“Makeup. I don’t want to mess it up and have you annoyed with me.”
“Makeup can be fixed.”
I didn’t wait for her to say more. I sealed my lips over hers and showed her just how much I liked her dress. I spread my hand wide on her back, enjoying the exposed skin on her upper back with a matching cut to the front. I was going to have my hands on her all night.
“Does that mean you do like the dress?”
“I fucking love this dress.”
She grinned against my lips. “I feel the same about this suit.”
I took a step back. “Yeah? It’s okay?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What about the tie? I’m not used to them and keep tugging on it.”
Casey stepped closer to me and pulled the knot, straightening the tie I’d yanked off center. She smoothed her hand down my tie and held on to the end. “You look really nice.”
“Thank you. Are you ready? Wait, I thought you were going to bring a bag to stay with me.”
“I wasn’t sure you still wanted that,” she said, avoiding my gaze.
I tilted her chin up with one finger. “Yes, I do. I’m not going to force you, but I would really enjoy having you in my bed all night long tonight.”
“Okay. Let me go grab it.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
She snickered. “We’ll never make it to the wedding. I’ll be right back.”
“I’m going to take that to mean you’re not going to be able to keep your hands off me all night.”
She grinned as she opened the door, her gaze traveling down my body.
It was going to be a good night.
Casey and I sat toward the back of the crowd for the wedding. She held my hand and dabbed her eyes and laughed when Natalie almost ran up the aisle as soon as she saw Omar.
The wedding was beautiful, and the two of them were so happy it was hard not to get emotional. I wanted the same thing for myself. I wanted to build a future with Casey.
After the wedding, everyone headed over to Mountain View Retreat while the wedding party took pictures. Casey held my hand as we walked inside and squeezed hard when she saw all the tables.
“Wow. This is amazing,” she gushed. “You’re incredibly talented.”
“Thank you. I couldn’t have done it all if it weren’t for you.”
She smiled up at me and slid her arms around my neck. “I’m not so sure about that. I’ve seen the way you pull things together. You have an incredible eye for what you do.”
“I really love it.”
She grinned, holding my gaze.
The desire to tell her how I felt was strong. It was going to happen if I wasn’t careful, so I broke our link and asked if she wanted to find our table.
“Yeah, let’s see who we’re with. Hopefully people we like.”
We were at a table with Andre and Joelle and two couples we didn’t know. One woman said she was Omar’s assistant at town hall, and the other said she didn’t work for Omar but was a coworker at town hall. Not long after we introduced ourselves, Natalie and Omar were being announced.
