One word. That single word had the power to turn off the sane part of my brain and give her what she wanted. I was risking her parents—and my own—hearing us, but not even the thought of the death that possibly awaited me if Jesse Thornton heard the noises I could pull from his daughter as she came all over my cock could stop me.
I groaned and tugged her hips to the edge of the sink. She was still stroking my cock and rubbed the tip over her wet lips. “Fucking hell.”
“Shh,” she whispered with a sly little smile. “Don’t want anyone to hear us, remember.”
“Right now, I don’t care if the goddamn pope hears, Lu.” I cupped her tits through her dress in both hands. They fit so perfectly in my palms, as if her body had been made for me and me alone. And it had been, because I sure as fuck wasn’t ever going to let another man have so much as a taste of her perfection.
The first thrust into her had us both holding our breaths. Our gazes locked and everything around us disappeared. I didn’t see the mirror behind her or the rose-colored walls. All I saw was the way her pupils dilated as I moved inside of her, the way her lips parted as she panted and then bit into the plump flesh of the bottom one as she whimpered. I didn’t hear the soft music playing overhead. I was deaf to every sound but those little sounds of pleasure that were like a physical stroke down my spine.
“I love you,” she moaned as I increased the pace.
“Love you,” I growled out as I shifted her hips so I could dive deeper into her. “Always.”
“I’m close,” she sobbed.
“I know, sweetness. I can feel you contracting around me already.” I caught her lips in a hard kiss, my fingers digging into the tender flesh where hip and thigh connected. “You been aching all day, Lu?”
“All day,” she panted, her nails digging into my hips as she held on tighter. “Every day.”
Her walls clamped down on my cock as her release hit her hard. I stopped moving, stopped breathing as I watched her fall apart for me and felt just how powerful her orgasm was. Her eyes closed, and her head fell back onto her shoulders as she let go of the control she had been attempting to assert over the noises she always made.
I covered her mouth with my own and started driving into her like a man possessed. Those fucking sounds had the power to wreck me, and now was no different. A few hard thrusts and then I was emptying deep inside her still-quivering body.
--
It was several long minutes later before either of us could move again. I could feel Lucy’s heart still pounding, but it only matched the tempo of my own. I touched my lips to her shoulder, loving the salty taste of her sweat mixed with something sweet and forbidden. Her hands had found their way under my suit jacket and were stroking up and down my spine.
This was always my favorite part. When we were both too spent to think of anything to say and just basked in the aftermath of falling apart in each other’s arms. This was what I craved every single time, even before I slipped inside her perfect body. This moment when she knew I loved her, and I could feel her own love vibrating into me like a living entity.
A tap on the door had us both lifting our heads to glare at the damn thing as reality began to set in again. Shit, we were at our engagement party. Our parents were out there somewhere, possibly even on the other side of the door.
I was a dead man if Jesse Thornton had just heard his only daughter screaming as she’d come all over my still-hard cock.
The tap came again. “Lucy,” Kin’s voice called out, and we both released a relieved breath. “I can’t keep your Mom back much longer, babe. She’s…concerned.”
“I-I’ll be out in five,” Lucy called back.
“Promise?”
“Promise,” she said. “I just need…”
“Yeah, I know what you need,” Kin said with a laugh. “Stop worrying, though. I stood guard out here and didn’t let anyone near the bathrooms.”
“I love you!”
“I know,” she sassed back. “Hurry your sexy ass up, though.”
I finally pulled out of Lucy’s soaked body and reached for a stack of paper towels. Wetting them, I cleaned her up before righting her clothes. The only visible proof of our lovemaking was her swollen lips and tangled hair. She combed her fingers through it while I worked on my own clothes.
As soon as I had my shirt tucked back into my pants and my belt in place, I lifted Lucy and kissed her long and deep. “You okay?”
Her smile told me everything I needed to know. “Right now, I’m on top of the world. I love you.”
“I love you too, Lu.” I set her on her feet, but before she could turn to unlock the door, I stopped her. “Thank you.”
Her brows lifted. “For the quickie? Pretty sure I was the one begging you for that, babe.”
“No.” I bent my knees so we were on a more even eye level. “For giving me everything. For saying yes to marrying me, for putting up with the moms while they take over and make our wedding into the circus I figure it will end up being. For loving me and letting me spend the rest of my life loving you back.”
Her chin began to tremble before the first tear fell. “Are you trying to make me cry?”
I kissed away the tear and the next two that fell. “Your tears kill me, Lu. I’d never intentionally make you cry. I just wanted to say thank you.”
“Thanking me for loving you is like thanking me for breathing, Harris.” A smile lifted her lips. “But I’ll gladly accept the thank you for tonight and all the chaos that the mothers are already turning our lives into.” Standing on tiptoes, she kissed me. “Now, let’s get out there before Daddy comes looking for us.”
--
There was a pile of paperwork on my desk that needed my attention. Between Barb and Nate, they had been doing a pretty damn good job of keeping everything running smoothly at the club for me, but there were some things only I could deal with. This mind-numbing paperwork shit was one of them.
But it was going to have to wait at least another day. I promised Lucy I would meet her at the bakery with the moms, and if I didn’t leave now, I was going to be late. Muttering curses under my breath, I grabbed my coat and keys and headed for the door as I shot Natalie a text not to start without me.
Fifteen minutes later, I was parking a block down from the bakery. More curses left me as I jogged up the street to where I’d seen my stepmother’s car. If they had started without me, I was going to be pissed. Between Nat, Emmie, and Layla, they had pretty much pushed me out of the whole wedding process. It wasn’t like I cared about most of that shit anyway, but part of me thought since this was all for the one day that would start the rest of my forever with Lucy, I should get a say in some of the decisions.
But the moms did have it all in order, and Lucy wasn’t complaining about it—or asking for my opinions—so I wasn’t going to make a fuss over it. As long as she was happy, the rest didn’t matter.
I found the place and walked in. Lucy was standing beside her mom as Emmie talked to the baker, who was already talking about what flavors paired best. But since the cake was so big, he said we could pick as many flavors as we wanted. I had no idea what the cake even looked like since that was, yet again, one of the things I hadn’t had a say-so in.
I crossed to the group of women and leaned down to kiss Lucy’s exposed neck. Her ponytail brushed over my cheek, and I could almost feel the way she purred in pleasure as she backed up into me. “What did I miss?” I murmured close to her ear.
She shivered but shrugged. “Nothing,” she assured me in a quiet voice. “We just got here like five minutes ago.”
“Good. Glad I didn’t miss anything,” I kissed her again, then straightened as Nat shot me a smile. “Dad didn’t come?”
She rolled her blue-gray eyes. “No way. He would have eaten all the samples and asked for seconds.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I grumbled. “What about Kin?” I asked Lucy. “She coming?”
Lucy shook her head. “She has an exam t
omorrow that’s worth twenty-five percent of her grade. She begged me to let her study instead of putting on ten pounds.”
The baker, a plump Italian-American man, caught our attention. “I have the samples table all set up. Go on in. I’ll have my assistant bring you coffee and other refreshments. Just let her know which flavors you want us to use, and I’ll handle the rest.”
Emmie led us back to the room that had a long table set up with at least a hundred and fifty different little cake samples laid out waiting for us.
“Well, this isn’t daunting at all,” Lucy muttered half under her breath as she walked around the table, glancing at all the different labels on the mini cakes.
Emmie tossed her things into a chair and turned to face us. “Let’s start simple. Lucy, I know you like the chocolate and caramel, so why don’t you taste a few of those?”
“Harris,” Natalie called from the other side of the table. “You tend to like the lighter flavors. These are the lemon-based samples.”
“But won’t those clash with each other?” I asked as I picked up one of the mini cakes that was lemon and blueberry. “Lemon and chocolate don’t sound appealing together, but maybe that’s just me.”
“The cake has so many layers, it won’t matter,” Layla assured me. “Like the man said, the choices are infinite. Hell, if you wanted a layer of every flavor here, it would still work.”
The lemon and blueberry was the perfect combination. Moving to where Lucy was standing, still looking down at the countless samples without having tried a single one yet, I lifted a small bite of my own sample and fed it to her. Her eyes closed, and the little moan that came out of her mouth was like an electric shock of pure need straight to my cock.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, licking her lips. “I definitely like that one.”
I kissed her, licking away the final trace of the lemon icing her lips still tasted of. “You’re killing me already,” I groaned close to her ear so the others couldn’t hear me. “I want to be eating you, not these damn cakes.”
“Hey, none of that,” Layla called over. “Cake choices first, then you can go home and do whatever the hell that boy is saying that’s making you blush, Lucy.”
Lucy huffed but took two steps back from me. Lifting her eyes to mine, she scrunched up her nose in annoyance at her mother. “Later,” she mouthed and finally picked up one of the samples.
Chapter 3
Lucy
Saturday morning, I didn’t want to get out of bed even though I was dying with excitement to do the one thing that, to me, was the most important part of the whole wedding planning craziness. Today, I was going to find the perfect wedding dress.
But first, I had to drag my ass out of my nice, warm bed, where I was cuddled up against Harris’s naked body. If I’d had to choose right then and there, I would have gladly walked down the aisle naked if it meant I didn’t have to leave our bed ever again. It sounded like a fair trade. My dad wouldn’t mind as long as I was happy.
My mom, on the other hand, was already blowing up my phone. I lifted my lashes to glare at the noisy piece of technology, knowing it was my mother who was making it act like it was on crack as it sounded off a new text every thirty seconds. The digital clock on the nightstand beside the phone told me I still had twenty minutes before I even had to be out of bed, but Mom was even more excited than I was about today.
“Tell your mom to fuck off,” Harris grumbled, still half asleep as he pulled the covers higher over both of us and buried his face in my hair. “It’s not even eight yet.”
I pressed the heel of my hand into my left eye, fighting back the headache that was already trying to invade my peacefulness. “Yeah, but we’re all meeting for breakfast before our appointment.”
He blew out a sigh and lifted his head to pout down at me. “I was hoping we could spend the morning in bed, sweetness.”
“You knew this was happening today. It’s all the moms have been talking about for weeks now.”
“But your appointment isn’t until noon.”
Laughing, I patted him on the cheek. “You’re so cute, but so clueless.” I rolled away from him and threw my legs over the side of the bed. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you later tonight,” I tossed over my shoulder as I headed for the bathroom.
I took care of business, then brushed my teeth while the shower heated up. As soon as I was under the powerful spray of the water, I moaned in pleasure, letting the jets ease away the tension that was already filling my neck and shoulders.
The moment I felt the cool breeze of the shower door opening, I grinned. Harris grasped my waist with one hand and my right breast with the other, squeezing and massaging as I ground my ass back into his already straining cock. “I thought you were going to sleep? You didn’t get home until three this morning.”
“Sleep can wait,” he groaned against my ear. “I’m starving for you right now, sweetness.”
I turned in his arms, letting the water flow over both of us. “I’m pretty hungry myself,” I told him as I stood on tiptoes to kiss him.
“Don’t you have to hurry?” he reminded me with a smirk.
I snorted. “I’m the bride, what are they going to do without me there?”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he growled. He grabbed my ass in both hands and lifted me, pressing my back against the tiled wall warmed by the steaming water as I wrapped my legs around his waist. The head of his cock was lined up perfectly, and he slowly entered me while keeping our gazes locked. “Fuck, you feel so good.”
--
I was over an hour late for breakfast, which got me an earful from the moms and Aunt Emmie. But the others welcomed me with hugs and laughs. Mia, Trinity, Nevaeh, and Arella were there as well as Jenna and Kin. I tuned out Mom and Nat and even Aunt Emmie as I took my place at the table and Lana poured me a glass of orange juice from the half-full carafe.
“Your hair isn’t even straight,” Mom complained as she took the seat across from Lana, and a waiter appeared as if by magic to place a plate of scrambled eggs and pancakes in front of me.
“Why does that matter?” Nevaeh asked from where she was sitting with Mia and Jenna at the end of the table.
“It doesn’t,” Lana told her oldest. “And Aunt Layla is going to shut her mouth now before she pisses off Mommy,” my sister gritted out, shooting Mom a look that told her to shut up.
“Uh-oh,” Arella muttered from my left. “Aunt Layla is gonna get in trouble.”
Mom blew out a long breath. “I just wanted her to have the full effect with the dress and veil on today. Her hair is going to be down for the wedding.”
That had me sitting up straighter. “It is?” This was news to me. I hadn’t even decided how I was going to do my hair for the wedding yet. Kin and I had been talking about going to the salon to try out a few different styles.
“It would fit the dress the best,” Mom said with a shrug.
“How do you know that?” Kin spoke up for the first time. “She hasn’t even tried any on yet.”
“We’ve already talked to the designer, and we know which dresses she’s going to try on. I know which one she’s going to pick.”
“Yes, because it’s going to be my choice,” Natalie said from across the table. “You’re going to look so beautiful in the gown I picked out.”
I slowly set my glass of juice on the table. “You each picked a dress?” I glanced at Lana. “Did you?”
“Of course not. These three have been tight-lipped about the whole thing.” She clasped my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry about it yet,” she murmured so low that only I could hear her. “Just try on the dresses they picked out, make them happy, and then we’ll start trying on the ones we talked about. Okay?”
Relieved, I nodded and began to eat some of my breakfast. I picked at the eggs and cut up the pancakes, but I never really took a bite. I couldn’t eat now, not when my stomach was fluttering with anxiety. This was the one thing out of everything th
e moms had tossed at me over the past six weeks that I had been looking forward to, yet they already seemed to be taking it over so completely I wanted to cry.
“Okay, ladies.” Aunt Emmie got to her feet. “Let’s get this group moving. We can’t be late. I had to call in two different favors I’ve been holding on to for years to get this appointment slot.”
I wiped my fingers on my linen napkin and started to stand, but Arella and Trinity came running up from behind and set something on my head. “What…?” I touched my hair and felt the tiara, my heart melting.
“We think you should look like a princess,” Arella told me.
“And a princess needs a tiara,” Trinity informed me.
I stood and then crouched down in front of the two. “Thank you so much, girls. I won’t take it off all day. I swear.”
They beamed up at me, and I hugged them both. Taking their hands, I put on my smile, the one I always hid behind, and looked at my mom. “We’re ready.”
The moment we walked into the exclusive, appointment-only dress shop, I caught my breath at all the beautiful dresses. There had to have been ten thousand dresses in the entire store. How was I going to pick just one?
But I already knew roughly what I wanted. Between Kin, Angie, Jenna, and Lana, we had sorted out what I liked and what I didn’t. I wanted something sexy that wouldn’t cause my dad to have a coronary, but also something classic. Long sleeves and lace were something I had been dreaming of, so that had to be a must.
The receptionist had one of those smiles that was so white it was blinding. I figured she did toothpaste commercials in her spare time or was the poster child for expensive cosmetic bleaching. “Mrs. Armstrong. Mrs. Thornton. Mrs. Cutter,” she greeted. “Paul will be right with you.”
Before she could even finish speaking, a man I had only seen in pictures appeared. Paul Worley was the biggest name in the world of bridal fashion. His every move was documented by the ever-hungry pap vultures. Everything from his latest boyfriend to being named the sexiest designer in the entire fashion industry with his lean body and model-perfect good looks. He had made a name for himself not long after graduating from one of the top design schools in New York. He’d worked hard to get to where he was now, with three shops in the States and two overseas, but Los Angeles was his home base.