by Amy Andrews
Johanna ignored him. She figured his confidence could take a little wounding. And then he was advancing towards her and all sane thought fled. She gripped the edge of the marble vanity as he fitted in behind her and reached for her zipper. His fingertips brushed her bare skin and she felt the caress right down to her toes.
And certain other places not quite so far south.
She looked down at the marble. No way could she watch him unzip her. That smacked too much of a domesticity they would never share.
‘It’s stuck,’ he murmured after a few seconds.
‘Yes,’ she said sarcastically, keeping her gaze firmly trained on the veins of black in the caramel marble. ‘Otherwise I could have done it myself.’
Did he think she’d lured him in here under false pretences?
Somehow she could feel him smiling.
‘I’ll need to work it slowly or I’m going to rip the dress.’
Johanna snorted. ‘Rip it, I don’t care. It’s not like I’m going to be wearing this monstrosity ever again.’
He chuckled. ‘Oh but burgundy ruffles are so fetching.’
Her body moved slightly with each tug he gave to the zipper and Johanna was conscience of her be-ruffled butt rubbing against him. Of the heat building there. She wondered if he could feel it too or if it was just her overactive imagination.
‘I don’t understand brides,’ she said in an effort to distract herself from the sinful rub of their bodies making itself felt in the painful hardening of her nipples. ‘I mean, do they go to the nearest bridal shop and say, I want the ugliest dresses you can find for my closest friends?’
‘I think they do,’ he mused and Johanna shut her eyes as his breath fanned across her shoulders. ‘Something about not wanting their attendants to outshine them, and I must say Brie outdid herself. This dress is truly dreadful.’
‘Worst one yet,’ Johanna agreed, the slight accidental strokes of his fingertips so very sexy. ‘When I get married my bridesmaid’s dresses are going to be the talk of the town. They’re going to be totally gorgeous and stunning. They’re going to –’
Johanna halted as his fingers abruptly ceased their tugging. She looked up at him, their gazes meeting in the mirror. His brow was creased.
‘You want to get married?
Johanna frowned. Was that a trick question? ‘Of… course.’
‘But…you said you never wanted to get married.’
Her frown deepened. What on earth was he talking about? ‘When?’
‘That first time…after Peter and Kelly’s wedding. You made it very clear that you and I were just a one-off because I was a dirty dog and you were too focused on your career to settle for all that love and marriage stuff. You said you were never settling down, never getting married, because having a family makes demands on women that it doesn’t on men and you weren’t being any man’s indentured servant.’
Johanna stared at him as she struggled to digest the sudden serious direction the conversation had taken.
‘Or words to that effect,’ Ed added. ‘It was a couple of years ago…I’m paraphrasing.’
Ed paraphrased like he did everything else – very well indeed. Of course she’d said that. She’d wanted him to know that she could be hip and casual and have sex with a guy she’d had a crush on forever and be okay with it. She didn’t want him to think she was going to be some clingy limpet when he walked away the next morning.
Because that’s what he’d done.
That’s what Ed always did. That’s what he was known for. Good old love ‘em and leave ‘em Ed.
And she hadn’t wanted to be some responsibility he had to bear because they’d crossed the line in their friendship.
‘You also,’ he said, shoving his hands on his hips, looking all stern and serious and so incredibly sexy it took all Johanna’s willpower not to turn around and kiss him until they both couldn’t breathe, ‘went to great pains to reiterate your stance the next two times as well.’
Johanna wasn’t sure why he was suddenly cranky at her but she sure as hell didn’t want to have this conversation while he was wrangling with her zipper. This conversation required alcohol and as many clothes as possible.
‘Don’t worry, Ed,’ she murmured. ‘I won’t insist on you marrying me tomorrow because we shared the same room. Your single status is safe with me.’
He looked mad for long moments and opened his mouth like he was about to argue with her, before shutting it again clearly thinking better of it. She watched as his face relaxed, and his eyebrow quirk, when it came, was more the Ed she knew.
And loved.
‘Not even if I ruin you?’
Johanna laughed despite her resolve to keep her emotional distance from him. ‘You are incorrigible.’
He grinned back at her as he picked up the zipper tab. ‘I know.’
His fingers brushed her skin again and Johanna’s smiled slipped a little as her nipples responded and her belly clenched. Would her body ever behave around Ed or was she forever doomed to respond like a horny teenager to his every touch, no matter how non-sexual?
Thankfully the zipper suddenly freed up. ‘Aha,’ Ed announced with a triumphant smile as he drew it all the way down to the base of her spine and the dress loosened around her, one puffy, ruffled sleeve falling off her shoulder.
Johanna watched as Ed’s gaze trekked to the exposed skin, her candy-floss pink bra strap an object of apparent fascination. When his gaze finally lifted to hers in the mirror, neither of them were smiling.
‘Done,’ he murmured as his gaze drifted back to the bra strap.
Johanna nodded. But she couldn’t move. There was something in the way he stared at that strap that was utterly compelling and she was caught up in the strange sexual inertia of the moment. He glanced at her briefly again before slipping his hand onto her waist and slowly lowering his head.
She shivered when his lips lightly touched her shoulder just near the strap. And when his warm tongue tasted the skin there her eyes fluttered closed and she swayed against him. When they fluttered open again he was looking at her.
Every cell in her body was begging her to turn around and kiss him. Kiss him – use him – like she’d done the last three times. Play their game, slake her lust for him and walk away until the next time. The next wedding.
But she didn’t want to be his bridesmaid with benefits any more. She was in love with him. She’d always been in love with him.
She’d thought she could have a casual thing with him but she needed more from him than a few hours of passion in a luxury hotel suite. Their trysts were slowly killing her.
He went to lower his head again, his gaze firmly fixed on hers, silently asking for permission.
‘Don’t.’
He stopped, his gaze assessing for long seconds before standing upright, holding up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay.’
Johanna watched him in the mirror as he withdrew. He paused in the doorway and for a moment she thought he was going to turn back, lift her up onto the vanity and kiss her objections into oblivion.
‘You want a hand washing your back too, just yell,’ he threw over his shoulder, before pulling the door shut.
Chapter Four
Ed thought he was sufficiently prepared for Johanna appearing in his t-shirt. After all he’d seen her completely naked on three separate occasions. He’d even flicked the TV onto a financial channel to distract himself from thoughts of her all wet and soapy in the shower, and certainly any other time the depressing news about the Dow would have been a good distraction.
Unfortunately he knew what Johanna looked like all wet and soapy and had the whole financial market dived into some kind of crisis he doubted it would have registered.
And then she came out in the t-shirt. High on her thighs and falling off one shoulder.
Sexiest. Thing. He’d. Ever. Seen.
For sure his shirt had never looked so freaking good.
But it was more than that. There was just so
mething about seeing her in his shirt that grabbed his gut hard and squeezed. Something possessive. He couldn’t help but think he’d like to see a lot more of her in it.
And out of it.
Ed whistled. ‘Now that is an improvement.’
But Johanna either hadn’t heard him or was ignoring his words in favour of frowning. She’d done that a lot tonight. ‘You’re in the bed,’ she said.
Ed nodded. ‘Yes.’
More frowning and that haughty look he knew so well as she put a hand on her hip. Which did interesting things to the shirt.
Bra he noted absently.
‘A gentleman would offer to give up his bed for me,’ she announced.
Ed chuckled. A gentleman wouldn’t be checking out her bra either but screw that. And if she thought he was going to sleep on the floor or that prissy excuse for a couch she had another think coming. He was wrecked from jet lag and a long flight. He needed to be horizontal. He needed a pillow-top mattress and thousand thread-count sheets.
‘Yes, but we've already established I'm not a gentleman. In fact tonight not only have you accused me of being a man whore more than once but you’ve also called me several bad names. I’m afraid we sicko bastards aren’t known for our chivalry.’
Her other hand went to her hip as she glared at him. The shirt rode up a little. He could definitely see bra. ‘We’re not having sex.’
Ed shrugged. ‘As you wish.’
She frowned at him again. ‘Don’t do that.’
‘What?’ he asked innocently.
‘Don’t quote movies at me.’
One of their favourite games in high school had been sneaking as many quotes from their favourite movie into general conversation as possible. It had never failed to crack them up. Johanna had actually managed to get one into a debate once.
It had been utterly brilliant.
Ed sighed. ‘No movie quotes, no nickname, no sex. You’re no fun anymore, Jo-Jo.’
Johanna glared harder and her mouth tightened but she didn’t say anything, her gaze quickly scanning the room instead. ‘Are there extra pillows?’
‘There are like a hundred and six pillows on the bed alone, why do you need any more?’
‘Excellent,’ she said as she spotted where he’d stacked them on the couch and strode towards them.
‘What are you doing?’ Ed asked sitting forward as she grabbed as many as she could fit in her arms. ‘You’re not seriously going to sleep on the floor are you?’
‘Nope. I’m stacking them in the middle, between us.’
Ed watched, amused, as she climbed onto the bed from her side and proceeded to stack the pillows between them.
‘Seriously?’
She nodded. ‘Seriously.’
He flopped back against the bed head. ‘You don’t trust me.’ She didn’t answer, just scuttled off the bed to retrieve more. He watched her trek back to the bed and climb on again. ‘Or is it that you don’t trust yourself?’
‘I’m just establishing the boundaries that’s all.’
Ed glanced at the wall between them three pillows high. ‘Now I really do feel like I’ve entered some Victorian melodrama.’
She glanced at him over the top. ‘You know as well as I do that at some stage through the night we’ll…come into contact. You and I don’t seem to have much control when that happens. So I’m…removing temptation.’
From his upright vantage point Ed could see over the wall and he watched as she lay back then wriggled herself under the bedspread. Temptation rushed through his system, hot and spicy, as she flashed an eyeful of bare leg. If she thought a wall constructed out of pillows – no matter how five-star firm they were – was going to remove temptation then she didn’t know much about the power of a five a.m. erection.
‘You’re too kind,’ he said derisively.
‘And just think,’ she added as she snuggled into the luxurious folds of the exquisite bedding, ‘this way you’ll be able to sneak out in the morning without disturbing me. Just the way you like it.’
Ed blinked, stunned by her statement. ‘I do not sneak out.’
She rolled on her side. ‘Okay.’
He opened his mouth to call her on her stinging judgement of him but she got in before him. ‘If you must watch the television then can we at least have the light out?’
He glared down at her back, thinking the temptation to murder her might trump the temptation to tear the stupid wall down and kiss her into better humour. Instead he reached for the remote and flicked off first the television and then the light.
The room was plunged into darkness.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
The words sounded terse in the dark but he didn’t care as he slid down into the bed. Johanna had done what she’d always done, needled the hell out of him – she could deal with a bit of terse.
He waited for the rush of bliss that always came upon sinking into a bed after a long flight. That slow feeling of ahhhhh. It didn’t come. Johanna had seen to that.
How could he relax next to a crazy wall of pillows and a mouthy bridesmaid?
He stared at the ceiling in the dark, willing himself to unwind. He shut his eyes and took deep, even breaths, thought about oceans and sunsets, pictured little white sheep jumping over fences.
It didn’t help.
Neither did the muffled moan he heard. His eyes flashed open and his heartbeat surged in his chest as it came again and he strained to define it. Sounded like a woman.
Johanna?
Was she crying? Was she in pain?
He was just about to ask her if she was okay when it came again followed by another deeper, lower one and he suddenly realised what type of moan it was.
Not one of pain. Not one of anguish.
One of pleasure.
Coming from next door.
He shut his eyes. ‘Inconceivable,’ he muttered under his breath.
Could Johanna hear it? Did she know what it was? Was she awake? And if so were they both just going to lay awake and listen to another couple enjoying themselves? Doing what they could be doing.
The moans picked up a notch and Ed couldn’t bear it a moment longer. ‘Are you awake?’
He heard her sigh. ‘You expect me to be able to sleep with moaner one and moaner two going for it next door?’
Ed chuckled. ‘I thought these exclusive hotels had soundproof walls.’
‘I don’t think they’re rated for a porn movie audition somehow.’
He laughed again but it soon subsided and silence took over. This side of the wall anyway.
‘How long do you think they’re going to go on for?’ she asked after long embarrassing moments.
‘I think someone just called out to Jesus so probably not long now,’ Ed mused.
Johanna’s laugh was unexpected and before he knew it he was laughing too. ‘For God’s sake, Ed,’ she said, her voice light and merry, ‘this is wrong. Put the radio on or something.’
Ed thought about suggesting out-moaning their neighbours as the or something but didn’t want to spoil the mood. He reached out and pushed the button on the clock radio and lay there for a few seconds as the low notes of an eighties love ballad oozed into the already laden atmosphere.
He rolled up onto his elbow. With his eyes now adjusted to the dark and the light from the radio shining over his shoulder, the snowy white pillow wall glowed like an icy white fortress in front of him.
And felt about as impenetrable.
‘I don’t sneak out,’ he said. ‘I’m not twenty years old anymore.’
Yes, in his past, in his younger years, he’d done a lot of loving and leaving. He’d been young and in demand and he’d enjoyed it to the fullest, determined to stay footloose and fancy free, determined not to be old and bitter like his father, stuck in a loveless marriage.
But Johanna was different. It had never been like that with her.
And if she was going to condemn him for his ways then at lea
st she could get the facts straight.
There was a pause.
‘You told me that first night you didn’t want me staying. You were adamant in fact.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘The next time I had an early flight out to New York for a business meeting but I told you about that and you said it was fine. You said not to wake you on the way out.’
More silence greeted him from the other side of the Tontine curtain.
‘And the last time…you looked so peaceful and we’d had such little sleep…I didn’t have the heart to wake you. But I’ve rung. I’ve texted. None of which you’ve returned. So I figured you didn’t want anything more than a sexual liaison. I know how important your career is Jo-Jo. I don’t want to be some complication in your life, something that you fit in, that becomes a chore. I was happy to let you dictate the pace.’
He stopped, waited, listened. Nothing.
‘I do want to get married too, you know. One day. Settle down. Have a bunch of kids.’
And he did. The knowledge had surprised the hell out of him a couple of years ago but the yearning for someone special to share his life with hadn’t gone away.
He just hadn’t found the right woman who’d wanted the same things.
And if there’d been one thing he’d learned growing up in a home where two people had settled, it was that finding the right person was paramount.
He stared at the pillows as the silence continued. Being with Johanna these last few times had been the highlight of his life. Maybe he’d been looking at the right woman all along. Maybe she’d been right under his nose.
‘Jo-Jo?’
Then suddenly the pillows went flying and one pissed off woman stared at him across what seemed like acres of empty space.
‘Damn it, Ed,’ she said, her eyes blazing. ‘The name is Johanna.’ And she launched herself at him.
Chapter Five
Johanna took Ed’s mouth the way she’d been wanting to do since the moment she’d spotted him waiting for her at (ironically) the end of the aisle. Long and hard and deep.
Their bodies pressed together from knees to shoulders. No space for anything between but the wonderful glorious heat.
