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It takes all of my self-control to stay seated in the car and not jump out to grab her right away. Because she looks incredible. Every step she takes makes the blue flowing skater-dress she’s wearing flow around her calves, each swish flashing just a hint of thigh that only makes me want more.
It’s more dressed up than I’ve ever seen my jeans-and-T-shirts girl, and it makes me want to tear that dress right off of her. She climbs into the passenger seat with a smile and a wave, and before she can get a word out, I catch her around the waist and drag her toward me, kissing her cheek, her jawline, her neck.
“You look incredible,” I murmur against her skin, feathering her with kisses, dipping lower, toward the neckline of the dress, low enough to reveal just a hint of cleavage—enough to let me know I want more.
She laughs and twines her arms around me, her fingers tracing through my hair. “If I’d known this would be your reaction, I’d wear dresses more often.”
“You should,” I tell her, my hands sliding down her hips, marveling at the smoothness of her curves beneath the stretch of cottony fabric. My hands reach the hemline of the dress, touch bare skin, and start to inch higher, along her thighs.
She squirms a little and glances at the windows of the car. It’s broad daylight outside, after all, and we’re parked right in front of her house. But I don’t care.
“Maybe we should cancel,” I tell her, before I lean in to drag my teeth along the edge of her jawline, nipping her skin just roughly enough to make her gasp and arch up against me. “Go back into your apartment and forget the weekend. We’ll stay here, eat in…” I lean back to catch her eye with a feral grin. “I’ve already got plenty to devour right here.” My hands skate across her thighs, along the flat of her stomach.
She shivers beneath me, and it’s the most delicious feeling, knowing how much I affect her. How easily I can turn her on. A breathy little moan escapes her lips as my hand dips lower, grazing along the edge of her panties—I can feel the fabric of them through the dress, and I press a little harder, until her hips arch up against my hand.
But then she stops. Pulls away from me, with what looks like Herculean effort. “We can’t bail,” she says, though the hitch in her breath and the flush in her cheeks tell me she wants to be saying anything but this. “You said it’s important,” she adds. “Whatever it is.”
My stomach clenches, and my throat seals itself up. I clear it with a growl and turn back toward the road, reaching up to grip the wheel with both hands—the only way I can think of to make them stop touching her. “Bailing might be the wiser move,” I murmur under my breath.
After all, if we bail now, she’ll never need to know. She’ll never have to look at me differently—or worse, decide that this is all too much for her. I wouldn’t blame her, of course, after this. Who knows how it’s going to go? But there’s a tiny, crazy part of me that hopes she’ll stay. Even after she realizes what she’s in for.
“John?” Her hand comes to rest on my wrist, soft and delicate.
I turn my hand around to thread my fingers through hers and bring it up to my lips, kissing each finger, one by one. “Let’s go,” I say, dropping her hand, and she pulls it back to her lap, wrapping her fist around the hem of her skirt, her eyes on me, curious.
But I shake it off and put the car in drive, ignoring her stares as best I can. At least she knows better than to try to pry more details from me. I appreciate it. At this stage, I’m not sure I could stand talking about this. Showing her is better. Like leaping into the deep end of a pool. There’s no time to get cold feet or decide the water’s too unfriendly after all and climb back out. This way, once we get started, there’ll be no going back.
I floor the accelerator, and Mara changes the topic. She talks about work, about the latest project we’ve been putting together. I relax a little, settling into the more familiar, easier topic. We bat around set ideas for a particularly important scene of the play we’re staging. Mara, as usual, has brilliant ones. And better yet, whenever I pitch ideas, she questions them. Pushes me to make them clearer, smarter, better.
It’s just one of the many things I adore about her. She makes me a better version of myself.
So why am I dragging her into this mess? I shake off the doubt as we reach the exit. It’s near Palm Springs, though not quite all the way into the desert yet. I take the familiar exit, wind through the all too memory-filled town, taking smaller streets with every turn until I finally turn up one long, winding driveway, through a manicured lawn that speaks to the fact that, despite recent droughts, whoever lives here has the money to keep up appearances.
Mara’s gaze on my face sharpens. But when I glance over at her, I can practically see her biting her tongue, resisting the urge to question this.
We reach the end of the drive, and the house towers ahead of us. House is the wrong word, really. Mansion would be more appropriate.
I should know. I bought it for them.
My parents are already waiting out front, arms hooked around one another. The end of the drive is filled with cars. Extended family, friends of the family, distant relatives. My parents love doing this—hosting events, throwing parties. Showing off the property their son earned them.
It was their idea to make this a surprise. When they learned about Mara—when they learned that I finally, finally settled down, as they’ve been trying to force me to do for years—they insisted. But now, watching her reaction shift from surprise to confusion to worry, I wonder yet again if this was the right move. If I shouldn’t have told her everything, right from the beginning.
“What is this, John?” Mara murmurs as I park right in front of the drive, in the spot of honor. My dad waves, and my mom beams like she’s just won some kind of award.
In her mind, she probably has.
“My parents wanted to meet my new wife,” I tell her, shutting off the engine. “They insisted on throwing a party. It’s not huge; just some friends and family—”
“You didn’t warn me I’d be meeting your parents,” she hisses under her breath. But there’s no time for her to build up steam. The door is already sliding open, and my parents are calling their hellos.
“You must be Mara.” My mom reaches her first, before Mara even has time to fully exit the car. She wraps her in a tight bear hug, and then Dad joins in, shaking her hand like she’s a business partner, not my wife.
Well. I suppose both terms are accurate, technically.
“We’ve heard so much about you,” Mom is gushing, although that’s not strictly accurate. They didn’t even know Mara existed until I finally admitted it to them a few days ago. Less than a week.
Mara shoots me a confused look over Mom’s shoulder, but she hugs her back, and deals with my dad’s hand-pumping decently well.
“Mom.” I step over to kiss her cheek. “Give her some breathing room; you’re going to suffocate her.”
“Of course, of course.” Mom backs away, although there’s still a hungry glean in her eye as she assesses Mara. “Come in, darling, have some lunch. You must be famished. Eating for two and all.” Mom winks, and I groan under my breath.
Already?
Mara’s face flushes, and she frowns, confused. “Er… no, just eating for the one, actually,” she says, and it’s embarrassingly obvious how quickly my mother’s expression deflates with disappointment.
Still, at least she doesn’t press the issue, hooking an arm through Mara’s and leading her toward the house. I fall into step beside my father and trail after them.
“Your mother’s beside herself,” he says.
“With happiness or annoyance?” I respond archly.
Dad chuckles. “You know her. Why not both at once?” He shoots me a sideways look. “She’s pleased you’re finally settling down, of course. But she wanted a big wedding, a splashy engagement party…” Dad gestures at the house. “Hence all of this hoopla, naturally.”
“I thought you told me you could tamper her. That this would just
be a small get-together.” I side-eye the driveway, unable to stop counting. At least a dozen cars, maybe more.
“This is small,” Dad insists. “You should have seen the original guest list she wanted.”
I roll my eyes with a groan, but it’s quickly drowned by the roar of our relatives as we enter the house. My cousins swarm, followed by aunts, uncles, friends of my parents. Mara has time to catch my eye just once, panic written all over her face, before she’s swallowed in hugs and congratulations.
I watch them watching her. Some of their congratulations are heartfelt, sincere. Others are grasping, reaching. Most of my relatives are decent people, really. But they look at my bank account; they see my name in the newspapers, and they can’t help themselves. After all, decent people or not, everyone’s attitudes shift when they get close to money. Especially the kind of money I have.
The kind of money that let me buy a house like this for my parents. The kind of money that restored this family name to the prominence it once had, way back when.
I care about my family, of course. But you can’t choose your family. And mine, well… they can be more of a handful than most.
I weave through a sea of aunts to reach Mara, and loop an arm around her waist, feeling how tense every muscle in her body is. She tilts her head back to rest against my shoulder, in a move that raises a sea of awws from the surrounding family members. But when she leans in to whisper in my ear, it’s not the sort of sweet-nothing I’m sure they imagine she’s saying.
“What the hell did you just throw me into?” she whispers.
