Their Wicked Wedding (7 page)

And no Mr. Harker will convince me otherwise.

* * *

I spent far too long in the storage locker. The sun has set by the time I arrive back at the estate, and I know I’m going to have some explaining to do.

I head to my room first and drop the journal on the desk. I’ll deal with it later. My stomach is rumbling—berating me for skipping lunch—and when I check my watch, I realize it’s almost seven o’clock. Dinner was at six.

Cursing myself, I race from the room. Louisa is going to kill me, if Lily doesn’t get to me first. And unfortunately, I don’t have to wonder about my fiancée’s reaction for very long. I’m halfway down the back stairs when I run into Lily, who’s on her way up. Her eyes widen in surprise when she sees me, and then she glances back down the stairs, confusion on her face.

“Were you in your room all this time?” she says. “I knocked when dinner was ready.”

It would be easy to lie, I know. To tell her I fell asleep. Or claim I was in the shower. But I don’t want to lie to Lily, not outright. Even if she doesn’t believe that after the events of the past two days.

“I was out on an errand for most of the day,” I say. I continue down the stairs until I’m on the same step as her, and I watch her lips purse slightly as she processes my words.

“A work errand?” she says, obviously trying to fill in the gaps. Her voice is even, but I can see the struggle in her eyes. She’s trying to be patient with me, trying to give me the chance to explain myself. But I know her too well. Her eyebrows are just a touch too close together. She’s restraining her temper, and though I know I should be ashamed of myself, there’s something incredibly sexy about that spark in her eyes.

“I’m here now,” I say, moving closer to her. “And I don’t want to think about work anymore.”

She raises an eyebrow when she catches the suggestion in my voice. “If you think you can just slink in here and—”

I grab her by the hips and pull her toward me. It wasn’t my intention to be so forward, not without explaining myself first. But now that she’s here in front of me, I want to forget about everything else. I always seem to forget how much she affects me, but after spending a day locked in my own head, the feeling is overwhelming.

I hold her body against mine, and before she can protest, I kiss her. She sucks in a little breath, and I can’t tell whether she’s surprised or whether she’s about to argue with me, but she doesn’t try to pull away. I deepen the kiss, devouring her, enjoying the velvet softness of her lips. There’s a hint of something sweet on her mouth—the last remnants of some dinner wine, maybe. I slide my tongue along her lips, trying to catch every last bit of the sweetness, and she sighs. Her body relaxes in my arms, and she begins to melt against me.

And then suddenly she jerks away, pushing back from my chest.

“That’s not how this works,” she says. There’s no denying that she enjoyed our kiss—her cheeks are flushed, and her breasts rise and fall with quick, shallow breaths—but all it takes is one look at her eyes to know she won’t let me get away with that again. Which is a shame, because even that brief meeting of lips has left me burning for more. And—though I’d never admit it to her—I can’t help but see that irritated look in her eyes as a challenge.

But I also know when to tread carefully. I wait for her to speak.

“What’s going on here, Calder?” she says.

How should I respond to that? Confess that I’m slowly going mad? That some stranger has appeared out of the blue to claim that he’s my father’s son, and the very possibility threatens to push me over the edge? In the past year, I’ve done everything in my power to find that sense of family again—but now that someone else is asking for that connection, I find myself rejecting the claim down to my very core. I don’t know how to explain it. I hardly understand it myself. And this is not the sort of burden I want to place on Lily right before our wedding.

Carefully, I cup her face between my hands. She looks up at me with those big, beautiful eyes of hers—eyes that even now send a bolt of desire straight to my groin—and in their depths, beneath that flicker of annoyance, I see what I feared to find in her. Worry. Concern. Doubt. I know those emotions come from a place of love, but they’re also exactly why I don’t want to share these things with her. I don’t want her to worry about anything this week. I want her to know only joy and hope and excitement. She deserves that much.

And I make my decision.

“I know I’ve been a little strange these past few days,” I say. “And I’m sorry. But I promise you, I’m done being distracted.” And I mean it. How can I not, with that lovely face looking up at me? When I’m here with her, it’s so easy to disregard everything else.

She shakes her head slightly. “But—”

“No
buts
,” I insist. “I’m done. For the rest of the week, it’s you and me. No work. No distractions.”
No more investigations.
I’m not even going to spare a thought for Taran Harker.

She doesn’t look convinced.

“Lily,” I say gently. “I know I’m doing a poor job of this. And I deserve every criticism you might have of my behavior these past few days. But I swear, there is nothing in this world that means more to me right now than our wedding.”

All traces of anger are gone from her expression. But the worry is still there.

“I mean it,” I assure her. And I do. “This week is about you and me. Nothing else.”

Slowly, I pull her face toward mine. My lips brush against hers once, then again, trying to show her with a touch what I can’t quite find the words to say. Her mouth softens with each kiss, until finally her lips open beneath mine again.

“Kissing… doesn’t make… everything better… you know,” she murmurs between each meeting of our mouths.

“But it certainly doesn’t hurt,” I counter, pressing my body against hers. She makes a small sound in her throat.

This
is what this week is about. The way she melts in my hands. The way my body aches in response to hers. The way she can make everything else in this world disappear with just the whisper of her breath on my skin. We belong to each other, and this weekend, we’ll make it official. She’ll be mine forever.

I catch her in my arms and lower her slowly down onto the stairs. Her arms come around me, and her nails dig into my shoulders as she pulls me closer.

And I continue to move my mouth against hers, drinking her in breath by breath, growing drunk on her sweet softness, getting hungrier with every flick of her tongue. From the moment I first saw her, my desire for her has only grown. I used to tire so easily of women: they always satisfied me for a time, but I always reached a point where I’d had my fill and began to hunger for other things. After all—one might think they can eat their favorite food every day for every meal, but time reveals the truth: that the tongue grows weary of the same flavor over and over again.

But with Lily…

My desire for her still grows every day. My need for her deepens with every word that passes between us. With every look we share. With every touch of her skin against mine.

The tips of her fingers brush my neck, and I involuntarily let out a growl.

She breaks her lips away from mine, and I drop my mouth to her throat. The skin there is so soft—softer even than her lips. And though it’s not as sweet, I could spend hours devouring the delicate column of her neck kiss by kiss, lick by lick. I nibble at her with my teeth. Gently—for though I would love to leave my mark on her, I have a feeling she won’t appreciate any bruises in our wedding photographs.

“Calder—” she begins, but her voice cuts off when I nip at her neck again.

And there’s somewhere still sweeter I want to taste.

She’s wearing a skirt today, thank God. I push it up over her hips.

“Calder,” she says once more, and this time her tone is a warning.

I cup her face again. My thumbs brush against her cheeks. My fingers skim across her ears. She’s so precious. So perfect. And she’s
mine.

“You’re my world,” I tell her. “Everything else is just noise. Just distraction.”

I can see her whole heart in her eyes. Her love for me. Her passion. And there—just when I thought I’d convinced her that everything was fine—her worry, still a flicker of shadow in their depths.

“I love you,” I tell her. “And I want to show you that. Please, let me show you. Let me be with you.”

I kiss her again, and when my lips come down on hers, she responds with hunger, tightening her arms around me and holding me close. I catch her by the hips and hold her to me, as if I could pull her right into me, and I know that all other worries are behind us. Nothing can shake this.

I need her. I need to bury myself in her goodness, her hope, her love. But I still want to taste her first.

I drop down a few steps so I can more easily reach the haven between her legs. She can’t completely lie back on the stairs, but her half-reclined position gives me perfect access. I flip her skirt all the way past her waist and spread her thighs, gazing with longing at the sweet, dark pink folds that wait for my tongue.

I keep my hands on her legs and stroke her gently as I move my face closer to her. I love the way she smells—like sweat and desire. The scent invades me, making my already-hard cock throb. If I were a patient man, I’d spend some time just savoring that heady aroma.

But I’m not patient.

The first lick is always the sweetest. Her intimate flavor explodes across my taste buds, and her flesh quivers against my tongue. Her thighs clench in response to my delicate attack, but I continue to hold them apart.

The second taste is deeper. This time she hums a sound of pleasure, and I resist the urge to bite down on her. There will be time for roughness later. But it’s hard to be gentle when her hands come down on my head and her fingers curl against my scalp, searching for purchase in my short hair. My own fingers dig into her thighs as I bury my tongue deeper in her folds. Everything is heat and hunger. I know nothing but her. My dear, delicious, wicked little Lily. My precious little minx.

I lick my way from one end of her to the other. And then I follow the same trail with kisses—light, teasing touches of my lips. She writhes in frustration, the wicked little thing. I want to devour every bit of her. When I’m here, everything feels right again.

“Let’s forget the wedding,” I rasp against her.

“Hm?”

I lift my head. The first time I said them, the words just spilled out, no doubt a result of my stressful afternoon. But now that I’ve decided to be free of Taran Harker and his lies, now that I’ve fully embraced the wonders in front of me, I find myself repeating them with some conviction.

“Let’s forget the wedding,” I say again. “Let’s just go down to the courthouse. Or run off to Vegas together.”

She’s gone completely rigid. I loosen my grip and reposition myself so I can get a better look at her face. But her head is still tilted back, still resting against the stair several steps above me.

“Just you and me,” I say gently. “You and me and the promises we’ll be making. We don’t need this house or the wedding or any of the distractions.”

This time she sits up completely, and I know the moment I see her face that I’ve said something wrong. She grabs my hands and pushes them off of her thighs, then pulls her skirt back down her legs.

“And what’s distracting us here?” she says, her eyes flashing. “Why do you suddenly want to run away?”

“It’s not about running away.” I ache to pull her into my arms again, to taste her again, but I know that won’t help my cause.

“What is going on with you?” she says.

I’m a desperate man. And I need her.
That
is what’s going on. But I force myself to take a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ve just been stressed.”

“No shit.” She starts to get to her feet. “I don’t know what—”

“Spend the night with me,” I say, desperate to go back to a moment ago when everything was right with the world. I rise to my feet beside her.

“No,” she says with a jerk of her hand. “Not like this.”

“Not like what?” I try to pull her into my arms. “Are you still insisting on sleeping apart until the wedding? I don’t care about stupid traditions, Lily. I just want to be with you.”

But she pulls away from me. “It’s not a stupid tradition, Calder. The only reason I even suggested it was for you!”

“I don’t know where you got the idea that abstaining from sex would—”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

Honestly, no, I don’t. I don’t see what’s so wrong about wanting to spend the night with her.

“I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn about this,” I say. “I love you, and I want you in my arms tonight. Is that suddenly a crime?”

“It’s not a crime, but—”

“Then what’s the problem? Why can’t we just have one night to ourselves? One night away from everything else?”

If I’d made any headway with my arguments, it’s gone at those words. She gives an almost violent shake of her head and steps away from me.

“Come and find me when and if you’re willing to talk about whatever it is that has you acting like a complete idiot.” She pushes past me. “And I mean actually
talk.
Not have sex and pretend you aren’t completely out of your mind.”