Wedding Party Collection: Once A Bridesmaid...: Here Comes the Bridesmaid / Falling for the Bridesmaid

He stood abruptly, shoved his hands in his pockets, not trusting where he’d put them otherwise.

‘Leo, don’t go. We have to talk about this.’

He shook his head.

She got to her feet, took his hand. ‘You will get all angsty if you leave now, because it happened so fast and we weren’t expecting it to go like that. We can’t have angst; we have too much to do. Come on, sit with me—let’s make sure we can get back to normal before you go.’

How did you talk yourself back to normal after that?

How did a kiss turn into rip-your-heart-out sex in one blinding flash of a moment? And that complete loss of control... It had never happened to him before. No condom. Not even a thought of one! He was shaken. Badly.

And—God!—she was still holding his hand, and he was rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, and he hadn’t even noticed he was doing it. He didn’t do that touchy-feely stuff.

He dropped her hand and stepped back. ‘You’re dangerous, Sunshine,’ he said.

She looked startled. ‘It’s not like I’m a black widow spider or a praying mantis.’

‘What the—? All right, I think I get the black widow spider. But what’s so dangerous about a praying mantis?’

Her eyes lit. ‘Oh, it’s really interesting! Praying mantises can only have sex once the female rips off the male’s head. Imagine! At least you still have your head.’

Leo felt his lips twitch. But he was not going to laugh. It was not a funny situation. It was an angsty one. Angsty? God.

‘On that note, I’m going,’ he said.

‘But we have to talk.’

‘Not now. Meet me... I don’t know... Tomorrow. At the Rump & Chop Grill. Five o’clock. It’s only a few blocks from here. I’ll send someone for my kitchen gear in the morning.’

‘All right, tomorrow,’ she agreed, and walked with him to the door, where she stopped him. ‘Leo, just so you can think about it before then...I want to have sex with you again. We have up to three more opportunities, and there doesn’t seem to be a reason not to use them. We just need to schedule them so we don’t get distracted from the wedding preparations.’

He was staring again. Couldn’t help it.

‘Far be it from me to distract you, Sunshine,’ he said.

* * *

So!

Yowzer!

As Sunshine wallowed in her bubble bath, lathering herself with her favourite jonquil-scented soap, she pondered what had happened.

It sure hadn’t been a cheesy-love-song experience. More like heavy metal—hard and loud and banging. But maybe with a clash of cymbal thrown in. She smiled, stretched, almost purred.

She knew she would be reliving the sex for an hour or so—that was par for the course. The sexual post-mortem...a normal female ritual. Remembering exactly what had happened, what had been murmured, who’d put what where.

But at four o’clock in the morning she was still trying to piece it together and parcel it off. She wondered if the difficulty was that she didn’t have a precise anatomical memory of the experience. She couldn’t recall everything that had been said, every touch, every kiss. She just had an...awareness. That it had been so gloriously right, somehow.

Which was strange. Because technically it shouldn’t have been that memorable. They hadn’t taken off their clothes; Leo hadn’t touched her breasts—which she’d always counted as her best assets—and he hadn’t even bothered to look at the goods before plunging in—which was a waste of her painfully acquired Brazilian!

But none of that seemed to matter because the can’t wait roughness of it had been more seductive than an hour of foreplay. She hadn’t needed foreplay. Hadn’t wanted finesse. Hadn’t thought about condoms. Hadn’t thought about anything. She’d been so hot, so ready for him.

She wondered—if that rough-and-ready first time was any indication—just how magnificent the next time would be.

Because there would be a next time. She was going to make sure of it.

* * *

TO: Jonathan Jones

FROM: Sunshine Smart

SUBJECT: Party news

Isn’t the menu great? Leo=food genius.

Just the wedding cake to go. I’d tell you the options, but if you chose one I wouldn’t get my cake-tasting, which you know I’ve always wanted to do.

Leo cooked the most amazing meal last night. He is so different from the men I usually meet. More mature, steadier. Kind of conservative—I like that.

His hair is coming along too.

Sunny xxx

TO: Sunshine Smart

FROM: Jonathan Jones

SUBJECT: Do not sleep with Leo Quartermaine

DO NOT!!!!! That would be all kinds of hideous.

Jon

TO: Jonathan Jones

FROM: Sunshine Smart

SUBJECT: Re: Do not sleep with Leo Quartermaine

Oops! Too late!

But how did you know? And why hideous?

Sunny

TO: Sunshine Smart