Chapter 12
It was faintly possible that Sabrina did not, in fact, actually outshine the bride at the rehearsal dinner.
Luke wouldn't know: he could barely take his eyes off his fated mate.
She looked absolutely gorgeous, and every time she caught him looking at her—which was basically always—she seemed to glow that little extra bit more, until it was like a supernova had gone off right in front of him.
Everybody else was eclipsed, and no one else mattered.
He was vaguely aware there were other people at the dinner.
Parents. Siblings. A handful of very cute kids who were probably the flower girls and ring bearers.
They could all have been invisible as far as Luke was concerned, although he was pretty sure he talked to several of them and even had some pleasant conversations.
But all he really wanted was to get through the dinner, get back to the room, and explain to Sabrina that he loved and adored her and would like to spend the rest of his life with her.
Yeah! Go Luke go! That's the stuff! Tell her how you feel! Show her your rabbit!
There was no excuse for suddenly bursting into giggles at the dinner table, but Luke did anyway.
There was something slightly wrong about 'show her your rabbit,' even if the rabbit had meant it entirely literally.
Several people, including Sabrina, looked at him, and he picked up his champagne glass and waved it as explanation for his sudden laughter.
"Wow," Derek said from a couple seats down the table. "Cut him off, man. No wonder you weren't drinking last night, you lightweight."
Everybody in earshot examined Luke critically, because 'lightweight' was not a word that anybody could reasonably apply to him. He tried very hard to look solemn as he said, "No body fat. Champagne goes right to my head."
"That is the exact opposite of how it works," Cole, also a big man, said dryly, and Luke laughed.
"It was worth a shot! I'll cut myself off," he promised.
Sabrina eyed him with obvious amusement, and he tried to look innocent.
She rolled her eyes, so it clearly didn't work, but then she went back to paying attention to the speech being given at the head of the table, which let him go back to gazing starry-eyed at her without interruption.
You should tell her everything, his rabbit whispered, and Luke barely kept himself from hiding his face in one hand. So much for 'gazing without interruption.'
I will, he promised. As soon as it seems appropriate.
Now is good!
Now is not good. What do you think I should do, turn into a rabbit in front of everybody?
His rabbit frowned, which was quite an effort for an animal with no eyebrow muscles. It said, No, slowly. No, that would be bad. But Sabrina should know!
She should, Luke agreed patiently. I'll tell her—
RIGHT NOW!
Never mind having no eyebrow muscles. Luke was also reasonably confident the animal had no sense of object permanence. A thought entered its mind, made itself known, and exited again with zero connection to any other thought it had ever had. When the time is right, he told it firmly.
It groaned and fell over to stare glumly into the distance, clearly fed up with Luke's wishy-washy human behaviors. Rabbits get right down to business, it told him. So should you.
Luke coughed quietly on another sip of champagne and put the glass down almost out of reach so he would drink water going forward. Yes, he said with as little humor as he could manage. Rabbits are known for getting down to business.
His rabbit lit up. So GO LUKE GO!!!
Luke refused to dissolve into laughter, but it was a close thing.
By then, Sabrina was watching him, not the toast-giver, her round eyebrows lifted and amusement sparkling in her eyes.
Luke said, You're going to get me in trouble with our fated mate!
to his rabbit, and the animal gave a horrified gasp.
No! That would be THE WORST. I can't do that! You can't be in trouble! I'M SO SORRY!!!!
Just hush for a while and let me handle the human things, Luke said, and the rabbit, trembling with sheer panic over the idea of getting him in trouble with Sabrina, fell blessedly silent for the rest of the evening.
"What on earth were you thinking during the speeches?" Sabrina asked hours later, on their way back up to the hotel room. Her expression was all challenge.
Well, mostly challenge, and some amusement. Luke grimaced at his shiny shoes and dared a glance at her. "I'm sorry. Things get so solemn and serious."
"There are people who might think lifetime commitments are," Sabrina said dryly.
The elevator dinged and they made their way out, down the hall, and to the room, where the lock randomly decided not to recognize the key card for the first three tries.
Just before Luke was about to take it downstairs, it blipped the door open, and they went inside.
Sabrina fell on the bed with a relieved groan, put one foot on the bed and propped the other against her bent knee, and started unfastening the straps of her shoes.
Her fluffy skirt fell around her hips, revealing her thighs almost up to her bottom, and Luke very suddenly didn't know where to look. He decided the wall was safe, and said, "It's not that the commitment isn't serious. I just think I might want the things around it to be...fluffier?"
Like her skirt was fluffy around her hips. Because that was all he could think of right now. Fluff.
I'm fluffy, his rabbit whispered. Luke snorted a laugh through his nose and, rather unusually, wished he could give the rabbit a hug.
Yeah, you are, he said fondly. You're the best fluffy buddy.
His rabbit sniffled happily and he wished, again, that he could hug it. In the meantime, Sabrina got one shoe off and switched feet to remove the other one, which did nothing for putting her skirt back where it belonged.
"'Fluffier,'" she echoed. "I never heard anybody use that word about wedding ceremonies.
Unless the bride's dress is a real meringue.
Which," she added strenuously, "I think is a good thing, if that's what she wants.
I get mad at people who are mean about wedding dresses.
What's wrong with a million yards of lace if that's what you want?
Or something really slinky and skin-tight, for that matter?
" She threw her second shoe aside and thumped her feet—toward the floor, Luke had to admit.
Lying on her back at the edge of the bed with her knees dangling over, Sabrina's legs just weren't long enough to actually reach the floor.
It was incredibly cute, and he was pretty sure she'd punch him in the nose for saying so.
If she could reach his nose.
He grinned and sat beside her, taking his own shoes off with less theatrics. "So which is your vibe? Meringue or slink?"
"Oh, I don't know. Somewhere in between?
I need something fitted through the bodice, like this, but the poofy skirt works on my body type because it just enhances the hips and doesn't make me look quite so top-heavy.
But then again I've got the hips to go with the boobs anyway, so I could go fitted through the hips and a soft mermaid skirt or something.
What I can't do is magically be tall, unfortunately. "
"You're the perfect height," Luke promised her.
Sabrina hmphed. "Easy for you to say, Mr. Six Foot Five. At least our fake children will be normal heights."
Luke had a brief, vivid image of Sabrina round with pregnancy, and his heart seized so hard he thought he might pass out.
His rabbit said, Kits are good! and Luke dizzily agreed, although it was at least as much the idea of the pregnancy as kids that got him.
He'd had no idea he might be into pregnant women, as a thing.
Except it wasn't the idea of pregnant women that was his thing. It was very strictly the idea of pregnant Sabrina. When he found his voice, he sounded wheezy: "We've escalated to fake kids, have we?"
Sabrina sat up, looking embarrassed, and started shimmying out of the little jacket that went with her dress. "Yeah, I don't know where that came from. Sorry. I'll try not to be such a weird fake girlfriend."
Luke, watching her shoulders appear from under the jacket, watching what that shimmy did to her considerable bosom, fought the urge to lean over and kiss her all the way back into lying down.
She was, after all, right there saying fake kids and fake girlfriend, which gave him all the information he needed to know about where she saw this thing going, at least right now.
He wet his lips, croaked, "You're the best fake girlfriend I've ever had," and tried to convince his circulatory system that it should be supplying blood to his brain and heart, not locations farther south.
Sabrina laughed, which did wonderful things to the expanse of now-exposed bosom. "Ah, the truth comes out. You've had a lot of fake girlfriends to compare me to."
"Guilty," he rasped. "Dozens of them, throwing themselves at me on social media. Entire fake lives to go along with them. You'd be amazed at the lives we've led, according to them. Frankly, I'm swamped."
"I'm not surprised. I, too, would want to be your fake social media girlfriend. Except this is complicated enough as it is! Speaking of which." Sabrina took a deep breath and turned her back to him. "I don't want to make it weird, but could you unzip me?"
Luke's hands went icy cold and trembly with anticipation, which was the worst possible way to unzip somebody. He flexed them and rubbed them together, trying to warm them up and stop their shaking. Sabrina looked over her shoulder at him, eyebrows lifted. "You okay?"
"Cold hands. Don't want to freeze you to death."
"You're the warmest person I've ever slept beside," Sabrina said incredulously. "I cannot believe your h—EEEEP!"
That was Luke putting his genuinely surprisingly cold hand against her exposed back. She was tiny: his hand covered a considerable amount of her skin, which erupted in goosebumps. She jumped up and away, then turned with an absolutely betrayed expression. "That was mean!"
"Well, you didn't believe me!"
"I would have been happy going on in ignorance!"
Luke laughed out loud. "Yeah, that's fair. Come back over here and I'll unzip you without being a cold-handed monster about it."
Sabrina returned with an air of overblown distrust, and kept eyeing him as he unzipped her. "There," he said, triumphant. "No cold hands."
"Thank you." She retreated to the bathroom, holding her dress up, then came back from it still holding the dress in place and, muttering, got her pajamas. "This is so much more difficult than I imagined."
"I promise not to look if you just want to get undressed out here." Luke actually meant it, although promising not to look and not wanting to look were very different things.
"I'm already in here, so…"
So he should probably take advantage of the moment and change clothes himself. He did, pulling a lightweight sleeping shirt and shorts on before hanging his suit in the closet. Sabrina had the water running, and, more curious than judgy, he said, "Are you taking a third shower today?"
"No, just washing the makeup off my face. And if I'd thought clearly about the fact that we were going to go jump in a lake, I wouldn't have showered first thing this morning either," Sabrina said through splashes and things banging around. "Although I really need that morning shower to wake up."
"Ah, yeah, makeup. I forgot about that." He thought it was safer not to comment on the necessity of the morning shower, and traded places with Sabrina in the bathroom when she came out, so he could brush his teeth and do other business.
She was sitting primly in the bed with the covers pulled up to her waist when he came back out.
He paused at the foot of the bed, hesitant, and she looked wry.
"This is much more awkward when it's going to bed properly, isn't it?
It was fine falling into bed at four in the morning like a couple of reprobates, but the formality of bedtime makes it weird. "
"I can sleep on the floor," Luke offered. "There's no need to make it weirder than it has to be."
"No, that makes it weirder," Sabrina said firmly. "I don't even know why it's weird in the first place!"
The answer was obviously 'because you are a wildly attractive woman and also my fated mate,' but that probably wasn't the right thing to say.
Especially since Luke was pretty sure that explaining shifters and fated mates would keep them up half the night, and they had a wedding to attend tomorrow.
To participate in, in Sabrina's case. Delivering her to the wedding party with hollow sleepless eyes wouldn't be nice at all.
So Luke only said, "Because we're not used to sleeping beside people we don't know well," with relative cheer, and held his hand up in a Scout's oath. "I promise not to be a creep about it."
Sabrina's gaze latched on his uplifted hand. "Wh…aaaat. What are you doing?"
He turned his hand around to look at his splayed fingers. "The Boy Scout's oath?"
"That," Sabrina said, clearly struggling not to laugh, "is this.
" She held three fingers up with her thumb and pinky fingers folded down.
"You are doing a Vulcan salute." She split her fingers into the same V Luke was doing, her thumb extended, and said, "Live long and prosper," before sinking down into the bed and pulling the covers over her head, as if that would muffle her gales of laughter.
Luke mumbled, "Oh," and stood there waiting for her to stop laughing. When it became clear she might never stop, he mumbled again, wordlessly this time, and crawled into bed. At least one of them didn't feel awkward anymore, he figured, and went to sleep to the sounds of Sabrina's giggles.