“I like you, Charlotte. That’s just…the thing. I want to be around you.”
“You don’t mind me and my wonky, old man hips?”
He stands and pulls me up to join him, placing his hands carefully around my waist, slowly rubbing gentle circles with his thumbs.
“Your hips are perfection.” His eyes glaze over and his gaze sears me, brands me, so that I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again. Everything’s changed now that he’s looked at me like that.
I give a wobbly smile.
He strokes his hands along my hips and I stiffen at first because I’m afraid I’ll be ticklish. But it turns out that I’m not. It just feels good. Right.
“Your hips are…” His gaze dips down and he looks at me, taking a step back to really see me. His gaze is full of appreciation and my heart skitters under my breastbone.
He leans down and his lips feather against my neck, sending waves of pleasure across my skin. “I’m sorry they’ve given you grief. But to me, they’re beautiful. All of you is beautiful.”
I shudder against him as he kisses me, taking my mouth, softly caressing it at first. Then, his movements dissolve into urgency.
“Taysom,” I whisper against his mouth as he tilts his head and his teeth graze over my lips.
He kisses me like he’s just won the Super Bowl, a hard-fought victory, the best day of his life. It’s full of celebration—at finally getting to this point. It’s reverence for the past and all the events that led us to this moment. It’s exploring the possibilities for what may come tomorrow.
It’s the now.
With a soft moan deep inside his chest, his hands splay against my lower back, and he drags his mouth up my jaw, finding that place right below my ear. He devours it, like it’s his favorite thing.
Taysom’s lips are my favorite thing, and soon, the sensations get to be too much. So, I clutch his hands in mine to draw his mouth back to my lips.
I’m hungry for him.
For this thing that’s suddenly become so real.
I’m hungry forus.
Chapter 29
Taysom
“Tothebrideandgroom!” One of my dad’s friends says in a toast at the reception. I can’t remember his name because I’m getting the vibe that they’re not old friends. He must be one of the newer ones from after I joined the NFL. My dream of playing professionally added some weird dynamics in my father’s life. He started doing things a lot differently than he had before.
One of those things was a dating life on steroids.
Case in point? I’m at his wedding. His third wedding. He and Breanne split up a couple of years ago and now he’s marrying his personal trainer, Jess, who is also fourteen years younger than he is.
I should round up all the women I know who are exactly fourteen years younger than him and warn them, right? That someday, he might be coming for them.
It’s cynical and probably unfair. But yet, here we are again.
My sister, Emma and her husband, Anthony, and their young son, Chandler, stay glued to this table all during the reception. I make the rounds, wandering around the various guests and trying to strike up conversations. Uncomfortable doesn’t even begin to cut it. Besides the random extended family member—there aren’t very many of them on Dad’s side—we know no one else here. And there’s still an hour and a half left.
Kyle and Charlotte said they’d be coming. Charlotte offered to come with me, to be my buffer in this crazy scenario, but I knew she had a virtual job interview. A follow-up one. Her current job at the center is officially ending soon so she really needed to do this. But she and Kyle will be getting here soon, I hope.
Part of me feels bad about subjecting her to all this, though.
“Would he hate us if we left early?” Emma leans over in a conspiratorial whisper, twisting a white linen napkin in her hands. “We could say we’re worried it might rain again, so we need to get home.”
A few minutes earlier, there was a Texas-sized downpour outside, and the big, open double doors leading to more reception tables had to be closed. But as only Texas can, things cleared within minutes and the sky is back to showing off the blaze of the sunset.
Which reminds me of Charlotte.
