drink tray, stood complete with shiny ice bucket and a champagne bottle. There were bits of cubed cheese and frilly pastries, fancy chocolates and macarons every color of the rainbow. Everything was laid out in the undulating golden light of short pillar candles.
Wow.
Like… I mean… he had pulled out every stop. “This is gorgeous,” I breathed as I stared around me with wide eyes. And fucking romantic. Not even previous boyfriends had ever done something like this for me. The best it’d ever got was sunset and a bag of White Spot fish and chips on a blanket at English Bay Beach.
I’d dated some pretty damn unimaginative guys in my past. Or Lucas just eclipsed them all. Seemingly effortlessly, too.
I shivered a little in anticipation as he moved to the blanket. He looked back, missing nothing. “Cold? I can wrap a blanket around you.”
I smiled at him coyly, my chin down and my eyes tilted upward toward him. “I think I’d rather have your arms than a blanket.”
He returned the smile and opened his arms so I walked into them. I wasn’t really cold but the warmth of his body immediately melted mine. He smelled amazing, woodsy—like cedar chips. I buried my face into his shoulder, covered by his dress shirt.
“Sorry if I dragged you away from something,” I said.
“I’m not,” he replied, then shifted his head, and I was almost certain he kissed my hair. I pulled my head back to look up at him, heart beating in my throat. I smiled shyly, and he returned the smile before dipping his head to kiss me.
He quickly pulled away before it could get any more involved than that. “I want to take your hair down. But I have no idea how.”
I laughed and reached up, pulling out several of the bobby pins the stylist had used to put my hair up. I wasn’t even finished before he was weaving his fingers through my hair with a long sigh. “So beautiful. Your hair is gorgeous.”
I quirked my mouth into a twisted smile. “My best feature.”
He met my gaze again, dead serious, his hands stopping their motion. “Not even close to your best feature, Cranberry.”
I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, relishing the feel of his hands there and bathing in the warm glow of his sincere compliments. We’d been fencing and jousting for over a year instead of waging a true battle. All this time, neither of us would have admitted that it had been foreplay.
Before I knew it, his mouth was on mine again, pressing it open, first gently. He tasted of whisky and cinnamon. And when his tongue entered my mouth, that kiss grew in intensity like a sports car hitting the open road, the driver flooring the accelerator. And just as if I might be a passenger in said car, my stomach dropped. I couldn’t catch my breath and the world turned as he kissed and kissed and kissed it from me.
We were both breathing hard when he pulled away just enough to talk. “I really really just want to give in to what I’ve been wanting for months now.”
“Then do it,” I said in an equally breathy voice. “Because it’s exactly what I’ve wanted, too.”
“Our time is short, Kat.”
“Mmm, so then we know ahead of time when it ends. That isn’t so terrible…”
He inhaled again through his nose, as if he was smelling my hair again. “We should have rules.”
I laughed. “No more rules, Jedi Boy. It’s time to get naked.”
His hands fell to my shoulders, cupping them tightly, urgently before he brusquely spun me around so that my back was to him. He slowly unzipped my gown and the cool air hit the bare skin on my back, evoking goosebumps. One of his warm hands smoothed down the curve of my spine and his mouth sank to the valley where my neck met my shoulder. Violent tingles raced down every nerve ending with electricity so powerful, I trembled. I arched my chin away, giving him exposure to more of my neck. His hands slipped inside my dress.
“You were the most beautiful woman at the ball tonight. Every guy there was looking at you and I was the smug bastard who knew it was my wife they were ogling.”
I laughed. “You’re such a liar. There were plenty of gorgeous women there.”
“None that I was aware of,” he shot back while his mouth glided up my neck multiplying the goosebumps by at least a factor of