Chapter Seven #4
It wouldn’t be that difficult to fall for Scottie Easton.
In fact, I bet I could do it without even noticing it’s happening, which is why, after tonight, I need to make sure I keep my mind about me, and my heart out of the game, because we agreed to be temporary.
And I won’t be the love-sick girl who reads too much into Scottie’s kindness.
By the time we leave Oakley’s, my feet are killing me and my cheeks hurt from smiling.
It’s fully dark now. The city is a wash of reflected lights as we head back to The Commons. It’s only a few blocks from Oakley’s, so all of us who are living there are walking back together.
Scottie is carrying my bouquet in one hand, fingers wrapped carefully around the stems so he doesn’t crush the petals.
His bow tie is undone and hanging loose, his top button unfastened.
He looks less like a groom and more like a man who’s just barely starting to come down from a high he wasn’t expecting.
We take the elevator up in comfortable quiet. The numbers blink past—as we reach the top floor, everyone else has gotten off many floors before.
At the penthouse door, he hesitates.
“I think,” he says slowly, “this is the part where I’m supposed to carry you over the threshold.”
I blink. “Is that required?”
“Pretty sure it’s in the marriage manual,” he says solemnly. “Right between ‘argue about paint colors’ and ‘buy throw pillows you don’t understand.’”
A laugh escapes me, soft and helpless.
“I am wearing a very structured dress,” I point out. “With many layers. And you have had alcohol.”
He snorts. “You don’t weigh anything. And I’ve had, like, two drinks in five hours.”
Before I can protest further, he shifts the bouquet to one hand and swoops an arm behind my knees, the other bracing my back. I gasp as my feet leave the floor, my hands flying up to clutch at his shoulders.
“Scottie—”
“Got you,” he says, grinning now, and nudges the door open with his hip.
He steps over the threshold, carrying me, cradled in his arms until we get to the door of my room.
The penthouse is dim, lit only by the glow from the city filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The skyline stretches out beyond the large glass windows.
I notice a few boxes around his bedroom door. He started moving in a few things this morning after I left to meet the girls for makeup and hair for the bridal party.
Now living together is starting to feel real, and with no timeline until my grandmother approves of this marriage and tells my father to back off, I have no idea how long we’ll be living like this.
He sets me down carefully, making sure I’m steady before he lets go.
“See?” he says. “Didn’t drop you.”
“Impressive,” I admit. “You may keep your hockey contract.”
“Wow. High praise.”
My feet scream as they reconnect with the floor. The heels that looked so beautiful in the boutique now feel like medieval torture devices. And this is coming from a girl with bruises and bandages on her feet from years of ballet.
Scottie notices the way I shift my weight, his brows drawing together. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“I cannot feel my toes,” I confess.
He holds out the bouquet. “Go take those off. I’ll put these in water before they die a tragic, avoidable death.”
The fact that he remembers to rescue the flowers does nothing to help me put up boundaries.
“Thank you,” I say.
I push through my bedroom and take a seat on the bed. I can hear Scottie in the kitchen, humming a sound that sounds a lot like the song we danced to, mixed with the sound of glasses clinking and then the water running. Then, I hear the sound of him setting down a vase on the countertop.
The room looks the same as it did this morning. Perfectly made for bed. Neatly arranged a suitcase. The garment bag that once held my wedding dress now sits empty on the back of a chair.
I toe off my shoes with a sigh that borders on indecent relief, flexing my sore feet against the cool floor.
Then I reach back, fingers searching for the first button at the top of my spine.
I find it easily, but it takes a second to undo.
The second takes even more effort.
The third… I miss entirely, and this dress has twenty delicate buttons down the back of it.
I hear the sound of Scottie walking past my room and then opening the door to his room, shuffling his boxes into his room.
I twist my arm at an angle that would make my old ballet instructors proud. The dress digs into my ribs. My fingertips graze fabric and air, but the buttons remain stubbornly out of reach.
Heat creeps up the back of my neck, this time from frustration rather than attraction.
I am a grown woman. I have crossed continents, stood up to criminals, and signed my name on a marriage certificate tying my future to a virtual stranger.
And I am trapped by a line of tiny pearl buttons.
I close my eyes for a beat. Then open the door and peek out.
Scottie’s bedroom door is still open halfway, and though the bedroom light isn’t on, I can see the streaming of light from the bathroom, sounds of his electric toothbrush, I’m guessing, and then the sound of him turning it off.
“Scottie?” I ask at his door, in a low whisper, almost.
“Yeah?” he says, the echo in his bathroom carrying out to me.
“Do you think you could help me… with this dress?”
“Sure,” he says, so I take a step into his bedroom, and then I see him walk out.
No tux jacket, no button-up shirt, just bare chest and perfect skin, his tux pants unzipped, hanging loose around his hips.
He goes very still when he realizes that my eyes bulge when I see him.
I’ve seen half-naked men every day of my career. Many male dancers don’t wear shirts. But this is different. I’ve never seen Scottie half-dressed… and that’s a different image altogether.
I can’t help the way I stare at him, all the dirty thoughts that just ran through my mind of being alone in Scottie’s room on our wedding night. But then I remember that I’m still a virgin, that this marriage is fake, and that Scottie has probably never been with a woman as inexperienced as me.
I’m actually mortified at the idea of him learning that his new bride wouldn't know the first thing to do with him. I mean, I’m not a total prude.
I’ve had opportunities, but work and school and striving to work harder than anyone else and break out, making a name for myself, has taken up all of my energy.
I turn around quickly, giving him my back.
“Ummm,” I stutter. “I can’t reach most of these,” I say, the words low. “Would you…?”
His gaze drops to the buttons. I can feel it like a touch, the way his attention traces the path they make down my spine.
He swallows. The sound is audible in the quiet room.
“Yeah,” he says, voice a little rough. “Yeah. I can… help.”
“I am not in the habit of asking men to undress me,” I say evenly. “I would not ask if I had another option.”
A huff of laughter escapes him. “Fair enough.”
He steps closer.
I feel the heat of him before I feel his hands.
His fingertips brush the back of my neck as he finds the first button.
My breath catches.
He works slowly. Carefully. Each tiny pearl slides free under his thumbs with a soft, almost inaudible pop. With every button he undoes, the dress eases a fraction, cool air sneaking in to kiss skin that has been trapped all day.
His knuckles graze the bare line of my spine.
Goosebumps ripple across my shoulders and down my back.
“Are you doing okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, though my voice sounds different in my own ears—breathier, thinner. “Just…cold.”
Liar.
He undoes another button. And another.
The repetitive motion becomes a quiet rhythm, each one an exclamation mark in the silence between us. The only sounds are the faint whisper of fabric, the click of pearl slipping free of its loop, our breaths.
His are not as steady as he wants them to be.
He gets to the midpoint of my back and hesitates. I can feel the warmth of his hands hovering just above my skin.
“If you want me to stop…” he says softly.
“I don’t,” I answer, before I lose my nerve.
He exhales, the breath slow and shaky, ghosting over the bare skin at my nape.
“Okay,” he says.
He keeps going.
By the time he reaches the small of my back, the bodice is loose, the fabric shifting with each inhale. I feel oddly… vulnerable. Exposed, even though I’m still technically covered.
I hold the dress against my front to keep it from gaping open and revealing my bare breasts that he would be able to see over my shoulder with his height.
This dress wasn’t designed for a slip to go under it, so all I’m wearing is a white lace thong that says Bride on it.
A gift from Irina that she bought at the bridal shop while we were there.
Telling me that since I didn’t have a bridal shower, it was the least she could do.
When the last button slips free, I know that he can see my thong, the delicate Bride written along it. Half of my butt is uncovered from the dress in order for the dress to slip over my hips.
“I think you’re free now. Do you need any more help?” he asks.
I turn to face him keeping the fabric wrapped around me like a shield. He immediately turns his head to the side, gaze respectfully fixed on some neutral point on the wall.
“I, uh,” he says, scratching the back of his neck, “put your flowers on the table. So they don’t die. Thought you might want to keep them.”
“Thank you,” I say softly.
He smiles, just a little. “You’re welcome.”
Then I look down, and I shouldn’t have, I should have left when I had the chance. He’s hard behind him, gaping tux slacks, his boxer briefs straining to keep his erection contained.
“Oh God,” I say, knowing I didn’t think this through. “I’m sorry I looked… I…”
He glances down, but he already knows what he’s going to find.
“You don’t have to apologize for looking, but that can’t be helped. You’re gorgeous, and I just undressed my wife on our wedding night. And that thong… fuck. I wasn’t prepared for that. I probably should have been.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
The air between us is thick with everything we could say and don’t.
“It’s my fault… I shouldn’t have asked you to—”
“It’s not your fault, Katerina. Nothing has to happen between us. I have no expectation about tonight, or any night for that matter. You don’t owe me anything.”
I nod… wanting to stay but knowing I should go. Sleeping with Scottie would be one step too far on those boundaries I just told myself I would set.
“Goodnight, Scottie,” I say finally.
“Night, Kat.”
I retreat into my bedroom, closing the door gently behind me.
I lean back against it, my heart pounding.
In the silence, the day plays back in flashes—the vows, the ring, the way his hands trembled slightly as he slid it onto my finger, the feel of his lips against mine on the rooftop and again on the dance floor, the brush of his fingers down my spine, undoing each button like a secret.
I look down at my hand.
The ring glitters in the soft bedside lamplight, bright and unreal and utterly solid.
I lift my fingers to my mouth, tracing my lower lip where he kissed me twice tonight.
“What are you doing to me?” I whisper into the empty room.
I don’t know if I mean him. Or this place. Or these newfound friends.
But something has changed tonight, and those boundaries I want so badly to protect me might be the one thing that holds me back.