Page 28 of Hardcore Vanilla
"Be sure that you do." The order in her mother's brisk voice was clear. "It's rude to keep them waiting."
"I will, mother. Oh, oops, look at the time, I have to go, I'll talk to you later, bye." Sharon hung up the phone before her mom could respond and scrunched up her face, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Dammit.
She sighed and picked up her phone again, pulling up Brian's number and swiping to call. A feeling of guilt niggled at her, which was stupid. It wasn't like she and Jake wereactuallydating. They haven't even talked about being exclusive fuck buddies, despite his little show of jealousy over Kincaid last weekend. And she wasn't going to be doing anything romantic or sexual with Brian even if he was her date to her cousin's wedding.
Hell, her pleasure box could use a break. They were approaching 'too much of a good thing' territory.
Unfortunately, Brian’s phone sent her to voicemail.
“Hey Brian, it’s Sharon – give me a call back when you get the chance? I’ll be at Stronghold tonight too, so I’ll look for you there. Bye.”
She supposed she could have left a voicemail asking him to the wedding, but she wanted to give him a heads up on exactly what he’d be walking into if he said yes. She’d told him a little bit about her family while they were dating, but she hadn’t gone into detail because there hadn’t been any need. She knew he would say yes regardless because he was the kind of guy who would want to be there for her, but she’d feel better if she were able to fully warn him.
Sighing, she tossed her phone back down and tried not to feel guilty about calling Brian to be her date when she was planning on another hookup with Jake tonight.
Chapter 7
For the first time, Jake felt like being at Stronghold sucked.
There had been times when he felt a little like the odd man out, or when he’d overheard more than he wanted to know about Patrick and Lexie or had seen something that made him want to go running into the night (some of the Dommes did mean, mean things to men’s junk), but tonight was by far the worst. Most of his friends were here, Lexie was properly attired, and no one had said anything about her and Patrick to gross him out. So far, the dance floor was pretty tame, everyone seemed to be keeping the more interesting activities to the Dungeon or the upstairs rooms.
But being here with Sharon, but not with Sharon really freaking sucked. Way more than he'd expected it to.
He didn't want to keep his hands off her.
Tonight, she was wearing straight-up lingerie, a little red silk slip with black lace all around the deep-dipping neckline and the very short hem. And he was ninety-nine percent sure that was it. Which meant his eyes kept dropping to her cleavage and the points of her nipples which were clearly visible through the thin material.
Even seeing the look of amusement on Patrick's face when he caught Jake looking - again - wasn't enough to keep him from doing it. He wanted to pick her up and carry her off and fuck her silly.
She knew it too. The little looks and the way she tilted her cleavage towards him were deliberate. And distracting.
Normally Jake enjoyed hanging out at Stronghold with their friends, but right now he just wanted this part of the night over with.
"So, I think I'm going to follow Jessica's lead and just let you all choose your own dresses, as long as they're blue and floor length," Kate said. The conversation had been revolving around the two upcoming weddings; Jessica's to Chris and Justin (well, they were having a ceremony even if it wasn't technically a wedding) was just a couple months before Kate and Andrew's. Wow. There were going to be a lot of weddings this year.
"You two are both terrible at this Bridezilla thing," Maria said, laughing and shaking her head. "Maybe I should have one of my sisters come talk to you and show you how it's done." She squeaked a little as Rick pulled her in closer to his side, giving her a look. The two of them hadn't been at Stronghold much in the past few months. Around Christmas they’d revealed that they'd been going through a rough time of it when Maria had had a miscarriage when they hadn't even known she was pregnant. It looked like they were making up for lost time now, more enamored with each other than ever. Jake was happy for them.
Kate shrugged, grinning back at her. "Hey, it's not my fault that we all look good in different styles. I'd rather not have everyone shelling out a bunch of money for a dress they'll only wear one time."
"If you want matching dresses, you should have them," Sharon told her, frowning. "I'll pay for them. They'll be my gift to the bridesmaids."
"No," Kate said, pointing her finger at her maid-of-honor. "You are not paying for everyone's dresses. Stop trying to spend money on my wedding. It's not happening."
Jake shifted uncomfortably. He’d never had a lot of money to throw around, although his lack of expenses while he was overseas meant he had a healthy savings account. Fortunately, his parents hadn’t minded acting as his storage unit, saving him even more. He had money too, but the way Sharon flaunted hers bothered him… yet at the same time he couldn’t help but admire her for making her generosity and dedication to making her friends’ lives easier. His conflicting emotions were pretty much par for the course when it came to her.
Although she nodded, Jake could practically see the gears turning in Sharon’s head as her eyes flitted around to the other women standing around the table with them. Andrew and Kate had asked their entire group of friends to be part of the wedding party, just like Justin, Jessica, and Chris, and he was sure his sister and Patrick would as well. Seeing that look, he didn’t doubt for one second that Kate’s bridesmaids would all be in matching dresses and that none of them would pay for them.
Kate had obviously noticed the same thing. Her blue eyes narrowed as she leaned towards Sharon almost threateningly.
“Sharon.” Kate drawled Sharon’s name, her voice heavy with a warning that Sharon completely ignored.
“Oh hey! Good, Brian’s here,” Sharon said, as if Kate hadn’t spoken. She started to get up from her bar stool.
Huffing out a resigned sigh, Kate pointed a finger at her. “Okay, but as soon as you ask him to go to the wedding, you and I are going to have a talk about this.”
“Wait, go to what wedding?” Jake asked before he could think about it, more than a little taken aback. Was Sharon inviting her ex to Kate’s wedding? No, that couldn’t be right, that was way too far away. So was Justin, Chris, and Jessica’s.
