“This is my wedding. Love is in the goddamn air if I say it is! Understand?”
After a reflex nod of agreement, Sam was biting her lip to keep from laughing.
“He’s a great guy, Sami. Funny. Smart. Started his own business. Works hard. All those things you have on your perfect guy checklist. I don’t get it. Does being hot as shit automatically disqualify him?”
Either her friend was being deliberately obtuse, or bridal insanity had overtaken her. One of those two things had to be true.
“Andi,” she snapped. “Where does this prime candidate live? Hmm?”
“Well, he lives near St. Augustine.”
Sam cocked her head but said nothing.
“And you’d know this, by the way, if you’d ever come visit, or better yet—leave that stupid shithole you insist on living in and come back to civilization.”
“That’s not the issue, so don’t try to deflect me. You know damn well what this is about. Reality is black and white. I live in California. Ryan lives in Florida.”
“So?”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Andi. Cut it out. I’m not that girl, and you know it. Seriously, girlfriend. I can’t think of anything more cringe-worthy or desperate than wedding guest sex. Sucky fucky for shits ‘n’ grins is not my style. I don’t care how hot the guy is.”
“Watch your mouth, missy,” Andi spit out. “Nobody said anything about sucky fucky wedding guest sex. He’s not a sex toy, y’know.”
Oh, my god. Really? Somehow, with one snarky reaction, Andi managed to turn the whole thing around and make it sound like Sam was being a bitch.
Her eyes narrowed, and she glared at Andi’s amused face.
“Look,” her friend said in a reasonable tone that suggested Sam was overreacting, “he’s hot. No other way to say it. But you’re a modern day Aphrodite even though you like to pretend otherwise.”
The only thing she had to contribute was a skeptical smirk.
“Sweetie, he honed in on you like a bee to a flower. Kyle said he’d never ever seen him react that way before. That has to count for something. And he hasn’t taken his eyes off you for more than a few seconds.”
Andi eyed her curiously for a minute then murmured, “That’s not the behavior of a man looking to score a wedding affair.”
Wedding affair. Ugh. They made movies about such things and the women always came off as bimbos and sluts. The guys did too—mostly—which was exactly why these things were not her cup of tea.
But she heard the point Andi was making.
“Just get to know him, babe. I mean, you two are going to be attached at the hip for the next couple of days anyway. Once the wedding is over, and all of this is behind us, then you can think about what comes next. Stop borrowing trouble, Sami. Let loose. Have some damn fun. You never know what’ll happen until you give life another try.”
Standing buck-ass naked on the private lanai of his ocean view room, Ryan took in the spectacular scenery and downed a cup of Kona coffee. He’d been up since o-dark-thirty, the result of a restless night, so how much coffee he consumed might decide how he handled the morning ahead.
After checking to be sure that an adequate cushion was present to protect his balls from the unforgiving wicker of a chair at the small patio table, he dropped into the seat and set the coffee mug down.
Growling like a bear, he tried shaking off the sluggish remnants of his sleep-deprived state by scraping his fingers back and forth against his scalp.
The ocean crashing ashore became the background accompaniment to the harsh noise from dragging a surprisingly heavy ottoman up to his seat. Propping his legs on the cushion, Ryan crossed his feet at the ankles, leaned back, and let out a deep sigh.
Then, with a groan mixed with frustration and disgust, he inspected his morning hard-on through narrowed eyes and reached again for the coffee.
For an erection lasting more than four hours. . .
Pfft. What a joke. No little blue pill required for this apparently permanent state of affairs. Nope. All he had to do was spend two minutes thinking about Samantha Evers and every ounce of blood in his body went rushing to his dick.
She was his own personal erectile facilitator.
Erectile facilitator.
He laughed out loud. Holy shit but that was funny.
Immediately, his mind switched to design mode as a tableau of erotic drawings featuring an enormous shaft, his, being worked over by a mind-melting pair of lips, hers, dominated his thoughts.
So. . .pretty much a looping repeat of the dirty vignettes that kept him awake last night.
Sure. Why the hell not?
Laying his head back on the rim of the chair, Ryan closed his eyes and swam in the ocean of sexy scenes he’d imagined.
Samantha in a pair of tiny shorts bent over the hood of his classic Camaro. Her front covered in suds as she stretched and wiggled to wash the dark blue car.
Or Samantha, destroying a strawberry milkshake by furiously sucking the frozen treat through a straw. That one almost made him lose his shit.
But the one he went back to time and again was Samantha with her arms and incredibly sexy legs wrapped around him as he delivered a barrage of perfect thrusts—slow, hard, deep, and purposeful. She whimpered and shook—oh, yeah, and was dripping wet.
Was he fucked up in his thinking? Probably, but what guy wasn’t?
The sexually frustrated erotic dreams were to be expected. It was the price he paid for spending the last year without a woman.
Being somewhat jaded about modern relationships, Ryan worried he was too old-fashioned in his thinking. Something for which he did not apologize. No use in pretending he hadn’t fucked his way across Europe and through most of New York City too. Too much anonymous pussy under the bridge for that.
But his man-whore ways were far in the past and not as fascinating or titillating as imagination would suggest. He could only take so much of the horny females bouncing aggressively on his cock and screaming, “Fuck me good.” Being a sex object wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Hindsight—the ultimate twenty-twenty bitch.
Until last night, he’d been purposely blind to the urgings of his sex drive, but something about the golden beauty struck straight to his heart. To say he was surprised by the strength of the attraction was missing the point. He was drawn to her. The enchanting maid of honor was a magnet in disguise, and despite being powerfully captivated by her sexually, he’d discovered as last evening wore on how much he liked her as a person.
With each new thought, his cock surged. “Aw, shit. Come on.” He groaned. Things were getting fucking ridiculous, and he’d only known the woman less than twenty-four hours.
It would be plain-ass stupid to let his rampant desire lead him to take matters into his own hands. Jerking off to salacious thoughts of the golden maiden would create a precedent he worried might consume him completely. A one-sided giving in to the ferocious lust wouldn’t end well for him.
Still. . .
Reluctantly reaching for his mind-boggling hard-on, Ryan wrapped one hand around the shaft, avoiding the sensitive crown, and shifted in the wicker chair.
Dick in hand, head back and eyes closed, he let the memory of last night flood his brain.
Following the unexpected reveal of his cover boy past and the girl’s swift withdrawal to the committee chamber—otherwise known as the ladies’ room—Kyle had picked him apart with gleeful abandon.
“Dude, fucking a! I think this is a first for me.”
If the guy smacked his hand on the table any harder as he laughed out loud, the damn thing was likely to go crashing to the ground.
“What the hell does that mean?” Ryan grumbled.
“Fuck me sideways, Ry! This is better than a dozen big screen rom-coms. Your face as you walked up to Sam. . . Wish I had snapped a pic, for real.”
“Shut up.”
The shithead continued to howl with amused laughter, and it kind of continued from there. When A
ndi and Samantha returned, he forgot to breathe as he watched her—from the front view this time—saunter toward them.
It was her magnificent bare legs that zapped his brain. Her steps were light. She didn’t march or stomp. To him, it almost seemed as if she glided. The short poofy black skirt proved the perfect frosting for the mouth-watering confection those two long, perfectly shaped stems brought to the erotic party in his imagination.
Another thing the front view showed was an eyeful of bouncing boobs clearly evident beneath the shimmery golden top. Either she wasn’t wearing a bra or she had on one of those window dressing things that pretended to cover and support.
Reflex made him stand when she came to her chair. His mom would be proud. She startled and looked at him before quickly glancing away. It pissed him off when her reaction showed she wasn’t used to a guy who knew how to be a gentleman. And as far as he was concerned, a woman as fine as Samantha Evers should never be subjected to anything less.
Pleased when she didn’t move her chair away from his, he took advantage of a group chuckle over something stupid to slyly inch her even closer. She didn’t object.
The evening flew by. So did a tanker truck of champagne as they continued to celebrate. As Pu Pu platters came and went from their table, they shared stories from their younger days with each pair painting energetic recreations of some truly hilarious shit.
“How is it that cousins are so close in age and more like brothers?”
Samantha’s blue-gray eyes were clear and filled with genuine curiosity. He could stare into them all night.
“Our fathers are twins,” Kyle explained. “Long story short—Ry’s parents were married first, and he has an older sister. When my folks entered the marital sweepstakes, both couples joked about how cool it would be to have kids at the same time. Like twins but not. Guess the universe liked jokes because that’s exactly what happened. Our moms were pregnant together, and I get the award for being first on the scene. And then five weeks later, Ryan came along.”
“Twins, but not,” she murmured.
“It’s pretty romantic, if you ask me,” Andi declared.
A throb of pleasure snaked along his nerve endings when Sam shifted in her seat and crossed her legs, angled in his direction. Did she know her body language was sending out signals? When she tilted her head and studied his face, he saw nothing but a guileless freshness in her expression.
She had no idea how she affected him.
“What’s your sister’s name?”
“Alianna Sommerfield. But she uses the name Ali Morgan. She’s a writer.”
Andi jumped in with a hoarsely barked, “Excuse me?” Turning to Kyle, she shook her head and asked in an incredulous tone, “Ali Morgan is your cousin?”
“Uh, yes?” he answered.
Ryan looked from Kyle’s bemused smirk to Andrea’s flabbergasted expression to Samantha’s slack-jawed reaction and snickered.
“Why am I just hearing about this now?”
He heard Samantha’s soft giggle at her friend’s tone of spousal indignation.
“Shit, honey,” Kyle stammered when his fiancée’s annoyance became crystal clear. “She’s on the invitation list.”
“As Alianna Sommerfield, you stupid jackass.”
Samantha reached for the toothpick sticking out of a pineapple chunk, waved her hand over her choices, and plucked the one with a little aqua pearl seashell.
Kyle and Andi forgotten for the moment, he watched mesmerized as she slowly lifted the local fruit to her waiting mouth. When her lips parted, and he saw her tongue accept the golden tidbit, he nearly fell out of his chair. The way she bit into the chunk and how her tongue licked the juices off her lips consumed his thoughts.
“Are all men this dense, or is it just you? Ryan,” Andi snapped. “She’s your sister. Did it ever occur to you that maybe letting me know an international best-selling wildly famous author was going to be at my wedding?”
No way was he taking flak for this slice of Sommerfield absurdity.
“I don’t lead off every conversation with, ‘Hey, did you know my obnoxious sister is famous.’” He shrugged and smirked at the same time. “And besides, I’m not her damn spokesman. For months, you’ve been cooking up this tropical shindig with my aunt. In my book, she shoulda told you.”
The disgruntled bride crossed her arms and slumped heavily into her seat. She even managed a dramatic, “Harrumph.”
“Sami, help me out.”
The lady at his side dropped the pretty seashell pick onto a plate and grabbed a napkin, which she used to wipe her mouth.
“Don’t have a dog in this fight,” she pithily replied. Ryan coughed to cover his laugh.
“Oh, yes you do,” Andi swiftly retorted. “My mom will go off when she learns someone famous for creating hot sexy stories is here. You’re my maid of honor.” She pouted. “How about if, when, it happens, I put you in charge of managing Dolores’s freak-out?”
“Ouch. That’s a bit underhanded.” Samantha leaned into him and mock-whispered as means of explanation, “The only time her mom’ll get on her knees is to pray.”
Ryan chuckled and a clearly horrified-at-what-she-said Samantha slapped a hand over her mouth.
With a resigned sigh, he took up for his superstar sister as Kyle tried valiantly to coerce Andi into a sweeter mood.
“Okay, newsflash,” he drawled. “Ali doesn’t dress in leather or a schoolgirl outfit. She doesn’t wear hooker heels, and she doesn’t wear a collar. She doesn’t travel with an entourage although I’m fairly certain she flew in on a private plane. She writes filthy stories about likable characters. It’s her job, guys. But in real life? She’s just like everyone else. Don’t judge a book by the man candy cover.”
He barely managed to curtail a grimace. He wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with the concept.
It was going to take more than that for bridezilla to calm down—a one-man job his cousin was well cut out to deal with, so he acted on sheer impulse, grabbed Samantha’s hand, and said, “Come on. Let’s go check out the waves.”
Ten minutes after that they squished along the sandy beach down to the water, and that was when his life changed forever.
“I love the ocean,” she murmured wistfully.
“Living in L.A. is a good thing then, hmm?”
Giving him her shoes to hold, she pressed them into his hands and then stooped to crouch near the water’s edge. Her fingers traced swirled designs in the wet sand, and she half shrugged and half grunted.
“You’d think that, I suppose. But Burbank might just as well be on the moon for all the opportunity life gives me to haunt the beaches.”
“How come?”
Standing up, she clapped her hands together and wiped off what she could of the damp sand.
“I find Los Angeles to be. . .unforgiving. Especially when it comes to regular people. The real cost of living there is a never-ending work schedule—just to pay the rent.”
He considered her representation of life in the celebrity-obsessed town and nodded his understanding.
“Is that why Andi called your living there the result of having pushed the first button on the bad relationship elevator to a new life?”
She snickered. “Oh, just ignore her. She’s still pissed that I didn’t hang my star on her design career and join the firm.”
Ryan knew quite a lot about Andrea Frank’s business and not for the best of reasons. His reply wasn’t supposed to sound annoyed, but it did. “Maybe that would have been better. For both of you,” he quietly muttered at the end.
She stared at him quizzically for a moment and then shook off the whole topic. “Whatever. I’m there. For now.”
They walked along the water’s edge in silence. He studied the twinkling stars and found he was committing details to memory so he could draw them later.
With no preamble, she quietly asked in an expressive but low-key way, “If you’re a graphics guy, how come we aren’t sporting custom t-sh
irts for this big occasion?”
Realizing she was completely serious, his instant bark of laughter rumbled in the air along with the sound of a crashing wave.
“For fuck’s sake,” he grumbled with mocking self-affront. “I don’t just design t-shirts.”
She giggled and shoved against his side. “My bad.”
“Uh-huh.” He growled. “You heard graphics designer and pictured a dweeb running a bullshit business in his mom’s basement with graffiti spray painted on the walls.”
“Well, that,” she teased with a cheeky smirk, “and a coffee table littered with weed. You smoke pot, right?”
For the first time in his entire life, Ryan explored the real possibility of having to spank a grown woman.
And then he saw the twinkle of merriment in her eyes.
“All the damn time,” he assured her with perfect sincerity. “Blazed up a big fattie before meeting Kyle earlier. It’s pretty much an open thing here, y’know.”
The look of absolute incredulity on her face was the highlight of his life so far.
Wagging his brows like he imagined a villainous lothario would, he leaned down and silkily suggested, “You wanna bug out and head to my room? Picked up a killer bong shaped like R2-D2 at a smoke shop in town. You can help me christen it.”
How long would it take her? One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .
“Ryan Sommerfield! Are you yanking my chain?”
Nothing was calculated about what he did next. He reacted on sheer instinct. Slinging an arm over her shoulders, he pulled her in and proceeded to initiate a playful noogie.
Samantha yelped and tried to slap him off her, finally dissolving into a fit of hiccupping giggles after wriggling away and taking off in a fast-paced run.
He caught up to her in no time. For a brief second, he thought about kissing her but changed his mind at the last second, dipped his shoulder and easily hoisted the delicious Ms. Samantha Evers over his shoulder.
“Hold still,” he growled with playful aggravation.
“Put me down, you, you . . . bully!”
“No,” he drawled and then gave her butt a half-serious swat. “Now, be still or I’ll drop you.” To make his point, he pretended to lose his grip and let her think she was about to tumble onto the sand.
The Wedding Affair (The Affair Series Book 2) Page 5
