Button. Zip.
And then the belt appears.
It’s a classic, simple black leather with an understated silver buckle, but the precision handling and mastery in Declan’s capable fingers makes my mouth curve in a secret smile as he finishes. The jacket is next, then out come the links, old heirlooms passed down from his mother’s father.
I pick out the tie, a lovely grey that has flecks of adobe.
“That’s the one Marcello recommended,” Declan says absentmindedly, clearly unaware of my besotted, enraptured observation of what is, to him, a basic set of procedures to enter civil society.
“Then he has good taste.” I lick my lips. Can’t help it. Watching him dress reminds me of my very first look at him two years ago, when he was Mr. Sex in a Suit, walking into the men’s bathroom at the bagel chain store Anterdec owns, and all I could do was caress him with my eyes and undress him in my mind.
I reach out.
He’s real now. My fingers walk up the fine weave of his suit jacket, squeezing his arm muscles, finding bone and hard flesh.
And it’s mine.
All mine.
“What are you....doing?” he asks, perplexed and intrigued.
“Touching you.”
“I see that. I feel that,” he adds as my stroke goes under the open suit jacket, hand splayed across his ribs, his heat radiating out and warming me. “Why?”
“Because I can.”
The low, sexy rumble that comes out of him makes me lean in closer and inhale, smelling aftershave, soap, coffee and the scent of a man I can breathe in for the rest of my life.
“I think you’re part man, Shannon.”
“Would that turn you on if I were?”
“Nothing could turn me on more than you, as you are, right now.” The way he responds to my touch, twisting toward me, sensuously running his hands up and down my spine, his nose in my hair, his lips twitching with a smile....
Oh.
“Nothing?” I sigh.
“Not one damn thing.”
His kiss makes me regret getting dressed, makes me wish I’d never said yes to this lunch date, makes me spin and grow dizzy in my mind as blood races to all the parts he’s touching right now. Maybe we could postpone...
Bzzzz.
Or not.
“What the hell?”
Moment transformed. Real life intrudes.
“Grace?” he snaps into the phone. Poor woman. It’s not her fault.
I focus on myself, straightening my skirt and running a useless comb through my hair for a moment, trying to fix the mess as Declan barks orders about a variety of media-related wedding crap. Part of me wishes Grace had come to Vegas, but part of me is glad that the long-time executive assistant to the McCormick family is back in Boston holding down the fort.
So to speak.
“What was that about?” I ask as I stand in front of the suite’s door, not-so-subtly making it clear we need to go. Andrew and Amanda are waiting for us. I know if we stay here we’ll end up naked again.
I also know that if we leave, Mom doesn’t automatically know our location, and that is more enticing right now than sex.
Believe it or not.
“Jessica Coffin,” he mutters.
If I had any interest in sex a second ago, it is now vanquished.
“What about her?”
“She’s hashtagging our wedding.”
“You’re surprised?”
“And talking about us on television.”
“Okay, well, there were a lot of cable news vans there.”
“National television.”
“Huh?” I look at the wall television.
“Don’t worry, Shannon. Grace is dealing with it, and—it’s complicated,” Declan says.
“It’s always complicated,” I grouse, but I grudgingly leave the room with him, teetering on these new heels the tailor brought. As we walk down the hall, I take Dec’s arm and work out the kinks in my body, willing joints, tendons, heels and clothing to work together to make me walk in fluid motion, like a graceful swan.
I manage to look like a bull moose on roller skates.
So I’m improving.
“You look so hot in those shoes,” he whispers as we wait for the elevator.
“You have a bull moose fetish?”
He lets a few beats pass. “Sometimes I really worry about you, Shannon.”
“Hey. You picked me. What does that say about you?”
“That I’m the smartest man in the world.” He kisses my temple as the elevator doors open and we glide on.
Like I’m on roller skates, you know?
Exactly like that.
As I rub my sore ankle, the elevator sending us rapidly up to the rooftop, Declan stands within inches of me, ready to dip down and rescue me from my clumsy self.
“I hope our kids have your grace,” I grumble.
“And your looks.”
“But your eyes. So green,” I marvel. The kid conversations are fairly new territory. I love it. A delicious tingle rivets through me like someone’s holding a jackhammer of future fun against my skin, injecting it straight into my bloodstream.
Kids.
Kids with Declan.
The elevator doors open into a solarium filled with couples in various stages of fancy lunches. Two years with Declan has made this scene slightly less surprising, but every time we dine out I still have a part of me that marvels at eating in sit-down restaurants where they don’t roll the silverware in paper napkins, and where jelly doesn’t come in little plastic, foil-topped packets.
The solarium is filled, along the edges, with orchids. Not a few sprinkled here and there. Oh, no.
Filled with orchids.