Page 81 of The Best Men
Mark snorts. “Yep. It’s our . . .”
He trails off before he saysour love language.
But I know that’s what he meant. I was going to say the same thing.
Maybe because the moment’s getting too heavy, too intense, he shifts gears. “So, you were kind of checked out for a bit last night. Does it really bother you that your ex got engaged?” Mark asks the question evenly, in the same tone he used to talk to the chef, the florist, the officiant.
But I understand him better now. This is not a business question he’s asking me. It’s personal, and important to him. He shared the story of the demise of his marriage with me, so I crack open my recent history.
“We were together for a year. I was about to ask Garrett to move in with me and he told me he met someone else. The rest is history.”
“Wow. That sucks.”
It did. But I’m not entirely sure the brief bout of self-loathing I wrestled with last night was about Garrett after all. Hearing that news reminded me of the grade my ex gave me in the relationship department—an F. “He didn’t think I was a very good boyfriend.”
Mark meets my gaze head on. “Are you a bad boyfriend?”
I scratch my jaw, unsure how to answer. “Maybe?”
“Did you cheat on him?”
I scoff. “No. I don’t cheat.”
“Did you steal from him, insult his family, treat him badly, ignore his wants and needs, or root for the Boston Red Sox in front of him? Wait. Make thatat all.”
I laugh, deep in my belly. “I didn’t do any of those things. Especially the last one.”
Mark nods, like a lawyer pleased with the line of questioning for his expert witness. “And the day you were going to ask him to move in with you, he told you he met somebody else and was into some other guy?”
I squirm a bit from the reminder. But is it the memory of Garrett that’s bugging me or the fact that I don’t necessarily want Mark to think of me that way? “That’s what happened.”
Mark seems to mull this over for several seconds. “Sounds to me like the problem wasn’t you, Asher. It sounds to me like the problem was him.”
Then he turns my tricks on me. My daring fling straddles me and roams his mouth along my neck. In seconds, his lips erase all thoughts of anyone else.
As he kisses his way down my body, he murmurs, “The problem definitely wasn’t you.”
He stops talking when he takes my cock in his mouth, and treats me to a fantastic morning blow job.
Just like that, I’m not thinking about the past—only the deliciously sexy present. I intend to enjoy every second of it since it’s going to end very soon.
* * *
Two hours later, I am officially an expert on wedding tents. Add that to my resume after an hour with Ramon in the late morning, surveying the expanse of lawn past the pool.
“It’s going to look great,” I tell the man from Dream Tents.
“Like the wedding tent ofyourdreams,” he says, and I hate to break it to the mustached man, but I definitely don’t dream about wedding venues.
Even ones that come complete with air conditioning, a wood floor for dancing, white tables, a DJ stand, and firefly lights flickering under the roof. Although it might be perfect for sneaking off to later for an outdoor tryst with Mark.
Or wait. Is that an indoor boink?
Hmm. I’ll have to ask the brainiac if tent-fucking qualifies for the indoor or outdoor cells on his fucksheet.
Either way, I might have an item to add to his to-do list.
Which is getting longer rather than shorter.
