I spared him a glance. "That's your option. I have a long, messy history of fucking up other people's nice things, and I'm not doing that tonight. Neither are you, for that matter, and we need to watch out for Riley," I said. "Oh, I almost forgot. One of Lauren's brothers is supposed to be keeping me in line, so—"
"The fuck he is," Nick snapped. "Which one? I'll sedate him for the night."
I ran a brush through my hair and smiled at him in the mirror. "It's okay. I can shake him. He's not especially dedicated to the cause."
I ran my hand over Nick's shoulders, plucking off a strand of red hair that was clinging to his shirt. It gave me a moment to study the long lines of his body, and admire him in a suit. This worked for him, but I also knew he'd look good in anything. Almost as good as he looked in nothing at all.
"You know, I could stand here watching you think dirty thoughts about me all night," he said, catching my eye in the mirror. "Please, continue."
I couldn't help myself. "What do you wear at the hospital?" I asked. In my head, I had him dressed up in scrubs like my own little Spanish Ken doll.
"Come back to the city with me tomorrow night," he said, "and you can find out for yourself."
No, that wasn't one of our options. The end of our weekend wasn't among the things I wanted to think about right now. Pivoting, I ran my hand down Nick's back. "Let's go be strangers."
We maintained a civil distance for the remainder of the evening, always averting our eyes before a glance turned into a gaze. I got to know Patrick's apprentice, Andy, over sweet vermouth, and she was a treasure. She had all the right cool and quirky to go with Patrick's dark and grumpy, as impossible as it seemed.
Nick was on the other side of the tent with Riley, and everything about their posture said they were talking sports. When men were standing together, angled at forty-five degrees with one hand on the waist while the other hand cut sharp, definitive signs in the air, the topic was college or professional sports. If there was any doubt, their expressions gave the rest away. Their faces morphed as if they were offering incontrovertible fact only for their opponent to volley back the argumentative equivalent of a stale cracker.
I didn't want to interrupt that. Not when I could observe from a distance and invent new ways to be completely irresponsible with my husband.
While I waited for the right time to steal Nick away, I discovered that Lauren's brother Wes and I knew all the same expat hideouts in Italy, and that he was only on board with this babysitting mission to keep his sister happy. He was primarily concerned with whether he'd get time with his fuck buddy while on leave this weekend. Andy askedone questionabout the buddy, and Wes answered with the most detailed history of every time they'd been together, right down to longing stares across a briefing room. He wasn't heartsick so much as hung up on this guy.
That was a shabby situation, but after telling his forever-long story, Wes got a text and hightailed it out of the beachside reception tent. Andy left for a walk along the shore, and I blew out the don't-screw-up-the-wedding breath I'd been holding all night.
Chapter Seven
Nick
Erin's fingerswere in my hair and her mouth on my neck, and my hips were jerking up, desperate for her heat but also painfully aware that we were on a patio chair, with waves crashing only a few yards away. Translation: the wrong place to fuck my wife.
"You," I said, my lips on her jaw. "Youdid this to me. You're a witch, darlin'. Wicked, wicked, wicked witch."
"What are you talking about?" Erin murmured. She shivered, but it had nothing to do with my technique. The night was heavy with fog, and the damp air had her skin pebbled with goose bumps. Where were the goddamn beds when I needed them? "You're the one who had to stop halfway down the path.Youcouldn't make it to the cottage, not me. This is about endurance, not witchcraft."
My hands landed on her ass and I yanked her down, hard enough to feel her wetness through my trousers. "You're the one who took your panties off, dropped them in my lap, and then proceeded to do shots with Andy for half a damn hour," I said. "You did this."
"I hadoneshot, and you're the one who forgot to grab condoms from your room when you got dressed for the wedding," she said, gesturing down the path connecting the cottage to the inn's main building. "Perhaps that was your subconscious telling you to stop having sex with me."
That was it. That was fuckingit.
I reached between us, fighting with my belt and zipper and nearly mutilating myself in a feverish attempt at getting my cock free. "Or my subconscious doesn't like the idea of fucking my wife with a condom," I said.
"Yeah?" she asked, taking me between her folds and shuttling over me before allowing me to slip inside.
I caught her nipple between my fingers and tugged hard enough for her to know that I wasn't playing. "It's like I've been trying to fuck every one of those damn things off," I said.
"Have you made peace with God yet? I'm not sure you should be pulling and praying until you've atoned," she said.
"Why do I always walk in on this shit?"
Groaning, I turned my head just enough to catch a glimpse of Riley. But it wasn't just Riley. Nope, that would've been too easy.
"Shit," Erin whispered as Shannon and Lauren's brother Will stared at us. My hand was on her breast, and that was what theycouldsee. I was straight up groping her in front of her brother, her sister, and a guy who could snap me in half with one hand, and we had a game of Just the Tip going on under her skirt.
"Could you not wait until you got inside?" Riley yelled.
"I dare you to tell them that we're married," Erin whispered. "That would add some spice to this conversation. Maybe even some legitimacy."
