In Name Only: Best Friend Bride (In Name Only) / One Night Stand Bride (In Name Only) / Contract Bride (In Name Only)

He angled her jaw with his strong fingers until he got her situated the way he apparently wanted and then plunged in with the wickedest of caresses. His tongue slicked across hers so sensuously that she moaned against it, would have sagged if he hadn’t had her pinned to the wall.

His hands nipped at her waist, skimmed upward and hooked both sides of the neckline. The fabric tore at the seams as he separated it from her shoulders, and she gasped.

“I need to see you,” he murmured fiercely. “I’ll buy you two to make up for this one.”

And with that, the dress came apart in his hands. He peeled it from between them, following the line of the reveal with his hot mouth, laving at her exposed flesh until he caught the silk strap of the yellow teddy in his teeth, scraping the sensitive hollow of her shoulder.

The sensation shot through her center with tight, heated pulls. Oh, my. His fingers tangled in the strap, binding his palm to her shoulder as he explored the skin beneath the yellow lace with his tongue, dipping and diving into the holes of the pattern. Then his lips closed around her nipple through the fabric and her whole body jerked. Hot, wet heat dampened the scrap between her legs. The awareness that Jonas had drenched her panties so quickly only excited her more.

What had happened to the kind, generous man she’d been so intent on seducing? He’d become a hungry, untamed creature who wanted to devour her. She loved every second. His tongue flicked out to tease her nipple, wetting the lace, and it was wickedly effective. Moans poured from her throat as her head thunked back against the wall.

All at once, he sank to his knees and trailed his lips across the gap between the top and the bottom of her sexy lingerie set, murmuring her full name. Viviana. The sound of it rang in her ears as he worshipped her stomach with his mouth, and it was poetry.

Her thighs pressed together, seeking relief from the ache his touch had created, and she arched into his lips, his hands, crying out as his fingers worked under the hem of her soaked panties. The gorgeous man she’d married glanced up at her from his supine position, his gaze so wickedly hot that she experienced a small quake at that alone, but then he slid one finger along her crease, teasing her core until she opened wider, begging him to fill her.

He did. Oh, how he did, one quick motion, then back out again. The exquisite friction burned through her core a second time and she cried out.

“Please, Jonas” dripped from her mouth with little gasping sighs and she whimpered as she pleaded with him for whatever he planned to give her next.

She didn’t know she could be this wanton, that the man she’d married could drive her to neediness so easily. It was so hot that she felt the gathering of her release before she was ready for the exquisite torture to end. No way to hold back. She crested the peak and came with hard ripples against Jonas’s fingers. The orgasm drained her of everything but him.

Falling apart at his hands was better than what she’d dreamed of, hoped for, imagined—and then some. And it still wasn’t over.

He nipped at her lace-covered sex and swept her up in his arms, still quaking, to carry her to his bedroom. Blindly, she tried to clear her senses long enough to gain some semblance of control. Why, she wasn’t sure, but being wound up in Jonas’s arms wearing nothing but wet lace while he was still fully dressed felt a lot like she’d surrendered more than she’d intended to.

But he wasn’t finished with the revelations.

He laid her out on the comforter and watched her as he stripped out of his suit jacket and tie. She shivered long and hard as he began unbuttoning his shirt, but she didn’t dare blink for fear of missing the greatest show on earth—the sight of her husband shedding his clothes. For her. Because she’d finally gotten him to see reason.

They were friends. What better foundation was there to get naked with someone than because you liked each other? It was sheer brilliance, if she did say so herself. The fact that she’d been racking her brain over how to best get to this place when the answer had been staring her in the face for a year? She’d rather not dwell on that.

Good thing she had plenty else to occupy her mind. That beautiful torso of his came into sight, still covered by a white undershirt that clung to his biceps and lean waist, and she wanted to touch him so badly her fingers tingled. But then his hands moved to his belt and she didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her lungs rattled with the need to expand. Slowly, the belt loosened and he pulled it from the loops. After an eternity, it dropped to the floor, followed shortly by the pants, and then came the pièce de résistance. Jonas stripped off his undershirt and worked off his boxers in the most spectacular reveal of all. Better than Christmas, her birthday and flipping the sign in Cupcaked’s window to Open for the first time.

Her husband’s body was gorgeous, long, lean. Vibrating with need that hungrily sniffed out hers as he crawled onto the bed and onto her, easily knocking her back to the mattress, covering her body with his.

And then she wasn’t so coherent after that. His arms encircled her as easily as his dominant presence did. His kiss claimed her lips irrevocably, imprinting them with his particular brand of possession, the likes of which she’d never known. Never understood could exist.

The sensuous haze he dropped her into was delicious and she soaked it in, content to let him take his time as he explored her body with his hands more thoroughly than she’d have imagined possible when she still wore the yellow lace. She was so lost in him that it took her a minute to remember that she could indulge herself, too, if she wished.

Viv flattened her palms to his chest, memorizing the peaks and valleys of his body, reveling in the heat under her fingertips. She slid downward to cup his buttocks, shifting to align their hips because the ache at her core had only been awakened, not sated, and he had precisely what she needed.

He groaned deep in his throat as she circled against his thick, gorgeous erection, grinding her hips for maximum impact. The answering tilt of his hips enflamed her. As did the quickening of his breath.

“I need to be inside you,” he murmured. “Before I lose my mind.”

Rolling with her in his arms, he reached one hand out to sling open the bedside table and extracted a box of condoms with ruthless precision. In seconds, he’d sheathed himself and rolled back into place against her.

His thumb slid into the indentation in her chin, levering her head up to lock his hot-eyed gaze onto her as he notched himself at her entrance.

The tip of his shaft tormented her, sensitizing everything it touched as he paused in the worst sort of tease.

“Jonas,” she gasped.

“Right here, sweetheart. Tell me what you want.”

“Everything.” And she couldn’t take it back, no matter how much of a mistake it was to admit that she wasn’t the kind of woman who could be in the midst of such passion and hold back.

Except she wasn’t entirely sure he meant for her to as he gripped her hip with his strong fingers, lifted and pushed in with a groan, spreading her wide as he filled her. The luscious solid length of him stretched her tight, and before she could question it, one tear slipped from the corner of her eye. It was a testament to the perfection of how he felt moving inside her, how wholly encompassing the sensations were that washed over her as Jonas made love to her.

And she was ten kinds of a fool if she thought she could keep pretending this was practice for her next relationship.

“Amazing. Beautiful. Mine.” Words rained down on her from Jonas’s mouth as he increased the tempo. “I can’t believe how this feels...you’re so wet, so silky. I can’t stop. Can’t hold back.”

For a woman who had never incited much more than mild interest in a man, to be treated to this kind of evidence that she was more than he could take—it was everything. “Give it all to me.”

Unbelievably, there was more and he gave it to her, driving her to a soaring crescendo that made her feel more alive than anything in her memory. No longer was this bed a proving ground to show she could be with a man and not pour all of herself into him. He demanded her participation, wrung every drop of her essence out of her body.

She gladly surrendered it. Jonas was it for her, the man she’d married, the man she’d wanted for so very long.

As they both roared toward a climax, she had half a second to capture his face in her palms and kiss him with all the passion she could muster before they both shattered. She swallowed his groan and took the shudders of his body, absorbing them into hers even as she rippled through her own release. Everything was so much bigger, stronger, crisper than she’d have ever imagined and his mouth under hers curved into a blissful smile that her soul echoed.

And as he nestled her into his arms for a few badly needed moments of recovery time, she bit her lip against the wash of emotions that threatened to spill out all over their friendship.

She’d told him their relationship could take this. Now she had to stick to her promise. How in the world she was going to keep him from figuring out that she was in love with him?

Seven

For the second day in a row, Jonas struggled to maintain his composure at work. It was for an entirely different reason today than it had been yesterday. But still. His wife swirled at the center of it and he wasn’t sure what to do with that.

Last night had been legendary. Off the charts. Far more explosive than he would have ever guessed—and he’d spent a lot of time contemplating exactly how hot things with Viv could be.

She’d surpassed everything he’d ever experienced. Even here in his somewhat sterile office that had all the hallmarks of a CEO who ran a billion-dollar global company, his loins tightened the second he let his thoughts stray. She’d made him thoroughly question what he knew about how it could be between a man and a woman. How it could be between Jonas and Viv, more importantly, because he had a feeling they weren’t done.

How could they be done? He’d barely peeled back the first layer of possibilities, and he was nothing if not ravenous to get started on the second and third layers. Hot Viv. Sensual Viv. The list could be endless.

Instead of drooling like an idiot over the woman he’d married, Jonas squared his shoulders and pushed the erotic images from his mind. The merger with Park was still just a nebulous concept and no one had signed anything. This was the deal of the century, and Jonas had to get it done before anyone thought twice about marriage alliances. Sun Park’s grandfather could still pull the plug if he’d had his heart set on a much more intimate merger. Thus far, Jonas had done little but meet with Legal on it.

Four hours later, he had sketched out a proposed hierarchy for the business entities, worked through the human resources tangle of potential duplicate positions and then run the numbers on whether the Kim Building could support the influx of new people. His grandfather would be coming by soon to take a tour and this was exactly the data Jonas needed at his fingertips. Data that would solidify his place as the rightful CEO of Kim Electronics, with or without an impulse of the heart on his résumé.

So that was still a sore spot apparently. Jonas tried to shrug it off and prepare for his grandfather’s arrival, but wasn’t at all surprised that Jung-Su showed up twenty minutes early. Probably a deliberate move to see if Jonas was prepared.

He was nothing if not ready, willing and able to prove that he was the right choice. He’d been preparing to be his grandfather’s successor since college.

He strolled to the reception area, where his admin had made Grandfather comfortable. Technically Jung-Su was the boss of everyone in this building, but he hadn’t visited America in several years. Jonas held the helm here and he appreciated that Grandfather didn’t throw his weight around. They had professional, mutual respect for each other, which Jonas had to believe would ultimately hold sway.

Jung-Su glanced up as Jonas came forward, his weathered face breaking into a polite smile. Grandfather stood and they shook hands.

“Please follow me,” Jonas said, and indicated the direction. “I’d like to show you the executive offices.”

Jung-Su nodded and inclined his head, but instead of following Jonas, he drew abreast and walked in lockstep toward the elevator. Over the weekend, they’d done a lot of sitting down and Jonas hadn’t noticed how much his grandfather had shrunk. Jonas had always been taller and more slender to his grandfather’s stocky build, but more so now, and it was a visual cue that his grandfather had aged. As much as Jonas had focused on getting his grandfather comfortable with passing the mantel, he’d given little thought to the idea that becoming the next CEO of the global company meant his mentorship with Jung-Su would be over.

“Tell me,” Grandfather said as they reached the elevator. “How is your lovely wife?”

“She’s...” A vixen in disguise. Not the kind of information his grandfather was looking for with the innocuous question. “Great. Her shop is constantly busy.”

And Viv had ducked out early to take him on the ride of his life last night. For the first time, he wondered if she’d planned the evening to end as it had or if it had been as spontaneous on her part as it had been on his. Maybe she’d been thinking about getting naked since the weekend of torture, too. If so, he liked that she’d been similarly affected.

They rode two floors up to the executive level. As they exited, Jonas and Jung-Su nodded to the various employees going about the business of electronics in a beehive of activity.

“You’ve mentioned your wife’s business frequently,” his grandfather commented just outside the boardroom where Jonas conducted the majority of his virtual meetings. “Doesn’t she have other interests?”

The disapproval in his grandfather’s voice was faint. “You don’t understand. Her bakery is much more than just a business. It’s an extension of her.”

Cupcakes had been a mechanism to fit in among her older, more accomplished sisters, as she’d told him on numerous occasions. But it had morphed from there into a business that she could be proud of. Hell, it was a venture he was proud of.

“Anyone can pull a package of cupcake mix off the shelf at the grocery store,” Jonas continued, infusing as much sincerity into his speech as he could. His grandfather had no call to be throwing shade at his wife’s profession. “That’s easy. Viv spends hours in her kitchen doing something special to hers that customers can’t get enough of.”

“It seems as if you are smitten by her cupcakes, as well,” Grandfather commented with a tinge of amusement.

Jonas forced a return smile that hopefully didn’t look as pained as he suspected it did. Smitten. He wasn’t smitten with Viv and it rankled that he’d managed to convince his grandfather that he was. Cupcakes, on the other hand—no pretending needed there. “Of course I am. That’s what first drew me to her.”

Like it was yesterday, he recalled how many times he’d found excuses to drop by Cupcaked to get a glimpse of Viv in those first few weeks after meeting her. Often she was in the back but if she saw him, she popped out for a quick hi, ready with a smile no matter what she had going on in the kitchen. That alone had kept him coming back. There was always someone in the office with a birthday or anniversary, and cupcakes always made an occasion more festive.

“Ah, yes, I recall that conversation at dinner where she mentioned you pretended to go there for her cupcakes but were really there to see her.”

“It was both,” he corrected easily since it was true. He could own that he liked Viv. They were friends.

Who’d seen each other naked.

Before he could stop it, images of Viv spilled through his mind.

The rush of heat to his body smacked him, sizzling across his skin so fast he had little chance of reeling it back. But he had to. This was the most inappropriate time to be thinking about his wife wearing that see-through yellow lacy concoction strictly for his benefit.

“Pardon me for a moment,” Jonas croaked, and ducked into the executive washroom to get himself under control. Or as close to it as he could with an enormous erection that showed no signed of abating.

And while he stood in front of the mirror concentrating on his breathing and doing absolutely nothing constructive, he pulled out his phone to set a reminder to drop by the jewelry store on the way home. Viv had expressly asked for jewels as compensation for the favor she was doing him. She needed something pretty and ridiculously expensive.

Thinking of her draped in jewelry he’d bought wasn’t helping.

After the longest five minutes of his life, Jonas finally got the tenting mostly under control. No one had noticed. Or at least that’s what he tried to tell himself. His staff didn’t walk around with their eyes on his crotch.

The biggest hit was to Jonas’s psyche. How had he let Viv get under his skin like that? It was unacceptable. If nothing else, he needed to maintain his professionalism during this period when his grandfather’s support meant everything. There were other contenders for Jung-Su’s job, such as vice presidents who lived in Korea and had worked alongside the CEO for thirty years. Some of Mr. Park’s staff could rise to the top as worthy heads of a global company, and those under the Park umbrella arguably had more experience running the factories that would come into play with the merger.

Jonas had to reel it back with Viv. Way back. There was no excuse for falling prey to baser urges and he definitely didn’t want to find out what happened next if he kept going down this path. That was one absolute he trusted—the less he let a woman get tangled up in his emotions, the better.

Resolute, Jonas returned to find his grandfather in deep discussion with Jonas’s chief financial officer, a man without whom Kim Electronics would suffer in the American market.

Perfect. This was an opportunity to guide the discussion to Jonas’s accomplishments as well as those of his staff, who were a reflection of his ability to run the Americas branch. Back on track, Jonas smiled at the two men and jumped into the conversation as if he hadn’t just had a minor freak-out over an incontrollable urge to drive straight home and bury himself in his wife.

That wasn’t happening. Boundaries needed to happen. Jonas didn’t have the luxury of letting his wife dig further under his skin. But when he got home later that night, it was to an empty house, and boundaries didn’t seem like such a fun plan.

More disappointed than he had a right to be, Jonas prowled around the enormous condo to be sure Viv hadn’t tucked herself away in a corner to read or watch TV. Nada. He glanced at his watch. It was well after seven. She must have gotten caught up at the shop. Totally her right to work late. They didn’t answer to each other.

For a half second, he contemplated walking the four blocks to Cupcaked. Strictly so he could give Viv her gift, of course. But that smacked of eagerness to see her that he had no intention of admitting to. So instead, he flopped on the couch and scrolled through his never-ending inbox on his phone, desperate for something to take his mind off the resounding silence in the condo. Wow, was it quiet. Why had he never noticed that before? The high ceilings and exposed beams usually created an echo that reminded him of a museum, but he’d have to be making noise for that echo to happen.

Viv had made a lot of noise last night, but he hadn’t been paying a whole lot of attention to whether the sounds of her gasps and sighs had filled the cavernous part of the loft. And now he was back to thinking about his wife, her gorgeous body and why she wasn’t currently naked in his lap.

He scowled. They’d done zero to establish how their relationship would progress after last night. They should have. He should have. Probably the smartest thing would have been to establish that last night was a onetime thing. He couldn’t keep having meltdowns at work or moon around over whether Viv planned to hang out with him at night.

He should find something else to do. Like... He glanced around the condo, suddenly at a loss. Prior to getting married, what had he done on a random Tuesday when he was bored?

Nothing. Because he was rarely bored. Usually he had work and other stuff to occupy him. Friends. Of course the answer was to ping his friends. But Warren didn’t respond to his text message and Hendrix was in New York on a business trip.

Viv’s key rattled in the lock. Finally. He vaulted off the couch to greet her, totally not okay with how his pulse quickened at the prospect of seeing her and completely unsure how to stop it.

As she came through the door, her smile widened as she spied Jonas standing in the hall, arms crossed, hip casually cocked out against the wall.

“Hi,” she said, halting just short of invading his space. “Were you waiting for me?”

No sprang to his lips before he thought better of it. Well, he couldn’t really deny that, now, could he? If he’d stayed sprawled on the couch and given her a casual “what’s up?” as she strolled through the door, he might have had a leg to stand on. Too late.

“Yeah,” he admitted, and held up the shiny blue foil bag clutched in his fingers. “I have something for you.”

Her eyes widened as she held out her hand to accept the bag. The most delicious smell wafted between them, a vanilla and Viv combo that made him think of frosting and sex and about a million other things that shouldn’t go together but did—like marriage and friendship.

Why couldn’t he greet his wife at the door if he felt like it? It wasn’t a crime. It didn’t mean anything.

The anticipation that graced her smile shouldn’t have pleased him so much. But he couldn’t deny that it whacked him inside in a wholly different way than the sultry smile she’d laid on him last night, right before she informed him that she had on yellow lingerie under her clothes.

Which was not up for a repeat tonight. Boundaries should be the first order of business. Viv had sucked him down a rabbit hole that he didn’t like. Well, he liked it. It just didn’t sit well with how unbelievably tempting she was. If she could tempt him into letting go of his professionalism, what other barriers could she knock down? The risk was not worth it.

But then she opened the box, and her startled gasp put heat in places that he should be able to control a hell of lot better.

“Jonas, this is too much,” she protested with a laugh and held out the box like she expected him to take it back or something.

“Not hardly. It’s exactly right.” Before she got ideas in her head about refusing the gift that had taken him thirty minutes to pick out, he plucked the diamond necklace from its velvet housing and undid the clasp so he could draw it around her neck. “Hush, and turn around.”

She did and that put him entirely too close to her sweet flesh. That curve where her shoulder flared out called to him. Except it was covered by her dress. That was a shame.

Dragging her hair out of the way, she waited for him to position the chain. He let the catch of the necklace go and the ten-carat diamond dropped to rest against her chest, just above the swell of her breasts. Which were also covered, but he knew precisely where they began.

His lips ached to taste that swell again. Among other things. Palms flat across her back, he smoothed the chain into place, but that was really just an excuse to touch her.

“If you’re sure,” she murmured, and she relaxed, letting her body sink backward until it met his and heat flared between them.

“Oh, I’m sure.” She’d meant about the diamond. Probably. But his mouth had already hit the bare spot she’d revealed when she’d swept her long brown hair aside and the taste of Viv exploded under his tongue.

Groaning, he let his hands skim down her waist until he found purchase and pulled until their bodies nested together tighter than spoons in a drawer. The soft flesh of her rear cradled the iron shaft in his pants, thickening his erection to the point of pain. He needed a repeat of last night. Now.