by Hazel Jacobs
Not that she’d spent most of the day thinking about it. Not that she’d memorized those words to play back to herself when she’s lonely and horny later on.
Kayla looks delighted. “No way!”
“Yeah… actually, the drumming comes in handy there. He’s very good at repetitive movement. And his hands don’t get tired.”
Kayla sighs, gazing into the middle distance and resting her chin on her hand, clearly imagining it. Shania looks less interested, but she’s busy watching that woman with the sly smile dancing alone near the bar.
“Is he into bondage?” Kayla asks. “He’s always seemed like a bondage guy.”
Harper is a little bit glad that Kayla has no idea what Slate prefers in the bedroom. Because that means that there had never been a fling between them, not even when Slate came home for the school holidays when they were teenagers. Kayla seemed like the kind of woman who would chase the man that she wants. Slate’s reaction to her had planted the tiniest seed in Harper’s mind that there had been something between them, and that maybe Slate had been deliberately distancing himself from her. But it turns out, he was just distancing himself from her because she’s marrying his cousin and her open flirting was inappropriate.
At least Harper isn’t the only woman who wants Slate but can’t have him.
“He only ties me up when I can’t behave myself,” Harper tells her, remembering what Slate had told her that morning while she’d been stripped naked and desperate to crawl into his lap. “Like when I try to get him off before he’s finished with me.”
Kayla sighs again. She looks over at the empty chair where her husband should be sitting.
“Grayson prefers missionary,” she says.
Harper’s heart goes out to her. “You know, I bet he’d be willing to go Fifty Shades on you if you make him think that he’s emulating Christian Grey. He’s a hell of a business man.”
Kayla actually looks thoughtful at that. “Hey, maybe you’re right. I’ll give it a try.”
“Good luck with it.” A song starts playing, and Harper recognizes the tune. But when the lyrics are supposed to start up, they don’t. “Hey… does your DJ have karaoke tracks?” Harper asks.
“I think so? Honestly, I don’t even know. Peter hired him. Maybe he should have married Grayson.”
“That guy needs to find his chill,” Shania says sagely.
“Yeah, I noticed that,” Harper says. Harper hasn’t had nearly enough drinks to be drunk, but she’s at the point where she wants to be having fun, and this conversation is quickly becoming depressing. And the talk about Slate’s sex style was just plain frustrating. She bops her head a little in time with the music, before a thought strikes her. “You wanna sing?” she asks.
Kayla frowns. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Because it might be funny?” Because at this point all Kayla will have to remember her wedding is the disappointing sex she’ll be having with Grayson later on. And that makes Harper sad.
Kayla thinks about it, then she shrugs. “I’ll sing if you sing with me.”
“Sure.”
And that’s how Harper finds herself standing on the DJ’s stage, demanding a microphone with the bride at her side, getting ready to sing. She’s not even close to drunk enough to blame this on the alcohol. She can only pray that she seems drunk so the rest of the people in the room write it off as a sad mistake.
Or a great memory.
Kayla has her arm slung around Harper’s shoulders when the music starts to play ‘Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover’ by Sophie B. Hawkins like they’ve known each other their whole lives.
Kayla and Harper aren’t so much singing as they are shrieking into the microphone to the delight of the women in the audience. Shania is grinding on the woman with the sly smile, which Harper approves of because this is just the right song to be grinding on someone to.
Harper has a huge grin on her face. She can feel it in her cheeks, and she can see Kayla with an equally wide grin on her lips as well.
When Harper looks out to the dancefloor, she catches sight of a swarm of men coming into the tent. The groomsmen and Slate. Grayson is wearing a crown for some reason and looks a bit flushed, but delighted, and he’s standing at the front of the swarm with his hands on his hips. He’s watching Harper and Kayla with bemused interest.
But it’s Slate that draws Harper’s attention.
He’s watching the pair of women on the stage with a wide, excited grin, like he has half a mind to climb onto the stage and join them. Harper nudges Kayla and points. Kayla’s face lights up and the two of them point in Slate’s direction. Luckily, Grayson is standing near Slate so Kayla looks like she’s pointing at him, instead.
Harper and Kayla belt out the rest of the song with the exclamation marks practically written on their faces and Slate’s grin just grows wider with every verse, until finally the two women are on the last verses and they’ve got every person in the room swaying along with the music.
When they finish the song, the crowd applauds. Kayla does a massive bow. She’s still got her arm around Harper’s shoulders, so Harper goes with her. Slate whistles so loud that it makes everyone laugh.
Then Kayla demands the men get up and serenade the women. Grayson is shoved forward, but he immediately waves his hands in surrender, turning bright red.
“No, no, I’m no singer. Slate, you’re the rockstar, you sing something.”
He says it like it’s something derogatory. But the women are delighted, especially Kayla, who immediately rushes forward and shoves her microphone into his hands, copping a feel of his beautiful forearms as she does.
Slate takes the stage with all of the poise of a well-seasoned performer, but then Harper slides in between him and the DJ’s computer before he has the chance to choose a song.
“Don’t worry, babe,” she says, patting his cheek and feeling the tiniest scrape of stubble. She can only imagine what that would feel like on the inside of her thighs. “I’ll pick something you’ll like.”
Slate grins at her, holding his microphone in a way which would be obscene if her mind weren’t as pure as the driven snow. “I trust you, babe.”
When she picks the song and returns to the dancefloor with a straight face, Slate takes a moment to actually look at the screen. He bursts out laughing.
“Okay, so this song goes out to my gorgeous girlfriend, Harper,” he says, speaking into the mic and giving the whole room a wink. “But I highly encourage the groom to take the bride for a spin while I’m singing this. In fact, everyone grab a partner. One in a chair… one in front. Let’s give the women the show they deserve!”
Earlier in the evening, these people might have ignored the suggestion. But Harper put effort in at the beginning, and it’s paying off now as the men and women pair off. Shania keeps her hands firmly on the woman with the sly smile as the scraping of chairs fills the air. People are pulled onto the dance floor and deposited on chairs. Harper gets her own chair and no partner, but she’s quite happy to observe in this case. Even Grayson is willing to lead Kayla into a chair, though she clearly has one eye on Slate as Kayla sits gracefully down and arranges her dress.
Slate waits until everyone is seated before belting out the opening lyrics to the chosen song.
My mind is telling me no!
But my body! My body is telling me yes!
A cheer goes through the crowd as the women lean back and the men start to give the, frankly, most ridiculous lap dances Harper has ever seen. It’s like they’ve all seen Magic Mike too many times and they’re delighted for the opportunity to use some of the moves. Grayson is really getting into it and it makes Harper want to laugh out loud, but the look of faint horror on Kayla’s face keeps her from doing it.
Instead, Harper focuses on Slate, who’s grinding his hips on stage in time with the beat. His voice is rough and deep, smooth enough for someone who clearly doesn’t sing on a regular basis, but the rawness of it just makes the song more sensual. His ha
nd twitches with the beat as well, as though he’s imagining how to play the drums along with the music. Harper is entranced by the movement of his hands.
The best part, though, is how into it, he’s getting. Harper knows that he can be sexy, but she’d never imagined he could be such a fucking dork. He’s got his eyes closed and his face screwed up with desperate emotion, and when he opens his eyes he looks straight at Harper and points aggressively in her direction. When there’s a lull in the song he sends her an obnoxious wink that makes her snort with humor and cover her eyes in second-hand embarrassment.
Which only spurs him on. Slate moves off of the stage toward her with a clear plan in mind.
I don’t see nothing wrong with a little bump and grind.
And then he’s thrusting toward her and it makes Harper want to hide her face because he is ridiculous. She knows that he can be sexy, and while the other men and Shania are trying their best lap dance moves, Slate seems to be doing his best to make Harper embarrassed for him. Even Kayla doesn’t seem to be aroused by the sight of it. She looks as amused as Harper is.
Slate keeps dancing and the shit-eating grin on his face tells Harper that he knows exactly how he looks. During a pause in the singing, he flips his hair like a stripper and turns to bend over in front of her. His perfect ass isn’t enough to make up for the fact that he manages to pop his hip and look like he’s wearing high heels at the same time.
Harper feels a tap on her shoulder. She turns to see Kayla holding out a handful of singles. She doesn’t even want to know where Kayla got those, but she takes them gratefully.
When Slate turns back around, Harper’s arm shoots out to grab him by the belt buckle and draw him closer. He goes with a laugh on his lips. Harper gazes up at him at just the right height to be looking down the barrel of a blow job, and the positioning doesn’t seem to be lost on him when he raises an eyebrow at her. Harper enjoys the look on his face for a moment before sliding a finger into the top of his pants, making enough room to stuff the dollar bills into the space between his shirt and his pants. There’s no skin-to-skin contact, but her fingers still burn when she drops her hands.
Slate waggles his eyebrows at her, then wiggles his hips so that the money shakes, and Harper throws her head back to laugh.
Slate and Harper leave after the bride and groom.
“Gonna take the missus home,” Grayson shouts with an arm slung around his tipsy bride. He gives the other guys a massive wink, though if Harper is reading the situation correctly Kayla is probably going to be banishing Grayson to another room so she can get some sleep. They’re spending the evening at some fancy hotel in town before heading off on the honeymoon.
Slate has his own arm around Harper when they bid their goodbyes to the couple, and the rest of the people who’d remained until the very end of the reception. He’d disappeared into the bathroom earlier and come out sniffling like he’d caught a cold, but he’s still got a cheerful smile on his face as he gazes amiably around at all the family members Harper had spent the night sweet-talking.
When Grayson and Kayla leave and the rest of the crowd starts to vanish, Slate leans over and whispers in her ear, “Let’s go home, babe.”
She feels his lips brush against the shell of her ear and shivers a little. It started to get chilly earlier in the evening, but that’s not what this is about.
“Lead the way,” she replies.
Slate waves goodbye to a couple of cousins—the groomsmen, Harper remembers. She glances around for Shania, but the bridesmaid has vanished.
Together, Slate and Harper make their way into the main house. Slate closes and locks the back door behind him, almost comically concerned about it making a clicking noise when it closes, before gesturing for Harper to lead the way to his bedroom.
Cooper meets them in the kitchen, tail wagging, delighted for the company. Slate gives him a hug before letting him out into the backyard. Now that everyone has left, and most of the food has been taken away, he can go around and piss on the tables in peace.
Harper leads the way to the bedroom, making sure to sway her butt a bit because she can feel his eyes on her. She doesn’t know why she can feel the anticipation beginning to build in her blood, but there’s a tension between them and the way that Slate’s eyes have lingered over her all evening makes her wonder if he’s planning to break his rule about sleeping with employees. She desperately hopes that’s the case.
Slate sniffs a bit as they make their way down the hall. Harper fumbles for the doorknob, and he sniffs again, and that noise tells her that he’s a lot closer than she’d initially thought. Close enough that his breath moves the tiny hairs at the back of her neck. Close enough that she’s practically wrapped up inside of his cologne.
“Let’s get you out of that tux before it suffocates you,” she whispers. Even though his parents sleep on the other side of the house, she’s trying really hard not to wake them.
He makes a noncommittal sound and follows her into the room.
When she closes the door, she feels a sudden weight pressing against her back and she’s shoved hard against the wood. Her wrists are caught by Slate’s muscular fingers, held up and pressed into the door, and his whole body plasters against hers so she can feel every inch of him.
“Harper,” he says, speaking into her ear again.
She gasps, all thought of forming words leaving her in an instant. She’d hoped—good Lord had she hoped—but the reality is better than she’d imagined already. The feeling of his stubble against the back of her neck, the goosebumps rising on her arms as his fingers slide down, down, down. She has to press her forehead hard against the door, feeling the slight pain from the pressure, to double-check that she hasn’t slipped into a dream.
She pushes her hips back, grinding, wanting to feel more of him, and is rewarded when he runs his hot tongue over the skin between her ear and jaw, before blowing cool air on it. She moans before remembering that they’re sharing a house with his parents and bites her lip instead.
Hands trailing down her sides, toward her thighs, pulling just a little like he wants to hitch her skirt. What she wouldn’t have given to have gone for slutty instead of practical. He could have had her skirt up by now and be focused on more important things. But the skirt is too long and he’s too impatient. Leaning purposefully into her back, a low growl in his throat, Slate pushes at Harper’s hips, getting her lower, his thighs moving so that he can bracket her in. She can feel his erection pressing against her and she wants to push herself away from the door, turn around, and wrap her legs around him properly. But his weight keeps her pinned.
“Fuck, I want you,” he mutters in her ear.
“You can have me,” she says. She’s bitten her lip so hard that she almost draws blood.
He sinks his teeth into the tender spot beneath her ear, right on the pulse point, and she bucks backward as lightning bolts of desire shoot through her, gathering in her groin. There’s no voice to the moan she releases, it’s just a rush of air through the wide O that her lips are making. She thinks she could come just like this, just from feeling him behind her.
Something vibrates in his pocket and she pushes back into that. And then the sound of Mr. Big cuts through the air. And then Slate is gone, as suddenly as he’d appeared. Harper’s back is cold. She can imagine what she looks like. Whenever she gets turned on, her chest flushes and her cheeks turn red. She needs to take a moment to compose herself before turning around.
Goddam it, Mr Big!
Slate has taken several steps back. An obvious erection tents the front of his pants, but he doesn’t seem too happy about it. He rubs his hands over his eyes, sniffs, and shakes his head like a dog. When he looks at Harper, she sees his pupils still blown out wide and a pink flush to his cheeks which probably matches hers.
“I should get that,” he says, his voice as rough and raw as when he was singing. Harper is too distracted with the sound of his voice to really appreciate what he’s saying.
“Don’t,” she says, but he’s already reaching for his pocket, where his phone is.
Slate pulls out the phone and shoots Harper an apologetic look before schooling his expression.
“Tommy, man, it’s past your bedtime.”
His voice sounds almost bored and Harper feels like she’s been thrown into the pool again, but there’s no playful Slate to join her. Just the rush of falling and the cold water enveloping her. She takes a step forward, reaching hesitantly for Slate and probably looking almost pathetic as she does it. But he takes a step back. Out of her reach. He holds the phone to his ear and turns away completely so he can’t even look at her, nodding to whatever it is that Tommy is telling him.
Harper slides her feet out of her heels as quickly as she can. She walks across the room, not bothering to sway her butt anymore, and locks herself in the en-suite.
Under the harsh, bright lights in the bathroom, Harper rests her weight on the sink and stares into the mirror.
“Get your fucking shit together,” she tells her reflection.
In the bedroom, the soothing sound of Slate’s raw voice drifts through the hardwood door between them. Suddenly, Harper is horrified to feel a lump rising in her throat.
“Really?” she asks, glaring accusingly at the girl in the mirror. “You’re gonna cry because a boy doesn’t want you? You’re gonna be that girl right now?”
But it hurts in a way she never thought it would. To want a man and to know that he wants her, but he just won’t let anything happen between them. He had an obvious boner when he’d pulled away. He’d said that he wants her.
Maybe it’s me, she thinks as she reaches up to pull her hair out of the bun on the top of her head. She pulls a little harsher than necessary. Maybe he just wants me a little bit. Enough to be able to pull away if he has to.
Because if he really wanted her, would he be able to pull away? She doesn’t think she could pull away from him if she had him up against a door. If he’d been grinding into Harper as shamelessly as Harper had been grinding into him then the whole thing would have been over in a few minutes. She would have torn that over-starched shirt off of his beautiful body, shoved him on the bed, and probably broken his zipper in her haste to get his pants off. She would have had him inside of her within seconds if he’d behaved the way that she did when he had her against the wall.
