“Tablecloth is too long. I checked.”
“How did I end up sitting next to you anyway?”
He reached for his wine and said behind the glass, “I switched your little name card with my Aunt Angeles’s. She’s the mean looking lady sitting over there clutching her purse like someone’s going to mug her. She’s a Rottweiler.” He took a drink. “You’re more fun.”
Angeles stuck out like a storm cloud on an otherwise sunny day. Her hair was scraped up into a black bun, and her scowl lowered her dark brows. She obviously didn’t like being stuck among Lisa’s family. Delaney moved her gaze down the table, past the bride and groom to Nick’s mother. Benita’s dark eyes stared back at her, and Delaney recognized the look that used to unnerve her as a child. “I know you’re up to no good,” it said.
Delaney turned to Nick and whispered, “You have to stop. Your mother is watching us. I think she knows.”
He looked into her face, then gazed past her to his mother. “What does she know?”
“She’s giving me the evil eye. She knows where you’ve got your hand.” Delaney glanced over her shoulder at Narcisa, but the older woman had turned and was talking to someone else. No one but Benita seemed to be paying any attention to them.
“Relax.” His palm slid up another half an inch, and the tips of his fingers drifted along the elastic leg of her underwear.
“She doesn’t know anything.” He paused a moment, then said, “Except maybe that your nipples are hard and it isn’t cold in here.”
Delaney looked down at her breasts and the two very distinct points in the red velvet. “Jerk.” She shoved his hand at the same time she shoved her chair backward. Grabbing her velvet handbag, she walked from the dining room and hurried down two different narrow hallways before she found the women’s restroom. Once inside, she took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror. Beneath the fluorescent lighting, her cheeks looked flushed, her eyes overly bright.
There was definitely something wrong with her. Something that made her brain-dead where Nick was concerned. Something that allowed him to caress her in a room filled with people.
She tossed her red velvet handbag on the counter and ran a paper towel under cold water. She pressed it against her warm face and sucked in a breath. Maybe she’d been on the wagon so long, she was suffering from sexual deprivation. Starving for attention and affection like an abandoned cat.
A toilet flushed behind her and a hotel employee appeared from a stall. As the woman washed her hands, Delaney opened her bag and pulled out a tube of Rebel Red lipstick.
“If you’re with the wedding party, they’re cutting the cake now.”
Delaney looked at the woman through the mirror and smeared red across her bottom lip. “Thanks. I guess I better get back then.” She watched the hotel employee leave and dropped her lipstick back into her little purse. Using her wet fingers, she smoothed the front of her hair and fluffed the back.
If Lisa and Louie were cutting their wedding cake, then dinner was officially over and she wouldn’t have to sit by Nick any longer.
She grabbed her bag and swung open the door. Nick leaned back against the opposite wall in the narrow hallway. The sides of his tuxedo jacket were brushed aside, and his hands were buried in his front pockets. When he saw her, he pushed away from the wall.
“Stay away from me, Nick.” She held out a hand to hold him off.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her against his chest. “I can’t,” he said softly. He crushed her to him, and his mouth slashed across hers in a fiery kiss that left her numb. He tasted like unchecked passion and warm wine. His tongue caressed and plundered, and when he pulled back, his breathing was uneven, like he’d just run the mile.
Delaney placed a hand over her racing heart and licked the taste of him from her lips. “We can’t do this here.”
“You’re right.” He grabbed her arm and propelled her down the hall until he found an unlocked linen closet. Once inside, he pressed her backward against the closed door, and Delaney had an impression of white towels and mop buckets before he was on her. Kissing her. Touching her anywhere his hands landed. Her palms slid up the pleats of his shirt to the warm sides of his neck, and she combed her fingers through the side of his hair. The kiss became an avaricious feeding frenzy of mouths and lips and tongues. They tore at each other. Her handbag fell to the floor, and she pushed at the shoulders of his jacket. She kicked the little velvet pumps from her feet and raised onto the balls of her feet. Like a complete wanton, she hooked a leg over his hip and strained against the swollen ridge of his erection.
He groaned his pleasure deep, deep within his chest, and pulled back to look at her through eyes heavy with lust. “Delaney,” he said, his voice rough, then he repeated her name as if he couldn’t quite believe she was with him. He kissed her face. Her throat. Her ear. “Tell me you want me.”
“I do,” she whispered, pushing his jacket from his shoulders.
“Say it.” He shrugged out of the jacket and tossed it to the side. Then his hands were on her breasts, and he brushed her hard nipples through the velvet dress and lace bra. “Say my name.”
“Nick.” She trailed kisses down his neck to the hollow of his throat. “I want you, Nick.”
“Here?” His hands moved to her hips, her behind, holding her against him, grinding against her soft inner thigh.
“Yes.”
“Now? Where anyone could walk in and find us?”
“Yes.” She was beyond caring. She ached with desire and emptiness and the need for him to fill her with pleasure. “Tell me you want me, too.”
“I’ve always wanted you,” he breathed into her hair. “Always.”
The tension inside her built and pulled and made her mindless to anything but him. She wanted to climb on top of him. Inside him, and stay there forever. He rubbed his straining erection back and forth against her aroused flesh.
Nick removed her leg from him and bunched the hem of her dress and slip in one fist, holding them up as he shoved her hose and silky panties down her thighs to her knees. He planted his foot in the crotch of her underwear and nylons, pushing the garments to her feet. Delaney kicked them free, and his hand moved between their bodies, and he touched her between her legs. His fingers slid into her slick flesh and she shuddered, feeling herself slowly propelled toward climax with each caress. A moan slipped past her lips, a husky sound of need.
“I want deep inside you.” His gaze locked on hers and he shrugged off his suspenders, leaving them to hang at his sides. His hands tore at the waistband, fumbling with the button and zipper closing his wool pants. Delaney reached for him and pushed his cotton briefs. His penis jutted free in her palm, huge and hard and smooth as polished teakwood. His skin stretched tight and he slowly pushed himself into her tight grasp. “I have to have you-
Nick lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. The voluptuous head of his hot erection nudged her slick opening. Their flesh touched, and he reached between their bodies and wrapped his hand around the shaft of his penis. He forced her down as he thrust upward inside, stretching her until a stitch of pain invaded Delaney’s erotic haze, but he withdrew, then buried himself deep, and there was nothing but intense pleasure. The penetration was so powerful and complete, his knees buckled and for one tense moment she feared he might drop her, but he didn’t. His grip on her hips tightened; he withdrew then plunged into her again, deeper. “Sweet Jesus,” he gasped as his powerful body crushed her against the door. His chest heaved as he fought to pull air into his lungs, and his uneven breath whispered across her temple, the sound of his passion and pleasure all the same.
Her legs tightened around his waist and she moved with him, slowly at first, then faster and faster as the pressure built. Her heart beat in her ears as he hammered into her, over and over, pushing her closer to orgasm with each thrust of his pumping hips. Like their frantic mating, there was nothing slow or easy about the intense pleasure that grabbed her, pulled her down, and turned her inside out. Tremor upon tremor shook her, rippled across her flesh, and robbed her of breath. She felt weightless, and a sound like a hurricane thundered in her head. Her back arched and she clutched at his shirt. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound died in her dry throat. His strong arms crushed her against his chest, his big shoulders shook, and he held her tight as wave after luscious wave continued to roll through her. Her muscles contracted, gripping him tight within her. Her spasms had
