Andrew shook his head. ‘I disagree with that too, and besides, who the hell do they think they are, deciding who I should or should not be dating?’
‘Fake dating,’ I corrected quickly.
‘Whatever.’ He dismissed what I’d said with a flick of his hand. ‘I find that pretty offensive. And what do they mean, I’m the hot one. Have you looked in the mirror lately?’
I tried to wipe away another tear. The wetness was beginning to smudge the black eyeliner that the make-up artist had put on, even though I was sure it made my eyes look smaller.
‘Not like this,’ I said.
‘Just like this.’ His voice had changed. A sudden and very distinct change. It was soft now, reticent almost.
‘Why is your voice like that?’ I asked.
‘Like what?’
‘All soft and whispery and . . . sexy.’
‘You’re sexy.’ He stepped towards me.
I looked down at the questionable pink dress I was wearing. I’d long suspected, from the few weddings I’d attended, that the bride made the bridesmaids wear ugly dresses on purpose so that there was no question where everyone’s attention needed to be. I brushed the pink rayon fabric down and the top layer stuck to my hands like it had been statically charged. I tried to pull my hands away from the fabric, but it followed me. I shook my wrists, and the fabric finally fell.
‘Even in this dress?’ I asked.
‘Especially in that dress.’ A smile curled up the left side of his lips. His smiles were usually so symmetrical, but this one was not. I held his gaze and watched him as his eyes traced my face in an anti-clockwise direction. The feeling was palpable, like a feather being dragged across my checks, lips and forehead. The entire room went silent. I wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t breathing, and the room felt like it had also ceased breathing, because there was a stillness to it that had not been there before.
‘The world feels like it’s stopped breathing,’ I said. I hadn’t meant that thought to come out, but it had.
He moved towards me. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘You do?’
He nodded. His smile grew even more crooked and sexy. An intense, desperate yearning lit me up and I pushed myself off the sink and walked towards him. His proximity felt magnetic, like the dress sticking to my fingers and my skin. I wanted him all over my skin. Not this dress. I wanted this dress to lie crumpled on the floor and for Andrew’s smooth hands and lips to be all over my body. And for someone who was not good at reading facial expressions, there was no doubt in my mind that Andrew was thinking the exact same thing.
CHAPTER31
I reached for him and waited to see if he would reciprocate. He did. He wrapped his arms around me, pushed his lips against mine and walked me backwards into the vanity. My lips pressed back, then they opened and I sunk into his mouth at the same time that he sunk into mine. Our moans tumbled into each other’s mouths, their low vibrations adding to the feeling of floating away on a kiss that was so good it felt like we’d both practiced doing this beforehand. He cupped my face and pulled me deeper. All the want that had been inside me for a while now frothed to the surface. I opened my legs, pushed my pink dress up and let him fall between them. Nothing could stop us now. I had given him a clear signal as to how far I was prepared to go, and he accepted the proposal. He slid his hand up my thigh while the kissing grew frantic. I reached down and scrambled for his pants, for his belt. I wanted to slip my hands in and hold him, like I’d been dreaming about at night.
I hoped my expectations were going to be met, and Jennifer wasn’t right about fantasy sex. I slipped my hand over him; it was so smooth and effortless. His body shuddered and he threw his head back, giving me enough time to sneak a quick peek. I hated not knowing what I was working with; I needed to see it. And when I did, I was pleased. It was perfect. It didn’t intimidate me like those porn-star dicks did, ripping through their jeans, looking big enough to use as a meat-tenderizing mallet. It didn’t underwhelm me either. It was all in perfect proportion. Nothing was bigger or smaller than it needed to be. Soon his hands were reaching for me, but the dress was in the way. He laughed as he attempted to bat the ruffles of the skirt away. But each time he did, the fabric came up clinging to him.
‘I take it back. I hate this dress.’ He continued to swat at the fabric. ‘What the hell is this material and why is it sticking to me!’
I turned around quickly. ‘Get it off.’ I arched my back, offering up the zip. He took it tentatively at first, but when his fingers came into contact with my skin – hot and blazing – and I moaned, the zip came down so fast and the dress pooled at my ankles in seconds.
‘Let me look at you.’ He put his hands on my waist and spun me around. The look on his face after he’d traced his eyes up and down my body was also easy to read.
‘God, you’re hot.’
‘Victoria’s Secret,’ I said.
‘What is?’
‘My underwear.’
He pulled me towards him. ‘I wasn’t looking at the underwear.’ He kissed me again. I lifted my leg and wrapped it around him, pulling and urging him closer. I pushed my hands under the shoulders of his jacket and worked it off. It fell onto my dress, and then I tackled his buttons until his shirt was open. This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for. I pulled away from the kiss and looked at him.
My sculptural marble expectations had been exceeded. ‘Wow,’ I said, touching the ten-pack in front of me. He was exactly as I’d hoped he would be. Hard and smooth to the touch, and if I wasn’t feeling so desperate for more of him right now, I might have wanted to take my time to admire the physical structure of his body a little more. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t just want to know how his body looked, I wanted to know how it felt, smelled and tasted too.
I sunk my face into his neck and tried to make my inhalation of him as subtle as possible. He smelled good, and the fact he didn’t wear cologne was a plus for me. Strong cologne often made me feel sick, but he smelled clean, like a mountain stream. Curiosity about his scent satisfied, I went back to kissing him. To wrapping another leg around him and allowing him to pick me up and put me on the vanity. We were face to face now, so I closed my eyes. Looking him in the eye would be too intense.
