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38
faye
“Darwin isa masochist and I hate him,” Gwen says, glaring at the taster glass of bourbon on the high top.
It’s true, this activity was his idea, and it had potential to be great. Descending down an industrial elevator into the world’s largest granite quarry for a sugar maple-barrel bourbon tasting.
But it’s an active, working site, so it’s dusty and dirty and poorly lit. And cold. A little shiver rolls down my back. Without a word, Zeke shifts so that he’s standing behind me, his arms braced against the high-top table in front of me. His warmth moves into my back as his hot breath hits my ear.
“Better?” he whispers. I nod, unable to make my mouth work. Instead I pick up the taster in front of me, a rye bourbon aged for five years in a young sugar maple barrel, and nearly gag.
“It’s not so bad if you pretend it’s…” Hadley squints, as if trying to remember what she was going to say. She gives up and tips the entirety of her glass back, swallowing it down hard. She shudders, which turns into a full body shiver, and I stifle a laugh.
“Tastes like curdled jizz,” Eric, one of the groomsmen, says.
Zeke buries his laugh into my shoulder and it sends a jolt of heat into my core that isn’t helping me wait out this insipid activity.
“How would you know what curdled jizz tastes like?” Tate, another groomsman, asks.
“Listening,” Gwen and Hadley say in unison, sending them tumbling into a giggling fit.
“It’s fucking freezing down here,” Liza says, glaring at me.
I don’t know what she expects me to do about it. She was allegedly the de facto maid of honor until I could get here and has been taking credit for everything she can thus far. Every time she points out a floral arrangement or a welcome bag or toilet paper origami situation, Zeke kisses my forehead, my cheek, my jaw.
It’s gotten to the point that I’m starting to crave her obnoxious remarks. I don’t think she’s picked up on it, but anytime his soft lips are pressed to my skin, I’m happy.
A fact that is making our situation stuck at the bottom of a granite mine more dire by the moment. After Zeke picked me up at the dress shop last night and kissed me in the parking lot, we went back to my family home and were immediately intercepted by my parents. Then Edie and the girls arrived with pizza. Liza was not happy about this, and sulked all night, going from passive-aggressive to aggressive comments about my mere existence.
But every time she said something, Zeke would either disagree or pull me closer. All I wanted to do was get my hands on him, and let him get his hands on me, but then nobody would let us go to sleep. I woke up in my room, having fallen asleep on the couch while we watchedWhen Harry Met Sally. Suffice it to say, we’re both a little wound up.
I wiggle as I stand, my backside brushing into him.
“Careful,” he growls under his breath, keeping distance between his hips and my ass.
I bite my bottom lip and turn to look up at him playfully. Because I’m curious. I want to know what it is I have to be careful about. I want to feel him. His gaze darkens as I lift up on my toes and rock back into him. His hard length rubs along the seam between my ass, and I gasp.
“Oh,” I say, feeling my cheeks flush with excitement.
He smirks, rubbing his scratchy cheek against mine. A piece of truffled sweety-pep popcorn lands in my whiskey.
“Get a room,” Gwen whisper-shouts as Hadley catcalls.
“Or don’t…” Andrew, the best man, adds as the other groomsmen clap him on the back. Zeke tenses at Eric’s lewd comment. I squeeze Zeke’s forearm and press my lips into his bicep.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
He lets out a shaky breath, which I can see in the air—because it’s so fucking cold. I shiver, and Zeke grinds against me again, pressing his hot, open mouth to the sensitive spot where my neck meets my shoulder. I hum, pressing my lips together to keep from actually moaning. I’m completely wrapped up in this man, who, not twenty-four hours ago, I had so many doubts over.
Of course, he’d been busy between training camp and traveling across the country to see me, but I didn’t know where we stood. I was so afraid that I’d ruined everything. That I’d crossed that line beyond ever being able to see him as just a friend, and that he wouldn’t want more than that. But now, as he takes off his jacket and wraps it around me, pulling me back against him so I can feel how hard he is, all I can think about it something else entirely.
“How much longer before we can leave?” he says, echoing my thoughts.
“God willing, soon,” I say.
He stifles a low chuckle against my shoulder, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Oh, thank you baby Jesus, they’re back,” Hadley practically squeals, her high-pitched joy echoing and hitting everyone right in the headache part of the ear.
