The Job Offer - By Eleanor Webb Page 0,61
guests and the photographs were taken, they saw the newly married couple into a white Rolls Royce limousine and followed them back up Orcas Road to the inn.
The reception room at the inn was full of guests when they arrived and a small orchestra played by the dance floor. Nobody danced as it was the custom to wait until after the newly married couple took their first dance as husband and wife. The tables were covered in cream and purple overlaid cloths, and each table sported a tall clear crystal love vase holding cream calla lilies.
While Ben stood in the reception line with the rest of the wedding party, Anne looked for a place to get a glass of wine. Surprisingly, she saw several people whom she recognized. Once the guests had gone through the receiving line, Ben came to find her. She was talking with a nice couple whom she had first met years before. They were frequent guests of the inn in addition to being friends to the Carlson family. They greeted Ben warmly when he arrived at her side. Ben handed her a Champaign flute when he walked up and clinked glasses with her before sipping from his glass. He did not leave her side again until it was time to eat.
When he went to the head table to sit, Anne found her spot next to her parents at their table across the room. Soon the toasts were given with Ben's being both a stirring and funny Best Man's toast that paid homage to his sister and her new husband. There were a number of calls for the couple to kiss, and then everyone focused on enjoying the delicious seafood and beef dishes prepared by the inn's resident chef.
Sometime later, after the dinner plates were removed and the bride and groom shared their first dance, Anne was having a wonderful time talking to another couple at her table when she suddenly felt Ben at her side again. This time he was there to ask her for a dance. Anne quickly accepted and let him lead her to the dance floor where a slow waltz was being played. Anne recognized the song but could not place the composer. The waltz was played at Carla’s wedding, also. It had been a long time since she had danced with anyone, not since Carla’s wedding, in fact, and Anne was slow to start out. But Ben was an excellent leader and she was soon floating around the floor in his arms.
All too soon the dance ended and another song began. Instead of staying for another dance, Ben led her from the floor through the many couples moving to the new waltz. Anne expected him to take her somewhere to sit down so that they could talk, but instead he whisked her out of the room and into a private meeting room one door down from the reception room’s door.
Closing the door of the meeting room behind them, he quickly pulled her into his arms for a private dance that stirred her blood and left her breathless. They swayed to the sound of the orchestra playing in the other room, their bodies pressed against each other in a sexier version of the waltz they did on the dance floor. She moved her arms around Ben’s neck and looked up at him, and he found her mouth in a seductive kiss that stirred her body and left her wanting much more. She finally pulled away to catch her breath and felt Ben's lips move onto her neck and the space behind her earlobe.
"Shouldn't we go back?" She did not want to but asked because she was afraid of the kiss escalating right there when anyone could walk in on them. As it was, her voice was already breathless. "Everyone will miss you." His lips moved to her earlobe and his hands slide down her back to rest on her bottom cupping her cheeks and pulling her in closer to his body.
"Hmm, maybe... I've wanted to do this ever since you walked into the chapel." His mouth found hers again for a passionate kiss that left her moaning before he moved his mouth to her collarbone then along to the base of her throat. She could feel his erection pressed against her, and she rubbed herself against him until his hands lifted her up against him. He backed her against the wall and began to pull up her skirt, his hands sliding up her