He chuckled. “I honestly don’t mind losing to you, Jessica Chase.”
“Lionheart,” she corrected.
He grinned up at her, both dimples on full display, and then lowered his lips to sample more frosting from her cleavage. When his tongue slid beneath the leather of her corset—shockingly close to her nipple—waves of pleasure made the tip of her breast tighten. She squirmed in her chair, uncomfortably aroused.
“Are you really going to allow him to do that in public?” Jessica’s mom said as she returned to the table with her piece of cake. Monica was right behind her and took her seat on Sed’s opposite side.
Jessica wanted him to do even more to her in public, but she forced herself to push him away. “He was cleaning up his cake, Mother. You wouldn’t want to let two-dollar-a-slice cake go to waste, would you?” Jessica said tersely.
Jessica stiffened when Sed’s hand brushed the bare skin of her inner thigh. How he’d gotten it under her skirt, she didn’t know.
“It is delicious,” Monica said. She gave her son a disapproving look and his hand disappeared from Jessica’s quivering thigh and reappeared above the table.
“What time is it?” he asked. “We have to be out of here by four.”
“Four!” Jessica’s mom said. “But we have the hall rented until eight.”
“And you are more than welcome to stay and party until eight, but Jessica and I have plans for this evening.”
“What kind of plans?” Jessica asked.
“Good plans,” he assured her with a nod, but he remained tight-lipped about the details.
She leaned close to his ear and, careful not to be overheard, whispered, “Does it involve you filling me with this?”
She grabbed his semi-hard cock through his pants. It jumped against her palm, rapidly engorging with excitement. So he was as hot and bothered as she was. Good to know. Fortunately, her ardor was a bit easier to hide.
“It might,” he said.
He took her hand from his lap and lifted it above the table to brush a kiss over her knuckles.
“Patience, love. We have to dance soon,” he said.
She supposed she should try to be patient, but it wasn’t easy to keep her hands to herself with her virile hunk of a husband within reach.
She ate her cake—which was a far cry more delicious than a plate of steamed vegetables—and allowed her mind to conjure up all sorts of naughty adventures Sed might have planned for their wedding night. She somehow refrained from showing her enthusiasm for the idea and kept both hands above the table.
“Can I have a bite?” Sed asked after a long moment of watching her eat her cake.
“Didn’t get enough off my boobs?” she teased. They were uncomfortably sticky. She was looking forward to getting out of her ocean-stained dress and hopping in the shower. Of course thoughts of showers conjured thoughts of Sed naked in the shower with her. Her hand was trembling as she used the side of her fork to cut a bit of cake from her rapidly dwindling piece.
She offered it to Sed, who leaned forward to take a bite.
“It’s okay this way,” he said after he swallowed. “But it tastes a lot better when eaten off you.”
A sudden loud thud made Jessica jump. The wail of an electric guitar followed an instant later. The band had taken up their instruments, and the entire crowd of wedding guests turned toward the open dance floor beyond the sea of tables; it wasn’t every day that Exodus End played at a reception.
“Sed told me that we were to begin exactly at two thirty,” the vocalist, Maximilian Richardson, said into his microphone. “Something about wanting to dance with the most beautiful bride ever to be drenched in a downpour.”
Sed pushed his chair back and helped Jessica to her feet.
“Congratulations, Sed and Jessica,” Max continued. “I’m not sure your song will sound quite right played by a metal band. Dare insisted on changing it up a bit when we rehearsed yesterday.”
Dare played a rapid-fire string of notes on his electric guitar that shot sparks of excitement down Jessica’s spine. The man had a gift with six strings.
At first, Jessica didn’t recognize the song they were playing. Exodus End’s cover of Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” took certain liberties with the tempo, and she didn’t remember any wailing guitars in the original. And Max’s voice, while deep and edgy, didn’t quite have the slow sensuality of the King’s. Sed stared at her, mouth and eyes wide. She was just as flabbergasted about how to dance to the song as he was. It felt like an opportunity to head bang and mosh to her, so she went with it. Sed caught her against him when she bounced her chest off his. He was laughing so hard, his entire body shook.
“I do love you woman,” he said, “but this isn’t what I had in mind when I selected this song.”
“It sounds awesome!” Jessica said. And she wasn’t lying. If anyone could take a sappy love song and turn it into a work of metal perfection, it was Exodus End.
“Stay here,” he said.
He released her and stalked across the empty dance floor to the stage. The astonished look on Max’s face was priceless as Sed yanked the microphone out of his hand.
The guitar stopped instantly. The drums faded after several more thudding progressions around the toms.
“Max apparently doesn’t know how to sing this song properly,” Sed said into the microphone.
The band stared after him as he crossed the dance floor toward Jessica. Her heart was thudding like a jackhammer when he wrapped one arm around her waist and tugged her against his body.
“He must not have realized that I picked this song so I could hold my gorgeous wife close, and feel her heart beat against my own.” He smiled and she flushed with pleasure.
Staring deep into her eyes, he started the iconic love song, taking no liberties with the tempo or the perfection recorded by Elvis decades past. “Wise men say…”
Lost in his gaze and his serenade, Jessica swayed in time to the music in her heart. She was vaguely aware of a piano starting to play along and a moment later a very subdued drumming filled out the tune, but it was Sed’s satin-smooth voice that carried the melody.
By the time he sang, “Take my hand…” she could scarcely see him through the tears in her eyes. She blinked rapidly, sending warm droplets cascading down her cheeks. His hand moved from her waist to the back of her head, and he pressed her face into the hollow of his neck. She tightened her arms around him and pressed a kiss to his throat, immersing herself in his scent, his warmth, and the broad, hard length of his body. She was drowning in the sound of his voice and the emotions it stirred as she clung to him.
The song ended much too soon. Why couldn’t he have chosen “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” as their song? Not nearly as romantic, but it would have lasted much longer. He extended the microphone from his body until Max came to reclaim it, and then wrapped her in both arms, kissing the top of her head. She lifted her face so she could look at him.
“I really couldn’t help falling in love with you,” he said.
She nodded, unable to find her voice or strong enough words to describe what she was feeling for him. Love seemed too ordinary a word for the overwhelming rush of emotion swirling in her chest, clogging her throat.
“Can we play our version now?” Max asked through the microphone. Sed gave him a thumbs-up.
Jessica turned to the stage. Jace climbed out from the piano that had been hidden near the back of the room, and Eric handed a pair of drumstic
ks back to Exodus End’s drummer, Stephen. Knowing that a pair of Sinners had taken over to make her first dance with her husband as romantic as Sed had intended warmed her heart. What a couple of saps.
“How many more traditions do we need to endure before I can get you naked?” Sed whispered.
“Hmm… tossing of the bouquet and garter,” she said, speaking loudly since Exodus End had begun to play. The band didn’t know the meaning of understated or quiet. “That’s about it.”
Monica tapped Sed on the shoulder. “May I have this dance?” she asked her son.
“You forgot the mother/son dance.” Sed beamed and kissed Jessica before releasing her and tugging his mother into his arms.
“Not sure how to dance to this kind of music,” Monica said.
“Just improvise,” Sed said, and then he swept her across the dance floor.
Jessica smiled as she watched. She hadn’t forgotten. There would be no father/daughter dance for her. She started to leave the floor, not wanting to be completely conspicuous in her lack of a paternal parent. Before she could find a spare seat, she ran headlong into a very tall and lean body. Surprised, she stared up into the smiling face of Eric Sticks.
“Now that Sed is occupied, I’m faced with the opportunity to finally seduce you,” Eric said.
She laughed, so grateful that he’d spotted her dilemma that she could have kissed him. In a totally platonic way, of course.
Eric took her hand and led her to the center of the dance floor. Their dance was anything but seductive—it involved a lot of head banging, thrashing, and a bit of air guitar. Soon others began to join them until she was completely surrounded by family and friends and having the time of her life. Instead of playing their own songs, Exodus End took great liberties with the standard list of popular reception songs. This made it fun for everyone as they tried to figure out if the wailing guitar music, thudding drums, and hard core vocals was Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” or the Temptations’ “My Girl.” The band even did a metal version of “Ice Ice Baby,” made awesome by Logan’s skill on bass guitar. Jessica had never been to a more rockin’ reception. She was drenched in sweat by the time Sed took her hand and led her off the dance floor.