Beautiful Beginning (6 page)

“They’re special to me,” I said, slowly blinking down to his mouth. I licked my lips as I stared at his, and he leaned in closer, instinctively. “Something old, something new. I wore these once when we were here together. Do you remember?”

Just as I suspected, his face grew impossibly more angry. “Of
course
I remember. And the ‘something old, something new’ is for the actual wedding day, not the entire week before when I’m trying to keep my hands off you.”

“I’m practicing,” I said, breathless. “In fact, there are a lot of things I’d like to practice before the wedding, Bennett. Like deep-throating.”

“Are you really trying to break me?”

I shook my head with wide, innocent eyes but said, “Yes. I really am.”

His grip on my shoulders lessened and he slumped forward, resting his forehead against mine. “Chlo . . . You know how much I want you every second.”

“I want you, too. So, I thought maybe later we could go back to the hotel and I could keep the shoes on? You could have me on my back, legs in the air . . .” I turned, kissed the shell of his ear. “Plus, I have this amazing corset on under here and—”

Bennett pushed away and turned, storming down the hall.

I took the opportunity to sneak into the women’s room to check my makeup and high-five myself in the mirror. But my martini wasn’t getting any colder, and I had some seducing to do, so I didn’t linger long.

Bennett seemed to have calmed himself by the time I returned to the table, and was sitting in the booth with Max and Will while the other men ordered drinks at the bar and the women danced a few yards away from where we sat. Bennett’s arm was slung over the back and I slid in beside him, running my palm from his knee to his upper thigh. “Hi,” I said again. “Having fun?”

He gave me a look that would have melted the face off a lesser opponent, and I grinned, leaning to kiss his neck and whispering, “I can’t wait for you to come in my mouth later.”

He coughed, practically dropping his vodka gimlet onto the tabletop, and earning a few curious looks from Will and Max across the table.

“You okay over there, Bennett?” Will asked, knowing grin in place. Had Bennett told the men about his newly donned chastity belt? I hoped he had; no one would be happier to help me in my plan to derail Bennett’s determination than Will and Max.

“Just went down the wrong pipe,” Bennett explained.

“He’s usually much better when he’s aiming it down mine,” I said in a stage whisper, and both Will and Max burst into laughter across the table. Will leaned forward to give me a high-five.

“Has he told you about his new virginity?” I asked.

“He mentioned he’s enjoying the sport of keeping you waiting,” Max said. “But for the record, Chloe, I’d like to say that those heels are fucking smashing.”

“I agree!” I said, grinning over at my fiancé.

The booth was large enough for several people, and after they’d ordered their drinks, Brian and Bull joined the four of us. For several quiet moments we sipped our cocktails, and Max and I shared an amused grin when we heard Sara’s cackle across the room.

“That’s your girl over there,” I said.

He raised his glass to me, cheeks flushed, and murmured, “Indeed it is,” before taking a sip.

I looked over at Sara and laughed. “Actually, that’s your girl over there with a big belly . . . carrying a tray of shots.”

He looked up and groaned, standing to walk over. His words drifted out of earshot after we heard him say, “Sare, love, that’s too heavy . . .”

“He is
whipped
,” Will murmured.

“Don’t even start on that, Sumner,” Bennett said with a shake of his head. “You can barely keep your tongue in your mouth around Hanna.”

Will shrugged and leaned back in the booth, not even hiding the way he looked over at his girlfriend and studied every inch of her exposed legs.

I let my eyes move around the men at the table and wondered if they were being relatively quiet because they wanted me to leave so they could discuss guy things, like penises and basketballs and toilets. But I was so comfortable, and the weight of Bennett’s arm around my shoulder was too perfect to want to move. The only way I would move is if it was to climb into his lap and wiggle a little.

I started to execute this brilliant idea, but he stopped me with a tight grip on my shoulder. “Don’t you
dare
.”

“Are you hard?” I asked quietly, just loud enough for him to hear.

He shot me a look. “No.”

I licked my lips and felt my pulse take off when his eyes dropped to my mouth and he leaned a little closer. “How about now?”

“You’re impossible, woman.” He moved away, reaching for his drink.

A large tattoo of a woman’s face on Bull’s arm caught my eye and I leaned close to Bennett again, but he leaned away.

“No, come here,” I said, pulling at his T-shirt. “I have a question. I swear I’m not going to lick your ear.” Reluctantly he leaned close enough for me to quickly lick his ear before asking, “Who is that on Bull’s arm?”

He studied it for a second before turning to whisper, “I think that’s his girlfriend—or ex-girlfriend?—Maisie. They’ve been on-again, off-again since they were teenagers.”

I absorbed this information: Bull might currently be “on” with this Maisie woman and was hitting on every vagina under forty in the wedding party. “Are you kidding me?”

“I wish.”

I studied it as casually as I could; the last thing I wanted to do was raise Bull’s attention and let him think I was checking him out. But the tattoo was enormous, practically the size of my entire hand, and incredibly detailed. It had been hidden at the dinner the night before under his dress shirt, but now, in casual clothing, the entire thing was revealed, in full color. Basically, it was Maisie’s face, neck, and chest stopping just where the hint of her breasts began to swell.

Turning back to Bennett, I whispered, “Jesus. She must be bringing it. I know how to suck a dick but no one has ever tattooed my face on their skin.”

Bennett went still, hand frozen where he had just reached for his glass.

“I don’t expect you to tattoo
my face
on your arm, Mr. Ryan, settle down.”

He exhaled heavily, bringing the glass to his lips and saying, “That’s good,” before he took a sip.

“But I would like to suck your dick so hard you promise to do it anyway,” I said and laughed as he planted his hand on my back and shoved me out of the booth, telling me to go play with the girls for a bit.

We danced, and drank; Hanna and Mina were an unstoppable combination of inappropriate, and had all of us laughing until our sides hurt on the dance floor. It was a perfect night: out with all of my favorite people in the entire world, surrounded by my girlfriends while the love of my life hate-loved me with fiery intensity from across the room.

And, because they were fully on my side in this ridiculous abstinence business, Max and Will came and joined us and surrounded me, dancing and teasing, lifting me up and carrying me to Bennett for an upside-down, drunken kiss.

“I love you anyway,” I told him as he scowled down at me. “And I’m going to break you tonight.”

He shook his head, giving in to the smile he was trying to fight. “I love you anyway, too. And you can try your hardest, but it won’t work. You’re not getting my dick again until we’re married.”

We brushed our teeth side by side and studied each other in the mirror. I was wearing a thick cotton robe over my weapon of mass seduction, but Bennett wore only his boxers, so I took some time to appreciate his naked torso. I loved his man nipples, the dusting of hair on his chest, and the definition of his shoulders, chest, and stomach. I lovingly counted the six-pack and then stared at the trail of hair leading from his belly button to beneath his boxer briefs. I wanted to lick that line and then taste the smooth skin of his cock.

“Did you take a sleeping pill again?”

He shook his head, mouth wide as he brushed his back molars.

“I like your body,” I said around a mouthful of toothbrush.

He flashed me a foamy toothpaste smile. “Likewise.”

“Can I give you head?”

He bent to spit and rinse his mouth before saying simply, “No.”

“Want to give me a quickie from behind?”

He wiped his face on a towel and then placed a peck on the top of my head. “No.”

“Handie?” I asked to his retreating form as he left the bathroom.

“No.”

I washed my face and walked out into the bedroom to join him. He was already under the covers, reading some political nonfiction book.

“I’m going to try to not be insulted that there’s a military man on the cover of that book and you just turned down a blow job.”

“Let me know how that works out for you,” he said, giving me a little wink.

Shrugging, I stripped out of my robe and stood near him, wearing a tiny mint-green thong with a skirt overlay in silk chiffon with delicate floral embroidery and matching sheer bra. Thin silken garters held up the softest nude stockings I’d ever worn.

He glanced up and did a quick double take, exhaling, “Christ,” under his breath.

“Just some comfy jammies,” I said, hopping over him and climbing under the covers. “I just love sleeping next to you when I’m wearing silk garters and these flimsy,
expensive
panties.”

He adjusted the pillows behind his back and returned to his book, but I counted to one hundred before he even turned his attention from one page to the next, so I could tell there was no way he was actually reading anything.

Sliding the covers down to expose my upper thighs, I curled into his side, humming. “You should feel these stockings. They’re so
delicate
. I bet you could just look at them and they’d rip.”

Bennett coughed, and then smiled patiently down at me. “I’m sure they would. I bought them for you, after all.”

“But I’m just not sure I should sleep in them.” I frowned thoughtfully. “Can you help me take them off?”

He hesitated for a beat, staring at his book before turning and placing it carefully on the bedside table. And then he peeled the blankets all the way off my legs and studied me in the muted light of the table lamp.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmured, bending to kiss my neck, my collarbone, and the top swell of my breast.

Victory exploded with adrenaline in my veins and I closed my eyes, arching my spine so he could unclasp my bra, lifting my ass so he could carefully remove the tiny skirt around my panties. But I opened my eyes, studying him as he gently peeled the stockings down my legs, planting only a single kiss on the inside of each knee.

Something was off.

When I lay only in my panties, Bennett looked up at me and smiled wickedly before grasping them and sliding them down my legs, dropping them
undamaged
on the floor beside the bed.

“Better?” he asked, stifling a laugh.

I glared at him, trying to burn a hole in his forehead with my eyes. “You’re a prick.”

His eyes danced. “I know.”

“Do you know how much I want to feel you on top of me? Did you not
see
that lingerie? It was ridiculous! You could have ripped it with your
teeth
!”

“It was stunning.” Bennett bent and kissed my mouth so sweetly, so fully, that my chest squeezed almost painfully in pleasure. “I know how much you want it. I want it, too.” He nodded to his shorts, where he was so hard I could see the tip of his cock pressing up from beneath the waistband. “I’m asking you to trust me.”

He reached to turn off the light, and then turned so that he was on his side facing me. “Tell me you love me.”

I ran my hands up his bare chest and into his hair. “I love you.”

“Now go to sleep. Tomorrow is a big day. The rest of the guests arrive, we rehearse our wedding, and I am one day closer to being your husband. After that, I will never deny you again.”

He kissed me slowly, all firm, warm lips, no tongue, no sounds, just his mouth on mine, sweetly sucking and soothing me until I felt serene, and doted on, and even drowsy enough to imagine I could fall asleep next to this man and not need to be worn-out from orgasms.