Chapter 18 #2
But they deserved to cut loose and party. She’d prefer Roman to be able to deliver her a couple of orgasms later, though. Of course, she’d never known that man to have any type of performance issues with her in the three and a half months they’d been sleeping together.
“Okay, what, pray tell, did he almost do?” Harper wedged herself between Finn and Chris at the middle stretch of the bar. Roman was off to Wyatt’s three o’clock, a beer in his hand instead of a shot.
If sin could be worn, well, Roman was wearing it.
He looked devilishly handsome in his dress whites, sporting quite a few medals, too.
His hat was gone, same as the rest of the guys, but when he’d walked out of his hotel room earlier, she’d nearly stumbled in her three-inch heels at the sight of him.
It wasn’t every day she saw the sailor in his uniform, and he looked damn fine.
“He was going to skydive into the reception.” Chris slapped his hand to the bar top, clutching his stomach with the other as if the idea was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard.
“Noooo.” She didn’t believe Wyatt would do that. Maybe Chris. Or even A.J. But not Echo One.
Wyatt hung his head, setting a palm to his forehead as his bride began to massage his shoulders from behind. “Oh yeah, right there,” Wyatt said as Natasha continued kneading his muscles.
“You really think I’d let him jump from a plane on the day of our wedding?” Natasha smirked. “What Finn and Chris are failing to mention is that they bet my husband to do it, and over my dead body was he going to follow through with that bet.”
Now that sounded more like it.
“Could you not use the word dead in a sentence referencing you, love?” Wyatt opened his eyes and stole a kiss from Natasha from over his shoulder.
“Some guy already did that a few years back,” A.J.
spoke up. “A SEAL, too. We can’t have Wyatt here being unoriginal on his wedding day, anyway.
” He clinked his glass with Wyatt’s. “Right decision.” He shot Finn a look.
“I’m thinking you have too much time on your hands. Maybe find someone. Fall in love.”
“No, no. We’re not talking about my love life.” Finn gulped back another clear shot.
“You mean lack of one,” Knox said into a closed fist, his shoulders tucked in as a deep, raspy laugh followed.
She spied the bottle of Patrón by A.J.
Yeah, they were drunk.
Roman, though, he kept his gaze steadily pinned her way. Something was on his mind, and she’d love to whisper, a penny for your thoughts? Hell, she’d pull out the big guns. Every bill in her bank account to know what he was thinking.
“Where’s the rest of Bravo?” Chris spun away from the bar.
“It’s like a sea of brass out there. How many officers do you two know?
” He set a hand over his eyes in a comical fashion as if all the medals pinned to uniforms were blinding him.
“Luke, Owen, Asher!” He shot his hand in the air. “Where’s Liam?”
“Ah, he and Emily snuck off for a quickie in the coat closet,” Knox said with a straight face.
“Lucky son of a bitch,” A.J. teased, and Ana playfully swatted him on the ass when he asked her to go do the same.
“I think the single guys do need to find someone tonight,” Natasha said after Bravo Team, minus Liam, made their way to the bar. “Or else they’re going to get the married ones in trouble.”
“These guys are three sheets to the wind,” Ana told Luke and the others as Finn and Chris handed out more truth serum, aka shots.
“Well, our man here is drunk on the girly stuff.” Owen, the Charlie Hunnam look-alike on the teams, elbowed Asher.
“I should have done this.” Asher accepted the shot and gulped it back. “This whole wedding thing.” He spun his finger in the air like a signal for the guys to board a helo stat. “Maybe we shouldn’t have eloped.”
“Say what?” Luke stepped around Asher and glared at him, two seconds away from a bulging neck vein from the looks of it.
“Oh shit,” Asher slurred.
But ahhhhh! Harper quickly jumped in between Luke and Asher to prevent fists from flying and then moved in for a hug.
Why am I so giddy about this? Asher and Jessica already had twins, but now they’d tied the knot.
The news had her heart giddying up like she was barrel racing at A.J.
’s family’s ranch. And she only knew what barrel racing was because of her newfound love for the show Yellowstone.
“So, you married my sister without me being there?” Luke grabbed Asher’s attention again, and Harper slipped off to the side of the two powerful men.
“Asher,” Jessica hissed, admonishing her husband for drunkenly revealing their secret.
“Tell me congratulations instead of knocking my drunk husband on his ass,” Jessica teased and hugged her brother.
“Like he could,” Asher said, his shoulders shaking with laughter, knowing the normally levelheaded team leader wouldn’t take the bait and challenge Asher to a friendly fight on the terrace.
“We weren’t supposed to share the news on their happy day.” Jessica pulled out of Luke’s arms, then turned to her husband and tugged at the lapels of his uniform jacket.
“Are you kidding? This is the best wedding present ever.” Natasha went in for a hug next, and everyone made their congratulations.
“Next round is on me!” Chris announced.
“I think all rounds are on me.” It was the admiral, Natasha’s father.
Harper took that as her cue to back away from the bar, hoping to escape a lecture from the admiral about the boys having one too many drinks at his daughter’s wedding.
Before she knew it, the boys would be break dancing. And maybe she wouldn’t mind that.
She started through the thick of the crowd and halted after she passed the cake table. Her eyes shut as she thought back to Natasha and Wyatt cutting the wedding cake not too long ago. They’d laughingly smeared the red velvet cake on each other’s faces.
Harper had lost count of how many times she’d watched a similar scene when watching her mom and dad at their wedding on a VHS tape her dad saved.
“You okay?” Roman’s warm breath fanned across her ear from where he stood behind her.
“Yes,” she whispered and opened her eyes.
“You have no idea how much I want to wrap my arms around you right now,” he murmured. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”
“Only every chance you get.” Roman had no problem complimenting her, she just couldn’t get him to share his feelings. “Tell me something. My thoughts are . . .” He’d understand. He’d know what she needed.
“Queen Victoria started the white wedding dress trend. Before, it was just, wear your best dress.”
“And?”
“Some Fijians believe a bachelor who tries to enter paradise after death will turn to ash if he’s unmarried.”
Good thing you’re not Fijian. She went still when Roman dared set a hand on her waist, pulling her back tight to his chest as if they weren’t in a room of three hundred people. Something he’d never normally do if he hadn’t had a few drinks. Even then.
“Give me one more.” His cock pressed into her, and she opened her eyes when his free hand lifted her left palm before them. He smoothed his thumb along her ring finger, and she swallowed.
There was a Taylor Swift song playing somewhere. Wildest Dreams. Soft and romantic and absolutely perfect for the moment.
She was pretty sure couples were dancing around them. But she could barely move or breathe with Roman so close to her, especially in a public place.
“The Egyptians placed the wedding ring on the third finger of the left hand believing the vein in that hand connects to the heart.”
He was going to kill her with facts about marriage, especially since he’d been very clear during their time together that they’d never have an I-do moment.
“I got you something,” Roman announced in a low voice. “Can we go outside?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond and reached for her elbow to guide her from the reception. “Here.”
Harper lowered her focus to his open palm once on the terrace. Inside his large hand was one of the trident necklaces gifted to the wives or fiancées of Bravo and Echo. Only hers was made of both white and rose gold. “I couldn’t stand the idea you didn’t have one, too.”
“Roman, this is . . .”
The necklace was the definition of more.
But he didn’t want more, so why was he doing this to her?
“Come to Lake George with me next weekend.” He set his hands in his pockets and took a step back when a few people they knew came out onto the terrace to go to the small outdoor bar.
He really was surprising her tonight.
“If we don’t get called to spin up, I think we should get away. No noise or distractions. Just us. We can get a cabin.”
She clutched the necklace tight in her palm and brought it to her chest, her thoughts racing. “What’s changed?”
“I just want to spend time with you.” Why did his tone sound so uneasy? Nervous.
She was starting to regret that their relationship was still hidden in the shadows like something scandalous.
Initially, she didn’t want the teams to know about them, but she hadn’t expected to feel this way. To fall harder than she thought possible. Her heart stuttered every time he looked at her, whether alone or at the office.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s get away.” She turned to the water, her gaze cutting to the Ferris wheel where Roman had pinned her to the glass wall inside the gondola and fingered her beneath her pale pink sundress into climax.
They could never get enough of each other.
And she’d witnessed him tapping into his reserve bank of restraint tonight.
“Are you okay?” A sad resignation moved through his tone, and he held her hips from behind, taking yet another brazen and bold step, risking someone catching them.
“I think so.” But I want more. I want a lot more.
She swore he heard her thoughts because he released her. He stepped beside her and rested his forearms on the railing before burying his face in his palm as though searching for the strength to break her heart. To tell her the necklace wasn’t symbolic of anything more.
“Miss Harper.”
Roman quickly righted himself at the sound of Elaina’s voice behind them.
Harper looked away from Roman and turned to face Elaina, Liam and Emily’s almost eleven-year-old daughter—she was adopted like Harper.
Harper tightened her hand around the necklace and hid it behind her back like yet another secret. “What’s up, sweetie?”
Elaina glimpsed Roman before motioning for Harper to bend down closer. She cupped a hand to her mouth. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” she whispered into Harper’s ear. “He’s dead.”
Huh? Harper eased back to face Elaina, trying to understand the message from a girl they all knew was incredibly unique.
“It’s okay. You can move on now. He can’t hurt you.” Elaina patted Harper on the shoulder as if she were the adult comforting a child, and Harper stared at her in a daze.
Elaina stepped back, saluted Roman in the most adorable way, then darted off in her child-version of Harper’s dress back into the reception hall.
“What was that all about?” Roman arched a brow as Harper stood upright.
“Um.” Who is dead? She peered at the ground, doing her best to make sense of Elaina’s words. Elaina had been spot on with every prediction she’d made since entering their lives not too long after Harper joined the teams.
“What is it?” Roman set a hand on her bicep and gently squeezed, concern flaring in his brown eyes. “You okay? You’re pale.”
Did she mean Brandon? Is Brandon dead?