
I found my way to the chapel through the freezing snow to talk to the wedding planner and go over everything for tomorrow. Chad and his fiancée, whatever ditzy empty-headed heiress had managed to convince him to get hitched, weren’t here yet for some damn reason but I was sure we could get a lot of other things taken care of.
Hey, maybe it would be a blessing in disguise, and having the lovebirds not be here would mean that we could actually get everything in order without a bunch of crazy meddling.
After all—and I was never going to admit this out loud or my family would kill me—I was pretty damn sure the marriage wouldn’t last past the honeymoon. Nothing against either person in the sense of what kind of person they were as, you know, an individual. But Chad did not seem to me to be the marrying type. Or, rather, the monogamous type. Judging by his track record.
Ugh. This whole thing just stank. I was a damn lawyer, I had an instinct for mess. You kind of had to have this kind of thing when you were taking on cases. You had to know if you were about to step in a huge mess where a case didn’t go the way you thought it would. And if you asked me, this wedding was about to be a real stinker.
I stepped into the chapel, dusting the snow off my coat and hanging it up, shivering, as my body adjusted from the cold outside to the warm, heated church inside. It was nice in here, very old-fashioned but in a tasteful sort of way. Flowers and decorations were already set up and ready to go for tomorrow. It looked beautiful.
Okay. Wedding planner. Wedding planner…
My heart skipped a beat as I caught sight of a woman with a clipboard on the far side of the chapel.
But not just any woman. A gorgeous, heavyset, redheaded woman that I hadn’t seen in years. Not since college.
Fuck, it was Lyric Dean.
How could it be possible? How was she here? My heart was racing like I was a fucking fourteen-year-old again instead of a successful man. Damn it, I wasn’t exactly hurting in the looks or charm department, there was no need for my palms to get all sweaty when I saw her.
It probably had something to do with the way that we’d left things. Lyric had… well.
Thing was, Lyric hadn’t exactly been fond of me when we’d parted ways.
But holy shit. How had she gotten even more gorgeous since the last time I’d seen her? She’d blossomed in high school and I’d had to force myself not to let my thoughts stray towards… inappropriate
areas. She’d been too young, and the sister of my best friend on top of it.
But then it had been college…she’d been older, and she’d wanted me. Holy shit, how was I supposed to say no? She’d been the sexiest thing I’d ever gotten my hands on.
She still was now. God, she looked stunning. Her red hair was long and carefully pulled back so that it was out of her face but could still tumble down around her shoulders. She was wearing a lovely white dress that hugged her curves, and I knew it was because tight dresses made it easy to throw layers on top of them for stepping outside into the cold, but fuck, it showed off her body and made my mouth dry.
This was the girl I’d been thinking about all these years. The girl I’d been a secret sap over in the back of my mind.
Right now, she was also holding a clipboard and talking to two tall blondes wearing heels that looked—well, fucking dangerous. I wouldn’t walk in them, I’d break my damn ankle. Both of the blondes were holding what looked like some kind of wadded up pile of tissues—oh, fake bouquets. All right, those must be two of the bridesmaids, which meant that Lyric holding the clipboard…
Ah, shit, she was the wedding planner. Just my damn luck.
Lyric glanced over right at that moment, and even across the chapel I could see her doing a double take. Oh joy. She still wasn’t fond of me, was she? I supposed that whatever reason she had to hate me was still going strong. Lyric was the type of woman who would hold a grudge. I admired that about her, honestly. She never gave up in a fight.
She walked over, glancing down at her clipboard, her brow furrowed as she seemed to be searching for something. She didn’t seem pleased, that was for sure. I had a suspicion she was checking the guest list for my name.
Well, if she hadn’t noticed it already, then I was betting money that she wouldn’t find it. Chad had a… a real fun, juvenile sense of humor. And by that I meant, he still called me by the same stupid nickname he’d come up with ages ago: Cousin Prissy.
Given that ‘Prissy’ was actually a girls’ name, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lyric had thought it was just a family name for some woman cousin of Chad’s and hadn’t thought much about it beyond that. But really it was because when we were kids, I’d always been serious and studious, and I hadn’t joined Chad on his many pranks. Chad’s bullshit had always caused a huge mess and gotten him into trouble when we were kids and frankly I was glad I’d never given into his taunts and joined him on his pranks. I didn’t need his kind of track record. But Chad had insisted that I was just a stuck up with a stick in my ass, and he’d been calling me that name ever since.
Hmm. In a way, though, this was working in my favor. My cousin’s idiocy now meant that Lyric had no idea, until this moment, that I was in the wedding or that I was even a part of this business. And hopefully that gave me an advantage, catching her off guard. It meant she hadn’t had time to build up any anger or resentment and maybe, just maybe, I could see if she had softened towards me.
Lyric reached me and I opened my mouth to say that she looked beautiful—and then shut it. As much as I wanted to compliment her, that probably wouldn’t earn me any points. She’d probably think I was just being sleazy and hitting on her. I wanted to make a good first impression.
Now, when I’d known Lyric back in the day, she had been a very driven person. It was why I’d been so surprised to see her at the college party where we’d hooked up. Lyric had been a fun person, but she hadn’t struck me as someone who was into partying. She was ambitious and a hard worker—not that she’d ever admit it, but to make up for her mother, if you asked me. Lyric didn’t want to go into the music business, and her mom wasn’t too happy about it, so damn it, Lyric was going to be successful at whatever it was she did to stick it to her mom and prove she was right.
If she was at all the same, she would appreciate it if I stuck first to business.
“Hey, any idea on the ETA of the bride and groom?”
A look of surprise flashed across Lyric’s face, and then she sighed. “Their flight was delayed.”
“Explains why they’ve passed beyond fashionably late.”
I hoped to crack a smile out of her, but Lyric just looked frazzled. She could probably use some water or a coffee—or even a stiff drink—but before I could ask if there was anything I could get her, an ancient priest toddled up onto the dais and said, “Ladies and gentlemen…”
The guy had one of those thin, reedy voices that reminded me of Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh. This was the guy who was giving the ceremony?
I looked over at Lyric, who must’ve read my mind because she sighed again. “This is the venue that the bride and groom wanted, and this is the priest that comes with it. He won’t let anyone else do it, apparently he’s been taking care of this church for decades and… something, I tuned out his lecture after a while.”
Poor thing sounded exhausted. I was going to make sure that she got a damn good weekend off after this, maybe add some of my own money to her salary to give her a nice bonus, something like that. I was sure that this was far from the first thing that Chad and his fiancée had done to drive Lyric nuts.
“The bride and groom aren’t here yet,” I called up to the priest, who was prepping his papers.
“We only have the space rented for an hour,” Lyric explained. “I can’t keep them waiting that much longer.”
“Can we just call it off? Wing it tomorrow?”
“You really want to chance it?” Lyric replied, looking around at the assembled people.
Okay, fair point. “Then what should we do?”
“We?”
I nodded. “You think I’m going to let you handle this mess alone? Not a chance. What can I do to help?”
Lyric blinked at me, apparently surprised. “Oh. Um.” I could see an idea forming in her eyes. “Could you stand in for the groom?”
“Of course.”
“Excellent.” Some of the tension seemed to go out of her shoulders and she turned to face everyone else, clapping her hands together. “Okay, everyone!”
People stopped chatting and turned to look at her. Lyric definitely could command a room, her voice loud and firm without being angry. It was a real skill, honestly, one that I hadn’t seen in nearly enough people in leadership positions. People would yell, or couldn’t assert themselves, and either way it wasn’t a good thing.
But this was calm, like a teacher calling everyone in from recess. Lyric started to organize people and get them into their spots, and then turned back to me. “You’re coming with me.”
She grabbed my hands, and I could feel myself flushing with heat. The last time I’d touched her, I’d been kissing her, putting my hands all over her body. Touching her now was bringing all of that sense memory back, and for a second I felt the urge to tug her into me and kiss her again.
It was just sense memory, that was all. I wasn’t about to be wildly inappropriate with a woman I hadn’t seen in years, in public on top of it.
“Where are we going?” I asked, playful.
“To the vestibule.” Lyric didn’t seem amused, but she tugged me along by my hands.
I found myself wishing, insane as it was, that she wouldn’t let them go.
2
Lyric
This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.
If there was a day that could be used as my torture in Hell, it would be this day, relived over and over again for eternity. Everything that could go wrong, had. And I’d dealt with all of it, because that was my job as the wedding planner. I took care of emergencies like unexpectedly heavy snowfall and flower arrangements so that the bride and groom didn’t have to.
But honestly, this was taking the cake. No pun intended—as far as I knew the wedding cake was fine. On top of everything that usually could go wrong at a wedding going wrong, there was also the tiny matter of the bride and groom’s flight getting delayed, and all of the groomsmen and bridesmaids having no more than one brain cell to rub together and having to corral them, dealin
g with this absolutely half-deaf priest who can’t be younger than ninety…
And now. Preston.
I’d had no idea that Preston was a part of this. There had been on the list of groomsmen someone named ‘Cousin Prissy’ and I now had to assume that was Preston, but his name hadn’t been anywhere. Looking back, though, it made sense that he was a part of this mess. The groom and the bride both had different last names from Preston but if they were cousins there was no reason why they’d have the same last names, marriage and all that. And Chad, the groom, his family was one of the richest in Amherst. Preston’s family was also one of the richest in Amherst. It made total sense that they were related and a part of the same extended family.
So now the universe was really laughing at me.
I couldn’t afford for this wedding to go wrong. Having all of this go right would be the flower in my cap, the ticket to getting more exclusive contracts and more high-end clients asking for my services. I had built my entire business from the ground up and I couldn’t afford to have this go sideways.
And Preston Clark is here? The man who—you know what, it didn’t matter. It was fine, it was all going to be fine. I would handle this just like I’d handled Chad and Bree getting delayed on their damn flight here, and the caterer freaking out about the food, and the flowers, and everything else.
The thing was, I’d told Bree not to fly on the same day as her wedding rehearsal. I’d explained that too much could go wrong and I needed her here to make sure that everything was to her taste and she was prepared—I mean, her dress was hanging up and ready to go, didn’t she want to make sure that was all good to go?
But apparently Bree hadn’t been that concerned about it, and now, here we were. This was a ridiculous idea in the first place. A destination wedding was difficult enough to plan, although I was happy to take on the challenge, but the middle of February? In the snow in Colorado? It was a recipe for disaster, weather-wise. Bree had wanted Valentine’s Day, though, so she’d insisted.
Accidentally Married to Brother's Best Friend Page 2
