My Best Friend's Mardi Gras Wedding

by Erin Nicholas

  What would it be like to have all of that passion and love directed at him?

  The thought seemed to come out of nowhere, but once it settled, he realized that…he could handle that.

  He’d had girlfriends. He’d had women who he liked a lot and who liked him a lot. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever had someone passionate about him. Maybe it wasn’t just about finding someone to make an ass of himself over…maybe he wanted someone who would do the same for him.

  He shook that thought off as he took Tori’s hand. One thing at a fucking time. He needed to get her away from Andrew right now and get her mind off of Iowa and how crazy and out of the ordinary all of this was for her.

  “We’ll talk all about Fiona once I’ve given you another taste of goin’ south.” Yep that was absolutely supposed to sound dirty and judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, he’d succeeded.

  He turned Tori toward the staircase and she didn’t stop him. Even Andrew, miraculously, kept his mouth shut.

  But by the time they were standing outside room 206, Josh realized that he’d lost her. Or at least the mood. Well, fuck.

  “Please, tell me I need to run my hands up under your skirt to find the key,” he told her, trying to lighten things and get them back on hot, flirtatious ground.

  Tori scratched at said skirt. “It’s not locked.”

  He twisted the knob and pushed the door open. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder again, but somehow sensed that was the wrong move here.

  Fucking Andrew.

  Josh followed her into the room, noting the way she plucked the bodice of the dress away from her waist again and then reached inside the neckline to scratch.

  “You okay?” he asked. He wasn’t sure what to do here. That was new. He always knew what to do with women in bedrooms. He either kissed them and went from there. Or he moved the big heavy heirloom dresser from one side to the other. That was what happened when he was in Kennedy’s bedroom. Other than her, he was never in a bedroom with a woman who he didn’t want to kiss.

  That definitely included Victoria Kramer. Yet, he held back. What the hell was going on?

  “This dress is super itchy.” She scratched her hip. “And I swear the underwire bra has dug down to my fifth rib. And I think I have scratches from the sequins.”

  “Yikes.” She hadn’t seemed uncomfortable in the dress when she’d been out on the patio with him. “Maybe you should take it off.”

  “Yeah, I probably should.”

  That didn’t sound flirtatious or seductive though. “Want some help with that?” he asked, giving her one of his you-know-you-want-to-take-your-clothes-off grins. But it felt forced. And there was about six feet of distance between them.

  All of this was very out of the ordinary for him.

  “This dress was supposed to be strapless,” she said.

  He wasn’t sure why that was important right now, but he said simply, “Oh?”

  She chewed her bottom lip and nodded, watching him. “I wanted to get a strapless dress. I found a really gorgeous one that would have been perfect. But I couldn’t wear it because I have tan lines.”

  She worked outside and he knew it got hot in the summer in Iowa. “That makes sense. You probably wear tanks and T-shirts, right?”

  Tori shrugged. “I basically have a farmer’s tan.”

  He grinned. “You’re basically a farmer.”

  She actually smiled at that. “I mean, it’s been winter in Iowa and hasn’t been warm enough really for tanks yet, but I get pretty tan in the summer and the lines never fully fade, it seems.”

  He took a step forward. “Tori?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  She blew out a breath. “I guess Andrew just reminded me that I’m not really a strapless-dress-with-sequins kind of girl. I mean, I remembered that when I went to buy a dress for tonight, but I…forgot. With you. I didn’t think about the tan lines. I didn’t even feel the itching until we were standing by the stairs.”

  When fucking Andrew had stopped them.

  “You were scratching at the dress when you walked into the ballroom,” he said. It was just when Andrew was around, Josh realized. When Andrew was there, reminding her of who she was in Iowa. Or at least who he thought she was. Josh wanted Tori to realize that too.

  “You noticed that?”

  “Couldn’t take my eyes off of you the second I saw you,” he told her honestly.

  She gave him a little smile. “I guess you distracted me from all of that.”

  That was a good thing. She was comfortable and not thinking about all of the little things like not being a sequins kind of girl when she was with him.

  But she didn’t look like she thought that was a good thing.

  Josh shrugged, trying to act casual. “So, take the sequins off. I mean, naked is about as real-you as you can get, right?” But what he really felt was a bunch of emotions knotting up into a ball in his chest.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Complete with tan lines and scratches and a rash.”

  “I don’t care about any of that.” God’s honest truth right there. In fact, a little of him wanted to see all of those things. Because, for the first time maybe ever, he wanted the woman in the dress to have all of those imperfections, and to let him see them.

  Yes, he wanted her. Yes, he found her gorgeous. But he was used to women who did everything they could to look good and seductive and like hot-weekend-fling material. And he took them up on it. For sure. He wouldn’t deny that. He was a breast man. And a leg man. And an ass man. And a bright red lipstick man. He loved it all. But this was more than that.

  Tori had told him about her animals and the things that made her feel a little weird. She’d adorably stumbled on her high heels and gotten a rash from the sequins in her dress. She’d lit up when she realized he could dance, which told him she liked to dance and didn’t do it often. She’d been clearly delighted when he’d thrown her over his shoulder, which told him guys didn’t make a big deal about her or get a little caveman with her…but that she also liked when they did.

  She’d let him see little pieces of who she really was. She wasn’t here for hot sex with a Louisiana boy so she could go home and tell her girlfriends about her wild New Orleans weekend. Hell, she didn’t even really want to be here. Not at the plantation and the wedding, anyway. She was in no way at her best or her most confident and yet, he was getting to see it all.

  He liked her more and more every minute they were together and yeah, he wanted to see her tan lines. So fucking much.

  “If I take this dress off,” she said after a long moment. “I’ll be naked.”

  “Exactly.”

  “In a plantation. In Louisiana. With a hot bartender who I met at Mardi Gras and barely know.”

  All of those were reasons to get naked for the women he usually hooked up with. With Tori, of course, they were reasons she was hesitating. He was going to have to accept that this girl was different from all others in nearly every way.

  “So you’re saying that there are a lot of things going on here, besides the dress, that are not your usual style,” he said.

  She nodded. “Exactly.”

  “And Andrew reminded you of all of that.”

  She nodded again. “That’s kind of his job—part of it, anyway—as my best friend. He reminds me when I need to…dial things back.”

  Fucking Andrew. He really didn’t like that guy. “You need reminded of that?”

  “Not as much as I did growing up,” she said. “I tended toward things like punching guys in the face and smearing cow shit on girls’ dresses. Remember?”

  He couldn’t help his grin. “I remember. But Andrew didn’t approve of those things?”

  She shrugged. “He agreed with my feelings about those things and understood why I did them. But those…tendencies…got me into trouble too. I mean, I saved the kittens and got back at her about her dog, but I also had to serve detention at school for t
he fight in the parking lot and I had to pay for the prom dress.”

  Josh scowled at that. “They punished you for that stuff? Your parents went along with it?”

  “My dad grounded me in addition to the detention, and he was the one who offered to have me pay for the dress.”

  Wow. Josh stared at her. Okay, he got it. Kind of. People couldn’t go around hitting other people and ruining their stuff just because they disagreed with them. But someone should have been on Tori’s side. Josh knew he had an entire family, half a town really, that would have had his back.

  Josh tried to quell the emotions rolling through him. “So Andrew was the one who talked you out of doing stuff like that?”

  She nodded. “When he had a chance. Or he played the part of buffer if it happened before he could talk me out of it. He’d explain my views to people or tell them it wasn’t a big deal or at least reassure me that I was justified or whatever.”

  Dammit. Josh blew out a breath. Fucking Andrew. He’d been the one, maybe the only one, to have Tori’s back. He couldn’t totally hate the guy, knowing that.

  Well, okay then. “So, he was trying to talk you out of being carried upstairs to bed by a guy you barely know.”

  She didn’t agree as quickly now. “He was just…making sure I knew what I was doing and that I was okay with…any consequences.”

  “Consequences?” Josh asked.

  “He’s the one who gives me the worst-case scenario over anything I’m considering.”

  Josh scowled. “What’s the worst-case scenario here?”

  “My parents finding out from Andrew’s parents. Paisley being mad that we’d caused a scene. A broken heart after our fling is over.” She lifted a shoulder. “Stuff like that.”

  Josh ran a hand through his hair. “And he was trying to kill the mood.” That he knew for sure. Andrew might be getting married in a couple of days, but he did not like seeing Tori with another guy. There might be all kinds of reasons behind that, and maybe some were about friendship and protecting her, but Josh was a guy. He knew guys. Lots of them. Andrew’s motivations were not purely altruistic. Or platonic.

  “He was maybe trying to kill the mood too,” Tori said slowly. “Just to be sure I had a chance to think about everything.”

  Right. Great. Okay, well… “Then I’ll sleep on the floor tonight.”

  Her eyes widened. “No. Ugh.” She looked around the room. “No. You can’t sleep on the floor.”

  “Well, you’re not sleeping on the floor.” No way in hell was he putting her on the floor because she’d changed her mind about what was going on here tonight.

  She looked back at him, her expression sad and resigned. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For?”

  “Being a cock tease.”

  He snorted out a laugh. “You’re not a cock tease, Tori.”

  “I am. I gave you every reason to think that you were getting laid tonight.” She stepped forward. “I was absolutely convinced you were getting laid tonight.”

  He reached out and took her hand, tugging her close. “You asked me to come to this plantation and be your date for the wedding. That’s all you asked me to do. Everything else is just extra.”

  “Me eating crawfish pie with your grandma? You saving me from golf tomorrow by arranging the city tour?”

  He grinned. “Extra. Like a great garnish on the side of a mojito.” He loved that she’d sat at Ellie’s bar and had her first taste of crawfish pie in the shack across the road that felt like a second home to him.

  She laughed. “Playing tour guide tomorrow will be like a sprig of mint and a lime slice?”

  It would be. “You do know what I do for a living, right?”

  “You charm people into falling in love with Louisiana.”

  Her expression and tone of voice were full of affection, and the warmth of it was like a shot of whiskey. The really good stuff.

  “That’s right. And I love it,” he said, his voice inexplicably husky. “I love people. I love meeting new people and showing off New Orleans and my home state and our traditions and history. Tomorrow will be fun. And saving people from golf is a truly noble pursuit.”

  She looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes. A classic seductive move. That Josh knew was completely an accident from Tori.

  “I don’t feel the itchiness anymore,” she said quietly.

  So she wasn’t uncomfortable when she was around him. That was really good to know.

  He leaned in, kissed her on the nose, and said, “I’m gonna give you a little time and space. I’ll run down to my truck and get my bag. Why don’t you put your pajamas on, get under the covers, and…we’ll figure the rest out when I get back up here.”

  She thought about that and finally nodded. “Okay.”

  He let her go and turned for the door. He needed some air. That was a great idea. Air and space. Because something really crazy was going on.

  He suddenly didn’t want to fuck Victoria Kramer.

  But he did want to sleep with her.

  Just sleep. Cuddled up. Spooning. With pajamas on.

  What the fuck was that?

  9

  Tori did exactly as he’d suggested. She got out of the scratchy dress, examined the abrasions left behind, studied her tan lines, brushed her teeth, and got under the covers.

  The one hiccup was the putting-on-her-pajamas thing.

  Because she typically slept naked.

  So she was now wearing a tank top and panties and wondering what she was going to do with Josh. Not specifically in bed and without pajamas—though that too—but with him in general.

  Because she was pretty sure she was falling for him.

  Of course she was.

  She wasn’t good at human relationships. When she did try to have them, she went overboard. So, of course she’d be falling for the guy who was here pretending to be her boyfriend.

  Just like that stupid red, sparkly dress, she’d taken something basically simple—go buy a cocktail dress for Andrew’s party—and turned it into something awkward—a cherry red look-at-me number that upstaged the bride.

  And then it had scratched the hell out of her and been uncomfortable all night.

  Typical.

  Just like Valentine’s Day 2006.

  Andrew’s reminder had come just in time.

  She wasn’t this girl. She didn’t wear sequins and heels. She didn’t dance in ballrooms in one-hundred-and-seventy-five-year-old mansions on plantations in Louisiana. She didn’t even drink champagne. She definitely didn’t have relationships with guys who lived over a thousand miles from Elton, Iowa.

  She did, however, apparently, fall for guys that gave her a few grins and said a few sweet things and introduced her to his grandmother.

  Of course, that introduction had been an accident.

  Yet, here she was blowing it all out of proportion.

  With a loud, heartfelt groan, Tori pulled her pillow over her face. Dammit.

  She’d gotten caught up. Just like last time with Josh. Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras was another world. So was the Buckworth Plantation. So was a ballroom full of tuxedos and evening gowns and a string quartet. None of this was anything like her real life back home.

  And that definitely included Josh.

  Even if he wasn’t faking one hundred percent of this—because Lord knew that their chemistry was real and he did seem to be sincerely fond of her—the rest of everything they were doing was happening in a setting and amid a bunch of circumstances that were not real life for either of them.

  She could not be falling for him. That was ridiculous. Well, not ridiculous. It was quite easy to fall for a guy like Josh Landry. He was the quintessential vacation fling. But this was all like a dream. A fantasy. And it couldn’t last. She couldn’t get hooked on things like being twirled around a ballroom or being thrown over a guy’s shoulder.

  She was going to go home to her cows, where she wore jeans and maybe two-stepped around the bar down by the
highway once in a while. Where girls and guys met—if they hadn’t known each other since first grade—went out to dinner and movies and to ballgames and slowly spent more and more time together until one of them asked the other to move in and then eventually announced they were getting married. It was just natural and low-key and predictable. There was no pomp and circumstance. No big surprises. No running through the airport to stop a plane just in time to declare eternal love. People didn’t really do that stuff. Grand gestures were generally awkward in the real world. Even on Valentine’s Day. Even when the girl was just a freshman in high school and the whole thing was really just sweet and innocent.

  Tori groaned louder into her pillow. The embarrassment of that day was still acute now when she thought about it.

  She couldn’t fall for the grand gestures and being swept off her feet—literally.

  Josh really could ruin her for other men. And not just for sex, but for real courtship.

  Being with Josh was fun. It made her breathless. It made her heart pound. It made her laugh and feel sexy and feel like her quirks were endearing rather than weird. It had been full of surprises.

  That wasn’t how real life went.

  The two most important men in her life, her father and Andrew, had taught her that declaring her feelings and making grand statements, not to mention gestures, was generally frowned upon. Andrew had always pulled her back in an effort to protect her. Her father had always discouraged it to avoid embarrassment.

  There was a soft knock at the door just before Josh cracked it open. “You decent?”

  “Yep.” Well, she was covered up anyway.

  “Damn.” He gave her a grin as he came into the room with a duffel thrown over his shoulder.

  He’d stalled. There was no way going to his truck to grab his bag had taken this long. The fact that he realized she needed some extra time made her just like him even more. Crap.