Penny laughed. “I have sharp elbows. I’m not afraid to take out a few old biddies.”
“Good. Because Aunt Bea has been pinching my cheeks since the rehearsal dinner. I won’t tell you which cheeks, but let’s just say she has surprisingly good hand-eye coordination for a woman her age . . .”
Penny smothered a giggle.
“Hand to god,” Blake said. “She also pinched the salt and pepper shakers off the table at the restaurant. I think she might be a closet kleptomaniac. So you’d better make your move before Aunt Bea steals my heart.”
It was hard to resist the old banter. “I dunno, Blake. It sounds like you and Aunt Bea could really have something special.”
He leaned back, letting his arm drape over the back of the chaise behind her, one thumb brushing just below her necklace in a way that made her shiver. “Well, Aunt Bea is a sophisticated woman of experience, but her collarbones aren’t anything to write home about . . .”
Penny laughed, “Stop ogling my collarbones!”
“Your collarbones are just asking for it.”
She gave him a playful swat, but felt herself pulled in by his easy charm and wondered what it would like to be in his arms again, dancing cheek to cheek. The thought of tucking her head under his chin and feeling his hands at the small of her back made for a strong temptation. “You don’t think it would be a little crass to crash the wedding when the groom and I—”
“I don’t want to talk about Graham anymore,” Blake said. “In fact, if there’s any former flame of yours I want to know about it’s the football player you dated after you dumped me. I’m guessing it didn’t work out.”
The reminder of their high-school breakup could’ve been awkward, but Penny was strangely relieved by the opportunity to clear the air. “No. It didn’t work out. It never had the slightest chance of working out. Does that make you happy to hear?”
“Damn straight it does,” Blake said, with an insufferably smug smirk. “You know what would make me feel even better?”
“If I told you every humiliating detail?”
“Just the ones about how he wasn’t as good as me in bed.”
Penny gulped, desperately trying to adopt Blake’s nonchalance. “Give the guy a break. He was a college guy, whereas you were eighteen and at your sexual peak.”
“Oh, trust me, darlin’ that was not my sexual peak,” Blake said with a little twitch of a smile. “Not even close. And I’m guessing you’ve learned a few tantric sex tricks since high school, too. So I’m willing to break Aunt Bea’s heart if that’s what it takes to get with you.”
Penny peeked up at him, noticing that his old country twang was returning with a vengeance. “Are you seriously hitting on me or just trying to make me laugh?”
“Both. Why? Do you want me to stop?”
She didn’t want him to stop. Penny wanted to freeze this moment just the way it was, the two of them alone, shut away from the rest of the world, their knees touching and his hand warm on the nape of her neck. She wanted to capture this to add to all her other happy memories of Blake. But outside those library doors, there was still a wedding disaster that was partially of her own making. “You don’t think us flirting, here, is a little inappropriate?”
“Well, now I’m offended,” Blake said, lifting his other hand to feign shielding a wounded heart. “What could be more appropriate for the two of us than flirting in a library?”
Penny took a second look at their surroundings. The rows of gilded leather books. The carved wooden bookshelves. The huge spinning globe. Somehow, they’d ended up in an old-fashioned version of the high-school library that had been their special place for after-school trysts.
She tingled at the memory. “We’re lucky we never got caught.”
With a waggle of his brows, Blake said, “We had more than luck going for us. Maybe we still do. You don’t think it’s just a coincidence we ended up in here, do you? I think it’s fate.”
Penny eyed him suspiciously. “Since when do you believe in fate?”
“Since the time I ran into an ex-girlfriend at a wedding and she was wearing the beaded necklace I made for her in art class, junior year.”
Penny suddenly felt the warmth and weight of every bead. “I didn’t think you remembered.”
“I could hardly forget.” He traced the line of it over her neck. “This was the first thing I ever gave you. I’m pretty sure it’s what got me laid.”
Penny smirked. “You think it was the necklace that did it?”
“You know how long it took me to string all those little beads?” he asked, with a grin. “It proved to you that I had dexterous fingers and knew how to take my time.”
He did. Penny remembered. Vividly. It was a good thing she was already sitting down because the memory made her knees a bit spongy. Blake had been a sensitive and attentive lover.
But what he hadn’t been was a smooth-talking seducer, and his newfound glibness was making her a little dizzy. She couldn’t tell how much of this flirtation was genuine and how much of it was just to lighten the mood and make today seem like less of a disaster.
It bothered her that she couldn’t read him as easily as she used to. “You really think I should stay?”
“I’ll tell you what I really think,” Blake said, tilting his head in a way that made the dark aura of mistrust around him evaporate into bright pink passion. “I really think you should let me kiss you.”
He leaned in, his handsome face coming closer and closer, until she was warmed by his minty breath. His arms wrapped around her, and an instant later she felt the familiar rush of warmth on her skin that left her helpless to do anything but yield to his mouth as it brushed against hers.
It was a soft, tender, kiss, the golden whiskers of his close-trimmed goatee tickling her face. Then the kiss deepened, charged with a giddy sexual energy that emboldened Penny to kiss back.
This kiss was nothing like the sweet kisses back in high school. This was a grown-up kiss, so intense it left her a little breathless, and sent her heart beating so fast she thought it might explode.
It must have exploded, because she heard the sound. A dozen little pops that ended in a ka-boom!
Startled, Penny leapt to her feet, chilled by the cool air in the space between their bodies. “What was that?”
“Jumpy much?” he asked, touching the corner of his lip as if savoring the lingering taste of their kiss. “It sounded like champagne corks,” he said, rising to stalk toward her, his eyes still bright with lust. “It’s a wedding. This is a celebration, Penny.”
Yes, it was.
He’d kissed her. He’d just kissed her. And she’d kissed him back. After all these years, they were kissing again, and it made her want to clink a crystal glass in a celebratory toast or spin around on her toes. But then she remembered that they were at someone else’s wedding . . . where she was the other woman. “As best man, shouldn’t you, I dunno, be making sure everything’s okay?”
“No can do,” he said, with mock gravity.
“Why not?”
He looked down at himself, to where his vest cut snugly over his dress shirt. “My bow tie is all undone and I don’t know how to tie it. Can’t let the guests see me looking slovenly.”
“C’mere,” she said with a nervous laugh, sliding her hands up to his collar and taking the ends of the black tie in hand. “I know what to do with it.”
“Oh, me too,” he said, suddenly tugging the satin free of her fingertips. With a quick grab, Blake brought her hands together and wound the tie around her wrists—a deft move that both mesmerized her and stole her breath away.
Titillated, teased, and a tiny bit terrified, Penny asked, “What are you doing?”
“Trussing you up,” Blake said, tugging her bound hands over his neck, trapping himself in her embrace. “You don’t think I’m gonna let you
get away from me as easily as I did back in high school, do you?”
***
Just one more kiss, he thought. Just one more kiss and that’ll be enough, even if she walks away and I never see her again.
This was the lie Blake told himself until the moment his mouth closed again over those glossy lips, the taste bringing every memory of her rushing back. When her eyes fluttered closed, her sweet, wet kisses melted away into something hungrier, something just a little painful, but so exciting, he didn’t want to come up for breath.
Her bound hands tangled in his hair, cool fingers somehow leaving burning trails in his scalp wherever they touched. Meanwhile, he pressed tightly into the softness of her hips, delighting in the way it brought them together, groin to groin.
He’d regret this, he thought. Hell, he was already regretting it, because he knew he shouldn’t take things so fast. Shouldn’t take advantage of her when she was vulnerable. Shouldn’t slip his hand under the back of her blouse so his fingers could trace her spine while they kissed. Shouldn’t press so hard against her that she could feel his arousal, hard and aching.
But knowing better wasn’t going to stop him.
He needed to prove to her that he wasn’t still that inexperienced bumpkin who turned scarlet the first time she kissed him at a homecoming dance. When she said that thing about second chances, he wanted it to be true, so he couldn’t let this be just a kiss.
Maybe it was something instinctual. Knowing that Graham had left his paw-prints all over Penny, Blake felt the possessive need to reclaim her. Maybe he needed to make her forget about any other guy she’d ever met. Or maybe it was as simple as the fact that the musty scent of old books still turned him on.
Whatever the reason, he wanted her. And when Blake wanted a woman, he’d learned from the playbook never to risk being sidelined in the friend zone. He’d learned to be a little bit reckless and never give a girl time to be coy. Not that there was anything coy about Penny Parker . . .
When he trailed passionate kisses down her neck, she threw her head back and moaned with desire. He buried his face in the kissable hollows of her collarbones that were as sweet as he remembered. His lips made a game of connect-the-dots on her freckled shoulders. And a peek down her blouse showed small but pert breasts under a flimsy bra.
The sight made him throb with need.
Sweet Jesus, Penny Parker was still the sexiest girl in the whole world—and he still wanted to do very bad things to her.
Without missing a beat, he bunched her long skirt around her waist, his fingers gliding over her creamy thighs. If she let him, he’d yank her panties off, have himself unzipped and inside her in seconds. There’d be no teenage fumbling this time. No embarrassment. No hesitation. Nothing but the pure, perfect, joyful release.
Given the way Penny panted in his ear, he reckoned she wanted that, too. She even moaned his name in encouragement.
But when he cupped the mound between her thighs with one hand, she yelped. He stopped, his pulse thumping wildly as he wrestled his desire under control. “What’s wrong?”
“What if someone comes in?”
“They won’t. The door’s bolted from the inside.”
“What if someone knocks?”
“They can go to hell,” he growled, because Blake wasn’t opening that door for anybody.
In answer, she arched against him, wriggling in pleasure. But still, she hesitated, “I just . . . I didn’t expect to be . . . intimate with someone . . . today.”
Blake was having a hard time thinking, given the way every drop of blood roared through his veins straight to his nether regions. But after a few seconds, he started to figure out what she might be talking about. Luckily, he had that covered. “I’ve got a condom in my wallet. I was a Boy Scout, remember? I always come prepared.”
When her eyes flew wide, he realized that’s not what she was talking about.
“Oh my goddess! You want to have sex right here? Are you crazy?”
Which was not, Blake felt the need to remind himself, a no.
But Penny seemed so panicked, he said, “I really want you, Penny. I think you want me, too.”
“I do,” she admitted. “I really, really, do. But—”
“But what?”
“I’m not wearing the right panties for this!”
“There are panties for this?” Blake asked, because he was just going to slide them down her thighs. Or pull them aside. Or rip them off . . . whoa, his imagination was really going places now, but the fancy stuff could wait.
He kissed her again. She kissed him back. Then they heard a tearing sound, and she froze in his arms. “You’re tearing my skirt.”
“I am?” Damn these delicate girlie things. The fabric was fisted in his hand, so Blake let go and the skirt tumbled back down over her legs, but when they shifted they heard another tearing sound. “That wasn’t me.”
Penny glanced over her shoulder. “Uh-oh. My skirt’s caught in the globe.”
Frustrated, Blake reached behind her to tug the fabric free, and when it didn’t come loose, he was ready to drop-kick the cock-blocking globe across the room. “Goddamn it . . .”
Penny snickered. “Still believe in fate? Apparently the whole world is in our way.”
If he had to stop now, Blake would need a cold shower. No. Only an ice bath would fend off a raging case of blue balls. So unless Penny stopped him he wasn’t going to stop. Not even for the whole world.
“Easy solution,” Blake said, with a deeper growl. “Take your skirt off.”
***
Penny felt drunk. High on him.
That’s the only way she could explain how she was making out with Blake at somebody else’s wedding, and contemplating taking her skirt off so that they could do a whole lot more than make out.
This was crazy, Penny thought. Reckless. It was all happening way too fast. Less than an hour after their reunion, they were all over each other, hot and heavy. If she didn’t stop Blake now, they might do something to make this wedding even more embarrassing.
But she’d broken things off with Blake in high school because she thought things were happening too fast back then, too. Positive they’d been too young to fall in love.
She’d lost Blake because she’d been afraid to take the risk.
That had been a mistake. A horrible mistake.
She’d be a fool to make the same mistake now, wouldn’t she? Besides, five years of longing had built up inside her like a pile of tinder and Blake’s kisses were the match that set her ablaze. Now she didn’t want to stop. How many times had she fantasized about having another moment of spontaneous combustion with him?
Well, now it was really happening.
“Okay,” Penny whispered, wriggling out of her skirt.
Since her hands were tied, he had to help her. And Blake whistled at the sight of her plain white cotton panties as the air conditioning licked up her bare thighs. He didn’t give her a chance to get cold, though, hoisting her legs up over his hips, and carrying her to the chaise.
They crashed down on it together, his long body covering hers. He pressed her down, held her there, grounded her. He always had.
With a burble of delighted laughter, she kissed the planes of his face, his forehead, his cheeks, his chin. Blake was outrageously good-looking, with an irresistible combination of boyish dimples and a devilish goatee.
The way he was looking at her, like he wanted to devour her, was a huge turn-on. She wanted to touch him, undress him, get as close to him as she could, skin to skin. He had way too many clothes on. But her hands were still tied behind his neck, and whatever knot he’d used seem to tighten every time she pulled—which left her just a little bit at his mercy.
He lowered his head to nuzzle at her breasts, cupping them, squeezing them, molding them with one hand. That felt so good, but she
wanted so much more. Encouraging him with wiggling hips, she helped him get her panties off, then sighed when his clever fingers strummed over the wetness between her legs.
Yes, that was the spot she wanted him to touch. And when he did, she shivered.
He groaned as if her arousal undid him. “Christ, woman, you make me think dirty thoughts.”
Funny how she’d worried it was all happening too fast, but now that it really was happening, it couldn’t happen fast enough. “Are you just gonna think those dirty thoughts or . . . ?”
With a cocky grin, he ducked out from under her arms, yanked off his tuxedo pants and threw them on the low table. Then he got his underwear down. He was hard, throbbing, and curved just a little bit upward towards his belly. The sight of it made her lick her lips.
When he rolled a condom onto himself, she found herself letting out a little sob of need. Splaying her thighs for him, she whispered, “I want you inside me, Blake.”
Her words made him twitch. She loved seeing the way his pulse pounded at the base of his throat, the way his pupils were wide with arousal, and the way his aura turned to bright red desire when he sank back down on top of her. He pressed the full length of himself against her so that she could feel him pulse against her tender places, but held back from filling the parts of her that felt so empty.
“Sure you’re ready for me, Penny?”
Squirming, she laughed. “Are we gonna talk all day, Country Boy, or are we gonna play?”
He grinned and slid in. All the way in. So deep that Penny gasped with her body’s efforts to open to him. She had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from crying out. Then it all melted into pleasure.
She clung to him, her body pulsing, because it felt so good, so right, to be connected to him like this again.
Blake’s bravado fell away. “If you don’t stop squirming, I’m not going to last long, baby.”
Baby. He hadn’t called her that since . . . well, forever ago. The sound of it vibrated against her tightening nipples and sent tingles down her belly. She squeezed him between her legs because, with her hands tied, that’s about all she could do.
This Wedding is Doomed! Page 15
