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Shane looks utterly unconcerned—or he’s feigning it well. He’s sitting back in his chair, posture relaxed, legs slung out in front of him, every inch the cowboy taking an afternoon nap on a hay bale. All long, lean muscle on display, making my mouth water. He just needs to cover his face with his hat to block out the sun.
If I didn’t know he hadn’t slept last night, I’d think nothing about this situation was worrying him in the slightest.
“Let’s start with the legalities,” Hanna says. “I’m going to have you fill out the marriage license online—I do this because you wouldn’t believe the number of people who forget to file their marriage licenses—and then you’ll have to go pick it up and pay for it at the clerk’s office.”
Shane fills out the online form while I stand behind him. The moment calls for something, so I rest a hand on his back. Weggers scowls.
Okay, maybe the hand is a mistake. The long lean muscles in Shane’s back bunch as he shifts in his seat, and heat radiates into my fingers. My whole body attunes itself to his, warming and melting. It’s unbelievably distracting. I keep thinking about what I want to do with my hand—slide it up to his shoulder, down his arm. Best case, he would turn his chair around so I could palm the ridged abs I saw when he was outfitted as Lord Extyllior. And then I would slide my palm down and feel the heft of that thick belt buckle against my palm.
Right before I worked it free and wrapped my hand around him.
There is nothing fake about how much I want to touch this man everywhere. My fingers curl into the soft fabric of his shirt. He shifts again, pushing his back into my palm, like a cat arching into touch. Or maybe I’m just imagining that. Maybe I just want him to luxuriate in my touch, to crave more of it.
I definitely do.
Because I can, I slide my hand up the groove of his spine and let my palm wander over his shoulder to the thick cap of muscle there. He stiffens under the stroke, and?—
I like it so much.
He strikes a key decisively. “There,” he says and casually lifts his hand to trap mine. His palm is big and warm, and I want to move exactly never. Maybe he’s having the same thought because he leaves his hand there. We’re holding hands.
No, I remind myself. We’re just playing a part.
I ease my hand out from under his and sink back into my chair.
I can still feel his warmth, even across the small gap between our seats.
Hanna talks us through our intake interview, laying out the choices we still have to make. She suggests a celebrant she likes—a Unitarian minister—and helps us choose a premium e-invitation from a site Hott Springs Eternal partners with.
Weggers pulls out his phone.
“What are you doing?” Shane asks.
“Saving the date,” Weggers says. “I wasn’t going to go to January and Tobias’s wedding, but your grandfather would want me at this one.” He glares at us. “Assuming it’s real, which he would also want, because you know he had zero patience for fakers and liars.”
“You’re not invited,” Hanna says bluntly.
Shane and I turn to her. She looks pissed.
Weggers draws himself up. “I’ll be there,” he says primly.
I close my eyes. Maybe he’ll disappear.
But when I open them again, he’s still there, and Hanna has a disgruntled expression that I suspect means she feels like she lost that round. With a sigh, she tells us that normally we’d be way too close to the wedding to risk switching caterers, but in this case, she has an alternative for us.
“My sister-in-law owns Around the Table and does weddings, and she’s killer. The only thing is she doesn’t handle the bar, so if you go with her, I have a couple ideas for someone separate to run the bar.”
“I’ve had Around the Table’s food before. It’s fantastic,” I tell Shane.
“Agreed. Amanda’s amazing,” he says. “And yeah, just bring someone in to do the bar. We don’t need personalized signature cocktails or anything.”
“Signature cocktails sound fun,” I say shyly.
Shane, from the chair next to mine, puts an arm around me. “Then we’ll have signature cocktails.”
He’s laying it on thick, but I decide I’m just going to let myself enjoy it for the moment. If I were getting married, I’d want my future husband to be just like Shane. Smoking hot, physically affectionate, and over-the-top solicitous.
Aside from being fake, he’s basically perfect.
