Unwrapping the Best Man

I throw the question back at her, the same teasing line she delivered on the dance floor, and her smile is answer enough.

Fuck this. I throw off the conflicting sense of right and wrong, what’s good and bad. What I should want for her, from her, and what I actually do. Six years of keeping this caged only to lose it now, in her bed, at Ash and Coco’s wedding of all places.

And I know Coco will crucify me, Ash too, if they think I’ve fucked with her, dragged her into my twisted world.

But hell, they’ve found their happiness; they have it all. Surely I can have one night of insanity.

She asked for three though...

I move before the point registers, before my debate can take hold further, and shuck my jacket. I head for the grand mahogany dressing table that’s likely as old as the bed, as old as the castle even, and focus on the mundane, the antiquated beauty of the room. Not her. Anything but her.

I keep every movement slow and steady. I hang my jacket over the back of the dressing table chair, test its sturdiness, assess its anchor points... Yes, many a play routine could be satisfied here. But then I look to the four-poster; it’s the real deal.

It’s perfect.

The posts have an intricate pattern carved into the wood, weaving in and out progressively, providing sections slender enough for what I have in mind. Especially with her wrapped around it like she is now, all resplendent and waiting. Anticipating.

I pop open the buttons of my waistcoat and watch her tongue brush the back of her thumb as she keeps that nail hooked teasingly between her teeth, her eyes fixed on me.

‘Saving me a job?’ she murmurs against it.

‘You could say that.’

Though the truth goes much deeper and she doesn’t need to know it. No one does. Save for the woman who instilled the need in the first place and I dismiss her as readily as I strip the waistcoat from my shirt. I feel my eyes go to the mirror before me, wanting to see what she sees, what puts that glint of need there, but I don’t dare.

I don’t want to see my reflection looking back at me.

I don’t want to see the judgement, telling me to leave.

I don’t want to see the carnal longing that exists either, driving me to do this.

I’m twenty-six, Jackson, I think I can decide that for myself.

Her words, not mine. And I know she said it to reassure me, to draw attention to the fact that she’s a woman, not some child who doesn’t know her own mind. But I feel so much older—jaded, more like. Ten years and it might as well be an eternity. And she’d laugh if she knew how I feel, I know she would.

In the club I’m Jackson. The easy-going, easy smiling, easy teasing, hell, even easy listening Jackson. Everything is as light and as fun as you need it to be. Me included.

But we’re not in the club now; we’re in the real world and my façade, if you can call it that, is gone. This is me.

And I know this is Cait. She’s always been real, open, honest—my total opposite. Perhaps that’s why I’m so drawn to her, why I’m so vulnerable around her...and why I don’t deserve her.

I lay the waistcoat over the top of my jacket as the wave of doubt takes over. Doubt I don’t want to listen to, and as though she can sense my hesitancy she moves towards me.

‘Jackson?’

I drag my eyes to her...and become ensnared by her wide, captivating blues, and the gentle smile that is all the more captivating for the soft hesitation I can read there. I turn my body to face her completely and the sight of her unveiled, no longer half hidden by her stance, makes me drag in air that is filled with her floral scent and I’m almost lost to it, to her.

I shake my head and go for a last-ditch attempt. ‘You’re playing with fire, Cait.’

Her smile lifts to one side. ‘Glad to hear it. I’ve been getting kind of cold waiting for you.’

I shake my head even more. ‘I’m serious.’

‘So am I.’ She pouts, her eyes raking over me as she stops walking.

‘Not everything’s a joke, a tease, a bit of fun...’

Please understand me, please run the other way...