One Funeral (No Weddings Book 2) (11 page)

And while it was only a matter of a few inches, to me, the difference meant everything.

H
alf-naked girls strutted around in stilettos, dressed in satin, jewel-toned outfits that cinched their waists in and pressed their boobs up. The only items remotely Easter about the event were the white cottontails on their perky asses and long-eared headbands on their heads.

All things sexual and raunchy were on the agenda for one Dwight Cavanaugh, who, although he turned fifty that week, was as fit as Cade and looked far younger than his years.

And the bunnies fawned all over him and his wealthy, attractive friends.

“Easter party? Looks very bachelor party.” At an Invitation Only event more frat than civilized, would Cade breach our fading no-touch line around his sisters?

Cade laughed as he handed me a drink. When I arched a brow at the pink liquid in the martini glass, he shrugged. “Pomegranate martini. They’re serving themed drinks, and I thought you’d want to try it. And it
is
more like a bachelor party. Guy’s been single all his life and celebrating the fact. Who knows, maybe it’ll be a last hurrah before landing the bunny of his dreams.”

I nodded, sipping my drink. “Mmm, this is good—tart and sweet.”

I drank my martini while scanning the crowd of women, doing a mental headcount. There had to be at least forty women in bunny outfits. The rest of us—Ben, Cade, his sisters, and me—all wore casual attire: nice shirts and jeans. No way in hell was I putting on a bunny outfit.

Cade had taken great pains to bring the most beautiful women to the event. He’d been scrolling through pictures of models and sending emails back and forth to their agents for a week before making flight and accommodation arrangements for the very best among them. When I’d asked about the cost, he said Dwight had tens of millions and wanted to spare no expense.

While we’d been studying all last week, or when Cade was in the lounge at Sweet Dreams, he’d perused the potential candidates. He’d make notes about one, then click on to the next, remaining completely detached and businesslike about the task, even though some of the models were fully naked. One time when I’d leaned over his shoulder, catching an eyeful of a double-D centerfold, he’d simply clicked into his notes page and wrote her into the “yes” column along with a note of her hair and eye color.

As we stood amid all those women in the flesh, I felt a little bit like a wallflower in the midst of royalty of the female species. The world’s most desirable sexual temptresses mingled around us, every one handpicked by Cade.

But all night, he’d only given cursory glances at the girls. In his mind, they were hired help. His only priority was making sure they made the client happy. Beyond that, he only looked at them with cool disinterest.

Lost in my mid-party analysis, I startled when Cade pressed into my side. When I glanced up, his eyes blazed with heat—for me.

His intense gaze roved down to where my breasts swelled above my low-cut top. He growled as his attention drifted back up, inch by slow inch. Without trying to hide our close contact beside the cake table, he pressed closer and slid his hands around my waist, dropping his head down to my neck. His lips dragged hot across my skin to just below my ear, and I shivered.

“You look amazing tonight, Maestro.”

I smiled, pushing at his arms with no real effort behind the gentle shove. “You’re just horny with all the tits and ass on display.”

He chuckled. “My eyes don’t see anything on display anywhere but here. I love your outfit. Tiny top, tight jeans, high heels” —he placed a soft kiss on my ear— “but it makes me imagine you in nothing at all.”

Even though he’d given me no reason to think otherwise, I couldn’t help but tease him. “You’re telling me not one of these girls meets your standards? Not even your ‘list’ standards.”

He pulled away, turning back toward the room, but kept one of his arms wrapped around me, a possessive hold on my hip. “Well, let’s see. Number twenty-three was perky, if I remember correctly.”

“Which one is she?”

He nodded in Dwight’s direction. “The one bent over, trying to get him to pull a cherry out of her tits with his teeth.”

I coughed, trying not to laugh. “So what exactly attracts you to twenty-three?”

His gaze swung back toward me. “Nothing. I played along to answer your question about my ‘list’ standards, which are now obsolete.” Heat sparked in his eyes. “The only woman I see, the only woman I want, is you.”

I sucked in a deep breath at his words, but before I knew what hit me, Cade crowded me back and tackled us hard into the wall behind the bar. A large potted palm was the only thing obscuring us from most of the room.

He growled low into my ear. “Don’t doubt what I feel for you.” Soft kisses dotted up my neck, teeth tugged at my ear. He pressed his groin into my hip, making evident countless hard inches of masculinity. “God, I’ve been dying inside to touch you, taste you.”

Trembling at the sudden flood of sensation, both physical and emotional, I nodded, swallowing hard. “Me too,” I murmured, running my hand up the back of his neck through his hair, confused at his sudden semipublic display of affection, yet too overwhelmed and turned on by it to care.

Aching heat speared between my thighs, and I groaned. Yeah, whatever the reason, the whole no-touch thing between us had been obliterated. And I didn’t want to reconstruct it.

I shuddered, pressing into him, needing more of his lips on mine.

But right as I committed to going further, he pulled back, sucking big gulps of air into his lungs.

I caught my breath too, staring into his wild eyes.

His gaze intensified. “The list was only a temporary placement card, names of attractive girls agreeable to my no-strings-attached terms. Not one of them looked like the parade of pinups here tonight, but none of them needed to. They only needed to be warm bodies, willing playmates.” He paused, grasping my chin between his finger and thumb when I began to turn away. “No girl on Earth will ever hold a candle to you, Hannah. You draw me in with real beauty. I’m blind to anyone else.”

My eyes widened. In a room full of sex kittens, with his pick of any girl anywhere in the world, he chose me. He wanted only me. The secret knowledge made my heart soar.

I smirked. “So you don’t want to see me in a bunny costume?”

He laughed hard, releasing my chin as his head fell back, rich sound booming out. Then he dropped his gaze back to mine, amusement glittering in his dark blue eyes. “Seeing you in a common bunny costume would be entertaining as hell, but it would be demeaning. I never want you in a bunny costume. Understood?”

I grinned, nodding.

He trailed a finger down my neck, across my collarbone, and down the outside of my bared shoulder. “But you know, I am partial to burlap bags…”

The mention of our inside joke, where he’d said I would look sexy as fuck in nothing but a potato sack, made me smile.

“Cade? Hannah? That you guys hiding behind the plant?” Kristen turned the corner as Cade pulled away from me. She sent me a pointed look, then slid her attention to Cade.

A hot flush crept up my cheeks, guilt twinging through me over how he’d been hiding things from his sisters.
We’d
been hiding things. A part of me wanted to protect Cade, assuming there was a good reason he didn’t want them to know anything. But another part wanted him to stand up for us and stake his claim of me.

In the tense few seconds, I waited, needing to see what Cade would do. Cade and I hadn’t discussed sharing our situation with his sisters, and there was no way in hell I would cross that line on my own.

Cade gave Kristen an imperceptible headshake, diffusing the situation, then took both of our hands and pulled us back into the energetic party. She accepted his warning without saying a word, the communication between the eldest and youngest Michaelsons apparently very strong on the telepathic end of the spectrum.

And although I felt a little deflated that he didn’t say anything, he
had
touched me and risked our being discovered in a very public way. Relief washed through me when Kristen turned to me, smiling as if nothing happened. At least she wasn’t angry.

“We need you to cut the cake. The natives are getting restless,” she quipped as we approached the back buffet table.

Kiki nodded. “And hungry.”

Kendall handed me the slicing knife. “They’re just lightheaded and grumpy, because their blood’s been stuck south for hours.”

Taking a deep breath, I smiled and got back into the present moment and out of my head. As I held the knife, I surveyed the cake, determining where to make the first cut. Rather than mess up the part everyone most wanted to see, I started at the far end, deciding the crowd could be cannibalistic from the feet up.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Hannah. How do you come up with these creative ideas?” Kiki swiped a finger along the sugared “sand” frosting.

“Thanks.” I beamed a smile at Kiki as I cut pieces while she rotated in plates. Cade and his other two sisters took turns running the plates around the room to the guests. “I don’t know. Same as you with your art, I guess. You stare at the blank canvas until inspiration takes shape, then you go with the flow of it. This one was actually easier than most. I imagined what guys would want to stare at—
besides
a naked, spread-eagled centerfold.”

Kiki laughed. “Well, you teased them just enough with the design. Were it not for the actual jiggle-and-giggle fest, they’d be gawking at the cake.”

As I began cutting slices from the other leg, I took a fresh look at the cake through an observer’s eyes. Across tan sand that sparkled with sugar crystals, a red hermit crab crawled toward the edge where ocean foam began. And on the sand, lying on her stomach, was a shapely woman in a thong bikini. The turquoise-blue string of the bikini slipped in between the tight globes of her ass, then tied into loose bows along her hips. The bikini top was undone, the ties in disarray on the sand beside the swells of her breasts where they pressed down into the sand. Her face was turned to the side, eyes closed, and her blond hair flowed over her shoulders.

The artful cake was about as lifelike as one could get with flour and sugar.

A sudden flash of movement barreled my way, someone racing by then flying in the air. I jumped backward, and Kiki and I got knocked sideways, dishes and cake slices flying. Seconds later, Cade tackle-hugged me, grabbing the knife, ensuring I didn’t impale anyone.

Blinking, my heart pounding hard in my chest, I glanced back at the cake table. Dwight had landed facedown into cake-chick’s ass.

I gaped.

Kiki coughed. “Is he…eating…her ass?”

The entire party broke out in raucous laughter while Dwight gobbled and snorted in a feasting frenzy.

“No wonder he’s still single,” Kendall mumbled from beside us, her hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

The bunnies didn’t seem to mind. Two jumped on the table with him. Then he began eating cake off their breasts with obnoxious licking and sucking sounds. A loud crack sounded, and the next instant, the entire back half of the buffet table collapsed; Dwight, bunnies, cake, and all slid down onto the floor.

Kristen groaned. “Cade, please make sure there are no wardrobe malfunctions. Or orgies. Kick them out of the barn if you have to, but please, we do events. Not prostitution.”

Cade laughed. “Got it covered, sis.”

“And by ‘covered,’ you mean ‘taken care of’ so we don’t get arrested, or need a hazmat team here in the morning, right?”

Chunks of cake began flying through the air. Cade busted up laughing when one hit Kristen in the left boob. His smile vanished when another piece hit him square in the face.

I snorted, laughing. But my amusement vanished when he wiped off the side of his face and took aim at me. “Oh, no you don’t.” I shook my head, backing up.

Without thinking, I tore off in the only direction of escape, straight toward the cake melee. I slid through icing smear and crashed into the mess of cake and bodies, squealing. Seconds later, Cade knelt next to me and plastered me in the face with his cake bomb.

Everyone joined in the food fight, racing around and tagging stragglers who’d managed to avoid direct hits, until no cake or person had been left untouched. We looked like refugees from a rainbow war.

It was the best birthday bunny bash ever.