Reaching back, I rip the thing from my head and carelessly let it flutter to the floor. I pull the pins from the elaborate style, set them on the bar, and use my fingers to scratch at my scalp so my hair falls loose.
The burn in my belly has disappeared, so I pick up my beer and take a hefty slug before setting it down. When I glance back at Andrew, I ask, “So what do you do for a living? You know, when you’re not picking up stranded, jilted brides.”
“Ah, well… I’m actually a microbiologist. I work for a company called Caterva.”
“You work for Caterva?” I ask in awe, my jaw dropping slightly.
“You know it?”
“Well, yeah… anyone who is anyone who stays abreast of science and medicine knows of Caterva. You’re developing a machine that can test for dozens of blood diseases all from one drop of blood.”
Andrew’s face flushes slightly, but there’s no hiding the pride in his eyes. “That would be us.”
“And so what do you do? Research? Testing?” I ask, completely blown away. So much for my construction-worker theory.
“I’m the chief scientist. I oversee all the labs and product testing.”
Holy shit. The chief scientist?
That’s like meeting a rock star in my book. Anyone who is involved in medicine—or even dental science like I am—has been watching Caterva as they develop this almost science-fiction-like technology. I feel like a total nerd when I gush, “I saw Dane Hawthorne give a talk at UCLA once. He’s a real genius.”
“He’s freaky smart. A brilliant entrepreneur.”
“A regular Tony Stark,” I say with a snicker. “And he looks like Tony, too.”
“Yeah, haven’t heard that one before,” he mutters with good nature.
“If it makes you feel any better,” I tell him genuinely, “I think you look like Thor.”
“Please say Ragnarok Thor and not Dark World Thor,” he says with overly dramatic, pleading eyes.
I can’t help but laugh. “Definitely Ragnarok.”
“Now you’re the one flirting with me,” he points out.
“Maybe,” I say, smiling over the lip of my pint glass before taking another healthy sip.
♦
“You see, that’s just wrong,” I tell Andrew as I wave a finger at him. My words are slightly slurred, but I’m nowhere near the point of being fall down, puke-in-the-morning drunk. I’m very happily buzzed right now. “For someone who is a chief scientist big-wig, you don’t have a lot of ‘outside the box thinking’ here.”
Andrew is adamant, a little bit of disgust creeping into his expression. “Nope. No way. No how. You’ll never convince me that pineapple belongs on a pizza.”
Turning, he motions for the bartender to refill our beers. I’d lost count of how many we’d had, but we stayed away from the liquor after that first shot.
“Sweet and salty,” I exclaim. “It’s the best of all taste combinations. It’s like chocolate-covered bacon.”
He grimaces, pressing his lips together in a way that makes dimples cave in. “Okay, that’s just gross.”
“Salted caramel?” I ask.
“Not so gross,” he admits.
I can’t help but snort, which is an unfortunate side effect of me drinking too much. “Salted caramel. I should have known Jesse wasn’t right in the head.”
“Jesse?” Andrew asks, brows furrowing inward in confusion.
“The asshole,” I explain. I’d only ever called my fiancé by the term asshole all night.
“What does salted caramel have to do with the asshole?” Andrew asks with a lazy smile. We’ve been sitting here for going on two hours now, talking about the most inane stuff imaginable, and I’m having the absolute best time. I had to turn my phone off to stop the incessant calls and texts that were coming in from the asshole Jesse, the whore Tara, and a slew of other concerned friends and family members.
“Jesse wanted a ‘signature drink’ at the reception,” I say with a slight quaver to my voice. “I mean… what man chooses a salted-caramel martini as his signature cocktail? That was totally a warning sign.”
Andrews smile goes from amused to sympathetic as the conversation veers back to my kinky-assed, cheating fiancé.
I’m surprised when Andrew reaches out and places his hand over mine, which is on top of the bar near my empty beer glass. “I’m sorry, Brynne. You were screwed over in the shittiest way and on what should have been the happiest day of your life. And you’ve managed to put on a really brave face. I admire that.”
“Should I be more upset than I am right now?” I ask, feeling suddenly guilty for sitting here arguing about whether pineapple belongs on a pizza.
“I think you should feel the way you want to feel,” he replies with a wisdom I decide to trust implicitly. “That belongs solely to you, Brynne, and no one can dictate it.”
With a mirthless laugh, I motion with my hands down the length of my dress. “You know I picked out this wedding dress when I was like thirteen?”
His eyebrows shoot upward. “Pardon me?”
I wave my hand, shaking my head. “Not to marry Jesse. But I saw this in a magazine, and though it was beautiful. I guess I was one of those girls who started planning her romantic wedding right then and there, although, admittedly, I had not thought about having a signature cocktail. But I cut the picture of the dress out of that magazine, and I had it created down to the exact details of lace on the bodice. I’m actually embarrassed how much of not only my dreams, but also my money went into this thing.”
Andrew laughs and nods. “The dress is spectacular. You have excellent taste.”
“Oh, well,” I say with a shrug, but there’s no hiding the sadness in my voice. “There goes years of planning this dress to be worn to the wedding of my dreams. Flushed down the toilet by an asshole and a whore.”
The one thing that struck me about Andrew’s good looks after getting over his Thor-like appearance was his eyes. A light gray ringed with a darker blue on the edges. They darken now to slate and seem slightly turbulent, but there’s an odd sparkle of what might actually be mischief in them. As if he has some nefarious plan I should be afraid of, but instead sends a shiver up my spine.
“You should get married,” he says in a murmur as he leans in closer to me. Other than covering my hand with his own moments ago, he hasn’t made a single overt move to come on to me, which has made him beyond endearing. I don’t feel anything sexual coming from him, but rather a distinct vibe of playfulness. “Tonight. A beautiful ceremony complete with the most extravagant flowers, elegant music, and a dashing groom who can’t keep his eyes off you because that dress makes you a million times more beautiful than you already are.”
My throat turns as dry as sandpaper as I blink at him, his words almost hypnotizing me. My voice is raspy when I ask, “And who would that dashing groom be?”
“Me, of course,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m already wearing a tux. Give me fifteen minutes and three phone calls, and I can have it all arranged.”
“You can arrange a wedding in fifteen minutes?” I ask dumbly, not even letting my drunk and muddled brain try to figure out why in the world he would offer such a thing.
“It’s Vegas, Brynne. And I’m filthy rich with a lot of connections. Of course I can arrange it in fifteen minutes.”
“I should marry you? Tonight?” The concept is utterly ridiculous.
“Well, yes… otherwise, you take that dress off and it’s wasted. We’ll go have a beautiful ceremony and take lots of pictures—we’ll even frame one to send to the asshole and the whore. And then your dream will at least be realized instead of a regret you’ll later have.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” I ask in amazement.
“Why not?” he says with a laugh. “We’re drunk. We’re adventurous. And best of all, I can almost guarantee you Vegas makes it as easy to get a marriage annulled as it does to get married, although one of those calls will be to my attorney to verif
y that. Let’s go have your wedding, then we’ll go out dancing in that beautiful dress until dawn. We’ll get the marriage annulled tomorrow, and we’ll both have an incredibly fun story to tell people. What do you say?”
I stare at Andrew a moment. This filthy rich—according to his words—and incredibly brilliant scientist and near-perfect stranger is suggesting we do something so absolutely ludicrous I can’t seem to think of a good reason why I shouldn’t do it. My life was turned upside down mere hours ago by someone I loved and trusted with my soul, and there shouldn’t be one thing keeping me from taking back what he stole from me.
CHAPTER 3
Andrew
“Let me prop the door open and I’ll carry you over the threshold,” I tell Brynne as I press the keycard against the magnetic reader.
She giggles, a sound I normally find grating on a grown woman, but on Brynne it’s charming. Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are still sparkling with energy. “Well, you are very Thor-like, so a girl would be crazy to refuse to be carried over the threshold by her husband.”
That’s right. I’m her husband, but let’s rewind just a bit to detail how this all went down.
It took me exactly fifteen minutes and three phone calls to set things up, just as I promised her.
The first call was to the nicest, swankest Vegas chapel that I could find with a Google search. I was advised we’d have to obtain a license at the Las Vegas Marriage Bureau for the low price of seventy-five dollars, and I wasn’t surprised in the least to learn it was open twenty-four hours a day on the weekends. I was able to arrange a limousine to pick us up, as well as an explosion of flowers within the chapel itself. When I gave my credit card number to the woman, I told her to go crazy on decor, but I specifically requested white calla lilies for the bride bouquet because Brynne told me those were her favorites.
The second call was to a jeweler where I was able to purchase two very simple wedding bands in gold. It’s a detail I probably could have ignored considering we both knew this was just for fun, but fuck it. I’m rich, which means I have the ability to make this as nice as I can for Brynne.
The third call was to my attorney, who explained annulment laws and assured me it was a fairly straightforward process. I’d have to institute the action—called a complaint—and if Brynne waives service, we can present our annulment request to the court to be approved after twenty days. It wasn’t immediate, but twenty days was nothing in the grand scheme of things.
By the time we took a limo to the marriage bureau, stood in line for about thirty minutes with other likeminded folks, and then made our way to the chapel, we’d sobered up quite a bit.
“You sure you want to do this?” she asked me just before we went in. “I mean… it was a fun notion when we were a little more buzzed.”
“Hell yes,” I’d told her with a devilish grin. “Mostly so we can send a picture to the whore and the asshole.”
Her laugh was sparkling and beautiful and just a little evil, which made her infinitely more attractive to me. “It’s all in good fun with no risk,” I’d added on to assure her.
So we went in, both of us grinning like fools during the ceremony. It felt fake, because it was fake, but in some respects, it’s the most real thing I’ve ever done. Because what we were doing had real purpose. It was to give Brynne and her glorious wedding dress a moment to shine.
It became even more real when the minister—who was not dressed like Elvis, but was very dapper in a dark gray suit with an old-fashioned cravat tied at his neck—told us in a very cultured voice, “You may kiss the bride.”
Fuck.
I hadn’t thought about the kiss.
I mean, I’d thought of kissing her because she’s sexy and vibrant and smiling despite the fact she was shit on hard today. But I hadn’t thought about the “wedding kiss”. Because even though this is all fake, somehow a man giving us formal permission to put our mouths together to seal our marriage vows makes it very fucking real.
There was no hesitation. When my lips touched hers and she gave a tiny huff of pleasure, I realized I wanted to consummate this fake marriage very badly.
I did not, however, know if Brynne felt the same. Because today would probably go down as the worst and weirdest of her life, I wasn’t going to push. Instead, I took her out for a radically expensive late dinner and then we hit a popular jazz club where we listened to music.
And then it happened.
A slow song was played. A bluesy number people just sort of sway to, and I asked her to dance with me.
She accepted.
It was Brynne who kissed me. Slid her delicate fingers into my hair, went to her tiptoes in her gray tennis shoes with teal-blue accents, and pressed her mouth to mine. My mind reeled, and my cock started to twitch to attention as we swayed and kissed. The words were forming in my mind on how best to invite her into my bed without sounding like an opportunistic douche, but then it didn’t matter.
She pulled her mouth from mine, relaxing and tipping her head back to see me. “If we have sex tonight, does that ruin our chances of getting an annulment?”
I had no fucking clue what the answer was. It had never crossed my mind I might actually get the chance to fuck her, so I didn’t ask my attorney.
“Not that I know of,” I hedge. At least I didn’t flat-out lie to her.
“Good,” she said with a smile. “Let’s go to my hotel room.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t about to risk interruption by the asshole who is probably quite worried about her since she ran away. My condo just didn’t seem special enough even though it’s a pretty swank pad.
So I made another call, booking us a penthouse suite at The Wynn. It’s over two-thousand square feet of luxury, although we’d only need the space occupied by the king-sized bed in the master bedroom.
And here we stand with my foot propping the door open and Brynne ready to put herself in my arms. For a moment, I hold her gaze until I’m satisfied I detect no hesitation nor any precursor to regretful guilt. I let my eyes travel down her body, taking in the perfection of the dress that she’s loved since she was thirteen.
I don’t quite recall exactly if she jumped at me or I swept her up, but she’s in my arms and I’m carrying her through the suite, instinctively angling for the large master bedroom to the right. Her arms go around my shoulders, and she nuzzles her lips against my neck just above my collar. The touch is sweet, but so fucking erotic my cock goes rock hard.
Then her lips are gone, and her teeth scrape along my skin.
“Fuck,” I mutter, then set her on the plush carpeting right to the side of the massive four-poster bed done in gold and red silk coverings.
Brynne’s hands come to my tie, which I’d tugged a little loose while we were dancing. I bat them away, shaking my head with a chiding smile. “Not yet.”
Those perfectly straight and white teeth—the teeth of a woman who has made dental care her life—bite down into her lower lip, and I can’t decide if she’s doing that intentionally or not. Regardless, I like it.
Placing the tip of my finger at the center of her chest, I drag it slowly down her skin toward the cleavage of her strapless top. I don’t explore the depths of the valley between her fantastic tits. Instead, I tap my finger right where the material forms just above the shadowy area. It’s adorned with a white rose so tiny and delicate I hadn’t noticed it before.
“It’s time to retire this dress,” I state, a last warning to her that if she wants to bail now is the time.
“Or we could take a picture of you fucking me in it, and send it to the asshole?” she suggests impishly.
Chuckling, I step in close and reach for the zipper that runs up the back. “That idea has some merit, but I don’t want all this material in my way. I want to see every fabulous inch of you.”
“Only if I get to see the same of you,” she chirps back. I think the bubbly we had at dinner has a little bit of a lingering effect.
; “Granted,” I reassure her, but she’s first. As I drag the zipper down, I watch the top that had been perfectly molded to the round globes of her breasts fall forward enough to expose the tops of her areolas to me. They’re pink, the skin prickled with goose bumps. I bet her fucking nipples are puckered and begging for my tongue.
Possibly my teeth.
The zipper moves past the hollow of her lower back before unceremoniously ending.
It’s with the greatest ceremony, however, that I push the dress down her stomach, past her flared hips, and straight south along her toned legs until it puddles on the floor. I step back to take in the full picture, and I’m breathless.
Brynne stands proud with her shoulders back, her breasts arched toward me, and a daring sparkle in her eyes. She wore no bra with the dress, but she has on the skimpiest scrap of pure white lace panties I’ve ever seen with a sharp V that cuts over her hips so high, I know the sides can only meet at the small of her back before traveling uniformly down the crack of her ass.
My hands itch to reach out and touch.
The silky-looking skin of her shoulder, the bumpy roughness of her nipple, or the soft thatch of hair between her legs. Maybe I’ll bypass all of that to see if her pussy is as wet as my dick is hard.
But I think I know the answer to that.
My voice is soft… reverent. “I thought you were gorgeous in that dress, but Brynne… nearly naked is the best look on you by a long shot.”
“Bet you’d like me fully naked even better,” she murmurs, voice husky.
My gaze reluctantly leaves the mystery beneath the white lace, drags upward over her breasts, and locks with her hot eyes. “I’m sure I would.”
Which is all she needed to hear because in seconds, her thumbs are hooking into the lace at her hips and she shimmies the last barrier right down her perfect legs before gracefully stepping out of them.
Christ, she’s amazing and she’s all mine tonight.
I step into her, wrap her in my arms, and bring her warm naked body against me. When I pour every bit of my desire for her into a kiss, she responds with her fingers in my hair and her body rocking against mine. The kiss turns more fervent with need, and Brynne’s hands start to pull at my clothing.
Wicked Wedding Page 2
