Chapter 20 – Eden
EDEN
When Beau takes Brinley’s hand and pulls her toward the center of the room, my heart leaps in my chest. I know what’s coming—Beau asked me for ring approval already, and I suspected he’d ask tonight, when we were all together.
I sit up straighter on the couch and subtly pull out my phone, ready to snap a picture. Luke casually strolls over toward me, and I can tell from his careful expression that he knows, too. We’re both crazy excited but determined not to ruin the surprise.
Beau stops and clears his throat. “Can I have everyone’s attention, please?”
The guys at the poker table put down their cards, and the women spin around to look.
“What’s happening?” Brinley asks, looking around with a puzzled expression.
“You’ll see,” Beau says, grinning. Then he drops to one knee. Gasps fill the room as Brinley’s hands fly to her mouth.
“No!” she squeals excitedly. When Beau’s smile droops, she quickly touches his hair and shakes her head. “I didn’t mean no. I meant, no, I can’t believe this is happening. I’m going to say yes.”
“Well, don’t spoil the ending!” Beau says, making everyone laugh.
He takes a breath and pulls out a small velvet box.
“Brinley Windsor, you have no idea how many times I thought about this day. I made up a proposal speech in the shower hundreds of times, because there are so many reasons I love you, but they couldn't fit into one speech. You’re determined, brave, funny, and strong. You’re soft, too, even if I’m the only one who knows it.
I’ve had the honor of watching you start a business and make it successful, only to turn it around and change it to make something even better.
I know you take risks for the things you love, and I’m hoping you’ll take one more. ”
He opens the box, revealing the pearl and diamond vintage ring he showed me last week. “Will you marry me, Brinley baby?”
Brinley’s eyes fill with tears, and so do mine. She deserves this—after so many years of loving Beau in secret, she’s finally getting the big, loud, public declaration of love she never dared to hope for.
“Yes,” she says, ducking to kiss Beau. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
The room fills with a wave of cheers.
“Fuck yeah!” Pippa yells, pumping her fist while Cat jumps and down, clapping delightedly.
Beau slides the ring onto Brinley’s finger and shoves the box back in his jacket pocket.
Then he picks her up and spins her around as he kisses her.
It’s straight out of one of Brinley’s romance novels, and it makes my happy tears spill over.
Next to me, Luke hands me a tissue, and I take it gratefully.
“Where’s the champagne?” Ryan asks.
“Way ahead of you,” Luke says. He heads back behind the bar and moves a carefully placed Santa statue to reveal a tray of champagne glasses and an ice bucket. “Come grab a glass, everyone!”
Once the pregnant women have cider, Pippa has a glass of red wine, and everyone else has champagne, I lift my glass.
“I think I should be the first to make the toast tonight, since I knew about Beau and Brinley longer than anyone else. Which means I had to hear Brinley swoon about Beau’s biceps for years before anyone else had to deal with it. ”
Beau flexes, making the guys whoop and Brinley hide her face in her hands. Laughing, I keep going.
“I’ve never known two people as in sync as Beau and Brinley,” I continue.
“Watching them move through the kitchen together is like a ballet—a ballet where one person is cooking, and the other one keeps finding more and more inconvenient places to sit on the counter. More seriously though, I’ve never seen a couple who admired each other more.
Brinley’s in awe of Beau’s generosity, sweetness, and astonishing ability to create five-star dishes out of nothing.
And Beau idolizes Brinley for her ambition and drive.
I know their mutual admiration society will make for an amazing married couple. So, let’s drink to—”
Before I can even finish, Brinley throws her arms around me. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you for seeing Beau and me when nobody else did. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you.”
I squeeze my arms tight around her. “I’m so beyond happy for you, Brin.”
“Then let's drink!” Ryan declares.
After that, there are more speeches, shorter and sweeter than mine.
Sooner than it seems, it’s 9:00 p.m. and time for me to head to the airport for my flight home.
Not wanting to interrupt the drinking and holiday cheer, I slink to the back of the room toward the back hallway where I stashed my bag and coat.
A hand catches the door right as I’m about to close it. Luke moves into the hallway behind me. He only leaves a foot of space between us, and even though I shouldn’t I feel the pull to close that space. He’s like a planet, the gravity of him pulling down a spiraling moon.
“You’re leaving,” he says, eyes darting down to my bag. In the dim lights, his pupils go wide, crowding out the blue-green iris.
I nod. “I have a red-eye flight. I figured I’d sneak out before anyone noticed.”
“I noticed.” His normally smooth voice sounds gravel-rough. “I’m always fucking noticing now.”
Goosebumps rise on my arms. When I take a shuddering breath, I’m too aware of the way it pushes up my breasts. I don’t know what to say. Speech feels too dangerous, like the wrong word will lead us down a path we can’t escape.
“I should go,” I murmur.
He points up at the doorway above me, where plastic mistletoe hangs on a festive red ribbon.
“That wasn’t there earlier,” I whisper.
“No,” he agrees, voice rough. “It wasn’t.”
He hung it. Sometime between the champagne and the toasts, Luke Windsor hung mistletoe over the back hallway door—and then waited to see if I’d walk under it.
I swallow. Why is he inviting me to kiss him? We already gave up the charade to our friends, and anyway, we’re alone in the hallway now. There’s nobody to pretend for.
“Look, Luke, I know you're completely not into me,” I blurt out. “We don't need to practice anymore. The world believes us, and our friends know the truth. You don’t have to do this.”
His eyes are dark. “What if I want to?”
I inhale sharply. I didn’t expect that. I’m not even sure I’d believe him if it weren’t for the ragged sound of his voice. He’s leaning closer, his body eating up the space between us inch by inch.
His lips press gently against mine. A hot, soft touch that I could stop at any time. I know this is my last chance to go, the final exit before Luke takes things further than he ever did before. If I were smart, I’d pull away now.
Now, before he hurts me.
One of Luke’s hands frames my face, while the other closes around my hip.
His touch is gentle until it’s not. His lips are sweet until they’re devouring mine, his tongue dancing with mine in punishing strokes.
He digs his fingers into my flesh through my dress, like he can touch my bare skin if he just presses hard enough.
Electricity rockets through my veins, lighting me up like a Christmas tree.
He’s kissed me before, but not like this. Not like he wants to consume me. Not like he’s drowning and I’m oxygen.
I thought I knew what it was like to have Luke’s full focus. I had no goddamn idea.
Our friends are just down the hall. Anyone could walk in and see him shoving me up against the wall. I should care, but I don’t. Not when Luke’s hands are moving over my hips until he’s grabbing my ass. He groans against my mouth.
I shove my hands under his suit jacket, feeling his muscled torso through his dress shirt.
I drag my fingers down the hard slab of his back as I press my chest against his.
Heat swells in my chest, and I press my thighs together to relieve the ache growing in my pussy.
The way Luke’s touching me is just so feral and possessive, I can’t help reacting to it.
He sneaks one hand between us, palming my breast through my clothes. I whimper as my nipple goes diamond hard. He kneads the sensitive flesh roughly, and my hips roll against his. I can feel the hard ridge of his cock against my body, proof that I’m not the only one affected by this.
Luke wasn’t lying—he wants me. I just want him more.
I want to reach down his pants and see what it feels like to take it in my hand.
I want to strip off his clothes and see the muscles I’ve spent so many years fantasizing about.
I want more, so much more, but there’s not enough time.
I have to leave. I have plane tickets home in a few hours, and it’s Christmas.
Kissing Luke like this was a gift, one I have to leave here in the hallway.
Luke pulls back from the kiss just an inch. “Don’t go yet,” he whispers.
I shake my head. “I have to.”
“Not yet. First I want to—fuck, Eden, I feel like I might die if I don’t taste you just once before this thing with us is over,” he groans. His hands travel from my hips, one playing with the edge of my skirt while the other one brushes against the top of my panties through my dress.
I freeze. I know exactly what he means by taste. It’s further than I’ve ever gone before. Obviously, I’ve imagined it. I’ve played with those sucking vibrators they say feels like oral, and while they felt good, I knew there was something more.
Maybe it shouldn’t happen like this, rushed in a back hallway with a man I don’t have any kind of a future with. A man who could break my heart as easily as breathing. A man whose fingers are teasing me through two layers of fabric, making me soak my panties.
“Tell me not to,” Luke says. “Tell me to stop.”
It’s a command I know he doesn’t mean. One I have absolutely no interest in following. My voice sounds breathless when I tell him, “Don’t stop. Do it, Luke.”
A guttural growl escapes his chest. He kneels, yanks up my skirt, and buries his face between my thighs, kissing me roughly through my panties.
I gasp, then slap my hand over my mouth because I know I can’t make any noise.
Not with all our friends just on the other side of the wall, celebrating an engagement.
Luke doesn’t stop kissing me, not while his fingers snake up along my thighs and yank the sodden fabric to the side.
The flat of his tongue slides against my bare core, and holy shit, I’ve never felt anything like that before.
He licks at me hungrily, burying his nose and mouth against me.
His hands grip my thighs tightly, pressing what I’m sure will be ten perfect bruises into the sensitive flesh.
He urges one leg over his shoulder, opening me up further for him.
My head rolls back against the wall. My whole body melts like sugar turning to caramel, all hot and sticky.
I imagined before how getting eaten out like this must feel, but I didn’t realize it would be so messy.
I love it. Luke eats my cunt ravenously, like the taste of me made him forget how to be a civilized person.
“So goddamn good,” Luke mutters against me. “Am I the first one to taste you like this?”
“Yes,” I gasp as I weave the fingers of my left hand into his hair.
He growls. “Fuck, that shouldn’t turn me on as much as it does.”
“Six weeks I watched you come apart on a screen,” he rasps, dragging his tongue through me again, slow and filthy. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing compared to the taste of you.”
A sick sense of pride makes my chest swell, because it turns me on, too, knowing that he’s the first. That we’re sharing something now that I’ve never experienced with anyone else.
His tongue circles around my clit, and I have to bite on my wrist to keep from crying out. My eyes squeeze shut, the hand in Luke’s hair the only thing tethering me to reality as he drags me closer and closer to my climax.
Luke repeats the movement, over and over, swirling around my clit until I’m shaking.
“Give it to me, Eden,” he demands against my flesh, the vibration of the words lighting me up.
“Come on my tongue.” My vision explodes into stars.
I bite down on my own skin hard enough to break it as the orgasm shatters me, wringing pleasure from every inch of me.
Only his hands on my hips keep me from falling to the ground.
He doesn’t pull away until my legs finally stop trembling.
He carefully pulls my dress and underwear back into place, then gazes up at me.
His face looks absolutely wrecked, still shining with my slick.
He drags his thumb across his bottom lip and sucks it clean, his eyes on mine the whole time, and I nearly slide down the wall.
My heart thuds so hard that I wonder if he can feel it.
He stands, lowering his mouth an inch from mine. “Wildflower,” he whispers.
After that, he doesn’t kiss me. He just licks his lips, looking like he’s not even close to done with me. As curious as I am about what would happen if I stayed, my flight leaves in a few hours. So I pick up my bag and leave him in the hallway.
I can feel his eyes follow me as I go.