One and Only(55)

He couldn’t mean…“Oh my God! Is this what Elise meant about not having to wear high heels?”

“Yeah, Jay bumped Kent. He’s ushering now, and you and I are in the main event, my love. My Xena. My goddess.”

“No way!” Jane shouted. “There is no way on God’s green Earth that Elise is going to go for this.”

“She already has,” said Cameron, pulling her breastplate out of the bag. “I gotta say, I think Elise is going to make a pretty good sister-in-law. She has a bit of an inner rebel, that one. I’m looking forward to getting to know her better.”

Jane laughed. And then she laughed some more. Because it was the only reaction she could summon to the astonishing events of the last few minutes.

Cameron laughed, too, and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her. “Hey!” he exclaimed, finding his way to the bare skin of her back given the unzipped nature of her dress. “Easy access…mmmmm.” His hands were rough and possessive as they slid immediately down to her waist. “I don’t really know what you have against this dress.”

She moaned a little but managed to push him away. “Hey,” she said, playfully slapping his hand for good measure. “There’s one thing wrong here.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is there now?”

“Yeah. If you cared at all about accuracy, you wouldn’t be dressed as Hercules right now; you’d be dressed as Gabrielle.”

He barked a laugh, and just before his lips hit hers, he said, “I love you. But maybe not that much.”





Chapter Twenty-Five



Forty minutes later, Elise and Jay were married. The bride looked stunning in white tulle. Two sets of Pinterest-worthy groomsmen and their bridesmaids followed the happy couple down the aisle, impeccably dressed in tuxedos and mulberry—not plum—dresses.

Last came Xena and Hercules.

Jane was happy. She was so happy, it felt like she was taking up a huge amount of space, which was an altogether unfamiliar feeling. After a lifetime of minimizing her needs, of trying to be quiet and small and good, to suddenly be doing the opposite was…indescribable. It hurt a little, but it was a good kind of hurt, the kind you get when you stretch stiff muscles or when you blink against the blinding sunlight after a long time in the dark.

As the guests crossed the farm, walking from the lavender fields where the ceremony had taken place to the reception hall, Cameron held her hand. What an astonishing thing, to be holding a man’s hand. In public. Like it was normal.

What an astonishing thing to be loved.

Cameron snagged two flutes of champagne off the tray of a server standing in the entranceway and handed one to her, winking as he held up his glass in a silent toast.

She choked a little as they entered the reception room. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “That’s what the teapots were for!”

At the center of each table was an arrangement of gold-spray-painted teapots and vintage teacups, all planted with flowers.

They looked fabulous.

“Huh?” he said.

She threw back her head and laughed again. “Never mind,” she said.





Dinner took forever. The toasts took forever. The freaking couples’ dance took forever, though Cam did appreciate the hell out of being included this time.

“Now if all the single women in the room will come to the dance floor,” the DJ said, “it’s time for the bride to toss her bouquet.”

Jane, who had been soft and pliant in his arms during the couples’ dance, stiffened. He pulled away long enough to search her face, his protective instincts kicking in.

“I have to get out of here,” she whispered. Then she turned and hoofed it toward the door at the back of the reception hall, and, like a fish swimming against the current, she passed dozens of women going the opposite direction.

“What’s the matter?” he said, following, grabbing her hand, and digging his heels in to stop her progress. “What’s happened?” He allowed a hint of the panic that was rising in his chest to come through in the question. Had she changed her mind about him?

She turned, her beautiful face painted with a warm smile. “Nothing’s wrong. I just don’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity when she throws that bouquet.” Then the smile became a wry grin. “No offense.”

He smiled back. “None taken.” Though he had to admit that the idea of marrying Jane someday…well, certain images had taken root in his mind, images of his goddess in a white dress on a roller coaster, to be specific, and he was pretty sure it was going to be impossible to dislodge them. But there was no hurry.

“It’s just that I’m done with the whole wedding thing,” she said emphatically. “I need a break from the matrimonial scene. I’ve already, like, confronted a lifetime’s worth of emotional baggage. That’s enough drama for the day. If I catch that bouquet, it will be like some kind of—oof!”

The bouquet in question thunked against the back of Jane’s head.

Cameron’s arms came around her, searching her scalp to make sure she was okay. Her eyes were wide with shock, but she didn’t look injured. Once he was assured that she was well, he had to turn his attention to fighting the wave of laughter that was threatening to engulf him.

“Was that what I think it was?”

He nodded, even as the heat and brightness of a spotlight found them, and let the laughter overtake him.

“Oh, shit,” she whispered as the entire hall burst into applause.





Finally, finally, the party seemed like it was plateauing. Elise and Jay both seemed slightly buzzed and totally blissed out. Some people were dancing, and others were clustered in small groups, talking and laughing.

He couldn’t wait any longer.

He hadn’t really left her side all evening, feeling like a kid in a fairy tale, like if he lost sight of his goddess, she’d vanish forever.

But when she got up to go to the bathroom, he made his move: he had a quick word with his brother and then found a quiet corner and whipped out his phone. He might be stupidly, head-over-heels in love, but he was still the same person. And Jane, inexplicably, wanted that person.

Meet me back in the B&B.



The return text came immediately.

Why?



He could almost hear the sexy defiance in the word.

Because I need to fuck you right now. Can’t wait anymore.

I’ll meet you in your room.



He was about to text back to ask why—he only had a single bed in his room, and hers had a double—when another one from her arrived.

Your room has the condoms.



Ah, yes. She was smart, his Janie. Then, a second later, one more text from her.

Hurry.







When he came crashing into the B&B lobby a couple minutes later, Jane was already on the bottom landing of the stairs. She paused when she heard him enter, frozen like she’d been caught in the act of doing something bad.

He paused, too, staring at her from across the lobby, his heart in his throat. Jane. His Jane.

She smiled a coy smile, full of wicked intentions, and it was a jolt to his system. He crossed quickly over to her, cursing the chairs and sofas he had to walk around. When he reached her, he slapped her ass. “Move.”

Thirty seconds later, he was clawing at her Xena breastplate, desperate to get it off, as they fell into his room. “I used to think these metal tits were sexy as hell,” he growled.

“But not anymore?” she panted as she turned, showing him the ties at the sides that fastened the front and back of the armor together.

He started working the knots loose. “No. Now I want it on the floor.”

Finally, he got her hardware off, and she helped him with clothing underneath it, then bent to remove her boots.

When she stood back up she was finally, gloriously naked. And she was…

“Mine,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered immediately, sliding her hands inside the scrap of fabric that passed for a shirt on his costume, and sliding it off his shoulders. Her hands on his skin were like brands. He’d claimed her just now as his, but the truth was she owned him.

He shoved out of his pants and underwear and fell to his knees in front of her, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his nose between her legs. “Mine,” he said again, not caring that he sounded like a goddamned caveman.

She yanked him to his feet, grabbed his dick, and said, “Mine.”

“Yes,” he agreed on a groan, his surrender as easy and absolute as the desire that overtook him. “Yours.”

As if to demonstrate her claim, she bit him on the shoulder. But then, as if to demonstrate his claim, she wound her arms around his neck and hitched herself up, wrapping her legs around him.

He carried her over to the dresser, nodded at the toiletries bag on top of it, and said, “Condom.” She giggled and grabbed one. When they reached the bed, he laid back on it, pulling her on top of him so she was straddling him.

She tore open the condom, and because she somehow knew he was about to object, she said, “Fast now; slow later.”

He grinned. The concept of “later.” The idea that there would be more. Endless opportunities to love this woman. “Yeah,” he groaned as she unrolled the condom onto him and kneeled up over him. Floating his hand up between her legs, he found her clit with two fingers. She rolled her hips against his hand, still on her knees, still hovering over him. “Come on, baby, ride me,” he said.