If the Shoe Fits (6 page)

His mouth was utterly dry. The entire church seemed ominously quiet. He looked at his brother, Max, standing in front him, then had the delayed realization that he must have missed the part when his brother stood up from the kneeling position and asked him to produce the rings.

“Dev? You have them, right?” his meticulous elder brother whispered.

“Of course. Right here.”

The rest of the ceremony was a happy celebration from there on out, including the endless recitations of all the pending joys and unavoidable trials that awaited the jubilant couple.

Devon did not let his eye wander again.

Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major sprang to life, trilled merrily from the twelve-piece ensemble that Devon’s mother had brought out from London for the ceremony and reception. The French horn and strings soared through the chapel as Max and Bronte turned, arm in arm, and made their way down the aisle, smiling widely at all of the guests on both sides of the chapel as they passed.

Devon turned to Sarah and offered his bent arm. She leaned aside momentarily to grab hold of the full skirt of her dress, then lifted the heavy velvet slightly so as not to trip over it on her way down the four short steps from the altar to the aisle. When the clarinet and flute were battling joyously in the upper registers, she looked up and smiled into Devon’s eyes with blatant intimacy. The marching rhythm of the following stanza shook Devon awake and he escorted Sarah formally down the aisle, his arm held at a stiff, military right angle, his posture rigid, his eyes straight ahead.

The heat and pressure from her kid glove was brutally distracting by the time they swept out of the main part of the chapel and into the vestibule where the photographer was already beginning to take a few shots of Max and Bronte. Instead of turning left toward the bride and groom, Devon quickly veered to the right into a small antechamber. The room smelled of old incense, candles, laundry starch, and a faint citrusy wood polish. The early evening light was watery gray as it came through the mottled, lead-pane windows and shone upon two old wooden chairs, one on either side of the arched door frame.

Sarah began to remove her hand from Devon’s arm after he had shut the door behind them, but he pulled her into a rough embrace before her glove had left his sleeve. She dropped the tightly packed bouquet of dozens of pale pink rosebuds that she had been clutching, along with the thick fabric of her skirt.

“You were killing me out there,” Devon growled into her neck as he kissed his way down to the edge of the chocolaty brown fabric above her breast. He dipped one finger into the bodice and felt her nipple respond. Her low, throaty moan encouraged him to continue, but the fitted bustier was not giving him enough room to release her. He snarled with pent-up frustration and reached one hand around her back for a zipper, only to discover a battalion of miniature covered buttons running the full length of Sarah’s back. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he rasped.

Then he looked down at Sarah’s face: her eyes shut in pleasure, lips moist and slightly parted, her hair in that delectable state of perpetually imminent disarray, the rosy flush of desire running up her neck and cheeks. He watched as her front teeth came down on her lower lip and bit a small piece of that moist, raspberry inner skin.

He might have to rip the damned dress off after all.

She began to speak with her eyes closed, her head starting to tilt back. “I have spent the entire day feeling your hands on my body, your tongue against my skin, the fabric of your shirt against my fingers, your gaze on my back… even my ears have been in a heightened state of awareness… what is a girl to do?”

Devon’s heart ground to a halt, then began to pound with near-terrifying force, slamming into his ribs. Sarah was touching him everywhere. He was going mad. Her light caress trailed down his neck, the soft kidskin glove like a velvet firebrand. Then she massaged his upper arms through his evening jacket, then in and under the jacket and around to his lower back, reaching her hands momentarily under the waistband of his trousers and over his ass, then back out again and along his hips, then—uh, wrong direction—back up to his chest, pushing into the crisp white folds of his formal pleated shirt, then, thank God, down toward the placket of the button closure of his pants.

She stopped at the top button, the very tips of her gloved fingers dipping behind his waistband, snug between the black worsted fabric of his dress pants and the warm, white cotton of his shirt, and her two thumbs slowly rubbing the fabric in front of her fingers.

“Good God, woman, what are you waiting for?” he demanded.

She opened her eyes then and smiled like the devil.

“What do you think I’m waiting for? Your brother just married my closest friend and three hundred people are filing out of your
ancestral
chapel not eight feet beyond that door. Did you think I was going to get down on my knees and give you a blow job?”

“Well…”

Sarah burst out laughing and pulled her hands out from the edge of his pants to cover her cheeks.

“You did!” she gasped between peals of unstoppable laughter.

His hands dropped from her waist and he slowly smoothed the front of his jacket, paying particular care to the immaculate black satin of his shawl collar, meticulously removing a tiny, invisible speck. “Please let me know when your amusement abates…” he tried, in his best approximation of bored lord of the manor.

Sarah’s laughter reignited with greater force. “Men are hilarious…” she sputtered between waning coughs of glee.

She reached down to the floor to retrieve her forgotten bouquet and shook out the slightly crushed fabric of her dress. “I’ll tell you what,” she resumed in a matter-of-fact tone, “why don’t we try to behave like rational adults for a few hours and then we can pick up where we left off? Later tonight? Back at the ranch, as they say.” She started to turn toward the door.

“You are one stone-cold—”

She turned back quickly, a startled, almost offended look in her eyes, and put a single gloved fingertip against his lips to quiet him.

“I am not stone cold,” she whispered into his ear, her hot breath brushing against the soft skin there. She kissed him lightly on his neck, just below and behind his ear, and reveled in his answering moan. Sarah slowly pulled her face away and smiled. “Just practical,” she added.

She took a deep, halting breath, stood up a bit straighter as if to fortify herself, then walked out of the little room. The volume of celebratory voices in the adjacent vestibule rose and fell as she opened and then closed the door behind her.

Devon realized he hadn’t taken a breath for quite some time and inhaled deeply.

***

During the subsequent cocktail reception, sit-down dinner, and dancing, Sarah was caught up in a constant stream of photos, brief conversations, occasional dances with handsome strangers, sips of champagne, and the repetitive need to tamp down the waves of desire that seemed to wash over her at inexplicable moments.

It wasn’t just Devon, either.

It seemed that every man there had some attribute that Sarah found particularly appealing: James Mowbray’s jaw was hard and chiseled to perfection, and she felt a slight jolt of awareness at the texture of his cheek against hers when he crossed the ballroom to greet her and gave her a brief kiss on the cheek hello; Bronte’s friend from her Chicago office had gorgeous, thick chestnut hair; some distant cousin of the Heyworth family held her hand firmly in one of his and put pressure on her lower back with the other in a wonderfully powerful way when they danced; even Devon’s elderly Uncle Bertrand seemed to have some intellectual magnetism when they spoke about his time in the early days of the Inchbald School.

On the other hand, it was all Devon. Because the cheek and the hair and the pressure on the lower back and the magnetism—when she blinked, it was always Devon’s face she saw behind her eyelids and his touch she felt against her skin.

Bronte reached her a few hours later, having finally torn herself away from her husband’s side.

“Sarah, I am the bride and I am the one who is supposed to be beaming! But you are on fire!” Bronte smiled and gave her a warm hug. “You are always gorgeous, of course, but there is something about you tonight that is really quite”—Bronte paused to consider the right word—“quite smashing. I think every man in the room has his eye on you.”

Sarah gave her a conspiratorial look and then nodded. “It is fun. I’ve never really gone in for flirting. I mean, I don’t know if that’s what I’m doing, but I just feel so
open
to everything… is that wrong?”

“Oh, Sarah! You are too much.” Bronte held her friend’s hands in hers. “It is absolutely not wrong. You should be the princess at the ball for the next ten years at least. Let every single one of them fawn all over you. You are luscious. Let them look.”

Bronte paused to look around, caught Max’s eye, smiled widely, then turned back to Sarah with a more serious look in her eye. “But watch out for Devon, Sarah. I mean, I know you’ll have your fun, but he is a total player. I feel like a mean sister already, because I love him, and I love you, but just… what?”

“What does it mean if someone refers to a pizza and a six-pack after… you know…”

Bronte’s face turned stormy with anger. “Did Devon say that to you? It’s when you finish—you know!—and you wish the other person would miraculously turn into… pizza and a six-pack…” She started to look around, probably for a blunt weapon to hit Devon with. “I will—”

“Bron! Stop. He…” Sarah smiled and looked embarrassed. “I think he thought
he
was the one… you know… that I wanted
him
to turn into a pizza and a six-pack…”

Bronte burst out laughing with such a loud cry that a few people nearby turned to make sure a small farm animal hadn’t somehow slipped into the grand ballroom. The guests smiled wanly and turned away when they realized it was only the crass American duchess being crass and American again.

“Oh, Sarah. You are divine. You have your fun and I’ll talk to you in a few weeks when we get back from our honeymoon. I won’t worry about you! Clearly, you are much better at fending off the Heyworth charms than I ever was.”

Bronte started looking for Max again, gave Sarah another swift hug when she spotted him, and headed back across the ballroom to be with him.

Sarah was finally beginning to feel the waning of the adrenaline rush that had been fueling her for the past couple of days. She made her way into a quiet corner of the ballroom, where a few small tables had been set up for the older crowd who might not want to stand for hours at a stretch.

She was starting to wilt.

Despite Devon’s royal sexiness, she might have to call it a night. She couldn’t imagine how her exhausted body could possibly rebound for another episode of—

“You are not fading on me, are you?” His voice was right behind her. He had somehow slipped between the large potted palms that had been brought in to soften the perimeter of the ballroom. The trees also created an exotic play of shadows when the chandeliers shone through the barely swaying fronds.

She closed her eyes at the warm, liquid pleasure of his voice.

“I am a bit tired,” she admitted as he sat down next to her and took one of her gloved hands in his.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to”—he looked down for a moment while his fingers worked the four tiny buttons at the wrist of her pristine white gloves—“exhaust you.” He smiled wickedly when he freed the fourth button and let his index finger enter the small opening and caress her sensitive skin. That single finger was doing devilish things to her insides. “Maybe you just need a little pick-me-up.” His finger reached as far into the slit of fine leather as it could go, straining across the baby-soft skin of her inner forearm.

“What are you doing to me?” she whispered.

“Seducing you,” he replied with no hint of irony.

“Why?”

“Because you want me to.”

“Do I?”

“Very much.”

“And after the seduction?”

“There is no after.”

“There is always an after…” Her eyes were closed in feline pleasure as his finger continued to send shocks through her body with that one tiny touch.

“I will always seduce you.”

“Always?”

“Anytime you want me to…”

“What if you’re busy?”

“I will make the time. Besides, I’m not busy right now, and just like you and secondary definitions, I try to steer clear of hypothetical conversations.” His voice turned matter-of-fact and he began buttoning up the small opening of her glove.

She pouted, feeling a bit dismissed. “Are you punishing me?”

“I will if you want me to.” His smile was pure mischief. “That bed at the inn is quite the thing… sturdy and all that… I would have thought after your, well, time in the wilderness, you might have preferred a more gradual reintroduction, but I am always game—”

Sarah felt herself go pale with embarrassment. “I meant… I liked what you were doing with my glove… and then you stopped… and turned sort of businesslike… and…” She thought crawling under the small table and its protective table skirt might be
quite
the
thing
.

Devon just stared. “Are you for real?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean”—he pulled at his stiff, formal collar to loosen its irritating hold on his neck—“one minute, you are the goddamned sexiest thing I have ever laid eyes on, lips parted, eyes closed, practically humming like an engine for Christ’s sake, your kicked-up heartbeat visible through that fantastic skin. Shoes like mink manacles for Christ’s sake. And then the next minute, you are, well, a bloody innocent. It’s a bit off-putting.” And that was putting it mildly.

Sarah wasn’t sure if he was trying to chastise her for being a tease or just venting a little sexual frustration. She felt like she might be slipping a bit out of her depth. “Like how off-putting?” she asked with just a hint of sarcasm, trying to protect her fragile, give-me-a-break-I-was-a-virgin-yesterday ego. “Like all that seduction talk was ‘just talk’ off-putting? Or like ‘minor hiccup’ off-putting?”

“Luckily, I am not easily put off.” His smile made it entirely clear that he had been momentarily frustrated by his own desire, rather than accusing her of taunting him.

She smiled with genuine relief. “Well, that
is
a boon.”

“See, like right there! Your whole face, your whole being just beams this message of invitation… I am not saying you are a tease—”

Her face must have shown that that was exactly what she’d thought he was saying.

“Oh! Charming! You must take me for quite the gentleman.” He raked one hand impatiently through his hair to get it out of his eyes. “It’s not that. At. All. It’s just, you are so
right
there
for the taking. And then, swoosh, it’s like Game Over.”