A Groom For The Taking: The Wedding Date

The current song had stopped. The guys were ushered off-stage to a round of bawdy cheers.

Bradley took Hannah’s hand and dragged her limp body on-stage. Once there, he gave her a little push till she was beneath the glare of the spotlight. And, just as he’d hoped, the second they saw who was on stage the crowd cheered like nobody’s business.

She laughed softly. And blushed. Then curtsied. The crowd went wild.

Her face glistened with perspiration. Her eyes were wild and glittering. But her chin jutted forward, as if she was daring anyone to tell her this was something she couldn’t do. The strength of her inner steel surprised him. It even seemed to steady him until he stared, undaunted, out through the bright lights to the braying faceless crowd beyond.

The strains of ‘You’re the One That I Want’ blared from the speakers, and the entire club got to its feet and cheered as one.

Hannah came to, as if from a trance, lowered her microphone, and looked up into his eyes. ‘Can you sing?’

He put the mike back to her lips and said, ‘We’re certainly about to find out.’

Hannah’s high heels dangled from one hand as she padded across the marble floor towards the bank of lifts leading to the Gatehouse’s extensive rooms.

Her ears rang from the after-effects of hours of overly loud music, while her limbs felt loose and languid. The rest of her buzzed from a mix of cocktails and exhaustion and coming down from the high of her karaoke duet with Bradley which had brought the house down.

She turned to walk backwards, smiling at her partner in crime who strolled along behind her. ‘Of all the crazy moments of this bizarre night, the biggest shock has to be the fact that you can really sing!’

‘So you’ve mentioned once or twice,’ he drawled, his eyes following her closely as she swayed.

‘I suck. I mean, I really suck. But you were right—it didn’t matter. I felt like a rock star. And, no matter how strong and silent you are being about the issue, I know that somehow you knew I would.’

‘Lucky guess,’ he said, quietly eating up the distance between them.

She grimaced at her bare feet, indecision warring with the most intense sexual attraction she’d ever felt. Judging by the tumble of sensations bombarding her every sense as her eyes met his, it was clear which was winning.

Needing some physical distance from all that manly heat, she skipped over to the lift and pressed the ‘up’ button. In the quiet, deserted foyer it made such a loud noise she giggled.

‘Shhh!’

‘Shhh, yourself.’

‘Nah,’ she said, nice and loud. ‘No shushing me tonight. I have sung in front of strangers and friends alike, I have sung badly, and yet I have survived. That calls for a lack of shushing. It calls for dancing.’

So she danced. Her bare feet sticking to the floor, her hips swaying, her arms flying out sideways, she started spinning and spinning and spinning. She’d been so scared of being judged and found wanting for so long she’d only done things she knew she was great at. And she’d done them as well as she humanly could.

Now, having thrown herself at something that had always been tied up in her mind with a deep-down bruising kind of hurt, she realised it wasn’t so scary after all. She felt as if she could do anything. Fly. Play the ukulele. Bradley.

When his strong, solid arm slid around her waist—when he pulled her close and began to sway to the beat of the tune inside his head—she wondered if her desire had been so immense she’d summoned him to her against his will.

Then again, there was nothing forced about the way his body pressed against hers, the way his chin rested atop her head, the way his hand cradled her waist. Nothing mistakable about the hard jut she felt pressed into her belly.

He spun her out and tugged her back in. Giddy laughter shot from her lungs as she tried to regain her footing. When he tucked her tight into the warm cocoon of his embrace he was humming. Something slow and soft and sweet and poignant, melodic and unrecognisable. And quieting.

She leant her droopy head on his shoulder—or as close as she could get since it was so very, very high off the ground and she was barefoot on tippy-toes. In fact she was closer to his heart. She could feel the steady beat against her cheek. It was the very same beat that throbbed within her.

He did better. He lifted her till her feet were on top of his.

What could she do but throw her shoes over her shoulder and thread her hands around his neck, slide her fingers through the springy thick hair at the back of his neck? How long had it been since she’d first ached to do just that?

And now she was slow-dancing.

With Bradley.

With her boss.

Somewhere deep down inside her a little voice tried reminding her why that was a bad idea. She shook her head to shut it up. Didn’t it realise that she couldn’t remember ever, in her whole life, feeling this way? As if she was made of melted marshmallow, all hot and soft and sweet and yummy.

She breathed in deep and was soon drowning in the heavenly scent of hot, clean, male skin. No man in the world had ever smelled so good. So sexy. So edible.

The lift doors opened with a loud ‘bing’. Neither of them paid it any heed.

Hannah pulled her head away from its heavenly pillow and looked up into the most beautiful mercury-grey eyes on the planet.

She threaded her fingers deeper into Bradley’s hair, her thumb caressing the soft spot beneath his ear. His eyes grew dark, like the sky before a winter storm.

The swaying stopped. He pulled her tighter still, and the air escaped her lungs as her head rocked back on her all but useless neck. Moonlight slanted across his strong, angular profile as though all it wanted was to touch him too.

So big, she thought, so tall. So private. So exceptional. So, so beautiful.

Bradley lifted her off his feet and placed her gently on the floor. The marble beneath her bare feet was ice-cold, but the rest of her was filled with a licking flame so hot it barely registered.

Neither did the lift doors as they slowly slid closed.

And then, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, Bradley bent his head and kissed her.

Hannah’s eyes fluttered closed as fireworks exploded behind her eyes, and then down and down and down her body, until she felt as if her blood was made of popping bubbles.

He pulled back, his lips hovering millimetres from hers. Giving her the chance to stop things before they went any further. But it was way too late. The kiss was out there. For eternity. There was no going back now.

Whether it was because of the press of her hips to his, or the miserable groan that rumbled through her, he held back no more.

He slid his hand deep into her hair and his mouth plundered hers until she could barely breathe for the intensity of feeling cascading through her.

When his tongue slid knowingly across hers that was the absolute end of her. She was gone—lost in a swirl of sensation and heat and need. She lifted up onto her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing as close as she could. Needing to feel his warmth, his skin, his realness. Aflame with the impossible desire to crawl inside him.

But in her bare feet he was too tall, too big, too far away, and she wanted to be closer. She wanted to be a part of him.

Buoyed by frustration and desire for the liberating sense of release she leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs about his hips.

His hands cupped her, holding her as if she weighed nothing. But his kiss deepened, heated, ratcheted up a dozen levels—as if she meant anything but nothing to him. As if his own long-held frustration had broken through a dam and now nothing was going to stop it.

And then his lips were on her neck, her collarbone, her bare shoulder. His teeth sank into the tendon below her neck and she cried out in pleasure, her hands gripping the back of his head. The most delicious heat she had ever known pooled deep inside her.

She sighed and murmured, ‘If I’d had a clue this would feel this good I’d never have been able to hold back all these months.’

Hannah felt Bradley stiffen in her arms. Then the lift went bing. Or maybe it happened the other way around.