CHAPTER FIVE
Tabby
Freedom was so close. I could feel it, taste it, smell it even. It was like sweet champagne with a single bubble-covered raspberry rolling at the bottom and warm, slick chocolate slipping in strands down the side of the glass. Luxurious bliss.
If there was one thing about this wedding I liked, it was that Grace didn’t have the patience for a lengthy ceremony. That meant I only had to stand straight — “Don’t lock your knees!” — and smile pretty at an audience of bored guests and weeping mothers for another five minutes. After that, it was pictures, the Grand March, dinner, and then I was done. Home free. Released from the cage of bridesmaid duties to soar without restriction. I’d be able to dance and nosh and drink without the hard knot between my shoulders warning me Grace was within a fifty-foot radius prepared to shriek and sob about her latest failed wedding plan.
And I’d be doing all of it with Owen.
He showed up as promised, of course, but I didn’t know it until I walked down the aisle with bouquet in hand and groomsman on arm. Grace had kept me occupied up until the very minute the planner shoved me into place and whispered loudly, “Okay, go! Chin up, big smile, and for the love of god, don’t trip!” Uncomfortable enough with being the center of attention amongst a crowd of people I didn’t know for the most part, I tried to keep my eyes trained on the reverend at the altar, but a head of chestnut hair caught my notice. Disregarding everything Grace and Aunt Romy and the neurotic wedding planner had pounded in my head over the rehearsal, I looked. There he was… Owen Driscoll, dressed in a pale gray suit that could’ve paid for the caterer, sitting only four seats away from my parents.
I knew I was supposed to look adoringly at the couple being married during the ceremony for the pictures, but more often than was appropriate, my eyes were pulled out to the crowd, straight to the smoky, fixed stare of the man who’d shown up for me. His gaze was like a heat ray. I could feel it penetrating me wherever it landed, and my body reacted as much as it would have if he’d been applying a visceral touch. I felt him scanning my breasts, skimming my waist where his hands had already rested, brushing the outer and inner lines of my thighs through the Christmas-tree-green gown I wore. He could’ve walked right up there and placed his fingers where his eyes were, and I couldn’t have been any more aroused. A rainforest, suffocating in both warmth and wetness, was bursting in my core. With each passing minute under his scrutinizing and smoldering watch, I was craving less my impending freedom and more his undoubtedly skillful administrations.
The past two days with Owen were unlike any I’d ever experienced with anyone. They were fun and intriguing and entirely original, but they were also like endless foreplay that continuously built without the promise of release at the end. Taking pictures, eating lunch, and making bets were seemingly innocent activities, but beneath the surface — beneath his surface — constantly lingered something darker and deeper and gripping. It pulled me in without revealing itself, a masked hook that dragged me closer without offering the smallest hint of its true identity. I wanted to pull the mask off. I wanted to know more, to know him.
I also wanted to come, hard, at his hand.
“You may kiss the bride!” the reverend cried jubilantly. Loud applause rose from the onlookers, including the women on either side of me, as Grace and her new husband Kenneth locked lips a little too sloppily. Politely, I clapped as best as I could with a bouquet of anemones and roses in my hand, and I glanced out into the crowd again. Owen was clapping as well, but he wasn’t watching the bride and groom. He was still staring at me, and the corners of his mouth were turned up into a smirk I was quickly learning to be characteristic of him. I didn’t need words or proximity to know what he was thinking. My body interpreted perfectly.
When I retreated back down the aisle with my arm limply hooked inside my assigned groomsman’s, I was elated. Not only was the ceremony done, but I could stop feeling like every person there was able to tell I was too turned on to function. As I passed Owen’s row, my mother stood up and waved like a fool, fresh tear tracks marring her makeup. I smiled at her before mouthing to Owen, Meet me by the bar.
Grace was already gone with Kenneth for the first portion of the picture-taking, which meant I had at least fifteen minutes before I’d be summoned to participate. The facility where the wedding and reception were being held was first-class, and Grace hadn’t spared any expense. Waiters walked around with trays of beverages, everything from cosmopolitans to whiskey sours to imported bottle beer. I snagged a colorless drink garnished with a lime wedge from a passing tray and watched the doors to find Owen in the group of guests filing to the reception ballroom from the ceremony site. He entered just as I put the glass to my lips and took a sip.
“Ugh!” I exclaimed a little too loudly, wrinkling my nose and holding the beverage far from me like doing so would eliminate the flavor in my mouth.
A familiar chuckle vibrated down my spine. “Not a gin drinker, I take it?”
“Is that what this is?” I glared at the drink as though it had personally offended me, which it kind of had, given that I desperately needed something to take the edge off. Between Grace and Owen, I was a mess.
Owen took it from me and sipped for himself. It didn’t escape my notice that he drank from the very same place I had, nude lipstick smudge and all. “Yep,” he said, smacking his lips and nodding once. “That’s a Gin Rickey.”
“It’s sour,” I complained. My throat was burning. “And strong.”
“Do you usually drink sweeter?” he questioned. He took another small pull from the glass. Clearly gin and tartness weren’t unpleasant to his palate.
I shrugged. “Yeah, but I figured anything would do right now. Guess I was — hey! Where are you going?”
He’d spun on the spot and marched toward the cluster of waiters refilling their trays at the freestanding bar across the room without a word. I stared after him and was about to follow when he twisted his head to look at me over his shoulder, and his mouth formed the silent word, Stay.
Maybe I should’ve felt like a dog, but the only thing I felt was heat. A lot of heat. The thick, sweltering, sweaty kind of heat that melts the muscles and jellifies the joints until just a puddle of needy, desperate desire remains. I also had an itch to defy him. Something about the glint in his eye told me the consequences would have been worth it.
“Hi, peanut!” The sound of my mother’s voice and the pet name address was the equivalent of a bucket of water on a bonfire, although the most buried of coals continued to scorch. I hoped my face wasn’t as pink as it felt and turned around to say hello to my parents. I hadn’t even rotated completely before I was surrounded by my mom’s arms and her stifling cloud of floral perfume. “You look gorgeous!”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, returning her hug with a measure of reservation. Behind her, my dad rolled his eyes and gave me a knowing look. We both were well-versed in Mom’s overly emotional expressions.
“Don’t you think Grace looked like a dream?” she gushed. I released her first and counted the seconds before she let me go long enough to step back and clear my nostrils of her manufactured garden aroma. My mom was a wonderful woman and I loved her dearly, but she tended to err on the side of a bit much. Dad and I, on the other hand, minimized the drama in our lives as much as we could and preferred to leave the exuberant exclamations and lovey-dovey episodes to Mom.
I offered up a half-hearted shrug as I rounded her to hug Dad. “Yeah, she looked good. Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, kid,” he responded gruffly, giving me one of his typical loose-armed hugs.
I wanted to look back toward the bar and see if Owen was headed over with a drink, but I didn’t want to draw more attention to him than necessary. Inviting him to the wedding as my date had obviously meant there was a good chance he was going to meet my parents, which didn’t bother me in a basic sense, but seeing Mom in this goopy state was embarrassing enough for me as I stood there by myself. I could only imagine what Owen was going to think when I introduced him, and Mom started going on about what beautiful children we would have while Dad tried to kill him with a glower. And even if they managed to behave themselves, it went without saying that Mom would have a million questions for me about him the minute he was out of earshot.
“Romy’s been an absolute mess, you know, and I told her, ‘Romy, you’ve done this four times. You know weddings don’t go as planned!’ But she didn’t want to listen to me, as usual, so I ended up on the phone with her last night until one-thirty, Tabby, listening to her weep that there wasn’t time for the florist to swap the chrysanthemum in her corsage to a…” Mom was prattling on and on, but she was nothing more than white noise. Owen was coming. I didn’t even have to look to know it because the hairs on my arms stood and my panties suddenly felt too tight.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” His voice was smooth and flawless, and for the first time I heard the full-fledged businessman in him. He spoke with polished syllables and just the right amount of variance in his intonations, and though what he said was far from impressive, he captured the attention of my parents and myself — along with a few bystanders — without effort. He extended a cocktail glass to me, inside of which sloshed what looked like watery chocolate milk. “Here.”
“What is it?” Mom and Dad were gaping at me, but I tried to ignore them and lifted the glass to give it an experimental sniff.
Owen’s mouth twitched with a restrained smile as he leaned down. His lips caressed my ear as he murmured in a low purr, “It’s a Screaming Orgasm. Now, drink.”
Any progress I’d made in ensuring my parents didn’t identify the obvious signs of attraction in my eyes or cheeks was lost at once. Without bothering to take a test sip first, I tipped the glass to hide my face and swallowed it half down as I worked on regaining my composure. When I lowered it, Mom and Dad were still staring at me, but this time, it seemed to be with concern — Dad— and disapproval — Mom.
“Tabitha Nell!” my mother hissed, her penciled brows furrowing. “You are at a wedding! This is not the place to be chug-a-lugging cocktails like a frat boy!”
Dad nodded and placed his hand on Mom’s shoulder in support. “A little soon to get three sheets, don’t you think, Tab?”
Thanks to my parents using terms like chug-a-lugging and three sheets, I felt the situation couldn’t get any more awkward than it already was and decided it was the time to introduce Owen. “Mom, Dad, this is my date, Owen Driscoll.”
“Your date?” Mom swung her eyes from me to Owen then back to me again. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”
“Hmm,” Owen remarked, amusement dancing in his eyes. “I didn’t know we were seeing each other, either.”
I elbowed him in the ribs, making him grunt mildly before chuckling with appreciation. “We’re not,” I clarified to everyone in the conversation.
“So… you’re just friends?” Mom was looking more disappointed than I thought the situation warranted while Dad adopted an obviously hopeful expression.
“Yes. We’re just friends.” I wasn’t sure I believed it, but I hoped it sounded genuine.
“Day three and going strong,” Owen quipped.
I went to elbow him again, but he dodged my arm and instead swung his hand around behind me. His palm connected with the swell of my rear, and I had to bite back the yelp of surprise that nearly burst from my mouth. Luckily, my parents didn’t seem to know what was going on behind me, but my mom was determined to find out more.
“Day three? What does that mean?” Her head was darting back and forth between Owen and me fast enough to whip well-sprayed curls around her face. “You just met?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. I wasn’t ashamed of whatever was happening relationship-wise with Owen, but I wasn’t fond of the questions. Clearing things up for other inquiring minds would’ve been a lot easier if I’d been clear on things myself. “Owen lives here in New Orleans. I just did the photography for his new restaurant yesterday.”
“Are you a chef?” Mom asked him with interest.
Owen smiled indulgently. He hadn’t lifted his hand from my backside yet, and the pressure of his palm on such an intimate place was both soothing and unnerving. “No, I’m unfortunately not as gifted in the creative arts as your daughter here,” he answered. “I’m an investor.”
“Tabby!” The shriek cut through the busy room, and the hard knot of stress between my shoulder blades swelled to epic proportions.
Grace was shoving her way between people, bouquet in one hand and train in the other. I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to see steam shooting out of her ears if her snarling scowl was any indication of her temperament. My mom, however, wasn’t deterred by Grace’s demeanor in the slightest. She intercepted my cousin with a bearhug and a squealing bounce.
“Oh, Gracie, you’re so beautiful today!” Mom cried. “How are you feeling?”
“Hi, Aunt Maureen,” Grace obligatorily responded. She tugged herself free from my mom and rounded on me before any of the other guests could swarm her with congratulations. “We need you for pictures, like, yesterday.”
I held back the snappish reply I wanted to shoot at her for her snotty attitude and nodded. “Right. Sorry.” Turning toward Owen, I handed him my half-drained cocktail. “I’ll be back in a bit, I guess.”
Grace was eyeing him even as she grabbed me by my forearm and started yanking me toward the beautiful French doors leading onto the well-manicured grounds. When we were far enough away, she demanded in a hushed tone, “Who is that?”
“His name’s Owen. He’s my date.”
“How did you get someone like that?” she hissed.
I opened my mouth, on the verge of barking an infuriated retort, but at that moment Grace folded her veil over her face and I was reminded once again that it was her day. For the final time, I sealed my lips and silenced myself. She could be as nasty as she pleased — it was my ass Owen’d had his hand on.