Wild about Weston (The English Brothers Book 5) (10 page)

He let go of her, clenching his jaw, his eyes smoldering with anger and frustration. “Fine. Go.”

She stepped away from him, then stopped, looking into his beautiful eyes, sweeping her gaze over the hard lines of his face. Wincing at the hurt and rejection she saw there, she was overwhelmed with regret and confusion and too many other uncomfortable feelings to process on the dance floor of his brother’s wedding.

“Thanks for making tonight not so horrible,” she said softly, in a broken voice.

Then she turned away quickly, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the dance floor.

***

Did it make sense? No. Did anything? No. Had he ever experienced frustration quite on this particular plane before? No.

All he knew was that watching Molly walk away from him hurt far worse than Connie breaking up with him this morning. It reminded him of the way Alex used to sucker punch him when he was a kid. His belly, so soft and relaxed, wouldn’t have time to brace for the assault of Alex’s balled fist. It hurt ten times as much, knocking the wind from his chest and making his eyes water.

And that’s exactly what happened now. His chest felt tight and his eyes watered, and he couldn’t account for it, except to say that the few hours he’d spent with Molly weren’t nearly enough, and he felt incredibly shortchanged. It was only nine-thirty and there were still hours left in Fitz’s wedding. Hours he’d wanted to spend with her.

He didn’t go back to his table, despite the fact that dinner was being served. He slipped out of the room and bee-lined for his father’s study where he uncapped a bottle of good scotch and poured himself a shot. After tossing it back he poured another, sitting down heavily in his father’s leather easy chair as the liquor scorched a soothing path to his stomach.

What was it about Molly McKenna that was so suddenly and completely addictive to Weston?

Her beauty? Sure. She was fresh-faced, sexy, and stunning.

The heat between them? Absolutely. Weston had been with quite a few women, but he could honestly say he’d never generated as much heat with any of them as he had over the last few hours with Molly.

That she’d been dumped by such an asshole riled his protective nature. But it was more than her looks or their chemistry or the fact that she was having a bad day. Molly was a remarkable person—growing up on a little farm in Ohio, she pushed herself through grad school, only to accept a job at an under-privileged school in North Philly all so she could make a difference. Molly was someone really, really worth knowing. And it pissed him off that their time had been cut short.

He briefly thought about striding into the ballroom and punching J.C. Rousseau in the face for misleading Molly and upsetting her so much. Especially after learning from Alex that Étienne Rousseau had not only taken Kate’s virginity, but rejected her afterwards, Weston was eager to hurt one of the Rousseau’s and J.C. had given him cause. But, he thought of Daisy’s sweet face, and regardless of the satisfaction he’d derive in the moment, it wasn’t worth casting a pall over her beautiful wedding by getting into another fight. Loyalty to Fitz and Daisy trumped his longing for revenge, and he decided against it.

That decided, he definitely didn’t want to go back to the wedding yet. Molly was gone, which made Weston feel more alone than he’d felt all day, and all of the horribleness of being at a wedding was washing over him once again. Except this time, he wasn’t even in the mood for a hook-up. There was only one woman he wanted to touch, talk to, and spend time with, and she had left. He considered running after her—she was probably still waiting for the valet to bring her car around—but that smacked of desperation and besides, if she wanted to leave, he needed to let her go. When Fitz and Daisy got back from their honeymoon, he could ask Daisy for Molly’s phone number. By then, her break-up from Dusty would be two weeks in the past, and perhaps she’d be willing to give Weston a chance. He hoped so.

Somewhat mollified, though still unhappy, he decided to head to his room for a few minutes. If he could relieve some of the tension in his body—not that he’d need the cache of magazines under his bed, but they were there just in case—maybe he could get through the last few hours of the wedding without killing someone.

Filling his glass again, he left his father’s study and made his way around the ballroom to the grand staircase. From the front vestibule of Haverford Park, which was completely empty except for a doorman, he could hear the soft cacophony of forks and knives in the ballroom, indicating that dinner was in full swing. He trudged up the stairs, feeling grumpy and frustrated, sipping the scotch and wishing that Molly McKenna had stayed.

Arriving at the third floor landing, Weston furrowed his brow to find the door to his room ajar. Perhaps Molly had left it open when he left her for pictures several hours ago? He stepped through the door and blinked with surprise to find Molly sitting on his bed.

“Molly?”

Her face whipped up in surprise, and her dark eyes widened as two splotches of red suddenly colored her cheeks. “Weston! What are you doing here?”

His lips twitched. “It’s my room.”

“Of course,” she said, her voice a little breathless, her palms reaching up to cover her cheeks.

“I thought you were leaving,” he said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. His heart thudded with relief, but he was glad the words sounded casual in his ears.

“I was. I am,” she said, but she didn’t stand up. She sat perched on the edge of his bed, staring at him as he crossed the room toward her. Holding the little purse on her lap, she said, “I left this in your bathroom. It has my valet ticket.”

“Oh.”

“So I came up here to get it.” She shrugged, wetting her lips. Her eyes were weak and wavering, and he swallowed down the hope that he read surrender there too. “But…”

He squatted down before her so she wouldn’t have to strain her neck to look up at him. “But what?’

“I don’t want to go,” she said simply, whispering the words with a fraught, resigned tone, like she was sharing an unpleasant secret. “I just…downstairs? I felt so overwhelmed, so…jealous. I’ve never felt like that before, and it makes no sense because I have no claim to you. But, I—I hated it…”

“Seeing me dancing with Kate?” he asked, holding his breath, his stomach fluttering with urgency.

She nodded. “Yes.”

Weston’s body relaxed and he spoke on a sigh. “I felt the same way when you were dancing with J.C. I wanted to punch something. I couldn’t stand seeing his hands on you.”

Molly’s eyes filled with tears and she swallowed, shaking her head. “I don’t want to feel like this. It feels dangerous. It feels like it could hurt me, and I’ve already been hurt…”

He reached forward, wrestling one of her hands away from the purse she was clutching, white-knuckled, on her lap. “My mother used to say…you can’t help the way you feel. You can only help what you do about it.”

She nodded, letting him entwine his fingers through hers, but kept her eyes cast down. “Which is why I thought I should leave.”

“No.” He shook his head, feeling a wave of tenderness overtake him. “You don’t have to leave. Molly, look at me. Please, look at me, sweetheart. J.C. was having some fun with us, that’s all. It’s not dangerous. I’m not going to hurt you. And I’d love it if you’d stay.”

Her furrowed brows eased a bit, and she took a deep, ragged breath. “You would?”

“It all got horrible again when you left,” he teased, giving her a little grin.

Molly looked concerned, reaching out with her free hand to cup his cheek with her palm. “Did you start thinking about her again? The girl from this morning?”

Terribly distracted by the sweetness of her touch, Weston fought the urge to rest his head in her lap. Instead, he forced himself to pull away from her and stand, taking off his jacket and laying it over his desk chair before sitting beside her on the bed. He offered her his scotch and she took it from him, lifting the glass to her lips for a sip, then wrinkling her nose and handing it back to him quickly.

“Christ on a cracker, that’s strong!”

Surprised by her outburst, he chuckled softly as he took the glass from her. His smile faded a little as he got lost staring at her, confused by how relieved he was to find her here, how desperately he wanted her to stay.

“Weston?”

“What?”

“The girl from this morning?”

“Who? Connie? No. No, I’m not sad about her. If this evening has taught me anything, it’s that Connie and I weren’t meant to be.” He scoffed lightly. “I mean, I couldn’t fall for you this fast if my heart belonged to her.”

Molly gasped and Weston realized what he’d just said. He looked away and considered taking it back, but however unbelievable or inconvenient, the words were true, so he let them stand, raising his eyes to her face as she processed them.

Would she leave? Would she leave now? If she’d been overwhelmed before, this latest declaration wasn’t going to help. Suddenly, he felt panicked. Maybe he
should
take them back.

“Molly…” he started, but his words were cut short by her lips slamming into his.

***

When Molly had recovered her purse, she’d also checked her phone for the first time since arriving at the reception, and much to her dismay, there were over a dozen unread text messages from Dusty. Molly had furrowed her brow, staring at the red number fourteen on the phone screen with confusion, because that was a lot of texts, even if Dusty
was
on a mission for forgiveness. For one brief second she considered reading them, which made her furious because it would mean he’d managed to manipulate her into a conversation. She huffed in protest, swiping her index finger over his name and deleted the entire thread without giving them a peek.

The way she was ignoring him was likely driving him crazy. Well, good. She didn’t owe him her understanding and forgiveness. But even her little show of spirit wasn’t enough to balance the lost and pathetic feelings generated by seeing Dusty’s name. She put her phone back in her purse and plopped down dejectedly on Weston’s bed.

Weston’s bed, however, was possibly the only antidote on earth to feeling dumped and depressed. It was impossible not to respond when Weston’s bed smelled like him and a little bit like her too, and vivid memories of their make-out session suddenly flooded her brain and made her weak for an immediate reprise.

Seeing him walk through the door a few minutes later, like the strength of her longing had somehow procured him, appealed to her heart on an almost-fictional level of fate. But hearing the words
, I couldn’t fall for you this fast if my heart belonged to her
, had vaulted her instantly from a mopey place of “maybe” to an empowered place of “yes,” because—
Oh, my God
—he was
falling
for her, and never, ever had there been sweeter, prettier, more welcome words to Molly McKenna’s recently rejected heart.

Her hands followed her lips to his face, cupping his cheeks with urgency, and Weston reacted instantly, twisting on the bed to face her, gently pushing her back with his body. He lay beside her, his upper chest pushing into hers on an angle and leaning over her to kiss her back as fiercely as she was kissing him.

“Scoot back,” he panted, his breath hot on her lips, and Molly lifted her feet to the edge of the mattress for leverage, braced up on her elbows, and pulled her body all the way onto the bed.

Weston rolled on top of her, his elbows on either side of her head and his hands on her cheeks. His body was hard and heavy over hers, but she didn’t feel crushed beneath him. She sank into the mattress, loving the contours of his aroused body pressed so intimately against hers. His eyes were darkly sensual, threaded with tenderness when she met them.

“Is this okay?” he asked breathlessly. “Make sure it’s okay, because I’m planning to spend a little time right here, Molly.”

“It’s perfect,” she said, tipping her neck back to offer her lips to him.

Weston seized them greedily, sucking the top one between his, only to release it and take the bottom one in the same way, teasing her with morsels when she wanted a meal. When he took her top lip between his again, she bit his bottom one lightly, then licked it quickly, loving it when his breath caught and he ceased games, greedily sealing his lips flush over hers and sweeping her mouth with his tongue. Holding back an urge to laugh with arousal and pleasure and happiness, a sound, deep and low in her throat, emerged like a moan and it was so sexy and unfamiliar in her ears, she arched her body into his.

One hand slipped from her face under her back and skated up to her neck to find her dress zipper and draw it down swiftly. As Molly lay back down, his hand landed on her shoulder, gently skimming against her skin and gliding the strap of her dress down her arm. His lips skipped, like a flat rock on a lake, touching down on her chin, her jaw, her throat, the small of her neck to her bare shoulder, which he kissed gently. His soft, firm lips were heaven against her sensitive skin as his free hand pushed at the dress’s scoop neck. Molly leaned up, letting gravity pull the straps down to her elbows before laying back. Weston finished her work, laying a warm palm on her chest, and then smoothing down the dress to her waist.

Molly pulled her arms free, plunging her fingers into the blond waves of his thick hair and sighing as his lips landed on her black-lace covered breast, teasing the already-hard nipple into full erection which strained against the fabric, frustrated for any barrier between her sensitive skin and the smooth, wet warmth of Weston’s mouth. She whimpered as his hand replaced his mouth, kneading and teasing as his lips took the other nipple through the film of lace.

“P-Please,” she pleaded with him, her breathing sharp and shallow.

“Shhhh,” he murmured against her nipple, making it pucker between his slack lips as they hushed her.

She slid her hands out of his hair and covered his fingers with hers, lacing through, to guide them over her breasts. Once flush, she slipped the tips of her fingers into the top of the strapless lace and pulled down, freeing her breasts to the heaven of his mouth. Her hands smoothed down her stomach, falling flat to the sheets.

Plumping one breast with his hand, his lips fell greedily to her nipple, sucking it into his mouth and swirling his tongue around it again and again as her body arched off the bed, her pelvis, lined up perfectly with his, pressing insistently against his erection as her fingers balled into fists with handfuls of crushed sheet.

“Ohhhh….” she whimpered, biting her bottom lip and clenching her eyes shut as he sucked the second nipple into his mouth—the wet, the warmth, the hungry sucking—making silken webs of pleasure radiate out from her breasts. Goosebumps rose on her skin, and she pressed her head back into the bunched comforter.

His lips kissed a path from her heart to her throat, gently licking the throbbing pulse in her neck before capturing her mouth again, his hips thrusting forward lightly to mimic sex. He threaded his hands through her hair, almost roughly, to move her head how he wanted it.

Her tongue tangled with his and she swallowed his groans, marveling that they’d both lived on the earth for years without knowing she was the magnesium to his fire, the perfect clash of ingredients, combining to create white-hot sparks like lightning. What if they’d never found each other? What if they somehow lost each other?

“Molly, Molly, Molly,” he breathed against her ear, taking the soft lobe between his teeth again as he had hours before and making her writhe beneath him from the sharp sweetness. “What do you want? What do you want to do?”

“I want…” she panted, skimming her hands from the sheets to his back, feeling the strong, smooth lines of his body under his white shirt, and knowing that his flesh would be hard and hot beneath her fingers as she held him against her as he pushed himself into the greedy heat of her body. “Oh, God, I want…”

The muscles deep inside of her body clenched with want. She wanted him. She wanted him to pull off the rest of her clothes and take off his, she wanted him to kiss her whole body the way Dusty never had, the way she’d always craved, and she wanted to feel Weston slide himself into her until she was filled, until he had claimed every last inch of her body, until—

Sensible Molly suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Are you sure about this?
she asked.

“Oh, please,” she moaned softly. She
wanted
him. She wanted to feel him—all of him. If his lips on her lips and his lips on her breasts created sparks, surely the feel of his body joined with hers would cause fireworks, hot and glorious and—

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

Weston lingered by her ear, his hands still molded over her breasts as his thumbs flicked the still damp skin, keeping her so aroused, her blood thundered in her ears, and yet she heard the question again in her head:

ARE. YOU. SURE?

“No,” she sobbed tearlessly, letting her hands fall from his back to the sheets with bitter regret. Her frustration extreme, her eyes burned and welled with tears, so she clenched them shut.

Did she want him?

Yes. Every cell in her body was screaming for him.

But her heart, her recently bruised heart, begged her mind to take a beat, to think it over, to be sure that having Weston wasn’t a decision she’d deeply regret by tomorrow. She wished she was sure. She wished she was the sort of girl who could sleep with Weston—knowing there was a decent chance it would be a one-night-stand—take her pleasure, and walk away with a smile. She wished she was the sort of girl who wouldn’t moon about for the next two weeks, two months, two years, dreaming of him, reliving every moment, waiting for the phone to ring as her heart grew brittle. She wished she wasn’t the sort of girl who required a promise, a plan, a “next time.” But she was.

Sleeping with him would be risky. But without any sort of indication that their flirtation would last beyond tonight? And bearing in mind she’d been dumped by her fiancé yesterday? It was emotional suicide.