She broke away from him only to track down Parvati and tell him that they were leaving early. She then hunted down the happy newlyweds and wished them the best on their new path in life. As soon as Sita took her hands in thanks, Rachel dashed off, dodging dancers and forgetting any vows she had made to herself.
It was close enough to the end of August, anyway.
“Your place!” She snatched Zack’s hand on the way by, yanking him along behind her. “Did you bring your car?”
He stammered out an affirmative as they entered the main hall.
“Good! That means it will only take us ten minutes to get back to your apartment!”
The things she was going to do him.
Chapter 27
“This is so Sixteen Candles,” Rachel said, sitting cross-legged on Zack’s bed with a piece of wedding cake between them.
“Did you think I was gonna leave a wedding without a damn slice of cake? I’m surprised you didn’t smack it out of my hand when you came for me.”
They had changed out of their wedding attire. Zack sat in a simple black V-neck and a soft pair of jeans. Rachel had stolen one of his smaller band T-shirts and sat in nothing else but her underwear. Even her bra was left on the floor.
She was rather shocked they hadn’t gone straight to the main event. Zack had been waiting for it as much as she had, right? Or was this a ploy to test how serious she was? To be fair, Rachel had been second-guessing herself ever since Zack insisted on changing clothes and eating the wedding cake before doing anything else. Yes, even something sexual. Showering counted as something sexual.
“I have been to many weddings in my thirty years on Earth,” Zack explained. “If there’s anything I know, bless my mother’s neurotic soul, it’s that you always eat your piece of cake and never, ever let it go to waste.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s bad luck otherwise. If a couple eats a piece of wedding cake together, it solidifies their bond. Or something.”
“Or something.” Rachel giggled. “I think you just want to eat cake.”
“That’s not all I wanna eat.” He waggled his brows at her. That made Rachel laugh more.
“You are pretty good at it, yeah.” Rachel said that as a woman who normally didn’t enjoy it that much. Not that she ever said no to a good, ah, eating.
Zack held up the fork, chocolate cake crumbling between the metallic prongs. “You get the honors of the first bite, lovely lady.”
Rachel closed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. It might have that nasty strawberry stuff on it, but I’m not going to say no to cake from Zack.
The chocolate itself was more than delicious enough to sate Rachel’s taste buds. She ignored the taste of strawberry glaze in favor of chomping down on crumbling chocolate cake and trying not to get it on Zack’s bedspread. She had a feeling he wouldn’t care, though.
“I have never in my life seen a prettier woman eat cake.”
“You’ve gotta stop flattering me like that.” Rachel wiped away crumbs from her mouth. “I’m gonna start thinking you’re not serious.”
“Excuse you. I don’t say that women are pretty when they’re eating cake to anyone. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
“What wrong idea is that?”
“That I don’t take what we’re doing seriously.”
Rachel snagged one last bite of cake before it disappeared. “Says the guy who sat down in a café and asked me out on a whim.”
“It wasn’t a whim.”
She pushed aside the plate and fork. My breath smells like chocolate wedding cake now. How was she going to get away with kissing a man with breath like this? Never mind his breath smelled exactly the same…
Zack’s expression had not changed in the past minute. “I’m serious. You’ve gotta stop thinking that I’m not a man who takes these things seriously. If I say I like you, I mean it.”
She shoved her hands into her lap and tried not to giggle. “I’m sorry, it’s just… it’s a lot to take in. We haven’t known each other that long. I decided to approach this relationship from a different perspective than I usually have, and…”
“And?”
She glanced up at him. “I don’t regret it.”
“You’re trying to tell me,” Zack leaned in, that look in his eye screaming that he had only one intent from the moment they sat cross-legged on his bed, “that you don’t regret not going all the way with me for the past two months?”
“I mean… I obviously wanted to.”
“Obviously. I was at that lake house, too.”
Don’t remind me. Rachel swelled with those memories as they flooded into her mind and settled in the pit of her stomach. I should’ve worn pants. Going pantsless made her more vulnerable than she was ready to tackle right now.
“I think about you all the time, Rachel Taylor.”
She didn’t chastise him for continuing to call her that. I kinda like it now. The more he called her by her full name, the more she was convinced he was taking the time to get to know her. Like committing her face, her name, and the words she said to memory.
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
Rachel leaned forward, a grin the size of her giddiness stretching across her lips. “You think about me when you’re alone at night? In this bed?”
“Yup.”
She had to commend his candor. Unlike her, Zack didn’t seem nervous at all. Why am I even nervous? I’ve fooled around with him plenty now. She knew how he made love. Except for that one thing.
Rachel climbed halfway into his lap, hands braced against his bent knees. He was so sturdy that she was more emboldened to graze her lips against his stubbly chin. “What kind of things do you think about?”
His hands lightly gripped her hips before ascending the sides of her torso. Fingers wrapped beneath her borrowed T-shirt and tickled her skin. Knuckles curled into the curves of her naked breasts. “Making love to you.”
Rachel immediately noticed the tensing of his body beneath her touch. “What do we do when we make love?” she asked in a hush.
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
Zack pulled her shirt up and over her head. It landed somewhere behind her, probably on the floor, but definitely nowhere nearby. “Whatever we want.”
Rachel dove forward and grabbed his shirt. It was faster for Zack to take off his own damned clothes, but that required Rachel letting go.
He is so fucking hot. Damnit. Every time Zack got undressed, Rachel wondered how she could stand to gaze upon his otherworldly figure.
“What do you want, Zack?”
He cupped his hand around her cheek and gently kissed her lips. “You.”
“Me?” She kissed him next, letting her lips linger on his.
“Under me. On top of me. In front of me. Hell, I’ll take you behind me if we’re kinky.”
Rachel laughed. “That’s more like it. I’m here for dirty talk. Not romance.”
“Half the fun is trying to combine the two.”
“Where the hell is my dirty talk?”
“Ooh, baby, ooh, ooh, ooh.”
“That was actually kinda sexy.”
“Stick with me, Rachel Taylor, and I’ll give you full-blown sexy.”
***
Rachel had worried that she wasn’t being forward enough. It didn’t help that he had pulled away and became a man with coded words and a knowing look in his eye. Two things Rachel wanted to ignore in favor of having fun.
Her worries were for naught. All it took was some heavy kisses and light caresses to his bare skin, and soon she was face first in his lap, waking him up – and herself, as well.
She didn’t torment him like she often did, although it was good fun to get her mouth on his sensitive nerve endings and feel him go crazy. Bonus points if he begged for release.
She wasn’t interested in that tonight. This wasn’t about pure, raw, sexual energy manifesting between them. This was about finally facing those underlying emotions that had brewed from the moment they met.
Rachel didn’t want to torture him. What she wanted to do was express her need for him. As a simple human being, the only way she knew how to do that was by putting her mouth and hands all over him, and hope that he got the message.
Based on how quickly he hardened in her mouth, he was getting some kind of message.
He said he was insecure about confessing his love for me. Because he didn’t know how I felt. Maybe this would help him know.
“Damn. Damn.” Zack pulled her hair to the side and rubbed the back of her neck with the tenderness of a man on the brink of losing himself to her. “I fucking love you, Rachel.”
She sat up with disbelief. “You did not confess when your dick was in my mouth.”
“Whoops.”
She was going to smack that smile off his face!
“Don’t you have something to say to me now?”
“Hmph.” Rachel grabbed his cock and kissed him, sending him back onto the bed with her on top of him. “I could. But I’d rather hear what it is you fantasize about when you think about me.”
“I already told you.”
“Yes, but that was before your cock was hard. Now you’re likely to give me more dirty details.”
“You drive the hardest bargain in this town.”