“Positive,” she said breathlessly. Slowly, she opened her hand, the one she’d been holding in a tight little fist, revealing two small, opaque packets, one red and one blue. “See? I came prepared.”
Ian laughed out loud. “You hang onto those,” he murmured, bending down to press his lips into the slope of her neck, enjoying the unsteady pulse that throbbed there, the way she panted and shivered when he kissed her. “We’ll get to them.”
Either her buttons were remarkably easy to push, or she was very aroused. He knew the feeling. Already, she was restless and impatient under him, but he had no intention of rushing anything or giving her what she obviously wanted.
Instead, he backed off, barely grazing her shoulder with his mouth before he held himself away. His lids lowered as he gazed down at her. Beautiful. Whoever she was, this naked goddess who’d come calling, she was long and lithe, curvy and luscious, with pale, porcelain skin that glowed even in this faint light and a riot of hair spilling out in every direction.
Ian smiled. Yeah, this was going to take a while.
WHY DIDN’T HE hurry up? She was dying down here. Lucie groaned with frustration, writhing near the edge of the bed. She was melting from the inside out, and she didn’t think she could be any more wet, hot, ready. His clever, versatile mouth showed no mercy on her breasts and her belly, teasing her, biting and swirling, pushing her into this mindless, dazzled, semiconscious place, where all she did was ache for him, hate him, wait for him, want him.
Why did he have to move so damn slowly?
Finally, just when she thought she might expire from this terrible need, he slid lower. Lucie gasped. If she’d thought his tongue was skillful before, now she knew what it could really do. It could make her weep with pleasure. It could bring her hurtling to the top so fast she saw stars.
She’d never been like this before, every inch of her humming and shattering, where every flick of his tongue brought her higher, faster, harder.
“Oh, yessss,” she cried. “Don’t stop. Don’t…stop!” But she was already peaking, falling and peaking again. She melted into a puddle of satisfaction, curling into him. “Don’t stop…”
He lifted his head. His low, heated voice coiled around her like flame when he whispered, “Don’t worry. We’re just getting started.”
“I think,” she murmured in a husky, vixenish voice she didn’t recognize as her own, “now it’s your turn.”
She opened her fist again, sparing a moment to stuff the still unused condoms under the pillow for safekeeping.
“Maybe later,” she whispered, sliding down his flank, twisting herself around him.
“Maybe later,” he echoed.
But first…
MORNING LIGHT drifted slowly into the room, casting a soft, warm glow on Lucie.
She opened one eye. “Mmmph,” she mumbled, unable to recognize the fuzzy shapes in front of her.
Stretching out an arm, yawning, she blinked, opening both eyes. A draft tickled her shoulders, making her quite certain she wasn’t wearing a top. Or a bottom.
Naked. In a high, soft bed she didn’t recognize, with intricately carved posts and thick draperies cascading down from the edges of the canopy overhead.
Taking silent inventory, she noted that there seemed to be a pillow wedged under her stomach, and her head, most of her hair, and one arm were hanging off the bed, dangling in space. An assortment of rumpled bedclothes had been tossed onto the floor below her, and a rainbow of small, ripped packets, red and blue and green and yellow, lay scattered around them.
Those were condom packets, she realized with sudden alarm. She counted. Six empty condom packets. Six?
What did that mean?
As she lifted her chin, she thought she could hear someone breathing behind her. Not only that, but she could feel hot puffs of air on her back, just below her shoulder blade, and an unfamiliar weight, as if someone were lying there, his head in the middle of her back, breathing on her.
What in blazes…?
Uh-oh. Things were starting to come back to her. Bad things.
She was getting fragments, strange shards of memory. And her head hurt. She tried to concentrate. What did these bizarre thoughts mean? Something about the reception and some nutty woman telling her she really ought to have a fling. And then Baker and a key and an idiotic blonde in the bathroom, and she’d crept up the stairs and into a dark room…
But this couldn’t be Baker. Not the way her body felt all rubbed down, stoked up, worked out and trampled on, as if it had danced the tango to hell and back. More than once. She tried to move a few muscles. Yeow. Exactly what did they do?
She had these vague memories of her bed partner, of being upside down and on top of him, under him, on the floor, half on and half off the bed, of pretty much acting like a Flying Wallenda without a trapeze. That all had to be some erotic fantasy, right? People didn’t really do those things.
“Okay, you’re fine,” she whispered to herself. “Probably you had too much to drink and you fell into a stupor in some guy’s bed. Probably you were both too drunk to perform and nothing happened.”
Comforting, but hardly realistic given the aftershocks still humming through her nervous system. Not to mention all those empty condom packets.
“Well,” she continued, trying not to panic, “whatever you did, he did it, too. Whoever he is.”
Quietly, carefully, trying not to fall into hysteria, she eased herself back into the bed all the way, craning her neck so she could see who was back there, breathing on her. He rolled away from her, freeing her, and she saw dark hair, a beautifully sculpted torso, broad shoulders…She could just make out the side of his face, but a picture fell into her muddled brain with a clunk. A picture of her half sister standing at the altar, beaming up at a face just like this one.
“Oh, my god!” she screamed, bolting upright, clutching the pillow to her front. “I slept with the groom!”
“The groom? Who? Wha…?” He jumped awake all at once, sitting up stark naked, staring at her. “I’m not the groom. I swear. But who are you?”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Keeping an arm secure around her protective pillow, she lifted a weak hand to her brow, shoving back a wall of hair, wishing her head would stop pounding like that. The whole room seemed to be beating like a drum. Or was that just her heart? Why did it have to be so loud?
“Who are you? And why are you shouting?”
“I remember you now,” Lucie ventured slowly. Breathe in. Breathe out. It could be worse. She remembered him. He wasn’t the groom. He was handsome. He was nice. It could be a lot worse. If only he weren’t quite so naked. She bent down over the edge, grabbed a sheet, and flung it back up on the bed. “If you don’t mind, could you please, you know, cover up?”
His jaw clenched. But he took it. With a grim expression, he looped the fine linen over his lap. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you.” Still unwilling to look directly at him, Lucie compulsively rubbed her finger over the intricate carvings in the dark wood post beside her. “As I said, I remember you. You’re right—you’re not the groom. You’re the best man, Ian. You were supposed to have lip prints all over you from Feather. I was supposed to find Baker and have my one night of nookie. I think we got our wires crossed.”
“Huh?”
Losing it, Lucie bridged the gap between them, took him by the shoulders, and shook him. Hard. “What the hell were we thinking? How did this happen? And how did it happen six times?”
Wincing, Ian peeled her hands off his shoulders. “You just dropped your pillow.”
Her body flushed with