25. Good Morning to Me #2
I really want to be correct on this count. I like being right almost as much as I like driving fast cars and drinking expensive wine.
But not at the same time.
“If by ‘having a thing for you’ you mean I thought you were an arrogant dick, then yes,” he says, in that dry tone he’s mastered.
I scoff-laugh. “Then why bother looking me up, Banks?”
His eyes travel purposefully down my body. “Because you were a superhot arrogant dick.”
Emphasis on were .
I really want to ask if he still thinks I’m a smug bastard.
But I kiss those lush lips instead, indulging in as much of him as I can get.
When I break the kiss, I press on, since these fun and games are just that?fun.
“So what do you say, Banks? What’s on your phone?
What’s your equivalent of me keeping the best text thread ever? ”
He heaves a sigh. “Stupid fucking picture,” he mutters, without meeting my gaze.
That gets my interest. “You saved a picture of me?”
He shuts his eyes, like this pains him.
Maybe I should relent, but I can’t back down. Another kiss. Another sweep of my lips along his jaw, across his collarbone, up to his ear. And I whisper again, “What picture did you save?”
His body twists deliciously under me, his hands roping around my back, gripping my ass. “The one from the engagement party,” he grits out, vulnerability in his tone.
I pull back. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Show it to me.”
“Why? You were there.”
“Don’t you get it? I want to see it for the same reason you have it,” I admit.
For once, Mark Banks loses his poker face. In its place is a smile.
The grin doesn’t retreat as he reaches for his phone, swipes his thumb on the screen, clicks around. He shows me the picture of us from that night. I whistle in appreciation of the two hot guys in the shot. “Look at that. You’re scowling. I’m grinning like a cocky asshole.”
Mark snorts. “Yep. It’s our . . .”
He trails off before he says our love language .
But I know that’s what he meant. I was going to say the same thing.
Maybe because the moment’s getting too heavy, too intense, he shifts gears. “So, you were kind of checked out for a bit last night. Does it really bother you that your ex got engaged?” Mark asks the question evenly, in the same tone he used to talk to the chef, the florist, the officiant.
But I understand him better now. This is not a business question he’s asking me. It’s personal, and important to him. He shared the story of the demise of his marriage with me, so I crack open my recent history.
“We were together for a year. I was about to ask Garrett to move in with me and he told me he met someone else. The rest is history.”
“Wow. That sucks.”
It did. But I’m not entirely sure the brief bout of self-loathing I wrestled with last night was about Garrett after all. Hearing that news reminded me of the grade my ex gave me in the relationship department—an F. “He didn’t think I was a very good boyfriend.”
Mark meets my gaze head on. “Are you a bad boyfriend?”
I scratch my jaw, unsure how to answer. “Maybe?”
“Did you cheat on him?”
I scoff. “No. I don’t cheat.”
“Did you steal from him, insult his family, treat him badly, ignore his wants and needs, or root for the Boston Red Sox in front of him? Wait. Make that at all .”
I laugh, deep in my belly. “I didn’t do any of those things. Especially the last one.”
Mark nods, like a lawyer pleased with the line of questioning for his expert witness. “And the day you were going to ask him to move in with you, he told you he met somebody else and was into some other guy?”
I squirm a bit from the reminder. But is it the memory of Garrett that’s bugging me or the fact that I don’t necessarily want Mark to think of me that way? “That’s what happened.”
Mark seems to mull this over for several seconds. “Sounds to me like the problem wasn’t you, Asher. It sounds to me like the problem was him.”
Then he turns my tricks on me. My daring fling straddles me and roams his mouth along my neck. In seconds, his lips erase all thoughts of anyone else.
As he kisses his way down my body, he murmurs, “The problem definitely wasn’t you.”
He stops talking when he takes my cock in his mouth, and treats me to a fantastic morning blow job.
Just like that, I’m not thinking about the past—only the deliciously sexy present. I intend to enjoy every second of it since it’s going to end very soon.
Two hours later, I am officially an expert on wedding tents. Add that to my resume after an hour with Ramon in the late morning, surveying the expanse of lawn past the pool.
“It’s going to look great,” I tell the man from Dream Tents.
“Like the wedding tent of your dreams,” he says, and I hate to break it to the mustached man, but I definitely don’t dream about wedding venues.
Even ones that come complete with air conditioning, a wood floor for dancing, white tables, a DJ stand, and firefly lights flickering under the roof. Although it might be perfect for sneaking off to later for an outdoor tryst with Mark.
Or wait. Is that an indoor boink?
Hmm. I’ll have to ask the brainiac if tent-fucking qualifies for the indoor or outdoor cells on his fucksheet.
Either way, I might have an item to add to his to-do list.
Which is getting longer rather than shorter.
Ramon tells me his crew will start setting up this afternoon and it’ll take a day. I thank him for his time, stride around the pool, then stop in my tracks at the trio emerging from the mansion.
Like father, like son.
The man in horn-rimmed glasses with a thick head of dark hair must be the one and only elder Banks.
And I know where Mark gets his sense of fashion.
His father wears polos too. I glance down at my burgundy shorts that fit so well they could be tailored.
Note to self: Take Mark shopping someday.
Wait, there is no someday. So there’s nothing to take him shopping for. I strike that idea from my agenda.
Besides, the here and now is too much fun.
His mom wears a straw hat and khakis, too. Maybe they have a family crest in khaki. She even wears a polo shirt. It’s white. Because of course it is.
I stop at the deep end of the pool, shamelessly listening.
His mother peers at the sky. “Are you wearing sunscreen? Melanoma is an epidemic in Florida.”
“Mom, I’m always wearing sunscreen,” Mark says as I near them.
“But you have to make sure it’s a particular kind of sunscreen,” his father puts in. “Especially in Florida. Everything’s much more dangerous here. Did you hear about the lightning strike last week? June is the deadliest month for lightning in Florida, so we have to be vigilant.”
“I will keep an eye out for lightning,” Mark says, and somehow, in some way, I bet Mark will find a way to be a lightning ranger.
“It might even hit that red car in the driveway. Please tell me you got insurance on it. Those things are dangerous. I heard about them blowing up.”
“Mom, it’s a different make of car that blows up. One with a faulty electrical system,” Mark says as they near me, and he meets my gaze, his eyes saying I told you so about my family.
She waves a hand airily. “My point exactly. You have to be very careful with everything.”
“Mark opted into the insurance. And he’s quite an excellent driver,” I say to Mark’s parents, who snap their gazes to me at the same time.
“You must be the lovely Mrs. Banks,” I say to his mother, extending a hand. “Your daughter is wonderful and my best friend is madly in love with her.”
She beams at me. “That makes me so happy to hear.”
“And it’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” I say to Mark’s dad, shaking his hand too.
“And you as well,” his father says.
“This is Asher St. James,” Mark cuts in, finishing the intros. “He’s . . .”
My rabid desire to tease the hell out of this man rises up, and I sincerely hope Mark’s struggling with the urge to introduce me as the guy who banged his brains out last night.
“The best man too,” Mark adds, and those four words come out in a rush.
I ask Mark’s father if he heard about the crocodile fire, and that keeps his parents riveted as I show them the pool, and we dissect the best strategies to avoid dangerous reptiles.
When they’re standing at the edge of the lawn, debating the ideal time to swim, I step closer to Mark, tip my forehead to his parents, and lower my volume. “I understand everything about you now.”
He rolls his eyes and mutters, “Fuck you.”
Funny, but I understand that, too, and what it does to my chest.
Squeezes it.
But I stay focused on winding him up, speaking in a barely audible voice, just for him. “You wanted to tell them, didn’t you? That I’m the guy who made you come harder than you ever have before?”
He swallows roughly, a shudder moving through his body before he collects himself.
“Yes, Asher. That’s exactly what I wanted to tell my parents about you.
By the way, I got laid last night by Flip’s superhot wingman, and it was epic .
” He turns to face me, his blue eyes shining with heat. “And tonight I’m going to fuck him.”
“I’m holding you to that,” I say, then cross over the grass to join Mark’s parents. “The view is stunning, isn’t it?”
“Gorgeous,” his mom says.
“Mrs. Banks, would you like me to take a picture of you and your kids for your family mantel back home?”
Her eyes light up. “Would you?”
We round up the bride, then I call Mark over, and Flip joins us too. I take pictures of the five of them with his mom’s cell, the bay shimmering behind them.
When I show his mother the shots on the phone, she brings her hand to her heart. “Those are some of the best pictures anyone has taken of me. You can’t even see my crow’s feet.”
I shoot her a questioning look. “What crow’s feet, Mrs. Banks?”
She dips her head, smiling as she pats my shoulder. “I like you.”
“Want to see the goodie bags, Mom?” Hannah asks, then she corrals everyone else into the house.
It’s just Mark and me again at the edge of the pool. “I won them over,” I say to him.
“Was that your goal?” There’s doubt in his tone.
“Yes.”
“Why did you want to? To show you could do it?”
I shake my head. “No. For Hannah. But mostly for you.”
I leave him with that thought as I head off to join Flip.
Mostly, I go so I don’t tell Mark anything more.
Like . . . I wanted to win them over because I want your parents to like me.
I just do.