1
Sam helped her load the remaining dishes. He refilled their coffee and set the mugs on the table. “We need to talk, Maddie.”
“Actually, I need to get home. I need to get dressed and be back for the rehearsal,”
she told him lightly, not wanting to hear whatever he had to say. His tone was too serious, too much like the Sam she used to know, and it made her weak with longing, yearning for something that could never happen again.
“You have clothes here. Sit,”
he grumbled, his expression implacable.
Instead of sitting, she grabbed the coffee mug and took a sip, eyeing him cautiously. “Just tell me whatever you have to tell me. You have no say in my life and what I do, but I’ll listen. Then I need to go.”
It seemed like the fastest way to get away from him. And she needed to remove herself from the presence of the hottest man she had ever known. Immediately.
“You aren’t going anywhere today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after that,”
he growled, taking her coffee mug from her hand and sitting it back on the table. “You’re taking some time off while you consider my proposition.”
Crossing her arms in front of her, she mumbled, “And what is that?”
“I want you to leave your job at the hospital and work full-time at the clinic. As a paid physician. I’ll start your salary at a half million a year and you can do all of your work in the daytime there. I want you out of there before dark and you can’t work more than five days a week. It will give you more time there without the stress of having to juggle two jobs.”
He shot her an irritable look.
“It’s a free clinic. I can’t take a salary,”
she answered, perplexed.
“It’s run on donations. I can up my donations and pay your salary myself. I have a lot of contacts who would be more than willing to help you back the clinic. All I have to do is call them.”
He raised an eyebrow, as though daring her to tell him differently.
Obviously, he did have contacts, other rich businessmen who could help fully fund her clinic. Oh, God. What would it be like to be able to be at the clinic every day, a place where she could really make a difference in people’s lives? She liked her job at the hospital and it was fulfilling to take care of patients there, but it wasn’t the same as helping people who couldn’t afford healthcare. And there were plenty of other doctors who would take her job at the hospital. The clinic…umm…not so much.
“I’m not worth that much money. I’m just a family practice doctor. I don’t earn that kind of salary.”
Seriously, was she really considering his offer? Shit! He was dangling a carrot that she almost couldn’t refuse to take.
It’s Sam Hudson, Maddie. Be careful.
Thing was, she didn’t really want to be careful. She wanted to grab this opportunity. “What’s the catch?”
she asked cautiously. “There’s nothing in it for you except a bigger tax deduction if you take it on as a charitable organization. Why put yourself to this much trouble for my clinic?”
“I get to know you’re safe every day and out of the clinic before dark. I’ll know you’re sleeping, eating.”
He shrugged. “The conditions are firm. No working after dark and no more than five days a week.”
He was manipulating her, and she didn’t like it. However, it was hard not to accept when it was something she had always wanted. “Lower my salary. I’d rather use it to pay some full-time staff. I just need enough to pay my student loans and mortgage plus some other minor expenses.”
“No. The salary gets paid and I’ll pay your student loans off. I’ll make sure your donations are enough to pay staff and buy state-of-the-art equipment.”
He crossed his arms in front of him, his face like granite.
They were negotiating, but Maddie felt like every time she opened her mouth he wanted to do more. “Why are you doing this? Really?”
“I’m doing it for you,”
he replied, his eyes boring into her. “And partly for myself,”
he admitted reluctantly.
“Are we signing contracts?”
she asked, wanting to know she’d be legally protected. She wanted to believe that Sam was sincere, but she’d never be taken in by him again. One massive heartache was more than enough. He’d taken her trust once and smashed it to bits, making her suspicious of anything he offered.
“No. Not if you accept my entire offer,”
he rumbled, his voice husky.
“What else is there?”
What more could he possibly offer?
“I want to get you pregnant,”
he said harshly. “You’ll be in a position to have a baby and I want to be the one to do it. I don’t want another man’s seed inside your body.”
Maddie gasped, her heart racing. Was the guy crazy? “You want to be my sperm donor?”
“Hell, no. Or yes…I do…but we do it the old-fashioned way. I’m willing to try for as long as it takes. Every day. Five times a day. Or until you beg for mercy, and even then I’m still not sure I’ll stop.”
He pulled her into his body and unbound her hair, spearing his hands into the mass of curls possessively.
Maddie’s mind whirled in confusion, her heart thudding against the wall of her chest so hard she swore it was going to burst through her sternum. “That takes having sex. A lot of sex. Unprotected sex.”
Oh, hell no. “I don’t like sex and you’re a man-whore, Sam. You couldn’t go a week without another woman. I won’t be enough for you. And I definitely don’t want to share diseases with your lady friends.”
Not happening. Having Sam Hudson as a father for the child I want so desperately has “complicated”
written all over it.
“I’m clean. I’ll give you my health records.”
Pulling back, he drilled her with those emerald eyes. They were tumultuous and stormy, as though he were holding himself in check.
“I can’t. I trusted you once. I can’t do it again. Especially not with a possible child involved,”
she answered sadly, her eyes starting to fill with tears. Incredibly, she almost wanted to agree. What would it be like to hold Sam’s baby, their baby, in her arms? Need slammed into her so hard that she swayed. Not only did she want a baby, but she wanted Sam. Her problems with sex had nothing to do with her physiology. It all boiled down to him, to Sam. No other man had been Sam, so she hadn’t wanted anyone else. When it came to sharing something that intimate, it only felt right with one person, a man who had broken her heart so many years ago.
I must be crazy, a freaking masochist, to feel this way.
“I haven’t been with a woman in months. I fucking couldn’t. Before that, I only slept with women who had red hair, curvy bodies and who didn’t mind that I called out your name when I came,”
he snarled. “Women who only wanted money or material things, because I had nothing else to give them.”
“Sam, you’re with a different woman every week—”
“Friends who go with me to various functions. I don’t sleep with them. I have no desire to sleep with a tall, skinny blonde. I’m too fucking obsessed with a petite redhead who hates me.”
He laughed, a humorless, self-deprecating laugh.
Oh Lord, was it really true? Still, he had cheated on her when they were dating. Like the proverbial leopard that couldn’t change its spots, Sam couldn’t have changed that much, could he? “I can’t. It will never work. I can’t sleep with you, get pregnant and walk away.”
It would kill me!
“If you fucking walked away, I’d come after you.”
His nostrils flared as he looked down at her with so much intensity that she could hardly hold his gaze.
“Then why did you even suggest it?”
she asked curiously.
“I don’t think you understand, Madeline. I’m not asking to just knock you up or fuck you, although God knows I want that too.”
“What do you want?”
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, his whole body tense. “I want you to fucking marry me. I’m not asking for a few months of wild sex. I’m asking for forever. You, me, a family. Everything. Everything we should have had but didn’t. I don’t deserve you, but I fucking want you. So much it’s killing me.”
Sam took another deep breath…and waited.
Sam held his breath, watching Maddie’s expression change to one of incredibility, as her mind tried to absorb what he’d just said. Shock. Disbelief. Horror. All of those emotions reflected back at him from her hazel eyes. Christ! He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to say any of it, except for the proposition to help her make her clinic a full-time paid venture to make her life easier. But then he’d seen those damn papers, and he’d completely lost it.
No man is planting his seed inside my woman, artificially done or not. If she wants a baby, I’ll give her one or happily die trying.
Rampant, possessive emotions rose inside him until his vision blurred, his fists clenched with need to own the woman in front of him, a woman he’d wanted for what seemed like forever. The last time he had walked away from her, he had done it because he thought she’d be better off without him. Fuck it. He wasn’t doing that again. She obviously wasn’t happy, some guy had treated her like shit, and she didn’t have the family she had always wanted. She was alone. Or, she had been alone. Now, Sam was determined that she would have him. Forever. Even if she hated him, he would treat her better than another man could, take better care of her, meet all of her needs until she begged for mercy.
Bullshit…she doesn’t like sex! She had just never had a man who wanted to please her. Maddie was a firecracker that he wanted to set off. Hell…he wanted to do an entire fireworks display with her, one orgasm after another, until she begged him to stop, her body limp and sated.
Sam never saw the palm coming toward his face, his fantasies and desires so potent that he was lost in them. The smack landed hard enough to jerk his head to the right, and it was loud enough to be heard echoing through the kitchen.
“How could you? How could you play with me like this? You bastard, what did I ever do to you to deserve this?”
Maddie hissed, her eyes furious and filled with tears. “I don’t want to play your stupid games, Hudson.”
Sam caught her wrist just as she was about to let her hand fly a second time. “No.”
He held her wrist tightly enough to immobilize it, but not enough to hurt. “I probably deserved what I just got for hurting you in the past. But I’m not taking another bitch-slap for offering to marry you and give you everything you want.”
“You’re a damn liar. You don’t want to marry me or even fund my clinic. This is some kind of sick, twisted joke. And I don’t understand why.”
Tears spilled from her eyes, eyes that were full of hurt and confusion.
“Goddamn it, Maddie.”
He swung her up into his arms. She kicked and twisted until he wrapped his arms around her, holding her immobile. “It’s not a fucking joke. I’m not twisted. Much.”
Okay…maybe he was a little, but not about this, not about her.
Angry, he carried her to the living room, fuming. Dumping her on a roomy leather couch, he came down on top of her, restraining her flailing hands by holding her wrists above her head.
His chest heaving, Sam looked at her face, keeping most of his weight from her smaller frame with his legs. Tears were streaming from her eyes, an endless river that didn’t seem to be stopping. Fuck! “Please don’t cry, Maddie.”
I can’t handle it when she cries. She’s had too much disappointment and pain in her life already. Knowing he was the source of her tears, no matter how unintentional, nearly killed him.
She turned her face away from him. “Let go. I want to leave.”
“The offer was sincere, Maddie. I’m not sure why you think I’d play that kind of game with you, but I have no reason to do that. Think about it. It makes no sense.”
He sighed, frustrated.
She turned her head and nailed him with a searching look. “About as much sense as you asking me to marry you. We hate each other—”
“You hate me. I don’t hate you. I never have,”
he rasped, trying to squelch the barrage of emotions pounding at him.
“You didn’t want to fuck me, either. And you didn’t even respect me enough to break up with me before you fucked her. I cared about you, Sam. And seeing you with that woman made a mockery of everything we ever shared. Our friendship. Our relationship. Everything was just one big joke on me.”
She yanked at her hands, and Sam released her, sitting up to give her space since she appeared calmer.
“Maddie, I—”
“So excuse me if I think this is just another twisted lie, but I don’t trust you. With good reason,”
she finished, running a shaky hand through her hair to thrust back her wayward curls from her face, her face still damp from spent tears. “I need to leave. Can you take me to the clinic to pick up my car?”
“No. You’re staying. The rehearsal is starting in a few hours,”
he insisted, his jaw clenched. “You didn’t give me an answer on my proposal.”
“Because I don’t think it’s really necessary, but if you want one…then the answer is no. Hell no. Absolutely not,”
she gasped. “You broke my heart once. How stupid do you think I am? Unless you can give me a damn good reason why you were sucking tongue with that tall, skinny, beautiful woman all those years ago—”
“Because I didn’t have a goddamn choice,”
he shouted hoarsely, the explosion coming from deep inside his body. “I had to get you away from me so you didn’t get hurt. That woman, who was at least fifteen years older than me, was a fucking FBI agent. Did you even look at her?”
He shuddered, his emotions close to the surface, unable to remember that nightmare day without nearly flying into a frustrated rage.
“All I remember is that she was pretty and she had her tongue down your throat. And your hands were all over her,”
Maddie answered, her voice uncertain, sad with remembered pain.
“She was good at her job. We were meeting to try to find a way to protect you. That’s why I asked you to come and meet me for coffee. Kate said the best way to protect you was to alienate you, but I couldn’t do it. I cared too damn much. She told me if I really cared about you, I’d worry about your safety first. She was right, but I didn’t know how to walk away from you, even though I knew somehow I had to so I would know you were safe. So when she saw you coming, she did it herself by shoving her tongue down my throat. She convinced me that making you hate me was the way to save you, so yeah, I played into it. I didn’t know whether to thank her or hate her fucking guts afterward. I hated having my hands on a woman who wasn’t you, Maddie. I hated it while it was happening, knowing you were watching and feeling betrayed. And if you think I haven’t lived with the regret of having to do that every fucking day since it happened…you’d be wrong.”
Sam sat next to Maddie and buried his face in his hands, still hating himself for what had happened, but knowing that it had been the only way. Back then, he had been young and selfish, unable to push Maddie away because he wanted her too badly, needed her too much. And she was so loyal that she never would have left him unless she thought herself betrayed. “I didn’t want to hurt you, but the thought of something happening to you made me so crazy that I did what I had to do.”
“Why the FBI? Were you in some kind of trouble?”
Maddie questioned, her voice still full of doubt and confusion.
He sat back on the couch, resting his head against the leather. “Not me. Not really. You know my history, Maddie. You know my father died of an overdose and that he had connections to organized crime.”
“Yes,”
she nodded. “You told me. He died soon after we met.”
“I knew things. Things that could help take the whole organization down. My father was not a nice man. I ran interference between the old man and Simon, doing whatever I had to do to keep the old bastard from hurting my little brother. I was underage when I ran errands and did other things under duress, so I wasn’t really in trouble. But I also knew enough to help take down a worldwide organization that was pure evil.”
He took a deep breath and blew it out before he continued. “I came here to Tampa just hoping to get my family away, to start a new life and just leave that life behind. But once I met you, I knew I couldn’t bury all of my past and just run, pretend I didn’t know things. I wanted to be a good man, and a decent person wouldn’t be selfish enough not to try to prevent the pain and death caused by this organization. I had to do what I could to take the bastards down. I went to the Feds around December and fed them information, worked with them to help the investigation. It took months, but they finally got agents on the inside and enough information to bring the whole thing tumbling down. Unfortunately, information got leaked that I was a snitch, and that made me and anyone I cared about a target. Kate helped me realize I couldn’t afford to be close to anyone. I was a dangerous person to know.”
“I would have stayed with you, done whatever—”
“And you could have wound up dead. I couldn’t take that chance.”
He sat up, grasping Maddie by the shoulders, shaking her lightly. “I didn’t even get my mother and Simon out in time. Simon was stabbed by someone in the organization, a payback for my father being disloyal. Those were people who killed without a thought. They didn’t give a shit about any human life. Do you understand?”
he growled, his emotions ready to explode from his body. Perspiration poured down his face, a reaction he had every time he thought about what had happened to Simon and what could have happened to Maddie.
“What happened to Simon wasn’t your fault, Sam,”
Maddie answered quietly, her voice soothing.
“Bullshit! I was his big brother. I should have gotten him out sooner. I should have known they’d take revenge on whoever was available.”
Releasing Maddie, he slumped back on the couch.
“You were barely an adult yourself. How could you have known?”
“I should have known. I’d seen these people in action since I could walk,”
he answered softly, dangerously.
“Why didn’t you find me later? After the whole thing ended?”
Maddie queried, her voice tremulous.
“It took over a year until every branch of the organization was closed down. My mother, Simon, and I were under FBI protection here in Tampa until every boss was behind bars or dead,”
he answered, his voice low and thoughtful.
“But after that, why didn’t you find me?”
“I did.”
Sam clenched his fists, hating to think about the day he had gone to find her. He’d already known he had lost her, but that particular day was the time that it really sunk in, that he had to admit to himself that his Maddie was gone forever.
“I never saw you again,”
she answered, confused.
“I saw you. This time it was me who had to see you with another man with his tongue down your throat.”
He frowned, his face fierce. “I tracked you down on campus, but some dark-haired guy who looked like a jock was all over you. I thought you looked happy. He looked like he came from money and could make you happy. You’d moved on with your life and I couldn’t blame you for finding someone better.”
Fuck. That hurt.
“Lance,”
she whispered. “We started dating a little over a year after what happened. You should have talked to me.”
“Why? All it would have done is screwed up your life. I didn’t have a fucking thing to offer, Maddie. I was barely out of danger from a lengthy FBI involvement. Broker than shit from trying to support my family. Simon was going to school. I stopped so he could study. Once he was old enough to work part-time, I went back to finish my own degree. You had a guy who looked like a much better option than me back then.”
Maddie would never know how hard it had been to walk away, to leave her in the arms of another man. But Kate had been right when she said if you really care about someone you do what’s best for them. “Had I known that he was a bastard who wasn’t going to marry you and who treated you poorly, I would have taken you away from him in a fucking heartbeat. I assume that he was the one sexual relationship you mentioned? That guy was the son of a bitch who told you that you weren’t sexy?”
God, what he wouldn’t do to have his hands around the asshole’s neck right now. He hated himself for leaving his precious Maddie in the care of someone who didn’t deserve her.
“Yeah. We didn’t really date that long. Six months.”
She shuddered as she looked up at Sam, the pain in her eyes almost tangible. “I was so lonely and I wanted to forget you.”
“And you haven’t tried again since then?”
he asked, his voice gentler, curious.
Maddie shook her head. “No. I’ve dated casually, but there was…nothing.”
Sam reached out his hand and captured one of the tears on her cheek with his finger and brought it to his lips. “Jesus, Maddie. I can’t imagine any man letting you get away.”
“Except you.”
She smiled sadly.
“You haven’t gotten away from me yet, and this time you won’t,”
he answered harshly. “I want you to marry me.”
Sam looked at the agonized expression on her face and it nearly brought him to his knees. He needed her to say yes. Desperately. His sanity was beginning to depend on it.
“We don’t even know each other anymore. I don’t know what to say right now,”
she told him honestly.
“Say yes.”
Oh, fuck yeah. Saying no was not an option. Sam moved her onto his lap. He needed to hold her right now, had to have her softness in his arms.
She squealed and tried to squirm away, but he didn’t let her. “Either sit quietly or I’ll have you on your back and moaning within a few seconds,”
he warned her ominously. “I can’t handle much of that delicious ass squirming on my cock before I tear those sexy clothes from your body and taste every inch of you.”
She stilled immediately and wrapped her arms around his neck. “What happened to Kate?”
she asked curiously, resting her head on his shoulder.
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. I never saw her again after the investigation. She was married. Happily married with two kids. She had no desire to mess with me. I was a dumb kid to her. It was all a ruse that she executed to force me to cut things off with you.”
He thrust a hand into her hair, massaging her scalp. “So, what’s your answer, Maddie?”
“Sam, I haven’t even digested the information you just told me. You can’t expect me to agree to marry you.”
She pulled back and shot him a disgruntled look.
“If you don’t believe me, you can ask Simon. He doesn’t know about us, but he can verify everything else,”
he told her, disappointed that she might not believe him after he had bared his soul to her.
“It isn’t that. I just need time.”
She sighed. “It’s been years, Sam. We’ve changed. We don’t know each other now.”
“We’ve always known each other, Sunshine. My soul recognized yours the moment I saw you.”
And it was the truth. It hadn’t taken him more than a moment to see her value, to know that she was special. “Fine, tell me yes tomorrow then.”
He was feeling magnanimous now that he had her exactly where he wanted her.
Maddie snorted. “That’s very kind of you, but I think I may need a little longer than that.”
Tilting her face, he speared her with a possessive glance. “How much longer?”
“I don’t know,”
she whispered, her eyes sad.
Dammit! He didn’t want her dejected. He wanted her to want him. No…he needed her to want him. “I’ll seduce you. Then I’ll fuck you until you don’t have the strength to say anything except yes. No one is planting their seed inside you except me.”
Maddie rolled her eyes. “Nobody has ever planted their seed inside me. Lance used a condom and I haven’t had anything but my vibrator since.”
Something raw and carnal nailed Sam in the gut, the thought of Maddie pleasuring herself making his already-rigid cock jump, feral instinct making him want to be the first to release himself into her womb. He had never had sex without a condom. In that way, Maddie would be his first, his only since he never planned to be with any other woman again. “And how’s the vibrator?”
he choked out, barely able to form the words.
She shrugged, giving him a sweet smile. “Batteries are probably dead. It’s been a while.”
Christ! She was fucking killing him. “You won’t need it,”
he rasped, burying his face in the silken skin of her neck.
She tilted her head, giving him better access as she murmured, “Is it true that you didn’t go to bed with all those women?”
“What I said is true. I know what the gossip columns say and what people think, but it’s not true. The women people see me with are nothing more than friends or acquaintances, women who want to attend the parties. I won’t claim to be a saint, Maddie. I’ve fucked. But none of them were you,”
he answered, his voice husky against her skin.
“I missed you. I missed you so much,”
she replied, her voice filled with pain and sadness.
Unable to stop himself, Sam slipped Maddie off his lap and under him, covering her petite body with his larger frame. She felt so sweet, so soft beneath him that he groaned as she opened her thighs to welcome him, and he felt like he was finally home, exactly where he was supposed to be. The feel of her body, her enticing fragrance surrounded him, sinking into his every pore. “I missed you, too, Sunshine. More than you can possibly imagine,”
he answered gruffly, lowering his body to hers while keeping most of his weight off her with his elbows, needing all of her softness. He buried his face in her silky curls, letting himself completely absorb her, breathing her in over and over again until every part of him was filled with her scent.
Mine. Need her. She’ll never have another man as long as I’m breathing.
A low, incoherent sound left his throat, feral and unrestrained. “I’ll never let you go. You can say yes today or tomorrow, but you’ll always be mine.”
He lowered his mouth to hers before she could reply, swallowing any protest she might have made. He didn’t give a shit what words left her mouth; he was taking what should have been his years ago. Maybe he should have confessed everything the first time he had seen her again last year, but he hadn’t gotten close to her, afraid that she had a man in her life, a man who was better for her than him. Now that he knew the truth, that she had never been cherished as she should have been, he wasn’t letting her go.
She tasted of sweet coffee and raw temptation, and it nearly drove him mad. He covered her mouth over and over, trying to brand her as his, needing her to forget every man in the world except him. His cock pulsated and he thrust his pelvis into her core, groaning into her mouth as he was greeted with nothing but heat and the promise of ecstasy. He snaked his forearms under her back, trying to pull her closer, her breasts tighter against his chest. Fuck! He needed more. More of her, more of her heat. She moaned into his mouth as he plundered again, sweeping his tongue into the wet, warm cavity, greedy for her sweetness, wallowing in her essence.
Pulling his mouth from hers, he rasped, “Have to get closer. Naked. Now.”
“Sam, someone is at the door. I heard the doorbell,”
Maddie panted softly.
Shit! Simon.
He looked at the clock and then back at Maddie, so damn tempted to ignore the penetrating ring of the doorbell again.
Maddie looked so warm, so soft, so ready to be fucked that he raked his hand through his hair in frustration. “Christ. It’s Simon.”
He gave her a heated stare. “We finish this later.”
Maddie sat up, pushing him off her gently. “Not happening. They’re staying until Saturday, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
Sam didn’t care if they stayed, as long as he had Maddie with him.
“I’m not sleeping in your bedroom while they’re here.”
Maddie scowled at him. “This is their wedding, Sam. I’m not doing anything that will cause talk. They deserve this time. And I know I need some time to think.”
She ran a hand through her hair, but it only made her curls wilder.
Sam’s eyes raked over her disheveled appearance with male satisfaction. She looked like a woman who had just been ravished. “You don’t need to think. You just need to say yes,”
he replied belligerently.
Maddie jumped up from the couch and gathered her hair in a ponytail. “I need my rubber.”
Sam looked at her sardonically. “That just doesn’t sound right coming out of a woman’s mouth. In the kitchen. I’ll get it.”
“No. I’ll get it. You get the door. Poor Simon and Kara are standing on the doorstep, probably wondering where you are.”
“I was about to get luckier than I’ve ever been in my entire fucking life. Perfect timing, bro,”
Sam grumbled, heading for the door.
Maddie giggled, covering her mouth to stifle the sound. “I do need a few things from my house. And some fresh batteries,”
she told him as she sashayed across the room.
Sam groaned, watching her prance to the kitchen, that sweet ass wiggling enticingly as she went, in a pair of jeans he never should have asked David to buy. They were too provocative, cupped her ass too perfectly.
Batteries? Why did she need—?
Oh shit. How screwed could one man get? He smirked as he moved toward the front door. Point scored by Maddie. And he would give her this one. Because, in the end, he planned to win by a landslide.
He put his hand on the doorknob, trying to adjust his throbbing erection before he opened it, and attempting to banish visions of Maddie pleasuring herself with her vibrator.
“You’ll pay for this one, Sunshine,”
he whispered to himself with a small smile as he pulled open the door.
Sam had waited forever for Maddie, but suddenly, he just couldn’t wait any longer. He was being given a second chance, and this time he wasn’t letting her go, because nobody else in the world needed her as much as he did. And nobody would treasure her as much as he would.
His resolve and his cock hard as steel, he smiled broadly as he greeted Simon and Kara.
Maddie cried at the wedding. She couldn’t help herself. It wasn’t possible to watch Simon and Kara exchange vows without tears of joy cascading from her eyes, her happiness for her friend nearly painful. As the couple faced each other, Maddie watched Simon’s face, Kara’s back to her as she recited her vows to her almost-husband. Every emotion was raw and unguarded on Simon’s face as he repeated his vows gruffly, but with tender emotion.
She and Sam were the only attendants, the small audience made up of friends and family. The weather had cooperated so everything had been set up outdoors, and the decorations were exquisite. Kara had opted for a small ceremony, although there was a lavish reception planned for after the wedding when hundreds of people would gather in Sam’s elegant home to give their best wishes to the happy couple.
Kara looked like a princess in her ivory Victorian gown of silk and the finest lace. The style suited Kara, who was tall and svelte; the gown was fitted until it reached her hips and then flared in a bell to the floor.
Maddie adored her own emerald green, tea-length dress with its off-the-shoulder, short bell-sleeves and plunging neckline, a daring bodice that had made her shudder when she’d first seen it. But after she had tried it on, she’d fallen in love with the fitted waist and billowy skirt that hit her below the knee. The outfit was accented with a black silky tie belt that floated behind her in shimmering waves. The ensemble was finished with black, strappy heels, and Maddie knew she looked as good as she could manage when standing next to a tall and stunning woman like Kara.
Maddie looked across the happy couple at Sam, who was absolutely breathtaking. Simon was in an identical black tux, but Simon was wearing a bow tie. Sam was wearing a thin black tie with tiny stripes of emerald green that matched her dress...and his gorgeous eyes. Everything about him looked urbane and sophisticated, right down to his stance and expression, a man obviously completely comfortable in his surroundings and attire.
Forcing herself to tear her eyes away from Sam, Maddie returned her gaze to Simon, watching him pledge himself to Kara.
When the minister reached the part of the ceremony where he asked if anyone had any objections, Simon scowled.
Turning his head briefly toward the man of the cloth, Simon informed the minister irritably, “She’s mine. Move on.”
Maddie bit her lip to keep from giggling. Simon Hudson was far from subtle about his possessiveness of Kara. Her eyes met Sam’s and her heart skittered. She could tell he was stifling a grin and his eyes were dancing with amusement. Their eyes locked and held, sharing a brief moment of silent communication, of shared mirth.
Finally, as she wrenched her gaze from Sam, she felt a cold shiver run down her spine, the sense of another set of eyes on her. She was at a wedding with at least fifty guests. People were watching. But she turned her head and her eyes clashed with a man in the first row, a dangerous-looking man in an expensive suit staring directly at her, his eyes never leaving her face. The man was handsome in a rugged, intense sort of way, with auburn hair and laser-sharp eyes, eyes that bored into her with a look of intense concentration. Unable to look away, compelled to keep her eyes on him, Maddie was startled when his lips suddenly broke into a grin and he winked, actually winked…at her. Really, there was something so magnetic about him that she couldn’t help smiling back.
Turning her attention back to Simon and Kara, she watched through eyes blurred with tears as the minister pronounced them man and wife. Simon kissed his bride…and kissed his bride again…and finally stopped when Sam slapped him on the back in congratulations, but Maddie knew it was really to keep Simon from devouring his new wife in front of the guests. Kara’s eyes were sparkling with tears as she hugged Maddie and took back her bouquet. Sam offered his arm and Maddie clenched it, following the newly-married couple down the aisle.
“I saw Max fucking you with his eyes. Don’t even think about it,”
Sam rumbled under his breath, smiling broadly for the crowd while he said it.
“Who’s Max?”