Spin (The Indigo Lounge Series) (7 page)

My eager hands slide around to grip his ass, and we both groan at the sizzling contact. He walks me back until I’m wedged against the cooling meat locker. A slow roll of his hips imprints the thick erection against my belly. I whimper and try to pull him closer.

“God, baby. Will this craving ever go away?” he rasps.

“Do you want it to go away?”

“Hell no. It’s in my blood. My soul. I’d die without it.”

He spears a hand through my hair and is about to kiss me when loud voices enter the kitchen. I laugh as he frowns at the pantry door, which has no lock on the inside.

“Shit. I’m beginning to think you were right about having this party,” he whispers.

“When are you going to realize I’m always right?”

His laugh is deep and riveting. And it touches my heart. As always. “Do you think we can get away with telling everyone to fuck off?” His hands drift up to my breasts and cup them. “On second thought, I don’t think I care. I’ll get Philip to send them away. He’s large and intimidating enough to scare every last one of them.”

“And what will you be doing while our guests are being tossed out into the snow?”

“I’ll be right here, ripping your panties off and bending you over the cured ham so I can bury my cock inside you.”

My fingers spike into his hair and pull him closer. “Hmm, I think our condiment shelves do need a closer inventory.”

He passes his thumbs over my peaking nipples and groans. “Marry me.”

My giggle emerges a little strangled as decadent sensations claw through me. “You already asked. A million times. I said yes. A million and one times.”

When he raises his head, his face is mask of raw, naked hunger, but his gaze is serious. “Marry me
tomorrow
.”

I freeze. “Zach, we’ve set a date. In
April
.”

“I know. But for fuck’s sake, how long does it take for your mother to plan a wedding?” he growls.

I capture his jaw. “Don’t blame her. We made everyone wait eighteen months. It’s not fair to spring this on them.”

“You’re the best event planner in the fucking country. You have an unlimited budget. I’m frustrated that the two can’t form a beautiful union that births a wedding in forty-eight hours.”

“The
IL Indulgence
launch is in a few weeks. You put Keely in charge, and I can’t drag her away from that just to help me with my wedding. Then there’s your mother. You agreed for her to be part of the wedding, but you wanted to work on your relationship with her, make sure you two were in a good place before the wedding, remember? Besides,
I
also need to get to know her. You kept her away from me long enough.”

He captures my hand and kisses my palm. “But I eventually gave in because you pushed and prodded until I had no choice but to take you to New Orleans to see her. I still don’t know why I let that happen, but I thought it bought me serious brownie points.” His frown holds more than a touch of puzzlement.

“It did. And no matter what’s happened in the past, she’s your mother. And weddings should be a union in all senses.”

“Fuck that. You’re the only family I need. The only person who matters to me.”

My limbs grow weak from the power of his words. “Ditto. But we can’t do this without our family.” I slide my hand lower until I locate my target. His breathing turns ragged. “And I can’t rush this for two reasons.”

“What reasons?” he asks, then groans when my grip tightens.

“First off, if we elope, everyone we know will eat both of us alive and I won’t get to spend the next hundred years with you. And...”

“And...?”

I trace his thickness through the tailored pants, my pussy clenching with desperate need. “And I won’t get to finish organizing the killer wedding night I have planned for us.”

The Calm Before The W.T.F. Just Happened

Bethany

T
he weeks fly by in a frenzy of gown fittings, food and beverage sourcing, managing a flood of RSVPs for the five hundred invitations we sent out, and tearing my hair out over seating arrangements. Zach insisted I hire two assistants after one too many times of me falling into an exhausted sleep at the end of the day and depriving him of his Peaches time.

My mother has also been assigned two assistants, and between us we’ve wrestled down the punishing
to-do
list into manageable chunks that keep the men in our lives from losing their minds. My professor father insists he’s paying for the entire wedding. Zach, my very primitive alpha turned twenty-first century man, disagrees. He argues that ninety per cent of the guests are recently renewed acquaintances and friends, and hence his responsibility. My father calls bullshit.

Zach’s open check book and insistence on its usage threatened to become a problem until I ordered him to sort things out with my father.

A solo trip by Zach up to my parents’ home in Scarsdale, Westchester County, one Sunday afternoon while I was at the spa, resolved the issue. I remain in the dark about the specifics of the resolution, save that it was conducted over a steak dinner lubricated with fine wine, but the men in my life are satisfied and that’s all that matters.

Another potentially serious wrinkle, which has recently been ironed out, brings another smile to my face as I answer the last of my emails and prepare to leave the office after a long, grueling week.

Much like how the circumstances surrounding my meeting with Zach proved to be a life-changer for me, Keely’s awkward moment of being overheard by Mason Sinclair in our beach house kitchen has had the same effect on her life.

My instincts about him proved true. Mason Sinclair came with tanker-sized baggage, which terrified me when Zach eventually divulged it. But like me, Keely fell hard for her nerd billionaire, and he fought equally as hard for her. The two are together now, and almost as crazy about each other as Zach and I, despite Keely unearthing a few harrowing secrets of her own in the course of their affair. Secrets, which made my heart ache to know she kept them buried, even from me.

We’re okay now, and I couldn’t be more thrilled for her. My take-no-shit cynical best friend has found her soul mate, and I want to shout my happiness for her from every single New York rooftop.

I grin at her imagined reaction should I ever voice that urge. She’d probably scream,
fuck yeah, let’s do it
, and drag me across the city to do just that.

My phone rings as I hike my Chloe purse over my shoulder. I check the screen and smile.

“Hey, gorgeous. I was just thinking about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Keely says. “You’re humbled by just how fabulous I am, right?”

I laugh. “Something like that. I’ll be there in five.”

“Good, because these cocktails aren’t going to drink themselves, and I intend to wring every last drop of pleasure from this rare, rare night,” she shouts above the thumping music in the background of the wine bar where we’re meeting.

I end the call and head down in the elevator, my smile still lingering. Keely is the last person I would’ve thought would entertain an ultra alpha man in her life—she gave me relentless grief over Zach’s
possessive shit
, as she called it. Turns out she needed the right man to change her mind. Mason is as possessive as they come, and Keely revels in it. But between our men’s constant demands on our time, girl time has been almost non-existent lately. Most of our interaction, since Mason resettled in New York, has been spent in double dates.

So this Friday night together, especially with my wedding set to happen two shorts weeks from now,
is
rare. And I intend to enjoy it to the max!

When I hit the foyer, Philip rises from his usual position next to the security desk—I don’t know how Zach managed to swing
that
—and holds open the side door for me to exit.

The bar is three blocks away, and I make short work of the walk. Philip’s presence by my side is great for making room on the busy sidewalk. No one wants to tangle with the giant from Papua New Guinea.

I enter the bar and immediately spot Keely. Despite her unavailable status, she’s surrounded by keen prospects. I do sense a
close-but-not-too-close
vibe from her, however, which is probably a good thing since I’ve witnessed Mason’s dominant side in action.

She sees me, and with a smile and a few words, sends the guys packing. When I reach the table, I’m enveloped in a bear hug. I tighten my arms around her. Then, we lean back from each other, and grin like idiots, bestie love given and received without words.

“Come on, let’s get this fucking party started!”

Drinks, whose names fly out of my head as soon I hear them, arrive and are downed. My buzz arrives shortly thereafter and makes itself at home. We settle on nibbles, place our order, then Keely and I hit the dance floor. An hour later and my silk shirt is sticky from the exertions. I shed it, leaving my body-hugging vest on to keep cool. We dance some more, then return to the table.

“Fuck, I’ve missed this so damn much.” Keely whoops after one last saucy ass wriggle to an
Usher
song. She grins at the resulting wolf whistles and collapses into her seat. “Sometimes I miss being single.”

I shake my head with emphatic certainty. “No, you don’t.”

She winks at me. “No, I don’t. My rejuvenated clit thanks you and owes you big time, my friend.”

“You’re picking up the tab tonight. That’s enough.”

“Fuck the tab. You need tributes and your name up in lights. I’ll get round to that one of these days, but rest assured I think of you every time I have an orgasm.”

I splutter like a hypertensive fish when my drink goes down the wrong way. “What the fuck, Keely?”

She passes me a napkin with an unrepentant smirk. “What? You should be honored. Mason Sinclair The Third gives the best orgasms. Trust me, I know my orgasm gradient, and he—”

“No!” I place my hand over her mouth. “Please, no more. I’m not nearly drunk enough for this.”

She pulls my hand away and shakes her head. “I don’t get how you can be getting fucked by the second sexiest man alive and still remain Miss Prissy. Fine, I’ll tone it down for you. Mason makes me...shit, I love that fucking man like I love Marie Curie for inventing penicillin.”

I laugh, because only Keely would make that insane correlation. I bump her shoulder. “I’m happy for you, babe.”

A megawatt smile lights up her whole face. “I’m happy for me, too.” We clink glasses and let the party vibe wash over us for a few minutes. “You know they’re up to something though, right? It’s the only reason they’re not here right now, snarling at every guy in the room and piss-marking their territory.”

I nod sagely. “Of course they are. Zach barely blinked when I told him I was meeting you for drinks tonight.”

Keely makes an irritated face. “Ditto with Mason. But I know they plan to have whatever they’re working on finished soon. Think it could be something to do with your honeymoon? Whatever it is, when Mason get that look in his eye, I know he’s pulling out all the stops.”

“Oh, hell. You sure you can’t find out what it is?”

She shakes her head. “He won’t tell me. He slams his fucking laptop shut every time I walk in the room. I’ve tried breaking into the damn thing, but the password is like a zillion words or some shit.”

“And you’ve let it go at that?”

“Hell no,” she snaps. “I
Agent Provocateur’d
his ass and tried to fuck the secret out of him last night.”

“And?”

“He put me in a fucking sex coma. I woke up in the middle of the night and he’d locked himself in his damn invention room. I tried again this morning...”

I stare at her for a beat as her eyes glaze over, and I swear a shiver runs through her body. “Do I want to know what happened?”

“B, I had to use an ice pack on my pussy for half an hour before I could walk. I was twenty minutes late to my first appointment and was
this
close to asking for extra padding just so I could sit down.” 

“That’s some serious effort to keep a secret,” I muse.

Keely picks up her cosmo with a fiercely determined expression. “Yeah. But I’m—

“Beth?”

I turn at the sound of the voice, familiar and yet so alien in my new reality. My gaze travels up chunky legs draped in mud-colored corduroys—who wears
corduroys
anymore?—and a stylish, black, button down shirt to meet those of my ex. “Chris?”

My heart slows, then speeds up for all of three seconds before sinus rhythm resumes.

“I thought that was you.”

I stare at him without responding, not because I’m shocked or struck dumb or anything. It’s because that three-second arrhythmia feels like a deep betrayal of Zach. I’m overcome by the urge to get up, walk out of here, find my fiancé as fast as possible and apologize. The awkward silence finally gets to him and Chris’s gaze flicks to Keely.

“Hey, Keely.”

“Hey,
Asshole
.”

His features pinch in momentary anger, but he gathers himself quickly and refocuses his dark brown eyes on me. “Can we talk for a minute?”

“Hell-to-the-fuck no!” Keely lurches closer, ready to fire-and-brimstone on my behalf. I shoot her a grateful-but-let-me-handle-this look. Her lips purse, but she subsides in her seat.

“Sure. Talk.” I don’t project hate, but my tone strokes sub-zero temperatures. Anything above zero is venturing into unacceptable warmth.

“Uh...can we go somewhere quieter?” he asks.

I have no intention of asking him to take a seat, but I hate that he’s looking down on me, so I shoot Keely another glance, and stand. In my four-inch Louboutins, I’m eye-level with him. His gaze slides down my body, his eyes widening the lower he goes.

“Wow, you look great, Beth!” He clears his throat. “I mean, toned and, you know, really...
healthy
. You’ve been working out?” Another, slower, perusal of my body.

I wait for his gaze to return to mine, and I immediately see the sparked interest.

Yeah, newsflash, Asshole, you’re not as gay as you think
.