The Paid Bridesmaid(76)

“You can do anything,” he agreed. “But dealing with Lilith happens to be one of my specialties. We’ll have to keep an eye out for her. I’m still surprised she showed up.”

“Irene won’t be. But we won’t tell anyone until after everything’s over, right?”

“Definitely. Nobody needs to know yet.”

Much as I enjoyed having him hold me, we had a wedding to get to. “We need to go finish getting ready.”

He kissed the tip of my nose. “Yep. Time to go get our best friends married to each other.”

That caused a twinge in my gut, and I tried to brush it off. Sadie was going to tell him and then we’d deal with it from there. “So we should go.”

Problem was, neither one of us was moving.

“I do have one wedding-related concern. If you could step with me into this hallway over here we could discuss it.”

“Of course.” I nodded, playing along.

We entered the empty hallway and he spun me so that he had me pinned up against the wall. “The problem is that I want to kiss the maid of honor and I’m going to have to keep my lips to myself for several hours.”

“That is a serious problem,” I agreed, reveling in the delicious tingles making their way through my body. “You should probably get your fill now.”

“Not possible,” he breathed before pressing his lips to mine. That fire he caused, the one that threatened to overwhelm me every time we touched, roared to life. He kissed me with hot, superlative strokes, and I loved the way he subtly responded to everything I did. Every time I met his feverish kiss, the way I ran my hands through his hair, pressed my body against his, he let out sounds that were an intoxicating and inexplicable mixture of frustration and satisfaction.

Was I ever going to get used to the way this felt? Like being engulfed in a waterfall of pleasure, not being able to breathe, but completely not caring?

He broke off the kiss and stepped back and I leaned against the wall, needing the support.

He took in a few deep, shaky breaths before he grinned and then had the audacity to say, “I hear you’re always supposed to leave them wanting more.”

Then he left.

I couldn’t believe it.

Camden needed to stop messing with me. I wasn’t strong enough to take it.

I arrived back at Sadie’s villa to find total chaos. I located Krista and quickly filled her in on what had just happened. The wedding crasher, not the kiss. I had taken a picture of Lilith while she was throwing her fit and forwarded it to Krista so that she could be on the lookout, too.

She pulled up the photo on her phone. “I don’t want to say this wedding might be cursed, but . . . know that I’m thinking it.”

“Everything will be fine,” I reiterated for both of us. Even though I was kind of starting to think the same thing. Relatively speaking, these had all been minor fires that had been quickly put out. Nothing we couldn’t handle.

I just had to hope things stayed that way.

The makeup artist waved me down, insisting I sit in her chair. I looked around at the rest of the bridal party and the moms and realized I was the only one who wasn’t made up yet.

My phone rang and I tried to brush off the pang of dread that lanced me at who it could possibly be. We’d had our drama for the day, things were going to be fine now. I saw that it was my mom calling me. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed.

“Hi, Mom. I’m a little busy.”

“Close your eyes,” the makeup artist told me and I did as she asked.

“It’s the wedding day, right?” my mother asked. “I want you to take some pictures of the bride and send them to me.”

“Why?”

“So I can live vicariously and pretend like you’re the one getting married.”

It was too bad my eyes were closed because they could have used a good roll to the back of my head. “Mother, I’m not sending you a picture of Sadie. I have to go. Goodbye.” That woman. It was a good thing I loved her.

“Okay, go ahead and open,” the artist said and in the mirror I noticed Sadie standing near my shoulder.

“Was that your mom?” she asked.

“Yes. And she wants me to send a picture of you in your wedding gown so that she can pretend it’s me.”

Sadie looked sadly at our reflections. “At least your mom wants you to get married.”

Oh crap. Had Brandy been making more rude remarks while I was gone? No, Krista would have put a stop to it. “Your mother wants you to get married, too.”

“I don’t think she does. And I’m not really sure why.”

Ignoring the makeup artist’s request that I close my lips, I turned toward Sadie. “Well, I want you to get married. And Dan definitely wants you to get married.”

That made her laugh and it lightened my soul a little bit, too. I wished I could do more. I wished I could give her a different mom, one who would be happy and excited for her.

And as long as we were returning our mothers for new ones, maybe I could put in a request for a mom who wasn’t obsessed with the state of my uterus.

“Thanks for being here,” Sadie said. “I know this all started out a little . . . unusual, but I don’t know how I would have done this without you.”

Regardless of how it had all begun, the fees paid, the contracts signed, the lies we’d told, I was genuinely glad to be here with her, and felt lucky to have the chance to stand up with her when she married the love of her life. “Same,” I told her.