She let out a watery laugh as she bent to the floor to pick up a stray thread. “No,” she said in a voice that managed to sound both light and brittle. “It appears that I’m free of him. I’m free of him now.”
When he moved toward her again, she backpedaled and he cursed. Did he have to chase her over the entire floor to get her to see him? It was the window this time. She stepped up onto the display and straightened the embroidered bodice on the bridal mannequin before hassling with the groom’s vest.
Restless, he circled the same spot over the floor, waiting for her to come down. He reached back for his neck, and he could feel how tight it was. He could feel the humming in his blood, the pulsing there around his nape. It could only mean one thing. An eruption of some kind was imminent. He tried to find some way to channel it, but she was there, in the window, pointedly ignoring him. Was this why his avoidance of her had been so successful—because she’d been avoiding him, too? “Talk to me, Rox,” he said finally. “I’m going crazy here. Come down from there and talk to me.”
She was on her knees, scratching something off the hem of the bride’s train. A web of concentration etched itself across her brow and she pressed her lips together, shaking her head. “I lost nearly everything last year. My home. My husband. A part of my family, such as it is. Even a good part of my identity and my faith in the world as I knew it. Through it all, though...”
She stopped. Her hands stopped. Any trace of expression vanished and she looked as pale as she had when he’d seen her that spring day when her life had fallen apart. “Through it all, there was one thing I didn’t lose.” And, finally, she lifted her face to him. He saw emotions there, chasing each other in a turbulent flurry. “I didn’t lose my friends. They got me through. They helped me move on and start over. I even gained someone new. You. When I signed the papers to lease the Victorian, I thought that in some way I might lose something of our friendship. I never thought it would be this that would do it.”
“What?” he asked, a bit hoarse. He’d be lying if he said her emotions weren’t stirring his own.
“If I had accepted Richard,” she said. “If I had asked him to be with me again...would you still be my friend?”
Byron thought about it. “Yes.”
Surprise trickled over her. Her lips parted.
He crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his stance. “I’m not going to lie and say it would have been easy. But yeah. At the end of the day, you could still count me in your corner. My loyalty’s bigger than my pride—and that’s saying something.”
Relief spilled from her on a tumultuous sigh and her posture seemed to cave. “Do you know what I realized when I was standing there with him on Sunday?” At his silent question, a small smile spread across her mouth. “I realized I’d already found that thing. Not the thing that could get me from one day to the next. The one that not only could make me happy again but had been making me happy in brief, blinding snatches for weeks. And it all started that night you kissed me over truffles and moscato.”
He began to step toward her again, lifting his hand. “Come here, duchess.”
She stood, but instead of moving to him, she walked around the mannequins slowly, stepping down from the display. Touching the wall, she began to follow its curve around to the changing rooms. “I blamed it on everything else. The wine. The aftermath with Bertie. My own loneliness. I couldn’t believe I could possibly have feelings for someone again. Feelings for a friend, a confidant. After I moved into the Victorian, I realized I was thinking more about you than I was about him.”
He followed her along the wall. Unable to stop himself, he skimmed his thumb across the neckline of her dress, tracing the skin above its boat shape. “Rox. Look at me.”
She shook her head silently and kept moving. “I’ve thought about it a lot, you and me. What it would be like. I haven’t really been able to stop thinking about it. You’ve been there. Even these last few weeks when a part of you didn’t want to be, you’ve been there for me and I’ve wanted things with you. I’ve wanted them so much I can taste them. I can taste you.” Spinning, she walked backward, pointing in accusation. “That’s your doing. You kissed me. Twice. It’s your fault.”
He nodded. “I’ll take it. I’ll take the blame. Just—” he cupped her jaw, tilting her eyes up to his “—look at me.”
“What am I doing?” she asked, gripping him by the wrist. “I can’t lose anything else. I can’t lose you like I lost all those other things. You’re too—” She stilled when his other hand came up to frame the other side of her jaw. “You’re too essential to me. If we screw up and I lose you...? It’s so easy to screw up. If I know anything—”
“You’re right,” he nodded. “We probably will screw up.” When her gaze widened on his, he added, “Lately, with women, I’m nothing short of a complete screwup. It’d be best if we both walked away right now.”
His mouth came down to hers and her grip on his wrist tightened. Her torso bowed to his as his arm hooked her around the waist, bringing her up to her toes. This time he kissed her like she was free and he was unafraid. The shock tuned her like a fork, but after a moment’s pause, she kissed him back, her arms lacing around his neck, smoothing over his collar, his shoulders, his arms and coming to rest beneath his jacket against his back.
“If you don’t want this,” he breathed against her mouth, “you’re going to have to stop me. Stop me and, I promise, I’ll never touch you again.”
She rose up on her toes again, fitting her front to his. “Sure about that?” She kissed him, sighing once more as they lingered, meshed, shining like a new alloy.
When she pulled back, he groaned and turned his face into her throat. She tilted her head so he could get to the perfumed pulse point he’d wanted to sip at for weeks. “No,” he replied.
She turned her nose into the ridge beneath his jaw, nuzzling. “Here’s a plan. We do this. We take it slow. After all, we are calm, rational adults. Aren’t we?”
“Slow.” She was backing up to the changing room door and he was following. The strains of “La Vie en Rose” fell through the shop. The lyrics were in French. Byron couldn’t understand them, but he was pretty sure ol’ Edith was telling him to do this. “Slow’s good.”
“Or—” Her fingers gripped his collar, tugging him nearer. “We could...” The knob turned under her bidding. The door swung open behind her. She kissed him again, hotly, arms encircling his waist, inviting him in.
He kicked the door closed behind them and shrugged his jacket free when she pushed at the lapels. The tie was next. He tugged at it. She stopped him by gripping his wrists again. She held them between their bodies, fitting her palms against his, spreading his fingers with her own. “Here,” she whispered. She guided his hands to her. Touch me, she said with her eyes.
He maneuvered her back against the wall in unspoken affirmation. Her head tipped back against the panel, lids growing heavy as he slid his hands up over her torso in a slow sweep. When he came to her breasts, he stopped, circling. He drew wide circles on the outside then, faster, smaller, urgent. “Mmm,” she moaned, closing her eyes and moving underneath the stroke when the circling turned to kneading.
Bending to her mouth, he plucked her bottom lip between his. He sampled it as his touch roamed back down her front, over her thighs, to the hem of her dress. Under. There was a noise, his, when he felt hosiery underneath, the hooks of a garter belt. His excitement hitched at the unexpected details she’d been hiding under her everyday finery.
When he lingered, tracing the lace rim of her pantyhose and the wispy edge of her thong, she opened her eyes. There was a glint there he’d never seen, deeply cast. She parted her legs a bit wider when he brushed the back of his hand against the cusp of her legs. He cupped her there, letting his thumb play over the peak of her labia, no more than a brush to taunt. In answer, she went for his b
elt buckle. After unlatching it, she tugged. It didn’t break loose. She tugged again, then she yanked. It gave. She all but whipped it free from the belt loops.
Raising his arms to the top of the changing stall, he let her skirt fall. When she struggled with the clasp of his pants, anticipation started to gnaw. “Take it off,” he ground off. “Take it all off.”
“Trying.” She worked the button free, unzipped him. She dragged his belt line over his hips, the briefs with them. Tipping her face up to his again, she reached around with both hands and grabbed a handful of each cheek.
He swallowed an oath, jerking in surprise and losing his balance. Planting his hands against the panel on either side of her head, he managed to stop himself from tumbling over her. The stall shook from the impact. Her nails dug in a fraction. He hissed, every inch of him going hard and taut as she nibbled the spot just below his chin. There was a smile in her voice. “Sorry. I’ve been wanting to do that since I stumbled in on you in the bathroom. It really is as tight as I thought it’d be. Tighter.”
“I...” He fumbled. Ah, hell. He’d lost the ability to string sentences together. Using the only other language he had going for him, he swept her skirt over her hips again. Her touch spanned up his back and her legs spread. He stepped in.
A bead of sweat cruised down his temple as her knees rose and her legs wrapped around his, the heels of her feet flattening against his calves. He braced her up against the wall as, together, they struggled with the hooks of her garter belt. “Jesus,” he said when at first neither of them was successful. “Man needs a key to get in here.”
Her laugh morphed into something breathy and desperate when one clasp broke under his handling.
“Like Pandoro’s box,” he added absently, undoing the other with more care before freeing her. His mouth sought hers again. His eyes were already rolling into the back of his head as her hips hitched toward his and he plunged into rapture.
She cried out and grabbed onto his hair. Shock and delight wove across her face. “Oh,” she said. A wave of pleasure coursed through her, bringing a high flush to her cheeks. “Oh!”
He paused, panting. “Re-really?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, laughing, crying. She nodded faintly. “Oh God, yes!” She brought his mouth back down to hers for more.
He was done. The thought entered his head, unwelcome. And another. You own me.
Ignoring it all, he quickened against her. She matched him stroke for stroke. Arching, sliding, they bowed and buckled, matching the strides of the other until the stall rattled, until they both felt the ecstasy of triumph, eclipsed only by the devastation that cindered beyond in its wake.
In the aftermath, she shivered and he clung. When he shivered, too, releasing an involuntary groan, his legs gave and they crumbled, as one, to the floor, replete.
* * *
ROXIE FELT SATED and resplendent sprawled with him against the wall of the changing room. Shoulder to shoulder, they both suffered various states of undress as one leaned into the other. Her updo was now more of a half do and her skin was dewy with perspiration. Dragging the back of her hand across her brow, she said, “Oh. sweet Moses. Am...am I...glowing?”
Something whistled from his throat. A chuckle? A wheeze? He said nothing, knees raised, head back, eyes closed. Another shiver coursed through him and his breath hitched. She smiled, smug and tingly.
She liked the shiver thing. She liked it a lot. “Hmm,” she hummed happily, stretching her legs out, pointing her toes, arms up. As she relaxed, hugging herself, the smile turned into a wide, satisfied grin. A laugh escaped her. Then another. Another belted out on its heels. When he turned his head to her, she pressed her hand to her stomach. The laughter only grew. It rose and fell until a great chain of belly laughs rolled out of her.
He watched her, amused. “How’re those endorphins workin’ out for you?”
She shook her head, snorted. “Can’t... I can’t...” Her eyes watered. “Pandoro!” She snorted again and covered her face, trying to make it stop.
She heard him laughing, too. With her, at her—it didn’t matter. “Yeah,” he said. “Because I felt like Pandora trying to get inside your box of tempting goods over there.”
She nodded, fanning her face with both hands. “I get it. I get it.” As her gaze met his and she saw the laughter etched across his face, her heart swelled. She loved the sound of his laugh. It rippled across the surface, just as she remembered, floating after hers. She found her hand folded into his and wondered who had reached for whom.
“Oh, God,” she muttered, winding down. Her cheeks hurt. So did the muscles of her stomach. “Thank you!”
“My pleasure. Believe me.”
“Not you. I mean, yes. You. But God, too.” When he quirked a brow at her, she enlightened him. “They lied.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know. People?”
Puzzled, he asked, “About?”
“Sex, with accountants.”
“Huh?”
“You know what they say.” When he shook his head, she shrugged and said, “That it’s boring.”
“They say that?”
“It’s an expression you hear. When something’s really, really boring—”
“Yeah, I got that,” he drawled.
“—they say it’s like having sex with your accountant,” she finished. “But they lied and thank God.”
Letting go of her hand, he flicked the knot of his tie. It loosened and he undid his collar, breathing more easily. The lines of his profile drew her. She wanted to draw him, the flatness of the brow, the long ridge of the nose, the dip above the mouth. And who could forget that mouth? She’d pencil the chin and the strong blade of his jaw. She licked her lips because she could almost taste him again, the salt of his skin.
She laid her cheek against his bicep and fiddled with the buttons on his wrist. “I’ll waive the cummerbund.”
“Yeah?”
She grabbed his tie and fed the silk through her hands. After a few seconds’ silence, he tipped his lips to her brow. She stilled as the quiet fell, the cozy kind of quiet she’d missed knowing with another. Letting her eyes close, too, she felt her breathing match his as he traced the seam between her legs. A light, tacit tease in their silent cocoon.
“Ah, Rox,” he said. “What am I going to do about you?”
“What am I supposed to do about you?” She lifted a hand. “Everybody will think this is a rebound. But I don’t do casual. I don’t think I could if I tried.”
“I tried.”
“Any luck?” she asked, curious.
“When I wasn’t tossing my cookies, you mean?” He pursed his lips. “No.”
“Interesting.” She sensed the conflict in him. In his fisted fingers. In the muscle ticking beneath his sleeve. “What do you want, Byron?”
“You.” The word rushed out and she felt him tense. He hadn’t meant to say that. “Damn it. I want you.”
“Ditto,” she admitted, going back to fussing with his tie. She settled for caressing the skin peering out from beneath his open collar. His ambergris scent stirred up all kinds of sexy reminders. It gave root to the need inside her, fanning the warm pinch in her cheeks. “I don’t think I can give up the taste of you, now that I’ve had it.”
He groaned. His hand on her thigh firmed. Tipping her head back into his hand, he warned, “Careful, duchess,” and opened his mouth to hers again.
Her brows arched as the kiss, sultry, threw her back into deep water. Sliding her hand around to the hair growing over his nape, she grabbed on again, leaning into the crook of his arm. A noise in her throat betrayed her as he dove, taking her further under.
This man... If what was going on inside her was any indication, Roxie was trading the torch she’d carried for Richard for acres of w
ildfire. Anybody else would’ve said it was the rebound element. The yearlong drought that preceded it. She knew, just as she’d told him, it was something other. Two survivors skating on paper-thin ice.
Careful didn’t begin to cover it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“GOOD EVENING, SIR.”
Byron was halfway out of the driver’s seat of his ’69 Camaro Z28. He’d spent a few weeks souping up the car in Athena’s garage after both Ari and Dani had passed away and before his great-aunt made her move from the Victorian. He eyed the thin man in the penguin suit who stepped off the curb to intercept him. Straightening to his full height, he smoothed the tuxedo jacket Roxie had commissioned for him. It fit well and was even comfortable, an oddity for someone of his height. “I was invited,” he said defensively.
“Very good, sir,” the man said. He spoke as if he were coming off a bad head cold. Heavily congested. “I’ll just take your car.”
Byron’s hand went to the hood of the Camaro. He’d spent an hour with her today, waxing her for tonight’s outing. “You can’t have her, sonny.”
“Byron.”
They both looked around. Much like the Camaro as it drove down the curvy highway that had led to the Honeycutt fortress, at Roxie’s approach Byron’s tachometer revved, the needle bowing toward the threshold of redlining. She was wearing something floor length in black satin with cap sleeves. It should’ve looked understated, demure. However, the skirt flared somewhere around the knee and above that it formed to her silhouette in a slight allusion to sex. Her hair was knotted to the side and she peered at him through a beaded black Venetian half mask.
Done, he thought. And done again.
“It’s all right,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “Felix is my father’s most trusted valet.”
“I’m familiar with valets,” Byron said, gripping his keys in his fist. “I’m also familiar with Ferris Bueller.”
“Nonetheless,” she said, using her perfume and wiles to extricate the keys from him. She tossed them to Felix. Leading Byron away, she murmured, “He’ll take care of her.”
Wooing the Wedding Planner Page 18
