Page 71 of A Storybook Wedding

“Sure. That should work.”

CJ sighs with heavy relief, and her eyes light up in a way I’ve never seen them before. Maybe it’s the glow of the fire. Maybe it’s my body’s residual arousal from reading to her in the sanctuary.

But I don’t think so. That look she’s giving me, the one that I can’t get used to—it’s the one from the other day and from just a little while ago, only with added layers of heat, want, purpose.

Intention.

She locks those eyes on me, and I can’t speak.

“You’re amazing,” she says quietly.

I shake my head and swallow.

“I mean it,” she says, walking toward me. She stops right in front of me, our bare toes so close that they almost touch.

“It’s just a hotspot,” I whisper, taking her hands in mine.

“Pen,” she says.

“Hm?” I ask, my senses on overload.

“It’s more than just the hotspot.” The words float, barely vocalized.

I nod, gulping. CJ watches my Adam’s apple as it rises and falls, and I can feel her eyes on me until she closes them and breathes in deeply.

I close mine too, and the words rush out of me like a bubbling river. “You’re killing me, CJ. I want you so bad that I can’t stop writing about it. I know this is just supposed to be an arrangement, but I can’t stand here and pretend that I don’t have feelings for you. So I’m sorry for this, but—”

Before I can finish, her mouth is on mine, swallowing the rest of my sentence.

CHAPTER 13

Cecily

I didn’t plan this.

It’s just—between the blizzard and the power being out and Nate’s reading and the way he looks at me and the scent of his skin and the fire and the fucking hotspot, I just can’t.

I can’t not kiss him.

I melt into the softness of his lips, the faintest hint of chocolate from dessert still on his breath mixing with the strawberry of his ChapStick to create a taste that will forever be linked to this moment. The weeks of trying to ignore the chemistry between us finally surface, exploding like the first whistle of a boiling teakettle. Exhilarated passion courses through my veins, trailblazing like a pioneer through the wild frontier. I’ve felt excitement before, but nothing like this. The firsts of my time with Bryce were fraught with the anxiety of potential embarrassment; the firsts of my subsequent Tinder years were marred by disappointment and skepticism, followed up with resignation that maybe love wasn’t in the cards for me.

Until Nate.

This—our first kiss fueled by desire and adoration in equal measure—is too much for my fragile ecosystem to handle.

Our first real kiss.

Third time’s the charm, I guess. The very first kiss was an alcohol-induced mistake. The second kiss (when we were pronounced man and wife) was measured by the metronome of one Mississippi, two Mississippi. This unfiltered kiss is feral, tongues lapping at one another greedily, Nate’s fingers threading into my hair before tracing down my back and landing on the hem of my shirt, tearing it up and over my head, and then depositing it on the floor.

His hands cover swaths of me with a warmth I’ve not felt, perhaps ever. It is a combination of certainty and impulse, satisfaction and unhinged yearning. He mumbles my name and audibly gasps when my hands return the favor, stripping him of his sweater and his undershirt, dying to feel the ripples of his muscular torso beneath my palms, and when I peel back the layers and land on his skin, I am overcome with a fresh wave of Holy shit, how is this man so insanely beautiful? But just as I feel my senses of touch, taste, smell, and sight overload, he pulls my mouth off his just long enough to mutter, “I’ve been dreaming about your body since our wedding day,” and a flood of longing ignites between my thighs.

Which is when it hits me: this is a man who might actually be able to do something about it.

The realization sends me into a tailspin. Drunk on pheromones, I pull his hands from my waist up to my breasts, and the moan that escapes his lips in response is my undoing. He unclasps my bra, pulling it off me and sending it falling to the floor. His hands work dutifully, cupping me from underneath and rubbing my nipples in slow, gentle circles with his thumbs.

“Good Lord,” I purr, leaning my head back and arching my spine into his touch.

“God, CJ,” he replies, but then his mouth is gone, having worked its way down my upper chest and landing on my right nipple, where he kisses me as if I am a deity to worship.

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