by Peggy Jaeger
I stayed this way for a few moments, delighting in the feel of his skin against mine, until I started to feel a cramp in my thighs. I pushed to a straddling position again, noting he was still buried inside me and, to my utter amazement, starting to get hard again.
I looked down into his grinning, totally wicked face and smiled back at him.
“You good?” he asked again, his hands on my thighs.
I nodded, my own fingers splaying across his pecs, tangling in his curly chest hairs. Before I could take a breath, he reversed our positions without ever coming out of me. I was pinioned underneath two hundred pounds of hot, hard muscle, and man.
Perched on his elbows, every last inch of him submerged inside of me, Buddy dropped a sweet kiss on my mouth then deepened it with his tongue. His hips began moving, slowly, lazily, as his tongue pulled at mine in the same measure.
My hands grabbed fists-full of his decadent, luxurious hair, holding his head in place, letting him silently know I wanted the kissing to continue.
And it did.
Right up until the moment he broke away, threw back his head, gasped, and shot us both into another mutual, heart-stopping surrender.
Chapter Five
Something warm and fuzzy tickled my nose, and when I shifted, I heard a distinct thumping against my ear. I opened my eyes to find my cheek plastered to a hard, hairy, and sculpted chest. One of my arms was thrown across his torso, the other wedged between our bodies. Buddy was flat on his back, one hand snaked underneath me, cupping my behind, the other flung over his head across the pillow.
The past few hours ran through my head in the moment it took to realize where I was and with whom.
What an initiation for a one-night stand virgin. Two more times he’d given me bone-liquefying orgasms, and if his smile was any indication, I’d given as good as I got.
I gazed up at his jaw to the light shadow of stubble blooming there and watched him sleep.
A quick glance at the bedside clock told me it was a little after four a.m. I needed to get up and get ready for the wedding in a few short hours. Buddy was dead to the world. I figured jet lag and the time zone changes had finally done him in. Not to mention the Olympic event sex.
I slowly slid my hand out from between our bodies. The hand glued to my ass was a bit of a worry, but I carefully slipped out of it so not to wake him. My heart did a little loop-di-loo when he turned on his side and cuddled my abandoned pillow.
In the living room, I found my discarded clothes and threw them on, thankful for the little shards of city light shining in from the windows, and then grabbed my phone from my purse.
There were six messages, all from Nell.
She’d been texting since two a.m. The first three were her typical, worried, “Where are you?” missives.
Text number four made me frown.
Nell: Get back here! Bridesmaids running amuck! Trouble!
Five and six were one word each: HELP!! The last one had arrived twenty minutes ago.
Uh oh. Our drunken bridal party must have imploded.
From the room’s desk, I pulled out the writing pad and pen housed in the drawer and shot off a quick message to my sleeping hunk.
Thanks for the coffee and…dessert. Enjoy the rest of your NYC stay.
I signed it with my typical curlicue “C” and put it on top of his abandoned trousers.
After a quick glance at his cast-off clothing, I went into OCD mode and smoothed out the wrinkles in the designer shirt then placed the folded trousers, shirt, jacket, and my note across the back of the couch. His boxers and socks went next to them.
Out in the hallway, I took my phone off silent mode and called Nell while I sprinted to the elevator.
She answered before I even heard the call connect.
“Where are you?”
“In the elevator on my way.”
“Thank God.”
The call dropped, my battery finally dying. My own fault for forgetting to charge it during the day.
The elevator door opened, and I marched to my room, bracing myself against the carnage I’d thought I’d find there.
***
“Remind me never to volunteer to babysit a wedding party again,” Nell said. She leaned back in her pew seat and fanned herself with her program. “I’m not strong enough.”
Even with less than two hours’ sleep to her name, Nell was lovely in a crystal blue, off-the-shoulder Vera Wang cocktail dress.
After my few fantastic hours with Buddy, I’d found her holding a sobbing Carrie Ann in our room. After checking in and then imbibing another bottle of celebratory champagne, one of the bridesmaids had admitted to having a crush on Casey and had tried to seduce him away from Carrie Ann one night at a party after one too many tequila shots. Casey’s heart belonged to Carrie Ann, though, and he thankfully resisted the offer. He’d been a gentleman, letting the girl down gently, and never told the love of his life one of her supposed besties had made a sloppy, drunken play for him. When the teary-eyed bridesmaid confessed what she’d done, the bride hadn’t been as gracious in her response. Nell reported hearing raised voices from the connecting suite around one-thirty. By the time she got into the room, the voices were at screech mode and Carrie Ann had the girl by the roots of her hair extensions and had her bent backward over the balcony safety railing. The other girls were crying and wailing, imploring Carrie Ann to let her victim go. Nell went into commando mode in a nanosecond. Now, Carrie Ann was five ten and built like a supermodel. Nell, all five-foot of her, would routinely be no match. But add hours of alcohol consumption into a system, and it will wear strength and emotions down. Nell told me she grabbed a yard of Carrie Ann’s hair, yanked it hard, and when she reached out to pull it back, letting go of Desdemona the bridesmaid, when she did, the other girls rushed in and pulled Desi to freedom. They ran to the bathroom, where they locked the door against a now screaming, fist-pounding, drunken, and angry bride. It was then Nell started texting me for help. I’d been otherwise occupied, so she’d been left to resolve the issue by herself, which she did with her usual no-nonsense flare. Nell was a savvy businesswoman who oversaw a stable of strapping, muscle-hewn alpha males. She was used to inflated egos, overdoses of testosterone, and general pissing contests on a daily basis. Three smashed bridesmaids and an out-of-control bride were really a piece of cake for her. With the maids secured in the bathroom, Nell moved Carrie Ann into our room and started dousing her with coffee from the room coffeemaker. Lousy tasting on the best of days, it nonetheless served its purpose. After an entire pot was force fed down her throat, Carrie Ann came back to her senses. Nell made her see that Casey was a true hero in the story, forfeiting a quick and easy lay for an everlasting pledge of love. When she realized Nell was right, Carrie Ann’s anger flew, to be replaced with sobbing and keening about the man she was imminently marrying.
Nell had ordered her to stay put and went to deal with the rest of the party.
Back in the connecting room, she’d sounded the all clear to the bathroom prisoners, and with trepidation, they opened the door and exited their confines to freedom.
Desdemona was still bawling and hiccuping while the other two tried to calm her down with little success, so Nell went into boss mode. She’d grabbed Desi by the shoulders and shook her so hard her hair extensions shifted. Nell told me Desi resembled a molting Pekinese, as she sat, perched on the edge of the bed, dried mascara-striped tears on her cheeks and her lipstick smeared over her mouth like a deranged clown.
Nell had made another pot of coffee, forced all of them to drink it, accompanied by a half bottle of aspirin. Then she ordered them to go to sleep and threatened to make their lives miserable forever if they disobeyed.
They hadn’t.
By the time I got back to the room, Carrie Ann had texted Casey, told him what happened, and he’d texted back that he loved her, no one else, and never would.
The two of us finally got her into bed, still fully dressed. Exhaustion took over.
Within a second, she was out like the proverbial light: totally and completely.
Nell and I looked at one another and shook our heads. I volunteered to sleep on the couch while she finally made it to her own bed.
***
“You’d never know what went on with this crew last night by looking at them now,” Nell whispered as the bridesmaids started their trek up the aisle, each on the arm of a groomsman.
“Now the guys, on the other hand,” she added with a lift of her eyebrows.
I fought back a giggle.
Casey’s bachelor party must have been a doozy because all his tuxedoed friends were having difficulty keeping upright as they escorted the girls down the church aisle. A few seemed to be struggling to keep their eyes opened and focused ahead of them.
Trina, one of the bridesmaids, was visibly supporting her escort, one hand clamped to his elbow, the other gripping her beautiful pink and white bouquet of roses. From the whiteness encircling her knuckles, I knew her viselike grip on his arm had to be painful for them both. The tight smile plastered across her mouth wobbled every few seconds as she verbally tried to keep him awake. When they passed our pew, I heard her whisper in a voice only a mother could love, “Open your eyes, dickwad. If you pass out, I’m letting you drop to the ground, and I’ll walk over you like you were a dead weed. And smile, dammit. We’re next for the photographer.”
When the bridal party fanned out around the altar, the organist signaled a music change, and the entire congregation stood as a unit. I turned to get a view of the bride and her father as the interior doors opened.
None of the drama that’d filled Carrie Ann’s world a few hours ago could be detected on her beautifully made-up, heart-shaped face. Luminous blonde hair was coiffed in a waterfall of curls cascading down her neck and shoulders, and a tiara, its faux diamonds twinkling as the sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, sat atop her head.
The bridal gown designer’s creation of the sexiest dress I’d ever seen drifted down Carrie Ann’s delicate shoulders. The dress was almost completely see-through, strategic silk swatches placed in front of cut-out panels in swirls and circular designs lined with illusion material. At first glance, all I saw were the intricate, etched shapes. Closer inspection and I realized there was more of Carrie Ann on display than previously thought. The neckline was a delicate thread of lace baring her down to below her bellybutton. Again, illusion material gave the semblance of propriety. The deep neckline accentuated her beautiful, full breasts and showed more cleavage than should be seen in a house of God. I could stuff my bra with a box of Kleenex and still not achieve this girl’s natural endowments. The dropped waist was cinched tight, and I wondered how the poor thing was ever going to be able to sit. Or manage to pee. The material hugged her hips, thighs, even the backs of her knees all the way to the floor. One full breath, or pig-in-a-blanket too many at the cocktail party, and this dress was in serious danger of exploding off her. She walked, on the arm of her father, slowly up the aisle, and I knew it wasn’t because she was trying to ensure everyone got a perfect view of her dress. A sloth in a coma moved faster than this gown allowed the bride to.
A few pews in front of me, Carrie Ann’s mother sniffed and dabbed her eyes with a pink handkerchief. When dad and bride sauntered by me, I saw the back of the gown for the first time and gasped. Lined with the same illusion material, it dropped down to the gentle rise of the bride’s butt cheeks. Truly. You could see the top of the crack of her ass in full glory. But it was a superb ass, I would admit, something mine would never be. Full, tight, and round, the dress hugged every God-given inch of it.
At the altar, Casey took Carrie Ann’s hand, leaned in, and whispered something. She grinned from ear to ear. The guests sat, and the ceremony began.
After a minute or so, I tuned out, my thoughts drifting back to how I’d spent most of the previous night.
I hardly recognized myself from my behavior with Buddy, but damn, the man was something else. If that was how he performed when jet-lagged, God help me, what would he have been like if he’d been up to speed? As it was, the sex was mind-blowing. And even though I hadn’t slept with many guys—okay, four—I knew I was now probably ruined for life for anyone else who’d come along.
And if that wasn’t a thought to send me into a full-fledged depression, I didn’t know what was. Buddy was a one-off, a drive-by, a sexy memory. I’d never see or hear from him again.
Figured. After a year of enforced celibacy, I met a guy I could actually see myself having a relationship with, and we’re like those two passing nocturnal ships.
My life so sucked at times.
***
“You’re not drinking?” Nell asked when we were at the cocktail hour, awaiting the arrival of the bridal party.
The ceremony had gone off without a glitch. No one stood up and protested during the “does anybody have a reason why these two shouldn’t marry” part, although I did sneak a glance at Desdemona and gave a little inward chuckle when she dropped her exhausted, ashamed gaze to the altar carpeting. The rings fit each of their fingers, and when Casey folded Carrie Ann back over his arm in a kiss that had every female in the church sigh with longing, a tiny tear built behind my eyes.
At the steps of the church, we tossed pink rose petals at the now married couple while Casey effortlessly scooped up his bride and carried her to a waiting white Rolls Royce, which I knew cost six hundred bucks an hour to rent because I’d been the one to procure it for them.
“I’m bushed,” I told Nell while I sipped at my diet cola and watched a pair of still slightly drunk groomsmen pass a silver flash between them. “If I have anything with alcohol in it, you’ll have to fold me into a cab and follow me home to make sure I get out of it.”
Nell’s left eyebrow rose ever-so-slightly and disappeared under her bangs as she looked up at me.
Five-foot tall to my five-nine, and she could still make me feel small.
“Speaking of exhausted, you never did tell me any details about your date. I assume you did a lot more than meet him for a drink.”
Nell’s penetrating stare had been polished to perfection on the testosterone hoard she managed in her business. No one. No. One. Could get away with anything, once she tossed it your way, myself included.
I squirmed a tad under my Spanx-clad Diane Von Furstenberg and was about to confess all my wicked sins of the night before when my cell blared Sir Mix-a-lot’s voice rapping Baby Got Back, the ring tone I’d assigned to our mutual business manager.
“Better take this,” I muttered, trying to keep the relief from having to tell Nell all from spilling into my voice.
“Danny?” I said when the call connected.
“Babe. We got trouble.”
Dan Krebs, all five-foot-two and one hundred and forty pounds of him, was one of Nell and my college classmates. The three of us were business majors, and we’d become fast and furious friends when each of us was given a cross to bear during our college careers. Mine was financial banishment by the Evil Bitch. Nell’s had been a very public insider trading scandal involving her father, which ended in his incarceration in a federal prison and her mother’s commitment to a psychiatric facility.
And Dan, well, Dan was blessed with a photographic memory, the math skills of a modern-day Pythagoras, and a quick wit as biting as George Carlin, Don Rickles, and Chris Rock combined. Unfortunately, his diminutive size, an after effect of being malnourished as child, also made him somewhat of a savage Napoleon when it was referenced by upperclassman in derogatory and nasty ways. Which it was. Daily. For four years.
He could slay any of his tormentors with a verbal slice to the carotids. His diminutive size, though, prevented him from physically carrying out any of the threats he made to the jerks who tormented him. On more than one occasion, Nell and I had been forced to extricate him from various locked campus cleaning closets or cut him down from where he dangled off a statue of the college’s founder after he’d been tied to it
with bed sheets.
Dan, for lack of a better term, was the campus whipping boy.
Luckily, none of the horrible pranks inflicted upon him resulted in anything other than a mashing of his pride.
I loved him like the brother I didn’t have and wished I did.
“What kind of trouble?” I asked, my stomach doing a pitch and roll to my knees.
“I heard from a source close to the throne, Culverson’s called in a big gun to help with the proposed buy-out of your company. Some hot shot. Guy’s like a takeover savant, according to his bio. Does his homework, knows where all the weaknesses of a business are, then uses the info to cop the best deal.”
The pitch and roll in my stomach shot straight down to my legs. I needed to sit down. You knew you had a successful business when someone who’s even more successful and with clout and cash behind them wanted to take over your company. A few days ago, I’d been notified that corporate raider Anthony Culverson was interested in my company. His lawyer had called the office and wanted to meet to discuss “growth opportunities” with me. I’d punted the problem to Dan to handle.
Nell must have sensed my distress because she grabbed my free arm and pulled me to a chair. Seated, I asked Dan, “What’s this guy’s name?”
“I just sent you an email with his Forbes bio and picture. Name’s Duncan Prince. Loaded, and not afraid of corporate battles. Culverson’s called a meet and greet for Tuesday afternoon, by the way. Your office at two.”
I did a quick mental scan of my day planner while my phone pinged, signaling the incoming email. “Any way we can put it off to, say, the next millennium?”
Dan’s distinctive bark of laughter shot through the phone. “Already tried before I called you, babe. Looks like he chose your office as a way of scoring first financial blood.”
