Page 26

26

BLAKELY

Jamie keeps an arm anchored around me as we follow his parents to the exit of the church. A group of men in black suits and earpieces have formed a circle around all of us. It seems like a bit much, honestly.

Being with Jamie hasn’t been nearly as media frenzied as I expected. It’s not like there haven’t been headlines and the odd reporter stopping us for a quick few questions here and there, but it hasn’t been scary.

My feet are already aching in my heels so badly that I lean against my new husband to try and alleviate some of the pressure on them. He hitches me up against him, muscle bulging.

“Five minutes, Bandit,” he swears.

“I’ll be fine. Is all this necessary?”

“All of what?”

“The bodyguards. Do people really care this much about our wedding?” It sounds more na?ve out loud.

Avery leans forward from her place behind me. “I heard that they had to block off the entrance to the parking lot.”

I blink, glancing up at Jamie. He shoots me a wink.

“Graham?” I whisper.

“Yes. Just stay close to me, and don’t fight the guards when they try to help. It should be well managed.”

It makes sense now. The more people that are here to take pictures, the more publicity we get.

I swallow. “Okay.”

Tyler tucks his wife beneath his arm and turns to lay a warning glare on the guard at Gracie’s other side, a dare to let anything happen to her. I don’t have to look behind me to know that Oliver’s doing the same thing.

Instead of threatening the guard moving stiffly at my side, Jamie simply shifts me directly in front of him and drapes both of his arms from my shoulders down my front. With Nate hovering on my left, I try and relax.

The church doors open, and I jump at the volume of the voices outside. My heart lodges itself in my throat as I flinch, and Jamie tightens his hold.

“When will the photos of the ceremony be available?”

“Where is the rest of the Pythons team?”

“Will this marriage distract you for the rest of the season?”

“Are you with Jamie for the money?”

I narrow my eyes at that question. It’s impossible to pick the speaker out of the crowd.

Three SUVs are waiting up ahead, and like a well-oiled machine, the security team splits into three. Oliver, Avery, and Nova are ushered into the last car while Tyler and Gracie take the middle one.

I hold my breath when Gracie’s guard shifts to open her door and a reporter slips through an opening. The words said are swallowed by the rest of the ones around us, but from Tyler’s snarling lip and the way he shoves the reporter a foot back, it’s clear they weren’t the nicest.

He helps Gracie into the SUV, and I blow out a breath before allowing Jamie to do the same to me. I know his father was an NHL defenseman for almost two decades, which must make it hard to deal with the media. The fact they’re still concerned with him goes to show how successful he was.

“Go first, Jamie,” Nate pushes.

I stare at the open door from my seat. Jamie’s trying to shove my brother in first, but Nate shakes his head, trying to back up but hitting the bodyguard instead.

“No. I’m the last one inside always. Never you,” Jamie scolds softly.

Nate shoves into the back row while Jamie takes the seat beside me. It’s too hard to hide my approving smile as he releases a breath and squeezes my knee.

He’s becoming too hard to ignore, as if I’d want to in the first place.

“I’ll be upstairs if you need me!”

Nathan takes off ahead of us and enters the code for the security alarm before swinging open the front door and strolling inside. I stare at the empty doorway for a beat too long, drawing Jamie’s attention.

“Are you waiting to be carried inside, wife?”

Still in my dress, I smooth a hand down my silk-covered hip. “Are you offering?”

He bends and sweeps me into his arms without a second thought. I latch onto his shoulders, both terrified and impressed. I’m big-boned and not weightless, so it’s no surprise that the ease of his movements and controlled strength he uses to carry me up the sidewalk turn my breaths shallow.

“Are you impressed yet?” he teases, taking the porch steps slowly, for my benefit, I’m sure.

I hardly jostle in his arms, only my legs swaying where they hang. The break from standing is appreciated, and the lack of throbbing in the soles of my feet while he carries me only goes to show why I didn’t want to wear these damn heels in the first place.

They’re the same shoes I wore while trying on dresses at the very expensive, very posh shop Gracie brought us to on Wednesday. Avery convinced me to buy them, claiming that Jamie’s credit card was weeping from lack of use.

The white satin heels came home with me, and still, I debated wearing my safe pair of flats instead.

Once Jamie moves us inside the house, he shuts the door with his elbow and continues walking, showing no sign of setting me down.

I’m too tired to argue.

As he turns into the kitchen, I rest my cheek on his chest for just a second. Only to fully enjoy the princess treatment I’m getting.

“Are you hungry?” he asks softly.

I hadn’t realized that we didn’t have dinner. With only a wedding ceremony, it wasn’t even a thought in my mind until now.

He stops walking and, with gentle movements, sets me on my feet. “I’ll order pizza.”

“I can make something,” I argue, already bypassing him to pop open one of the fridge doors.

He’s there a second later, standing so close behind me that I can feel every lift and fall of his wide chest.

“You’re not cooking tonight. As much as I love your food, we just got married. I’m pretty sure it’s against the law to spend our wedding night in the kitchen.”

“Most weddings have catered receptions, Jamie. We didn’t have one of those.”

“Ordering pizza counts as catering. Or we could get something else. Anything, as long as you don’t have to cook.”

“Mexican, then. Tacos.”

“Tacos it is. But first, we have to finish getting married. ”

I furrow my brows and look at him over my shoulder. “We’re already married.”

“Not without a first dance, we aren’t.”

I squeak as he takes me by the waist and spins me around. My feet ache with the movement, but the pain isn’t distracting enough to keep me from laughing at his antics.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” I say.

He doesn’t back down. “It is for us.”

Fighting him feels like a waste of time. I slowly take his hand and hold his shoulder, falling into the easy dance at the slow pace he’s set.

“I was being serious earlier, you know?” Jamie asks, tightening his arm where he has it wrapped around my back.

Having shed his suit jacket out in the car, he sways me around the kitchen in a white button-up with the sleeves rolled up his arms. Even his tie is loose, draping over his neck.

I focus on not tripping over my dress while following his lead. “About what? Having two left feet? Because you’re clearly a better dancer than I am, liar.”

“Okay, I may have exaggerated a bit there, but no, that’s not what I was talking about.”

“Go on.”

He tugs, bringing our bodies closer while looking down at me with that stupid, sexy smirk of his.

“You look gorgeous.”

“You’re not sleeping in my bed tonight, even with all the compliments.”

His laugh is deep and quiet, stroking invisible fingers down my neck. “I know. You’ll be sleeping in mine instead.”

“Oh? That’s the first I’m hearing of this.”

“Well, there wouldn’t exactly be a lot of sleeping,” he purrs, pressing his cheek to my temple, increasing how fast we move.

“Were you planning on telling me about this before we got to your bed, or am I just supposed to sharpen my weapons and have them at the ready? ”

“I’d prefer no sharp weapons in bed, but for you, I’ll make an exception.”

Even through his teasing, I don’t freak out.

Somewhere along the way, I’ve grown to trust him completely. If I didn’t, the mere mention of being in bed with him would have had me kicking and screaming.

It’s the opposite now. I might not have stolen any more midnight snoozes in his bed when he isn’t home, but over the past few nights leading up to today, I’ve lingered with him on the couch after dinner and even invited him to Nate’s football practice this coming week.

Our nightly dinners together have become a constant, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Cooking whatever I want, whenever I want to because there are ingredients in the fridge and two men who could eat three portions of everything has sparked the flame in my chest that has grown stagnant the past five years.

There have been so many things that have made being paraded around like a show pony worth it, and every day, I’m a bit more grateful for saying yes.

A friendship with Jamie was the last thing I expected but is now the one that I’m the most scared to lose.

“How much longer do we have to dance? The fridge is going to start dinging at us for leaving its door open,” I muse, palming his shoulder blade.

The cool light from inside the fridge streams through the kitchen, casting shadows of us on the walls. With the sun nearly set outside the window, the tiny light is all we’ve got.

Jamie hums low in his throat, making his chest vibrate with the strength of it. “Antsy to get into my bed, wife?”

“What would you do if I said yes?” I coo, dragging my hand to rest low on his back, teasing the waist of his slacks. When I tip my head to meet his gleaming blue eyes, I make a show of fluttering my lashes. “Lift me in your big, strong arms again and carry me upstairs? ”

“Is that how you want to get around from now on, Blakely? In my arms?”

“What good are your muscles if you don’t use them to make my life easier?”

“And your life is so hard right now? Dancing with your husband in our kitchen, knowing that I’m in awe of how stunning you are?”

“It’s not our kitchen.”

My palms are clammy, and I know he can tell. The further his smirk stretches, the more I want to prove that his win at his parents’ house was a fluke. He’s too confident, and being the one to bring him down a few pegs fills me with a thrilling sense of excitement.

With the knowledge that I’m entering a war that could end very badly for me, I press my chest against his, fully aware of the tight corset doing a million favours for my tits. They swell against the neckline of my dress, and with him distracted, I take control of our swaying, spinning us around. His back hits the fridge door, and it closes with a bang, casting us in darkness.

The black in his eyes swells as he drops his gaze between us and bravely cups the top curve of my ass, hitching my hips forward to meet his.

“You’re playing with fire,” he warns, voice low and throaty.

Pressed together like this, it’s easy to feel his cock, hard and rigid in his slacks. I’d take that as a win if I wasn’t positive that while lost in the need to show him up, I’ve grown wet in the lewd panties I put on for tonight.

“I’m not the one afraid of getting burned,” I whisper, moving my touch around to his hip. “Are you scared of having to tap out?”

He’s hard everywhere, firm and strong, and touching him like this only reminds me of that. It’s dangerous to feel him beneath my fingers and know that if I just shifted a little further, I’d break every single barrier left between us.

Cross a line that’s not meant to be crossed .

Jamie wets his lips and curls his fingers in the silk stretched around my ass. “Do you think I’m scared, Blakely? Because all I need is the slightest signal, and I’ll tear this dress to shreds.”

“It’s expensive,” I argue on a wobbly breath.

“I don’t care.”

He’s too committed to our game. I genuinely believe that he would rip this dress off with his bare hands if I told him he could.

My chest heaves, nipples tightening to points in my corset. Desire pools between my legs, and as if he’s reached inside my brain and flipped a switch, I’m debating just how far I could take this and get away with it.

With a cover in place, I’m brave, confident.

I repeat those words in my mind as I drop my hold on him and twirl the two ends of his tie around my fists. With a yank, he’s leaning into me, our noses bumping.

“Tell me what you’d do once you got my dress off,” I coax.

He curls a finger beneath my chin and tips it back before ghosting his lips across mine. “In how much detail?”

“All of it.”

“In the kitchen?”

I pause, searching his eyes for the reason behind the question. The meaning of it is obvious, even to someone who hasn’t been asked out by literally anyone in years. But if he’s hinting at going upstairs with me, it doesn’t fit the rules of our stupid competition. Even if we didn’t exactly go over what we could and couldn’t do, this doesn’t fit in the imaginary guidelines.

So . . . does he want me to come with him for real? Outside of what we’re doing right now and his teasing earlier?

“Pretend I didn’t say that,” he adds, his eyes flicking between mine, reading every question in my head without needing to hear them.

Relief rolls through me. Jamie is the only man I’ve ever allowed to get close enough to know me this well. And the way he trusts me to make decisions on where my boundaries are and when I’m willing to stretch one is comforting in a way I’ll never be able to explain.

“Just tell me, Pretty Boy.”

“Not yet.”

My brow goes up at the same time I’m being lifted off the ground again. In a blink, I’m sitting on the island, and Jamie’s collecting the hem of my dress in his hands, lifting it to pool in a pile at my knees.

With the tight fabric out of the way, he fits himself between my legs and grips the edge of the counter in both hands, leaning forward.

“Better?” I coo, planting my palms on the marble behind me, my head rolling to the side.

Tracing his eyes down the length of my body and then back up again, he swallows. “Much better.”

“Get to it, then. I’m getting bored.”

“Bored,” he echoes, gliding his fingers beneath my right knee, digging them into the sensitive skin. “We can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t.”

There’s no point trying to hide every visceral reaction he yanks from me. Not when my skin pebbles with goosebumps and my breath catches with the first sweep of his palm around my calf.

“What do you like, Blakely?”

“In terms of what?”

His grin is pure, filthy sin. “Do you prefer a tongue or fingers?”

Fuck, I’m light-headed.

“Nobody would choose fingers over a tongue.”

“Mm, you’ve got a point.”

I release the tension in my thighs and let them fall open, subtly inviting him closer. He cups my calf and guides it behind his back, hitching my thigh around his hip. The move opens me up further, and he fills the gap until our middles touch.

“Which do you prefer?” I ask, desperate to know more .

“Giving? That depends.”

“Don’t be coy.” My words are sharp, impatient.

His eyes drop to where we touch. To the thick bulge of him and the strained silk dress hiding my panties.

“It depends on who I’m with,” he reveals softly.

I curl my fingers, digging my nails into my palms to keep from reaching up and strangling him for his roundabout answers.

“You’re with me, Jamie. It would be me.”

Lightning flashes in his eyes. I attempt to prepare myself for his next statement, but it’s worthless.

He pushes all the way into my space, demanding I hand over every inch of myself to him. I’d do it if I wasn’t still somewhat in control of my mind.

“With my wife, I’d do both. First, I’d use my mouth. Drag kisses up your thighs to your hip bones. Have a feeling you like to use your hands, so I’d be expecting fingers in my hair, tugging as you try guiding me to your pussy. Am I right, baby? Yeah, exactly like that.”

Soft curls slip between my fingers as I blink and take in the sight of my hand in his hair. I’m too high on his words to stop playing with it.

“You’d open these legs for me, wide enough that I can settle on my knees and toss them over my shoulders. I bet you moan when you’re being pleasured. Not too loud at the start, but like with your hand in my hair, you like to lead. Every sound you’d make would be to encourage me, to tell me if I’m making you feel good or if I can do better,” he rasps.

I roll my lips, battling letting loose one of those very sounds. He’s too in tune with me to let that go, and once he starts to smirk, I push forward and grip his shirt with both hands. The buttons on a fancy shirt are sturdy, but when I yank on the fabric hard enough, they still scatter.

He stares at me and then down at his exposed chest before bracing himself on the counter and groaning. My heart gallops, winning against him becoming a hovering possibility?—

“Slap me, Blakely. Fucking slap me or kick me, but I need to touch you. Please let me touch you,” he pleads, the strain in his tone breaking my resolve.

I nod frantically and shove at the shoulders of his shirt, needing it off. He helps, shrugging it down his arms before palming my inner thigh, offering me another chance to shove him off.

“Fingers, Jamie,” I demand, reaching out to feel his flexing abdomen. “Give me your fingers.”

The feral glint in his stare intensifies the burn in my blood as he reaches between my legs and smooths a single knuckle down my seam. Jaw clenching, he squeezes his eyes shut and rests his forehead against mine.

“Do you need it gentle?”

I scrape my nails down the middle ridge of his six-pack. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t want that right now. Just fuck me with your fingers, Jamie.”

He opens his eyes and watches me while he pulls my panties to the side and parts my lips with a finger. I hiss a breath and lurch off the countertop.

“Was trying to beat me what made this pussy so wet? Or has my wife just been craving her husband?”

The pressure of his finger sliding inside of me, stretching and claiming, is euphoric. I dig my nails into his stomach and whine, needing more.

I’m barely used to one finger when another pushes inside. I hold his shoulder, nodding when he pauses, seeming to realize the same thing.

“Don’t stop. Don’t stop. I’m good,” I whimper.

He releases a choked-off noise and pushes them the rest of the way in. “Yeah, you are. You’re doing so good, baby. Letting me stretch this tight pussy around my fingers.”

They part inside of me, forcing me to stretch wider before they’re retreating. Jamie keeps his tempo quick but controlled as he glides them back inside and brings his thumb to my clit.

I cry out, and he covers my mouth with his palm, a smug smile curling his lips. I bare my teeth, but he can’t see.

“Shh, Bandit. Your brother is upstairs,” he soothes, petting my pussy in slow, taunting strokes.

His warning falls on deaf ears, so he keeps his hand in place while thrusting his fingers and curling them deep. I’ve lost this game of ours so badly. He’ll never let me live it down, but at least I’ll get something out of it. I’ll make sure it’s worth the defeat.

It’s been so long since I’ve had a man’s hands on me, let alone between my legs, that I’m already bordering on an orgasm. With every roll of his thumb around my clit and piston of his fingers inside my pussy, I’m teetering over the line. One last shove and I’ll topple.

“Shit, Blakely. If you squeeze me any tighter, I won’t be able to get my fingers out,” he groans.

I try to speak, but my words are muffled.

A dirty laugh fans over my nose. “You wouldn’t mind that, would you, filthy girl? Having my fingers stroking this pussy day in and day out? I could settle for that life.”

He picks up speed, making me gush all over his knuckles, the sounds of his thrusts echoing through the kitchen. I hold my breath and tense up seconds before pleasure explodes in my groin and shoots through my limbs.

“Fuck. That’s it, baby. Just like that,” he coaxes.

Lungs screaming, I drop my head and ride his fingers where they remain buried deep, waiting for my comedown.

By the time I’m fully conscious again, he’s pulling them free and bringing his hand to rest at his side. My immediate reaction to all of this is to lean forward against his chest and catch my breath, hoping he’ll wrap me in his arms.

The second . . . the second is the stronger of the two. It’s the one that sets me into motion.

Stiffening, I let go of him and slip my dress back down over my thighs. Embarrassment is hot and heavy in my chest, taking complete control of my thoughts and actions.

“Guess that means you win,” I ramble, sliding off the counter and facing the opposite side of the room so he can’t see how hot my cheeks are burning.

You’re a desperate fool, Blakely.

My embarrassment takes a dive into mortification, and I immediately make a beeline for the exit. Jamie doesn’t follow me, and I blow out a grateful breath.

He won, after all.

Why would he chase me?