Wedding Dreams: 20 Delicious Nuptial Romances

by Maggie Way

  You’re a piranha.

  “I can b-b-bring y-you food. If y-y-you w-want.” She swallowed with difficulty. “Do you w-w-want a tray of food?”

  Annoyance melted from his expression. “Sure. Thanks. Just… leave it in the hall, would ya?” He turned, and with one foot, kicked the door shut in her face.

  But not before she saw the deep, angry scar slashing across his back from his right shoulder to the top of his left hip.

  Luke balanced the skillet in the drying rack and let out the dirty dishwater. He was giving the countertop one final wipe down when she burst into the kitchen.

  “I did it.” Dark eyes shining, her cheeks flushed an attractive shade of pink. “Just like you said, and it worked. It actually worked.”

  Coaxed by her delight, a smile touched his lips. “Congratulations.”

  Her eyes shone and her features softened. “Thank you so much.”

  “You did it all on your own.” He cleared the hitch from his voice. “I just bullied you into it.”

  She flitted around him. “I’m going to take a tray to him.”

  “What’s he doing up there anyway?”

  Her hands stilled over the plate a moment. “I don’t know.” She resumed her task of loading down the tray with food. “Sleeping, I think.”

  “That’s a lot of sleeping. You sure he isn’t plotting world domination or something equally nefarious?”

  She paused for a split second, a crease wrinkling her brow, before her expression cleared and her smile returned. “You’re too suspicious. Being a cop has jaded you.”

  He didn’t argue.

  She fussed with the arrangement of items she’d laid on the tray. “Finally, someone’s going to enjoy all this amazing food.”

  “The only person I care about enjoying any of it already has.” Distracted by the whiskey-colored swirls in her brown eyes, the words fell from his lips.

  His heart thrashed. What the hell was he doing, telling her that?

  Soft brown eyes searched his face.

  He tossed up a seductive smile. “I’m hoping you’ll feel beholden and offer to give me more kissing lessons.”

  Her eyes grew wide.

  His balls tightened. “The thing is I’m feeling all shy and inadequate. Maybe with a little more instruction from a professional like yourself, I’ll be able to overcome my insecurities.”

  She licked her lips and her features tangled with an adorable mix of arousal and uncertainty. “I might be willing to tutor you.”

  She was the perfect woman. Perfect for him, that is. No drama. No deception. If he wanted to know her thoughts or feelings, all he had to do was look at her face. It was all there, for anyone to see.

  Unable to stop himself reaching for her, he twisted his fingers through the end of her ponytail. “Would you teach me how to please you?”

  She looked at him with grave, lucid eyes. “Y-you want to please m-me?”

  At the reappearance of her stutter, his heart pinched. “Very much so.”

  He smoothed a hand down the column of her slender neck and dipped his head to draw in her scent, stronger near the base of her earlobe. The catch in her breathing stirred the rising ache between his legs.

  Though he understood, intellectually, his control was shredding, he couldn’t bring himself to walk away. Not yet. Besides, what could one more kiss hurt?

  He trailed his fingertips over the bare skin of her shoulder, and then pressed his lips to the spot. “If I do anything that pleases you, will you tell me?” With the tip of his tongue, he took a tiny taste of her skin.

  “Th-that.” Her breath rushed over his skin. “I like that.”

  Triumph tugged a smile from him. Her pleasure mattered to him more than he wanted to admit. “What do you like? Tell me.”

  “I like the way you touch m-me.”

  His hands skimmed down the curves of her body to the exaggerated swell of her hips. “Where?”

  “Anywhere. Everywhere.”

  His cock jerked painfully and he swooped down to claim her mouth. She opened for him easily, eagerly, and his heart lightened. His hands found their way beneath the hem of her shirt, the flat of his palms smoothing over her silky skin and narrow ribcage. A gasp tore from her when his thumbs brushed over her pebbled nipples.

  Dropping his head low, he pulled her nipple into his mouth through the fabric of her tank top.

  She arched into his touch.

  Her. I want her.

  With a desperation that bordered on needy. He wanted to feel. He wanted to feel her. Her hunger and her wet heat wrapped around his cock. He wanted to feel the proof that whatever this was between them, she wanted it as much as he did.

  He popped the button of her jeans. The soft scrape of her zipper as he lowered it roared through him. His fingers pulled back the waistband of her panties and slipped beneath.

  Her breathing stopped, and then redoubled with short, shallow pants. Large round eyes fixated on his hand in her pants, willing it.

  He pushed his fingers through the soft fuzz of her bush to her wet, swollen core. Her startled yelp slid into a throaty moan that carried the brutality of desperation.

  For a moment, he feared she would retreat. Their game had gotten out of hand and—

  She shifted her stance, parting her thighs for his touch.

  Her.

  He had to have her. He would have her.

  He stroked the folds of her sex, teasing and toying with her sensitive, puffy lips while she whimpered and rocked against his hand. Together, they drove toward something.

  Climax, yes, but something more. Deeper.

  His name was a moan falling from her lips, wrapped in a teardrop of uncertainty.

  “What it is, sweetheart? Tell me.” His voice, thick with some unnamed emotion, snagged on the words. “Tell me anything.”

  Tell me everything.

  “I need you to—” She gasped with her arousal. “I need you—”

  A wayward strand of hair fell across her forehead and he pushed it back. With a small wrinkle between her brows, she stared at him, her eyes round and glazed with lust. Lost to the sensation, she clutched his shoulders and swirled her hips.

  The torture of her expanding pleasure was exquisite and heartbreaking.

  “You need me to what?” He was desperate to understand.

  She shook her head. “Luke.” Her head fell back and a moan vibrated in her throat. “I need you. Only you.”

  A moment of startled disbelief seared him, and then he knew only heat and hunger. The fire consumed him, overwhelmed him. Overrode him. He undid his fly and his heavy shaft bobbed free.

  When she gazed at his erection, his cock jumped. He snatched her to him to suckle her luscious mouth.

  In his arms, she wriggled as she worked her blue jeans down over her hips, and soon, she was fully exposed for his touch. With a groan, he smoothed his hands over the rounded globe of her bottom and lifted. Her arms came around his neck and she slid down his body, until the head of his cock pushed at her entrance.

  Sensation poured through him. He pressed her back to the wall and, eye to eye, drowned in whiskey as he pushed into her honeyed heat. A fraction inside, her tight passage offered delicious resistance. She shifted and he slipped deeper.

  Sweet Jesus.

  With his hands on her hips, he eased himself inside her. The little sounds originating in the back of her throat as her body adjusted to him almost sent him over the edge. Still, he nudged further into her secret center until, at last, he reached home.

  The glory of finally burying himself in her tight wet heat leached the strength from his body. His head dropped to her shoulder. God, she was tight. So tight.

  Then he started to pump his hips, only three delicious slides before she cried out and her sweet pussy quivered.

  Her. He had to have her. Now. Forever.

  Her body clamped tight around him while he drove toward completion. Her cry of release broke his heart. With every thrust, his knowledge
of her deepened.

  Her. Her. Her.

  He shattered.

  The last talons of numbness suffocating him the past six months burned away with the pureness of her orgasm, and his. His world was gray and tasteless no more. Hadn’t been since Emily Cole burst into his life with a heart-tugging stutter and a hot-pink vibrator, and yanked him back into the world of the living.

  Except, he didn’t know if he wanted to be in the world again.

  Anymore.

  Ever.

  Reality crashed over him. He gasped with the raw emotion that battered him. Regret and grief, and fear, rattled through him. His hands started to shake.

  He’d done it again. He’d lost control.

  “Luke? Are y-y-you okay?”

  He couldn’t think for the ache inside his chest. Was he having a heart attack? “I… this…”

  He tucked himself into his jeans and yanked up the zipper.

  What had he done? He’d only meant to kiss her, and be with her for a time. He hadn’t meant to fuck her.

  The blood left his head in a rush.

  Without a condom.

  Oh, shit.

  With a ruthless shove, he buried his hands in his hair. He hadn’t done anything so reckless since he was thirteen years old and, at Noah’s urging, bleached his dark hair platinum blond. They’d used lime, as the ancient Celtic warriors had, for authenticity’s sake.

  Now, he scooped Emily’s discarded blue jeans off the floor and thrust them at her. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”

  Just a mistake. A sweet one—the sweetest—but a mistake nonetheless.

  She drew back, her wide eyes filling with pain.

  He had to get away from her, before he hurt her some more. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Don’t say it.” The sudden strength in her voice silenced him. “Whatever you were going to say, just… don’t.”

  He swallowed with difficulty. “We should talk about what happened.”

  The small features of her face crumpled. “Not right now. P-please.” A tremor came into her soft voice.

  Regret twisted his gut. The right thing to do was to get away, and stay away, from her.

  Still, he hesitated.

  Then she lifted her chin, slowly, and met his gaze. Her heart in her eyes.

  He stumbled back, but the pull of her heart pursued him, and he twisted away.

  He banged through the door and didn’t look back.

  Chapter Eleven

  She couldn’t speak for his regret clogged in her throat, so rather than demand to know why he’d said what he did, she watched in mute frustration as he fled.

  The next morning, she sat at the kitchen island stirring a heap of sugar into her mug when he came through the back door.

  His piercing green gaze latched on to her face and he moved cautiously into the room. Her heart hummed, the stupid thing.

  Leaning against the counter, he slipped his hands into the front pockets of his blue jeans. She found it difficult to breathe with his presence suddenly filling the room.

  “You came back.” Her words sounded much the way she felt. Cold and flat.

  “I have some good news. Turns out, Ms. Beardsley had a friend visiting.” A humorous tilt curved his mouth. “And her friend brought her grandson along on the trip.”

  “Grandson?” Emily’s spine snapped straight. “A ten-year-old?”

  “Eleven.” The tension in his shoulders eased a bit. “But he’s our culprit. Confessed to the whole sordid affair.”

  Relief swept through her.

  Until he crossed to the island and stood opposite where she sat on the edge of her barstool.

  He laid his palms flat on the countertop and captured her gaze with his. “We need to talk about what happened.”

  Did they? What was there to say that she hadn’t already said to herself a million times since he’d left her? It was a mistake. They’d been stupidly irresponsible, forgetting to use protection, not to mention, doing it right there in the kitchen without any regard for being caught in the act by her houseguest, or her cousin, or his brother.

  It never should’ve happened. Not like that.

  “Emily, I’m sor—”

  Her hand shot up. “Don’t.”

  Had they been reckless? Yes.

  Did she regret it? Not even a little. She couldn’t regret the white-hot anarchy that rioted through her veins with a mere look from him, or the way he’d watched her, with naked, unrepentant hunger, when she came. She certainly didn’t regret the way he’d touched her, with unbearable gentleness, or how her heart had expanded to wrap itself around him and pull him in, just as her body had done.

  No, she didn’t regret it, and she couldn’t bear to hear him say that he did.

  He held her gaze while the moment stretched out, growing tight and thin.

  “It’s m-my fault, really,” she burst out. “I thought you were ready for an advanced lesson, but clearly I misjudged.”

  “Em—”

  “I forgot how inexperienced y-y-you are. I should’ve been upfront about what’s going on between us.”

  “What’s going on between us,” he repeated her words carefully.

  “We’re just having fun.” She scowled. “Well, w-we were having fun, until you r-ruined it.”

  In truth, she had no clue what was going on between them, but she’d have taken as much or as little as he was willing to give her. She wasn’t proud of the fact that, if given the choice between nothing or a kiss, or a touch, or one of those warm, lingering looks from him, she’d have chosen the latter without hesitation. No silly schoolgirl notion of promises and futures required.

  If given a choice, she’d have chosen him.

  If he’d only asked.

  Which he didn’t.

  Instead, he lanced her with a look. “I want you to know that we’re in this together now. No matter what happens.”

  The rush of heat burned her cheeks. “It’s okay.” She swallowed the tightening lump in her throat. “It’s n-n-not the right time for me.”

  That was if, based on last night’s panicky Internet research, she’d calculated her monthly cycle correctly, but the deep lines bracketing his eyes and mouth had eased, just a touch, with her words, so she buried her doubts.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  His gentle tone tugged at her insides, though she had no idea what he was really asking.

  She changed the subject. “You don’t need to cook breakfast. The muffins from yesterday are still good.”

  One of his dark eyebrows lifted. “Are you firing me?”

  “I’m giving you a day off. You’re w-welcome.”

  “No way. You’re not getting out of paying me.” He pushed away from the counter and went to the refrigerator. “Besides, I’m already here.”

  She gritted her teeth. “He doesn’t even eat your food.”

  “Yeah, but you do.”

  Her heart stuttered, but she held out against it. “Don’t you have a real job terrorizing innocent people?”

  “I’m on the night shift this week.”

  He’d been there by 7:00 a.m. the past two days. “Don’t you sleep?”

  He cracked open an egg and the runny guts dribbled into a bowl. “Not so much,” he said matter-of-factly.

  A weary pall stole over him while he stared into the bowl, lightly whipping the eggs.

  “Wh-why not?”

  A shadow seemed to settle around him. “Did you buy milk?’

  She went to the fridge and retrieved the gallon. Handing it to him, she reached for the bread loaf and started to work the twist-tie. Two slices toasting, her mind poked at the fact he hadn’t answered her.

  At the stove, he poured the egg mixture into a skillet and raised the heat by turning the knob a notch higher.

  “How long have y-you been a cop?”

  He sliced an onion in half. “Ten years.”

  Nearly the same amount of time she’d been her mom’s full-time caretaker. She
wondered if his last ten years had been as trying as hers.

  “Do y-you like it?”

  “Parts of it.” His knife hit the wooden cutting board with neat ticks.

  “What parts?”

  His mouth quirked. “The power and adoration of the masses.”

  She snorted. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth while he made more cuts through the heap of diced onion.

  “You know, you’re kind of a big deal around here.”

  “Am I?” A dangerous edge crept into his tone.

  “Y-you know you are. They say you’re a hero.”

  Silence dropped like a sledgehammer, heavy and unforgiving.

  Her heart started to pound. Slowly, he turned his head, and his expression when he looked at her froze her heart.

  Wounded anguish contorted his flawless features. Like a lifetime of torment had piled into that singular, brief moment. With her careless words, she’d brought him to that place, and she’d regret doing so until the end of her days.

  When he spoke, his voice shook. “The parents of a dead fifteen-year-old might disagree with you.”

  His words pierced her like a poison-tipped dart. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  He tried to pull the charmer’s mask back into place, but he only managed a scowl.

  He turned back to the onion. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  The ticking of the toaster’s timer filled the silence.

  Her heart constricted in her chest. “Luke—”

  Without a word or even a spare glance in her direction, he set the knife aside, turned his back to her, and walked out of the house. The door fell shut behind him.

  She stared after him while her mind raced to puzzle out the meaning of his words.

  The toast popped and she startled.

  She scraped butter over the bread and laid it on a tray with a banana, a muffin, and a glass of orange juice.

  At the top of the stairs, as she contemplated whether she should knock or leave the tray in the hall, Max’s bedroom door swung open.

  He strode into the hallway wearing jeans and the T-shirt of a rock band Emily didn’t recognize.

  She pulled up short. “Good m-m-morning…”

  The greeting died on her lips when she saw the backpack slung over his shoulder.