The Worst Man (Wedding Season Series) Read online

  Alone outside the chapel, I used the whitewashed wall to stay upright. While tonight had been fun, the time zone difference and all the booze I’d drank were catching up with me. I was ready to change out of my work clothes, take a long, hot shower, and then slip between cool cotton sheets.

  “Hey, sleeping beauty.” Hank cupped my face in his palm. His thumb ghosted slowly over my bottom lip. “Has anyone ever told you how fucking pretty you are?” he asked, dropping his head forward so his mouth hovered near my temple.

  I blinked, long and slow, not sure if I’d heard him correctly. Was this really happening, or if I had fallen asleep and was now dreaming about Hank Talbot seducing me? Either should have been alarming, but somehow, it … wasn’t. Strangely, it felt right. Good.

  My eyelids fluttered open. “Did you just call me pretty?”

  He chuckled lightly and his thumb dipped between my lips. Without conscious thought, I let my tongue dart out to taste him.

  Hank groaned and rested his forehead against mine. “God, Miranda. I want you so fucking bad right now.”

  “You do?” I asked, feeling my stomach drop. It was like all night we’d been cresting the biggest, tallest hill on the most frightening roller coaster ever built, and we’d finally reached the top and now we were falling, falling, falling. I didn’t know if I was terrified or exhilarated. Probably a little bit of both, if I was being honest.

  But it wasn’t just my belly that was reacting to his words. My heart thumped wildly in my chest and down below I ached with near feral desire. One tiny taste of him, and I wanted more. I was practically salivating over the idea of Hank pushing me up against this wall and shoving his cock so deep inside of me that I’d feel it the next day.

  Whoa.

  I sucked in a breath and settled my palm to his chest and pushed him back. I needed space to think, and with him this close, there was no way that was happening.

  I wasn’t even sure it was about him so much as it was about just needing to get laid. It had been over a year since anyone had touched me, and I was so goddamn hungry for physical affection.

  But Hank?

  “You don’t even like me,” I pointed out once he’d taken a step back.

  “Sex doesn’t have to be about liking someone. It can just be about needing them, and fuck Miranda, I need you so damn badly right now. Say you’ll come back to my room when the limo gets here.”

  “Do you need me, or do you just need to get off?” I asked, my voice laced with challenge.

  “Does it matter?” He advanced on me like an animal stalking its prey.

  I pressed my back up against the wall in a reflexive gesture that immediately rang false. I wasn’t afraid of Hank. I wasn’t trying to hide from him so much as I was fighting against the sudden shift between us.

  His palms slapped hard against the bricks near my head, and his strong arms caged me in on either side. His eyes flicked wildly between mine for a few protracted seconds, and dimly I wondered which one of us was caged and who was truly free. In a flash, I realized that he was holding a tight rein on the desires that were riding him, but the strong alpha that lurked inside a man like Hank was seconds away from breaking free of its leash.

  I’d been unable to accept that side of Samuel, but standing here with this man, his hungry gaze locked firmly on mine, I wanted to know what it would feel like to be mastered by him. How it would feel to just let go, and give myself to a man who knew how to give and take pleasure as well as he knew how to breathe.

  As those questions flitted dangerously through my consciousness, he dropped his face slowly forward. With his mouth hovering enticingly close, my labored breaths passed from my mouth and into his and then back out again. As I breathed, so did he, and the most maddening thought came to me then: co-exist or perish.

  “Yes, it matters,” I whispered into the space between us as I pictured him hefting me into his arms and pulling my legs tight around his waist. The cotton between my legs grew damp, and I swore I could feel him pressed against my core.

  Even as I fought whatever was happening between us, I recognized its inevitability. We’d been circling each other for years, all of our taunts and insults a type of extended foreplay I could only acknowledge now. With passion coursing between us as hot and heavy as the blood that pumped through our veins, I had to admit the truth to myself: I wanted Hank Talbot like I’d never wanted anyone else before.

  “Why?” His nose brushed against the side of mine, a whisper soft caress that raised goosebumps along my whole body.

  “Because I don’t want to be just another notch on your bedpost,” I answered with as much honesty as I could muster. “I want it to mean something.”

  He dropped a feather light kiss against my lips. “It will mean something. It’ll mean that I wanted you badly enough to put all of our bickering aside to show you the best damn night of your life.” He peppered my face with more tender kisses, continuing down past my jaw and eventually reaching the hollow of my neck before heading back up again to my ear. “Let me make you feel good, Miranda.”

  I wanted him to make me feel good. There were literally no words to explain how badly I wanted that. I was one hundred percent certain that if there were any man in the world who would know how to touch me in a way that made me lose control, it was Hank Talbot.

  But still, I hesitated. This was so out of character for him.

  Hell, it was completely out of character for me. I wasn’t the woman rich, handsome men propositioned for a one-night stand. Because yes, I knew that’s what this was. If I slept with him, I didn’t expect any grand declarations of love when we woke up in the morning. That was assuming he even stayed that long. Hank struck me as the love ‘em and leave ‘em type.

  “You don’t think I’m serious, do you?”

  I licked my lips and shook my head. “I think we’re both drunk and horny, and while I understand why any woman would want to scratch her itch with all that—” I flicked my wrist up and down as if to encompass the whole delicious package “—I don’t know why you’d want me. You could have had anyone tonight, including Natasha. It doesn’t make sense.” I felt my eyebrows dipping into a confused frown and I forced them back up my forehead. Just because I didn’t understand it didn’t mean I should provide him with any reminders of how I paled in comparison to our gorgeous colleague. Literally. I was so white my legs practically glowed when I wore shorts.

  “But I don’t want Natasha. I want you.”

  “But why?” I demanded, feeling my emotions rise and threatening to boil over. The longer this conversation went on, and the more he avoided answering my questions, the more I feared that this really wasn’t about me. That I was nothing more than a convenient vessel.

  Hank blew out a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. Looking up into the night sky, he murmured something under his breath. He shook his head and then dropped his face forward, spearing me with a heated gaze I’d never seen on him before. “You’re a smart woman, Miranda. Have you really not figured it out by now?”

  Wait, what? He wasn’t making any sense. “I’ve also had a lot to drink tonight, so why don’t you spell it out for me. Slowly. And don’t use big words.”

  His lips quirked up into a small smile. “That’s more your style, wouldn’t you say?”

  I smiled back shyly. “Yeah.” That was one of the things we frequently sniped at each other about. He liked to accuse me of showing off my vocabulary, and I’d counter that he was just upset because he had a stilted one. None of it was true, of course, but the banter was still engaging and fun. With that realization, my smile intensified. “I love arguing with you.”

  He took a step forward and grabbed ahold of my hand. Slowly, he lifted it to his lips and then kissed the inside of my wrist, his tongue flicking out at the last second, causing my knees to buckle. “I know.” He winked at my reaction. “It’s my favorite part of the day, fighting with you.”

  “I’m so confused right now,” I admitted, pressing my
other palm to my forehead and shaking my head.

  “What can I do to convince you this isn’t about fucking for me?” His eyes sparkled with earnesty in the glow of the hundreds of neon lights surrounding us.

  “Well, it is a little bit about fucking,” I said, reminding him how this conversation had begun in the first place.

  His lips split into a shadow of a smile, and then he looked back over his shoulder at the building behind us. When he turned back to me, my breath got caught in my throat. I couldn’t say exactly what it was, but his expression had taken on a new quality. He appeared resolute in a way I’d never seen before. “You want me to prove how serious I am about this?”

  My eyes bounced between his, searching for clarity. “What are you doing?” I asked, equal parts excitement and dread mixing in my belly.

  He canted his head toward the chapel’s front door. “I’m asking you to walk in there with me.”

  “Why?” I both feared and longed for his answer.

  Feared, because this was absolutely insane. He was insane. I couldn’t marry him. We hated each other. Didn’t we? And yet, I longed for someone to feel such intense passion for me that they were willing to do something so crazy that our lives would be forever changed for it. For once, I wanted to be the girl who brought a boy to his knees.

  In a moment of startling clarity, I realized that I wanted the grand gesture. I yearned for it with such a deep, overwhelming sense of need that I was truly considering this mad scheme. All he had to do was say the words.

  “Why?” he parroted my question back to me, his voice dropping to a low, seductive purr. “Because I’m mad about you, Miranda, and if making you Mrs. Hank Talbot is what it’ll take to get you to agree to come home with me tonight, then that’s what I’m prepared to do.”

  “You’re mad about me?” I wasn’t the woman men went mad for. I was the one they went on two dates with before emailing to say that as lovely as I was, they just weren’t feeling it.

  Forever a bridesmaid, and never a bride.

  Hank nodded and chewed on his bottom lip. He dropped his face forward and his hand speared through his tousled hair. With an air of sheepishness that tinged his cheeks pink, he finally said, “For about a year now.”

  That was certainly news to me. If anything, our squabbles had become even more pronounced since the start of the school year. “What changed?”

  “David and Victoria pointed out that all of my complaining about you might actually be masking a deeper emotion. One that was very different than the loathing I claimed to feel.”

  I felt my jaw going slack. David Carstairs was another professor in our department, and Hank’s best friend. I sometimes felt bad for David having to witness our infighting, but Thackeray College’s faculty lounge was notoriously small. While I didn’t enjoy my colleagues witnessing our disputes, it seemed better to conduct them behind lock and key than to air our dirty laundry in the hallways where our students might overhear.

  “What type of emotion?” My question came out in a breathless rush.

  Knowing that he’d been thinking of me as something other than an angry shrew for a year did something crazy in the pit of my stomach.

  He took a step closer and took my face in his hands. His eyes flicked between mine, and what I saw there made my heart gallop in my chest. With a certainty I’d never had before, I understood that these weren’t just words.

  Hank didn’t hate me. What he felt was something far more potent.

  “I think you know,” he said, bringing his lips to mine again in a soft press of flesh. “Come inside the chapel with me, Miranda, and let me prove just how crazy I am about you.”

  He kissed me fully then, and I opened to him. His tongue slid inside to tangle against my own. His hands coasted up my face and into my hair. Dimly, I became aware of him wrapping a lank of it around his fist and tugging on it. My head fell back with a moan.

  “I’ve wanted to do this all night,” he said, sucking my skin into his mouth. “I’ve dreamed about how you’d taste. You’re sweet and tart, exactly like I knew you’d be.”

  His hands coasted down my curves to find my ass, and when he squeezed, I mewled and arched into him.

  “Come here.” He hefted me up into his arms, and instinctually, I wrapped my legs around his waist. We stumbled back against the wall, and he pressed his hard body against my center. I nearly cried out from the feel of him between my thighs. I wanted him so badly.

  After a few seconds, a handful of minutes, or maybe even a couple of years, our kiss slowed and he pulled his mouth from mine. “What do you say, Whitcomb? You want to go inside and marry me?”

  I stared at him for a beat, and then I felt my head nodding up and down of its own volition. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  He laughed then, his head thrown back in what could only be described as pure joy, and I joined in.

  “This is crazy,” I said, as he carried me inside the chapel.

  He dropped a tiny kiss onto my nose. “That’s because I’m crazy about you.”

  I let my eyes rake over his face, taking in his handsome features. I’d always begrudgingly admitted that Hank was an attractive man, but as he stared back at me with so much happiness radiating from within, he was downright spectacular.

  And he was about to become mine.

  “This is your last chance, Miranda. Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  I looked between the man I’d just realized I had huge, intense feelings for, and the kind woman behind the big white edifice. “Let’s do this.”

  He rapped his knuckles on the counter. “You heard my woman. We’d like to get married.”

  Five

  I flung my arm across my face in an attempt to shield my eyes from the harsh sunlight streaming in from the window on the other side of the room. My head pounded like a mighty herd of buffalo were stampeding through it and my tongue felt like I’d stuffed my mouth with cotton wool before I’d fallen into bed. I groaned and rolled onto my side, away from the glaring rays of the morning sun trying to burn a hole through the front of my skull.

  And then my eyes flew open.

  “What the fuck?!” I threw back the covers and jumped out of bed.

  “Good morning,” Hank said, his voice sounding scratchy and … sexy as hell as his bloodshot eyes scanned me appreciatively from head to toe.

  Which was the precise moment I realized that I was standing in front of him completely naked. Panicked, I scrambled around the room for something to cover myself with, but came up blank. Last night I’d had on jeans and a button down oxford shirt but they were nowhere to be found this morning. Throwing my left arm over my boobs, I leaned over and snatched the duvet off the bed with my right, pulling it up to my chin.

  Unfortunately, while that meant I was now covered up, it also meant that Hank was now naked. And oh so beautiful it made my eyes hurt. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment as I also realized that his cock was hard as a steel rod pointing straight to the heavens.

  “You see something you like?” he asked, his voice laced with humor and a type of confidence I’d never have.

  I shook my head back and forth and slapped my palm to my eyes. Unfortunately, this made the blanket sag and droop, so I had to quickly readjust it. Slamming my eyes shut, I fastened the bulky comforter around my sternum and tucked its end tight against my body to keep it in firmly place.

  “What are you doing in my room?” I shrieked, and my head protested the effort.

  I must have winced, because Hank said, “Come here. I’ll rub your head and make you feel good.”

  Make you feel good. Something about those words pulled at my memory. I could swear I’d heard them whispered in his sexy, seductive voice before. But that didn’t make sense. Hank and I hated each other. Aside from our temporary truce last night, we’d barely ever spoken a kind word to one another.

  Last night.

  My eyes went wide with distress and my head sprang quickly back and forth. “No! We didn�
�t.”

  “I’m afraid we did.” The smile that had marked his features slowly dipped into a frown. “Wait, you don’t remember?”

  “Of course I don’t remember!” I shrieked, causing a fresh wave of pain to lance through my skull. “Do you think I’d be standing here freaking the fuck out about waking up to you naked in my bed if I did?”

  He stared at me for a beat and all the color leached from his face. “Oh shit.”

  “What?” I cried, wobbling toward him as best I could in my blanket burrito. “What’s that face for?”

  I flopped down onto the mattress as Hank folded his body into a cross-legged sitting position and settled a pillow over his lap.

  “What do you remember?” he asked, his words slow and deliberate.

  “What should I remember?” I shot back as I suddenly realized what it meant that we’d woken up together—naked.

  Mentally, I took rapid inventory of my body. My nipples were tender and chafing against the cotton, like someone had spent a significant amount of time biting and sucking them into stiff, hard peaks. Oh shit. “I fucked you.”

  Hank’s heavy breathing echoed loudly in the otherwise silent room. When he didn’t confirm my statement, I opened my eyes to find him staring at me with a look of supreme hurt on his face. “You didn’t just fuck me, Miranda. You married me first.” He notched his head meaningfully toward my hand and my gaze followed, landing on a plain gold wedding band circling my ring finger.

  I stared at it for a second, waiting for the revulsion to hit. Strangely, it never came. Instead, something altogether different settled over me. Something that felt a lot like acceptance and, if I was being honest, a sense of belonging.

  My conversation with Hank back at the bar the night before came flooding back to me. I’d confessed to giving my virginity to a man who’d tossed me aside like yesterday’s garbage, feeling completely horrible as I’d admitted to him how that experience had made me so distrustful of every other man in my life. And I also remembered Hank’s rage on my behalf even all these years later. The look of fury in his eyes when he’d demanded to know if I’d been raped.