Page 41 of 4 Weddings and a Feud

He set his scotch on the table. “Tell me what else you want to do.”

“Last week…on my porch…we kissed.”

“We did.” He rubbed his hands on his thighs.

“But nothing since. And now you’ve whisked me away to this…paradise. Withfive bedrooms.I’m not sure what to think.”

“The choice is yours, Mary. We’re friends now, and the last thing I want is to fuck it up again. Nothing is worth that. Not that kiss.” He swallowed. “Not this getaway, not even the Richardson wedding.”

“Are you friends with the other women you…date?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said we were on a date at the club.”

“I don’t want to be your girl of the month, Alex. One of those women you date in public for a couple weeks. If I ran into you on the street, I’m not strong enough to trade innuendos and walk away like it doesn’t mean anything. When you ghosted me after prom, it broke my heart. If you do it again, I don’t think…” She stopped short of telling him her patched-up heart wouldn’t survive a second break.

He leaned forward. “You mean so much to me, Mary. This is different. Tell me what you want, and I’ll…I’ll see if I can give it to you.”

“I want friendship.And.”

He tilted his head. “You don’t mean friends with benefits?”

“No.” She shuddered. Even worse than being his arm candy would be being hisU uptext. “I mean more than friends. Friends…and.”

“You think I’m capable of friends-and?” His gaze went sharp, crackling the way the silent gas flames didn’t.

“You opened up to me today on the beach.” She’d been shocked and so, so proud when he’d told her how he felt about the Paradise. She’d felt connected to him when he hugged her. He’d never been so unrestrained, not even when they were kids. She knew he wasn’t like that with that Violette woman at the club. “I think you could be what I need. If you’re willing to try.”

The years dropped away from his face, and he was the teenage boy who’d paused the video game they were playing in his parents’ fancy media room to ask her to prom. “For you, I’ll try.”

Her heart filled with warmth and overflowed. Leaning forward, she kissed him. At first, it was the same kiss they’d shared on her porch last week, tentative, closed-mouth, a test of what could be. Then his lips parted, and so did hers. The bitterness of the scotch had dissipated on his tongue, replaced by a smoky-sweet taste like the mesquite bonfires they used to build in the desert.

His tongue flicked against hers for the first time. Ever since he’d asked her to prom—hell, at least a year before that—she’d imagined what it would be like. Reality surpassed her imagination. His jaw was hard, but his lips were soft, moving gently against hers. His cologne filled her nostrils as his taste danced on her tongue.

And his hands! Big but cautious, they stroked the side of her neck and her waist, hinting at all the places he could use his mouth on her. Warmth settled in her core.

When she opened her mouth wider to lick inside, he groaned like a starving man who’d been presented with a feast but was bound in manacles. Why should either of them be restrained? What they wanted was here for the taking.

She broke the kiss so she could swing her leg over his and straddle him. From her new perch on his lap, she bent and kissed him again, and this time she added a roll of her hips that put his erection right where she needed it, against the crotch of her yoga pants. He loosed a relieved moan and gripped her waist.

She tunneled her hands into his thick hair and rubbed her core against him again, gasping at the pleasure that sparked inside her. He kissed down her neck and as far as the neckline of her shirt would allow.

“Lose the shirt?” he asked.

She found the hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his head, revealing his broad chest. She stroked her fingers across the subtle hills of his abdominals.

“I meant your shirt,” he growled.

She traced a finger through the thick hair on his pecs, then circled his nipple, making him hiss. She didn’t spend time in the gym like he obviously did, but if she wanted this to go farther, she’d need to expose more skin. Slowly, she rolled up her T-shirt and dropped it on the couch.

His hungry eyes leaped from her lacy bra to the deep valley between her breasts to the swell of her stomach, disappearing into the high waist of her yoga pants.

His gaze flicked up to her face. He set his palms on the cups of her bra and made circles, waking up her nipples. Then he slid his hands around the back to the clasp. “May I?”

She braced her hands on his shoulders. “Go for it.”

There was a pinch, then the pressure around her ribs released, and her breasts hung free. They weren’t as perky as those skinny girls’—

“Oh, Mary.” He dropped her bra on top of her shirt and stared. Then, cradling her breasts with his hands, he buried his face in her cleavage. “I may never leave.”

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