The Wedding Rescue, Book One(14)

He stopped in the middle of the room, between a long brown leather sofa and gas fireplace surrounded by a hand carved mantle that would have been at home in an English gentleman’s club.

“Take off your dress.”

My brain stuttered as my body flared with arousal. I was still turned on from his teasing in the restaurant, but the elevator ride had given me time to cool off just enough for insecurity to creep back in. Take off my dress in the middle of the living room? I couldn’t do that. It was too exposed. One look at Dylan’s face told me I didn’t have a choice. I’d made a deal - he was my date, and I gave him what he wanted. Maybe I should’ve thought that last part through a little more carefully before I’d agreed.

“Are you going to make me wait?”

Dylan raised one eyebrow and stared me down. There was just enough threat implied in his question that I wasn’t eager to see what would happen if I disobeyed for much longer. I shook my head. No, I wasn’t going to make him wait. I might pass out from the combination of arousal and embarrassed terror, but I’d take off the damn dress.

It took a little squirming to reach the zipper between my shoulder blades and pull it down. The fabric was stretched tight around my torso, strained by my breasts and my not-so-svelte figure. I couldn’t look Dylan in the eyes as I tugged at it. When I got it past my rib cage, it slid the rest of the way freely and the dress fell to the floor, pooling around my feet.

Dylan paced around me, his eyes soaking in every inch of my half naked body, standing there in black spike heels and mismatched bra and underwear. At least the underwear was nice. The thought that I might have been wearing laundry day panties was too hideous to consider. My navy lace boy shorts and black lace bra weren’t new, but at least they were presentable and looked decent on my curvy body. I waited, trembling a little from the tension, wondering what he would say next. I didn’t have to wait long.

“Now the bra. Straps first.”

I reached up and hooked a finger through my left bra strap. The bra I was wearing was intended for containment. It needed those straps. Without them it wouldn’t cover me for long. Finding the courage to meet Dylan’s eyes, I drew down the first strap and let it fall limp against my arm. As I’d known it would, the lace on that side of the bra began to slide, exposing the upper swell of my cleavage, until it hung on the tip of my hard nipple. Dylan’s eyes flared with heat.

Encouraged, I drew down the other strap and let the bra fall away. He stood three feet from me, but his gaze felt like a touch, insistent and demanding. My insecurity drained away. I reached behind me with one hand and flicked the clasp on the bra, letting it fall to the floor. My breasts swelled under his attention, begging for his hands or his mouth.

“Panties. Off,” he ordered, his voice low, gruff.

I obeyed, sliding my palms flat down the sides of my hips, pushing the boy shorts along with them until they fell around my feet with my dress. Normally, the thought of being stark naked in front of anyone--especially a man as beautiful as Dylan--would have had me hyperventilating with panic, searching for the closest dark room. The arousal on his face was enough to keep me where I was. Whatever I saw when I looked in the mirror, Dylan saw something different. Something he wanted. He reached out a hand. Taking an unsteady step forward, I slid my fingers into his.

Silent, he led me across the room to the tall windows overlooking the garish lights of Vegas. He raised one of my hands and placed it against the glass, forcing me to bend forward slightly. He positioned my other hand beside it, so my hands were just wider than shoulder width apart.

“Don’t move until I tell you to,” he said. “Don’t turn your head and don’t close your eyes.”

Then he stepped away, and I was alone, unable to see what he was doing. I trembled in my heels, my palms leaving damp marks on the glass, my breath creating a circle of mist in front of my face. I needed him to do something. I needed him to touch me. To fuck me. To do anything.

Behind me, I heard a knock at the door. Instinctively, I began to turn my head, only to hear,

“No.”

A flat command. One I obeyed instantly.

Trembling harder, I stared blindly out into the night, not seeing the lights of the strip, catching only vague shadows of movement in the reflection of the window in front of me.

“Put it over there please,” I heard Dylan say. Then the sound of rolling wheels.

Our food. I’d completely forgotten about the dinner we hadn’t eaten. And now the waiter could see me, completely naked. I was grateful Dylan had told me not to look. If I’d seen the waiter’s face, and he’d seen mine, this would’ve been humiliating. As it was, he could only see the backside of my body. I was somewhat obscured in the dim room and mostly anonymous.