She’s my best friend. I’m an only child.
I have Pandora, my goth friend who’s my opposite—negative, sarcastic, and dark, and who I love. But Brooke is Brooke, and there’s only one for me. Brooke won’t be staying in Seattle because the nature of her husband’s work demands he goes on tour with the fighting league, and this moment is a very emotional one for me. Nobody ever thinks about the best friend when the bride is getting married. But right now, I’m so happy I could burst, and, at the same time, as miserable as I could be. First because I will miss her, and second because since I was a little girl, I’ve always wanted to be draped in white and to have the kind of groom she has waiting for her at the altar, madly in love with me, ready to protect me, spend the rest of his life with me.
Instead, I’ve never gotten through a month of dating anyone.
Instead, last night I was almost . . . God, don’t think about it now.
Brooke steps out of the car and I’m glad for the distraction of getting her ready to enter. I told her that since Pete, Remy’s PA, is the best man and also Nora’s boyfriend, she should just ask her sister to be maid of honor. Who wants Nora scowling at her for the rest of her life anyway? Not me.
So I’m the proud bridesmaid along with Pandora, who’s also in red for probably the first time in her life. Not that she seems happy about it, but that’s nothing new.
As I walk behind Brooke into the church, I see him. By the door. And my legs turn mushy under my dress.
Greyson. He wears this really nice black suit as easily as he wears his self-confidence. God. It’s almost as if those nearby sway toward him.
I almost can’t handle the tug of his magnetic presence. He doesn’t know that just standing there, dark and powerful by the wide church entrance, he’s rescuing me from my thoughts and my fears and my loneliness, which yesterday felt as absolute as night. After twenty-five years of not being good enough, in the eyes of this man, I am. I am desirable. I am worth being here. What I feel is odd and exciting. Raw and gritty, precious and fragile. He doesn’t know the sight of him curls like warmth inside me, warming me in secret places, taking my fears away. My mind is on a one-track speed all of a sudden.
He came.
And by the way he levels those fierce hazel eyes on me, he’s not going anywhere. Not without . . . me.
During the ceremony, I start crying. I don’t expect to, but the fear of last night mingles with the much-wanted fact that the guy I want is here for me, all of that mingled with the low, rough words of my best friend’s boyfriend pledging his life to her.
I hate that I’m ruining my makeup but as I stand by and hear my best friend pledge her vows to one of the most protective, sexy, and kind men I know, I remember how it was me who told her, DO IT! Go after him! I remember it was me who said, have an adventure, live your life, come on, Brooke, it’s REMINGTON FUCKING TATE, nobody says no to the guy!
Now I feel a pair of narrowed hazel eyes on my profile, and when I steal a look his way, that possessive look he wears couldn’t be improved on by the devil himself. My heart squeezes as I try to stop crying, telling myself that at least for tonight, I’m going to be safe. I will feel safe. Because he doesn’t look like he’s letting me go anywhere without him.
God, I could’ve died yesterday.
I could die tomorrow.
I’ve always lived my life in the moment, but always planning and waiting for my perfect future. What if there is none? I don’t care what he’s here for and suddenly nothing matters but that I know what I want tonight.
I sniffle and wipe my tears, then meet his gaze almost imploringly, my tummy aching when he returns my stare with one that tells me so much more than simply I’m going to do you. There’s concern in his gaze, but there’s fire, simmering in there, promising to burn me in the most delicious way. He’s here because he wants me. He craves me and I crave him back. I crave the man I met that night in the rain, the one who wouldn’t let me get wet and quietly asked about me as he kissed me all night. The one who came back to see me and asked for another chance. His magnetism just pulls at me, the pull irresistible. Unprecedented.
And as the vows are exchanged in the chapel, I make a vow to myself. I vow that whatever this thing is between him and me—a fling, a catastrophe, the worst call of my life—tonight I’m going with it. I’m diving in, and I’m following my gut, my heart, and every single tingle in my wanting body or my fucking name is not fucking Melanie.
THIRTEEN
* * *
TONIGHT
Greyson
The ceremony takes a million fucking years.
I stand here armed with my SIG semiautomatic, just over two pounds of steel, but my cock feels twice as heavy and my chest ten times as much. I’m like week-old roadkill. Seeing her crying yesterday wrung me out. Now her gaze is stripped naked of emotion as she seeks me out in the crowd, and I can’t even process how I feel.
From the moment she stepped out of the limousine with the bride, I groaned at the sight of her. I’m still raging with the impulses to get close to her, touch her, smell her.
Melanie’s a bundle of contradictions in a bridesmaid’s dress. All smiles, but snapping out orders like a general. I watched her pull the train of the bride’s dress behind her so it “looked pretty” while a dark-haired girl with a frown passed a set of flowers to the bride. Melanie avoided looking at me. Maybe on purpose, maybe not.