by Tee O'Fallon
Watching Gray’s groomsmen together at the front of the church, she was reminded of how much fun they’d had at the rehearsal dinner the previous night. Not only were they all gorgeous to the max, they were funny, intelligent, and successful in various law enforcement jobs. Gray’s brothers were single, and they’d both flirted with her mercilessly, making her laugh more than she had in months, but there were simply no sparks. It was just as well, since the last time she’d been sparked, the results had been disastrous.
She was suddenly hit with a desperate longing, a veritable sense of loss for something she’d only experienced for a brief period of time and feared she never would again. A family of my own. Her throat began to close up, and she swallowed, fisting her hands. I will not keep doing this to myself.
It hit her hardest whenever she watched other couples or families with their children. She’d always wanted kids and to show them what it was like to be truly loved in a way she hadn’t been after her parents died. There were nights she wanted to scream from the awful emptiness and loneliness.
As she uncurled her fingers, white petals fell to the aisle floor from the rosebuds she’d crushed in her hands. “Shit,” she muttered, then began picking up the petals. After she’d collected every one in her hand, she rose and plowed into something solid.
“Sorry, I—” Her pulse began racing wildly. She’d known this moment would come at some point during the course of the wedding, but now that it was here she was totally unprepared for it.
Dom Carew gripped her upper arms to steady her. Heat emanated from his touch straight through her skin, lighting up every one of her senses as if her body had been in a deep sleep. Raw sexuality emanated from the man, and to her immense embarrassment, her cheeks instantly heated in response. He was all that she remembered…and so much more.
Gorgeous didn’t begin to describe the man. He was tall, around six-three, with broad, powerful shoulders that tapered to a trim waist. She already knew firsthand that his body beneath that tailored black tuxedo had nary an ounce of fat, including ripped abs, thick biceps, and long muscular legs. And he had the most amazing hands. Big and rough, but so unexpectedly gentle.
If anything, he appeared even larger and more intimidating than she remembered. With sandy blond hair, a chiseled face, and striking blue eyes the color of a clear sky, he totally had that whole Thor thing going on. Aside from the ginormous purplish bruise on the left side of his face.
“What happened to your face?” she asked as sanity took hold. Do not let him get to you. He may have shed his skin, but beneath that tuxedo he’s still a snake.
“Hazards of the job.” He grinned, revealing a set of even white teeth that completed his Thor-surfer dude look. “Miss me?”
“Like a bad case of poison ivy.” She twisted from his grip, dropping a few rose petals in the process and getting a good whiff of whatever pricey aftershave he wore that smelled all woodsy and manly. Damn, but why does he always have to look and smell so good?
He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t really mean that.”
“I do.” She took a step back, grabbing some much-needed space from the man she’d sworn never to acknowledge again for the rest of her life. “You truly are like a bad itch that won’t go away. I’m surprised you even showed up today, given how you blew off the rehearsal dinner.”
“Unavoidable.” His expression turned serious, and his brows furrowed. “But when it comes to standing up for my best friend at his wedding, I’m Semper fi.”
“Semper fi?” She let out a huff. “Doesn’t that mean, always faithful?”
“I’m impressed.” His voice seemed deeper to her than she remembered. “Most women don’t know Marine-speak.”
She shook her head. “You’re missing my point entirely. If there’s one thing I learned about you during our profoundly brief and completely unmemorable encounter, it’s that I’m certain you’ve never been faithful a day in your life.” Truthfully, she didn’t know whether she was more pissed at him for walking out on her after what she’d perceived to be a life-altering encounter, or at herself for being such a liar about the unmemorable part.
He clenched his jaw, making his face appear even more chiseled and masculine. “Leaving seemed like the best thing to do. For both of us,” he added.
“I can’t believe I ever let you inside my apartment, let alone—” Make love to me. A gross lapse in judgment was all it was, and she needed to get over it. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Oh, never mind.”
For a moment, he didn’t respond, then he took a deep breath, tightening his tuxedo shirt and jacket over his impossibly broad chest. “Can’t we try to get along for one day? For Gray and Alex’s sake? Because like it or not, the maid of honor and the best man are fated to have at least one dance together. It’s tradition.”
“Oh, no.” She waved a finger at him. “To hell with tradition.”
“Not gonna happen, sweetheart.” The corners of Dom’s mouth lifted. “I’m a traditional kind of guy.”
“I seriously doubt that.” Or he wouldn’t be sleeping around with so many women. Including me, dammit.
“It’s true. Ask around.” He extended his arms to encompass the church, which was beginning to fill up with guests.
“Nice shiner, Carew,” one of the men said as he walked by. “Fall down drunk again on the job?” As the guy continued down the aisle, he shot Dom a nasty look over his shoulder.
“What was that about?” She’d sensed real hatred coming off the man.
“Nothing,” Dom said, although from the hard line of his jaw she doubted it was. “He’s just jealous because I’m the one talking to the most beautiful woman in the church.”
Do not fall for his insincere flattery.
Dom’s face really did look like he’d walked into a door. She was sure that whatever he’d done to get that way, he deserved it. But it did present a real problem. She wanted every aspect of Alex’s wedding to be perfect, including the wedding photos, which wasn’t about to happen with Dom’s face looking like purple mashed potatoes.
She rolled her eyes heavenward, thinking she must be out of her freaking mind. Because she couldn’t believe what she was about to do next.
Daisy tossed the crumpled petals under a pew, then sent out a silent prayer and grabbed Dom’s big hand, dragging him down the aisle. With every step they took, his hand in hers brought back unwanted memories. Of his fingers skimming over her belly and breasts to her nipples. His tongue deep in her mouth while hot flames licked her from the inside out. God help her, but she’d never forget what those strong, masculine hands had done to her body that one night so long ago.
Chapter Three
As Daisy dragged Dom down the aisle, he ignored the curious looks directed their way from arriving guests.
He glanced at their linked hands and the pretty pink nail polish gracing her long, smooth fingers. It was impossible not to remember what a turn-on it had been to feel those fingers gripping his ass while he’d come inside her. Several times, he recalled.
Aside from running into her briefly six months ago when Gray had proposed to Alex at Yankee Stadium, he hadn’t seen her in a year. But seeing her again had done weird things to his body. When she’d bent down in that sexy dress to pick up flower petals, his heart squeezed. She was so incredibly beautiful, even in pale pink, which was totally opposed to her vivacious personality.
“C’mon, Detective.” She glanced over her bare shoulder, still tugging him along behind her with her ass wiggling seductively. “I don’t have all day, and we’ve got work to do.” She slowed her pace. “Hey, are you limping?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, still keeping up with her. Just the Coke bottle cap I stuck in my shoe so I wouldn’t forget to limp.
As she pulled him down the aisle he had no idea where she was taking him, but wherever it was spelled trouble. He shouldn’t be going anywhere with her, not after the way his body had reacted to seeing her again. Worse, nothing had changed. That
lively spirit that had once drawn him like a moth to a campfire was already luring him toward her irresistible flame. Luckily, she still hated his guts. But that didn’t stop him from thinking dangerous thoughts.
Like how her chestnut hair coiled expertly atop her head exposed all that creamy skin on her neck, especially the sensitive spot he’d discovered just below her ear. And how she’d thrown back her head and gasped while he’d kissed and licked her luscious breasts.
He’d loved every one of her feminine curves and the way her body smelled. Like roses and lilies and other flowers, the names of which he didn’t know. Hell, there wasn’t one part of her incredible body he’d forgotten, but most of all he remembered her eyes. Huge, expressive, whiskey-colored eyes he could get lost in and had.
She turned right after the last pew, kept going to the end of the hall, then pushed open a door. “Sit down while I cover up your bruise with makeup.” She pointed to a chair beside a round white table strewn with cosmetics.
“I don’t wear makeup,” he snapped.
“You do now.” She turned and parked her fists on her hips. “I will not let you ruin Alex and Gray’s wedding photos because you got drunk and walked into a door.”
“I did not—” Fuck. She was the last person he could tell what was really going on. Obediently, he sat. “Yes, ma’am.”
High-pitched, muffled female voices filtered through a closed door that he assumed led to another room used by the bride and her bridesmaids.
Daisy opened a small red case, riffling through the contents before pulling out a clear bag of cotton balls. She came to stand directly in front him, slightly between his legs. When her leg brushed his, his cock jerked to life. He shifted so she wouldn’t notice, but that only brought her into closer proximity. He swallowed the groan rising in his throat.
She paused with a cotton ball clutched in her fingers. “Does it hurt?”
For a split second, he imagined she actually cared whether or not he was in pain, but he doubted it. Not after what a shit I was to her.
He cleared his throat. “Not much.”
“Good.” She opened a small bottle of tan stuff and poured some of the contents onto the cotton ball. Then she dabbed the cotton ball all over the side of his face. He could have been in the most intense pain he’d ever experienced and he wouldn’t have felt a thing. Her incredible breasts were at his eye level, so torturously close all he’d have to do was lean in just a few inches and he could suck one of her silk-covered nipples into his mouth.
As if to salute his thoughts, his cock pressed against his slacks, threatening to come to full attention. Fuuuck. He was thirty-six years old. Old enough to have more control over my boners.
“So what really happened?” She continued dabbing more tan stuff onto his face. “I know you didn’t get drunk on the job.”
“How do you know that?” He raised his brows.
She paused with a cotton ball in her hand and their gazes locked. “Since the day we met, I’ve only spent a grand total of about five hours and five minutes with you, but it’s enough for me to know you wouldn’t disrespect your badge or what that badge stands for by drinking on the job.”
Well damn. He searched her lovely eyes, amazed at how well she got him. Most of his colleagues of ten years had been quick to believe he was on a drunken downward spiral, yet this woman he’d spent only a few hours with, albeit an amazing few hours, understood him well enough to know he would never jeopardize the communities he protected by getting drunk on the job.
She set the cotton ball and makeup onto the table and took a step back, narrowing her eyes as she examined his face. “Better. Let me fix this one spot.” She leaned toward the table and stumbled, falling toward him.
Instinct had him reaching out to grab her by the waist, but he had no idea what made him pull her down onto his lap. She gripped his forearms, struggling to extricate herself.
And didn’t that just get his cock all worked up even more.
“Let me go,” she hissed, glancing worriedly at the closed door. Her eyes glowed with a golden fire.
A fire meant to burn my balls off.
God, she was beautiful. And it was obvious she didn’t want Alex, Cassie, and the other two women in Alex’s bridal party to know he was in her dressing room.
He, on the other hand, didn’t give a shit who heard them. “Baby,” he said, laughing, “the more you wriggle, the more you turn me on. Or can’t you tell?” He glanced down between his legs.
Daisy froze, her hands still gripping his arms. “Let. Me. Go.” Her voice was rock solid, but her lips betrayed her by trembling, telling him she really was affected by him.
He needed to let her go, but he couldn’t. Every ounce of his being screamed with the need to claim her again. A truly stupid, incredibly bad idea. She wasn’t his and never could be. Where he was going—what he’d be doing—was too dangerous for anyone to be near him.
The adjacent door burst open and four women came into the room in a flurry of pink and white silk.
In a martial arts move he totally didn’t see coming, Daisy reared back her elbow and rammed the heel of her hand into his solar plexus, knocking the wind from his lungs.
He released his hold on her hips, and she landed solidly on her butt in a puddle of pink silk. She’d gotten him good, and it took a moment for his lungs to refill. When they did, he reached down to help her off the floor, but she batted his hands away.
“Don’t you dare touch me, you womanizing asshole.” The look she shot him made him feel every bit the dickhead he was. Her jaw was set in stone. She clenched her fists, as if readying to deck him, and her eyes still burned like hot coals.
The two women in the bridal party he didn’t know giggled and covered their mouths with their hands. Alex sent him an accusatory glare.
Only Cassie offered him a smile. “Sorry if we interrupted anything,” she said.
“You didn’t.” Daisy cleared her throat, then stood and smoothed out her skirt. “We’re done here,” she added, glaring at him one last time before sweeping past the other women and disappearing through the door.
Alex shook her head subtly in his direction, then turned to follow Daisy. “Let’s go, Emily. Moria.” She grabbed the other women’s hands and tugged them both back through the doorway.
Dom grimaced, then massaged his forehead. Great. Now his best friend’s wife-to-be was pissed at him, too.
The sound of the door closing had him looking up to see Cassie had remained behind. She looked stunning in the same pink silk dress the other bridesmaids wore. Her red hair shone brightly in the sunlight filtering through the windows, and her big green eyes held sincere warmth. He and Cassie had been partners for years before she left to move upstate and become a chef. She was one of the few people on the planet who knew him well, and one of a select few privy to his plans for the Pyramid.
“Tough day?” She drew him into a big hug.
“Fuck, yeah.” He held her close, appreciating her concern. “Something tells me it’s only just begun.”
When they came apart, she held his hand in hers. “When this is all over, you should talk to her.”
“About what?” He let out an exasperated breath. “She hates me, Cass. I hurt her, and I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me.”
Cassie leaned in, straightened his lapels, and readjusted his boutonniere. “Sure she will. As soon as you set her straight, she’ll forgive you, and you guys can start over.”
“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “Even if I’m still breathing when this op is over, that’s not a place I can go again. I never should have slept with her. It was a mistake.”
“Why?” She raised her brows. “When we were partners I lost count of all the women you slept with, and never once did you regret it. Why was she a mistake?”
“Because I—” He compressed his lips and tilted his head to the ceiling. Because I loved Anika more than life itself, and when she died part of me died with her. It had been near
ly fifteen years, but he still couldn’t imagine going through that kind of pain again. It would kill him as surely as if he held his gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Looking over the top of Cassie’s head, he stared at the closed door through which Daisy had gone.
“You let her in and you didn’t expect that to happen.” She squeezed his hand, drawing his attention back to her. “That doesn’t mean she was a mistake. It means you guys connected. You got close.”
“Yeah, for about five hours. Then I bolted.” He snorted, still feeling disgust at how he’d left Daisy sleeping in her bed while he’d snuck out like the womanizing asshole she’d correctly labeled him. “Aside from sex, no one really gets close in so little time.”
“But it was more than just sex, wasn’t it?” She pointed a finger at him. “You told me and Gray that she rocked your world. Those were the exact words you used.”
Putting his fingers to his forehead, he tried massaging away the growing ache. He never should have told Cassie or Gray how he’d felt after that night at Daisy’s place, but he’d been so goddamn moved by what had happened between them that the words had flown from his mouth before he could stop them.
“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “I’m damaged goods. I’ve been alone for so long now, I don’t think I can ever change.”
Cassie dropped her hands on his shoulders and shook him lightly. “Everyone can change. Sometimes it takes meeting the right person to push you in the direction you need—and want—to go.”
Unable to stand still, he paced in front of the stained-glass windows. “Since I got back stateside, I’ve never invited a woman to my apartment. I’ve always had sex at their place. You know why? So I could leave anytime I wanted. Sometimes after sex I’d grab my phone and pretend I’d gotten a work call so I could haul ass without having to sneak out. You know what kind of lowlife prick that makes me?”
