Wedding Vows: Just Married: The Ex Factor / What Happens in Vegas... / Another Wild Wedding Night

After a second, he said, “My only regret is that she didn’t get to see me settled, with grandchildren. It was her dearest wish.”

“I’m sure she was very proud of you.” She searched for something else to say. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“No, I’m an only child.” And she received the impression that he’d been his mother’s pride and joy. She didn’t ask, but she suspected he’d never left home, had nursed his mother through her final illness and now, lost and alone, was trying to find a substitute.

“How about you?” he asked, obviously determined to steer clear of painful subjects.

“I’m divorced.” She didn’t think he wanted to hear the ugly details. Well, who would? So she merely said, “I’ve been single for almost five years now. I run my own wedding planning business.”

He began asking her precise and intelligent questions about her business and she felt that it was a relief to both of them to discuss something as impersonal as business.

At the end of an hour, she knew two things. One, Ron was a genuinely nice man, she suspected he was an excellent accountant, and two, she felt not the tiniest spark of attraction.

They exchanged business cards and agreed to meet for lunch one day soon. She had no idea whether either of them would follow up, but she was toying with the idea of hiring him for her business.

They shook hands at the end of their coffee date and he headed one way while she turned in the opposite direction.

She was trying to decide whether the coffee date had been a success or a disaster, when a voice hailed her, “Karen.”

She glanced up to see Chelsea standing in front of her, a canvas bag of fresh food in her arms. Beside her was her fiancé, David, loaded down with two more bags. She was struck with how good those two looked together, two tall, gorgeous people who were so clearly meant for each other you could feel their bond.

After the greetings were over, Chelsea turned to her lover and said, “David, do you see that fish market way over there?”

He glanced at his woman with slightly raised brows. “You mean the one with the long lineup?”

“That’s the one. Can you go buy six spot prawns and a pound of fresh crabmeat?”

He glanced from one woman to the other. “You wouldn’t be trying to get rid of me, so you can do the girlfriend gossip thing, would you?”

Chelsea grinned at him. “Do you want what I can whip up with six spot prawns and a pound of crabmeat or don’t you?”

With a good-natured shrug, he said, “Goodbye, Karen.” And wandered off.

“That was rude. We’ll see each other at work tomorrow.”

“I can’t wait until tomorrow. Believe me, he’ll end up happy when his dinner is served. And I have to hear about your date.”

She made a wry face. “He was really nice. A truly nice man.”

“That sounds very unpromising.”

“It’s not his fault. I wouldn’t even be doing this if it wasn’t for Dee, my darling assistant who seems to think I’m in desperate need of a man.”

“She’s young, what does she know?”

Karen snorted. “She thinks she knows more than I do. Know what I found on my desk Friday morning?”

“What?”

“A box of condoms and a note from Dee reminding me to always play it safe.”

Chelsea had the kind of full-bodied laugh that made strangers stop and grin as though just being around her made them part of the fun. “What did you do with them?”

“I put them in my desk drawer. I have everything in there from hemorrhoid cream, which is good for minimizing puffy eyes on brides and their mothers before a photo shoot, to extra nylons, shoelaces, pins, tape, flower wire, film, batteries, hair spray, you name it.”

“And now you’ve got condoms.” She leaned closer so none of the fresh fruit and veggie shoppers would overhear her. “Maybe the CPA will get to sharpen his pencil after all.”

She snorted with her own, hardly dainty laughter. “Stop it. I’m thinking of hiring him to do my books. We talked a lot about my business, it was an easy subject for both of us and he asked intelligent questions.”

“Oh, poor guy. So the date was a disaster.”

She wondered what Chelsea was planning to do with that dark green spiky stuff sticking out of her bag and decided she didn’t want to know. “No, I wouldn’t say he was a disaster, just there was no big spark, you know?”

“Oh, yeah. I know. But maybe he’s worth giving another chance, seeing as sometimes people we spark off aren’t always good for us.”

“I so agree.”

Her friend drilled her with her gaze. “Speaking of bad news and sparks, how’s Dex the Ex?”

7

DEXTER WAS A SUCKER for punishment. He knew it, could curse himself as much as he liked, but all the cursing didn’t stop him from pulling up in front of Karen’s office for the latest wedding planning meeting. He’d had to cut short an earlier meeting with the developers of the mixed use complex he was designing in order to be here. He’d been far more delighted to bag this project than he should have been and he suspected his level of satisfaction was related to the fact that he’d be spending a lot of time in Philadelphia for the next few months.

In missile range of the redheaded termagant he’d so foolishly married.

It wasn’t like his buddy Andrew and Sophie couldn’t have a perfectly good wedding without him playing assistant wedding planner.

And yet, here he was.

He pulled in to park in the office lot and there was Karen’s car. A surprising shot of lust pummeled him as he recalled their all-too-short time together Saturday night when her mouth had told him no even as her body shouted yes.

What was he going to do about this very inconvenient thing he still had for his ex-wife?

Until he figured that out, he supposed he was going to play assistant wedding planner.

He was a few minutes early and it didn’t look as if Sophie was here yet, but they’d booked the last possible appointment so they could both get in a day’s work. Probably she’d be here any minute.

Loosening his tie, he went into the office anyway. He glanced around but the cute British girl wasn’t at her station or anywhere in the front area of If You Can Dream It. He walked toward Karen’s office and heard her voice. He was conscious of the familiarity of that voice, the slight breathlessness that he doubted she was even aware of. His day had been successful, the client had approved the more expensive option, the one Dexter had hoped they’d go with since it was both greener and preserved the architectural integrity of the building.

There was a time he’d have rushed to tell her the good news and they’d have celebrated. Now they were all but strangers to each other. And yet he knew every timbre of her voice as well as he knew every inch of her body. It was crazy.

When he got to her doorway he paused there, enjoying the view. She was talking on the phone, her bare feet up on the desktop, a sight he suspected not very many clients were privileged to see. Her feet were small, dainty, the toes painted bright pink. Her floral skirt had ridden up revealing a shapely thigh.

He rapped on the door frame and she turned, startled. When she saw him, she yanked her feet off the desktop and he watched, enjoying the sight, as her toes did a version of Riverdance under the desk until she located two high-heeled shoes and attempted to jam her feet into them while simultaneously dragging her skirt back into place.

She continued her conversation, to a florist he presumed, since the words rose and baby’s breath occurred so often.

Once she’d successfully navigated her feet into her shoes, she turned her chair, and thus her back, to him and continued her conversation. “What about the ribbon? Were you able to match the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses?” He watched her pick up the pen he’d given her and begin to doodle. “Mmm-hmm. Okay. I know it’s a difficult color to match, but the bride is very particular about tone.” She made a quick note. “Well, I think you should send over a sample of the ribbon and we can let the bride decide. Yes, I know. Right. See you.” And she hung up.

She let him stand there another moment while she made notes. Then she turned her chair so she was facing him.

“Hi,” he said.

“Didn’t Sophie get hold of you?” his ex-wife asked, rising and coming to stand in front of her desk.

He’d had his cell phone turned off while he was on-site with the client. Had he remembered to turn it back on? He didn’t think so. “Why?”

“She got held up at work. She rescheduled our meeting.”

“Oh.” He pulled out his cell phone and when he turned it on, there was the little voice mail icon. “Guess I forgot to check my messages.”

“Guess so.”

She didn’t move. If there was a posture for “there’s the door, don’t let it hit you on your way out,” she was demonstrating it. But he’d known this woman for a long time, and during the best of that time, intimately, and he knew she was skittish because she didn’t want to be alone with him. Not when they both knew that the fire that had always burned between them hadn’t grown fainter from time apart. If anything, it burned fiercer than ever.

Ever since that kiss the other night he’d been thinking that it was inevitable they’d end up back in bed.

He glanced at that sturdy-looking desk. Or not in bed.

“Has your assistant left for the day?”

“Yep, and I’m finished for the day, too, so I’ll let you know when the meeting’s rescheduled.” She stuck out her hand for him to shake.

Maybe if she hadn’t done that he would have walked away as she was pretending she wanted him to. But offering her hand like he was a casual business acquaintance?

She might as well have flipped him the bird.

He took her hand. Held it in his for a moment too long, felt the quiver running along her skin, the soft warmth of their palm-to-palm contact. Not letting go of her hand he took a step toward her.

She stepped back.

He took another step toward her.

“Dex, what are you…” Her hips bumped the desk and their gazes locked.

He watched the quick intake of breath, the way it raised her glorious, extravagant breasts against the silk of her blouse. Her mouth opened slightly and he moved in, taking her mouth as though he owned it because on some primitive level he did. Always had. Always would.

The sweet taste of her exploded on his lips and tongue and then he pulled her in all the way, tight against him so her breasts were pressing against his chest, her hips jammed against him, her butt pressed against the edge of her feminine desk.

For a second he felt her go rigid, thought she might push him away, but as quickly as her resistance rose, it receded and with a low moan in the back of her throat, she pushed her hands into his hair, pulled him into her.

He’d always loved her honest passion, the way she let him know what she was feeling and what she wanted. Mindless, they pulled at each other, the years of separation, the anger, the frustration falling away as they clawed at each other.

He had his hands shoved down her top, grabbing at her breasts, pulling them out of her bra so he could see them, feel them, taste them. She’d always been slightly embarrassed about the size of her breasts but he loved them. When he put his tongue to her nipple the flavor took him back to the first time they’d ever been together, when he’d discovered this woman was made for sex. Or, as he secretly liked to think, she was made for sex with him.

Her head dropped back as he curled his tongue around the sensitive point, pushed his knee between her legs until she parted for him. Without taking his mouth from her breast he reached under her hips and hoisted her up until she sat on the desk, her pretty floral skirt sliding up as he pushed it up, up, over her hips. She spread herself wide for him, her arms twined around his neck, her head thrown back as he pleasured her.

The joy of this woman was how well he knew her body, how intimately he could gauge her responses. Beneath his tongue her skin was heating and he could feel her pulse hammering. When he trailed a hand down between her thighs he found her as wet and hot as he’d suspected he would. He cupped her, making her moan and squirm against his fingers.

“It’s been so long,” he murmured against her plump flesh.

“Too long,” she moaned.

Slipping his hands beneath her hips, he peeled the tiny scrap of pale blue silk and lace that passed for underwear off her, bending as he slid the foolish thing down her legs and over the ridiculous heels. He was throbbing with need, so aroused he was in danger of embarrassing himself as he rose and slid open his zipper.

She reached between them, unbuttoning him and sliding her small, capable hands around him which didn’t help his self-control.

While she caressed him he returned the favor, cupping her heat, slipping one finger into that glorious wet until she squirmed against him. He knew her so well, he knew that she was as close to exploding as he was.

He looked down into her face, her eyes that clear blue-green, her cheeks flushed with passion, a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks, her lips parted and eager. He closed the distance between them, kissing her hungrily.

Had he ever wanted her this much? Had he ever wanted anyone or anything this badly? If so, he couldn’t remember.

She pulled him closer and as he touched the wet heat he suddenly checked himself as reality intruded. They weren’t married anymore. He had no idea if she was on birth control or what she’d been doing since they were last together. With a groan of gut-deep frustration he cursed himself for no longer carrying a condom in his wallet. But he wasn’t a kid anymore. The only prophylactics he owned were safely in his bedside drawer at home.

Pulling away slightly, then resting his forehead against hers, he admitted the awful truth. “I don’t have protection,” he gasped.

“Oh, no…wait, I’ve got some condoms in my desk drawer.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. On top of the hair spray, I think.”

He bounded around the desk and flung open the drawer. The oddest assortment of products greeted him. He dug around and found the unopened box wedged between a can of breath spray and a tube of Preparation H.

Whatever.

He didn’t let himself think about why his ex-wife kept a box of condoms in her desk drawer, simply decided to be grateful.

He tore into the box and swiftly sheathed himself, then holding his pants up with one hand, made his way back around to where his ex-wife still sat, leaning back, supported by her hands, still open for him.

Waiting.

He didn’t keep her waiting for long. Teasing her with his fingers, toying with her until her breathing grew shallow and raspy and she was moving against him, he brought her up and then pulling her hips to the edge of the desk, he stepped between her thighs and slowly eased into her. Oh, it felt so good, so right. He’d forgotten how amazing she was. Snug heat, the sweet slide as she thrust against him, the crazy dance she did with her hips when her excitement began to peak, pumping and corkscrewing around him until he had no resistance left.

Their mouths fused, their hearts pounded in sync and he thrust up and home again and again while she danced and pumped against him.

She lost control, began to pant, to moan and gyrate her hips crazily.

“Yes,” he whispered, loving the way she let herself go completely.

“Oh, Dex,” she cried, and then he felt the spasms clutch at him even as her head fell back and she cried out in ecstasy.

He stroked in and out of her slowly, easing her through her orgasm and then she opened her eyes, unfocused and huge and with a tiny moan, she grabbed his hips and thrust against him again, driving herself to a second climax and taking him along for the ride.

No way to hold back when she grabbed his ass like that, squeezing and pulling him into paradise even as she continued that crazy corkscrew thing with her hips. He was lost, and when she came the second time, he cried out in unison.

For a few minutes they remained slumped against each other, panting. Sweat dotted her upper chest and her mouth was swollen from their passion.

He didn’t want to pull out of her body, loved the feel of all that snug heat wrapped around him, still pulsing with aftershocks, their bodies close and intimate.

At last she leaned back and glanced up at him, a half-embarrassed grin splitting her face. “That wasn’t quite the meeting I planned.”

“It’s always been best between us when it was spontaneous,” he reminded her. When he thought of some of the places they’d done it, half-derelict buildings he was working on, a Finnish sauna that time he’d almost passed out, his parents’ garden shed. Her office after hours seemed pretty tame.

She gazed at him through slumberous eyes that sent him so many messages he wanted to take her all over again. His breathing wasn’t quite steady, his pulse nowhere near slowing.

“Next time,” she said.

Oh, yes, if she was talking next time then he hadn’t completely blown any chance he might have with her by acting like a Neanderthal.

He liked the sexy half smile on her face.

“Next time? What? Do you have any special requests? Positions, locales, maybe a toy you’d like to try?”

As though she’d made up her mind about something, she leaned back and said, “Who needs toys when I’ve got you?”

A toy? Shock held him speechless. She was planning to treat him like a battery-operated pleasure tool? The kind he saw in sex shops in a million girlie colors. Oh, wasn’t that just great. He’d planned to invite her out for dinner, maybe try to talk to her and instead she was treating him like he had multi-speeds and a rotating head.

She pulled up her legs and swung around and off her desk, as graceful as a dancer. “What I was going to say was, ‘next time, maybe you could take your tie off.’”

8

I HAD A VERY NICE time, the e-mail said. Perhaps we could do it again sometime.

Karen stared at the words and felt ridiculously guilty. She didn’t owe Ron anything. All they’d shared was coffee, but the fact that she’d shared completely inappropriate desktop sex with Dexter only a day after her date with the CPA filled her with remorse and that translated into an odd feeling of guilt where Ron was concerned.

Not knowing how to answer or what to say, she closed her computer and did what she too often did in times of stress. She walked over to Chelsea’s place.

But it turned out she wasn’t the only one acting un-characteristically crazy. When she got there, before she could open her mouth and wail out her troubles, her caterer and friend put a finger over her lips and beckoned her to follow.

Wondering if her complete lunacy was perhaps catching, she warily followed Chelsea who crept toward the industrial kitchen she shared with Laurel, the cake designer. Stealthily opening the door, she quietly beckoned Karen into the kitchen ahead of her.

And then Karen realized why she’d acted so secretive.

Laurel was in the throes of creation.

Laurel wasn’t a woman who worked in a normal way. In fact there was little about Laurel that was exactly mainstream. She was a wraithlike creature who tended to wear gauzy clothes and Indian cottons. She practiced yoga and had spent more time than was probably good for her in an ashram.

She was as insubstantial as gossamer, as unworldly as a nun, as hard to pin down as a cloud.

But her cakes were pure magic.

An artist whose media were devil’s food and fondant and royal icing and marzipan and heaven knew what else, she was a joy to watch, though easily distracted, so both women stood quietly watching as she painted food coloring onto whimsical flowers. The cake itself was a child’s fantasy of fairies and strangely shaped trees, animals and a pair of dainty children.

They left the kitchen as quietly as they’d entered it. “What’s the occasion?” Karen asked.

“It’s a fundraiser for a children’s shelter. She volunteered the cake.”

Karen shook her head fondly. “It’s a good thing she has us or she’d never make any money.”

“I know. She truly is the most airy-fairy person I’ve ever met. Can you imagine how she could clean up in New York or L.A. if she had any ambition?”

“I do have ambition,” a soft voice said behind them. Laurel moved as quietly as the fairies she loved to create and seemed neither surprised nor offended to find them talking about her. “I want every cake to tell a story.” She removed the scarf she’d wrapped around her multicolored hair and shrugged out of the plain white apron that always seemed much too big and heavy for her slight frame. “I’m just not into material success.”

“I know, honey,” Karen said. “We weren’t criticizing you. We love you.”

“I know.” She turned suddenly, her waifish look vanishing in a mischievous grin. “And it’s a lot easier to pay my rent since you two took over my billings.” She rolled her neck and then did a few shoulder exercises. “Would you like to see my sketches for the circus wedding cake?”

“Love to.”

Laurel dug a well-worn sketchbook from her hand-woven bag. She flipped through the book and showed them a watercolor drawing of the cake.

“This is why you are a genius,” Chelsea exclaimed when they looked at the drawing. “I’d have gone with a circus tent probably, or tightrope walkers or something to suggest a circus.”

Karen nodded.

“Too mundane,” the young woman replied.

What she’d created was difficult to describe. She’d drawn a tower of diminishing-sized cake layers that grew narrower as the cake grew taller, so it felt as though the cake might disappear into the clouds. From the top she’d drawn an explosion of multicolored ribbons cascading like fireworks.

“Will these be ribbons?” Karen asked, wondering how she’d get ribbon to contort into those shapes and stay there.

“No. Gum paste. That’s sugar with natural gum that feels like Play-Doh but dries hard. It holds its shape so I can get icing ribbons to curl and dance.”

“Amazing. And I know that’s fondant, right?” Karen added, having worked with Laurel long enough to know how much she liked to cover her cake with the smooth icing which she could paint, often using a special airbrush tool. The cake design was like an abstract painting, with reds and purples, blues and greens, and bright splotches of yellow all clashing and intermingling. Somehow she suggested movement through color. Without including a single circus element, she’d caught the energy of Cirque du Soleil. “It’s brilliant,” Karen agreed.

“Glad you like it. I’ll probably add a few elements, but this is the basic idea.” She stuffed the book into her bag. “Well, I’ve got to go to my Vinyasa flow class. See you later.” And she was gone.

“Sometimes I wonder if she’s real or a figment of my imagination,” Karen said after the door closed silently.

“I know. Nobody should be that quiet. Or serene. It’s kind of creepy.”

“What’s creepy is that she weighs ninety pounds soaking wet and works with cake all day. It’s not fair.” She stared at the door broodingly. “What is Vinyasa flow anyway?”

“Some kind of yoga, I think.”

“Maybe I should take up yoga. Maybe I’d end up as thin as Laurel.”

Chelsea shook her head. “Are you back to that again?”

“Did I ever leave it?”

“Someday you will meet a man who adores your curves.”

“I should have been born in the era of Mae West and all those tiny, chubby pin-up girls.” She put her hands on her ample hips. “Instead, I come of age when the ideal is a ten-foot-tall anorexic. It’s not fair.”

“I would think a lot of men would prefer a curvy woman to an elongated skeleton.”

Karen thought of her and Dex on her desk and felt heat suffuse her face.

Chelsea was quick to pick up on it. “Oh, no. Look at you blushing and staring at the floor. Have you met such a man?”