by Emma Nichole
Throughout the entire ceremony, we are absolutely fucking each other with our eyes. It’s impossible to deny, and there is nothing else I could call it. I want to eat him alive in that suit, and based on the looks I’m getting from him, I think he approves of what I’m wearing as well.
Weddings are foreplay. This is fact now. I am convinced and no one can change my mind.
My body had foolishly forgotten what last night felt like, but that all came rushing back like a tidal wave when I saw him and now my skin is tingling, craving any kind of touch from him.
I’ll catch a smile from him and it sends heat up my spine. He must know because he slides his hand over his mouth to cover the fact he’s laughing at me, and I just shake my head at him.
When the ceremony ends, and we have a newly married couple among us, the bridal party makes their way, arm in arm, back down the aisle and through the doors.
I stand, eager to make my way to the reception area and into the arms of a very handsome fireman.
Isaac
I wasn’t ready to see her in that dress.
I simply couldn’t have been prepared for what that sight was going to do to me. She looked like a bombshell sitting in the chair, and now that I see her walking toward me as a full picture, hell if she isn’t the sexiest woman in the room.
“Goddamn. Look at you,” I extend my hand out for her to take.
“Do you like it?” she asks, doing a bit of a spin, showing me her bare back, save for the slinky crossed straps.
“Like it is an understatement. I fucking love it.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” She meets my eyes again. “It was a beautiful ceremony.”
“It was and the guests weren’t too bad either.” I slide my hand around from her hip to the small of her back and pull her in to me. “I got your text.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” I nod and lean forward for a kiss. It’s soft and sexy. I can feel her breath shudder just a bit when I break the connection to speak again. “I don’t regret anything either.”
“Good,” she says, as she slides her hands up my chest and then straightens my tie. “You clean up really nicely, Mr. Black.”
“Don’t get used to it. I’m not a fan of ties.”
“And I’m not a fan of heels.” She angles her leg out of the thigh-high slit in her dress to show me her shoes. “But here we are.”
“Jesus Christ,” I say under my breath. “I didn’t know you were hiding fuck-me shoes under there.”
“I guess I was hoping to surprise you with them later.” She brushes herself up against me very, very purposefully then takes my hand. “Darn.”
I don’t get to respond to her before we are called to take our places inside the reception area, but my cock isn’t so lucky. His reaction is stiff and obvious.
So that’s the game we are going to play tonight, is it?
Game on then.
***
The next two hours pass with soft caresses to the bare skin of her back while we are eating dinner and in a stolen kiss when the lights dim for the first dance. It’s as if what happened between us last night has opened a floodgate of need between us that is so apparent; it’s basically glowing. She places her hand on my thigh while she talks to Caleb about something happening at their school, and I do the same in turn, but a little higher and squeeze. She seems to like that. Every time I do it, she clears her throat, and I laugh.
The party is in full swing as the sun sets on the hills of Napa Valley. Music is blaring and guests are dancing. Alcohol is flowing and everyone is smiling... happy. But that’s not where my focus is. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off of Sawyer.
Not as she took Finn up on his offer of a dance or when she was chatting it up with Danielle when she and Christopher came around to mingle with each table. And not now, as she checks her makeup in a small compact mirror she pulled from the shockingly tiny bag on her wrist.
She spots me in the mirror and smiles. “What?”
“Nothing. I’m just watching you.”
“Creep.” She smiles and puts the compact away. “You know, you haven’t asked me to dance yet.”
“Your time seems to have been monopolized by my friends. I was simply waiting my turn.”
I take her hand just as the song changes to a slow, sensual beat.
“Dance with me?” I ask, as I stand then pull her in so I can whisper in her ear. “I want to feel you against me.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
I lead her toward the dance floor, which is just an open area on the patio lined with lights and flowers, and we slowly begin to move.
“You’re good at this,” she tells me.
“My Grams made me take lessons when I was a kid. She said any decent man would be able to sweep a woman off her feet in a dance. I always pushed back, never wanted to go, but I learned over the years that it comes in handy.”
“You use your dancing prowess on other girls often?” She arches her brow with the question.
“Not often, but it’s come in clutch a time or two, yes.”
She giggles, “Well, remind me to thank her one day.” Her eyes immediately widen and she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to assume you’d even want to properly introduce me to her.”
I pull her in closer to stop her talking. “Sawyer. Stop. It’s okay.” I chuckle. “You’ve met my Grams already, right?”
“Not because you wanted me to. It was an accidental meeting.”
“I would gladly take you to see her again, and I’ll gladly introduce you to her again when you are ready.”
“Where did you come from?”
“What do you mean?”
“How are you so... perfect? You’re an anomaly to me, Isaac. I’ve never met a man like you before.”
“I hope that’s a good thing.”
“It is.”
Her high heels even out our height enough so I only have to dip just a little to let our lips touch.
We kiss softly as we dance through three more songs. It’s like no one else is even in the room when she is in my arms. All that matters is what is right in front of me, and that’s her.
***
“Have something to tell us?” Caleb and Finn corner me by the bar when Sawyer excuses herself to the bathroom.
“Uh... what are you talking about?”
“We are talking about the fact we’ve never seen you with anyone the way you’re with Sawyer. You seem so... content,” Finn says with a wave of his arm. “Old Isaac would have already had a bridesmaid in a coat closet somewhere.”
I rub my chin and chuckle. “Old Isaac is tired. New Isaac would much rather put his energy into the stunner on his arm.”
“Did you see Isabelle is here?”
“What? Where?” I turn around and glance over at the bar and out on the dance floor.
As if she had heard us mention her name, Isabelle appears at my side.
“Hi, Isaac,” she says softly. “I’m glad to see you’re alive.”
“On that note,” Caleb announces, “Finn, let’s go see if we can find... well... anything other than this.”
The two of them disappear back into the crowd, leaving me with a very despondent looking Isabelle.
“I forgot you were going to be here,” I tell her honestly, because at the end of the day, I probably would have made sure not to rub Sawyer in her face.
“Well, we did all go to school together, Isaac. Christopher is my friend too.”
“I know that, Bells. It just slipped my mind you’d be here.”
“You haven’t been returning my texts or my calls. Though, I can see now why that’s the case. She’s very pretty.”
Guilt eats at me. Isabelle and I were never official, we never would have been, but I do consider her a friend, and I know how she feels about me. Ignoring her was a dick move of the highest degree.
“She is,” I agree apologetically, because there is nothing else I can say that will make her fee
l any better.
“You know, you could have just told me, Isaac. Telling me to my face would have been better than ghosting me completely.”
Isabelle started off as the easiest casual fling. It was fun, it was hot, and then I could feel something shift a few months ago, and it was a shift I didn’t reciprocate. I should have broken it off with her then, but I’m an asshole who was more worried about continuing our arrangement than protecting her feelings.
“Listen, this isn’t the place for this conversation, but it needs to happen. It should have happened sooner, and I’m sorry it didn’t. You deserved better than that.”
“You’re right, I did, and I’m so hurt by your lack of respect in that way. That’s not the Isaac I know.”
“I have always been fond of you, Isabelle, but I think we both know it would have never worked.”
“I don’t know that. You just weren’t willing to try.”
“I just don’t see you in that way, Bells.” It’s brutal, it’s honest, but it’s real.
“But I was good enough to fuck?”
“We talked about this before we even started sleeping together, Bells. You’re my friend and I didn’t want that to change.”
She looks down at her feet then back up to me with a glistening of tears in her eyes.
She shrugs then swipes them away before they can fall down her face. “I should have known better, really. You’ve never been the type to commit, and you made it clear what you wanted when we first started. I guess the romantic in me thought I’d be different.”
“I don’t want you to take this as it meaning anything negative about you, Bells. Can you promise me that?”
“No, but I’ll try. I only want good things for you, you know?”
“And I want the same for you, and I still want to be friends.”
“To be fair, Isaac, friends is something I’ll have to think about. You understand, don’t you?” She reaches out and wipes something from my suit.
“I do, and you know I’m always here for you, right?”
“I know,” she pushes up on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. “She’s very lucky.”
Chapter 16
Sawyer
I’ve never been a jealous person. It’s just not a feeling I have felt often in my life, and for that I’ll be forever grateful because if what I’m feeling right now is jealousy, I never want to experience it again.
It feels like there is a one-hundred-pound weight on my chest and my skin is prickling in awareness when I see him standing with a stunning blonde in an even more stunning pink baby doll dress.
I recognize her instantly as the one he was on a date with when we first met. She was very comfortable with him then, putting her hands all over him, and it’s no different now. She touches his chest then his arm, and to make matters worse, he’s just letting her.
I have no claim on him. He’s not my boyfriend officially and we’ve never had the conversation about seeing each other exclusively, so in reality, I have reason or right to feel things.
But that doesn’t change the fact my stomach is in my feet and my throat is tightening up in an unexpected bout of emotion.
I tend to cry when I’m frustrated. I don’t know how to process anything without crying.
It’s embarrassing really. The last thing I want to do is cry in the middle of a wedding reception, so I turn on my heel and head back across the main entryway toward our room.
***
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, scrolling through my phone, trying to sort my thoughts when I hear the keycard slide through the lock. When the door swings open, Isaac walks through the door looking as fucking beautiful as ever. It literally makes it hard for me to breathe.
“There you are.” He closes the door and steps up to me. “Are you all right? I was looking for you.”
“I just needed to catch my breath a little,” I tell him, and it’s not quite a lie. I don’t want to be that girl right now. The girl who freaks out simply because he was speaking to another female.
“Catch your breath? Is something wrong?”
He walks over to lean against the wall directly in front of me.
I toss my phone aside and look up at him.
“I saw you with that woman. I don’t remember her name, but I met her with you at the Harvest Festival.”
“Isabelle,” he sighs and slides his hand through his hair. “That was—”
I hold up my hand to stop him. “Let me get this out before I lose my nerve.”
He just nods. “Okay.”
“I saw you with her and I felt this blackness in my gut. I was so jealous it was making me feel sick. I’ve never been that way in my entire life, ever, not over anything. Not when I was a kid, and my neighbor had a Barbie Jeep that I wanted. Not when I was in high school and this girl I couldn’t stand started dating my crush. Jealousy has never been an issue for me... until I saw her touch you. I didn’t like it and I don’t like feeling this way.”
Nervous energy is pumping through my veins so I stand to walk across the room before I continue, “And I know that sounds crazy because you and I are so fresh and so new. I have no right to feel any type of way about you having a conversation with someone or even kissing someone. It’s not my business, but seeing you with her made me realize I really like you, Isaac.” I turn to face him so I can look at him in his eyes when I say this. “I really, really like you, and I hated seeing her touch you. I just want... you.”
I expect him to say something to me, but instead, he just stands there for what seems like an eternity with a fucking grin on his face.
“Isaac, I need you to say something. I just bared my soul to you... please.”
“I would rip the world apart if I saw someone else touching you, Sawyer, and if I have my way, I’ll ruin you for anyone else.”
Like a tiger unleashed from his cage, Isaac storms across the room and grabs the back of my neck and yanks my lips to his.
When I was a teenager, and still living in Tennessee with my family, I would go to these cliffs with my friends at a lake the next town over. We had to park our cars at the swimming hole then hike our asses through the woods, uphill, just to get to them. It was the perfect clearing to the ledge, overlooking the sparkling lake and I’d always take a running start down to the path and jump with my arms over my head, enjoying that split-second rush of adrenaline before I hit the water below.
That same rush is in my stomach now as Isaac backs me up against the wall and kisses his way down my neck, except it isn’t going away. My stomach is in knots, flipping and moving about as adrenaline pumps into my body.
That’s what Isaac does for me.
He gives me the ultimate rush.
I feel his strong hands slide from my shoulders, down my forearms then his fingers lace into mine.
“Look at me,” he demands, and I do. His eyes are dark, predatory, but they are still his—filled with softness and respect.
He leans down and presses a soft kiss to the tip of my nose then slowly raises our linked hands skyward and pins mine to the wall behind me, over my head.
“Your heart is racing,” he whispers, as he lays kisses across my chest and I drop my head back with a thud against the wall.
“Mmm,” I whimper. “I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be nervous, baby,” he speaks directly into my ear, and it tickles all the way to my toes. “I want this. I want you. It’s just me and you. No reason to be nervous.”
“I was worried you’d be angry,” I say, flexing my fingers around his. “But I had to tell you. I had to let you know how I feel.” He presses his knee between my legs and I cry out at the delicious pressure. “Oh my God, more.”
“I had always thought about what our first time would be like.” He trails kisses along my jaw as he talks. “In my mind, I always thought it would be rough, like we couldn’t get enough of each other.” He lowers my arms from the wall and guides them around his shoulder then leaves them there to encircle me
with his. “I wanted to ravage you, to fuck you so hard you couldn’t walk the next day.”
He’s never talked to me this way before. It’s so dirty, so forbidden, and I fucking love it.
I slide my hands up into his hair, destroying any semblance of style that it had, and burying my fingers in, scratching at his scalp. We are both still fully clothed, but I’ve never felt so raw, so wanted, in my entire life.
“Don’t you still want that?” I ask, moving my hips slightly, trying to find a bit of friction against his thigh.
“Fuck yeah, I do, but that was before I got to know you as a human, Sawyer. Before I saw how beautiful you are on the inside as well as the outside, and now, I just want to worship at your fucking feet.”
He grips each of my ass cheeks and hoists me into the air. Thank God for the slit in my dress giving me the access I need to wrap my thighs around his strong body. My center is pressed right above his belt, and the apparent sex-starved animal I am begins to grind up against his hard abdomen. Each move sends a tingle down my legs and my toes curl into my still worn pumps.
“You’re going to kill me,” he groans into my neck, then leans back to look at me.
“But what a way to go.” I roll my lips together then smile.
He spins us around to hold me up against one of the four posts of the bed. The wood is thick and smooth against my skin. He angles his hips to anchor me so he can free up his hands to shed his jacket with my help. I can feel the hard length of his cock pressing against the skin where my ass and thigh meet.
Fuck, he’s big.
“You’re still shaking,” he says, as he pushes some hair from my face. “Put your hands on my chest.” I place my hands in the center of this chest and I can feel his heart positively racing under my touch. “Feel me. Feel what you make me feel.”
“I’m shaking from nerves, from adrenaline, and because I want you so badly my body is on fire. Every nerve ending I have is awake and pulsing. I’ve never felt this before,” I tell him softly. Not able to produce much of a sound at all. All of my energy is going to the feelings in my body.
