Sexy Hart (Sexy Series) (18 page)

“It’ll be good, darling. I promise.”

“I know,” I whisper, leaning in to give him another kiss.

“How long will it take you to pack up?” he asks, his eyes taking in every contour of my face, and he glides the backs of his fingers along my
cheek bone.

“I can be quick…” I say, smiling.

“Good. I need to make love to my wife,” he whispers, brushing his lips against mine, and my stomach clenches… those words… oh god, I’ve been waiting my whole adult life to hear those words. And coming from Oliver, too! Incredible.

I must sigh out loud as I close my eyes because he chuckles into the kiss, his hand wrapping around the side of my neck, under my ear, and his mouth opening to introduce his tongue. He’s so slow, so gentle; so loving, and gosh… I love it.

I release my flowers to hold his face in my hands as I kiss him , again - opening my eyes slightly to watch that affection on me.
Does he really love me enough to want to marry me? Like, in real life?
The concept seems so crazy, no one has ever been remotely ‘right’ to even become engaged to - why all of a sudden is Oliver the man I should marry?
Oh… this is why, you dork. He’s amazing.

“We’re here…” the driver says, waking us from the passionate spell, “…congrats again, you guys enjoy the rest of your stay.”

Oliver pays him and we step out of the car. I take a deep inhalation and smile as he holds my hand and we walk inside the hotel foyer together. I’m clutching my small posy of roses and can’t stop feeling the need to run my thumb around the delicate, gold band on my ‘ring finger’, just to confirm this has actually happened.

“You look beautiful.
” he whispers. “I’ll always remember what you looked like today.”
Aww…

“Thank you. I love this dress so much more than I did when I bought it, because of this morning.”

“It was perfect,” he says as we approach the lifts, “and I’m so excited to see you slip out of it… your flawless body; pure skin… all mine and waiting for your husband to taste and savour it.”

Oh good god, yes… now. All this marriage/husband and wife talk makes me really, inexplicably horny. What’s with that?

“Hey!” a female voice calls and of course I recognise it instantly, and begin to panic.
Flowers, I need to put the flowers somewhere!
I tug my hand out of Oliver’s and quickly drop the bouquet onto a nearby chair facing the opposite direction, as we spin around to see Bea racing towards us. “Hey! Where’ve you two been? We’ve been calling and knocking for you, it’s lucky I saw you as we were on the way. We’re just going for brunch before we leave, it’s a better option than stopping midway…” she pauses, tilting her head to one side as she runs her eyes over the pair of us. “Where have you been, you both look lovely!”
Oh, holy, we didn’t plan this…

“We decided to hit a couple of the posh shops and thought we’d do it in style, you know - look the part and all that.” Oliver says,
quick on his feet.

“Hey, shopping? And you didn’t invite me?”

“Naa, we got up early, didn’t think you’d be up and didn’t want to disturb you either.”

“Actually,” she says with a grin, “probably best you didn’t.”

“Oh god, Bea - do you have to?” Oliver moans, obviously shaking the image of his sister ‘doing it’ out of his head.

She giggles and continues, “So you joining us? It’d be nice to spend our last meal in Vegas together.”

“Really?” Oliver says, whining, “We’re going to be in a car together for the next four hours or whatever it is - do we really need to…”

I gasp, shocked at his rudeness and by how obvious he’s being. I don’t want Bea to know we’re dashing upstairs to have sex - whether we’re consummating our mad-marriage that no one knows about, or not! “No! I think that would be lovely. Let’s go…” I say, offering him the closest thing to a glare as I can without Bea noticing. I’m not very good at glaring; I probably look like I’ve got something in my eye.

“You alright? Eyelash?” he asks.
See.

“I’m fine, let’s go. I could do with something to eat, couldn’t you?”

Bea walks ahead and Oliver bends to whisper in my ear. “Yes, I could. You. I want to…”

I flick my hand sideways into his thigh to subtly berate him.

“A little higher…” he says with a cheeky grin and I can’t help but giggle.

“You’re so naughty,” I whisper, “but you just have to wait, it would have been really obvious if we’d have said ‘no’.”

“What would? I’m pretty certain no one would know we just got hitched because we don’t want to ‘do brunch’.”

I roll my
eyes as I look sideways up at his gorgeous face. “You know what I mean - it would have been obvious we were going to make love.”

“Clare, you’re looking too much into it, we both need to pack too, you know! And they think we have sex regularly now anyway.”

“No, they don’t! Just… come on - let’s enjoy brunch. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to… you know…” A breath catches in my throat at the mere thought of his bare naked hips between my legs…

“Oh, I know. I can’t wait. Literally… I’m getting hard right here.”

“Oh god! You’re not?” I ask in another panic.

“Oh Clare - you need to relax. It’s cool. Okay?”

I nod, trying to do as he says and relax. “Okay.”

We all order orange juice and tea or coffee as we peruse the menu and I realise just how starving I really am. We haven’t eaten anything since the sandwich before we went out last night and we’ve had a very busy morning!

“Wotcha having?” Oliver says, leaning into me, sharing my menu - even though he has one of his very own.

“Not sure, I was thinking eggs of some sort…”

“Benedict?” he asks, knowing what I love.

“Yeah, is that on here?” I ask and he nods, pointing to the option on the menu. I nod and suddenly slam my right hand on top of his, on my menu.

“Ouch!” he cries with a slight laugh, “What was that for?”

“Oh…” I giggle, nervously, as I look around the table at the questioning faces. “Fly.” I offer by way of explanation for my violent outburst.

Everyone looks away and continues to read their menus, and as Oliver moves his squashed hand to his knee, I take it - under the table - and tug at his newly acquired wedding band to explain.

“Oh…” he says, understanding, “holy shit, that was close,” he whispers, amused.
Oh my, if he’s going to find all of this so amusing, I’m going to have my work cut out!

I, too, remove my new wedding band and slip it into his fist to take care of. I now realise why a woman always needs a handbag, wherever she goes. You will always need it for one reason or another, like for hiding your secret wedding ring.

Our second close call out of the way, we all order and enjoy a fun, group chat about how we should spend our last few hours of the trip. Bea and Daniel advise us that they’ll be staying on in LA until after the weekend, so it’ll just be Oliver and I flying home tomorrow.

I like that idea. I had really been looking forward to the flight out to LA and having a much-needed catch up with Oliver, until Stacy crashed it. Then, I had to sit in her last minute window seat so that she and Oliver could sit together in the bulkhead seats we had booked previously, and to say we were at opposite ends of the economy cabin would be putting it lightly.

So my entire flight to LAX was spent next to the biggest chatter box I’ve ever met. It seemed, as soon as I started to watch a film, he got the gossip on. I had to hit pause and remove my headphones so frequently, that I ended up having to give up watching TV altogether, to listen all about his job as  a Senior Coordinator in a puffed rice factory. He was a big deal. I mean, people ‘knew him’ in that place. How the company will stay afloat while he’s on this trip to the States, I’ll never know.

So, anyway, I’m looking forward to ten hours or so of pure ‘Oliver and Clare’ time. God knows we need it; we have a lot to figure out.

By the time our fun brunch is over, Oliver and I have exactly fourteen minutes to gather our things and check out. Everyone leisurely makes their way towards the lifts together, and I can see him losing his patience. We’re not going to have time for any intimacy now, especially as everyone has agreed to check out and leave straight away, immediately after.

I could see his brain ticking, trying to think of some kind of excuse as to why we should hang around for a while, but he wasn’t coming up with anything quickly enough, and if we’ve got to be out of the room anyway - we’ll have nowhere to be alone together.

Everyone branches off to their own rooms in the hallway, leaving Oliver and I alone for a brief moment. He comes to my room to collect a few clothes and once inside, he closes the door and grabs hold of me, pressing me against the wall. “My god, Clare, I need you so badly,” he whispers, running his hands down the sides of my arms and back up again, “just kiss me, please? We can’t rush this first time…” he trails off before continuing, “I want it to be special for you.”

“I know, and it will be - as soon as we get some time alone together. I can’t wait to spend that time with you, Oliver.”

“Me neither,” he says, breathing deeply, his face up close to mine. “Just kiss me…” he asks, almost pleading.

I smile and nod slightly before his eyes close and he touches me ever so lightly with his lips. He knows how to make me whimper with his undeniable tenderness.

He moans quietly as he tilts his head to the side and cradles my face in his hands, continuing to caress my lips so perfectly. His breath is heavy, his forehead creased as he concentrates fully on my mouth. He shuffles his feet slightly and grumbles. “Uh… you’re so… addictive. I want more of you, so much more. Your lips…”

I grin against his mouth, uncontrollably. There’s nothing better than someone so very perfect - telling you that you’re equally as perfect, whilst tenderly embracing you.

“When we get back to LA, we’ll be able to relax together, properly.”

“I wish we could kiss all the way back to LA.”

I pat his cheek. “I know, me too. But we’ll be back before we know it and we can kiss all we like. Well… after we’ve been to Tilly’s.”

He sighs and looks down at our feet, nodding. “Okay.”

I press my hands against his strong, hard chest, subconsciously slipping my forefinger through his buttons to feel the soft skin covering his toned pecks. “I have a lot of packing to do, and about five minutes in which to do it. I am beginning to understand why men don’t unpack.”

He chuckles. “Want me to help?”

“Oh, that’s sweet of you, Oliver but I’m fine, I’m probably better running around and doing it myself. I’ll see you downstairs?”

“Okay. I’ll see you in a few minutes, gorgeous girl.” He pecks me again - his lips are too inviting; my hands automatically hold onto his face, prolonging the kiss as he steps backwards to the door.

“Mmm…” he moans before we separate, “can’t wait until later.”

I smile as he kisses his fingers and turns them to face me before thumping them against his heart and sighing dramatically as he turns to stroll down the hallway. He’s so smooth, no wonder the ladies swoon for him.
Yes… me included.

CHAPTER NINE

WEDNESDAY 19TH JUNE (CONT.)

About an hour into the car journey back to LA, I close my eyes and begin to drift. I can’t stop slipping in and out of dreams about my posy of roses that I so ruthlessly discarded in the lobby. I wish I had returned to retrieve them afterwards - not that I could have done anything with them, they’d die anyway - but they seem like quite a pivotal part of the morning - and they matched so beautifully with my dress, I feel like I should have kept a petal, at least, as a keepsake.

When I wake later in the journey, the car is silent. Everyone, other than Daniel, appears to be asleep which is a great thing because I’m curled up on the back seat, facing the rear of the car, with my hands wrapped around Oliver’s bicep and my head resting on his shoulder. It’s not overly affectionate but more so than I would like everyone to witness. It wasn’t long ago that Stacy was in this seat and sprawled out on top of him.

As I begin to move to turn and sit properly, Oliver’s hand darts out and rests on my head, keeping me from moving. “No…” he grumbles, sleepily, “…stay here.”

“No,” I whisper, “I have to move, darling.”

This seems to stir him properly and he wakes, opening his eyes and stretching a little. “Hello,” he says, croakily, with a smile. “Sleep well my wife?”

“Shh!” I look around us to make sure no one heard.

“Calm down, darling, no one would have heard that even if they were awake. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, thank you. Still really tired, are you?”

“Yes, zonked,” he says, subtly resting his hand on top of mine between us. “Can’t wait until I can lay down with you.” I smile, he’s not the only one. “So where are we? We must be back in California now…”

“I seem to
recognise it, I think,” I add in agreement, not wanting to shout to the front to ask Daniel for fear of waking Bea and Alexia.

But we were right, in fact - we were only around the corner from Luke and Tilly’s house, so in just a few moments, we were all climbing out of the car, yawning and stretching, looking forward to seeing our friends. I’m warm in my jeans and vest but I needed to travel in something comfortable and didn’t want to ruin
my… my…
wedding
dress. I picked the soft cotton vest on purpose, knowing I’d be holding Emily against my chest today.
See? There’s something wrong with me. Why do I think so much into these things?