She’s demure yet sexy. A teasing, tempting, delicious little siren.
And then there’s her hair. Silky, bouncy waves of pale goldpinned to one side that stop just below her shoulders, so you can see the detail of the back of her dress. Her makeup is light and shimmery, and fuck. Holy fuck. She is every bit the swan I’ve been calling her. Beautiful and graceful and taking my goddamn breath away.
Christ. What have I agreed to?
In a minute, I’m going to have to hold her hands and look into her eyes and tell her that I’m going to love and honor her until death do us part. Then I’m going to have to kiss her. But it won’t be the sort of kiss I want from her. It’ll be perfunctory and polite. Indifferent.
It won’t be with my hands in her hair and my mouth devouring hers. I won’t be able to pull her body into mine and press against her the way I did the first time I kissed her. There will be no tasting her with a promise of more later.
I’m such a fool.
This is why I was such a mess when she left with that guy last weekend. It’s why I hated Josh on sight, before he ever challenged me in my OR. It’s why I’ve hardly looked at or thought about another woman since my lips were melded to hers two years ago.
One kiss two years ago. It was one fucking kiss, and it was two motherfucking years ago. I don’t even like Skylar. She’s young and bratty, and there isn’t anything about her that should hit me this way.
I don’t know what it is, and I can’t explain it.
I thought it was grief and loss and bitterness about my ex. I thought it was loneliness and possibly some depression and boredom and frustration. I didn’t know it was Skylar. Not really. Not in this hitting me over the head and slamming into my chest sort of gruesome detail.
Because when I look at her right now, like this, and then think about marrying her, like the actual logistics of it, my pulse speeds up and my skin tingles, and my stupid dick isgetting hard. I’m getting hard from looking at the woman I’m about to marry. From the thought of kissing her and putting my ring on her finger and being able to call her my wife.
I’m getting. Fucking. Hard.
I don’t know how to do this because I can’t get hard over her. I can’t want to call her my wife with something akin to possessive pride. And I can’t be hungry for her lips on mine or that sexy body beneath me.
I drag a hand across my smooth, clenched jaw. Two years. It’ll be two years of nothing while being surrounded by her. It’s not my baby, and she doesn’t even like me, and both of those should be enough of a deterrent, but they’re not.
I don’t care that it’s not my baby. I like that she doesn’t like me.
I spot Alden coming out of the small ceremony room they have here, and he stops when he sees me, his eyes wide with worry before they slowly slide across the room to Skylar, who still hasn’t noticed us. She’s busy having her own mental crisis, so unlike the one I’m currently having.
Why did he have to say any of that to me? Would I be feeling like this now if he hadn’t? He turns back to me with a sympathetic expression and a flattening of his lips. That’s it. It’s not gloating or cocky. It’s almost commiserative. Like he gets it, and maybe he does. He was in love with Skylar’s cousin Keegan, and now Keegan is married to someone else.
But he was right. I have a thing for my best friend’s little sister. I’m about to marry her. And she wants nothing to do with me.
That last thought has me straightening my spine and pushing away from the bathroom. My shoes tap on the floor, and she hears it because her head swivels in my direction and her eyes round as they lock with mine.
“Hi,” I greet her and Braelyn. “You look beautiful. Are you ready?”
She gives me a slow, rolling blink. Likely because my tone is flat and emotionless.
“Yes. I’m ready.”
“Great. I got you this.” I pull out the box, open it, and hand her the diamond ring. I don’t slip it on her finger, and I sure as hell don’t get on one knee to propose. I already did that more or less.
She gulps as she stares down at it. “What’s this for?”
“You’re a Fritz, and I’m a Hughes. We want this to appear as real as possible.”
With a jerky nod, she slides it onto her right hand since her left is where I’ll be putting her wedding band.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s fucking stunning.” Braelyn whistles through her teeth. “You’ve got great taste and look very dapper. I look beautiful too, thanks for noticing, and Alden looks, well, like Alden, so it could be better.”
“Hey!” he snaps, but there’s no heat in it. They’re trying to defuse the tension, and I appreciate that.
I stick out my elbow to Skylar, and she loops her small hand through and holds onto my forearm, my diamond sparkling up at me.
