Sinners On Tour 06 Sinners at the Altar (29 page)

“Are you going to eat that soup?” Trey asked Jess.

She shook her head. He picked up her bowl and carried it with him back to his table. He took a seat next to Reagan, but it was Ethan who looked the most displeased with Trey’s farcical seduction of the mother of the bride.

Stella sighed. “He’s really good looking.”

“Trey?” Jessica lifted an eyebrow at her mother.

“Oh, is that his name?” Stella asked, giggling as she tugged her partially eaten bowl of soup toward her chest. “He was so interested in me that he never said what it was.”

She smiled at her soup as she took a bite. At least she was in a good mood now.

A loud clanging drew everyone’s attention to their table again. Brian stood from his seat and lifted the glass he’d been striking with his spoon.

“It’s tradition for the best man to say a few words about the newlyweds at the wedding reception,” he said, smiling warmly at Sed and Jessica. “But I was never the traditional sort.” He sat down again.

The entire room burst out laughing.

Myrna shoved him until he stood again. “Well, I guess I have to say something or tonight my wife will have me sleeping in the dining room with the strippers.”

Sed laughed, but Jessica twisted her brows together at the inside joke. “I’ll explain later,” he said under his breath.

“Raise your glasses in a toast to Sed and Jessica,” Brian said, “the most sexually explosive couple to ever rock the Vegas strip.”

Jessica tossed a roll at Brian. It hit him in the arm and bounced onto the table.

“Here, here,” several guests shouted.

Brian tipped his glass toward them. “May your marriage be as long and healthy as Sed’s—”

Myrna grabbed her husband’s arm and yanked him back into his seat. “What?” Brian said, trying to look innocent. “I was going to say battle cries.”

Sed glanced at Jessica to find her laughing. She lifted her glass of non-alcoholic bubbly, and Sed clinked his glass of alcoholic bubbly against it. They linked their arms together and did their best to drain their glasses in the uncomfortable position while a camera flash repeatedly went off near their faces.

The waiters immediately began to serve the main course
—steak tartare, seasoned long-grain rice, and steamed asparagus.

“I think it’s still mooing,” Jessica complained, prodding the piece of meat with her fork. She grabbed a waiter by the sleeve. “
Can I get the vegan selection instead?” she asked.

“Sure thing,” the man said and hurried off to the side of the room where the meals were being kept warm.

“You don’t like the food?” Stella asked. “It cost forty-seven dollars a plate.”

Sed cringed, but didn’t say anything. He’d just have to sell autographed CDs and calendars of himself
naked to avoid bankruptcy. No big deal.

“My stomach can’t handle rich food these days,” Jessica said, her tone surprisingly steady and not argumentative. “Must be the baby.” She covered her belly with one hand, looking slightly nause
ated.

Stella nodded in acceptance
, and Sed released a sigh of relief that their exchange hadn’t escalated into another argument.

Sed loved his steak so
much, he ate Jessica’s as well. He felt sorry for her as he watched her pick at a plate of steamed vegetables while the flavorful meat practically melted on his tongue. She didn’t know what she was missing. As the dinner plates were cleared, Sed rose and took Jessica’s hand. She caught her loosened bodice with one hand as the weight of her skirt pulled it down. As discreetly as possible, he zipped the back. It was a struggle, but with a bit of muscle, he brought the pieces of her dress together.

“You got it?” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“I should have had you help me dress.”

“That would have been bad luck.”

“But less stressful,” she said. “I cried so hard when it wouldn’t fit. Thankfully, Aggie came to my rescue.”

He gave her a gentle hug. Her morning really must have gone horribly if she’d cried
and
allowed someone to rescue her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help.”

“We figured it out,” she said. “Don’t feel bad.”

“Cake, cake, cake!” Trey began a chant that soon circled the entire room.

Sed took Jessica’s cool hand
to lead her to the five-tiered wedding cake that had four additional round cakes circling its square base. Nine cakes? Who needed nine cakes? He assumed they’d be eating leftover cake for the next millennium. Either that or they could use it to celebrate their children’s birthdays for years.

As they joined hands and sliced through the largest tier, Sed watched Jessica for direction. He didn’t particularly want to shove cake in her face, but if she did it to him, he was prepared to retaliate with a vengeance. No one got the better of him. Not even his beloved wife.

She slowly lifted a bite of cake toward his mouth, staring up into his eyes with tenderness and affection. He got lost in that green-eyed gaze, which is probably why he didn’t realize she was smearing icing up his chin all the way to his lower lip until it was too late to avoid it.

She grinned crookedly as she placed the bite gently in his mouth. She probably should have let him go first. Determined to retaliate, he grabbed her piece of cake, but
before he could lift it, she looped an arm around his neck, rose to her tiptoes, and kissed the icing off his chin and lower lip with enough passion to melt his socks. Catcalls from the guests encouraged her daring, and the photographer caught it all. When Jess drew away at last, he was uncomfortably aroused. Very uncomfortably because his memaw was watching.

“Delicious,” Jessica murmured, staring into his eyes. “Can I have some more?”

He lifted the bite of cake to her mouth and fed it to her. She chewed slowly, making his mind race through dozens of naughty things he wanted to do to her sensual mouth. After she swallowed, she released him hastily and backed away. A grin of triumph graced her beautiful face. She even lifted a hand in the air to claim herself the victor of the cake battle. That’s when Sed realized he’d been had.

Chapter
Six

Jessica kept her distance from Sed as he cut a rather large slice of cake, set it calmly on his plate
, and returned to the table without her. He wasn’t going to retaliate? Was he actually mad? She’d only been teasing. He could shove all nine cakes in her face if it would prevent him from being mad at her. She really counted on him to be calm and levelheaded for her today, which was somewhat hard to admit to herself. How much she counted on him.

Chin up, if not a bit quivery, she collected her own slice of cake and went to join her unreadable husband at the main table. The servers began to cut the cakes
into uniform slices and set each slice on the gold-rimmed china dessert plates her mother had chosen.

The rest of the table was empty as she sat beside Sed. He didn’t
so much as look at her when she sat beside him. Well, fine, if he was going to be a big baby because she’d outsmarted him, then—

She gasped as an entire piece of cake was squashed on her chest. Sed used his plate to spread it over the tops of her breasts and
into the cleft between them.

“You may have won the battle, sweetheart,” he said. “But I won
the war.”

Her mouth dropped open as he lowered his head to lick the frosting off her chest, nibbling bits of cake as he very effectively one-upped her. She reached under the table and grabbed his fly, unfastening a button before he caught her hand.

“You do realize where I have to put my cake now, don’t you?” she said.

“Can’t let me win, can you?”

“Nope.”

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 drumsticks 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.

“We need to leave!” he shouted over the metal version of “Twist and Shout
.”

She nodded. “Just let me get my bouquet.”

She rushed back to the table and grabbed her pretty-much-demolished bouquet before heading to the stage with Sed on her heels. They waited for the current song to end and then climbed the stage to orchestrate their final tradition of the day.

“All the single ladies are needed in the mosh pit,” Max said, winking at Jessica. “Time to toss the bouquet.”

Jessica waited until everyone who wanted to participate was standing before the stage. She already knew who she was aiming for, so she took a mental snapshot of the crowd and turned to face the opposite direction. She tossed the bouquet over her shoulder and then spun around to see if she’d hit home. Aggie stood staring at the bouquet in her hands as if she didn’t recognize what it was. Score! Jessica barely suppressed her victory dance. Aggie received numerous congratulatory pats, but she didn’t seem to notice or remember how to blink. It was only when Jace approached her and gave her a playful shove that she awoke out of her stupor.

Jessica
laughed when Jace interlaced his fingers and stretched his arms in front of him, limbering up to catch the garter. Jessica was directed into a chair on the stage, and Sed knelt on the floor between her feet.

The look he gave her could have melted the polar ice
caps.

“All right,” Max
said in a farcical emcee voice, “it looks like the bachelors need to line up for the delivery of their life-without-parole sentencing.”

Most of the younger men entered the dance floor only when shoved forcefully in that direction.
Lawyers and rock stars alike fidgeted as they waited for the verdict.