The more I say, the less I can explain. They’re not the answers she deserves, but any more would pull her brother into the middle and I can’t do that to him on his wedding day. Drew’s far from perfect and maybe he’s gone overboard on the over-protective big brother act, but his intentions are good.
I offer her the only thing I can. “I’m so sorry, Gretch.”
Her tired eyelids drift shut. “I forgive you.”
“You shouldn’t.” She opens her eyes, meeting mine. “You shouldn’t because I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I don’t deserve you.”
Her brows crease as she cocks her head. “Then you don’t know how good you are.”
The mistakes of the past twenty-four hours alone prove that’s false. Not to mention the mountain of terrible choices I made through college up to a year ago, some I didn’t even remember the next morning.
“But you don’t even know the worst parts of me,” my voice breaks, rough and ragged.
“I don’t need to know the details to know the truth. The last year has to count for something.”
“What makes you so sure I haven’t done anything stupid over the past year?”
She shrugs. “A feeling.” A heavy breath expands her chest. “Unless I misread that, too?”
“No,” I rasp. “I haven’t done anything…stupid.”
She nods down at her hand fidgeting over the railing. “Me neither.”
Two muted confessions that speak ear-splitting volumes. I’d hoped as much, but I never dared ask if she’d been seeing someone else because it was no place of mine to stop her.
I have no plan here, yet I close the gap between us anyway. All I know is that I need to be closer. Every tear she’s shed today, I want to be close enough to swim in them. Close enough to count the freckles atop her nose. Close enough to feel the air sweeping in and out of her lungs.
“What now?” Her voice cuts over the dull throb of dance music vibrating the wall. Question and hunger blaze in her eyes.
The thread that’s been holding my self-restraint snaps and I throw an arm around her waist, my palm pressed into the skin of her back as I coax her around the dark corner of the terrace. Her back against the wall, I push in close, my lips in a pleading hover above hers.
She fists the open collar of my shirt and I sweep a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. I brush my thumb over her bottom lip, making her breath hitch.
“Why didn’t you bring a date tonight, Gretch?” The question but a wisp of air floating from my mouth to land on hers. I already know the answer, but I’m a selfish man who wants to hear the words pour from her lips.
“Because you weren’t supposed to have a date either.”
My mouth claims hers. I take everything I’ve craved since she walked into that rehearsal dinner last night. She meets my intensity on contact. Our tongues sweep and sway and tangle in an unbridled frenzy.
My body flush up against her, my hands explore, roaming frantically down every curve and back up again.
I cup her breasts in my palms. The soft flesh swells above the bodice of her dress as I push them together and up. I rip my lips away from her mouth and slide my tongue over the peaks and valleys of her cleavage from one far side to the other in one languid stroke. My thumb grazes her nipple through the fabric of her gown.She whimpers and I fuse our mouths back together to swallow that sound, to hold it inside and never let it go.
Our heads turn and swivel, mouths, tongues and teeth clashing. My hands move all over her while she keeps us flush against each other with every give and take of her own body to stay connected to mine.
We pull back, foreheads coming together, chests heaving as we suck air into our lungs.
I trace a leisurely path with my palm from her face, down her neck, collarbone, and back over her chest again. My hand on her waist, I pinch the soft flesh of her ear between my teeth. She takes in a rapid breath, tugging me even closer. I reach around to cup her backside and give it a rough squeeze.
“Your ass in this dress, Gretch. It’s been driving me crazy all night.”
I buck my hips forward and she moans. My smile caresses the hot skin of her neck.
I reach lower, finding the bare skin of her thigh through the slit of her dress. She hikes her leg up to my waist, granting permission. My hand glides up her smooth tanned skin—nothing but bare flesh all the way up.
Palm on her ass, my breath heavy on her jaw, I say, “God, you’re sexy as hell.”
Her exposed leg high around my waist, she’s nothing but naked skin up to the apex of her thigh. Two layers of cotton stand between my hard-on and the bare space between her legs. She shifts and I do the same, our bodies chasing that friction. We moan in unison, mouths rushing back together.
