Page 119 of Merry Me
I tilted my head, lips curling into a sultry smile, my voice asoft, teasing drawl. “Oh, I can tell. Your hand’s gettingrealcozy with it.”
He gave me a slow, predatory grin, eyes glinting with heat. “Just wait until I get it off you.”
“You’re out of control.”
“And you love every second of it, don’t you, baby?”
My heart gave a hard, traitorous thud at that. Then his fingers slid higher, deliberate and wicked, dipping into my drenched, aching core. His touch was slow, one finger grazing my slick folds, teasing my entrance with a torturous promise that made my hips twitch involuntarily. I bit my lip to stifle a moan, my entire body igniting as he lingered there for a heartbeat…before moving away again, leaving me throbbing, empty, and desperate.
The toast ended, applause rippling around us, but the air felt molten, suffocating. My wine glass sat full in front of me, barely touched, and I was suddenly desperate for it—anything to cool the fire crawling under my skin.
He leaned over, his lips brushing my temple, his voice a low, sinful murmur. “Finish your dessert, Trouble.”
“Why?” I whispered, my voice shaky, still reeling from the loss of his touch.
“Because after this,” he said, his hand grazing the top of my thigh one last time before retreating back down to my knee, “I’m dragging you somewhere quiet.”
“And then?” My voice was barely a breath, laced with needy anticipation.
His eyes locked on to mine, burning with raw hunger as he leaned closer, his whisper a dark, filthy promise. “Then I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’ll feel me for days.”
“Natalie, budge up.”
Paige plopped down beside me like a human ice-bucket challenge. Her cream sweater dress brushed my arm. Easton’s hand froze. And then…slowly, torturously, he pulled back. Like he knew exactly what he was taking with him.
I blinked at my sister, struggling to remember how to breathe, speak, function. Nothing to see here. Just a maid of honor fighting for her life.
Paige leaned in, her voice low, the sharp scent of her perfume slicing through the lust still thick in my blood. “I never heard from him.”
The words hit like a sledgehammer, and I turned to her, the shift in topic jarring enough to snap me straight out of the haze Easton had been weaving around me all night. “What?”
She gave a small shrug, but it was too practiced, too casual. Her eyes flicked to Levi across the room, her expression softening, so much love there, I felt it like a punch. “I thought maybe…I don’t know. That he’d call. Or text. Something.”
She shook her head once, the motion tight. “But nope. Nothing. Zilch.”
There was a beat of silence, heavy with the words she didn’t say.
“I guess he’s not coming.”
She tried to sound breezy, like it didn’t matter. But the dip in her voice at the end—that pause, like she was still waiting for the story to change—told me everything. She was disappointed. And she didn’t know why it still stung. Not after all these years. Not after we’d already trained ourselves not to expect anything from him.
A breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding eased from my chest. Cool. Quiet. Relief.
That unknown number—the one that kept calling all week, never leaving a message, then texting today with justCall me back…I’d told myself it was spam.
But part of me had worried—worried it wasn’t just a random number. Worried it was him.
I reached under the table and found Paige’s hand, giving it a soft squeeze. “It’s better this way,” I whispered.
And it was…because I’d been picturing it all week.
Looking up in the middle of the speeches or the first dance…and seeing him there. Standing in the doorway, smiling like he belonged. Like he hadn’t left a crater in our lives. Like he hadn’t broken our mother. Like I wasn’t still haunted by the girl he’d left behind.
I’d imagined sitting through it all with a polite smile, pretending I didn’t see him. Pretending I wasn’t still waiting for an apology that would never come.
But now? Hearing Paige say she hadn’t heard from him…
That tight, awful dread I’d been carrying finally let go.
