Chapter 20
Catherine
The door closed behind us with the whisper of an atomic bomb. Hayes still had my hat in his hand. The tulle hung from it like a weeping willow. Our eyes met as unspoken questions of “What now?” danced between us.
The balcony wasn’t a “climb over and sneak out to the room beside it” kind of balcony. It was a “fall and break your neck” kind of balcony.
Lewis’s bedroom door closed with an earth-shattering slam, and Hayes tensed. There was silence for a moment, then rustling behind our shared wall.
Fuck.
I pressed my ear to the wall, listening for the ambient thumps as Lewis did whatever the hell he did in his lair.
“What are you doing?” Hayes whispered.
“Trying to figure out if he’s listening,” I hissed back.
The commotion on the other side stopped.
I mouthed a pissed-off “Fuck!” as gracefully as I could.
“Why would he be listening?” Hayes said quietly as he plopped down onto the love seat where he had held me this morning.
“Because it’s Lewis. He refuses grant funding and probably kicks puppies and steals candy from little kids just for fun.”
“He’s not a cartoon villain, Cath,” Hayes groused as he set down our cowboy hats and pinched the bridge of his nose.
I toed off the white boots Savannah had generously gifted me and propped my hands on my hips. “I wish he was a cartoon villain. Then all I’d have to worry about are falling anvils and TNT. He’s way worse.”
Hayes huffed. “I’ll wait an hour or so and then sneak over to my bedroom like we always—what are you doing?”
I climbed up onto the giant bed and started jumping. The mattress squeaked and thumped. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
Damn, this is a workout.
I held on to the headboard, making it rattle as I jumped, and glanced over my shoulder at Hayes, who was staring at me like I had lost my ever-loving mind.
Hayes loosened his bow tie, letting it hang from his collar as he unfastened the top few buttons of his crisp white dress shirt. “It looks like you’re auditioning to be the town’s Easter bunny.”
Maybe it was the champagne talking, but Hayes looked good. One long leg was bent while the other was stretched out wide. He had an arm draped lazily across the back of the love seat while the other rested on the armrest.
Being that casually sexy should have been a crime.
“If you’re not going to pitch in,” I said with wheezing breaths between bounces, “you can keep your commentary to yourself.”
Hayes rubbed his temples. “Pitch in doing what?”
I leaped off the bed and accidentally toppled into the wall. But hey, that worked too. I looked over my shoulder and whispered, “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m making him think we’re doing what most couples do on their wedding night.”
“Are you drunk?” he asked with a mix of exhaustion and annoyance.
“No,” I hissed. “I’m keeping up the ruse.” I hip-checked the wall and let out a dramatic moan that was loud enough for Lewis to hear.
Maybe he’d get grossed out and leave for the night, but the probability of that seemed slim.
I grabbed the bedside table and shook it, but the thing was solid. “Oh, Hayes! Yes!” I squealed a little too enthusiastically.
“Oh my god,” he grumbled under his breath as he shucked off his suit jacket and cuffed his shirtsleeves.
Hello, arm porn.
“Hey, Judgy McJudgerson. If you’re not going to help, you don’t get to comment. Acting isn’t my strong suit.”
“What was your talent when you competed?”
“Played the piano,” I said as I crawled back on the bed to add a few headboard-rattling jumps to the mix. “I started with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major and then mashed it up with ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman!’ ”
Hayes stifled a smile.
“It’s a real crowd-pleaser,” I said between labored breaths as I crawled off the bed. I pounded my fist against the wall and let out a guttural moan. Fake sex was more exhausting than the real thing.
“Dear God,” Hayes said with a groan as he rose to his feet. “Is that what you sound like when you’re having sex?”
“If you’re not going to help, then keep your mouth shut. At least I’m having enthusiastic fake sex over here.”
Warm hands slid onto my hips and an expansive chest pressed into my back. “Sweetheart, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but if that’s what you think good sex sounds like…” He chuckled. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but you’re doing it wrong.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” I said. “Should’ve picked a fake wife who was a better actress.”
“Catherine.” Hayes’s voice was rough and thick, making a meteor shower of goose bumps flash across my neck. His mouth grazed the shell of my ear. “Tell me that’s not what you sound like when you’re having sex.”
My breath caught in my throat.
Hayes turned me to face him, then leaned forward, trapping me between his body and the wall. He rested his forearm above my head. With his eyes on mine, he pounded his fist against the wall.
My sharp intake of breath was louder.
A devilish smile quirked the side of his mouth. “That’s what you should sound like, darling.”
He stepped forward again, pinning me flush against his body, but his hand never left the wall. Something thick and long pressed against me. Oh my god. He’s turned on…and huge.
With my eyes locked on him, I stretched my hand out to smack the wall.
Hayes was faster. He grabbed my wrist before I could hit the wall and pinned it over my head, making the sound by proxy.
The rough maneuver was softened by the slow slide of long fingers against my palm as he laced our hands together and gave mine a gentle squeeze.
I bit my lip.
“Don’t hide it,” Hayes whispered as he cupped my chin and pulled my lip free with his thumb. “Gotta keep up the ruse, right?”
I didn’t give a flying fuck about the game we were playing. I pushed up onto my toes and rocked my hips against his.
“Greedy,” he growled as he released my chin and slid that hand up the back of my neck. One by one, he pulled out the pins that held my hair in a bun until it spilled down my shoulders.
“As if you aren’t,” I panted.
Slowly, Hayes tangled his fingers in my hair and tugged at the roots. Sparks zipped down my spine and across my scalp as he ghosted his lips across mine. “As if I wouldn’t be greedy when it comes to you.”
The notion made me gasp. Then Hayes’s mouth was on mine, kissing, sucking, and tasting. I took and gave just as much as he did.
A soft sigh slipped from my mouth as one arm kept my hand pinned above us, and the other slid securely around my lower back, holding me against him.
“That’s better,” Hayes mumbled as he kissed the corner of my parted lips. Without warning, his hips slammed into mine, driving my ass into the wall with a thud. My gasps were sharper that time.
“See? You can make all those noises sound so much prettier,” he murmured between the warm kisses he trailed down the side of my neck. “Looks like you just needed a good reason to.”
“Give me a reason to,” I gasped as heat lanced down my body in sharp stabs, drawing me closer to him in the most intrinsic, primal way.
The hand holding mine against the wall tightened as he tried his best to hold on to the rules, our agreements, and me.
“Cath—”
“It’s our wedding night, after all.” Since his tailored trousers didn’t require a belt, I hooked two fingers in the waistband and pulled his hips into mine. “Might as well make the most of it.”
Stormy eyes met mine. His jawline was a granite ridgeline.
“Do you know what you’re asking for?” he said in a potent mix of sobriety and lust.
“Yeah, I do,” I whispered. “I’m asking for you to show me what it’s like.”
“What what is like?”
I kissed that hardened jaw. “What it’s like to be yours.”
Hayes rested his forehead on mine. “Cath…” The single syllable was threadbare as his self-control faded.
“Make Lewis think it’s real,” I whispered against his lips. Make me think it’s real. But I didn’t vocalize that ludicrous thought.
A part. A role. I was here because I fit the bill.
But he fit me.
Because if this were real, it would have been him.
Hayes’s hand tightened around mine, then it fell away. I met those midnight eyes and gasped as his hand slid up my bare thigh, pushing my dress up as he went. The softness turned to stone as the hand around my thigh tightened just shy of where I ached for him most.
“Let’s make one thing crystal clear,” he said with gravel and desire dripping from each word. “I don’t want to hear you say my brother’s goddamn name in this room ever again.”
“Yes,” I gasped, barely stifling a whimper as he slid his hand higher and teased the lace edge of my panties.
I collapsed against the wall as Hayes tethered me to him with one hand tangled in my hair and the other hand edging dangerously close to my pussy. He teased the crease of my thigh with the tip of his finger. “One more time, Mrs. Wilder. Tell me what you want.”
“Fuck me,” I begged.
I expected my panties to disappear like a Vegas act, but his hand disappeared instead.
I stumbled as Hayes spun me to face the wall and found the zipper hidden along my spine.
He tugged it down in a smooth slide. Wide hands pressed across my shoulders and pushed the straps away.
The moment they fell, the dress dropped to the floor.
Hayes’s breath was audible as he traced a knuckle up and down my spine. Slowly, he wrapped his hands around my waist, turning me to face him.
I covered my breasts with my hands, hiding from the chill of the air-conditioning, but Hayes’s gaze cloaked me in warmth.
“You’re more beautiful than I ever imagined,” he said before cradling my jaw in his hands and meeting me in a slow, seductive kiss. My hands fell away and clung to him instead.
“That’s my girl,” Hayes said as he skated his hands up and down my waist and ribs, grazing the sides of my breasts with each pass.
I arched into him, silently begging for more. It had been so long since I had felt desired. So much had happened over the last year, and I had tabled my needs, simply ignoring them. But now every inch of my body ached for pleasure. For Hayes.