Page 79 of Fireworks & Forehead Kisses

His fingertips grazed my skin as he gathered my hair and brushed it to the side, leaving a trail of tingles in its wake. A shiver rolled through me as I listened to the sound of the zipper as he slowly pulled it down my back. When it reached the bottom, he said, “You’re good.”

“Thanks,” I breathed.

I walked into the bathroom feeling lightheaded from the simplest brush of his touch. The door shut behind me with a thud, and I leaned against it, trying to catch my breath. My hand rested on my chest, and I could feel my heart pounding beneath my palm. I stepped out of the dress and slipped into the two-piece satin pajama set he’d packed.

After washing my face, I stared at myself in the mirror. I wanted to pinch myself, but then again, if this was a dream, I didn’t want to wake up. Tonight was my wedding night. I was in a beachfront bungalow that I didn’t even know existed here on the island. There were candles, champagne, a Jacuzzi, and a king-sized bed. Declan was outside waiting for me.

I had no idea what the night would bring, but I was very excited to find out.

When I stepped outside from the bathroom, Declan’s back was to me as he opened the champagne and poured it. He hadremoved his jacket and tie and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt, just the same way he’d been the night I’d met him at the bar in Atlanta. A skitter of arousal spread through me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

He turned around and handed me a glass of champagne. As I reached out to take it, I noticed a tremor in my hand.

“To the next ten weeks.”

“To the next ten weeks,” I repeated as I clinked our glasses together and then took a sip. I didn’t need alcohol to get a buzz. I was tipsy on life right now. “So, husband, the night we met, what was your first impression of me?”

“I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.”

I chuckled.

“I’m serious.”

He looked serious, but there was no way he could be. Today, in between mini panic attacks, I’d looked up his former fiancée Sarena was because, of course, I would, who wouldn’t, and… wow. Forget being in the same league as her; we weren’t even playing the same sport. If she was baseball, I was ping pong. She was a goddess, and I was a mere mortal.

But I didn’t want to think about her now. She wasn’t here with him; I was. She wasn’t going to be married to him for the next ten weeks; I was.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked as I took another sip of my champagne.

“The plan?” he repeated.

I nodded. “For tonight.”

“What do you want it to be?”

“It is my wedding night. And like you said, we know that we are compatible in certain departments.”

His jaw tightened, and he took a step closer to me. When he did, he suddenly took up a lot of space in the room. He loomedover me, and I felt very small as I lifted my gaze to meet his. He reached out and took my glass out of my hand and then set the flute on the table beside me.

My chest was rising and falling in shallow breaths. In front of me was not the man I’d grown to despise through emails. He was the man who could make my body sing with pleasure from a single touch.

He began to unbutton his shirt, and I watched in excited anticipation. His movements were leisurely as if he was in no rush at all. I, on the other hand, had six months of sexual frustration that had been lying dormant.

“I haven’t been with anyone since we were together,” I admitted. I wasn’t sure why. He didn’t need to know that; but for some reason, I wanted him to have that information.

“Neither have I.”

My mouth watered as he removed his shirt, revealing his muscular upper body. He continued talking as he unbuttoned and unzipped his pants.

“Every time I touched myself or used a toy, I thought of you,” I confessed. “I thought of the night we spent together.”

His nostrils flared, and his jaw ticked. “I thought about you, too. A lot.”

Hearing him say that he’d thought of our night together made me a lot happier than it should have. I’d wondered all this time if he had thought of our night together, or if that night had never even crossed his mind again.

“I thought about how tight you were. How wet you got for me. I thought about the sounds you made when I was deep inside of you,” he continued as he pushed his slacks and boxer briefs down his legs, then straightened again.

As he stood in front of me, his rock-hard column of flesh jutting proudly out from his body, I began to pull the camisole up and over my head, but he stopped me, reaching out andgripping my wrists firmly. He then proceeded to undress me. Once I was naked, he tilted my chin up, and my eyes locked with his. His thumb traced along my lower lip and then my top lip.

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